Using the r-word in current year and calling someone an antisemite for no reason is certainly a way to make your arguments more convincing. /s
You have zero legs to stand on. All of your assertions are easily contradicted by information in the public record. All you are is a Trump cultist desperately trying to spin the Epstein Files as anything other than mostly implicating Trump and other Republicans. The only Democrats of note associated with Epstein are already disgraced in some form (including Bill Clinton, who nobody is going to go to bat for).
The MAGA GOP made a lot of noise during Biden’s single term because they were sure the files would show a Pizzagate’s-worth of Democratic political figures engaged in the ritual abuse of underage girls.
Once Trump was elected in 2024, the furor died down. While the MAGA faithful were willing to take down their own just to put a few Dems’ heads on spikes, they were suddenly less audible once they realized any document dump would take down a few of their own. Even Donald Trump seemed to know this, which is he why he shifted his focus elsewhere.
The fact that the Democrat base is much more willing to throw politicians of their own party to the wolves for associating with Epstein might be a part of it, methinks. It's embarrassing for said politicians, but it's not gonna be as damaging for the party as a whole when the party and its base are much more willing to perform actual accountability.
Like... nobody was going to go to bat for Bill Clinton. Or care about him being in the Epstein Files. And no other Democrat of note has actually come up anyway - it's basically mostly Trump and Republican associates.
Either you're living in an alternate reality, or you're somehow mistaking Hollywood Accounting for actual accounting. The LoTR trilogy made billions in profits, but New Line's attempt to claim it made a loss and thus not pay royalties was so utterly brazen that they got sued over it.
I think he's talking about New Line's attempt at Hollywood Accounting that was so utterly brazen that Jackson and the Tolkien estate sued them over it.
And yet according to the Supreme Court, that's incorrect - there is one agency completely independent from the president, and that's the Federal Reserve, because... reasons. (The actual reasons being "don't fuck with our money".)
The oversight of independent agencies is supposed to be handled by congress, not the president, and with good reason - the higher threshold for removing someone from said agencies is a feature, not a bug. While said agencies generally lean towards the objectives of the current White House occupant due to agency heads usually quitting when the presidency changes parties, there's also supposed to be a degree of regulatory stability and proper process in terms of new and modified regulations.
Such agencies are extensions of congress, not an "unaccountable 4th branch", that's absurd.
You do know that Joe Manchin isn't in the senate anymore, right? (The moment Jim Justice decided to run for his seat he went independent. Jim won that seat.) Same with Kirsten Sinema, who also went independent because it was clear she had conned her constituents, made herself the most hated person in the senate and got replaced by an actual Democrat at the last election.
I think "moderate"/blue dog Democrats are losing their influence in the senate, honestly (there's Fetterman, but he's a goddamn weirdo who nobody likes and is gonna be primaried out in 2028 anyway), especially with the gradual ascendancy of the left in the party, if Abdul El-Sayed wins in November and a leftist Democrat wins the presidency in 2028 I feel like moderates are gonna have less backbone pushing back. The base is increasingly screaming at the Democrats to stop taking the high road and start beating the shit out of the Republicans (politically speaking, not literally).
Thankfully Newsom's career in politics is likely to die with his governorship. It's becoming increasingly clear that the Democrat party base is sick and tired of corporate bootlickers, and the only thing he has going for him is being an attack dog towards Trump. Any run at the presidency is going to crash and burn in the 2028 primaries, especially if 2026 candidates like Abdul El-Sayed win in the general this year. Pritzker and AOC would run rings around him.
But yeah, not surprised that he's doing something like this on the down-low. It's unlikely to do anything, considering 11 other states are involved and aren't interested in backing down.
I'm not sure what your argument is here. Search engines aren't walled gardens either, they're based on results rather than any aspect that locks in users. Everyone used Google previously because literally all the other search engines were garbage.
The great irony was that OpenAI was supposed to be a non-commercial entity. And then the grifter-in-chief Sam Altman started dragging it over to the commercial space.
Also, it's hard to turn AI into a walled garden - there's just no lock-in mechanism. People aren't invested in specific LLMs, they just want results, and once they get those results there's no incentive to keep them using it aside from the quality of the model itself. AI models offer no benefit to walled garden ecosystems. If a model becomes unappealing for any reason people will just use a different one. Neither Apple, Google or Microsoft have managed to create an AI monopoly on any of their devices.
Nationalizing industries is actually a good idea in some cases, though - especially when it comes to vital utilities that should, at the very least, have a public option. Imagine how much better US telecom would be if a publicly-owned option was available that forced the private players to actually compete. Privatizing essential services like water, electricity and public transport has historically proven to be a terrible idea. Not everything makes sense for the free market to operate, there are services/industries that simply are too vulnerable to monopolization without government involvement.
But this particular idea feels... really sketchy. Trump has compared it to Bernie Sanders' proposal for a 50% tax on the stock of AI companies, but Sanders' tax proposal feels more sound than a stock holding.
Oh, and just to clarify why Trump replacing Thomas and Alito wouldn't make much difference for those who haven't obviously figured it out - they're already nakedly partisan toadies who nearly always vote for whatever Trump wants to begin with. While a Dem president replacing them would be great, Trump replacing them would just be maintaining the current state of the court.
Barrett, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh aren't great, but Barrett at least is uh, less crazy, and they're at least not entirely nakedly partisan. You can tell that Trump is furious that they're more independent than he wanted and that he wishes he put in justices who are straight up nakedly loyal to him.
For what it's worth, it's very unlikely that Trump will have the opportunity to reshape the makeup of the court. Roberts, Sotomayor and Kagan are too young and aren't going anywhere, and Trump already put in Barrett, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, with Biden putting in Jackson. At most you might see Alito or Thomas retire during the post-election period this year or in 2028 if the Democrats win back the senate in either case (and the presidency in 2028) in order to put toadies in those seats to maintain control over them, but that's it.
Here's hoping the Democrats gain control over the senate in 2026, or at least 2028. It's gonna be an uphill battle, but there is a decent chance it happens as the GOP is dragged down by their insane god-king.
On this, Vance is sadly correct on multiple fronts, while incorrect on others. A Watergate scandal today probably wouldn’t get as much attention as it did in the 70s, in large part due to the bifurcation of our news media into one traditional media wing and one plain propaganda wing for the proverbial right.
That's not a coincidence. Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes created Fox News partly to ensure that a scandal like Watergate would never bring down another Republican president. Sadly, so far, it's worked.
TSKG have commented, actually. They've seen this outcome coming a mile away, as they noticed that industry lobbyists have had the ear of the EU Commission, and intend to basically bypass the Commission entirely and instead lobby to amend the Digital Services Act, as Stop Killing Games has significantly more support within the EU Parliament.
The EU Commission's approval is required for new legislation, but not for amending existing legislation. Ross Scott remarked that the Digital Services Act is a pretty suitable home for SGK's legislative goal, anyway.
There’s a very good reason that the trend over the past decade or so has been one of less exclusivity, not more. Getting games out there, particularly when you’re directly publishing a bunch of games because of that same studio sprawl we talked about earlier, is the most important thing for the bottom line.
None of the big three see it that way any more - if anything, that trend has reverted back to the old status quo. Sony is dropping PC releases for its singleplayer games, and now it's obvious that the new Xbox boss sees the multiplatform strategy as detrimental to hardware sales and is taking the division back to Xbox and PC only (and the latter only because they need to support gaming on Windows). Meanwhile, Nintendo has not budged an inch and considering it's arguably the most successful of the three, it really sees no reason to change that. The days of the console makers putting out multiplatform games is basically over.
Pelley was right to trash talk. He had a right to demand answers about the unjustified firing of his colleagues, which Bilton desperately tried to avoid while he and Forelle demanded civility out of him. Bilton didn't have the fucking balls to defend his boss or the previous firings, all he and Weiss could do was hide behind "civility" and "respect" (which really means "Pelley didn't unconditionally bow to authority like a good stooge should").
Zohran Mamdani once said that "For too long, those fluent in the good grammar of civility have deployed decorum to mask agendas of cruelty."
Also, another unattributed but insightful quote I've come across in relation to all of this: "Sometimes people use 'respect' to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority”. And sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person”. And they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay."
Bilton and Weiss hide behind civility and decorum and got mad that Pelley refused to roll over. "Respect" is earned, and Pelley reminded them they hadn't earned it, which is the most unforgivable sin in their eyes.
Using the hard-r word in 2026 is certainly a choice.
Also, blatant incorrect revisionist history aside, Pelley was right to trash talk. He had a right to demand answers about the unjustified firing of his colleagues, which Bilton desperately tried to avoid while he and Forelle demanded civility out of him. Bilton didn't have the fucking balls to defend his boss or the previous firings, all he and Weiss could do was hide behind "civility" and "respect" (which really means "Pelley didn't unconditionally bow to authority like a good stooge should").
If civility means rolling over, then fuck civility.
It's so very telling that Thomas' screed against progressives is such blatant projection. Also, he ignores that the constitution is a secular document with a defined separation of church and state.
Should Paramount executives stumble in execution to remain competitive and manage the debt load (and there’s very good evidence to suggest that’s already happening), all Netflix has to do is sit back, watch Paramount/Warner collapse, then buy it for half the price (or less) a few years from now.
According to certain reporting, yeah, that's basically what Netflix is planning on doing. They're expecting on the new merged entity to implode within a year or two and to snap up the remains on the cheap.
RFK is an interesting dilemma for the White House, because while clearly he's nothing but an albatross around the administration's neck for independent voters who the GOP are losing ahead of the midterms, he's also the face of the MAHA ("Make America Healthy Again") movement whom he mobilized to vote for Trump and dropped out of the presidential race in exchange for his current role. And as much as they're a bunch of idiot quacks, they're also just large enough a contingent of the voter base to raise a massive stink if their poster boy gets sacked.
Using the r-word in current year and calling someone an antisemite for no reason is certainly a way to make your arguments more convincing. /s You have zero legs to stand on. All of your assertions are easily contradicted by information in the public record. All you are is a Trump cultist desperately trying to spin the Epstein Files as anything other than mostly implicating Trump and other Republicans. The only Democrats of note associated with Epstein are already disgraced in some form (including Bill Clinton, who nobody is going to go to bat for).
Either you're living in an alternate reality, or you're somehow mistaking Hollywood Accounting for actual accounting. The LoTR trilogy made billions in profits, but New Line's attempt to claim it made a loss and thus not pay royalties was so utterly brazen that they got sued over it.
I think he's talking about New Line's attempt at Hollywood Accounting that was so utterly brazen that Jackson and the Tolkien estate sued them over it.
And yet according to the Supreme Court, that's incorrect - there is one agency completely independent from the president, and that's the Federal Reserve, because... reasons. (The actual reasons being "don't fuck with our money".) The oversight of independent agencies is supposed to be handled by congress, not the president, and with good reason - the higher threshold for removing someone from said agencies is a feature, not a bug. While said agencies generally lean towards the objectives of the current White House occupant due to agency heads usually quitting when the presidency changes parties, there's also supposed to be a degree of regulatory stability and proper process in terms of new and modified regulations. Such agencies are extensions of congress, not an "unaccountable 4th branch", that's absurd.
You do know that Joe Manchin isn't in the senate anymore, right? (The moment Jim Justice decided to run for his seat he went independent. Jim won that seat.) Same with Kirsten Sinema, who also went independent because it was clear she had conned her constituents, made herself the most hated person in the senate and got replaced by an actual Democrat at the last election. I think "moderate"/blue dog Democrats are losing their influence in the senate, honestly (there's Fetterman, but he's a goddamn weirdo who nobody likes and is gonna be primaried out in 2028 anyway), especially with the gradual ascendancy of the left in the party, if Abdul El-Sayed wins in November and a leftist Democrat wins the presidency in 2028 I feel like moderates are gonna have less backbone pushing back. The base is increasingly screaming at the Democrats to stop taking the high road and start beating the shit out of the Republicans (politically speaking, not literally).
Thankfully Newsom's career in politics is likely to die with his governorship. It's becoming increasingly clear that the Democrat party base is sick and tired of corporate bootlickers, and the only thing he has going for him is being an attack dog towards Trump. Any run at the presidency is going to crash and burn in the 2028 primaries, especially if 2026 candidates like Abdul El-Sayed win in the general this year. Pritzker and AOC would run rings around him. But yeah, not surprised that he's doing something like this on the down-low. It's unlikely to do anything, considering 11 other states are involved and aren't interested in backing down.
I'm not sure what your argument is here. Search engines aren't walled gardens either, they're based on results rather than any aspect that locks in users. Everyone used Google previously because literally all the other search engines were garbage.
The great irony was that OpenAI was supposed to be a non-commercial entity. And then the grifter-in-chief Sam Altman started dragging it over to the commercial space. Also, it's hard to turn AI into a walled garden - there's just no lock-in mechanism. People aren't invested in specific LLMs, they just want results, and once they get those results there's no incentive to keep them using it aside from the quality of the model itself. AI models offer no benefit to walled garden ecosystems. If a model becomes unappealing for any reason people will just use a different one. Neither Apple, Google or Microsoft have managed to create an AI monopoly on any of their devices.
Nationalizing industries is actually a good idea in some cases, though - especially when it comes to vital utilities that should, at the very least, have a public option. Imagine how much better US telecom would be if a publicly-owned option was available that forced the private players to actually compete. Privatizing essential services like water, electricity and public transport has historically proven to be a terrible idea. Not everything makes sense for the free market to operate, there are services/industries that simply are too vulnerable to monopolization without government involvement. But this particular idea feels... really sketchy. Trump has compared it to Bernie Sanders' proposal for a 50% tax on the stock of AI companies, but Sanders' tax proposal feels more sound than a stock holding.
Oh, and just to clarify why Trump replacing Thomas and Alito wouldn't make much difference for those who haven't obviously figured it out - they're already nakedly partisan toadies who nearly always vote for whatever Trump wants to begin with. While a Dem president replacing them would be great, Trump replacing them would just be maintaining the current state of the court. Barrett, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh aren't great, but Barrett at least is uh, less crazy, and they're at least not entirely nakedly partisan. You can tell that Trump is furious that they're more independent than he wanted and that he wishes he put in justices who are straight up nakedly loyal to him.
For what it's worth, it's very unlikely that Trump will have the opportunity to reshape the makeup of the court. Roberts, Sotomayor and Kagan are too young and aren't going anywhere, and Trump already put in Barrett, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, with Biden putting in Jackson. At most you might see Alito or Thomas retire during the post-election period this year or in 2028 if the Democrats win back the senate in either case (and the presidency in 2028) in order to put toadies in those seats to maintain control over them, but that's it. Here's hoping the Democrats gain control over the senate in 2026, or at least 2028. It's gonna be an uphill battle, but there is a decent chance it happens as the GOP is dragged down by their insane god-king.
TSKG have commented, actually. They've seen this outcome coming a mile away, as they noticed that industry lobbyists have had the ear of the EU Commission, and intend to basically bypass the Commission entirely and instead lobby to amend the Digital Services Act, as Stop Killing Games has significantly more support within the EU Parliament. The EU Commission's approval is required for new legislation, but not for amending existing legislation. Ross Scott remarked that the Digital Services Act is a pretty suitable home for SGK's legislative goal, anyway.
Pelley was right to trash talk. He had a right to demand answers about the unjustified firing of his colleagues, which Bilton desperately tried to avoid while he and Forelle demanded civility out of him. Bilton didn't have the fucking balls to defend his boss or the previous firings, all he and Weiss could do was hide behind "civility" and "respect" (which really means "Pelley didn't unconditionally bow to authority like a good stooge should"). Zohran Mamdani once said that "For too long, those fluent in the good grammar of civility have deployed decorum to mask agendas of cruelty." Also, another unattributed but insightful quote I've come across in relation to all of this: "Sometimes people use 'respect' to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority”. And sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person”. And they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay." Bilton and Weiss hide behind civility and decorum and got mad that Pelley refused to roll over. "Respect" is earned, and Pelley reminded them they hadn't earned it, which is the most unforgivable sin in their eyes.
Using the hard-r word in 2026 is certainly a choice. Also, blatant incorrect revisionist history aside, Pelley was right to trash talk. He had a right to demand answers about the unjustified firing of his colleagues, which Bilton desperately tried to avoid while he and Forelle demanded civility out of him. Bilton didn't have the fucking balls to defend his boss or the previous firings, all he and Weiss could do was hide behind "civility" and "respect" (which really means "Pelley didn't unconditionally bow to authority like a good stooge should"). If civility means rolling over, then fuck civility.
It's so very telling that Thomas' screed against progressives is such blatant projection. Also, he ignores that the constitution is a secular document with a defined separation of church and state.
RFK is an interesting dilemma for the White House, because while clearly he's nothing but an albatross around the administration's neck for independent voters who the GOP are losing ahead of the midterms, he's also the face of the MAHA ("Make America Healthy Again") movement whom he mobilized to vote for Trump and dropped out of the presidential race in exchange for his current role. And as much as they're a bunch of idiot quacks, they're also just large enough a contingent of the voter base to raise a massive stink if their poster boy gets sacked.