This just gets more insane by the day.Apparently, you can now be denied entry to the US if you have expressed critical views of King Donald's policies, even in private messages.
French scientist denied US entry after phone messages critical of Trump found
France’s research minister said the scientist was traveling to Houston for a conference when his phone was searchedwww.theguardian.com
The article says an FBI investigation was also launched against the researcher, although the charges were dropped before he was expelled.
US US politics 2025
- Thread starter Second Summer
- Start date
he is single handidly killing the US tourist / business industry
we had a Canadian woman that was detained for 12 days or so in 3 different ICE facilities
Emma JC
Find your vegan soulmate or just a friend. www.spiritualmatchmaking.com
we had a Canadian woman that was detained for 12 days or so in 3 different ICE facilities
Emma JC
Find your vegan soulmate or just a friend. www.spiritualmatchmaking.com
I was thinking about tourism and other industries the other day. He and his crew seem hellbent on destroying Western civilization as we know it, and then I guess the plan is to rebuild it so that they become even more wealthy? Because no one will have anything left but the billionaires. I'm baffled as to how people can root for their own destruction under the lie that they will be better off once we hit bottom. This is complete folly. I just don't understand how he has so many followers.
OP
OP
King Donald has just announced his new wunderwaffen (expensive "wonder weapon"): A sixth generation fighter jet, which the generals (it was definitely the generals) suggested to name "F-47". Coincidentally, King Donald is the 47th president.
Meanwhile, there are now concerns that the expensive fifth generation F-35 fighter jets sold to European countries come with a "kill switch" so the US could block or cripple the aircraft should they deem that necessary. Lockheed-Martin denies any such claims, but the F-35 does depend on US-secured data links and satellite communication.
Meanwhile, there are now concerns that the expensive fifth generation F-35 fighter jets sold to European countries come with a "kill switch" so the US could block or cripple the aircraft should they deem that necessary. Lockheed-Martin denies any such claims, but the F-35 does depend on US-secured data links and satellite communication.
yes, Canada is reconsidering it's current order of the F-35s and I do believe that is one of the reasons, along with just generally cancelling anything USA related
he now also wanted to build a Golden Dome over the USA - he has lost his mind...
Emma JC
Find your vegan soulmate or just a friend. www.spiritualmatchmaking.com
Seems you can do anything when you're funded by the worlds richest man.
People can't appreciate that 305 billion is a perpetual money machine.
Tesla stock is up over the past few days : (
So remember how a bunch of people artificially inflated the AMC stock a few years back, is it possible to do the opposite? Like, what if a bunch of people bought stock and then all sold at the same time?
So remember how a bunch of people artificially inflated the AMC stock a few years back, is it possible to do the opposite? Like, what if a bunch of people bought stock and then all sold at the same time?
OP
OP
Stock prices are a bit magical, especially short term. The important numbers to watch are the number of Tesla vehicles sold: absolute numbers and relative to total number of vehicles or EVs sold in each country etc.
Thanks for making me feel a bit better, god knows I needed it with the news this week!
Lou
Forum Legend
The Atlantic just published an article on Plant Based Eating.
Read it if you can.
RFK and his fake issues about seed oil ( use beef tallow instead!) is setting back the movement.
Here are some highlights
Read it if you can.
RFK and his fake issues about seed oil ( use beef tallow instead!) is setting back the movement.
Here are some highlights
From 2014 to 2024, annual per capita meat consumption rose by nearly 28 pounds, the equivalent of roughly 100 chicken breasts. One way to make sense of this “meat paradox,” as the ethicist Peter Singer branded it in The Atlantic in 2023, is that there is a misalignment between how people want to eat and the way they actually do.
The embrace of meat isn’t just about food, but also about what meat represents: tradition, strength, dominance, muscles—values championed by the right. (There’s a reason that “soy boy” is a common pejorative to describe insufficiently masculine liberals.) Conservatives have long sought to turn meat into a front in the culture wars, even suggesting that Democrats “want to take away your hamburgers.” Last year, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issued a preemptive ban on the sale of lab-grown meat in his state, describing it as part of “the global elite’s plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish, or bugs.”
As Singer, the ethicist, puts it: “Most people can easily continue doing something they believe is wrong as long as they have plenty of company.” Now no one has to keep up the charade.
RFK is a real danger to the health of humans and animals. 
He is an ill-informed menace to society.
He is an ill-informed menace to society.
I think the comment that meat represents strength/ dominance is really poignant! I don't think we can fix this by rebranding vegan food as "strong", we have to change society so compassion and empathy are seen as more important than dominance over others. Actually changing this will be very difficult, it is so pervasive it's hard to tell where to start.
"vegan" is just part of the venn diagram of human diets--plant based is a much larger grouping, the vegan part is adding ethics
Plant Based diets have been proven by very reputable research to be the best diet for overall health, and many, many people are getting onboard with cutting out meat, dairy and eggs for their health, often from doctors advice. A large percent here think of animal products in the same light as sugar, oil and processed foods
If you look at the major groups advocating plant based for health they're mostly careful to shun the term vegan-and I think thats very smart
You'll find more sports figures, including body builders, who eat plant based or mostly plant based
The US as a whole is rapidly moving away from any empathy towards anyone. We're all just collateral damage.
Honestly, one factor of the upcoming recession is that plant based foods are cheap and available. Being raised by grandparents who lived through the depression I never thought to add meat where it wasn't needed, and beans were a regular feature. In my younger days I cooked mostly vegetarian simply because it was cheap and easy
This, to me, seems very surprising, and actually shocking.
www.mediaite.com
The only explanation I have is that the vast majority of Americans are generally apathetic and don’t care much about anything as long as it doesn’t concern themselves…
CNN’s Harry Enten Reports Percentage of Americans Who Think Country Is ‘on the Right Track’ Under Trump Is ‘Through the Roof’
Harry Enten reported that Americans who believe the country is "on the right track" is through the roof despite Donald Trump's negative net favorability rating.
www.mediaite.com
Mediaite said:
The only explanation I have is that the vast majority of Americans are generally apathetic and don’t care much about anything as long as it doesn’t concern themselves…
OP
OP
I was going to be a bit more harsh than that. Their democracy and constitution are under attack, more so than at any point in 50ish years, and might not survive this presidency. The administration is made up of incompetent Yes-men. The president seems full of admiration for Putin and his dictatorship, whereas he appears hell-bent on abandoning, even threatening his NATO allies. The billionaire class is busy aligning themselves with this emerging dictator in exchange for protection and tax relief. And yet the American people in their great wisdom think their country is on the right track?
When it comes to presidential elections and favourability ratings, the American people are famously singularly focused on their wallets - maybe because their wallets are so important to their wellbeing since the safety nets provided by their government are so poor compared to e.g. countries in western Europe.
So, I can only think that they understand the country is now on a decidedly very different track than under Biden who, it was felt - and maybe rightly so - failed to make a real difference to most Americans and their wallets, and so they think this new track must be the right one. I also think it used to be the case that the benefits of globalisation to Americans outweighed the drawbacks, but this is no longer the case, so therefore Trump is scoring big with his tariffs and farfetched plans to bring manufacturing back "onshore".
I'm curious what others here think, especially Americans: Do you agree or am I completely off the mark here?
Last edited:
I think the same thing.
Anybody who promises to « lower taxes » is immediately immensely popular. My only explanation for this is that for many people, « taxes » is a dirty word because they do not bother to think about what those taxes pay for in a reasonable society.
When a charlatan crows about « fraud and theft », too many mindlessly chime in, not understanding that this « fraud and theft » mentioned is actually their own food assistance, medical care, social security, school for their children, roads, fire departments, and whatever else is needed for a functioning society.
Kathy Lauren
Forum Senior
This week, he is being nice and respectful to our Prime Minister. Why? Because our Opposition Leader, Pierre Poilievre, whom Trump supports, called up Trump and asked him to stop supporting him until after the election because Trump's support was hurting Poilievre's election chances. "Excuse me, Mr. Trump, but your support is the kiss of death, so please help me by not helping me." So now Trump has to be nice to Carney in order to help Poilievre.
You couldn't make this stuff up!
You couldn't make this stuff up!
Yes, that is a part of it. I also think the cult of you-know-who is a big problem. There is just no reasoning with these people even when you present them with actual facts. I've seen it in my own family. They just dismiss things out of hand with absolutely no evidence, and then they spout the propaganda that comes for you-know-who and his cronies. It's as if they are under a spell.This, to me, seems very surprising, and actually shocking.
CNN’s Harry Enten Reports Percentage of Americans Who Think Country Is ‘on the Right Track’ Under Trump Is ‘Through the Roof’
Harry Enten reported that Americans who believe the country is "on the right track" is through the roof despite Donald Trump's negative net favorability rating.
The only explanation I have is that the vast majority of Americans are generally apathetic and don’t care much about anything as long as it doesn’t concern themselves…
There also is a segment of the populace that wants to bring everybody down with them. If they're poor and miserable, they are happy to have other people suffer along with them, so they will screw themselves to make sure other people get screwed, too. It's a sick mentality. I'm baffled that states that depend on a lot of federal funding for everything from Medicaid to education will vote for people who want to dismantle that funding. And then they don't understand how they are getting effed over.
This is also is a function of the degradation of education over the past 40 or so years. There has been a concerted effort from the right to denigrate education and deride educated people as elitist. People also are media illiterate. They can't tell the difference between opinion and fact. Fox "news" is a perfect example of the lines being blurred between fact and fiction. They take something with a grain of truth and spin it to the narrative they want to push, like the culture wars. They get their base so riled up that they aren't paying attention to what's really going on and what really matters.
The corporatization of the media started back in the 1980s, and it did nothing to ensure the survival of factual, fair reporting, investigative reporting, etc., because the bottom line became the driving force, rather than actually keeping people informed. And that's the way the oligarchs want it. Ill-informed people won't band together to fight. Fear is the ruler of the day, fear of people who are different, fear of immigrants, fear of losing out on something that someone else might benefit from, and "where's my piece of the pie" thinking.
And then there is social media, which to me has accelerated this campaign big-time. So many people rely on social media for "news." It's ridiculous. We have become so used to convenience that we aren't willing to do the work that's necessary to become adequately informed about issues and policies. And so the loudest, most well-funded voices dominate what's left of the media landscape.
And that's just the half of it. I get so depressed just thinking about all of this, to see 80 years of progress on so many fronts going down the tubes because a bunch of megalomaniacs are hell-bent on enriching themselves to the point of gluttony, and the rest of us be damned.
How Elon Musk’s SpaceX Secretly Allows Investment From China
As a U.S. military contractor, SpaceX sees allowing Chinese ownership as fraught. But it will allow the investment if it comes through secrecy hubs like the Cayman Islands, court records say. “It is certainly a policy of obfuscation,” an expert said.
www.propublica.org
