skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
>> But as Romney surveyed the crop of Republicans running for Senate in 2022, it was clear that more Hawleys were on their way. Perhaps most disconcerting was J. D. Vance, the Republican candidate in Ohio. “I don’t know that I can disrespect someone more than J. D. Vance,” Romney told me. They’d first met years earlier, after he read Vance’s best-selling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. Romney was so impressed with the book that he hosted the author at his annual Park City summit in 2018. Vance, who grew up in a poor, dysfunctional family in Appalachia and went on to graduate from Yale Law School, had seemed bright and thoughtful, with interesting ideas about how Republicans could court the white working class without indulging in toxic Trumpism. Then, in 2021, Vance decided he wanted to run for Senate, and re­invented his entire persona overnight. Suddenly, he was railing against the “childless left” and denouncing Indigenous Peoples’ Day as a “fake holiday” and accusing Joe Biden of manufacturing the opioid crisis “to punish people who didn’t vote for him.” The speed of the MAGA makeover was jarring.

>> “I do wonder, how do you make that decision?” Romney mused to me as Vance was degrading himself on the campaign trail that summer. “How can you go over a line so stark as that—and for what?” Romney wished he could grab Vance by the shoulders and scream: This is not worth it! “It’s not like you’re going to be famous and powerful because you became a United States senator. It’s like, really? You sell yourself so cheap?” The prospect of having Vance in the caucus made Romney uncomfortable. “How do you sit next to him at lunch?”

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/11/mitt-ro...
It looked planned to me, with canned talking points 'I clutch my pearls at you talking to us like that in OUR OVAL OFFICE!'.
And the US did not have interests in Ukraine? As if the past two decades never happened?
There are those of us that hate this but have no idea how they can help.
Can you explain in detail what feature of UBlock Origin I will lose because of V3 vs V2 extensions?

I see people complaining, I don't see concrete examples, only panic
Depends on specific boundaries, but literally all of human history is about fighting for people's rights to hold one boundary or another
It is not only targeting the Right. I'd suggest that Russia isn't primarily interested in bolstering the right specifically. They are interested in dividing national societies as well international alliances along any possible ideological issue, effectively shattering the entire thing - divide et impera.

You can see some indication of this in the Mueller report on Russia's election interference in the US, and the DOJ indictment against Prigozhin and his Internet Research Agency troll factory.
They kept playing both sides: pushing Facebook groups that were strong pro racial justice & BLM while also pushing pro cop / back the blue Facebook groups. At some point, they scheduled protests for both sides of this particular issue at the same time and place, clearly hoping for altercations.

But I think it's safe to say that, at least in the US, their efforts seem to have mainly focused on the Republican side.
However, here in Germany, both the populist far-right AfD and the populist far-left political Party BSW around former Linke politician Sarah Wagenknecht are very much aligned with Russian interests: https://www.dw.com/en/russias-best-friends-in-germany-afd-an...
If you have any information or evidence of the claim that he did not in fact ban Epstein. I would love to read it. Without evidence I’ll just assume this is your opinion. It’s not hard to see your motive by the way you presented the information in your previous comment. Presenting opinions as fact is not necessary and doesn’t add to the conversation.
Russian propaganda just paints Trump and the Republicans as morons who are easily played by Putin. Of course USA is still the enemy, and evil.
I don't understand why the focus on one side? Russia was caught financing extreme-left parties, religious parties (including hamas, isis and hezbollah), conservative parties (moderate and extreme), rebels, terrorists ...

Certainly seems Russia has no ideology they care about beyond "sabotage states", with some priority on western states, but certainly not just western states. They fund political parties in ex-Yugoslavia that are LITERALLY at each other's throats (with knives and guns, not with protests and shouting).

They're sowing chaos wherever they can, however they can. Priority seems to be on the UK, Brussels/EU and the US, but it's not like they're not doing it in places like Rwanda as well. Whether that means supporting extreme-left, extreme right, or just whoever is willing to turn guns on the police or some ethnic group they hate, Russia/Putin just doesn't care.

Hell, daesh/isis got funding from Russia, killed 145 Russians in Moscow ... and Russia funded them again, after blaming Ukraine for the attack. They just don't care.
Well, you just nailed why this line works on voters.

Here’s the other one that works on that same crowd:

“We need to fix the budget to close the deficit. We’re going to leave spending basically unchanged and cut taxes for the rich.”
Absolutely no way it can be proven. However, the actions of "Krasnov" certainly seem to point in that direction.
Thought experiment: Compare three scenarios, in which:

A Trump is not in any way beholden to Russia

B Trump has prospective business interests in Russia

C Trump follows Russian orders even at the cost of US interests

Which of these most easily explains the actual behavior we see?
Did you notice that you are replying to a top-level post which accuses the twice elected president of the USA of acting against American interests?

"Having a democratic mandate" is either a valid counterargument or it is not. But it is simply not consistent to apply it only to Netanyahu and not to Trump.
I would not be able to say. I work with Russians but they avoid any political discussion. The few who do say something are more aligned with western views.

The little I seen from news I take are part of a bubble but show the US being ridiculed by tv hosts and the such. The US is/was the face of NATO for Russia for a long time, that narrative can shift very fast tho.
"It was a perfect melt down"
Very much so. Trump even said it, "This is good TV". What an embarrassment.
Not said as a joke: It isn’t a conspiracy if they actually are out to get you. I am seeing my country go down in a blaze of corruption in front of my very eyes.
Embarrassing buffoonery. I never thought I'd pine for the days of bureaucratic but stately presidents.
> I'd argue the opposite: Western European countries' low defense spending was exactly because they they believed NATO (in particular the US) would intervene if needed. They don't believe this anymore now, hence will increase defense spending, hence making NATO less relevant. They will now be able to rely on the EU alone.

They're increasing spending, but that takes years to translate to real results.

It's not particularly hard to pump out a few hundred thousand rifles, small arms ammo, and hand them to cannon fod... I mean... the fighting-age men of a country.

What is hard is developing a weapons industry that can act upon intelligence provided by spies planted in places like Russia, develop systems with indigenous technologies, and produce them at scale, all with the logistics to make them mean something on the battlefield. This was on full display during WWII, when some more advanced weapons came out of Germany too late and in too small of numbers to give the Nazis a chance to avoid the ass kicking they so richly deserved.

That takes decades to develop. Europeans, with the exception of the UK and maybe France, have let that fruit rot on the vine since 1991. Putin wouldn't have made this gamble if he didn't think this.
You're right, I apologize for the mixup. I'll be gracious and ignore your snark, realizing it comes from a place of frustration for not having any reasonable arguments in support of your position.
Trump - 77 million votes

Harris - 75 million votes

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/05/us/elections/...
>AdGuard has its own too:

AFAIK only the paid version of adguard has access to these scriptlets. The free version only has content blockers, which puts webshield ahead of adguard.
Well, we absolutely should be. The entire point of the open source community is to be able to react to this kind of organizational failure and disalignment with original values. Where exactly do the problems lie? Resource allocation? Trust/security issues?
I thought of that, too. Surely they wouldn't be that bold, but then again, it's such an obviously crazy idea that it might just work.
I would also add the dead simple point that Brave is yet another Chromium-derived browser. If someone likes Brave just because they like it then, sure, whatever.

But it doesn't belong in a conversation about browser diversification away from Chromium. I am so bewildered why it keeps getting referenced in "let's get away from Google Chrome" threads
It would be understandable to step back from Ukraine. There's a reasonable argument to be made there. I disagree, but I can understand the position.

It's not understandable to support Russia and say things like Ukraine started the war. That's just pure ignorant bullshit.
What should I be looking at?

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-nuclear-deterr...

"Although the UK’s nuclear deterrent is assigned to the defence of NATO, we retain full operational control over its use. Only the UK Prime Minister can authorise the use of our nuclear weapons, even if used as part of a wider NATO response."

It's also just not at all believable that they would not be able to push their own buttons. Why would it be set up that way? And what would prevent fixing it even if it were?
Alex Krainer, a tinfoil hat geopolitical analyst, has speculated that the pre-election meetings between Zelensky and Trump included talks of a mineral rights deal, but that the recent UK/Ukraine "100 Year Partnership" deal signed on 16 Jan includes secret mineral rights concessions to the UK in return for military assistance — exactly the rights Trump wanted and now can't get.

It would explain why Britain has recently (15 Feb and after) been so public with plans to send troops to Ukraine.

It also explains why Trump is so eager to undermine Zelensky's democratic legitimacy, as it would invalidate Zelensky's deal with the UK and allow the US a chance at the mineral rights again.

Krainer also speculates that Trump's political theater over mineral rights is raking Zelensky over the coals as retribution for doing a deal without the US, and trying to get Zelensky to spill the beans on the secret terms of the deal already done with the UK.
The EU could end up taking that crown if they handle this well.

Firstly of course, they need to be united, steadfast and decisive in their support for Ukraine until Russia collapses. They should be building new alliances, with India, South America, and any free countries in Africa and Asia. And maybe some unfree ones. Possibly even China, because let's face it, despite its many flaws, China is not the threat to Europe that Russia is. A wedge between China and Russia would weaken Russia and help the EU.

Then, after Russia collapses and the US has withdrawn from the world stage, it will be the EU that saved Ukraine, just like after WW2, the new super powers where the US and USSR that defeated Germany. And Ukraine has a lot to offer that the EU lacks.

The EU is incredibly powerful. Biggest common market in the world, half a billion people, 2nd largest military in the world if they put it all together. The EU just needs to learn to flex its muscles, to unite and assert itself, instead of hiding behind the US.
Much as I’d love to debate you about this here, I don’t think either of us will convince the other - or anyone else - in this format.

Always happy to have a real conversation about difficult issues.
AI ponders the "fitness for office" memo
Fundamentally different situation. A more appropriate comparison would be the first Gulf War, when the US helped to kick Iraq out of Kuwait. Equating the later Iraq war with the situation in Ukraine is a category error.
Marginally better means they do, in fact, outperform.
I've read at least one book that argued otherwise.
Tim O'Reilly – Ascending Levels of Nerd
Lots of words spilled in this thread about how the American government is now all of a sudden compromised but almost nothing as the US subserviently sent billions in weapons and aid to Israel to commit genocide for more than a year now. Most Americans are extreme hypocrites with blinders on. This country has been compromised by Israel for far longer, and in a much worse way.
Because the scope keeps growing as well. People have been pushing desktop apps to the browser for years.

I wish the browser was limited to showing websites, and that technology for desktop apps evolved. But that's not how it goes for some reason. Some kind of imperialism in platforms? Systemd wants to take it all, browsers want to take it all, ...
Yet another reason to be embarrassed as an American.
I read on a pro-russian site that if there is a strategy behind it, it might be to break Russia out of the China/BRICS alliance and use them as an ally against the "real" enemy, which would be China.

It would make some kind of sense and match the rhetoric of a lot of republicans - but on the other hand, it also sounds awfully risky especially if the plan is more or less known to anyone?
What happened was incredibly bad diplomacy, but this take is frankly hysterical.

The Trump administration believes cozying up to Russia will draw them away from China. The Trump administration also believes relieving sanctions will cause commodity prices to drop.

And they are willing to throw Ukraine under the bus for those privileges along with some minerals.

This is undeniably good for the American economy, but at a moral price.
Because him taking over a house gives him access to resources which he can use to build up strength, unchecked, and before you know it, the state next to you is involved in serious tumroil that affects your job, getting certain products, and so on.

And next thing you know, people who directly work for that drug dealer are all in your states government, and your way of life is slowly starting to get worse, and the only option you have is either go along and be constantly afraid, or revolt and risk of losing your life.

If you dont think it can happen, i envy your ignorance.
"In what way is it in my interest to give millions of my nation's money away to this filthy and corrupt justice system in an unwinnable fight against crime? I mean whether some mostly harmless serial killer offs two or three more people in southern Nebraska is none of my business--I can't possibly see how anything of this is connected or how it could ever affect me."
> They wanted an excuse to drop support and they got it.

If they message that they are dropping support based on that personal insult, they will lose respect and credibility, and will get manipulated.
It's nice to see a speck of sanity in this thread.

Oh but didn't you know that all that aid money is actually going to America(n weapons manufacturers, who will then lobby us into the next forever war after this one).

If you were wondering how american politicians managed to piss away trillions of dollars in the middle east instead of fixing healthcare or education, building trains, doing anything the least bit useful, this is how. You gin the people up into believing that there's a bad guy somewhere and its our job to make things right, and you're off to the races.

Works every time.
This is a defensive war. This is the lesson we learned when the world did nothing to stop Hitler's initial aggression. This is the moment of truth. Doing nothing is easy, it's the default. We now know the possible consequences and we've made our mind to not let that happen again. Have we learned nothing?
Sure, and I'd default to assuming the % in the military is always higher because they're trained to follow orders.

But if anything makes some among them say "to allow this would be to violate my oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic", then disregarding the constitution would be it.

I'm not saying the administration wouldn't try it. I am suggesting that it may lead to a demonstration of how NIJ RF3 doesn't stop 120×570mm NATO.
Things like this make it seem like China will be much more likely to try and retake Taiwan soon. Seeing things like this, it is hard to imagine that the US will help defend Taiwan by providing military aid. I can imagine that trump will try to ask for something in return first. Even something like trump asking for TSMC to be sold to trump supporters (musk and others) seems likely to happen.
this makes it even worse
I am sorry but the intelligent, cultured America I learned to love does no longer exist.
Yeah but why? To what end?

Russia gets USSR back together? What does Trump get out of that?

And don’t start with any of that “Trump was turned by GRU”, “they have dirt on him”, “he’s bought by Russia”

He’s got a dozen billionaires on speed dial that’ll give him endless money, much more than Russia can afford. Saudis donate hundreds of billions to businesses close to him, etc - he doesn’t want or need money

He’s at the top of power - both houses, presidency, supreme court all will follow whatever he says without a second thought, commander of the strongest military the world has known, richest nation in the world - there’s hardly any more power to gain.

He doesn’t need to care about getting reelected, he won’t get removed from office. He’s 80 and whatever - there’s nothing to fear in his future as he’s at the end. He doesn’t care about the Republican party, so setting that up for the future doesn’t matter to him.

Any dirt they bring out can just be handwaved away as AI generated and no one in his base will believe it regardless.

So he can’t be a Russian asset, he’s beyond that and untouchable to the Russians.

So what is it? What is he after?
I sometimes wonder whether the sudden rise of "gender politics"... is all part of some sort of conrolled oppopsition narrative.

"Gender politics" is used heavily within Russia to provide a contrast to "masculine traditional values" which in turn are used to convince 100,000s of men to (quite ironically) be turned into cannon fodder against Russia's real or perceived enemies. And even more ironically is used by security services and the military in the form of rape against (male) political dissidents and soldiers.
I'm seriously considering leaving the U.S. I can't justify paying taxes to a government that leaves me feeling disheartened. The EU should have visa programs for skilled professionals looking to leave the U.S.
> Do US colleges and US TV/movies provide sufficient cultural understanding of US to other countries' governments

Do French/German/Italian/<insert country here>?

They don't, and whatever global media Americans do consume tends to be Asian (overwhelmingly Japanese and Korean) or Latin American.

This isn't the 20th century anymore when a lot of 1st and 2nd gen immigrants had European ties. American in the 21st century is now Asia and Latin America facing.
I get that. As I said, maybe eventually Putin gets deposed.

But (a) it is basically prolonging the losses for Ukraine, and (b) assumes that Russian won't escalate (maybe with nukes).

Russia knows that we're not going to blow up the world to save Ukraine. At some point, they will cross a threshold and we will have to back down.
The problem is that sacred texts like the Bible (other examples might be the Pali Cannon in Buddhism or Vedas and Upanishads in Hinduism) do not contain "flat contradictions". If people hundreds of years apart write down conflicting ideas that later get complied together by another person/group who are using those texts for non-logical spiritual guidance, in what way is that a meaningful contradiction? Also, the idea that wisdom must be strictly rational is a modern, scientific standard that these texts fundamentally disagree with.
More like: why fix a 5% bug when you can deploy a new bug to the other 50%
giving away all of our resources

You think $100-$200bn is "all of our resources?" I realize you're not being literal, but it's more like "less than 1% of our resources."

https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-does-the-us-spend-on-...

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crew8y7pwd5o

Reliable estimates put our total spend (over 3+ years) as $120-$180bn.

The annual US military budget, $820bn (13% of the total government budget) or more like $2.4 trillion during that timespan.

But even that purported $100-$200bn spend perhaps overstates the cost. Some was cash, some was equipment. The equipment sent their way was already bought and paid for. Much of it was later in its lifespan. And the US military obviously buys American whenever feasible, so money spent replacing that equipment stays in America. So the amount of money "spent" by America on this venture is highly debatable, with the real number being lower than those $100-$200bn totals.

We don't show strength by blah blah blah

Really? Because Russia looked weak as hell there, unable to conquer a small country that is using a fraction of our old stuff (and a hell of a lot of heart and ingenuity) that was gathering dust in warehouses. It certainly made it clear that in conventional warfare the distance between our two countries is rather vast.

pointless conflicts that don't involve us

I mean, people definitely said that when Germany invaded Poland. We shouldn't get involved in every conflict but we also should not ignore every conflict.

I don't think Russia is trying to conquer Europe, but they are the single largest power and they have proven to be a highly destabilizing force.
Remember the 7 compromised GOP senators members visiting Moscow on independence day uncomfortably posing for a photo op?
He’s trolling dude, just like he said he was better than George Washington. There’s some kind of duality in US politics where people either take Trump seriously but not literally, or they take him literally and not seriously (the latter leading to all sorts of confusion, though often it’s intentional confusion).
Minor objection...

I have and continue to use my hammer, which is none but an Estwing, for demolition work. Often there are no nails directly involved and when there are, I use a prybar. I have also used it to open beers, 'fix' computers, as well as procure therapy to various things that plead for it. On several occasions I've even used it tied to a rope to throw over an unreachable tree limb.

That this may be used as evidence in court against me, well, has me almost welcoming a firing squad. What a silly silly planet.

Is there any hope for Midori?
Ok. Let's pretend this is what is done. Russia gets to keep all the land it took from Ukraine, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides.

Who's going to stop Russia from re-arming and building up its army only to launch another attack in 2-3 years? Who's going to prevent them from destabilizing Ukraine until it falls?

Russia won't stop until it has destroyed Ukraine, that much is certain. Russia only understands strength, and they won't stop until stopped by force.

But hey, peace is more important right? Maybe they should just take Ukraine, capture, torture, rape and murder all the people they deem as undesirables and convert it to another Russian oblast as it was once before. Then there will be peace.

I would imagine you would also lay down at your own home if someone breaks in and tries to rape and murder your family just for the sake of peace?