Well, Trump has thrown down the gauntlet regarding Russia and Ukraine, threatening Russia with economic force if they do not stop.

@realDonaldTrump
I’m not looking to hurt Russia. I love the Russian people, and always had a very good relationship with President Putin - and this despite the Radical Left’s Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX. We must never forget that Russia helped us win the Second World War, losing almost 60,000,000 lives in the process. All of that being said, I’m going to do Russia, whose Economy is failing, and President Putin, a very big FAVOR. Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE. If we don’t make a “deal,” and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries. Let’s get this war, which never would have started if I were President, over with! We can do it the easy way, or the hard way - and the easy way is always better. It’s time to “MAKE A DEAL.” NO MORE LIVES SHOULD BE LOST!!!

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113872782548137314

I personally doubt this will work, since such actions have already been tried, but Trump appears to be coming at it from a place of respect as opposed to that deep-state, media-derived hostility that’s been so common for years. We’ll see if it leads to more fruitful conversations.

And like that, racist affirmative action and DEI was ended in America. Another pernicious failure ended with the stroke of a pen.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-illegal-discrimination-and-restoring-merit-based-opportunity/

5 protesters died on January 6th. One, an unarmed woman, was ambushed and shot in the neck. Some have been languishing in prison for 4 years for what should have been simple misdemeanors. That’s not enough punishment for the anti-Trumpers, all of whom sang a different tune when entire cities were razed to the ground in 2020.

Contrary to the lies, no cops were murdered on J6. More evidence that the proverbial maggots have burrowed too far into the brain.

Trump just pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who was serving two life sentences for running a website. Huge.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/21/ross-ulbricht-silk-road-trump-pardon

Perhaps because perception and mobility are direct interactions with the environment? Unlike indirect interactions via computational or mental representations. One hardly needs a brain to be able to perceive things or move intentionally.

I'm not sure computational or mental representations are indirect interactions with anything other than the computational and mental organs themselves. If there were "representations", this would be a direct interaction, at least given any theory that supposes they occur in the brain. If there were no "representations", there is nothing to interact with.

.. because screw the environment!

More like "screw useless performative boondoggles".

Good. They’ve already been to around 1500 years in prison. I would wonder if we could compare that with the treatment of the arsonists and urine-chucking rioters of 2020.

The problem with the little J6 riot in comparison to the countless riots of the previous years was that J6 was imprinted on the anti-Trump psyche with record levels of propaganda, for instance the Hollywood-produced J6 inquiry. Hardly anyone remembers that rioters stormed the Whitehouse months earlier, indicted of crimes ranging from "attempted murder, assaulting a law enforcement officer, arson, burglary of a federally-licensed firearms dealer, damaging federal property, malicious destruction of property using fire or explosives, felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, unlawful possession of a destructive device, inciting a riot, felony civil disorder, and others".

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/over-300-people-facing-federal-charges-crimes-committed-during-nationwide-demonstrations

Christoffer's posts are filled with anti-American bigotry and the hatred of others due to their political beliefs.

Some sweet justice on this one. Those 50 or so intelligence officials who lied about Hunter’s laptop in order to influence the 2020 election all just got their security clearances revoked. Oh, so did John R. Bolton.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/holding-former-government-officials-accountablefor-election-interference-and-improper-disclosure-of-sensitive-governmental-information/

Good riddance!

What is the Paris Agreement? Trump pulled the US out — again

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/climate/what-is-the-paris-agreement

Remember this when an anti-Trumper speaks of the “rule of law” or “democracy” in a somber tone.

I didn’t know that the country’s largest and most bloated employer, the US government, still had half of its workforce working from home. Working from home is fine, but it’s unbefitting for a government and bureaucracy still paying for empty offices with tax-payer funds. Trump ended that and froze the hiring of bureaucrats.

https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/01/20/donald-trump-inauguration-day-news-updates-analysis/a-government-hiring-freeze-and-end-to-remote-work-00199548

Sorry, pal, I already answered those questions in this thread. Go find them if you wish and then maybe find someone who cares. Enjoy the next 4 years!

And it’s done. With that, the worst administration in American history falls into the dustbin.

Nope. One more act of cowardice in the minutes before Biden leaves office, the pre-emptive pardons of the Biden crime family.

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/business/money-report/biden-pardons-his-family-in-final-minutes-in-office/6114398/?amp=1

One more act of cowardice before Biden leaves office, the pre-emptive pardons of corrupt civil servants, something he said he’d never do.

Biden pardons Fauci, Milley and the Jan. 6 committee in effort to guard against ‘revenge’ by Trump

The pardons, announced with just hours left in Biden’s presidency, have been the subject of heated debate for months at the highest levels of the White House. It’s customary for a president to grant clemency at the end of his term, but those acts of mercy are usually offered to Americans who have been convicted of crimes.

https://apnews.com/article/biden-trump-fauci-milley-pardons-january-6-3cba287f89051513fb48d7ae700ae747

By The Don’s Early Light on this MLK day. We get to watch some astroturf protests, possibly some assassination attempts, the Euros froth at the mouth, and the second Trump administration take power while the Biden administration scuttles back into the cracks. So far, a great day.

A few more hours of the disastrous Biden/Harris administration. At least he still has time to accomplish his campaign promise of ending cancer.

The reason they banned TikTok: their sore narrative.

Well, let's all hope that Trump will actually get prices to go down because that's apparently the trade that alot of American voters have made for this.

They’d like him and thus the country to fail. Just watch how many times they refer to any of his successes.

I’m not sure you’ve ever been civil, Tim. You can type both our names in the search bar and see nothing but exasperated name-calling and lies. And never once have I requested sanctions.

It’s crazy because there is no 28th amendment. But don’t worry, this nightmare is almost over.

Biden won the rigged election. He was inaugurated, after all.

Though the hostage exchange and ceasefire is still very fragile, it was funny watching Biden try to take the credit during his final address, and then tell us misinformation was a threat to the country.

A “tense” weekend meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and incoming Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff led to a breakthrough in the hostage negotiations, with the top aide to US President-elect Donald Trump doing more to sway the premier in a single sit-down than outgoing President Joe Biden did all year, two Arab officials told The Times of Israel on Tuesday.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/arab-official-trump-envoy-swayed-netanyahu-more-in-one-meeting-than-biden-did-all-year/

No apology required, friend. I afford you every right every right to call me dense, naive, or whatever else suits your fancy. I guess we can postpone the conversation until other people can handle it.

Jack Smith's "report" in a nutshell:

Lawyer says he would have won his own case had he not dropped it.

Another nothing-burger from the unlawfully-appointed prosecutor. We can add it to his growing list of failed cases.

I was a classical liberal once. Maybe I still am. Not sure. It's not always easy to define what a right is. Protest is a right, of course, but what about protesting outside of religious buildings specifically while services are ongoing? Or how about blasting noise outside of religious buildings during services as a form of protest? Harassment or free speech? It's not always so clear cut. As long as the intolerant minority remains insignificant it's easy to be tolerant.

In free speech discourse it's called the Heckler's Veto. I don't think drowning out someone's speech with your own is free speech, but rather a form of censorship. It denies both the speaker's right to speak and the listener's right to hear it.

That is at least partially an easy question to answer, but mostly irrelevant to our discussion. What I, some random person on a forum, thinks we ought to do, doesn't matter. What does matter is that it is true that sacrifices of freedom can be justified for the greater good. That is, if one isn't so conspiracy-minded that one believes that people who want to protect the environment are equivalent to Jihadis. Sure, the latent potential to control and transgress rights is there even with environmentalism, I guess, but it would be really dumb to think that those two groups - jihadis and environmentalists - are comparable in terms of their goals, the degree to which they (might) want to stifle freedoms, and how they would go about it. In fact, it would be moronic.

It isn't true that sacrificing someone's freedom can be justified for The Greater Good, and for two simples reasons. You do not know what The Greater Good is nor how to attain it. What is true, however, is that the environmentalist and the Jihadi both believe they know do know it and how to attain it (or at least they say they do) and both involve imposing their ideologies on others through injustice and the abuse of power.

Okay, so let's unpack that. You appear to be saying that a worldwide Islamic caliphate is less likely to make life on Earth difficult to maintain than if we curtailed a few freedoms for everyone and protected the environment (that is, if the curtailment of freedoms were necessary to do so). Or you are saying that jihadis cause less destruction in pursuing their radical, violent agenda than people who want to protect the environment who might try to legislate some changes in the way we live. Or you could be saying both. You don't see any problems with either of those statements?

I want neither an Islamic nor environmentalist caliphate to govern my life, is what I'm saying.

You speak of curtailing another's freedoms as if it's something you do every other Tuesday. Is this common behavior for you? Or is it a sort of fantasy you have?

Since you can both predict the end of our species and
provide the means to prevent it, what are the answers?

I’m not ok with the end of life on Earth. I just believe you’re more likely to bring it about before any of your bogeymen, and you’ll make our remaining time here more miserable while doing so.

That’s right; I don’t care if they believe they will bring about heaven on Earth. Every ideologue claims he has the intent to better the world through his power, theft, and impositions, if only he could bend the state and the people to his whim, but history shows that it never turns out as intended. In fact I doubt their intent entirely and conclude that they just want to tell people what to do in the hopes of fashioning society in their image. I prefer to let justice be done though the heavens fall, myself.

Reform is what they do to people in prison, and look how well that has worked out for the islamists. European prisons are a breeding ground for recruitment.

I go for the world where no one transgresses another’s freedoms so long another doesn’t transgress theirs. And those ideologies fall squarely into the category that would. I require no other distinguishing categories because the instinct and behavior to coerce and force others to speak, act, and to believe in certain ways is inherent in each, in the Islamist just as it is in you. Their ideologies ought to inform their own beliefs and behaviors, how they live their own lives, not ours.

Unfortunately it is without irony that the reasons you would seek to reform Jihadism, to purge them of their evil beliefs, is the same reasons why they seek to purge you of yours. In the mean time your defence of power furnishes them precisely with the means to do so.

NOS, they literally aim to set up a state governed by Islamic principles, probably through armed conflict. Jihadists must transgress others' rights by definition or they are just cosplaying. That should be obvious to anyone with a big wrinkly libertarian brain such as yourself.

Neo-nazis aim for a white-ethno state governed by Hitlerian principles. Commies aim for a a totalitarian state and the abolition of property. Republicans aim for a state governed by a piece of paper. Greens want the state to control the economy and the weather. Every power-seeker and politico from fringe to establishment seeks to transgress your rights. That’s how politics works. That should be obvious to anyone with half a brain. What isn’t obvious is that we need to reform one and not the other.

Does the existence of Islamic reformers actually constitute oppression of jihadists, though? If anything, jihadists would be the ones inclined to impose their own political and religious beliefs on others, probably through force or armed conflict by definition. I mean, they literally want to establish a state based on Islamic principles. I don't see how they couldn't transgress others' rights in the process, and I can't think of many plausible things more antithetical to freedom. Shouldn't a libertarian like yourself have some sympathy for those reformers who want some freedom for themselves?

You’ll note the caveat “…so long as he doesn’t transgress another’s right to do the same”. When that happens all bets are off.

There ought to be no way to deal with Jihadis save for leaving them alone. In fact, one ought to go out of his way to defend the jihadi’s right to speak, believe, and live he wishes, so long as he doesn’t transgress another’s right to do the same. Nothing does more for Jihadism, and brings more to its cause, than its oppression.

Ouch, Trump sentenced to “unconditional discharge”. No penalty at all. And then the travesty of a case will be appealed by the Supreme Court, and then they’ll have nothing.

I never denied that he tried to halt people coming into the country during Covid-19, like every other country. You’re just unwilling to admit that he was doing it for covid-19 purposes, which are explicitly laid out in his proclamation. Your bad faith won’t mention that the EU suspended travel to non-Europeans just months earlier, for instance. I guess they were just flip-flopping and lying about that whole freedom of movement thing. You don’t mention that each time he did it his order had an expiry date a few months later.

Since you never cite what you quote, I can’t tell whether you know and are hiding this information or just forget the proper rues of citation, but in any case you don’t mention that he made the proclamation with the idea to protect American jobs during the unprecedented events of Covid-19, not because he opposes a certain immigration program.

You also don't mention that Trump started to change his mind about h1-b's shortly after his comments in the debate you cite, which was nearly a decade ago.

"I'm changing. I'm changing. We need highly-skilled people in this country. If we can't do it, we will get them in. And we do need in Silicon Valley, we absolutely have to have. So we do need highly-skilled," Trump said. "One of the biggest problems we have people will go to the best colleges, they'll go to Harvard, they'll go to Stanford, to Wharton, as soon as they are finished they get shoved out. They want to stay in this country. They want to stay here desperately. They are not able to stay here. For that purpose, we absolutely have to be able to keep the brain power in this country."

https://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/03/trump-immigration-h1b-visas-gop-debate-220233

Changing one's mind is probably tantamount to lying in anti-Trump world, but once one fills in the deep, very deep holes in this sort of narrative-building one comes to realize how sloppy it all really is.

I used to say that Trump was so anti-immigrant that he married two of them. But the opposing and/or supporting of certain immigration policies does not mean one is pro or anti-immigrant. Not a strand of chewing gum can connect these premises to that sort of conclusion, yet that's the story that has been told for years.