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https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx20lwedn23o The only way Trump could stand for another term is to change the Constitution and the GOP simply doesnt have that support, so its not possible and thats just a third term so the idea of him becoming a Monarch is even more unlikely . So it doesnt matter what he says or what some of his supporters say. This is just a sensationalized story peddled by MAGA and then people respond to it as if its possible " On the face of it, the US Constitution seems to rule out anyone having a third term. The 22nd Amendment states: No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice, and no person who has held the office of president, or acted as president, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected president shall be elected to the office of the president more than once." Changing the constitution would require a two-thirds approval from both the Senate and the House of Representatives, as well as approval from three-quarters of the country's state-level governments. Trump's Republican Party controls both chambers of Congress but does not have the majorities needed. Additionally, the Democratic Party controls 18 of the 50 state legislatures. "

Trump has said lots of things and 40-60% of what he says is BS or nonsense as you guys often quote and post and we laugh about And it IS a BS and sensationalized story that somehow Trump is going to stay on forever as US president Rather focus on the policies and things he does that are real like migration enforcement and tariffs But he will never become a leader for life like in Russia or NK

If you continue to read BruceVC posts of your own free volition, you are mad indeed. Well, maybe I should check to see what he said myself... Oh wait, I can't! And I think to myself...what a wonderful world. Well, except for all the other stupid, disingenuous ****s out there, but it is what it is.

It drives me mad that Bruce still gives Trump the benefit of doubt. Tell me it's not possible to be this naive? Trump is doing *exactly* what he said he would.

Come on, you cant seriously believe Trump wants to become a leader for life or an absolute Monarch You cant really believe that, tell me you joking

Phew, close one.

Also don't forget Peter Thiel who names every company he has after evil things in Middle earth.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/20/politics/trump-justice-department-pam-bondi "“Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, ‘same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done,’” Trump wrote, referring to former FBI Director James Comey, Sen. Adam Schiff of California, and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Trump added, “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility.”" In some other reality, people might do something about this

no neon light no flying car and no good music those author was wishing too much on the bright side acid rain are not much of a problem right now one tiny temporary victory as consolation prize

For some unknown reason I have permanent 100% chill reduction. This stays even if I am wearing no armor, have no mutations active, and have not consumed any food or smoothies. When I go into the ice cream cart, the chill bar appears but the chill level never increases. This is handy but I don't think it is supposed to work like this. Is anyone else experiencing this?

Missed this, Surviving Mars was pretty fun, although I got a nasty CTD issue with my concrete rovers eventually.

#BRINGBACKTHEBARD Absolutely love Grounded, fully 100% (Achievements and all obtainable equipment anyways) completed it up NG+1 dipping into NG+2, Would've gone further but the beauty of Grounded 2 dropped. Obviously still working their bugs and issues but love every part. Definitely need more decorative pieces that aren't just the mounts and plushies (Trophies). Currently at the end of act 1 so now we're just grinding and building nice little themed bases, However I think it would be absolutely BANGING if we added more Bard esc weapons, Grounded had the Bard's Tutor and Bard's Bow, But I strongly feel Grounded 2 could 100% bring back the Bard, Imagine let's say...A Black Ox Marching Drum, quick attacks send out a small wave like the attack of the Mantis, Charged attack sending out a kinda 'Ground Slam' AOE style attack, if you wanted you could make it give a AOE effect that increases defensive stats maybe? Other ideas like a maybe a Bass and or Electric guitar (Maybe Bass for Tier 2 and Electric for Tier 3?) That you swing like Sword? Every hit gives a debuff to surrounding foes or alternatively a fiddle that gives inspiration to your party (Polar opposite of how bows work, you can only block and 'Inspire', no DMG) Or if we wanna merge it we the Wizard Class, Harp constructed out of...IDK Grasshoppers that are coming out that when pluck it sends a homing note that does blunt DMG and then charged one follows the arc pattern of the current staves. I suppose in that notion, for solo players those more 'Party Based' instruments could be coupled with Buggies and a Psuedo Summoner? No clue, just a brain wave I've had whilst bored at work. Thanks for anyone whom reads this and hope you have a lovely day :)

Maybe in another 5-10 years I can just buy a mini-pc/mini-desktop for $1600 and be fine, since I'm guessing my caring for mega gaming will wane ever more anyway. Yeah yeah, just buy a console. But something like this is simply more interesting to me - plus at least it's a PC, not just a game and TV cube. Anyway, with some setting tweaking the fact it runs BL4 at 1080 or even 1440 with "playable" fps is kinda cool.

Grounded 2 est top ! Ce serait bien que l’herbe et la végétation ne repoussent pas quand on construit dessus. Grounded 2 is awesome! It would be great if grass and vegetation didn’t grow back when building on top of them.

My new anthem for the year, I've decided. Politics/world ofc and a bit of my personal/home life. (language)

Stupid cyberpunk authors didn't think people would use their books as manuals, I guess.

Sorry not stinking set, I meant stink bug set.

So what I've noticed is that the mantis armor set doesn't really fit the design of a mantis. The plague doctor look is cool but that should be reserved for like a stinking set or something else. A mantis is a predator but does so as silent and carefully as possible. I think the armor set should represent that and I think either a ninja look or samurai look would be better. Open to feedback as well on my idea if its good or not.

Curtis Yarvin has been blogging about his dreams for almost twenty years, blogs called Unqualified Reservations and Gray Mirror, you can look them up if you want, and he calls it Dark Enlightenment (a name that teenagers could easily pick for their goth or black metal band). Companies existing as their own little kingdoms with their own laws, and them as kings. Cities run as companies, competing for citizens. The final Cyberpunk form of Guard Dog's beloved libertarianism. He blogged about how to turn the US into an autocracy and has inspired the neo-reactioary movement. He's a nutjob who has gone from defining castes of people in the US, arguing that South American immigrants are part of a caste where men are criminals and women on welfare, to giving them names from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (elves are the liberal ruling elite, hobbits are the middle class and dwarves the workers) and wants to replace the elves with dark elves (i.e. him and his ilk). Friends with J. D. Vance (who has publicly quoted the "works" of Yarvin and referenced Yarvin's idea of the Cathedral in speeches), even though he's been trying to distance himself from him, and backed by Peter Thiel. The same Peter Thiel who runs companies like Mithril and Palantir, because referencing Tolkien's body of work is fun. A nutjob who was invited to the inaugural gala of Mango Mussolini because by now he's an influencial figure among the alt-right / neo-reactionaries. You know, someone who wants to turn the United States into a monarchy, with ties to the vice president, in an administration where the president has posted and talked about himself as being the king on more than one occasion. Who said that voting for him would be the last time people need to vote. With people like Bruce still believing he's joking. The tech bros are, as Gromnir put it, vying for control. Absolute control. I mean, what can you do when you're so rich that you and your familiy will never want for anything for any forseeable future? Well, why not become king?

@Elerondyeah, we specific identified the tech bros feeling left out o' the decision making regarding government regulation o' ai as a motivation for choosing trump over harris, but the problem is they get everything else trump along with deregulation. trump is mercurial and is simultaneous trying to take control of the US economy. in 2024, the potential downside o' a trump Presidency for tech bros as he talked up tariffs, mass deportations and suggested he would overhaul the fed, shoulda' been enough to discourage people who were collective making more money under biden than any group o' people had ever made during a similar span o' time in the history o' the US. take him seriously but not literally. people have been saying that bit o' pith since 2015 and time and again trump shows us how it is a mistake to not take him literal even if he frequent tacos. so is 2025 and the tariffs were never gonna happen for reals is now happening and so too is mass deportations. contrary to trump claims, nobody in their right mind is making major US manufacturing investments 'cause o' endemic uncertainty caused by trump and we finally got a rate cut that trump wanted, but we got it 'cause signs is showing a serious weakening o' the economy. any foreign government which is willing to make a billion dollar investment in trump's sh!t coin gets favorable deals, which leads more uncertainty, and certainty was kinda the reason the dollar has been an effective reserve currency which is partial why we got market multipliers in the US which has been considerable better than europe or asian. yeah, the tech guys is building ai data centers at a break neck pace, data centers which create almost no new jobs for american workers, and certainty not for those rust belt folks who voted for trump, but simultaneous trump has cut federal investment in all kinda energy projects 'cause he hates windmills and solar, and is not as if by doing so trump made the fossil fuel guys happy 'cause trump is simultaneous working overtime to keep fuel prices low while also making energy production more expensive via his tariff shenanigans and mass deportations. the tech bros need vast new energy production and trump actions is making energy production more difficult and less lucrative, so... etc. yeah, the tech bros got deregulation o' ai and they exorcised lina khan, but on balance, are they more uncertain today compared to september o' 2024? am understanding why bankers and investors is ok with uncertainty 'cause they is making buckets o' money whether there is a massive shift up or down in the markets. am disappointed by the myopia o' the investor class, but we get it. converse, if during the biden years you were a tech bro who made more money than were previously imagined, why would the reality o' 2025 look like a win? HA! Good Fun!

I would guess that tech bros like that Trump and republicans don't look regulations for AI, except for their Chinese competitors. During Biden era OpenAI, Meta etc. tried to be proactive with regulation for AI research, but after Trump take office all talk about regulating AI has halted, giving tech companies free ability to break copyright and use people private information to teach their models, tech companies even push spy modules on computers to log how people are using their computers, use their data in cloud services and social media and feed that to learning data for their models. They are able to do lot of things that should be blocked by data protection, copyright and trademark laws and they clearly hope use this situation to make situation such that there is no point create regulations in future either, because all the information is already permanently pushed in the models and trying to remove that data would lead lot of things breaking because AI is pushed everywhere.

Haunted Hotel on Netflix. Warm recommend from me. Surprisingly fun watch.

am agreeing the US is embracing fascism with disappointing vigor and speed, but am simply noting that all too often people use "fascist" and "authoritarian" interchangeable... save that fascist feels worse, so is more pejorative? most o' us rolled our eyes when vol identified every group or action he disagreed with as nazi. all too often, people do something similar with the fascit label. dunno. regardless, am agreeing that the US is pretty deep into fascism at the moment. the following is kinda silly, but also illustrative valhalla? the commander in chief dodged the draft for chrissakes, but somehow we got this weird quasi-comic warrior culture being perpetuated by pete hegseth and... kash patel, the trump administration's living embodiment o' peter pettigrew. serious? add contempt/fear o' science, demonization o' trans people and minority groups, a s'posed "invasion" at the southern border, exploitation of outrage and grievance, as well as the deep state nonsense. etc. but again, is not difficult to make a fascist argument for almost any government organization or action... if you don't like 'em. am simply pointing out that identifying generic authoritarian behaviors and practices by a government doesn't genuine push the needle toward a result of fascism in any meaningful way. as for tech company's following the lure o' profit, we agree... mostly. during the biden years the tech companies were doing extreme well. profits were historic good. the US economy were the "envy of the world" and all that. sure, ordinary americans had struggles with inflation and cost of living concerns, but the tech bros were unaffected by such minutiae. one reason why bernie sanders and elizabeth warren were always outraged during the biden term is 'cause never had so few made so much money in such a short a period o' time, and those tech bro billionaires were paying proportional less in taxes than rich people had been required to pay for +80 years. converse, trump is an ignorant buffoon who doesn't care what happens to the economy as long as he personal gets rich. the tech guys knew before the election that tariffs were problematic and trump's current assault on the fed is not helping with investor confidence. mass deportations is necessarily gonna result in further inflation as well as a shrinking of the consumer and tax-paying base as well as creating severe impacts on specific industries such as agriculture and construction. the tech guys know that if the economy tanks, they will also suffer, but they nevertheless supported (and continue to support) erratic and ignorant as 'posed to the status quo, a status quo which were making them all fabulously rich. so, if profits were your most pressing concern, which bet made more sense, harris or trump? am gonna suggest that even more than profit, the tech guys is blinded by their need for control. there is a belief amongst the tech bros that if they have control, they will keep making money no matter what, so control and profit is necessarily intertwined, but if if they gotta make a choice 'tween the two, control wins. biden frequently cut the tech oligarchs outta the decision making 'round government regulation of ai and lina khan was kinda their nightmares given flesh. converse, the tech guys can get trump to respond to their phone calls and a shiny bauble and a performative genuflection is, they believe, gonna get them the results they desire. kleptorcacy and oligarchy ain't the same thing, but the tech oligarchs is betting that they are able to convince trump to enrich them too even if the recent conflict 'tween elon musk and donald trump should prove that they don't have legit control. regardless, if profits were genuine your most pressing concern, why would you f with the status quo o' the previous administration? HA! Good Fun! ps our biggest concern regarding the endemic misunderstanding o' fascism is that the only reason most maga folks, not to mention a considerable % o' the remaining general population, reflexive balk at being called fascist is 'cause they don't know what is fascism. w/o mention o' fascism, describe the kinda vague ideology being promoted by tucker carlson, bennie johnson and yeah, charlie kirk using the framework o' umberto eco's fourteen features. describe in glowing terms how tucker, unlike the mainstream media, recognizes the threat of trans people and immigrants, or how bennie johnson embraces a return o' masculinity. without mention o' fascism, use the fourteen features to describe the increasingly typical right-wing pundit and then see how many americans see such as problematic v. positive. when the el paso walmart shooting happened, we read the shooter's manifesto. in 2009, the manifesto woulda' sounded like the ranting o' a lunatic. in 2019, the manifesto's main points were familiar to anybody who followed tucker carlson. @Pidescois no doubt certain that fascism is unhealthy for a society, and history supports that conclusion, but am increasing of the opinion that fascism is only seen as pejorative by most maga types because they don't know what fascism is. pps am also gonna observe how most o' the media companies, law firms and universities who has capitulated were similar going mask off in the name of profits. as noted, the law firms who rolled over for tump were the firms who has big merger and acquisition portfolios. the current kerfuffle regarding jimmy kimmel happened 'cause the head o' the fcc intimated that he would kill a prospective merger deal 'tween sinclair and nexstar. earlier when cbs and abc caved to trump whims, it were also likely due to the fact they got big deals in the works which require fed approval to happen. universities caved as soon as trump went after their grants. etc. this trump administration has had difficulty avoiding tripping over their own feet even as the rough beast, its hour come at last, slouches toward bethlehem. even so, you gotta hand it to the project 2025 folks as they appeared to bet that all the big talk from lawyers, universities and others regarding rights and justice was just so much air and that if tested, people with the power to make a difference would choose their third vacation house as 'posed to remaining true to their espoused convictions. trump, is a psycopath, but am s'posing that is the source o' much o' his success. trump can smell weakness?

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/19/pentagon-limits-access-journalists-00574227 Muh free speech as usual

While my examples were more generic authoritarian than fascist, a significant portion of Eco's list already applies to a tee to current situation in the US. That said, at this point, differentiating between authoritarianism and fascism is at best an interesting rhetorical exercise, at worse a distraction. Also whether the situation now is better or worse than in the Lindberg days, is really not that important. More important is where American political institutions and discourse stand now compared to ten, twenty or forty years ago. I'd argue things are moving in the wrong direction and accelerated dramatically with Trump's accession this year. Regarding your disappointments, I wasn't really surprised myself with either media or tech companies capitulating to Trump. Tech companies especially weren't so much capitulating but rather going mask off in the name of profits. Not all of them are run by complete nutso Peter Thiel, but the Zuckerbergs and Bezos and Musks of the world are not that far removed from Thiel.