• TomMasz
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    614 days ago

    The federal government is a protection racket now. You pay your money and your windows don’t get broken and your business doesn’t mysteriously catch fire. It may be illegal, but who’s going to do anything about it?

    • Deceptichum
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      4 days ago

      It may be illegal, but who’s going to do anything about it?

      Not Americans, that’s become evident.

    • @[email protected]
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      54 days ago

      Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives

      Exactly, but we need a plan that reaches the right wing folk and a reason for people to back it , here it is.

      • @[email protected]
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        34 days ago

        Tax wealth not work is a great way to pitch it to people as well. It doesn’t matter if your working 30,40,50,60+ hour weeks, whether you make 10,20,30,50,100,200 dollars an hour. That’s not what they are pitching to increase taxes on. They want to cut taxes on workers.

        • @[email protected]
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          54 days ago

          All the media is owned by wealth, and it will be spun and sold to the masses as a Bad Thing. And as we we have seen, the majority of people are idiots and lap that shit up.

          • @[email protected]
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            14 days ago

            I think a lot of it is that people don’t view things as finite, they for some reason think every dollar they make is a new dollar that came from nowhere and when they spend it, it goes no where. It’s easier to not look at the big picture of where the money flows, and just tunnel vision what is happening directly to themselves and hope someone else fixes things because they don’t have time/money to address anything.

      • @[email protected]
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        14 days ago

        we need a plan that reaches the right wing folk

        It’s called a gun, it’s got amazing reach from far distances.

    • @[email protected]
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      34 days ago

      Oh, it won’t improve then either. The mega rich will stand in a mountain of the dead before they’ll give up even a fraction of their wealth, and they’ll lash out at anything that they “fear”.

        • @[email protected]
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          24 days ago

          What LARP. Plenty of people are all about “the great class Revolution” but few are actually winning to risk the meat grinder it would actually take. It’s also why they’re banking big time on AI and robotics. Nobody to talk back or question if ordered to gun down a street full of “enemies”

    • @[email protected]
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      34 days ago

      The rich already fear for their lives; hence the kowtowing to a mushroom-dick pedo. The point is to make them fear the people more than they do that piece of child raping corn in a diarrhea attack.

    • @[email protected]
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      4 days ago

      I know this isn’t remotely the point but I think “pedophile rapist” hits better. Your way makes it sound like he is a rapist who is also a pedophile. Which, don’t get me wrong, he is.

      But “pedophile rapist” describes the fact that he rapes children.

      Edit: I haven’t had my coffee. 🤦‍♂️

      • DosDude
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        54 days ago

        It’s implied that if you’re a pedophile you rape children, because they (legally) can’t give consent.

      • Pyr
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        74 days ago

        Your term makes it sounds like he rapes pedophiles

        • @[email protected]
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          14 days ago

          Molestation can be a bunch of creepy non legally defined ways. A person who has sex with a child, is a pedophile, or child rapist.

          (Not directed to you) but I keep seeing people wanting “child fucker” to catch on, but idk why it feels skeevy, almost feels like they are adding more ambiguity, as a child could be a child fucker, but they wouldn’t be viewed as a pedophile. Where any grown adult who has sec with a child is a pedophile, it’s well understood.

          • Default Username
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            24 days ago

            No adult can “have sex” with a child, because rape is not the same thing as sex. Saying “have sex” implies consent, where no consent can be given. Same goes for “fucker” IMO. “Child rapist” would work fine if “molester” is too ambiguous for you.

      • @[email protected]
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        44 days ago

        I usually call him a rapist pedophile, but I think the best description is that he’s a rapist and a pedophile. Monsters usually only have one kink but he’s both.

  • @[email protected]
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    133 days ago

    Coming from a non-US centric point of view: I generally believed in the idea that the government does everything it does for the good of an entity. Sometimes that entity is the people (legality of cannabis), sometimes it is one person (presidential pardons) and sometimes its a company (bailouts). We can argue how ‘good’ any of these actions actually are, but thats beside the point. I always knew there were backdoor deals and some companies or some people got special privileges (corruption). But that was always behind closed doors. Rarely did it leak to the public stage and when it did, news coverage and accountability followed (usually).

    However you may feel about government, it generally works on the principles of law. The ideal was; If you followed the law, you had the same opportunity as anyone else doing it.

    I still can’t comprehend how Trump completely flipped this around. There is no semblance of just democracy and unjust corruption anymore. Giving the president actual gold in exchange for an exemption of law while openly broadcasting it. The ideal is broken and shattered on live TV. Justice is now blind because Trump is pissing on her face and she cant look at his limp dick anymore.

    • @[email protected]
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      33 days ago

      It makes perfect sense when you see the billionaires as lords and Trump as king. It’s a feudal kingdom ruled by royals, not a nation with laws. That’s just how it is now.

  • @[email protected]
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    674 days ago

    Doing it on Live Television is the whole point. Trump wants the world to see exactly how to avoid things like Tariffs and get preferential treatment: bribe him personally and/or “kiss the ring”.

    • @[email protected]
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      74 days ago

      Look how I still insult him in an attempt to be funny… Nobody can match Trump’s pure athleticism, nor his pedo proclivities.

    • @[email protected]
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      24 days ago

      So Trump is trying to hurt/disadvantage other countries/companies by decreasing the buying power of us citizens… ergo hurting their bottom line. How much money does the us give to the penguins, compared to other countries like China?

  • KindnessisPunk
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    4 days ago

    Can you imagine what the reaction would have been if Obama did any of this?

    I don’t know if we have enough perals in existence to clutch.

          • @[email protected]
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            24 days ago

            For tourists, it’s supposed to be Cheez Whiz (“wiz wit” means Cheez Whiz and onions). Anyone with functioning taste buds orders provolone.

            • @[email protected]
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              4 days ago

              So provolone is an offered option, and someone ordering it with that option gets shade for it?

              Yet one more reason I will never understand other people. I hate having been born

              • @[email protected]
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                24 days ago

                Well, they get shade for provolone if they’re a Democratic presidential candidate and piece-of-shit Republican operatives like Karl Rove are looking around for any way to make them look unappealing to middle American. This one was extra-stupid because probably a majority of people in Philly prefer provolone on their steaks. I could never be president myself because I order steaks with marinara sauce.

      • KindnessisPunk
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        164 days ago

        I heard he also enjoys dijon mustard, the most socialist of all the mustards.

      • FlashMobOfOne
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        34 days ago

        I love how people repeat this meme as if Obama’s record is somehow sacrosanct.

        We’ll just forget his kill list, his support of torture, his brutlization of Occupy, his militarization of the police, etc. etc. etc.

        • @[email protected]
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          64 days ago

          They’re making fun of the fact that the Right completely lost their minds at Obama wearing a tan suit but ignore or applaud Trump pulling bullshit like this.

          What you’re talking about is actually a whole different conversation. One that should be had, yes, but not related to how the Right gives a massive pass to anything a Rich White Male does.

        • @[email protected]
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          74 days ago

          Honestly, most indiscretions of past presidents feel silly or somewhat insignificant when compared to what Trump is doing regularly now.

          • FlashMobOfOne
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            64 days ago

            Only if you don’t view them as the incremental steps toward fascism that they are.

            Past presidents crawled so Trump could walk.

            • 100_kg_90_de_belin
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              24 days ago

              And painting Trump as absolute evil incarnate that popped out of nowhere ensures not addressing the structural conditions that made Trump possible

              • FlashMobOfOne
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                4 days ago

                It is remarkable that so many are using the word ‘unprecedented’, as if they just slept through all the torture and fascism of the War on Terror. Also a little sickening watching self-identified liberals helping Dubya rehab his image and revise his history.

    • @[email protected]
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      184 days ago

      Yep! I caught a bit of grief for saying the exact same thing the other day. I’m not gonna hate, he did what was best for his company and the price was ludicrously low. Best part? Trump’s too dumb to be insulted by this cringe.

      • @[email protected]
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        184 days ago

        I think it’s OK to still hate. Kissing ass while smirking because you’re soooo smart is still kissing ass. And Apple was part of putting Trump into office.

      • 0xD
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        3 days ago

        There is everything to hate about a corpo parasite sucking fascist dick to be even bigger parasites. They are spineless cowards only in it for themselves. Until the leopard eats their face. But the next mouth breather will be there to take their place, not to worry.

      • @[email protected]
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        34 days ago

        I mean, I’m not expecting anyone to be happy about it, but it’s basically a requirement at this point.

    • @[email protected]
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      34 days ago

      Or maybe, I dunno, principled?

      I guess I’m learning that most of the people in my country are feckless assholes.

  • @[email protected]
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    474 days ago

    Afterwards, and it wasn’t shown on TV, in the presidential bathroom Tim apple got on his knees and sucked trumps cock. He even tickled his balls with his tongue.

  • @[email protected]
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    574 days ago

    As another gay man, this guy is a disgrace to all gays. He bends over backwards to serve a child fucking rapist. Just to save some cash for a company with basically limitless cash.

  • arthurpizza
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    264 days ago

    Tim Apple simply exchanged a $4k trinket for billions in savings. This is probably not even the most pathetic thing a billionaire does on the daily.

  • @[email protected]
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    695 days ago

    I’m not saying that appeasement is always the way, but I’d rather Apple stayed off Trump’s vindictive side by giving him a little shiny toy then by giving them (for example) user data or backdoors into their platform.

    Yes, in an ideal world, they’d tell the whole administration to go fuck itself, but they also don’t want to be destroyed by the government (however illegal that may be, do you really think they’d survive long enough for all the legal challenges to go through the system if Trump decided Apple had to go?)

    • .Donuts
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      275 days ago

      If Trump would decide Apple “has to go”, the US can stop pretending that they live in a democracy.

      • @[email protected]
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        5 days ago

        The US has pretty much never been a real democracy (other than in a roman sense, as in “power belongs to rich men”).

        • @[email protected]
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          45 days ago

          In the Roman sense, it was never a democracy, in the sense that we vote for representatives, who then in turn vote on stuff for us. Er, I mean for the corporations. So you can see why this system is so prone to abuse.

          • @[email protected]
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            55 days ago

            Every Western democracy votes for representatives, direct democracy isn’t really a thing (except for partially in Switzerland). But many countries actually manages to represent the voters with their representatives, the US system definitely doesn’t.

            • @[email protected]
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              14 days ago

              I think you mean that many countries manage to let voters have i say along with all the other interestsgroups on the country, of which many are corporations.

    • @[email protected]
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      5 days ago

      You have zero way of knowing that there aren’t some level of backdoors. There’s zero reason to think they wouldn’t fold for the US govt like they did for the Chinese government. Lastly there is no high ground here for Apple. It’s bad enough that they go above and beyond to dodge taxes and this is them doing more of that but in a somewhat more shameful way than normal. Fuck em.

      • @[email protected]
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        84 days ago

        It would be amazingly risky for Apple to hide backdoors in their products. One of their big selling points is their reputation for taking user data privacy seriously. If it ever came out that they’d helped a government by violating that, their credibility would be shot and they’d lose a noticeable percentage of customers overnight.

        That’s not good business, so I don’t think they’d risk it.

        • @[email protected]
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          94 days ago

          One of their big selling points is their reputation for taking user data privacy seriously.

          lol, that is reputation only

        • @[email protected]
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          4 days ago

          Their reputation amounts to them telling us that privacy is a human right but forgetting that the instant the Chinese government comes between Apple and money. Also if they were truly serious about security they would be open source. Like others have said, if the government wants a backdoor, they will get it no matter what apple says publicly because profits matter more than anything.

        • @[email protected]
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          4 days ago

          Lol. If you don’t think Apple has backdoors in their products I have a bridge to sell you.

          • @[email protected]
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            54 days ago

            If you think Apple has hidden backdoors, some class action lawsuits would love to know about it. They’ve filled their pockets on much much less damning evidence.

        • @[email protected]
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          84 days ago

          Remember back when the U.S. government had to go to the international hacker community to try and hack an iPhone about 10 years ago? I remember, and Pepperidge Farms remember. Maybe they’ve added backdoors since then, but there hasn’t been any evidence of that, and it wouldn’t be able to be kept quiet for very long of there were. You’re collecting down votes, but I don’t think you’re wrong.

    • @[email protected]
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      125 days ago

      I’d rather Apple stayed off Trump’s vindictive side by giving him a little shiny toy then by giving them (for example) user data or backdoors into their platform.

      Who says they aren’t also giving that data?

      • @[email protected]
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        24 days ago

        I’ve not read anything suggesting they are. I’d imagine this would be quite a big story if anyone has any evidence of it, and the Trump regime is incapable of keeping its mouth shut.

        Plus someone from Apple would leak it. Even if you genuinely believe Tim Apple is sucking trump’s dick, you can’t believe the entire company supports that.

        • @[email protected]
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          34 days ago

          I believe these large tech companies give all kinds of data to the government already. Probably more than any of us should be comfortable with. Would anybody notice if they expanded the data set slightly?

    • guyincognito
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      75 days ago

      If Apple weren’t pussies, and Trump said he’d end them for not capitulating, they’d just have to release all sorts of goodies that Trump and his cronies stored in their cloud.

      But alas, everyone and every company in America is a damned wuss.

    • Chainweasel
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      75 days ago

      Absolutely not, there’s no upside to capitulating to a fascist, period.
      If the government wants backdoors they’ll get them and in fact probably already have them. I’d rather no one appease a fascist dictator and anyone who does or thinks it’s a good idea is a fascist by proxy.

      • @[email protected]
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        64 days ago

        I knew someone would say that.

        What are my other options?

        I’ve gotten away from Microsoft and Android.

        I need a phone that can run modern banking apps, so I can’t run some janky Linux OS just for hyper privacy.

        I also need something my parents can use, since they’re all in on Apple at the moment too. I don’t live close enough to regularly visit to do on site tech support, and honestly, not my idea of fun anyway.

        For better or worse, Apple is it at the moment.

          • @[email protected]
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            54 days ago

            Well I don’t want stock android, do I? I can hope Apple aren’t selling my personal data. I know that Google would. I’ve de-googled my life, I’m not going back.

            • furry toaster
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              94 days ago

              You know that Apple sells it too, I havr degoogled my life too, and I can use android totally fine with a stock rom and with google services completely disables because yes you can disable it and yes it works fine without it. With apple they will force you to use their apps and shit ecosystem with android you can choose within at least.

              • @[email protected]
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                34 days ago

                Not for long, you won’t be able to sideload your banking app in the future with all the work being done on device attestation.

                • @[email protected]
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                  34 days ago

                  Every bank in the country has a website. Just use your browser like a regular desktop user. Not everything needs to be an app ffs.

    • furry toaster
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      4 days ago

      Apple should be destroyed by the goverment, case closed.

      Regardless, as mister H. has shown and mister P. too, you can never appease a authoritarian monster, they always ask for more.

    • @[email protected]
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      104 days ago

      You never have more power against an authoritarian than you do right now.

      You have to resist, push back, fight etc. or you keep losing.

    • @[email protected]
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      144 days ago

      This is the type of thinking that has put corporations above people. “Oh no the trillion dollar company can’t do the right thing or they could go under!”

    • @[email protected]
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      45 days ago

      giving him a little shiny toy

      It wasn’t a shiny toy…

      The base was a literal gold bar, that just had been reshaped to hold the piece of glass.

      trump will 100% throw the glass away and melt/sell the gold.

      It was one step away from a bag of cash

        • @[email protected]
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          45 days ago

          This is like say Gollum doesn’t really want his Precious…

          It doesn’t matter if people like that need more, they’ll always want more.

    • @[email protected]
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      55 days ago

      We only saw the part of the appeasement process which was meant to be public. We have no way of knowing what is included in the non-public part.