> Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said (...) "This has caused reporters to have a full blown meltdown, crying victim online."

Interesting use of language... seems like the mask is coming off everywhere now, not just where I live (Hungary).

I've been intentionally skipping on a lot of our local political reporting, so I was really quite surprised to see recently how lowbrow the language used by politicians, specifically those in power, has gotten these days. Especially how flagrant they are about it too.

This is a very meta, and to many I'm sure trivial, thing to take issue with, yes, but if those in authority are this unashamedly drunk on power, and look down on those they rule over so openly, I'd really question how fit they are to represent people's collective best interest.

• wat10000

  10/14/2025

  A lot of people love this. They want to wield power to hurt people they don’t like. Watching others they perceive as being on “their side” do it serves as a substitute.

  • throw0101d

    10/16/2025

    > A lot of people love this. They want to wield power to hurt people they don’t like.

    See "The Cruelty is the Point", written during Trump 1.0:

    > Taking joy in that suffering is more human than most would like to admit. Somewhere on the wide spectrum between adolescent teasing and the smiling white men in the lynching photographs are the Trump supporters whose community is built by rejoicing in the anguish of those they see as unlike them, who have found in their shared cruelty an answer to the loneliness and atomization of modern life.

    * https://archive.is/NjiSx

    * https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive...

  • cindyllm

    10/14/2025

    [dead]

  • gaindustries

    10/14/2025

    [flagged]

    • raw_anon_1111

      10/14/2025

      And this type of naïveté is why the left always loses. If the last election doesn’t wake people up nothing will. People want someone to represent them that hates the same people they hate. Who shares their grievances and punishes people who don’t look or think like them. That’s at least the case of 40%% of Americans who still support everything the current administration does.

      This has always been “who we are” despite what Michelle Obama says.

      Then people reply about “what about the other 60%”. If you have 10 friends and ask them what they want to eat for dinner and 6 say let’s get Mexican and the other 4 say let’s kill Bob and eat him. You still need to be concerned about your friend group.

      • mothballed

        10/14/2025

        Bob should be able to secede from such a democracy, which was arguably an implied right of a voluntary union up until the Civil War. Otherwise democracy is just a tyranny of the majority, and bob is only 2 votes away from being dinner and legitimately so.

        • wat10000

          10/14/2025

          Allowing an entire state to secede does bupkis to prevent a tyranny of the majority. You just need a smaller number of people to be a tyrannical majority in your newly independent state.

          • mothballed

            10/14/2025

            At some people you can secede to an individual size of 1, at which point you can only tyrannize yourself. But it's a valid point, you're only mitigating not eliminating tyranny of the majority by picking which democracy you choose to be a part of. It is harder to tyrannize people with options, though, and much easier if it's either follow the company line or be massacred.

            The Somalis basically have this system, which has been more successful than their geographic attempts at democracy, where you can essentially go under an entirely different legal system even in the exact same geographic spot by accepting a sponsor of another tribe, or possibly by marrying ('xeer'), or if you so choose you can secede from the whole thing and make your own tribe and take the risks that come with that.

            • wat10000

              10/14/2025

              It's really weird describe secession as even "mitigating" tyranny of the majority when your example is the Confederacy. The whole point of seceding was to try to ensure they could continue the white majority's tyranny over their black slaves. There's nothing inherently better about being ruled by a smaller state.

              • mothballed

                10/14/2025

                I said it was an implied right up until the Civil War, not that the Confederacy was the shining example on a hill (in fact the confederates would no doubt deny the slaves themselves the right of secession). You've pointed out to one example of secession that might be worse for black people, ignoring all the while in my relative comment the example I used was of the black people themselves seceding from the tyrannical state (Haiti).

                Damning secession because it's not perfect cuz muh Confederacy is just intellectually dishonest. No political system is perfect, having the option is better than nothing. I have never implied that the right of secession should stop at the size of a slave state and the slaves could not themselves secede which they have in fact successfully done.

                • wat10000

                  10/14/2025

                  I'm not the one who picked it as your only example. Your Haiti comment was in a completely different part of the thread and not replying to me.

                  You did say that the secession of the South mitigated tyranny of the majority, when in fact it did the exact opposite.

                  If you want to say that it usually does this, that would be one thing, but you put it as a universal and chose the worst example for it.

                  • mothballed

                    10/14/2025

                    >mitigating not eliminating tyranny of the majority by picking which democracy you choose to be a part of.

                    I said secession mitigates tyranny of the majority.

                    I don't think you understand what mitigate means. It doesn't mean the risk is eliminated. Quite often a mitigation effort will do the opposite (i.e. vaccines mitigate risk of death but some patient has allergic reaction to vaccine and patient dies).

                    Arguably had black people been able to secede from the union AND the confederacy they might have been better off, but of course, both the union and the confederates would likely have attacked them in that case, because it's not as if white people didn't want to tyrannize blacks even in the north, they just didn't do it with the mechanism of slavery (arguably because slavery was just becoming bad economics in the industrial north and attacking slavery was more of a way to get one up on the south than to help black people that hardly had the rights of whites in the North).

                    • 10/15/2025

        • nineplay

          10/14/2025

          The majority probably didn't want to secede prior to the civil war. Fortunately for those who did want to secede, a massive proportion of the population didn't have the right to vote.

          • mothballed

            10/14/2025

            >South Carolina became the first state to formally secede in December 1860

            >At 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861, Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina's Charleston Harbor. Less than 34 hours later, Union forces surrendered. Traditionally, this event has been used to mark the beginning of the Civil War.

          • dragonwriter

            10/14/2025

            I mean, the whole reason for the secession was the fear that at some indefinite point in the future they might be prevented from keeping a large portion (~30%) of the population in chattel slavery, so, yeah, there was a substantial disenfranchised portion of the population who probably wouldn’t have been on board with the cause of secession were they consulted on the matter.

            • potato3732842

              10/14/2025

              This sort of revisionist history helps nobody. It wasn't a "might" it was an "all but certainly". The election of Lincoln was kind of the nail in the coffin for slavery because it meant that the anti slavery interests would at least be able to do something that ended slavery if not immediately then at some point in the future via the votes from the new free states being incorporated from the territories.

              Now, it would've been a lot nicer if they didn't start a war over it, but slavery was done for one way or another and everyone knew it.

              • dragonwriter

                10/14/2025

                > The election of Lincoln was kind of the nail in the coffin for slavery because it meant that the anti slavery interests would at least be able to do something that ended slavery if not immediately then at some point in the future via the votes from the new free states being incorporated from the territories.

                I mean, in an alternate universe where the modern cloture rule existed and somehow at least one extra free state was admitted while the South was not paying attention to block it, sure, that’s almost plausible, but...

                • potato3732842

                  10/14/2025

                  You mean the alternate universe of <checks notes> Brazil?

                  They progressively outlawed slavery over the course of 1870 through 1890 without a civil war. The US probably could've done just about the same over a shorter period (because the US was richer and could have paid its way through a lot of the opposition faced in Brazil).

                  • cafard

                    10/15/2025

                    Lincoln favored projects of emancipation with compensation to the slaveholders. In a letter of March 14, 1862, he writes that the paying off all claims in Delaware, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Kentucky, and Missouri, at $400 per head (his term, not mine) would cost less than the expense incurred in eighty-seven days of war. The project went forward only in the District of Columbia.

                  • dragonwriter

                    10/14/2025

                    > You mean the alternate universe of <checks notes> Brazil?

                    Brazil had the same Constitution, Senate Rules, and balance of power between slave and free states as the pre-Civil War USA?

            • mothballed

              10/14/2025

              A case of secession more directly attributed to choice by slaves was that of Haiti.

    • x3n0ph3n3

      10/14/2025

      Not everyone wants a better society, nor agrees on what a better society even looks like. It's a common mistake to believe your adversary is just like you, but terribly confused.

    • wat10000

      10/14/2025

      That’s not opposed to what I’m saying. Lots of people want a better society and think that “better” involves powerful people wielding it against people they don’t like. Everybody is the hero of their own story. The Nazis thought they were making the world a better place by murdering all the undesirables.

      And I never said I was better. I nearly added a “and this isn’t exclusive to one side” addendum to my comment, but decided that would just derail my point. Maybe I should have.

      • potato3732842

        10/14/2025

        >That’s not opposed to what I’m saying. Lots of people want a better society and think that “better” involves powerful people wielding it against people they don’t like. Everybody is the hero of their own story. The Nazis thought they were making the world a better place by murdering all the undesirables.

        Exactly. The boomers thought they were making the world a better place with their 1960s environmentalism regulation and zoning. Turns out they mostly just teed up a housing crisis 50yr later.

        • wat10000

          10/14/2025

          Yes, if only we still had deadly smog, maybe we could afford rent.

          • potato3732842

            10/15/2025

            A problem in a handful of cities does not justify the federal government micromanaging stormwater nation wide to the detriment of everyone who needs to have a roof over their head.

            The clean water act literally outlaws cheap density via stormwater rules. Even if zoning permitted you can't just build an apartment building right up to your setback minimums like you could in the old days (without spending hundreds of thousands to possibly to comply).

            • alphabettsy

              10/15/2025

              Poor stormwater management has caused very expensive issues all over the country especially and including small towns from both flooding and pollution. I agree something needs to be done, but aimless deregulation is not it.

            • wat10000

              10/15/2025

              Blaming “environmentalism” for that is pretty silly.

              • potato3732842

                10/15/2025

                I'm blaming useful idiots for uncritically peddling regulatory capture because someone put lipstick on it.

          • mothballed

            10/14/2025

            No, it's zoning, codes, and covenants, and licensing that were all the barriers that stopped me from building a house in 99.9% of the USA. I ultimately found a place that allowed me to bypass that, which thankfully also has virtually zero public utilities or police/fire or services or taxes which is probably the thing scaring shitless any of the bootlickers from coming out here and making housing laws like the rest of the places.

            • potato3732842

              10/15/2025

              If you were trying to build the kind of density of lot covered by building and other impermeable surface that you see in cities built out before the 70s (i.e. the stuff HN fawns over) stormwater stuff would prevent you.

    • conartist6

      10/14/2025

      I really hate to be the one to break this to you, but humans are a kind of animal

      • card_zero

        10/14/2025

        They're also a kind of growth medium for bacteria, a kind of vector for memes, a kind of informal unit of measurement and a kind of meat. What about it.

        • IAmBroom

          10/15/2025

          conartists is replying to the claim 'you are a human, not an animal'.

    • aredox

      10/14/2025

      A better society for who?

      >You are no better, my friend.

      I resent them for their choices and their dishonesty. Things they chose to be and could change if they were open to discussion in good faith - which they refuse.

      They resent me and millions of others for my skin color or my sexual orientation or where I was born. Things I never chose and can't change.

      • DaSHacka

        10/14/2025

        The funny thing is I have no idea what side you're talking about.

        • IAmBroom

          10/15/2025

          Really? You have no idea which side of US politics hates people based on skin color or sexual orientation?

          Please argue in good faith.

          • DaSHacka

            10/16/2025

            I mean, both sides can easily argue both things.

            Did you miss the current administration's pushback against DEI for being "discriminatory towards white cisgender males"?

            • phatskat

              10/17/2025

              But DEI isn’t and wasn’t ever that. I did DEI training at two different jobs and it boiled down to “you can’t know what someone else may be going through, or where they’ve been, and no the best course of action is to be open and curious”. Heck, in my most recent DEI training, one of the people to be sympathetic towards was a white cis man - it was a section focusing on discrimination based on age.

              Both sides can not, in my view, argue both things: the right as we see it in America wants to oppress people based on immutable values such as race and gender.

              The left wants people to acknowledge that “hey maybe it’s ok if everything doesn’t cater to one specific archetype of a person” - no reasonable person on the left wants to punish or oppress anyone for being a “white cisgender male”.

              There’s this idea I’ve held onto that seems very apt: when a group that was being oppressed is given the same rights as their oppressors, their oppressors feel as though something is being taken from them.

              • corimaith

                10/17/2025

                You're taking the most charitable view of the underlying worldview of the progressive left and the most infernal view of the right. That's not epistemologically fair.

                There is a alot of performative contradiction being performed here, there's an evokation of post-structuralist assumptions when you critique the particularist structure of modern society that favours certain archetypes based on certain assumptions, but then your later statement about oppressors and oppressed itself is projecting a new framing that is prone to it's own dubious assumptions and favours certain archetypes (the oppressed). There isn't much actual concrete grounding of ethical values here, and that's ironically reflected in the fact that most people do have different opinions on the matter.

                But that's not a contradiction that progressivism can escape, because to provide a strong grounding to say "Racism is bad", you need to evoke from a universalist framework, one that empiricism or liberalism previously provided. But it is precisely the perceived arrogance to declare your values as universal when they emerged particularly from the West that is what is being critiqued in critical theory as Systemic Racism. Power + Prejudice.

                Well, the Left and Right does draw alot from the identity politics promulgated from the Nazi Philosopher Carl Schmitt. Did you know that he supported the Nazis from the basis of pluralism, that he was terrified of the rise of universalist, homogenous world state?

          • aredox

            10/16/2025

            [dead]

        • aredox

          10/15/2025

          [flagged]

• lunias

  10/16/2025

  I've observed the same, but it's not one sided. Journalism has become decidedly lowbrow as well. Almost every exchange plays out as an attack and a defense rather than a discussion in good faith seeking mutual understanding and compromise.

• 4ggr0

  10/14/2025

  [flagged]

  • ddddang

    10/14/2025

    [dead]

It's a great thing they are not backing down. Given how many institutions have complied in advance, we need as many exemplars of better behaviour as possible.

Economically this makes sense. Those companies that sign are relegated to essentially just republishing press releases, so there's little value in employing someone just to do that.

Can they sue, and if they do are they likely to win? My laymans gut feeling is they will lose because the constitution says nothing about the government being required to provide press access to facilities. However, if they allow access to one organization but not another seems there could be an argument that they're policing speech? Would be great to hear a more informed take.

• fnordpiglet

  10/14/2025

  Smarter, they just dont cover the propaganda from inside, they dig the truth from those inside.

  The media has been too lazy for too long printing press release from the government. This government has nothing to say but propaganda - I don’t even bother reading the government quotes any more. They are content free and self aggrandizing at a level of absurdity that would put North Korea to shame.

  There have been governments hostile to journalists in the past, and those are the governments with the most to lose when journalists dig into their work. I look forward to the investigative journalism of the next three years.

  • generic92034

    10/14/2025

    > I look forward to the investigative journalism of the next three years.

    So, who is owning the media publishing the investigative journalism? Will they risk shaking the grass, considering the powers that be?

    • djkoolaide

      10/14/2025

      404 Media is a great place to start.

      • aeon_ai

        10/14/2025

        [flagged]

        • snowwrestler

          10/14/2025

          I think their bias shows primarily in which stories and topics they choose to cover. But it seems like they do a good job finding and reporting facts in the stories they do choose to cover.

          It’s a good example of why people should seek out a broad mix of media sources. Pretty much every outlet is going to have a bias embodied in what they choose to cover.

          • aeon_ai

            10/14/2025

            I hesitate, because I don't disagree - They do find and report some very interesting information. They're not just "repeating" stuff others have found.

            However, their interpretation of facts is the bias I'm referring to, and in almost all cases I've seen, their reporting has a very visible prejudice.

            • phatskat

              10/17/2025

              > and in almost all cases I've seen, their reporting has a very visible prejudice.

              I would genuinely like to see some examples if you have any - I’m not necessarily taking a side either way, more curious.

        • wredcoll

          10/14/2025

          Any evidence of that?

      • yupyupyups

        10/14/2025

        paywalled

        • CubsFan1060

          10/14/2025

          Do you expect people to do investigative journalism for free?

        • yupyupyups

          10/15/2025

          Correction: Only some articles are. I thought everything was. If that was the case then you wouldn't really know what you're subscribing to. That was my initial objection, but the site seems to follow the lwn.net model. Mb.

        • robin_reala

          10/14/2025

          What’s wrong with that?

          • tyleo

            10/14/2025

            If anything it may be an improvement over ad driven models.

          • fn-mote

            10/14/2025

            The qualify of reporting …

  • Hnrobert42

    10/14/2025

    If they are unable to investigate by developing sources on the inside, how are they gonna do anything other than publish press releases?

    • fkyoureadthedoc

      10/14/2025

      Why would they be unable to develop sources on the inside? I don't think the pentagon press briefing area is where they would develop their sources regardless of being allowed in or not.

    • fnordpiglet

      10/14/2025

      The inside of the pentagon is probably the worst place to ascertain honest and damaging information about the government.

      The most famous of such sources, deep throat, refused to talk about information in the office or on the phone. Instead he would meet in an underground car garage.

      This seems imminently sensible if you are disclosing damaging information about powerful and dangerous people doing illegal or immoral things. You’re not going to chat about it in the hallways at the pentagon.

      In fact by creating an atmosphere of fear and paranoia through political persecution of the federal workforce they’re going to invite this sort of behavior. People are going to feel afraid and hide their beliefs but will need an outlet. The only reason to persecute people for their political beliefs and lock down transparency is to hide things that people unaligned to your ideology might disclose. They will still be there no matter what you do, they will just go underground in their behavior and take elaborate routes to tell what’s going on - and there will a lot to tell because it’s being hidden for a reason.

      The more they dismantle oversight the more violation of ethics and legal requirements will happen - there’s no reason to dismantle the oversight functions unless you have things to hide. The more outrageous it comes, the more flagrant, the more those with discontent and grievance will seek out the press. (Surely there are some people in the government unhappy with how they or their (former) coworkers have been treated by this administration).

      This is going to be the most spectacular case over over reach and hubris in our history and the blowout will be extraordinary as it unfolds and collapses around them, and I hope this will revitalize the independent press and investigative journalism - which frankly is not doing poorly already despite perception. There’s a lot of excellent outlets out there. And now increasingly major outlets are becoming independent of government influence once again.

  • 93po

    10/14/2025

    government and media are controlled by same class of people: billionaires.

• altacc

  10/14/2025

  It seems less about access and more about agreeing to the principle that publishing anything unapproved, or even asking anyone for more information than is not approved, is a national security risk and press privileges will be revoked if they do that. It's an attempt by the government to control what the press publishes through coercion, aka chilling.

• mpalmer

  10/14/2025

  > the constitution says nothing about the government being required to provide press access to facilities

  As with anything regarding the first amendment it's very fuzzy, which the administration is taking advantage of here.

  They got in hot water earlier this year because they explicitly denied the AP access to some White House event because of AP's editorial refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. That sort of singling out is definitely prohibited when it comes to restricting press access.

  Now they're learning a bit, and they're treating everyone the same (everyone has to sign the same thing). They're heating the frog more slowly.

  • lcnPylGDnU4H9OF

    10/14/2025

    > they're treating everyone the same (everyone has to sign the same thing)

    They're treating people who didn't sign the thing differently from people who did sign the thing. The thing doesn't have any legal basis; it was implemented only to create a dichotomy for discrimination.

    • mpalmer

      10/14/2025

      > They're treating people who didn't sign the thing differently from people who did sign the thing.

      That's not a thing. They can't require different things of different press organizations (arbitrary/capricious), or exclude orgs because of their speech (excluding the AP FOR calling it the Gulf of Mexico)

      Courts may find that this specific requirement of signing the policy is lawful, or no. But if everyone has to sign it, it's not arbitrary.

      • 10/14/2025

      • lcnPylGDnU4H9OF

        10/14/2025

        > But if everyone has to sign it, it's not arbitrary.

        I think you're misunderstanding my point. You are saying the request does not have arbitrary targets but I am saying the request itself is arbitrary. By this meaning, it would not be an arbitrary request to ask all of the reporters for their eye color but it would be arbitrary to deny access to green-eyed people.

        > exclude orgs because of their speech

        This is what they're planning to do to the organizations which choose not to sign it. Signing it (or not) is an act of expression. Choosing not to sign it would not be violating any law; there is no reason for them to be excluded. Perhaps there's a legal definition of "arbitrary" that I'm naive to but, by a plain English understanding, it's obviously arbitrary to deny access to the groups that didn't sign it based on their decision not to sign it, unless the requirement itself is not arbitrary.

        • mpalmer

          10/14/2025

          > Signing it (or not) is an act of expression

          And I myself am not a lawyer in the slightest, but this specific claim feels pretty iffy from a 1A standpoint.

          The government is not prohibited from setting rules for access to their facilities. If they apply rules unevenly, that is the sense of arbitrary that applies here. Arbitrary administration of rules, not arbitrary in the sense that someone finds the rule itself to be arbitrary.

          When rules are arbitrarily administered in a situation when constitutional rights are at issue, that is where the rubber the meets the road in a constitutional law sense. This goes (I believe) to the Equal Protection clause of the 14th amendment.

          If the courts allowed the government to deny a press org access (and thus suppress their speech) according to some obscure rule, while other press orgs that are technically violating the same rule continue to enjoy access, that creates an environment where the government has carte blanche to violate constitutional rights by creating subtle inequity in their admin of the rules.

          That they can make said rules is well-established - IF the rule itself is constitutional. That is a separate legal concern from the uneven admin scenario.

          What I'm saying up above is: this isn't uneven admin, less likely there are grounds for a 1A claim. Whether this signature requirement passes muster is entirely different, and I'm less informed on that part of the law. I certainly don't like it, though.

• bko

  10/14/2025

  > However, if they allow access to one organization but not another seems there could be an argument that they're policing speech?

  I think they would be allowing access to organizations that accept the procedures. Maybe you don't agree with the procedures, but it's no different than "I agree to the terms" required on pretty much every product you use.

  • ricardobeat

    10/14/2025

    If the terms on the product say your access might be revoked because you asked questions about their parent company, that’s illegal and should be contested.

    That said, this is entirely different – citizens have the right to know what is happening within all branches of the government, and not only via official press releases. Some level of transparency is a critical requirement for a functioning democracy (I understand the US might be a little past that point).

    • bko

      10/14/2025

      Where does it say that "your access might be revoked because you asked questions"? They're journalists, that's what they do.

      There's nowhere that says that a government has to give access to the grounds of a building. Did you feel as strongly when Biden gave no press conferences between November 2023 to July 2024? It's just silly to put your flag into the ground on this particular issue.

      • alphabettsy

        10/14/2025

        I think your argument is exceptionally silly as is the comparison to Biden not holding press conferences.

        The press had been access prior and the difference now is that they will lose access unless they agree to report what they’re told.

  • xethos

    10/14/2025

    > it's no different than "I agree to the terms" required on pretty much every product you use.

    And I'd have hoped that by now, consumers have learned that being in the ToS does not make something legal, let alone enforcable

• 10/14/2025

• terminalshort

  10/14/2025

  Either everyone as the right or no one does. If they can't exclude media orgs, then I get to go too.

Didn't expect to see Newsman on that list

• dragonwriter

  10/14/2025

  The only notable outlet that has stated it does intend to sign the new rules is One America News Network, the network for people that think that Fox News has excessive left-wing bias.

• platevoltage

  10/14/2025

  They believe the pendulum will swing the other way, which is honestly surprising.

• strathmeyer

  10/14/2025

  [dead]

All out assault on the press.

• themafia

  10/14/2025

  It's an assault on the truth and on the citizens. They clearly thought they could just buy the press. This even shows.. they were mostly correct in their assessment.

  • pjc50

    10/14/2025

    Large sections of the press actively supported this, at the behest of their owners: https://www.npr.org/2024/10/28/nx-s1-5168416/washington-post...

    (I keep joking that other countries have state controlled media, but in the West we have media-controlled states)

• calvinmorrison

  10/14/2025

  the press, the proxy of the elite and wealthy have waged an all out war on americans for decades. They've long lost their status as a 4th pillar of government and instead are complicit in a long list of crimes.

  by "The Press" we're not talking about newswriters but organizations who are large, evil, and morally bankrupt.

  Anyone is free to start up a paper and write what they please

  • tremon

    10/15/2025

    Great example of Newspeak you have there. "the press, the proxy of the elite and wealthy" will have no problem signing this, so this is not an attack on them. You even acknowledge this by saying

    > by "The Press" we're not talking about newswriters but organizations who are large, evil, and morally bankrupt

    So the logical conclusion must be that the GP meant something else than your self-serving redefinition. Yet, you still choose to attack the post as if it is completely wrong, and the attack on the press is fully justified?

    • calvinmorrison

      10/15/2025

      the press being attacked is a function of their complicity in crime

      • tremon

        10/15/2025

        Ah yes, the Oracle of Delphi defense. Always answer in riddles, so you can claim that people simply misunderstood what you were saying.

        • calvinmorrison

          10/15/2025

          riddle me this, who was complicit in perpetrating the lies in the invasion of Iraq. The fourth estate is dead. It does not protect safeguard democracy but erodes it.

          Vietnam, Iraq, Covid-19, financial crises, NSA mass surviellence, afghanistan, opioid crises, not to mention the endless 'pee gate' russiagate crap. Jussie smollet, hunter bidens laptop, the crushing of occupy, coverage of gamestop, AI panic slop about destroying jobs... it never ends

          narrative over truth, every time, without fail.

          • AlexeyBelov

            10/17/2025

            I doubt you're interested in the truth, since you think Russiagate was crap. With your comment history it's actually very clear that it's narrative over truth every time.

It honestly feels like they're trying to speedrun autocracy, but it's not clear to me the game plan here. Assuming the voting and election situation doesn't change, they won't be in office forever, possibly even the next term. They've just weakened oversight and standards of decency that surely they will be crying about later. To be honest it's exhausting just listening to the adults supposedly running the strongest country in the world like a Twitter trolling session.

• gcanyon

  10/14/2025

  They are planning to militarize the election.

  - they have the voter rolls - they are normalizing using the military domestically - they will "secure" the polling places against "voter fraud" and take the ballots to be "counted securely"

  This needs to be called out now, because the courts are slow to react and won't have time to do anything once it's happening.

• drumhead

  10/14/2025

  They're trying to wreck as much of the current governmental set us as they can do it'll almost impossible or very difficult to rebuild it. It's almost scorched earth, they think they're killing the "deep state"

  • jimbohn

    10/14/2025

    I think the "deep state" crusade assumes a sort of good faith that it's obviously lacking in this administration, judging their intent from their behavior and outcomes paints a much scarier picture.

    • ricardobeat

      10/14/2025

      You only need “good faith” from voters and supporters, the people in power know exactly what they are doing.

• raw_anon_1111

  10/14/2025

  But more than likely they will be. While the Presidency may turn, everything about how the US government works and how the population of the US is geared toward rural America having an outsized say in the federal government.

  Let’s start with Senate. Every state regardless of population gets 2 senators where South Dakota and North Dakota hace twice the number of Senators as California.

  While the House is not as bad, since left leaning voters are mostly in big cities, it’s easy to gerrymander and dilute their vote.

• esseph

  10/14/2025

  Dominion voting machines, the company falsely accused of rigging the election that also lead to the court case that got Tucker fired from Fox, were just acquired by a (R). This was to keep the elections Fair and Balanced.

  • actionfromafar

    10/14/2025

    "Fair and balanced" in the same way some animals are more equal than others? I could see that. Was this ever debunked by the way? https://michaeldsellers.substack.com/p/new-starlink-election...

    • dredmorbius

      10/14/2025

      The phrase was quoted with obvious and dripping irony.

    • inemesitaffia

      10/15/2025

      No need for debunking.

      Just ask anyone with a CCNP or equivalent

      Makes absolutely no sense

      • actionfromafar

        10/15/2025

        I don't think you can debunk this with a generic CCNP check. The concern is hacking, not normal network configurations.

        The Uninterruptible power supply (UPS) provider is Palantir.

        Tabulator Machine <- usb/serial -> UPS <- cell connection -> Internet.

        Not uncommon to run SNMP on a UPS either. SNMP is an unloved pile of bugs:

        https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/09/as-many-as-2-millio...

        I'm not saying anything nefarious actually happened. But as soon as you connect devices to the net in any way you are in deep water, especially when one or more of your vendors may be one of your threat actors.

        Complicated hacks are not common, but possible, especially when the stakes are high and competent people are on the task. Stuxnet development started 20 years ago - and the target was even airgapped, which didn't help the target in the end.

        • inemesitaffia

          10/15/2025

          Well, the devices weren't connected to the internet.

          QED

  • ta1243

    10/14/2025

    I don't understand why Americans require machines to count. Dumping the ballots into a room and having dozens of people counting them while under the watch of all sorts of interested parties scales perfectly well.

    For president you have a piece of paper with two boxes on. You don't even have ranked voting.

    Mark an X next to one and put it in a ballot box. Works fine everywhere else.

    • bilekas

      10/14/2025

      > I don't understand why Americans require machines to count.

      There's actually nothing wrong with machine counting, I believe it was found to be more accurate also overall less prone to fatigue and mistakes. [0]

      The real strange thing in the US is the electoral college system for Presidential elections, surely 1 person 1 vote nationwide would make sense. Afterall the President is supposed to represent everyone equally.

      [0] https://www.npr.org/2022/10/11/1128197774/research-finds-han...

      • jepj57

        10/14/2025

        It's because we are the United STATES of America.

        • wat10000

          10/14/2025

          A popular vote was seriously considered while drafting the Constitution for these United STATES. The founders didn’t seem to think it was a contradiction. They went with the current solution because it’s hard to count a slave as 3/5ths of a person with a national popular vote.

        • atwrk

          10/14/2025

          That's silly, most modern democracies are organized federally and don't have this issue.

          • dsr_

            10/14/2025

            Most modern democracies -- that's correct. Only the USA is organized this way.

            One might consider that later democracies learned from some of our mistakes.

    • lesuorac

      10/14/2025

      > For president you have a piece of paper with two boxes on.

      Are you not even 18 or have you never voted?

      Depending on your state there were about 20 candidates for president [1]. The fact that there's more than 2 has caused issues in the past where famously a candidate listed second on the ballot received a significant amount of votes in a county they were widely disliked [2].

      [1]: https://ballotpedia.org/Presidential_candidates,_2024

      [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidentia...

      • ta1243

        10/15/2025

        Fine

        Here's an electoral paper with 20 candidates.

        https://www.onlondon.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Screen...

        In this case it's even more complex as you get a second vote if your primary vote doesn't finish in the top two.

        Machines aren't needed

        • esseph

          10/17/2025

          > Machines aren't needed

          Wow.

          What happens if you do 3 counts and get 3 vastly different outcomes?

      • layer8

        10/14/2025

        GP isn’t American.

    • terminalshort

      10/14/2025

      That's not how it works everywhere else

      • iainmerrick

        10/14/2025

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting_by_country suggests that centralized electronic counting is somewhat common, electronic voting machines in polling places are uncommon.

        So I think it's reasonable to say that, to paraphrase the earlier comment, putting an X in a box on a piece of paper is how it's done in most of the world.

        It's true that the ballots aren't always counted by hand.

        • nobody9999

          10/14/2025

          >So I think it's reasonable to say that, to paraphrase the earlier comment, putting an X in a box on a piece of paper is how it's done in most of the world.

          >It's true that the ballots aren't always counted by hand.

          I can't speak for other jurisdictions (although I understand that this is pretty common in the US), but where I live (NY) we do exactly that. Well, instead of marking an 'X', we fill in an oval for each item on the ballot and that paper ballot is then scanned and counted.

          If there are issues or the vote is very close, as with most places, a recount is done, first by machine and, if necessary, by hand.

          How is this different from the rest of the world?

        • ta1243

          10/14/2025

          Very few countries do national elections electronically (the ones most subject to interference) electronically.

          Sure with paper systems you might be able to swing upto say 1% of the vote without being detected (probably more like 0.1%), anything more will involve too many people for a conspiracy to remain.

          With electronic you can swing 20% without blinking.

          Scaling is bad when it comes to voting.

          • bilekas

            10/14/2025

            > With electronic you can swing 20% without blinking.

            You're going to have to give some citations for that because all electronic votes are usually backed by a paper ballot.. I've not heard of 20%~ swing and getting away with it.

    • wqaatwt

      10/14/2025

      Because American ballots are massive?

      They vote for everything including the president and local school district board members and everything in between at the same time.

      • nobody9999

        10/14/2025

        >Because American ballots are massive?

        >They vote for everything including the president and local school district board members and everything in between at the same time.

        What's more, elections are managed/run at the county level, not at the state or Federal levels. As such, there isn't just one election in the US on election day. Rather, there are 3500+ elections, each with different ballots, different folks managing the elections and different sets of interested parties monitoring each of those 3500+ elections.

        While many offices are up for election every two or four or six years, not all of them fall on even-numbered years like the Federal elections.

        My state has state elections that happen in concert with Federal elections, but my local government does not. In fact, we're voting for mayor, City Council and every other elective city office in a few weeks, even though the federal and state elections aren't this year.

        Since elections are managed and run at the county level, there is little uniformity -- and less opportunity for widespread fraud.

      • pmyteh

        10/14/2025

        When there are multiple simultaneous elections happening in the UK you get multiple ballot papers - one per race. You then put them into separate ballot boxes. This obviously doesn't scale elegantly to the kind of ballots that go from President to dog-catcher, but you could certainly separate them into pink, blue, yellow, and white ballots and count in parallel.

        • wqaatwt

          10/14/2025

          Well.. yes it is indeed technically possible to count a large number of paper sheets by hand.

          • ta1243

            10/14/2025

            You don't have to use the same system for the higher risk ballots.

            A foreign state isn't going to spend millions trying to subvert the vote for the head of "Wyoming School Board 45".

            When I was at university our student elections were done on computer. 20 years ago. Nobody really cared about them, it was perfectly reasonable, you'd only have to bribe/threaten 3 people to make the result whatever you wanted.

            If you put the national election in the hands of 3 people though, then you have a major problem.

• Galanwe

  10/14/2025

  > it's not clear to me the game plan here. Assuming the voting and election situation doesn't change, they won't be in office forever

  I mean, they are in office right now, even though they already quite egregiously violated most laws in existence. It seems completely obvious to me there will be some kind of takeover for the next elections. Some new rules will be set in place that favor the current government.

  And the current US track record seems to prove that it'll work. There will be outraged news articles and comments on the internet, some protests, but ultimately it'll pass.

  • scottgg

    10/14/2025

    There’s quite some fresh gerrymandering going on, and because folks already “tolerate” this, it’s just incremental heat in the pot.

• orwin

  10/14/2025

  I remember a Cyberpunk setting where basically a corp bought the voting machines in a country, and suddenly all presidents of said country were top level executives of that corp. Which is why I smiled a little when 'Liberty vote' was announced.

• aredox

  10/14/2025

  >Assuming the voting and election situation doesn't change, they won't be in office forever, possibly even the next term.

  Trump pardoned all of the Jan 6th putchists.

  Trump ordered full military honor for Ashley Babbitt.

  Trump put openly said after meeting Putin that more than ever, he believes the 2020 elections were rigged.

  Trump appointed an election denier as the secretary for "Election Integrity".

  Trump appointed pure servile hacks as heads of FBI, CIA and Justice (I mean, Kash write a book with Trump as a king).

  Trump ordered 800 military brass to come to Quantico to be lectured about the "Enemy from within", turn American cities into military training grounds and that anyone that disappoints him will lose everything.

  I mean, how many more clues do you need, to admit the next election will be cancelled as soon as they lose? He literally said what he was going to do. And there has been no pushback, neither from the military nor parliamentarians.

  • bilekas

    10/14/2025

    > I mean, how many more clues do you need, to admit the next election will be cancelled as soon as they lose? He literally said what he was going to do. And there has been no pushback, neither from the military nor parliamentarians.

    I'm not saying it wouldn't be done if it was possible, but I am working off the current status quoa that exists now. And I wouldn't be so sure about a lack of military pushback if something like cancelling national elections was called.

    • nitwit005

      10/15/2025

      There isn't any need to fake all that much unless their popular support completly collapses. Claim Califoria's election was irregular, fudge some numbers, or just replace some electoral college delegates, and problem solved.

    • aredox

      10/14/2025

      It won't be cancelling national elections. It will be "suspending" a few local ones, enough to tilt the balance, and then using any excuse - e.g. "antifa", but any protest is enough - to escalate, to justify, progressively, a military clampdown.

      >I wouldn't be so sure about a lack of military pushback

      Again, Ashley Babbitt received full military honors for trying to overrun security at the Capitol to attack congressmen and women to overturn the election. That's what happened. Nobody has said anywhere in the military "it's wrong".

      The "status quo" is that the president, immune from any prosecution, is saying openly he is ready to use soldiers to shoot at American citizens when he gives the order, and anyone who disobeys will be fired.

      • wat10000

        10/14/2025

        Elections are essential for legitimacy these days. There’s something like three countries on the planet that don’t have elections. North Korea has elections.

        Inconvenience and intimidation will be used to discourage voters in opposition areas. Reasons will be found to discard ballots. Results will be challenged, reasons found to delay certification of unfavorable results until it’s too late.

        Imagine 2020, except done by smarter people who have had four years to think about how they’ll do it. And who have had four years to see that there are zero consequences for them even if they don’t succeed.

      • BeFlatXIII

        10/15/2025

        …and too many people talk about protesting harder instead of domestic terrorism.

  • bilekas

    10/14/2025

    Just came across this today too, seems related

    https://lite.cnn.com/2025/10/14/politics/voting-rights-act-s...

    • aredox

      10/14/2025

      And the gerrymandering, and changing the census, etc., etc.

Does anyone have a link to the actual rules/document they are asked to sign? I clicked on the "new rules" link in the article linked here, and it doesn't actually show all the rules.

While it's nice to see the reaction from one side, I'd like to be able to balance that against the actual text of the document myself.

• ndiddy

  10/14/2025

  Here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/09/20/us/pentagon-p...

  The most draconian new rule is that it bars the press from reporting any information unless they get it approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official. This would basically turn the press into a PR mouthpiece for the Dept of War.

  • rufus_foreman

    10/14/2025

    >> it bars the press from reporting any information unless they get it approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official

    No, the rules don't pertain to reporting any information, they pertain to unauthorized reporting of two specific classifications of information, "CNSI" (Classified National Security Information) and "CUI" (Controlled Unclassified Information). And they don't bar reporting the information, they say that someone who reports the information could lose their access to the Pentagon.

    CNSI is "information on the national defense and foreign relations of the United States, including information relating to defense against transnational terrorism, that has been determined pursuant to Executive Order 13526, or any predecessor order, to require protection against unauthorized disclosure and is marked to indicate its classified status when in documentary form".

    CUI is "unclassified information the United States Government creates or possesses that requires safeguarding or dissemination controls limiting its distribution to those with a lawful government purpose. CUI may not be released to the public absent further review.

    The DoD CUI Program, established through Executive Order 13556, standardizes the safeguarding of information across multiple categories. For example, CUI categories exist to protect Privacy Act information, attorney-client privileged information, and controlled technical information, among many others."

  • dragonwriter

    10/14/2025

    The Department of Defense is the legal name. The Department of War is a propaganda nickname.

    • 10/15/2025

    • xethos

      10/14/2025

      You've got that backwards. Originally stemming from the War Department, the "Department of Defense" is a cuddly name so Americans can feel better about, and potentially ignore, being warmongers.

      • dragonwriter

        10/15/2025

        > You've got that backwards

        No, I don't. The legal name of the Department headed by Pete Hegseth is the Department of Defense, and it is the only name that entity has ever had.

        > Originally stemming from the War Department

        This a somewhat popular myth, resurgent recently because it is expressly part of the narrative of the Trump Administration and therefore the MAGA cult, but its false. The Department of War is the predecessor of the modern Departments of the Army and Air Force which it was split into, not the Department of Defense, which was created ex nihilo to be placed over the existing military departments at the same time one of those department s was being split.

        Originally, the US (following the British model, which also persisted until just after WWII) had two separate defense edtablishments, the Department of War (responsible for the Army) and Department of the Navy (responsible for the Navy and Marine Corps); after WWII a combined defense establishment was created above those, but at the same time it was created, the Air Force was split off from the Army and the War Department was split into the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force, which is why the Department of Defense is the only cabinet level department with subordinate entities also called “departments”.

    • bigbadfeline

      10/14/2025

      Are you saying this illegal?

      https://www.war.gov

      • dragonwriter

        10/15/2025

        I am saying that it is not the legal name of the Department. As far as I know its not illegal to refer to it as the Department of War, the Fighty Bunch, or Bob, but it is weirdly unprofessional to just start calling givernment departments by random made up names that aren’t what they are specified as in law.

    • 10/14/2025

    • nrds

      10/14/2025

      [flagged]

      • wasabi991011

        10/14/2025

        Gulf of Mexico is the common name, used extensively by all types of people since the 17th century. The idea that this is a propaganda nickname is so absurd that I can only consider it a bold faced lie.

      • dragonwriter

        10/14/2025

        The Gulf of Mexico/America/etc. is not a creation of law, the Department of Defense is.

      • asacrowflies

        10/14/2025

        Far as I can tell that law has no real jurisdiction over that piece of geography. To steelman you stupid point... Only Americans should be calling it that lol.

  • psunavy03

    10/14/2025

    I'm sorry, I thought the Secretary of Defense looked down on people using preferred pronouns.

  • jjfoooo4

    10/14/2025

    > most draconian new rule

    aka the entire point of the exercise. The innocuous components are there so that the Dept of Defense can claim that it's those minor items the press is objecting to, without having to defend the actual substantive policy change.

This is a ruse and a manufactured 'much to do about nothing"... the real source of power in America is the CIA & associated Think Tanks and Wall Street law firms - not the Pentagon, especially as far as domestic policy is concerned.

Pentagon and the Media are owned and controlled by the same military-industrial complex and always agree to disagree with each other in public.

The real question who signed it?

• afavour

  10/14/2025

  OANN.

  • platevoltage

    10/14/2025

    OANN might as well be a high school newspaper at this point.

    • dragonwriter

      10/14/2025

      It might as well be an official propaganda arm of the dominant faction in the increasingly authoritarian regime of the most powerful nation on the planet, which is a bit more significant than a high school paper.

      • platevoltage

        10/14/2025

        I mean, that was hyperbole, but OANN isn’t even available on Comcast as far as I’m aware. I would LOVE it if this was the Republican party’s main propaganda arm.

        • dragonwriter

          10/14/2025

          Well, I said “an”, not “the main” for a reason, but OAN is:

          (1) after having been dropped form all major cable and satellite carriers, coming back since Trump came to power (picked up by Spectrum earlier this year, and given the administration openly favoring them and using licensing pressure to shape carrier decisions, that seems likely to spread) [0], and

          (2) under the Trump Administration, the source of news coverage for the literal government media (Voice of America.) [1]

          [0] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/herring-networks-an...

          [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/07/voice-americ...

    • mulmen

      10/14/2025

      Hey I was on the staff of my high school newspaper and we took our journalism very seriously.

      • platevoltage

        10/14/2025

        haha I have no doubt. I was mostly speaking about distribution, not quality. I'm sure a middle school newspaper would have more journalistic integrity than OANN.

        • 10/14/2025

  • jimt1234

    10/14/2025

    Wasn't OANN started by AT&T as a way to push propaganda favoring the corporation-friendly tax package in Trump's first term?

    • orochimaaru

      10/14/2025

      As an FCC regulated company AT&T is obligated to not discriminate in signing contracts. So AT&T (or the erstwhile DirecTV) cannot refuse OANN.

      It wasn’t started by AT&T.

    • JumpCrisscross

      10/14/2025

      > Wasn't OANN started by AT&T as a way to push propaganda favoring the corporation-friendly tax package in Trump's first term?

      "AT&T has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN, providing tens of millions of dollars in revenue," while "ninety percent of OAN’s revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms, including satellite broadcaster DirecTV, according to 2020 sworn testimony by an OAN accountant" [1].

      That said, there is no evidence this was done "to push propaganda favoring the corporation-friendly tax package in Trump's first term.” Simpler: they chased Fox, Newsmax et al's dollars.

      [1] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-onea...

If all they can parrot is the company line there's no point in having more than one press agency show up.

Just incorporate "propaganda inc" have them show up, then parrot the company line and no one else need bother show up. The other reporters can then spin that.

How absolutely cowardly the "Department of War" seems to be.

• ChiMan

  10/14/2025

  You know the weakness of man from a mile away by the verbosity and volume of his "toughness."

  • annexrichmond

    10/14/2025

    [flagged]

    • throwawaysleep

      10/14/2025

      And that historic peace deal in decades would be?

      The last ceasefire between Hamas and Israel was in 2021.

      • moogly

        10/14/2025

        It was in January this year and was broken by Israel in March.

      • pjc50

        10/14/2025

        I'm sure the next one will be in 2027.

      • annexrichmond

        10/15/2025

        This includes full Israeli withdrawal to a buffer zone, Rafah crossing reopening, and Hamas giving up weapons and control of Gaza, with US/Arab-funded rebuilding.

        If you don't understand the difference between now, and those events, then I can't help you.

    • JumpCrisscross

      10/14/2025

      > was aided by his "toughness", such as, you know, striking Iran

      Striking Iran didn't end hostilities in Gaza, Trump leaning on Egypt, Turkey and Qatar did [1]. (The Iran strikes might have worked because Hegseth was sidelined [2].)

      Hegseth is a wuss who couldn't cut it in the military. He's in place because he's loyal, probably compromised, and plays masculinity well on TV.

      [1] https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/a-coordinated-squeeze-...

      [2] https://newrepublic.com/post/197005/trump-iran-plans-hegseth...

      • actionfromafar

        10/14/2025

        A very kind of camp, drag masculinity.

      • annexrichmond

        10/15/2025

        I didn't say it directly ended, I said it was aided by.

        > "I think it really started when we took out the nuclear capability of Iran," Trump said, referring to the June strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites. "When you look at what they had, you couldn't have made this deal with someone sitting over there with a nuclear weapon over your head." [1]

        [1] https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-credits-iran-nuclear-...

    • platevoltage

      10/14/2025

      The last ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was in January of this year, before he took office, but yes, he's a special boy for actually doing his job.

    • 10/14/2025

The quantity and intensity of stupidity exhibited in the linked tweet thread is truly exasperating. They want freedom of speech for themselves and a neutered press.

> Do they believe they deserve unrestricted access to a highly classified military installation under the First Amendment?

Sounds like a real question from a real person.

• AdamN

  10/14/2025

  Nobody has unrestricted access right now so not sure what they're saying.

  • cosmicgadget

    10/14/2025

    [flagged]

• classified

  10/14/2025

  From TFA:

  Hegseth also reposted a question from a follower who asked, “Is this because they can’t roam the Pentagon freely? Do they believe they deserve unrestricted access to a highly classified military installation under the First Amendment?”

  Hegseth answered, “yes.” Reporters say neither of those assertions is true.

• 0xEF

  10/14/2025

  This is the type of dialogue we can continue to expect from people whose understanding of government and military operations comes from oorah films and delusions of grandeur.

https://archive.is/1PEdK

> Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reacted by posting the Times’ statement on X and adding a hand-waving emoji.

> Hegseth also reposted a question from a follower who asked, “Is this because they can’t roam the Pentagon freely? Do they believe they deserve unrestricted access to a highly classified military installation under the First Amendment?”

> Hegseth answered, “yes.”

I know this is old man yelling at the clouds these days but good lord if we could have government officials that aren't terminally online...

• tombert

  10/14/2025

  All I want from politicians, and by this I mean literally all I want at this point, is my politicians to be smarter than me. That's really not that hard, I'm not that smart, this isn't an unrealistic bar for politicians to cross.

  I can say with some confidence that an alcoholic Fox News talk show host is not smarter than me.

  • sdesol

    10/14/2025

    > all I want at this point, is my politicians to be smarter than me

    I don't care if they are smarter than me. I need them to be smart enough to know they are not that smart. I don't expect politicians to be smart. I expect them to be good listeners and be the voice for the people.

    • NL807

      10/14/2025

      > I don't expect politicians to be smart. I expect them to be good listeners and be the voice for the people.

      I want both. I want them to be smart -- not necessarily domain expert smart, but reasonably smart with making life changing decisions for everyone. And base those decisions on recommendations made by domain experts.

  • omnimus

    10/14/2025

    I live in non english european country. One of our problems is that huge number of our politicians (including foreign affairs ministry etc.) can't speak english. Education is not bad here. You have to have pretty high level english to pass any university. I mean many bars wont give you a job without passing english interview.

    But if you want to do international politics its fine because politicians don't have any formal requirements.

    So next time you see EU parlament footage where people have speeches in their native language… it's not out of national pride or respect. It's simply because many of them couldn't do it otherwise.

    • qart

      10/14/2025

      I live in India. Nearly all parties appoint literal thugs as ministers. Let alone English literacy and fluency, they are not even competent in their own language. Here we have a minister of Kannada & Culture, whose first language is Kannada, struggling to write a common word in Kannada: https://x.com/tulunadregion/status/1886675464221286414

      > I mean many bars wont give you a job without passing english interview.

      We have a very similar situation in India. But ministers (and their supporters) now take perverse pride in not being good at English. They use our brief British rule as a scapegoat for half the things that are wrong with India. The other half is blamed on Mughal rule.

    • 10/14/2025

  • geeunits

    10/14/2025

    The unfortunate reality is that the smartest people avoid politics.

    • generic92034

      10/14/2025

      Lately they also seem to avoid science, to some degree. So, what occupation do they choose, in these days?

      • eep_social

        10/14/2025

        finance and tech or wherever the money is best

  • platevoltage

    10/14/2025

    He was actually just the weekend guy too. Just imagine, we could have had the weekday guy who said homeless people should be executed the other day.

  • petesergeant

    10/14/2025

    > All I want from politicians, and by this I mean literally all I want at this point, is my politicians to be smarter than me

    ... why? Ted Cruz is almost certainly smarter than almost all of us, and I do not want Ted Cruz to be a politician. Boris Johnson is exceptionally gifted, and Never Again. Rishi Sunak's as sharp a guy as you're likely to meet, but as the Economist noted, rarely met a bad idea he didn't warm to. You're giving a weird halo effect to intelligence.

    • tombert

      10/14/2025

      Ted Cruz said that Galileo was persecuted because he claimed that the earth isn’t flat, and used that as justification about denying climate change. This is a lie at best, but more likely just idiocy because he never paid attention in history classes.

      I do not agree that Ted Cruz is smarter than nearly all of us.

      I guess I just want politicians who can make the most basic logical inferences and do the most rudimentary reasoning, and importantly it would be great to have politicians who don’t think that they already know everything.

      • petesergeant

        10/15/2025

        > I do not agree that Ted Cruz is smarter than nearly all of us

        One of his Harvard Law Professors called him “off-the-charts brilliant”, and he won several national level debate challenges, so I suspect we’re working off such significantly different world views here as to preclude any reasonable discussion on this point.

  • nebula8804

    10/14/2025

    >I can say with some confidence that an alcoholic Fox News talk show host is not smarter than me.

    Well he was valedictorian at his high school and graduated from Princeton University. I wonder if the Pete Hegseth from Princeton is the same Pete Hegseth today. I don't know, maybe he got messed up somehow during one of his three tours overseas serving in the military.

    • tombert

      10/14/2025

      Valedictorian means something, but going to Princeton doesn’t. There are plenty of morons who manage to graduate from Ivy League schools, I have met lots of them. I can guarantee you that there is at least one politician that you think is an idiot that graduated from an Ivy League.

      He might have been a genius at one point (though I doubt it), but I do not think that a Fox News host who brags about never washing his hands [1] is smart. Maybe drinking messed up his brain.

      [1] https://youtube.com/shorts/eQI7n_48AY4?si=V5OTOS3uo7GEH8iv

      • nebula8804

        10/14/2025

        Yes I know about elites who went to Ivy Leagues. Hell Bush Jr. went to Harvard.

        But looking at Hegseth's family history (Father was a basketball coach, Mother was a "executive business coach") maybe they were upper middle class but definitely not elite so I suspect that his academic credentials played a major role in his admission and not any monetary contribution.

        >He might have been a genius at one point (though I doubt it), but I do not think that a Fox News host who brags about never washing his hands [1] is smart. Maybe drinking messed up his brain.

        Hence why I wondered if he got "damaged" in some way during his military career(three tours overseas, one at Gitmo).

        On a side note: I find it absurd that people are mass downvoting something that is literally just one google search.

    • mcphage

      10/14/2025

      Years of alcoholism does damage to your entire body.

    • zimpenfish

      10/14/2025

      > Well he was valedictorian at his high school

      Without knowing the criteria (as best I know, it's not just based on academic excellence but other things like sports[0] and extracurriculars), it's not much of a claim.

      [0] Hegseth was a leading basketball and football player for Princeton.

      • nkurz

        10/14/2025

        In the US, the valedictorian of a high school is typically the person with highest academic grade point average. I've never heard of it considering sports participation, although Wikipedia does suggest that sometimes extra-curriculars are now being considered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valedictorian. But given his age and absent outside information, I think the fair assumption is that he won because he had the best grades in his courses.

      • nebula8804

        10/14/2025

        Others have explained what Valedictorian means: highest class rank based on academic marks. His father was a basektball coach, mother was a "executive business coach" so likely middle class to upper middle class. That excludes making large monetary contributions to gain admissions (ex. Bush Jr.)

        It really seems like his admission to Princeton was based on a combination of excellent academic performance combined with his athletic ability which is often a boost for applications in competitive schools like Princeton.

    • nkurz

      10/15/2025

      Not that it's definitive, but here's a link to Hegseth's Harvard Kennedy School thesis that he wrote for his Master in Public Policy:

      https://embed.documentcloud.org/documents/26184649-hegseth

      I haven't read it closely, but at a glance, it does look like someone much more capable of thought than the persona he's adopted today.

• pjc50

  10/14/2025

  Terminally online journos and terminally online voters got them there.

  It's remarkable how toxic that kind of social interaction turned out to be.

This will likely be an unpopular opinion, but American press outlets could stand to be a little less close to the Pentagon. They were given this access for a reason that was useful to the DoD / war department, which is something the Trump administration seems not to understand.

I feel like the GOP will eventually just have their own news media wing that will have exclusives to all their pressers. (And no, it won't be Fox News). They'll call it something similar to TruthSocial / Pravda. It's from the old Soviet playbook.

• Muromec

  10/14/2025

  Pravda is a generic name for newspapers, like "Times" is in Anglophone workd.

  Ketamine abuser even tried to buy pravda.com, but you all was spared coz its used by Ukraian Pravda. Which is (was) not very aligned with the establishent to say the least.

  • yencabulator

    10/18/2025

    Both meanings can be true at the same time. It's literally the word "truth" and used by many papers, but it's also the specific official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda_(disambiguation)

• piker

  10/14/2025

  I had understood that Newsmax was part of that hypothetical system. Interesting they’re even taking a stand here.

• gdulli

  10/14/2025

  Look up "Jeff Gannon talon news"

[flagged]

[flagged]

[flagged]

• simonw

  10/14/2025

  No.

  From https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/new-policy-access-...

  > The new policy says that Defense Department information “must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if unclassified.”

  • ap99

    10/14/2025

    Seems reasonable to me.

    • simonw

      10/14/2025

      It's not. Agreeing to that is not journalism, it's signing up to be the propaganda arm of an administration.

      If it is indeed "reasonable" what's your theory for why so many news organizations are refusing to agree to it?

• arthurofbabylon

  10/14/2025

  > "That's the rule, right?"

  Seriously? The compulsion towards obsequiousness is incredible. Some members of our public will twist themselves into knots just to obey, even when they are not asked. (I genuinely wonder if the current bout of obsessive political obedience is a fetish.)

• platevoltage

  10/14/2025

  We should only know what the government wants us to know.

  That’s what you want, right?

Why are we reading this from the AP-- clearly a member of the conflict --instead of a neutral party? Does anyone have a neutral source?

• platevoltage

  10/14/2025

  You’ve got to be kidding. Standing up to the president automatically makes you a biased source?

• aredox

  10/14/2025

  This is a reporting of the facts, not an opinion piece.

About effing time! Anyone else have a security clearance? It's ridiculous that on the front page of literally every major newspaper there are least a handful of examples of felonious leaks of literally Confidential military intelligence from "unnamed sources". Literally each instance of that is a potential & likely felony.

Those leakers are committing actual crimes. People here need a healthy dose of reality.

• platevoltage

  10/14/2025

  We have a right to know what our tax money is being used for.

To be fair modern media companies (virtually every single one of them) has long been a weapon in someone’s hands.

Only idiot these days really goes to bbc or whatever your acronym of choice for “the truth”.

They all push some sort of agenda down our throats and already lick ass to some authority or sponsor. What difference does it make if they got just +1 little constraint.