They do have a large air base in Murmansk oblast, but this doesn’t seem to be it. Wondering what got hit.

I initially read Elmo as Elon Musk, I was confused why you hate Musk specifically as someone who’s kid used to be a toddler.

I wonder if this fellow thought he would end up like this when he was partaking in the plans for the full scale invasion in late 21/22.

Hopefully, we will be able to take out many more of the senior russian scum.

Twitter seems to be in (early phases) of a terminal decline. Advertisers (in the US?) might try to suck up to Musk for political reasons but at the end of the day they want a return on marketing spend.

Getting government services and public institutions off Twitter is a good initiative. Albeit in many countries, Twitter never really had the same impact as in the US. Where I live, Telegram is the source for notifications, updates and news.

Some of Musk’s products already have a stigma attached to them. Considering Musk’s degeneracy seems to be accelerating, I will speculate this will only get worse.

The people who are not comfortable with Musk and his plutocracy have left or will eventually leave his companies. The rest don’t care and arguably their attitude is part of the problem as well.

It will likely take a rather significant change in social attitudes (in the US, but not only) towards oligarchs and corruption to make Musk and other oligarchs take responsibility for their actions and to send them to jail.

The above-mentioned point will take time and if anything it looks like it’s only going to get worse (global rise of right wing movements supporting corruption and oligarchs). The silver lining is that eventually such systems start to implode due to their internal contradictions. Our current institutions (political, regulatory, economic, social) are simply not suited to the complexity and global nature of modern business, the externalities inherent to the information age and the challenges of our time. “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters.” I don’t intend to defeatist, on the contrary, I am pointing out that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It just might take a lot of time (and suffering) to get there.

I try to. I will admit, it can be difficult.

Anything specific you are referring to?

It’s honestly too bad he is not in his 40s. At the risk of being overly presumptuous, I will speculate that he would be a good leader for the US and the “free world”.

As someone not from the US (but who has lived/worked/studied in the US), Sanders seems like the only member of the US upper house that is willing to speak honestly and engage in haram speech that goes against local provincial orthodoxy.

I was particularly intrigued by an article that claimed that Sanders was the only “outsider” in the US upper house and that all other senators were more or less on friendly terms (with the implication being that their polemics are a ruse). Unfortunately I can’t find the article.

As a Ukrainian, this meme hits very hard.

Elmo “Pedoguy” Musk.

That’s a bridge too far for them, especially with particularly oligarch friendly policies of the incoming US administration.

Tim Apple: “It’s so vibrant and so dynamic here … I think China is really opening up.”

Too little, too late as usual.

I do follow this issue, but how is this US-internal topic relevant to the fediverse community?

I say this as someone who opposes oligarchs and has a rather critical attitude towards local perceptions of corruption in the US.

Unless there is any additional info, I think it’s a bit of a conspiracy theory to assume involvement from openAI. They are clearly malicious and dishonest, but that doesn’t mean one should just make things up. Furthermore, US oligarchs historically avoid getting their hands dirty (for most of the part, there are of course exceptions).

Plausible deniability.

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2021/08/the-irrational-fear-of-russia

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2022/03/is-russian-brutality-toward-civilians-actually-unique

Fucker doesn’t even speak russian or Ukrainian and has almost certainly never lived in russia or Ukraine (I would be surprised if he has even visited). And yet he speaks of “Russo-Orientalism”? Come on…

His magazine also directly parrots russian propaganda:

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2022/10/why-did-russia-launch-this-catastrophic-war

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2022/05/how-the-war-in-ukraine-can-be-ended

As someone who lives in Ukraine (I am Ukrainian), has lived in russia and the US and speaks the local languages, his takes are horrendous.

I do hope one day, Nathan Robinson, Anatol Lieven and Thomas Moller-Nielsen meet the same fate as “Donbas cowboy” Russell Bentley.

Bentley, 64, was a fixture in the low-level Russian incursion in Ukraine dating back to 2014. Calling himself the Donbas Cowboy, Bentley became a popular figure on Russian propaganda networks for his criticism of the U.S. government.

Bentley, whose military call sign was Texas, went missing in Donetsk in April.

According to the Investigative Committee, Vansyatsky, Agaltsev, and Iordanov tortured Bentley on April 8, and he died shortly afterward.

Vansyatsky and Agaltsev are suspected of blowing up a car with Bentley’s body in it and ordering Bazhin to get rid of what was left of his remains.

The NYT op-ed is a fascinating read. Very much in the style US oligarchs. Pompous, but still trying to be folksy. Dishonest, but with an attempt to enable plausible deniability.

a brilliant, kind man who was working to make health care better for everyone.

If that was Thompson’s goal, he wouldn’t be working for a US health insurance company.

We understand and share the desire to build a health care system that works better for everyone. That is the purpose of our organization.

This is clearly false. This a for profit corporation.

I wonder what the goal of this piece is?

Don’t get me wrong, I recognize it’s a solid instance and I am going to continue engaging in their communities.

Just the admin reaction was a bit strange. I think mods/admins need to try and take a neutral position as much as possible (exceptions notwithstanding).

Why nearly? They are just as bad, if not worse.

That thread is wild. I had no clue slrpunk was like that (I only go to some non-political communities on slrpunk).