United States | News & Politics

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/37874537

Lunar landing reality distortion field slips for Musk's rocketeers

President Donald Trump's pick to lead an office charged with protecting whistleblowers appears to be in jeopardy.

SNAP recipients receive an average of about $188 per person per month, or about $6 per day

The Party of ~~Free Speech~~ Snowflakes is at it again. Despite Charlie Kirk not actually being a member of the administration or, indeed, a political leader of any sort, the Trump Administration continues to act as though one of its own has been assassinated, rather than just another podcaster who happened to be more popular (for all the wrong reasons) than most.

Justice Department, under the Biden administration, investigated Trump for mishandling classified documents

Changes to TikTok's policies make it easier for the company to share users’ personal information with governments. TikTok did not respond to questions about the changes.

Archived version: https://archive.is/20251021193950/https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2025/10/21/tiktok-wont-say-if-its-giving-ice-your-data/

Progressive challenger Saikat Chakrabarti faced stone-faced stares and laughter on CNN when discussing Trump's memo declaring war on political opponents. CNN shut down the conversation, but the NSPM-7 dam is breaking in the media. #NSPM7

Americans are rejecting the national security state

Jeffrey Epstein had multiple appointments, phone calls and dinners with Matthew Menchel — the Miami U.S. Attorney’s office chief criminal prosecutor who spearheaded Epstein’s sweetheart deal in 2007, newly released documents show.

A tranche of over 8,500 pages of records from Epstein’s estate — released by the House Oversight Committee Friday — show that Epstein’s calendars and emails reflect that Menchel, who left the DOJ in 2007, had multiple meetings or dinners with Epstein in 2011, 2013 and 2017. Lawmakers also referred to a photograph of Menchel on a ski trip with Epstein sometime in the 2000s, but didn’t produce the photo.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s pick to lead an office charged with protecting federal whistleblowers appeared to be in jeopardy on Tuesday after Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he hoped the White House would withdraw the nomination.

The growing opposition to Paul Ingrassia comes after a Politico report of a text chat that showed him saying the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday should be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell.” Ingrassia also described himself in the chat as having “a Nazi streak” at times.

“He’s not going to pass,” Thune told reporters.

Two Republicans who serve on the committee with jurisdiction over the nomination for the Office of Special Counsel job, Sens. Rick Scott of Florida and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, said they do not support Ingrassia’s confirmation.

The Trump White House joined Bluesky in October 2025, quickly becoming the platform's second most-blocked account with over 92,000 blocks, trailing only Vice President JD Vance who has accumulated 166,000 blocks since June[^1].

The White House's debut post featured a 52-second video montage of President Trump's "greatest hits" since returning to office, including clips mocking political opponents[^2]. The administration's arrival on Bluesky was particularly notable as the platform had become a haven for Trump critics and left-leaning users who fled X (formerly Twitter) after the 2024 election[^2].

For comparison, Bluesky's most followed accounts paint a different picture of the platform's user base:

• Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: 2.17 million followers
• Mark Cuban: 1.49 million followers
• Mark Hamill: 1.31 million followers[^1]

[^1]: Yahoo News - The White House Joins BlueSky and Instantly Becomes the 2nd-Most Blocked Account — After JD Vance

[^2]: HuffPost - Trump White House Joins Bluesky And Instantly Earns A Very Dubious Distinction

Sounds like Warner Bros. Discovery is for sale after all.

Amid swirling reports of bidding interest by Paramount Global, the WBD board of directors says is it “has initiated a review of strategic alternatives to maximize shareholder value.” That’s the first acknowledgement of a (metaphorical) “For Sale” sign hanging from the iconic WB water tower.

At this point, I can't see how any company could do worse than these fuckers who took away Final Space. Bastards.

The reason that the so-called booming economy feels like a complete lie to most people is because the economy is bifurcated. There’s the economy for the rich, which is absolutely soaring, and the economy for everyone else, which is basically in a recession. The scary part is that the entire illusion of national prosperity is being propped up by one of the biggest financial bubbles we have ever seen.

This all starts with a deep split. The spending of the wealthiest 10% of Americans now makes up one third of the entire country’s GDP. They are responsible for nearly half of all consumer spending. Meanwhile, for the vast majority, things feel stagnant because they are. The national GDP number is a mathematical trick, buoyed by a few powerhouse states, while regions representing nearly a third of the nation’s economic output, like the Rust Belt, are in or near a recession. The reason for this divide is simple. The stock market gains you hear about on the news only benefit a tiny slice of the population. The top one percent own half of all stocks. The top ten percent collectively own nearly ninety percent. The bottom half of the country owns just one percent. So when the market hits a new high, it is overwhelmingly just the rich getting richer.

Now, let’s talk about that bubble. By the classic Buffett Indicator, which compares the total stock market value to the size of the economy, the US is in unprecedented territory. This indicator is now over 219%. To put that in perspective, it was only 138% at the peak of the dotCom bubble and 105% before the 2008 crash. This is the largest stock market bubble in US history.

But the real insanity is what’s inside this bubble. The market is being carried by a handful of tech companies, often called the Ten Titans. These ten firms represent just a tiny fraction of all public companies, yet they make up over 30% of the entire US stock market’s value. In recent months, they alone were responsible for over half of all market growth. The entire system is dangerously concentrated in a few names. The fuel for this run up is the artificial intelligence boom. But now, even the leaders of the AI revolution admit it is a bubble. Furthermore, recent studies show that 95% of corporate AI projects are failing, and the rest are making very little money. It is pure speculation that's driving this frenzy.

The most critical part of this story is that this AI bubble is now masking a severe weakness in the real economy. The overall GDP growth number for 2025 looks okay, but a deeper look paints a different picture. One analysis found that investment in AI and information processing, a sector that is only 4% of the economy, accounted for a staggering 92% of all GDP growth in the first half of the year. Without the sugar rush of AI spending, the rest of the US economy grew at a near flat rate of just 0.1%. The real economy for most Americans is already on life support, and the AI bubble is the ventilator.

This sets up a perfect storm for stagflation, meaning a stagnant economy combined with persistent inflation. Prices remain high due to supply chain issues and trade policies, while the real economy struggles. To make matters worse, the AI boom is actively making inflation worse by consuming enormous amounts of electricity and driving up power costs for everyone. So we are left with a terrifying situation. A historic bubble concentrated in a few tech stocks is creating a mirage of prosperity, hiding a recession that most people are already living through. Everyone will suffer when this bubble inevitably pops.

Oregon’s attorney general, Dan Rayfield, said that Trump’s [National Guard] deployment was unlawful. Portland had neither seen a foreign invasion nor sprawling anarchy – rather, there was one minor protest outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Portland.

“Let’s be clear, local law enforcement has this under control,” [Oregon governor] Kotek also said. “We have free speech demonstrations that are happening near one federal facility. Portland police is actively engaged in managing those with the federal folks at the facility, and when people cross the line, there’s unlawful activity, people are being held accountable.”

The Central Intelligence Agency is providing the bulk of the intelligence used to carry out the controversial lethal air strikes by the Trump administration against small, fast-going boats in the Caribbean Sea suspected of carrying drugs from Venezuela, according to three sources familiar with the operations.

Experts say the agency’s central role means much of the evidence used to select which alleged smugglers to kill on the open sea will almost certainly remain secret.

Information the agency gathers against any of the alleged smugglers – dead or alive – is likely to remain classified and out of public view. That is in spite of the worldwide public interest and debate over the killing of civilians.

The agency’s intelligence, unlike information gathered by the DEA or the Coast Guard, which used to handle maritime interdiction operations against smugglers, is not designed as legal evidence.

Virginia Giuffre's posthumous book has revealed her grief at not being allowed to testify against Ghislaine Maxwell because her narrative was seen as too complicated for the jury: "I'd named so many names."

Nobody's Girl, published Tuesday by Knopf, gives the most detailed account yet of Giuffre's life, her abuse at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein, her allegations against Prince Andrew and her battle for justice through the U.S. civil courts.

But she also describes her response to not being called as a witness in the sex trafficking trial that saw Epstein's ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell jailed for her role in facilitating Epstein's campaign of abuse.

Giuffre died in Australia in April after what her family described as a suicide. Knopf said she had made it clear she wanted the book to be released.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/37650684

A new photo showing the partially demolished East Wing of the White House began circulating widely on social media Monday afternoon, as plans move forward for Donald Trump's new $250 million ballroom.

The Washington Post first reported the news of the demolition, saying that constructions crews were using a backhoe to rip through and demolish a portion of the White House's East Wing. The publication included a photo with its report, which was quickly shared by social media users, some of whom used the image to criticize the president.

"Donald Trump is now officially demolishing part of the White House to make room for his $200 million golden ballroom. This comes as Americans can’t afford groceries and the government is still shut down," podcaster Bryan Tyler Cohen wrote on X, sharing the photo.

Senate Democrats on Monday rejected a GOP-led stopgap funding bill for the 11th time as the shutdown heads into its fourth week.

Senators voted 50-43 on the House-passed bill, which would fund the government through Nov. 21. Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine were the only senators who broke rank to vote to advance the bill. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) did not vote.