The Many Faces of US Politics...

[J70]

I see potential J1 students are being warned about their socil media accounts.

Agents at the airports can check their phones for anti Trump etc. support and good chance they'll not be allowed in.

Big Brother is watching.

This kind of stuff will destroy the US tourist economy.

I live here, but I would not recommend anyone visit the US the way things have turned. You'd probably be fine, but you just never know, which I guess is their whole point. Scare people into staying away or leaving, with the fear of being randomly targeted for disappearance based on a tatoo or a meme in your phone, just like they tried to do when they stole kids from asylum seeking parents in 2018.

The US have been checking social media accounts for years. This is not a Trump thing. Someone i know got a notification on Linkedin- "department of homeland security have viewed your profile". This was before an entry visa was approved. This was in the Biden years, not Trump.
Bit of clutching of pearls here from some people. If you don't tweet "death to America" all the live long day you've nothing to worry about.

Sorry, didn't see this before now.

I disagree. As I said, you'll probably be fine, but the issue is the complete unpredictability of the targeting they're doing, the fact that CBP officers are looking through people's phones at immigration, the "mistakes" they're making when arresting and disappearing innocent people ( and then abandoning them), and the fact that they're pushing the notion that US citizens could be put through their ringer. Just this morning Bondi is claiming that ICE officers can now bust into your house without a warrant if they "suspect" someone is in there. This is full on authoritarianism.

[seafoid]

I see potential J1 students are being warned about their socil media accounts.

Agents at the airports can check their phones for anti Trump etc. support and good chance they'll not be allowed in.

Big Brother is watching.

This kind of stuff will destroy the US tourist economy.

I live here, but I would not recommend anyone visit the US the way things have turned. You'd probably be fine, but you just never know, which I guess is their whole point. Scare people into staying away or leaving, with the fear of being randomly targeted for disappearance based on a tatoo or a meme in your phone, just like they tried to do when they stole kids from asylum seeking parents in 2018.

The US have been checking social media accounts for years. This is not a Trump thing. Someone i know got a notification on Linkedin- "department of homeland security have viewed your profile". This was before an entry visa was approved. This was in the Biden years, not Trump.
Bit of clutching of pearls here from some people. If you don't tweet "death to America" all the live long day you've nothing to worry about.

Sorry, didn't see this before now.

I disagree. As I said, you'll probably be fine, but the issue is the complete unpredictability of the targeting they're doing, the fact that CBP officers are looking through people's phones at immigration, the "mistakes" they're making when arresting and disappearing innocent people ( and then abandoning them), and the fact that they're pushing the notion that US citizens could be put through their ringer. Just this morning Bondi is claiming that ICE officers can now bust into your house without a warrant if they "suspect" someone is in there. This is full on authoritarianism.

Bondi is dangerous. More authoritarianism with the guy who was sent to El Salvador

https://www.ft.com/content/4c4b0f14-3e85-4436-94de-204d3f518f3c

At around noon on April 14 2025, America ceased to have a law-abiding government. Some would argue that had already happened on January 20, when Donald Trump was inaugurated. On Monday, however, Trump chose to ignore a 9-0 Supreme Court ruling to repatriate an illegally deported man.
El Salvador's vigilante president Nayib Bukele plays host to what resembles an embryonic US gulag. All baselessly agreed that Garcia was in fact a terrorist. The Oval Office drama offered a civics lesson to the world: America's government pays greater respect to a foreign strongman than its own Supreme Court. T 

[gallsman]

Good to see ICE sorting out these criminal aliens.

Irish woman living in US for decades detained by immigration officials https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/28/irish-woman-cliona-ward-us-detained-immigration?CMP=share_btn_url

[Milltown Row2]

Good to see ICE sorting out these criminal aliens.

Irish woman living in US for decades detained by immigration officials https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/28/irish-woman-cliona-ward-us-detained-immigration?CMP=share_btn_url

Whitey probably grassed her out

[Rossfan]

Has whitey been locked up or "disappeared"?

[Milltown Row2]

Has whitey been locked up or "disappeared"?

Took himself off

[dec]

The 51st state is electing a new government today

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/livestory/canada-election-voters-across-the-country-casting-ballots-to-elect-45th-parliament-9.6738893

The current government, the Liberals, were getting hammered, until Trump decided to stick his oar in, now it looks like they will end up as the biggest party.

[seafoid]

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   https://www.ft.com/content/75f358e2-1802-4c7f-9b74-9c42af2bdeb4

https://www.ft.com/content/75f358e2-1802-4c7f-9b74-9c42af2bdeb4
Now, consider what is happening under the Trump regime: attempts to transform the rule of law into an instrument of vengeance; the dismantling of the US government; contempt for the laws that are the foundation of legitimate government; attacks on scientific research and the independence of the great US universities; wars on reliable statistics; hostility towards immigrants (and not just illegal ones), even though they have been the foundations of US success in every generation; an outright repudiation of medical science and climate science; an outright rejection of the most basic ideas in the economics of trade; an equivalence or (far worse than that) preference for Vladimir Putin, the tyrant of Russia, over Volodymyr Zelenskyy, leader of democratic Ukraine; and open contempt for the array of alliances and institutions of co-operation upon which the US-built global order rests. All this is at the hands of a political movement that has embraced the January 2021 insurrection.

[J70]

That poisonous press secretary flipped out today and start banging on about Biden when asked about the story that Amazon were going to start itemizing the tariff portion of their prices.

Amazon of course denied it, but that's kind of beside the point, which is that they don't want people, whom they consider to be very stupid (and justifiably so in case of much of their support), realizing that the rising prices of these products may be down to the tariffs that they inflicted on everyone by choice.

[trileacman]

Fair play to Bezos. I always liked him.

[Jell 0 Biafra]

Hearing they backed down on that (amazon, that is). 

What's to like about Bezos, btw?

[trileacman]

Hearing they backed down on that (amazon, that is). 

What's to like about Bezos, btw?

Self made billionaire. Father was a drunk he never met, mother had him when she was 17, raised him alone whilst living in her parents house.  she met a Cuban immigrant, Miguel Bezos, who arrived in America at 16 without a word of English. they met at night-school, got married and he adopted her son. Jeff Bezos talks very kindly about his stepfather.

Not like he made his money fracking or selling guns to Nigeria. He started an online bookstore in the 90s and grew it from there. It was an opportunity available to literally thousands of people. He took it and fair play to him.

And they didn't back down. They leaked the idea that they could make a very punishing move against Trump. I don't think they ever intended to go ahead with it it's merely a shot across Trumps bows. A threat of what Amazon can do to the public perception towards Trumps tariffs.

As celebrity billionaires go he's as normal as they come. That doesn't say much mind but still. In a world full of MBS, Trump, Abrahamovich, Ratcliffes and Musks I'd rather have Bezos.

[Jell 0 Biafra]

Well, to give the other side...

Crap to his employees
Strikebreaker
Cravenly not endorsing a Presidential candidate for the Washington Post
 

Glad to hear I was misinformed about Amazon's backing down though

[Gabriel_Hurl]

Time for someone to step in

https://bsky.app/profile/esghound.com/post/3lnyliewguc2t

[DrinkingHarp]

Time for someone to step in

https://bsky.app/profile/esghound.com/post/3lnyliewguc2t

reminds me of this:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/06/politics/trump-sharpie-hurricane-dorian-alabama/index.html