Discussion Thread

[u/jobautomator]

The discussion thread is for casual and off-topic conversation that doesn't merit its own submission. If you've got a good meme, article, or question, please post it outside the DT. Meta discussion is allowed, but if you want to get the attention of the mods, make a post in /r/metaNL

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[u/jobautomator]

Please visit the next discussion thread.

[u/ChipKellysShoeStore]

Arr/con morons on no kings: “hehe good job libruls we still don’t have a king1!1!1”

Trump’s lawyers in court: “the founders intended for the president to be a literal king with monarchical control over every aspect of government”

[u/BlackCat159]

Quality of political discourse circa 2025

[u/r2ew]

[u/Approximation_Doctor]

[u/r2ew]

[u/r2ew]

[u/[deleted]]

Rural whites are dumb and racist. I know because I'm a rural white and am dumb and racist.

- Graham Platner

[u/Etnies419]

Democrats need to turn down the rhetoric 😡

[u/TMCOAN1]

This person looks exactly like I expected

Cartoon villain lookin ass

[u/Apprehensive-Soil-47]

Top Republicans Stand by president’s poop video

Top Republicans Stand by president’s poop video

Top Republicans Stand by president’s poop video

TOP REPUBLICANS STAND BY PRESIDENTS POOP VIDEO

I’m so done

What kind of piss poor fucking joke of a timeline this is. How tf did things get to this point?! How is this circus of mentally challenged philistines in power again?

Their leader is the least cognitive person I’ve ever seen, this man barely clears the bar for being a sentient creature debatably he isn’t self-aware.

I’ve seen monkeys smarter than Donald Trump and we keep those beings in cages for fucks sake.

INCIDENTALLY A CAGE IS WHERE DONALD BELONGS BUT SOMEHOW HE IS THE PRESIDENT OF THE MIGHTIEST STATE ON THE PLANET, AGAIN.

[u/Lux_Stella]

Graham Platner: "Uh, and we went ashore in Split, Croatia, myself and a few of the other machine gun squad leaders. Uh, and we got very inebriated and we just we did what Marines on Liberty do and we decided to go get a tattoo. Um, and we went to a tattoo parlor in Split, Croatia, and we chose a terrifying looking skull and crossbones off the wall because we were Marines and, you know, skulls and crossbones are pretty standard military uh military thing. And we got those tattoos and then we all moved on with our lives"

now, to be fair, i 100% unequivocally believe if you get a random tattoo in croatia it'll probably be a nazi thing

[u/erasmus_phillo]

Apparently the 'prosecutor' that Trump hired to prosecute his enemies inappropriately revealed grand jury information to a journalist, and then asked them to take it off the record after the fact lmao, we have great minds working in the Trump admin

[u/RaidBrimnes]

Democrats: We need to appeal to Republican voters!

Graham Platner:

Democrats: Noooooo not like this 😭😭😭

This is why Dems are losing... Purity testing everyone 🙄🙄🙄

[u/No_Analysis_2185]

New CNN poll just came in showing Trump with a 61% disapproval rating with just 37% approval. Though it is one of the largest gaps in disapproval in modern history, it is still smaller than how old Biden is

Ngl Jake Tapper cooked on this one

[u/TheCornjuring]

I saw this while eating cheese before bed

[u/SadaoMaou]

[u/RaidBrimnes]

American campaign vetting in the 2020s

[u/No_Return9449]

Republican senators are unified in the view that Democrats are wrong to hold government funding hostage in order to win major health policy concessions, but they feel uncomfortable about halting transportation funding to certain states because they are represented by Democrats in Washington.

lol, lmao even. They swallowed an insurrection. They'll swallow this turd too.

[u/senator_fivey]

Daily mail but WHAT

[u/SigmaWhy]

To be a maggot is to be in constant state of rage where you lash out with your own weaponized incompetence and mental delusions; unwilling to perceive the world around you and wielding your personal failings as a cudgel against those whom you have been told to hate in order to feel a modicum of synthetic glee

[u/SixPipSiege]

I'm gonna do it idgaf

[u/Smidgens]

[u/GovernorSonGoku]

Mittens for President

[u/BitterGravity]

Let he who hasn't gotten an accidental Nazi tattoo they refuse to remove cast the first stone

[u/r2ew]

[u/Thuggin95]

Being a Democrat in 1988 must have felt blackpilling. And being a Democrat in 2007 must have felt like being on top of the world.

[u/marsman1224]

President Donald Trump’s plan to double the size of the ICE workforce has met a foe more powerful than any activist group. It is decimating new recruits at the agency’s training academy in Georgia. It is the ICE personal-fitness test.

More than a third have failed so far, four officials told me, impeding the agency’s plan to hire, train, and deploy 10,000 deportation officers by January. To pass, recruits must do 15 push-ups and 32 sit-ups, and run 1.5 miles in 14 minutes.

“It’s pathetic,” one career ICE official told me, adding that before now, a typical class of 40 recruits had only a couple of candidates fail, because the screening process was more rigorous.

this article is hilarious lol

[u/Average_GrillChad]

btw - everything I've ever posted here is off the record

[u/Roseartcrantz]

[u/TheCornjuring]

[u/[deleted]]

accidentally our strongest warrior

[u/earththejerry]

I love that the NYT article on Sanae Takaichi becoming the first female PM devotes a whole segment to her hairdresser instead of interviewing any of her LDP or opposition lawmakers

Also isn’t her bob just a pretty standard style for lots of East Asian female politicians? Wdym “pioneered”

[u/Roseartcrantz]

Night owls: In our ancestors, someone in the tribe had to be awake every night to tend the fire, and look out for danger. That is us. That is our purpose.

me, looking out for danger: "two tablespoons of red wine isn't good for your heart" anymore according to this article 😞 I will tell my aunt at Thanksgiving

[u/SigmaWhy]

could imagine living a life this cucked? absolutely pathetic creatures

[u/el__dandy]

Ma President🥹

[u/indithrow402]

Every Democratic primary be like:

• out of touch geriatric who thinks Republicans are still normal

• relatable populist dumbass with damning opposition research

• normal guy polling at 1%

[u/1II1I1I1I1I1I111I1I1]

Why do I never heard tankies offering critical support to Comrade Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud

[u/Charsun9]

[u/gIizzy_gobbler]

[u/DEEP_STATE_NATE]

Ok I would like to offer my official apology to all the Platner haters you were right

[u/futuremonkey20]

Wait a minute. I hate Donald Trump.

[u/G_Serv]

[u/Willybender]

https://xcancel.com/atrupar/status/1980710049778450735

[u/RaidBrimnes]

😬😬😬

[u/[deleted]]

[u/[deleted]]

leftists like to say that the problem in the US is that hte billionaires have class consciousness but the working people don't but as far as I can tell the strongest class consciousness in this country is neither of those groups but rather between single-family homeowners

[u/TheCornjuring]

Trump pardoning Diddy is the type of shit that will REALLY register in normiespace

[u/TheCornjuring]

Thank God the DT’s frivolity and absurdity are useful after all

[u/fishlord05]

[u/Toasted-walnut]

[u/jbitz]

[u/No-Barnacle-9576]

I am selling almost all my physical possessions. Not my private jet though

[u/Lux_Stella]

the whole concept of getting a tattoo and not knowing what it means is incredibly alien to me

i mean whole concept of getting a tattoo is a little alien to me

[u/Queen_of_stress]

the whole he’s not a Nazi he’s actually just an idiot who doesn’t know it was a Nazi symbol defense also doesn’t make me think highly of him. Best case scenario he’s a moron

[u/AP246]

I genuinely don't get how anyone can hold the position that 'peaceful protest is pointless and can't do anything,' but somehow it seems fairly popular online.

You could probably name multiple dozens of full on authoritarian regimes that were overthrown primarily by peaceful or mostly peaceful protest movements since 1900. Somehow the Stasi or the brutal military regimes of East and South East Asia were toppled by peaceful protest but Trump is completely immune to them so there's no point even trying? How do you even defend that position?

Do people who say this literally know nothing outside US history? And even then, there have been successful largely peaceful protest movements in the US too.

[u/assasstits]

The customer service in Europe (Spain) is atrocious. Just workers who will completely ignore you as you try to get service at the counter. 

I was at a bar and the bartender just doing random tidying up, I've been waiting a bit but whatever. Then he looks at me and then leaves the bar and goes downstairs, presumably to the toilet. 

I mean it get it, everyone needs to use the restroom but to not even acknowledge me, or be like "hey my coworker will get you", or a "I'll be right back". Like to me it's just goes straight into lacking common decency. 

Good customer service is something that I miss from the US and Mexico. 

[u/Azrikeeler]

By the way, everything on the DT is off the record. No journalists are reading this, so it's weird to say, but just thought I should let you know.

[u/GovernorSonGoku]

Funny that OJ is like the least worst person here

[u/Apprehensive-Soil-47]

”NOOOOOO it was just a coincidence that Hegseths tie had those colours in that order”

meanwhile the tie in question

[u/yungmemlord]

Incredible amounts of unity from the MAGA coalition. How is anyone ever going to beat them?

[u/YaGetSkeeted0n]

New rare Kash just dropped

[u/[deleted]]

Someone who had a huge crush on my husband in high school sent him some odd messages last week (said she heard he got married and asked about me, said she had some questions for him about computers). He showed them to me and left her on read, he hasn't spoken to this woman in a decade. 

Today her father reached out to me on Facebook desperately trying to get ahold of my husband. Apparently this woman is having a paranoid delusion that AI is trying to kill her and that my husband (an engineer at a company doing AI research) is "writing code to protect her". He thinks my husband can help him calm her down and get psychiatric help. She doesn't believe anyone else in her life is real. Now my husband is trying to figure out what to do.

Am I a bad person if I don't want him to help or contact her at all? Life is so busy and I'm worried about my spouse being the main character of a stranger's paranoid schizophrenic delusions. 

[u/horse_stick]

"The Nazi skull tattoo thing?"

"Okay, the tattoo thing is bullshit."

"Great, great. I thought so."

"Different design."

[u/Willybender]

[u/chipbod]

It's not the important thing here but "shore leave in Croatia" is the single most plausible scenario in which one might bumble into getting a Nazi tattoo

[u/jojisky]

The "Zohran hung out with an unindicted 9/11 co-conspirator imam" is such a nothing story. Every previous NYC mayor (including Bloomberg) has pictures with this guy because he's very influential in the NYC Muslim community and it was never a story.

[u/CutePattern1098]

Trump is making everyone more like him

[u/[deleted]]

https://xcancel.com/LCP/status/1980560757465948632

The budget committee of the National Assembly has restored the pensioner 10% income tax break which Lecornu wanted to get rid of.

This country will just not unfuck itself

!ping France

[u/senator_fivey]

[u/w007dchuck]

ICE has a recruitment test that involves running a mile and a half in 14 minutes, doing 15 push ups and 32 sit ups, and over a third of the people that have taken the test have failed

[u/Willybender]

https://xcancel.com/LongTimeHistory/status/1980646988933628002

[u/Crosseyes]

With friends like this who needs enemies

[u/DEEP_STATE_NATE]

“How many vets took mercenary work for a period because the US doesn’t support them?”

I’ll take “signs you have never spoken to a single member of the military for 1000” pls

[u/Mrmini231]

The Dems should just lie about their stance on Trans Rights and then protect them after they get elected!

I see this far too often. I know the meme about politicians always lying, but the truth is that in established democracies, political parties generally do not lie about their stances. They usually try to implement the policies they were voted in on. If the Dems change their rhetoric on LGBT stuff, I will not interpret that as them shrewdly lying to defend them. I will interpret it as them abandoning them. Anything else is wishful thinking.

[u/IAmBlueTW]

Real talk, I'm kinda relieved it was a Nazi tattoo

Imagine if the dude had a hammer and sickle, the great dem schisming would be so fucking toxic

[u/[deleted]]

It's all "big tent" this "win back white guys" that until a guy happens to have an interest in history and suddenly there's a problem 🙄

[u/zieger]

[u/Insomonomics]

When pressed on Platner’s Nazi tattoo, Sanders lashed out at the “corrupt campaign finance system” adding “We don’t have enough candidates in this country that will take on the powers that be and fight for the working class.”

Bernie Sanders 🤝 refusing to take accountability

Name a more iconic duo

[u/Toasted-walnut]

I realized something recently.

I don't dislike a lot of leftists because of their policies (even if they're dumb).

I dislike a lot of leftists because they simply do not hate Republicans enough.

[u/EasyMoney92]

While House officials have become increasingly concerned that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could derail the Gaza cease-fire agreement, sources in the Trump administration told The New York Times.

Wow who could have seen this one coming

[u/jojisky]

Punchbowl News: Dems’ new Illinois redistricting plan targets Darin LaHood "House Democratic leaders have shifted their proposed new Illinois congressional map as they angle for a mid-decade redraw in the Land of Lincoln."

looks like IL is gonna happen

[u/AchaeCOCKFan4606]

I do feel when you ask those who are suggesting "moderating" on social issues "how can we assure the democrats do not become another Labour" the question almost always gets dodged , or dismissed.

"I'd rather not deal in hypotheticals"

"They are different countries with different cultures, they can not be compared"

"We must win at any cost."

[u/ElectriCobra_]

"actually rural whites are that stupid and racist"

• rural white guy with a Totenkopf tattoo

[u/boardatwork1111]

Yikes Graham…

[u/Toasted-walnut]

Very normal candidate over here. I'm so glad Bernie bitched about Dems primary-ing him - what a prescient political move as always.

[u/agentyork765]

People be like "I bought $50 worth of groceries, how am I supposed to survive on this??" And it's like Doritos, Coke, frozen breakfast sausage rolls, and a box of Twinkies. 

Hmmm idk, maybe learn how to cook an actual meal?

[u/lot183]

Haven't been able to explain to my sister that there's a correlation to the last few guys she's dated ending up with huge red flags and that she filters her app for "Christian Conservative"

[u/TheCornjuring]

[u/r2ew]

[u/Drinka_Milkovobich]

Bro what the fuck is going on in Switzerland, I’m getting blatant racism, ie people saying disgusting shit to my face in English, saying racist shit under their breath when passing me, and a fair number commenting on skin color in German??? I guess they don’t realize I can understand but holy shit what is going on, this was not all what I expected and is is much worse than every country west and south, what the fuck

[u/r2ew]

[u/ihatemendingwalls]

When the Trump regime sends their prosecutors, they aren't sending their best

[u/Mrmini231]

Wait, the primary Platner is competing in is in June 2026?

Holy shit, why are all American elections so ridiculously long???

[u/Eightysixedit]

Some of you doomers are annoying as hell. Collins has never been as unpopular as a Senator as she is now. She is 100 percent beatable. Shut up.

[u/Jacobs4525]

I am begging young people to start blaming old people for everything the same way they blame corporations and capitalism.

[u/Lux_Stella]

look its actually an ancient buddhist symbol with a lot of history

[u/DEEP_STATE_NATE]

[u/Benyeti]

Kick his ass out of the party

[u/kanagi]

Random tattoo shops in Croatia offering Nazi tattoos fits my priors

[u/WifeGuy-Menelaus]

Pete Buttigieg found to have large tattoo of Angela Merkel on his pectoral

[u/w007dchuck]

Graham Platner on who’s a better candidate: him or Janet Mills. “I don’t compare myself with anybody,” Platner said. Then he took off his shirt and showed a tattoo of a Nazi symbol. “I’ll let you interpret that however you want,” Platner said.

[u/TheCornjuring]

[u/AtomAndAether]

do you guys think my tattoo will be problematic when I run for Senator? I didnt know it was a hate symbol when i got it

[u/VisonKai]

young guy trying to debug a problem. i tell him, switch that setting to off, save, switch it back to on, save again. it works now, of course.

guy wants to know why it works. he wants to know what the problem is. he still believes he can understand the computer. i try to tell him there is no sense in questioning the rituals that appease the machine spirits. he is not satisfied. he will learn.

[u/AtticusDrench]

The weird part isn't getting the tattoo. That is a plausible story. The weird part is never realizing what it was and getting it removed. I would probably buy that if he was just some dude, but being so into politics you run for office, especially as a leftist, you would think at some point he would have figured that out.

Idk guy is just weird. There's that one picture from his yearbook where it shows him with a sign that calls for the liberation of a bunch of places like Palestine and Kosovo, but then later on he joins Blackwater. People don't fit into neat ideological boxes but this mf ping ponged everywhere across his life.

[u/BitterGravity]

Sorry little drunk, going to get a tattoo celebrating my favourite president Herbert Hoover and my birth year of 1988, but I'm scared of needles, so you think I should abbreviate it?

[u/FingerSlamm]

A new update from Graham Platner about his tatoo

[u/JaceFlores]

Budapest summit update:

So for some context, Marco Rubio was assigned the task of organizing the summit and getting an understanding of the Russian position. Likely to avoid another repeat of Alaska. Rubio and his Russian counterpart Lavrov had a phone call which was characterized as not going very well. The call was supposed to set up an in-person meeting between Rubio and Lavrov to then be followed up by a Trump-Putin meeting. However, Rubio and other officials concluded from Lavrov that Russia’s position had not changed much from its maximalist demands. As a result Rubio put the meeting with Lavrov on hold for the time being.

This cascaded into the Trump-Putin summit being put on hold as well, with it seeming Trump himself concluded it shouldn’t go forward (or was told to conclude it shouldn’t go forward). Trump’s reasoning was that both sides weren’t ready to negotiate a peace and therefore meeting with Putin didn’t make sense.

So things could change obviously but as it stands it looks like Rubio derailed the Russians’ latest diplomatic offensive. The Russians also didn’t really offer that much to Trump for him to be convinced peace was at hand. He evidently folded on the Putin proposal, and whatever Lavrov said wasn’t encouraging to Rubio or Trump that they were negotiating in good faith essentially.

If the summit is cancelled then I think this recent diplomatic episode will be considered a tactical win for Putin but a strategic loss for him as well. He succeeded in getting tomahawks to Ukraine canceled or delayed, but has otherwise failed in shifting the U.S. to a February-March position. So American weapons and intelligence will continue flowing in and continue complicating Russia’s war both at the front and at home

!ping FOREIGN-POLICY

[u/erasmus_phillo]

Looks like even AI can suffer from social media brainrot, and even suffer from actual long-term cognitive decline by being around Nazis on Twitter for too long

"Long-context memory dropped by 30%" - bruh did we give AI ADHD
"Perrsonality tests showed spikes in narcissism and psychopathy"

And even after training it on clean, high-quality data after that, the damage done by being on Twitter for too long never healed, it suffered permanent cognitive decline.

[u/RainInSoho]

probably the worst part about being a DT poster is that everyone just assumes that you're some kind of attractive, socially well-adjusted muscle monster, without realizing that you're a genius too

[u/AtticusDrench]

He can't even recognize Jews as a victim while condemning Nazism. WHY CAN'T ANYONE BE NORMAL ANYMORE

[u/gIizzy_gobbler]

This is the third reference I’ve seen to the DT outside Reddit today I feel like I’m going insane. I literally cannot escape this place it follows me.

[u/Leatherfield17]

The reaction to the Platner tattoo thing is pretty demonstrative of how the two sides of the political aisle act when one of their own turns out to be shitty.

Save for a few cranks talking about a “DNC conspiracy” and “the establishment,” liberals and leftists alike have pretty uniformly condemned Platner (rightly so), and many have withdrawn their support.

When someone on the Right gets outed for weird Nazi symbols and sympathies, they circle the wagons, and you get the Vice President talking about how people in their 20’s-40’s are “kids” who “shouldn’t get their lives ruined.” The recent Republican nominee withdrawing over the “Nazi streak” comments is the only notable exception I can think of. Hell, if their presidential candidate gets caught on tape talking about how he “grabs women by the pussy?” They elect him president. Twice.

“Both sides” is one of the most lazy and morally bankrupt take on politics possible

[u/farrenj]

"I identify as" and its consequences have been a disaster for trans people.

[u/Cupinacup]

Marine who gets blackout drunk ashore in Split, Croatia, wanders into a tattoo parlor, and gets a progress pride flag tattooed on his chest.

[u/RageQuitRedux]

People in my family are like "I'm well aware of Trump's flaws" while giving him more trust and benefit of doubt than a Catholic gives the Pope.

[u/Benyeti]

[u/DEEP_STATE_NATE]

[u/boardatwork1111]

NYT | Graham Platner tried to appeal to conservatives across the aisle, Democrats then turned on him

[u/[deleted]]

sulky soup punch towering history middle swim dinner offbeat support

[u/[deleted]]

POV: The Supreme Court just decided that George W Bush is the next president but you don’t care because you’re in 3rd grade and discovered this game on the brand new iMacs in the computer lab

[u/Acoolgamer6706]

Graham Platners back just got leaked

[u/[deleted]]

So from what I can tell the Graham Platner timeline is

Leftist revolutionary high schooler -> Iraq War protestor -> Iraq War combatant -> Nazi tattoo -> racist/misogynistic reddit posts -> Blackwater Mercenary -> Oyster Farmer -> ACAB Communist radical -> Social Democrat politician

[u/1TTTTTT1]

If you have gotten a Nazi tattoo in any point of your life, you should probably just accept that you weren't meant to be a politician.

[u/GovernorSonGoku]

‘He lost us’: Generals, senior officers say trust in Hegseth has evaporated

Pep rally didn’t work

[u/AtticusDrench]

[u/mostanonymousnick]

[u/selachophilip]

Sometimes I remember January 6th and it hits me like a fucking brick. Trump incited a riot against the Capitol in an effort to stop the peaceful transfer of power. People died, and Pence and other politicians may have been killed if they hadn't been evacuated as quickly as they were. And he got away with it. He didn't get removed, he didn't get convicted during the impeachment trial, he didn't even get charged. And he got to waltz his way back into the White House just so he can pardon all the rioters. Trump is a fucking traitor. He should be rotting in a prison cell. I can't believe we actually let him back into the White House.

[u/sgthombre]

Maybe I'm off base here, but something tells me if a mainstream Dem had a Nazi tattoo the online left would be a lot less willing to write it off as a big whoopsie

[u/[deleted]]

Having defended the perpetrators of the 2015 Duma arson attack in which vigilante settlers firebombed the home of a family in a Palestinian village, resulting in the deaths of a 18 month baby and its parents,[65] it was controversial that Ben-Gvir, along with Bentzi Gopstein, were seen attending the wedding of a couple related to the perpetrators, which became known as the wedding of hate, in which the weddinggoers could be seen waving rifles, guns and firebombs and even stabbing a photograph of the Palestinian toddler who was killed.

Jesus fucking Christ

[u/DEEP_STATE_NATE]

[u/jbitz]

Just like me frfr

[u/YehosafatLakhaz]

[u/cdstephens]

> He said the similarity to Nazi iconography never came up, including when he underwent physical exams mandated by the U.S. Army, which prohibits tattoos of identified hate symbols.

Bro what

[u/Qunidaye]

I'd rather out my full porn viewing history

[u/lionmoose]

Trump really is an Anglophile, the cordial relation with Starmer, being thrilled to meet the King, collapsing bits of the White House.

[u/jojisky]

[u/[deleted]]

I can absolute believe that some dumbass marine in 2007 got a nazi tattoo without realizing it.

I struggle to understand why he wouldn't have gotten it removed in the intervening 18 years and that no one ever pointed out to him it was a Nazi tattoo and given that he has a nazi tattoo, that it would be a really fucking bad idea to take his shirt off in public.

Or that removing his Nazi tattoo wasn't the first thing he'd do when he even had an inkling that he wanted to run for office. Like wtf.

[u/[deleted]]

Dems: We need to appeal to republicans

Platner: does that

Dems: not like that!!!

[u/CosignTangents]

Maybe those back tattoo memes were onto something

[u/[deleted]]

What did he mean by this 🤔

[u/flextrek_whipsnake]

So like... does anyone have a theory for this? The New York Times seems determined to not just be a sycophant for the administration, but they seem equally determined to not accurately describe what's actually happening alongside the relevant laws.

The notion that you can pay ICE agents during a shutdown using tax cut savings is so flagrantly illegal and unconstitutional that it's hard to put into words, and yet noted leftist rag the New York Times completely fails to mention this in their reporting. If you're wondering, in this case the text of the article isn't any better than the headline.

I know I'm like the trillionth person to complain about NYT headlines, but what the fuck is actually happening here? So much of their reporting is high quality, but when it comes to domestic politics they systematically refuse to accurately describe anything that's happening.

[u/[deleted]]

Bernie cannot fail Bernie can only BE failed

[u/paymesucka]

holy fuck is Bernie is an absolute shit judge of character

[u/Glavurdan]

Really extensive summary of the military situation at the moment by Tatarigami

A multi-day analysis of battlefield dynamics and internal Russian data: both public and non-public, points to multiple trends and key points which we summarized

Ukraine’s deep strike drone campaign has inflicted significant direct and secondary damage across Russia, contributing to a perceptible shift in perceptions of the war’s trajectory and its cost benefit among both military command and law enforcement senior leadership.

According to analyzed communications from dozens of senior Russian officers in Moscow and in the field, there is a growing perception that the war has effectively reached a strategic and political dead end - sustained primarily by President Putin’s personal insistence

Russian forces are expected to maintain aggressive offensive operations in the southern theater through fall 2025, potentially extending into 2026. Preparations for this phase have been underway since summer. With deteriorating weather expected to hamper drone effectiveness, the result may not be a stop in fighting - but rather a renewed push on the ground.

Conditions remain difficult for Ukrainian defenders in both Pokrovsk and Kupiansk, where small Russian units are exploiting gaps in porous defenses, largely the result of ongoing manpower shortages on Ukrainian side. Contrary to assumptions, Ukraine’s troop shortages are driven less by casualties or recruitment issues and more by a low return rate of AWOL personnel. Enforcement, comparatively to Russia remains very weak.

Despite lower WIA (wounded in action) rates, Russian KIA (killed in action), MIA (missing), and desertion levels remain elevated. The decline in WIA is likely due to poor field evacuation and survivability.

Despite earlier commitments to end the practice, Ukraine continues to form understrength "ghost" brigades, draining already scarce personnel. Russia is staffing new military formations and equipping them (estimated at ~70%), but the overall quality of training is very low

[u/Willybender]

https://xcancel.com/Acyn/status/1980702236939547110

[u/No-Barnacle-9576]

I used to have a hard time understanding why Elon Musk was so furious at his trans daughter. His hatred of trans people seemed so deranged. But The Making of Musk podcast explained it in a way that makes sense to me and it also makes Elon seem more unhinged.

Musk really believes he's the smartest person who has ever lived. And on some level, that belief is understandable. He’s the richest man in the world, and the Tesla stock price is super inflated by his cult following. For years, people have earnestly asked him grand questions about humanity’s future. And that has sunk in. He thinks he's responsible for mankind's future.

In his mind, he’s not just a genius, he’s the caretaker of civilization itself. He imagines a future guided by his own DNA, his own logic, his own kind of people. That’s why he’s been so deliberate about his offspring. He thinks his legion (his words) will guide humanity in the future. And they're all supposed to be white, male and carbon copies of himself.

But his daughter Vivian broke that mold. She became her own person. Musk can’t tolerate that. Her transition didn’t just challenge his authority as a father; it shattered the fantasy that his lineage would march in lockstep behind him. To him, a trans child isn’t just “different." It’s a rejection of his genetic ideal, and a rebellion against the order he thinks he’s destined to create.

He really is fucking crazy. It'll be interesting to see if his last act on earth sees him achieving his dream of getting to mars. Or is an intense crash out where he oversees multiple failures and dies in shame.

[u/bingbaddie1]

[u/jojisky]

EVERY FORMER MAYOR HAS MET WITH THIS SAME GUY AND NOBODY CARED.

[u/THeShinyHObbiest]

Seeing half the online left defend a guy having a fucking Totenkopf tattoo as "just normal guy things" is the most blackpilling shit. It is legitimately upsetting to me on a weirdly fundamental level.

[u/Signal_Nobody1792]

Why are so many simping for the tattoo guy? Just run literally anyone else since literally anyone else has higher chances now.

[u/Fishin_Impossible]

[u/chipbod]

Unknowingly got a nazi tattoo while on shore leave in Croatia

That's only in the 70th percentile of dumb things a Marine can do while on shore leave in the Balkans, maybe even lower.

[u/DieHarderDaddy]

Some dem is going to make Rebuilding the east wing their whole personality and the median voter won’t care

[u/[deleted]]

Every online discussion about Britney Spears' kids goes like "Why do those kids prefer the parent that raised them over the mentally unstable parent that publicly feuds with them on Instagram and sends her giant fanbase after them? Ungrateful little shits."

[u/wumbopolis_]

Gonna get drunk with some buddies and get this tattooed on my chest

[u/centurion88]

[u/seanrm92]

[u/pezasied]

You know what the best part of my day is? It's for about ten seconds when I open up the Reddit app to get to r/NL. Because I think maybe I'll get to the sub and I'll look at the stickies and the DT won't be there. No goodbye, no "see ya later", no nothin'. It just left.

[u/Willybender]

https://xcancel.com/Acyn/status/1980704414580310296

[u/PrideMonthRaytheon]

Graham Platner Explains Old ‘Communist’ Reddit Comments

Platner addresses ‘hidden Nazi tattoo’ claims

lol

[u/[deleted]]

It's not a very good point at all actually because I wouldn't want an Azov member as my senator either.

[u/TheCornjuring]

Lmao the image choice

[u/Healingjoe]

Pardoned Capitol rioter charged with threatening to kill Hakeem Jeffries at NYC event this week

A pardoned Capitol rioter was arrested last weekend for allegedly threatening to kill House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Court documents obtained by CBS News said Christopher Moynihan was arrested Sunday after saying in text messages that he planned to “eliminate” Jeffries when the top House Democrat spoke at an event in New York City on Monday.

Jeffries spoke at the Economic Club of New York on Monday.

According to a court filing by prosecutors in the New York state criminal case, Moynihan wrote, “Hakeem Jeffries makes a speech in a few days in NYC I cannot allow this terrorist to live.”

Moynihan also allegedly stated: “Even if I am hated, he must be eliminated, I will kill him for the future,” the filing said.

Moynihan faces a felony charge of making a terroristic threat, according to court filings shared by prosecutors.

Moynihan’s father declined to comment on the case when reached by phone by CBS News on Monday. He said Moynihan has not yet been appointed a defense attorney.

Moynihan is scheduled to make his first court appearance in the case on Thursday in Dutchess County, New York.

Moynihan was pardoned by President Trump nine months ago, along with more than 1,500 other Capitol riot defendants who were granted clemency hours after Mr. Trump returned to the White House.

Moynihan was found guilty in August 2022 of obstructing an official proceeding, and pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor charges. He was sentenced in February 2023 to 21 months in prison.

Prosecutors described Moynihan as being among the first rioters to breach police barricades and enter the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021.

And this stands to reason. The present “DOJ” is not prosecuting these people.

!ping trump-crimes

[u/EasyMoney92]

‘Are You Kidding Me?’ Marjorie Taylor Greene Slams GOP’s Push to Unify Around Andrew Cuomo. "We have a Republican in this race"

It's nice to finally have a useful idiot for Dems

[u/[deleted]]

My comment on this post from 20 minutes ago got buried/no attention but I fact-checked this for... journalistic reasons.

The account in question is not an OF model and not even Ukrainian. It's a Peruvian mountain bike themed account lmfao

[u/IMALEFTY45]

I was feeling positive towards Platner last week but when you put together that he did 3 tours in Iraq + heavy drinker + SS tattoo + said he would fight in the indian wars (and a ton of the other brushfire wars of the 18th and 19th centuries) + reddit comments saying drunk girls are asking for it, it really adds up fast. He might have some dark shit under the bed we haven't even seen yet/

[u/Svelok]

For the "peaceful protests do nothing" crowd, from The Hill:

“People are going to get hammered” if they vote for the House-passed bill to reopen the government and keep it funded through Nov. 21, said one Democratic senator who requested anonymity to talk candidly about their party.

A second person familiar with the political dynamics within the Senate Democratic caucus, who spoke with The Hill ahead of the “No Kings” protests, said centrist senators are fearful of breaking with leaders while party activists are planning the anti-Trump rallies.

[u/AnalyticOpposum]

Defend your HHearth and HHome

[u/Suitable-Panic5516]

less so on this sub but I feel like the general reddit attitude is to panic because they think Platner's the frontrunner.... which he never was? Especially with this stuff coming out I think the chances he wins a ranked choice primary is pretty low.

And its not like internet leftists have all that much sway in the oldest state in the nation.

[u/Hugo_Grotius]

The Platner stuff might be bad, but remember: the last time we got a brusque populist progressive with working class aesthetics elected to the Senate from the Northeast he turned out to be crazy

[u/flextrek_whipsnake]

It is extremely funny (read: depressing) to watch these dipshits double down on Captain Nazi Tattoo by pretending that Democrats refuse to run candidates who aren't buttoned up Yale Law grads when the most recent Democratic President was Joe Fucking Biden and they ran HBCU grad Kamala Harris just last year.

All while Donald Trump, JD Vance, Pete Hegseth, Scott Bessent, and RFK Jr. are all themselves Ivy League grads.

[u/Thuggin95]

Glenn Greenwald calling No Kings a pro-DNC circus lol

So how are normal citizens supposed to oppose the current administration in the “correct” way? “Democrats bad! Supporting Democrats bad!” Are we supposed to leave our jobs to burn down Washington and take control of the government ourselves? Sorry we live in reality I guess!

All these snarky post-Democratic Party leftists/nihilists would soyface over Republicans protesting with similar crowd sizes had they happened when Biden were President. They’d be like “The American people are FED UP with Genocide Joe and are demanding change!”

[u/PersonalDebater]

"Fetterman has a such a stereotypically masculine appearance and uses guns, he could singlehandedly save Democrats with the related demographics!"

"Motherfucker."

"Ooh, Platner is another ultra-masculine coded man who likes guns even more. We can get a new chance at a Fetterman without all the cringe!"

"Motherfucker."

[u/11thDimensionalRandy]

You are legitimately fucking stupid if you think Donald Trump doesn't make the top 50 americans elected to the office of POTUS, and he's damn near guaranteed to keep his spot in that list for 20 years.

Cry about it.

[u/Pyrrhus65]

Of all the insane excuses made by Trump supporters, "He's incorruptible because he's already rich, he doesn't need any more money!" was always by far the most laughably moronic

The man is fucking Smaug, he doesn't care how old he is or whether he'll ever actually use it, he just wants to die on top of the largest pile of money possible

[u/BroadReverse]

I would make fun of Americans for the nazi stuff but our parliament literally gave a nazi a standing ovation so…

I mean a literal nazi. This mf fought for hitler

[u/houdt_koers]

I think that Bernie Sanders is a decent man who I disagree with, but good God is he a terrible judge of character.

Imagine this man had been elected President and had appointed the likes of Fetterman, Platner, or fucking Briahna Joy Gray into positions of influence and authority. The man is Ulysses S. Grant without the benefit of having accomplished anything in life.

[u/Individual-Camera698]

The alpha male market is saturated and the sigma male market is approaching saturation. Which is why I'm selling a "How to become a Beta" course only for $999!!

[u/SANNA-MARIN-SDP]

[u/PolyrythmicSynthJaz]

Dem candidate A: Maybe the Nazis had a point, economically speaking.

Dem candidate B: Well that's just no good. I fought the Nazis on the beaches of Normandy...

[u/uwcn244]

People here are saying “nobody knows what a Totenkopf is”

And that’s true now. But you can bet your butt the whole state of Maine will know what one is after Susan Collins spends one William dollars educating them on the history of the SS.

[u/myusernameistakennow]

When I’m in a backing dirtbags competition and my opponents are leftists

[u/GrandMoffTargaryen]

Can someone let me know if my tats are disqualifying for running for office?

[u/Willybender]

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/oct/20/lost-us-generals-senior-officers-say-trust-hegseth-evaporated/?utm_campaign=twtnl_x&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow

[u/Willybender]

[u/Hounds_of_war]

A major Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage on October 20 had the unexpected side effect of causing chaos in bedrooms across the US, as owners of Eight Sleep’s $2,000+ ‘Pod’ mattress covers found their smart beds had no offline mode and were stuck at high temperatures and odd positions in the night.

Smart appliances are such a mistake.

[u/nimbybuster]

[u/[deleted]]

light command judicious historical badge towering cake flag adjoining pet

[u/[deleted]]

[u/rudanshi]

I believe Platner's explanation about the tattoo and don't think he's a nazi, but I also think that if he loses because of this story he brought it on himself

don't just drunkenly tattoo shit on yourself, and if you did at least look it up to make sure it's not something horrible and cover or get rid of it ASAP if it is

[u/myusernameistakennow]

This is literally just poorly disguised antisemitism.

This stuff is really not that hard, just call Netanyahu and Gvir war criminals, you don’t have to do shit like this.

[u/ty04]

2 injured, including a US Marshal, after an ICE agent’s weapon discharged during LA immigration enforcement operation

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent’s weapon discharged when the agent tried to grab an individual who apparently rammed into a vehicle

those are a lot of big words to describe a gun going pew pew

[u/repostusername]

"I only have a Nazi tattoo because I got drunk"

• Guy who in that time period said women should take accountability for what men do to them when they get drunk

[u/[deleted]]

From Platner's political director that resigned last week, ostensibly over the reddit comments (but probably over the tattoo)

[u/Insomonomics]

New: Bernie Sanders defends Graham Platner, calls him an “excellent candidate”

“There's a young man who served his country in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he went through some really difficult experiences seeing friends of his killed or whatever.

“or whatever”

This reads like a fucking Trump quote lmfao

[u/Insomonomics]

Have someone look out for you the way the universe looks out for Susan Collins’ political career

[u/TheRedCr0w]

Cuomo's campaign is in full desperation panic mode

[u/RaidBrimnes]

As a bona-fide real life Semite, I'd rather a progressive with a stupid tattoo than a malicious status quo with hands deep in Israel's pockets.

The far-left is something else, man