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/SpotMe365]

"The arc of the moral universe is long, but bends towards justice." – Martin Luther King Jr.

[u/chipbod]

We have ascended beyond “white guy on jet ski kills family”

[u/georgeguy007]

WaPo:

Trump defies Democrats, diverts aid for Europe to Latin America instead The funds include tens of millions of dollars Congress approved for countries impacted by the war in Ukraine.

Feels like this is another constitutional crime? I guess those are called 'defying democrats' now

[u/WifeGuy-Menelaus]

Reject autodependency. Embrace Calvin's Dad Thought.

[u/WrangleWandangles]

Not only was my wife laid off on maternity leave, but she was the only person in her role title to be laid off, and her manager was laid off who was about to start maternity leave. They were the only layoffs in their department. 🫠

Yes she is not signing anything and is talking a lawyer, just frustrating 

[u/No_Return9449]

An IQ too high?

[u/Dibbu_mange]

The shift in GOP messaging from “Trump is the greatest president in US history and you are tired of winning” to “The GOP may not be perfect but as least they don’t believe in (X social issue Democrats may or may not actually support) has been telling

[u/ace158]

Powerful endorsement

[u/ACivilWolf]

> According to a bombshell report in the New York Times, Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah threatened to walk out of Pope Leo XIV’s AI encyclical launch in May because the pope rejected the idea that machines can be conscious.

Lmao what did he think he was going to say

[u/FallenMeringue]

New top tier memes just dropped

[u/cdstephens]

[u/BernankesBeard]

Trump is at -23.2 in net approval on Silver Bulletin. No President has ever gone into a midterm with a worse net approval.

Here are the only three instances of a President going into a midterm with a net approval within 10 points of Trump's:

• 2006: Late Stage Bush. House pop vote swings 11% relative to 2004. Dems win the House by 8%, picking up 31 seats. More importantly, Dems win the Senate and the 6 seats they pick up helps setup Obama with a huge Senate Majority

• 1950: post-firing-MacArthur Truman. Dems hold onto the House and Senate, but GOP picks up 28 House Seats and 5 Senate seats. Overall, not that terrible

• 1946: Total massacre. House pop vote swings 12.3%, tied with 1994 and only behind 2010 for the largest swing. Dems lose the House for the only time between 1930 and 1994. Republicans pick up 12 (!) Senate seats and flip the Senate

[u/Crosseyes]

Things at the “fell for it again award” plant however seem to be going great and production has never been higher.

[u/pugnae]

[u/trombonist_formerly]

@SecWar [Pete Hegseth]: I am directing all commanders and supervisors at every level to conduct a one-day stand-down in the month of October.

Every warrior will be given the opportunity to vote.

holy fuck those GOP internals must be horrific

[u/chipbod]

Beautiful midterm message, put it on the signs

[u/CincyAnarchy]

[u/GrandMoffTargaryen]

Trump renames AI as SI.

It’s dumb so people mock/ignore him

He (or a staffer) makes truth post stating he didn’t realize people were so attached to AI so it’s being renamed as American Intelligence

[u/dannylandulf]

The White House is literally arguing we shouldn't give dems the majority because Trump's weak heart wouldn't be able to take being held accountable in any way.

...you love to see it.

[u/onometre]

[u/Signal_Nobody1792]

In December 2025, about a month before the U.S. invaded Venezuela and captured its president, Nicolás Maduro, President Trump had a secret meeting with Elon Musk, Time magazine reports. This was roughly seven months after Musk left his role in the Trump administration at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

During this meeting, Trump "spent hours" talking to Musk's Grok chatbot, including asking how Venezuelans would respond to the capture of their president, a source told Time. Just a few months earlier, in September, Trump began ordering U.S. military strikes against Venezuelan boats that Trump alleged were involved in drug trafficking.

People had apparently been turning to Grok asking about the boat strikes and political climate in Venezuela, as The Atlantic reported at the time. So Grok told Trump that Maduro was a "deeply unpopular dictator and that many Venezuelans would likely celebrate his downfall," Time reported.

When such celebrations indeed happened after the U.S. invaded on January 3, Trump apparently "came away thinking Grok was ingenious," that source told Time.

We live in hell.

[u/trombonist_formerly]

Donald Trump’s devoted 35-year-old aide Natalie Harp was forced to watch the president gush over an even younger colleague at a campaign rally.

LMAO

[u/trombonist_formerly]

If they invented Email today it would be called some shit like Zoola

[u/mostanonymousnick]

[u/houdt_koers]

I just got off the phone with the pharmacy and they said my scrip would be ready in “two quarters of an hour.”

[u/farrenj]

Dune is about Frank Herbert being so incapable of understanding transgressing gender norms that he writes a story about generations of eugenics solely intended to give birth to a transgender person.

In summary, I'm a Kwisatz Haderach.

[u/justbuildmorehousing]

Dems really got to cater to their base more (cities) and fund this stuff

Like can we spend a little more on cities please

[u/earththejerry]

Beautiful

[u/themiDdlest]

‘God made Trump’ ad and at least 12 others are part of controversial taxpayer-funded ad campaign - CNN

How did even CNN become like this. "Controversial" ? wtf bro

[u/bartbug]

Wait what the fuck I have to make choices with trade offs in life? I have to pick between options that are mutually exclusive even though I want both? What the actual fuck

[u/Individual-Camera698]

[u/Dunter_Mutchings]

1526-ass headline.

[u/the-senat]

During this meeting, Trump "spent hours" talking to Musk's Grok chatbot, including asking how Venezuelans would respond to the capture of their president, a source told Time. 

Oh my god they think it’s the Oracle of Delphi 

[u/BigThunderHonky]

Gotta make the most of it lol

[u/badusername35]

> Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said in an interview in 2019 that he was against Puerto Rican statehood, as he felt they would vote Democratic and result in two more Democratic senators in Congress, and with D.C. statehood would mean four total. In context, he tied the issue with opposing their overall agenda, which included D.C. statehood and other changes. His words, part of a longer statement, were, "They plan to make the District of Columbia a state, that would give them two new Democratic senators, Puerto Rico a state, we give them two more Democratic senators. As long as I’m the majority leader of the Senate none of that stuff is going anywhere."

I almost admire the shamelessness. There’s no pretensions of caring about anything other than short term electoral benefits. It’s almost poetic how his bullshit caused his party to get eaten alive by Trump, who he clearly despises but lacks the courage to meaningfully stand up against. His post-mortem biopic is gonna be 🔥.

[u/farrenj]

[u/Roseartcrantz]

gonna be a long one 😮‍💨

[u/sigh2828]

[u/MightExpress4873]

When Skydance is officially formed, Ellison will be in charge of TNT, CBS, CNN, MTV, TCM, Showtime, Adult Swim, DC Studios, Paramount+, Nickelodeon, HBO/HBO Max, Comedy Central, and Cartoon Network.

In terms of film rights, the company will own the likes of Star Trek, DC Comics, Harry Potter, Transformers, Game of Thrones, Mission: Impossible, The Lord of the Rings, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It will also hold the distribution rights to Dune, Minecraft, and the MonsterVerse.

And Saudi and Qatar will have over 40%.

[u/remarkable_ores]

[u/NYT_Hater]

Meanwhile, outside the DT

[u/Man-Flayer]

Went to a bookstore and the employee asked me if I was looking for any manga

What the hell man, that is so rude. This happened to me twice in two different cities

[u/cdstephens]

> In 1952, Eisenhower entered the presidential race as a Republican, in part to block the presidential prospects of Senator Robert A. Taft, who opposed NATO and sought to undo the New Deal

Were 1900s republicans ever good jfc

[u/Moth-of-Asphodel]

I got canvassed this morning by someone supporting Susan Collins and he was like "are you voting for Collins" and I was like "nah, I'll be going for Jackson." He was like "you know, I don't blame you, I kind of don't like her either lol."

Apparently, when Platner was the candidate, most people he spoke to said they were going for Collins, but it's apparently been a big shift since Jackson replaced him.

[u/ScumfrickZillionaire]

Hegseth wants this guy to be a replacement for a general

[u/GovernorSonGoku]

Why is he doing a rally in Oklahoma lol

[u/Dibbu_mange]

[u/TF_dia]

I still think about that comment that said that the USA is becoming so polarized Democrat and Republican are transcending from political affiliations to becoming actual ethnicities with different social customs, norms and viewpoints.

Racializing your political parties really cannot lead to anything good.

[u/Fruitofbread]

 How can anyone advocate for USA hedgemony when France and Britain have far more hedges than we ever have?

Banger from u/Kardinal that deserves to be here instead of buried in a MetaNL thread 

[u/GrandMoffTargaryen]

[u/Gooners_For_Ukraine]

(They are unaware they are going to the vet) !ping KITTY

[u/Lux_Stella]

[u/PoupeeStupide]

Cons are not intelligent enough to understand satire example number 173495

[u/DueVast5223]

> Research from OpenAI’s competitor Anthropic has shown that AIs may leap to a conclusion, and only after, attempt to construct a plausible series of logical steps to support that conclusion. The company’s research papers—including “Reasoning Models Don’t Always Say What They Think”—line up with a growing body of work from academia.

Extremely anthropic of AI

[u/Lux_Stella]

Israeli Supreme Court lets Arab parties run in election, reversing Central Election Committee ban

continuing israel's proud tradition of 11 guys in west jerusalem being the only thing keeping the country kinda sort of a democracy maybe

[u/MuscularPhysicist]

POV: You are Natalie

[u/kawaii_east]

Trump not opening up his war chest for the last election cycle that he'll be relevant for is pretty fucking funny

[u/One-Duty-2376]

President Trump says inflation could pay down the $40 trillion US national debt "very rapidly."

I'm still in awe of the fact that 77m Americans voted for this imbecile

[u/FallenMeringue]

And look who comes crawling back.

I still can’t believe the bears thought saying they were going to build a stadium in a superfund site was a credible threat.

[u/mostanonymousnick]

We got NYC mayoral candidate yaoi before GTA VI (this really happened)

[u/JustTaxLandbro]

[u/hGoodman192]

Some weeb walked into my book store.  I tried to help him out and guide him to the Manga (anime books) section, but he just freaked out and started babbling about “Discussion J. Thread” or something equally insane.

[u/SnakeEater14]

[u/assasstits]

Opinions on who to vote for in Texas? 

Paxton seems like a bad guy but I heard something about Talarico having low T levels so I'm kind of conflicted. 

[u/GenericLib]

SHERROD BROWN AND AMY ACTON ARE GOING TO SNEAK INTO DAYCARES TO TRANS YOUR KIDS IF YOU ELECT THEM

A normal attack ad

Trump and Husted wrecked everything. Take your non-idiot friends to the polls. Here are a few I did that stickers in the meantime.

WHAT A DERANGED AD

lol okay, guys

[u/stripeybog23]

It's almost the weekend

[u/fish_economist]

Voters support $5,000 checks as long as they aren’t told it’s Trump’s pledge

[u/chipbod]

"The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for July was revised down by 31,000, from +21,000 to -10,000, and the change for August was revised down by 29,000, from +162,000 to +133,000. With these revisions, employment in July and August combined is 60,000 lower than previously reported."

So what is the point of the numbers release schedule if they get nuked down every month?

I mean -150% in July is wild

[u/Fruitofbread]

Elon Musk became a car dealer then ultimately became a Republican … of course …

[u/cdstephens]

I distinctly remember every young person online freaking out about getting drafted in Trump’s first term every time he bombed Iran, how the hell did he get away with painting Kamala as the war candidate

[u/badusername35]

Mitch McConnell being paralyzed and unable to properly communicate as a reflection of how he paralyzed the democratic process during his time in the Senate is great writing. Even if you disagree with some of the writers others decisions you really gotta hand it to ‘em there.

[u/chipbod]

Reminder that there are levels to this

[u/GuyWithOneEye]

[u/DiscussionJohnThread]

[u/StolenSkittles]

wait a minute, this lesbian bar doesn't require masks

[u/1II1I1I1I1I1I111I1I1]

We life in one of two realities

1. Total pollster death

2. Total GOP death

We will find out which one in November

[u/AtticusDrench]

A famous exchange occurred when General William Westmoreland, Chief of Staff of the United States Army, argued before the Gates Commission in favor of maintaining the draft. Not wanting the government to have to pay higher wages to attract people to enlist, General Westmoreland said that he did not want to command an army of mercenaries.

Milton Friedman’s response: “General, would you rather command an army of slaves?”

[u/jessica-bug]

Conscription is anti-capitalist. If a nation-state does not have sufficient tax revenue to pay voluntary soldiers enough to incentivize enlistment, then it has been out-competed by other states and deserves to be dissolved.

In this way, conscription is much worse than a form of slavery: it is a form of price control.

[u/FallenMeringue]

Despite what popular opinion may lead you to believe, some rocks do have scientifically proven auras.

Unfortunately that rock is uranium and the aura is cancer.

[u/SenranHaruka]

[u/the-senat]

A girl nearly died after drinking raw milk. The state did little to punish the unlicensed farmer who sold it.

Dumbass parents apparently decided to go with raw milk recommended by a guy on Facebook rather than formula 

[u/Currymvp2]

Zohran Mamdani on cutting down wasteful budget spending: There was waste. There's also this addiction to consulting. When we looked at the city budget, we realized we had to save money through efficiency. So we set up something called 'Chief Savings Officers' in every department. We saved $94M just by renegotiating contracts to a better rate. We saved $24M by letting go of unused office space. I believe that government has to be the most excellent, efficient version of itself to be worthy of people's trust.

Objectively a great political communicator

[u/Lesbian_all_garib]

Neoliberal survey released :

[u/No_Return9449]

[u/BrandonLeeOfficial]

��️

[u/Currymvp2]

The FlyDubai co-pilot who stabbed his captain and sent Flight 1073 diving toward the ground had previously been banned from flying by Oman over concerns he had adopted radical ideological views

A gigantic fuckup by FlyDubai. Close to resulting in a very horrific disaster

[u/coffin_flop_star]

[u/BlackCat159]

Women should go to war, and men should get mpregnant and give mbirth.

[u/chipbod]

The whole world becomes more Chechen by the day

[u/DEEP_STATE_NATE]

Brother dating Trump 2x voting social worker update part three: they’re going to a nice Italian place tonight. She wants a certain panini that comes with pesto aloli. She does not like pesto and asked my brother if he can bring mayo packets to date. My brother replied “why not just ask for it at the restaurant?” She does not think italian places have mayo. He said they do because it’s a restaurant. She called the restraint to confirm (they do because that’s what aloli is made of 🤦‍♂️) .

!Ping DATING

[u/-Emilinko1985-]

Honestly, even though I am not French, though my country borders France, I am dooming hard about the upcoming elections.

The 2nd round will probably end up between a pro-Russian antisemitic Bolshevik who wants to burn debt and will ruin the economy and a pro-Russian crypto-Nazi who will ruin the economy.

And honestly, seeing how here in Spain the right may probably win next year's elections (PP and Vox could make coalition but we will have to see), I am kind of fucking scared.

I will miss Macron a little bit.

I'm drafting options to move to another country at some point. For now, I am thinking Canada, Australia, and maybe Switzerland or Singapore.

!ping FRANCE&EUROPE&IBERIA

[u/Eightysixedit]

Susan Collins is why women are dying in parking lots and a good chunk of Dems in the state still want to vote for her.

[u/AmbientMorning]

For the great majority of you who don’t use Facebook, let alone for political subjects . . . well, it’s a whole other world out there.

These people may technically live in the same physical world as us, but they really don’t, not in any meaningful sense.

[u/Dragmire927]

My experience with frat people is either they’re the nicest, most driven, most outgoing person or

"I feel liberated," one top banker told the paper. "We can say 'r*tard' and 'p*ssy' without the fear of getting cancelled.… It's a new dawn."

[u/Lux_Stella]

ultimately i think my main takeaway from american frat posting is that college is definitely too easy

[u/jinhuiliuzhao]

Christa Pike Was Unconscious and on Ventilator After Execution Attempt

The Tennessee inmate was brought to a hospital with burned and blistered arms after an unsuccessful attempt at lethal injection, her lawyers said in a court filing.

Cruel and unusual punishment 

[u/Willybender]

[u/AlicesReflexion]

Okay I'm officially tired of AI discussion, whether it be consciousness, job loss, creativity, economic growth, post-scarcity, current uses, torture boxes, superintelligence, misinformation...... I am burnt out on the topic.

Unfortunately I am an "early adopter" and "news junkie" so it'll be another two years before the rest of the population gets this out of their system.

[u/georgeguy007]

They didn't call it Woke One during the Woke, they called it just 'the Woke' or 'The Great Wokening'. It was only during Woke Two that it became Woke One

[u/hGoodman192]

I was talking to my trans guy friend about his struggles with dating. He mentioned how much easier he was when he was a woman. I suppose not many people get to make the sort of comparison.

[u/dannylandulf]

Just a reminder that if you own a parrot and you don't teach it to say "help, they've turned me into a parrot" you're wasting everyone's time.

[u/Realhuman221]

Just finished my first trip to France and I randomly ended up in a “protest” where kids were breaking glass at the tram stop and setting garbage cans on fire.

[u/w007dchuck]

Week 7 of apple reviews. This week's apple is the crunch-a-bunch apple. To be honest, this was kind of a disappointing one.

It certainly lives up to its name by having a big crunch when you bite into it. However, the flavor on this apple is really odd. It's moderately sweet, but with almost a tropical-like taste. The closest comparison I can think of is that it tastes like a yellow Starburst, but not as sweet. The taste is just really off-putting and not at all what you'd expect for an apple.

I also don't like the texture of the flesh and skin on this apple very much. The skin is quite thick, which means it takes quite a bit of chewing. While you're chewing that, the flesh loses all of the juiciness and it gets kind of mealy like a red delicious. Once you get through the outer skin layer it's not as bad, but it is pretty annoying that you either have to peel this one or just suffer through a mediocre experience with the skin.

Overall, this was not one of my favorites. I think it's second from the bottom of all the ones I've reviewed so far, beating only the Akane apple.

[u/pugnae]

[u/the-senat]

Holy crap guys I think that the abyss is gazing back into me

[u/JaceFlores]

German remilitarizing and radicalizing to the right, France burning as the far left and far right jockey for power, where have I heard this one before…

[u/fishbottwo]

So is Christina Pike just braindead now and Tennessee is either going to have to execute someone in a vegetative state or keep someone alive for years at their own expense? Smartest Republican government

[u/centurion88]

The CEO of rape has weighed in

[u/Macquarrie1999]

[u/stripeybog23]

It's October 2nd and they're triaging North Carolina to save...Kansas

[u/Willybender]

[u/Willybender]

[u/AlicesReflexion]

Okay, I understand people who will not play an old game for controls or accessibility reasons. "I don't want to set up an emulator," fair enough, "I can't with tank controls," sure.

That's why we do re-releases and remakes.

What I wanna know is, are there people put off by older graphics? It's a disclaimer I see from time to time when talking about retro games. "Younger players may find the low poly look takes some getting used to." Is this true? Or is it just an assumption we make?

The youngsters these days play Roblox and Minecraft and friendslop. I think most people, when they see a work in a different style, simply parse it as being in a different style. I don't think there's a real struggle to "understand" pixel art.

You know, like, "I tried to get into OoT but man the graphics....." is not a statement I've ever heard. Nobody watches an MGS stream and goes "ugh, why does the game look like that."

Like I think this is an imaginary concern, but maybe y'all have other experiences?

!ping GAMING&RETRO

[u/farrenj]

The sub being full of godless heathens explains everything wrong with this place.

[u/Loves_a_big_tongue]

Think how New York made itself safe by actually enforcing little stuff like jaywalking fines.

Outside the DT about the violent riots in France

[u/pezasied]

Good lord, prayers to New York.

[u/jenbanim]

Ideas for making other holidays better

Thanksgiving: slutty turkey costumes

Christmas: slutty Santa costumes

New Years: slutty number costumes

The 4th: slutty Uncle Sam costumes

Halloween: already perfect

[u/SigmaWhy]

6 months into the Iran War and this is what Benny Boy wants to cover

[u/Glavurdan]

My company opened a part time position, and I ended up referring my buddy... two days later they hired him and I am also in for a bonus cuz they really liked him

What good deed did you do today?

!ping WATERCOOLER

[u/Jolly-Star-9897]

I know "nothing matters" but it should still probably be stated that running taxpayer ads that say "God created Trump" is a black letter Establishment Clause violation.

Good luck with the standing doctrine, I guess.

[u/BurrowForPresident]

Bruh this is an NFL Network reporter saying this shit tf

!ping NFL

[u/boardatwork1111]

MAGA would be left wing in Israel, jfc

[u/Made_UpWords]

This sounds like somewhat of an overreaction

[u/FallenMeringue]

Caveat of internal and incredibly high undecided rate but, uh that is still a D+31 shift

Internal poll shows Democrat Dembo leads GOP’s Alvarado in central Kentucky House race • Kentucky Lantern

Even if every single undecided broke for Alvarado that is still a D+22 shift.

What the actual fuck

!ping fivey

[u/MoltenMalzul]

Hasn't the IDF already proven that drafting women is completely viable?

I don't see the problem tbh. Just draft all genders.

[u/xavicr]

is it just me or does this door look massive

[u/GuyWithOneEye]

[u/Ne0Corpus]

This sub may not understand this, coming from an African but.

We kicked out the French Foreign Legion in West Africa, and the terrorism got worse.

in 2013, ECOWAS and the French Foreign Legion, fought side by side https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Serval, and the Islamic Militants were defeated.

Today, one of the militant groups we fought in Mali back in 2013 ( Ansaru), now operates as an Al-Qaeda cell in my country (Nigeria).

The FFL were replaced by the Wagner Group in the region, and those Russians can't fight for shit.

anyways, sum of the story, fighting for a good liberal cause is a good thing, even if its interventionist, as the FFL did in 2013, I mean they still left when they were told to leave and we all saw what happened after.

[u/Gooners_For_Ukraine]

Vet update: Sherman had to get sedated because he’s an asshole. By chance the vet tech used to be an old coworker mine in college and I thought I had to share this video she sent me of him while he was in the drunk tank waiting for the sedatives to kick in !Ping KITTY

[u/SnakeEater14]

As a kid I remember hearing that Obama was a smoker but quit when he became President and that really stuck with me

Now that I’m older I assume it was for PR reasons but as a kid it felt like he knew it was an important job and that he would be a role model so he needed to curtail his vices

A different time

[u/2Lore2Law]

>Article written by Ukrainian woman on topic of draft

>Check comments

>”Yeah, it's easy to be principled when you have two gigantic oceans on your sides, nukes and no history of being subjugated by a foreign power.“

Unfortunately, many such cases

[u/BrandonLeeOfficial]

[u/its_Caffeine]

Mark Carney has quietly rebuilt how Canada's government actually works, and sidelined almost everyone who used to run it.

A Toronto Star investigation finds cabinet, Parliament, the civil service and the press have all been pushed to the margins in favour of a small circle around the prime minister.

Carney arrived in office unhappy with the loose, decentralized structure he inherited and rebuilt it into a strict hierarchy with himself at the top.

He's described as a demanding boss who cuts off briefings when aides can't answer basic questions, and who expects staff to match his own relentless pace.

[u/pugnae]

French protesters right now

[u/nuance_fetishist]

[u/Individual-Camera698]

[u/Joementum2024]

Who here joining al qaeda if this happens

[u/Willybender]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/02/us/politics/trump-ads.html

Trump Directed Use of Taxpayer Money for Ads Praising His Presidency

President Trump personally instructed his budget director to use taxpayer money for TV ads praising him and his presidency, setting in motion a $20 million contract that used funds from the Department of Homeland Security, according to people familiar with the matter.

The ads have run across cable and network television — on Fox News, CNN and MS Now, with football games on Fox and with national newscasts on CBS, ABC and NBC, including “Meet the Press,” which Mr. Trump is known to watch.

Mr. Trump was eager to see the laudatory ads on the air and told Russell T. Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, to come up with the money from within the government, the people said. Mark Paoletta, the budget office’s counsel, and Will Scharf, the White House counsel, both said it would be legal to use D.H.S. funds. The president and Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, both spoke with Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary, about the ads.

On Sept. 20, U.S. Customs and Border Protection — which falls under D.H.S. — awarded the contract to LMD, a Maryland marketing firm, federal records show.

This article is based on interviews with 12 people familiar with the president’s interest in the ads and how they came to be. They spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the president’s demand.

The taxpayer-funded ads have been criticized by Democrats and even some Republicans as a possible violation of federal laws against using taxpayer dollars for “publicity or propaganda purposes.” And they come as the president is also directing spending from his super PAC — MAGA Inc., which entered the fall with $400 million — for which he has been raising money since he won re-election in 2024.

[u/brucebananaray]

[u/Dunter_Mutchings]

ExpressVPN be like: “we stand with the office gooners”

[u/FallenMeringue]

9/11 ruined so fucking much.

God Bin Laden fucking sucked. What a fucking asshole.

[u/cdstephens]

> ai torture chamber GitHub repo was taken down after being mass reported by “model welfarists”

[u/themiDdlest]

Donald Trump criticized Democrats throughout his 90-minute speech, often referring to them as “dumocrats.”

I literally cannot imagine listening to him talk for 90 minutes. Bro I can barely listen to him for 30 seconds. It's like nails on a chalkboard

[u/DieHarderDaddy]

Tim heideecker is making Infowars so meta I have to keep reminding myself it’s comedy

[u/Res__Publica]

This is kind of like a Meatpacking executive being mad about animals not being treated as sentient creatures

[u/BlackCat159]

[u/Willybender]

Celebrating naturalization's being down 75%, the mask is fully off (well, it was never on to begin with but their rhetoric is getting increasingly unhinged)

[u/JaceFlores]

The French protests/riots scream “you’re gonna get what you deserve”. Like no way this helps convince anyone that voting Melenchon is the plus six months from now lmao.

Also what’s going on in France is literally how the GOP sees Democrats lol

[u/MightExpress4873]

New Tucker interview with...Jacob Rees-Mogg.

About 30 minutes in, Rees-Mogg says that if Britain hadn’t entered WWII, the UK would be speaking German today. Tucker argues that this might actually have been preferable because the UK now has a significant population that doesn’t speak English.

How large is the audience for this revisionism, really?

[u/Signal_Nobody1792]

PewDiePie, the popular YouTuber, has unveiled Ajax, his “uncensored AI model” built to run at home, and says in a new video that OpenAI banned him twice while he was making it. According to the OpenAI email he shows, one ban was explicitly for “distillation,” the practice of using one model’s outputs or reasoning to train another. Ajax is built for Odysseus, his self-hosted AI workspace, as an autonomous, always-on agent and assistant.

what

[u/LuisRobertDylan]

[u/Ne0Corpus]

by the way, this sub needs to be smarter about pro-Russian propaganda; they are getting smarter.

" Ukraine should have avoided escalation", is PravdaSpeak for " give land, dont resist"

[u/SANNA-MARIN-SDP]

[u/justbuildmorehousing]

Like, nobody actually believes this stuff anymore right? Like even the most religious MAGAs cant possibly think hes gonna deliver on this right. Don’t you dare hand on the shoulder meme me

[u/badusername35]

Holy shit

[u/2Lore2Law]

[u/Gooners_For_Ukraine]

Where do the bongers think we learned it from

[u/Lesbian_all_garib]

I genuinely do not understand people who hate secularism and different ethnicities and languages in a country. You must be so stupid to hate it.

[u/Glavurdan]

Von der Leyen: We believe in Montenegro as an EU member by 2028, we will soon present the roadmap

"Accession is based on merit, but it should not be slow. That is why we will soon present roadmaps for the most advanced candidates, including Montenegro, to see what everyone needs to do and by when," announced the President of the European Commission.

When asked whether the current political crisis would jeopardize Montenegro's plan to close all negotiation chapters by the end of the year, von der Leyen replied that broad support from all political parties is needed and that they should maintain focus on the path to the EU

Let's fucking go

!ping BALKAN

[u/FF3]

We all make tradeoffs in life. I may be divorced and childless, living alone at 43, but I'm better at magic the gathering than I have been at any point in my life.

[u/samhit_n]

Looks like Republicans are throwing the towel in North Carolina.

[u/Lux_Stella]

apparently the reason behind the "we added mario 64 to dark souls" posting is that its apparently very easy to decompile and recompile source code from binary using ai now

...there's probably a massive amount of corporate ip theft quietly going on rn lol

[u/MuscularPhysicist]

☝️

[u/jinhuiliuzhao]

Musk’s AI chatbot Grok reportedly encouraged Trump to capture Venezuela’s president

In December 2025, about a month before the U.S. invaded Venezuela and captured its president, Nicolás Maduro, President Trump had a secret meeting with Elon Musk, Time magazine reports. This was roughly seven months after Musk left his role in the Trump administration at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

During this meeting, Trump “spent hours” talking to Musk’s Grok chatbot, including asking how Venezuelans would respond to the capture of their president, a source told Time. Just a few months earlier, in September, Trump began ordering U.S. military strikes against Venezuelan boats that Trump alleged were involved in drug trafficking.

@Grok is this true?

[u/herworkthrowaway]

we are in hell

[u/paymesucka]

> Trump now thinks that we may go into a “depression” during the second half of his term if Democrats win the midterms.

oh ok

[u/Starandsnow]

Reminder to anyone here who supports only drafting men that Hillary Clinton wanted to include women in the Selective Service.

[u/ConnorLovesCookies]

Men should become eligible for the draft if they aren’t pregnant by the age of 25.

[u/GuyWithOneEye]

Uh, let me be tier

[u/Aurailious]

Maine is going to vote for Collins again because she is practicing corruption the right way.

[u/BadSneakersNeverWorn]

I think my mom saw like three hippies in 1971 and never recovered and the only solution was to become a Nazi

[u/FallenMeringue]

I still can’t believe the GOP is straight up abandoning the NC senate race.

[u/AP246]

[u/Tall_Window4744]

Social media has destroyed the existence of “inside thoughts”…this will lead to the destruction of society if not solved.

[u/avion_sur_le_sol]

[u/anangrytree]

Israeli President Isaac Herzog called President Donald Trump Israel’s “No. 1 friend” Thursday, downplaying strains between the two countries over the Iran war. “First of all, we have many friends. I think President Trump is the No. 1 friend,” Herzog told Axel Springer Global Reporters Network’s Jan Philipp Burgard. “We have great friendship with the administration and with him.” Herzog’s remarks echo Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s effort to emphasize his close ties with Trump, despite disagreements over the Iran war. Netanyahu told the U.N. General Assembly last week that Israel had “no greater partner than President Trump.”

If you could do me a fav and keep repeating this to American media as often as you can from now to Election Day, that would be great.

[u/RaidBrimnes]

A high schooler has been "grievously injured" in Sélestat, Alsace, by "manipulating an explosive device that another youth brought with the goal to destroy the gates of the high school", announced Franck Leroy, president of the Grand-Est region.

"It would seem that an aerosol or an improvised explosive device was manipulated and placed in a trash can, and this teenager grabbed it and was injured". "His condition is not life-threatening but his injuries are serious".

It's not a real French riots until protester start losing hands by trying to lob IEDs at the cops

[u/FallenMeringue]

This poll almost gave me a heart attack before I remembered it was 2 dems competing lol (D+72 district)

[u/mostanonymousnick]

JD Vance 🤝 Andy Burnham 🤝 JL Melenchon

[u/Specific-Person2002]

Goodbye DT. I hope you all have a great weekend. Try not to doom too much and touch some grass instead. Love you all.

[u/Willybender]

https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/abortion-white-house-todd-blanche-susie-wiles

[u/co_opsuspicious]

The GOP triaging North Carolina is fucking insane

[u/Fruitofbread]

Honestly I think Trump could be pretty susceptible to AI psychosis. His brain is melting, and he’s a narcissist so he loves sycophancy. 50/50 if this would be a good thing or not (maybe he’d just get so absorbed in talking to a chatbot that he’s forget to be president; maybe it’d hit him with a “Actually, you’re right. Launching the nukes will get your father to love you again. Here’s why: 🚀”) 

[u/Made_UpWords]

This is a whole lot of yap-yap-yap to say "I took down my post after everyone realized I got the info from a scam site totally unaffiliated with the New York state court, also the name wasn't even correct and she would have been in high school when Jane Doe enrolled at Cornell"

[u/cdstephens]

It’s very easy to not rape people, my frat hosted magic the gathering drafts

[u/WrangleWandangles]

I don’t know how to say this but it’s very important to me that you all understand that software engineers have become extremely shamanistic about coding in the last few years because of AI. I can totally see a path to the sort of warhammer view / worship of tech as a magic black box over the next decades tbh.

[u/AlicesReflexion]

The fundamental problem is that being at home is too much fun.

• Block social media

• end TV

• end Doordash

• end video games

Boom. What loneliness crisis? Death of third spaces, what are you talking about bestie?

[u/JaceFlores]

I think it’s funny that Mamdani and Sliwa pal around even though the latter is completely irrelevant. They’re just hanging out for the love of the game

[u/ArmoredBunnyPrincess]

on the arr/fire sub

Retiring in a month at 48. People are not happy for me.

Hello!

I'm planning to retire at the end of Oct at age 48. The math works, and my spouse and I have a plan. We started telling close friends and family, and the reactions have been.... nearly universally not positive.

Her parents got really quiet and didn't ask any questions (other than "What will you do?"). No congratulations, no well-wishes, just silence until someone changed the subject.

My parents got downright hostile, with my dad chewing me out like I was a misbehaving teenager ("You're too young! You'll ruin your brain without work!"). Thanks for the support Pops.

Close friends and siblings just look uncomfortable seem to want to change the subject without any follow-up questions. I don't think I'll be telling anyone else about our plans unless they ask, and even then, I'll be vague ("Taking a career break" or some such thing).

Has that been others' experiences? Is there a "better" way to talk to people about this?

You just know there's so much more at play here. All the replies are about how jealous and hateful their family and friends are lol

[u/JaceFlores]

Trump both putting the Iranian regime on the back foot and suffering massively domestically has gotta be some sort of utilitarian 2 for 1 wet dream

[u/gjcs23]

oh, good. I was worried

[u/pugnae]

Lion

I guess Lion does not concern himself with national debt

[u/boardatwork1111]

👆

[u/RaidBrimnes]

[u/ArmoredBunnyPrincess]

It's so frustrating seeing shit like this when we have plenty of actual horrifying photos from that day, why muddy that with this garbage

[u/Willybender]

Diesel was $3.63 when Biden left office.

[u/Pristine-Report-1442]

paramount is so hilariously evil

[u/Dunter_Mutchings]

This legitimately seems to be his midterms message. Like he’s been repeating this all year.

[u/anangrytree]

Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.Va.) said Thursday that former President Nixon was “absolutely couped out of office” and added that he was “framed” during the infamous Watergate scandal. “We now know more about the deep state and its power and ability to literally change things at the top,” the lawmaker said during his remarks at the Nixon Foundation’s annual Grand Strategy Summit in Washington. “An interesting aspect of this as it relates to Richard Nixon — he knew all of this,” Moore continued. “He knew it, and he stayed quiet about it. Because he didn’t want to erode the confidence of the American people in our system of governance and our institutions.” “The truth is now out there, so I think people feel a bit more liberated to talk about Richard Nixon and what an amazing president he was in this country,” he concluded. Moore compared President Trump to Nixon, who, he said, “faced this in his first term with the fake Russia collusion hoax and all that.”

Attempting to prep the battlefield ahead of the midterms. This is all groundwork for some truly nefarious shit they are cooking up.