Yes a reporter on Air Force One.

I wasn’t able to go, but my buddy did. He and I are both mid-60s, and he said the vast majority of people were our age or older. This is southern California.

surpassing even the 2017 Women’s March demonstrations against Trump.

I guess he really does bring people together…

I hear you. I had the original doorbell cam, and early outdoor cam, well before google bought them. I was happy with them and knew I’d be selling the house.

My cameras are only outside. I have (had) speakers and lights inside. I’m against most of this kind of AI use. It’s a ridiculous energy waste for little benefit (I do think there are a number of good ML applications).

Okay, thanks (you and others).

Yep. And some of it’s so obvious. I mean, has anyone forgotten when a bunch of Republican (and only Republican) senators went to Russia for a July 4th visit?

It’s absurd how wildly successful Putin has been.

I honestly don’t think stupidity explains all of Trump’s decisions nearly as well.

Here’s the one conspiracy theory that always sticks with me because it explains everything. Putin’s number one goal for decades has been to destabilize the United States. That’s why Russian troll farms have posted things supporting both sides of decisive issues for ages. He doesn’t care about the issue, just that Americans fight over them. Trump has been mixed up with the Russian Mafia since his real estate days, and Putin has a lot of dirt on him. Since becoming president, Trump has appointed people most likely to disrupt or destroy the organizations they’re in charge of. The person who wants to get rid of the department of education gets put in charge of it. The person who doesn’t believe in science and who believes junk conspiracy theories, gets appointed health and human services. Many more examples. The goal is to make the government fall apart.

So in that context, Hegseth doing this works either way. If he gets the military brass to fall in line and go against the Constitution, Putin wins. If he tries and the military brass goes against the commander in chief, Putin still wins. The goal is destabilizing the country and taking down the government.

I really had it in my head that he was Canadian, so didn’t think I needed to. Thanks for the correction.

Not sure who I’m confusing him with.

Isn’t he Canadian?

Totally agree. Like I say, it will get challenged but I have zero faith that anything will happen.

Except you know the DOJ guy said something like “We want to make sure you’re treated fairly and you do the right thing - it would be so sad to see you commit suicide like Jeffrey because of your guilty conscience.”

Not as badly as it did Ivanka

There are worse ones

That probably wouldn’t happen. What would happen is that it would go to the courts whether a president can really pardon himself or not. His corrupt SCOTUS might actually say they can, but regardless it would probably take long enough that he’d be dead and not caring.

Plus he’s making giant piles of money bilking the American people. And you can bet that, before his term ends, he’ll give himself a blanket pardon.

Podcasts tend to be pretty conversational. I’m sure Obama didn’t put the thought into the comment that he puts into his speeches, where every word and every sentence is crafted. I just took it to mean that he had this diversity of experience with people he looked up to, and that helped him grow as a person. I personally didn’t have a lot of people growing up that I thought of as role models (not that my life was in any way bad, just that I didn’t tend to relate to people that way). So maybe the way I took it was slightly different than he meant it because of the differences in our experience of growing up, or maybe he was just trying to equate exposure to diverse people with the development of empathy, and did so in the way it worked him him. Hard to say.

That’s not the message I took away from what he said. What I got is that people should have diverse role models because if everyone is just like you, you don’t learn empathy. He had someone who would correct him when he was wrong in a kind way, and that person happened to be gay. That experience helped him learn empathy and kindness.

As a straight white guy, I also feel that I’ve benefited from getting to know queer folk on a personal level - that that experience helped me understand and appreciate diversity, even for people from groups that I haven’t yet gotten to know personally. I get to know someone who’s, say, trans, and get at least a little exposure to what their experience of life is and how it’s differed from mine. It makes me work that empathy muscle, so it’s more developed when I met the next person whose experience is different from mine.

That doesn’t mean that those people have some responsibility for educating me or teaching me anything. It just means that my exposure to people from different walks of life is useful for my own personal growth.