cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/52520391

Donald Trump pledged Wednesday to send every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections, an extraordinary gambit to reverse his party’s sagging fortunes in November.

The dubious promise would likely cost more than $1 trillion and require congressional approval, and would further exacerbate the country’s nearly $1.8 trillion annual budget deficit and concerns about inflation.

Temperatures reached 1.65C above preindustrial levels, months before El Niño system reaches full strength

August was the joint-hottest month ever recorded around the world, with global temperatures reaching 1.65C above preindustrial levels, scientists said on Thursday, amid warnings of further heating on the way.

August 2026 tied with July 2023 for the hottest month ever recorded, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. Sea surface temperatures also soared to their highest levels on record for August.

These temperatures were recorded even before the coming El Niño weather system has made much of an impact. El Niño is a naturally recurrent phenomenon whereby wind changes over the Pacific lead to rising ocean temperatures and the transfer of huge amounts of heat to the atmosphere, with the consequences felt around the world in floods, droughts and heatwaves.

by beetlemoses https://x.com/beetlemoses/status/2097784698026004494

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43860429

Existence is non negotiable

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/52520391

by https://x.com/DrippyInk_/status/2097849015123480745

Archive sites aren't working for me. Axios's layout is a fucking nightmare. I created sane paragraphs. Hopefully I didn't remove anything important by accident.

DALLAS — Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman (D) made a bombshell appearance Wednesday night at the GOP convention, in a video praising President Trump and Republican Sen. Dave McCormick for helping America's steel industry. Fetterman's stunning turn — a Democratic senator in a supporting role at the GOP's showcase campaign event, fewer than eight weeks before the Nov. 3 midterms — marked a dramatic escalation in Fetterman's growing estrangement from his party.

Fetterman said later in a statement that he isn't switching parties. But he is distancing himself from socialism in the Democratic Party's left wing, sources familiar with the situation said. Democrats are certain to see the cameo as political mutiny — and it will supercharge questions about whether he'll ultimately leave the Democratic Party before he's up for reelection in 2028.

It also was a major coup for Trump, who has long reveled at the idea of winning over former Democrats to his side. If Fetterman were to eventually switch parties, it would make Democrats' uphill battle to take control of the Senate much more difficult. They currently need to flip four seats, including some in red states, to win a majority. In the video, Fetterman introduced McCormick, who also represents Pennsylvania. McCormick helped arrange Fetterman's appearance, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.

McCormick has courted and been friendly with Fetterman for months. Fetterman, a first-term Democrat, has become deeply unpopular with voters in his party — including his constituents in Pennsylvania — as he has increasingly warmed to Trump. He's praised the president's defense of Israel at a time when many Democrats — and some Republicans — have criticized Israel's actions in Gaza.

At the same time, Fetterman has won a following among Republicans who have relished his willingness to take on members of his own team. Fetterman is actually seen more favorably by Republicans in his state than McCormick, a recent poll by the New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena University found.

The reversal in support has left Fetterman with few political options. Many operatives from both parties in Pennsylvania tell Axios that he has no path to surviving a Democratic primary in 2028. Fetterman hasn't said whether he'll seek reelection, and several prominent Pennsylvania Democrats already are plotting potential challenges.

Fetterman laid out the circumstances under which he would leave the Democratic Party in July, saying his red line was if it became "the anti-Israel party." "I'm never changing my party," Fetterman said then — except for "that one condition." About the same time, he formed a joint fundraising committee with McCormick, an extraordinarily unusual arrangement for two senators from opposing parties.

Republican leaders have worked to cultivate Fetterman as his relationships with Democratic officials have deteriorated.Fetterman's ties to the Democratic Party have steadily worsened since 2024, with Israel and his friendliness to Trump the sharpest points of disagreement.

Fetterman has remained one of Israel's most outspoken Democratic defenders, even as his party has grown increasingly critical of the country because of its military's actions in Gaza. In April, he opposed two measures to block weapons sales to Israel that were supported by most Senate Democrats. He also emerged as one of Trump's most prominent Democratic backers during the war with Iran, repeatedly breaking with members of his party who sought to restrict the president's war powers.

The tensions extend beyond foreign policy. Fetterman voted to advance now-Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin's nomination, drawing intense criticism from Democrats. Tensions exploded again last week, after a Wall Street Journal investigation detailed allegations that Fetterman was uninterested in many of the day-to-day responsibilities of being a senator while devoting significant attention to Israel and conservative media appearances. Fetterman has disputed the report.

"John Fetterman is a disgrace," Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle posted on X. Other Pennsylvania Democrats also publicly raised the prospect of defeating Fetterman if he seeks reelection. What they're saying: In his statement late Wednesday, Fetterman said he introduced McCormick "as a great American and friend."

Fetterman's cameo echoed then-Democratic Sen. Zell Miller's appearance at the 2004 Republican National Convention, where he endorsed President George W. Bush's reelection campaign and attacked his own party over national security in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks.

https://www.axios.com/2026/09/09/fetterman-video-gop-convention-trump

So this happened

The latest update, released to stable today, adds a long awaited feature to automatically start recording phone calls.

I saw the release notes a few days ago, but there were one or two versions pushed to alpha and beta before it was released to stable. I've been using various third party apps to do call recording, so it's nice that this feature is native in grapheneos.

To enable, open the Phone app and go to Settings -> Call Recording. You can enable automatic call recording for all non-contact numbers, but strangely you can't just enable it for all calls. If you want to auto record numbers you have in your contact list, you have to add them one by one.

Hopefully, they'll update the feature to allow for a blacklist as well, so that you can just record every single call, except calls to specifically listed numbers.

Aside from that strange design choice, I'm really glad the team added this feature. Thanks, dev team!

Taken from the Port Townsend - Coupeville ferry, looking back towards the mountains. The clouds were certainly feeling photogenic!

Shot on a Canon Eos R6 II, f/7.1, 1/400, ISO100

Trump speaks at GOP midterm convention in Dallas

Trump claims he will send $5,000 to every citizen if Republicans hold on to control of Congress

Trump has claimed he will send every citizen $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the US House and Senate. He provided no details about where he would source this money from or the legality of the incentive.

“So if the Republicans win, you win with us … it will be called the Trump dividend,” the president said.

The Guardian - update link

https://xcancel.com/Channel5iveNews/status/2097834839797838324#m

https://www.404media.co/channel-5-gave-hunter-biden-a-list-of-its-subscribers-emails-for-some-reason/

https://archive.is/5rCdw (404media)

https://archive.is/mPm1X (wapo)

A cryptocurrency token launched by Hunter Biden, the son of the former president, abruptly lost almost all of its value within minutes of its debut Wednesday morning.

Earlier this week, the younger Biden had touted the launch of the $LAPTOP meme coin, saying it was a way to reclaim a symbol that had defined news coverage about him when his father was president. He also suggested that the meme coin would be about building community, benefiting charity and helping those who had “lost money on the $TRUMP grift,” referring to President Donald Trump’s own meme coin launch.

Instead, the value of Biden’s meme coin plummeted from a high of about $190 per token to less than $2 per token. About 80 percent of traders who bought Biden’s cryptocurrency token Wednesday lost money, according to the blockchain analytics platform Bubblemaps, which described it as “bloodbath.”

Bubblemaps CEO Nicolas Vaiman said more than 15,000 crypto wallets, or accounts, had lost money on $LAPTOP, and that the supply of tokens was “extremely concentrated” before launch, making it vulnerable to a “dump,” or rapid sell-off.

Biden, who in recent months has been a prolific social media poster and appeared on numerous podcasts, has not publicly commented on the $LAPTOP coin since its launch. Representatives for Biden did not immediately respond to interview requests Wednesday.

Andrew Callaghan is also a sex pest.