Setting aside the veritable TITAN-loads of shady shit Palsntir is up to, it's also worth noting that Reddit's policy changes have made it clear that providing a platform for the spread of disinformation is a central part of its current business model, so I'd assume that not only is Palantir using it for that purpose, but that they are far from alone.

Imagine being so intelkectuslly and ethically bankrupt that you'd want to boycott s store chain because someone involved in it dared to run an ad promoting "values like honoring commitments to allies, defending against dictators, and respecting trading partners."

So now, to the MAGAs, honor, integrity, liberty and respect are evils that must be opposed in favor of Trump's ideals of dishonor, dishonesty, tyranny and disrespect

Seriously, I expect that future histories are going to record that the US collapsed in an inexplicable avalanche of stupidity and insanity.

a “new phase” of militarization against Americans

It's not even a matter of saying the quiet part out loud any more. There is no quiet part — Trump and the Republicans (and most of the Democrats even, judging from their complete failure, even now, to do anything at all to even slow Trump down) are overtly and systematically implementing a violent and oppressive plutocratic autocracy and they aren't even bothering to pretend otherwise.

I wish I could pop into the future and read what history is going to have to say about all of this, because it's going to be spectacularly horrific.

Aside from the many odd things that creep in around the fringes as a result of Trump's deep and abiding mental illness, the main thrust of this administration is to transfer as much wealth and power as possible from the people to the wealthiest few.

And it's safe to predict that that's going to end about as well for everyone involved as it always has.

It's not theft if you voluntarily pay it.

If it's taken from you against your will though, it actually is theft. It's just that that fact discommodes a number of people by cutting to the heart of the nature of governance, so we're conditioned to pretend that it's not true.

Here's something beyond that to think about - a significant number of the things a government does are actially things that would be, in any other context, crimes. In fact, that's arguably the exact nature of a government - it's an organization that claims the right to act in ways that are criminal if done by anyone else in any other context.

Theft is the most common one, and in fact theft of the wealth of (some portion of) the people in a given area is the thing that allows for all of the rest. Governments also regularly engage in kidnapping, extortion and murder. That's what you would be charged with if you, respectively, took people by force and held them against their wills, or demanded payment from people in exchange for allowing them to do something, or killed people or directed someone else to kill them. But governments alone claim the right to do all of those things.

Also, there are a bunch of lesser "crimes" that aren't necssarily crimes in and of themselves, but that the government makes into crimes specifically to create that situation in which they're the only ones with the right to do something that's otherwise a crime - running a lottery, selling restricted products like pharmaceutical drugs, printing money, etc.

And in fact, if we were to make just the small change to holding that it's the case that if an act is a crime when someone else does it, it's also a crime when a government does it, governments would immediately be without either power or purpose. That's how central committing acts that are otherwise crimes is to their entire identity and purpose.

And more to think on - this is a problem because try as they might for millennia now, nobody has been able to work out a way to establish foundational legitimacy for government. Ultimately the nominal legitimacy of each and every government relies on some combination of laws it has established itself and simple force - there is no external, objective thing on which a government's nominal legitimacy rests.

So what we really have are organizations that cannot establish any sort of objective legitimacy engaging in acts that would be crimes if done by anyone else.

Let that sink in.

It claims nothing of the sort.

It claims that the sheer magnitude of the transfers means that the gun manufacturers have to have some awareness of which of their distributors are providing guns to the cartels, and that they've systemstically turned a blind eye to them.

Which is not only possible but likely.

But it runs up against the fact that the powers-that-be in the US have a vested interest in the cartels getting as many guns as possible, being as violent as possible, and undermining Mexican stability as much as possible, in order to maintain US hegemony in North America.

Thus the Supreme Court's ruling, because at this point in our history, they don't work for the benefit of the people - they work for the benefit of the wealthy and empoweredl few.

Of course they did. Running guns into Mexico in order to arm the cartels and keep the country unstable is US oligarch policy, snd this SC's sole purpose is to serve the interests of the oligarchs.

There are two broad types of governments: those that benefit the many, and those that oppress the many in order to benefit a few.

Those that benefit the many have no colorable need for mass surveillance.

Teto the hero of the people.

And "Eat the rich, eat the rich! Itadakimasu bitch!" is sheer brilliance.

Reminder that Trump isn't carrying out an autocratic coup d'etat in the US by himself.

He has the active support and assistance of the Republican party and their politicians at every step of the way.

Trump is Pol Pot. The Republican party is the Khmer Rouge.

It doesn't get much more Musk than, "I polled the racists and they said racism is okay, so racism is okay "