These guys don't actually believe in free speech. During Covid when a democratic governor shut down a church, they sang the song of the first amendment. When tradiional Catholics were categorized a certain way, they sang the song again. But time and time again you can see that these guys don't actually care. No principles. Why would a college student, foreign or domestic, not want to protest? Or speak out about damn near anything? Or have any of a huge variety of opinions? They have to be super careful now about how and what and to whom (or where) they share these opinions? And we're supposed to believe that the current administration will limit this hyper critical treatment of online speech to foreigners wanting to come here to college? Are they promising this is limited to online reviews - by the way its not... they were asking/forcing Harvard to review their cameras... Will they hire spies to go on campus during protests to gather video and further intel? I'd almost guarantee that they will/have/do. Will there be a Palantir database for this too? Will citizens accidentally be pulled into this dataset?

And just to further cement the absurdity of all of this, Republicans on J6 carried the flag of traitors all over DC. But they're not "foreign terrorists", just domestic. I'm not even sure if that's sarcasm or sadness. I just can't understand anything these days.

Say what you want about Biden but he did more to "stimulate" and build manufacturing in the USA. Señor TACO acts tough like he is bringing manufacturing back but this completely remains to be seen. What little jobs that could come from modern manufacturing takes sincerity, capital, incentives/rebates/grants/cheap-loans, and an educated and available work force for this to happen. The administration is not inspiring me in any way on these. The modern republican party only knows how to sow the seeds of a culture war, deregulate, and pass a tax cut. These won't be enough.

For a further anecdote, I know someone in parts manufacturing for manufacturing and they have been very busy for a year plus. They have a hard time hiring good people that can do the work and stay on. So to say Trump will accomplish more than Biden makes me very suspicious. And then think about what they're gonna do to interest rates if all the treasury market/bond worries play out with an increase in deficit spending and federal debt? Now it'll be harder to get the capital, do the buildouts, hope your investments pay off, hope the tariffs are stable enough to incentive on shored production?

If you kick out significant numbers of able immigrants, you pressure the available work force even more. Now you need to train/hire them for modern manufacturing - and if this in particular rings any bells that would be because that's the talk of a Democrat, not a Republican! You think Republicans are going to talk about helping kids go to tech school w/ subsidized tuition?! There are SOO many questions to all of this.

Oh horse shit. I heard on a podcast, talking about Canadian vendors (and avoiding American products btw), saying how their customers would just stare at the prices of European cheese being sold. They would be in shock saying, you want us to pay that, for that!? So, whatever. I'm sure European organic, location of origin, cheese, wine, everything, is already expensive and have their prices already jacked up. You can enjoy your expensive beef. Frankly, as a liberal/centrist American I hope that we don't sell any of our American beef anywhere else, its too expensive, herd counts are down. I feel for the general situation. Some prices are up. Some (like commodities, soy, alfalfa, etc) are down. It is gonna be a K shaped shitty economic situation for a while. But keep some context please. Like we're jacking up your prices, whatever.

He won because he said enough nice things to a broad enough coalition to get angry people to vote for him. Mad about inflation well I'll get groceries down. Mad about your school library book choices well I'll defund them. Etc. Democrats were mad at their leadership and so their only choices were to vote third party, not vote, or plug their nose and vote for their chosen next in line. Republicans were mad enough to have one of many reasons to vote for the orange clown show. The real story is that in the first Trump term he was surrounded by enough establishment conventional Republicans that there were sane voices in the room. They're all gone. Now it is yes men, yes women, and only those self selected by their indiscriminate loyalty to him. They no longer hear the voices from the center or anywhere else. It's all about the Stephen Miller and the Breitbart flood of shit. Their base no longer consumes sane/centrist/other media. These are farmers who will tariff their own (or their neighbor's) farm out of existence to own the libs. And then not even second guess their fat government check when they plant soy beans again anyways. It is insanity. No one thinks critically anymore. Idiots everywhere. I hope the left can learn from this and return to the center instead of talking about drag shows and reparations all the time. Democratic candidates can win in Montana, Minnesota and all these rural mostly conservative states when they run centrist liberals and mostly stay in the center as a party.

Everyone knows that regulation are burdensome and a net drain on the economy. If people cannot trust their banks, it just means they will live with the consequences of their decisions. Weak men who cannot calculate risk should not have money anyways. I for one look forward to a return of wildcat banks, massive fraud, and increased market panics.

Did they contact the 7th Dimension?

Yes, but they're amazing for running. I have an older (series 3?) apple watch. The core OS no longer updates, but the app for nike run club sure did. It broke itself. The NRC app depends on a newer version of the OS. I refused to buy a new one out of spite. I now run a lot less than I did in '23, I'm a hair over 40 years old and now I just take the dog on more walks. But it still sucks, I loved running with the watch and the NRC integration. Our dog is a Beagle so he is pretty near impossible to take on jogs with me in spite of rather excellent stamina. Point is, I will soon be deciding if a running watch is worth the purchase.

Hire the Hell's Angels for "security".
Rough up them dam dirty hippies. Teach them how to not be weak, an to live free or die.
Fuck it, let's ride.

I hear Q anon is back.

Yes, and for American farmers, you know, the normal kind? The kind that grow GMO corn and soy beans like lemmings? You think there won't be tariffs for them? I look forward to the next four years how Trump and Republicans will just fix everything. I bet they'll balance the budget, the markets won't crash, they'll repeal and replace Obama care, deport all the illegals and pass tax cuts that grow the economy and end inflation. Now, personally, I look forward to some serious schadenfreude. But I am not a normal American voter, I actually remember what it was like "four" years ago. How he shut down the economy, sped up the shot, and threw money around out and passed two stimulus bills. How the fed bought corporate junk bonds. Anyways, if he undoes Biden regulations like for clean water, I'll remember that too. I remember not buying scotch whisky, tarriffs do matter.

I am starting to believe this also may reach a tipping point. Internal combustion engine vehicles are also becoming very expensive for newer vehicles to stay maintained. Engine bays are very cramped, engine designs are very complicated. Replacing timing chains, water pumps, gaskets, etc. is a big undertaking and quite expensive. This all means that it could get to a point where a used car's battery replacement becomes a reasonable option as long as they can stay available in a reasonable way. I do not believe that auto manufacturers (or their lobbyists/lawmakers) are helping their own cause with the stuff they're kicking out. Older engine/automobile designs from ~30 years ago in a typical sedan are preferable for longevity to a twin turbo, quadruple overhead cam (exaggerating... maybe) monster w/ awd and a 6+ speed auto of today.

So when do we as Americans finally get fed up enough to let these guys fail? Or do we do as these WSJ editor idiots propose and save them for national securty's sake? This is the stuff in politics that enrages me, I'm pretty much done with it all. But hey, maybe we need tariffs to prop up our (shitty?) American manufacturing, so we can pay more, for worse products, so Trump and his rich constituents can make enough money to throw us some scraps like Musk is in Pennsylvania right now. Don't tell the board/management anything, they certainly aren't asking or listening.