> Alex Lomas, a researcher at Pen Test Partners, said in a blog post that an attacker could lock “everyone in or out” very quickly. “There is no emergency override function either, so if you’re locked in there’s no way out,” he wrote.
> Top White House officials are blocking strict new federal guidelines for the emergency release of a coronavirus vaccine, objecting to a provision that would almost certainly guarantee that no vaccine could be authorized before the election on Nov. 3, according to people familiar with the approval process.
> Reporters covering the White House are furious with top administration officials who they believe have, in grossly mishandling the West Wing coronavirus outbreak, recklessly endangered their lives, according to interviews Monday with nine journalists who cover the White House. Several of these journalists said they do not feel safe at the White House and are actively avoiding the grounds unless absolutely necessary.
I agree with @Wipqozn; sure there is plenty about US politics during any administration that is worthy of critique; but Trump is a shitshow all unto himself. He's a wanna-be dictator with more than a negligible percent of the country that would support him crowning himself king
In fact, he's worse than a normal autocrat, most of whom want to preserve the State. Trump wants to destroy the State, for his own personal benefit
> The U.S. is in a different situation than a typical country that is transforming from democracy to autocracy, at least historically speaking. We may not be in a unique situation now because other countries, like the U.K., are subject to the same forces, but it is different from the fascist takeovers of the past.
> But I've largely called him an authoritarian or autocrat instead of a fascist because "fascist" implies loyalty to the state. A fascist wants to embody and expand the state and usually has imperial ambitions. Whereas Trump wants to destroy the U.S.: he wants to strip it down and sell it off for parts to both domestic and foreign backers.
> You also see Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's influence, the head of an apartheid state, on Kushner, who is far more influential at devising policy than Trump. Looking at what has happened to Russia and Israel under their brutal leaders is a good guide for predicting what may happen to America, at least in terms of policies. But the difference is that Trump truly doesn't care if the U.S. survives.
> This makes him different from dictators like Hitler or Stalin, who wanted to conquer, and who were deeply wedded to the idea of the nation-state. It makes him different from Netanyahu and Putin as well, because they want to expand their territory and preserve their nations. The Trump administration is simply a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government.
> That is why those who seek to keep our democracy and sovereignty need to understand that Trump does not even respect the traditional limitations of fascism: he doesn't care if the country itself is defeated, as long as he is not defeated. So Americans who are standing up for our country need to assess their leverage in that context. We are dealing with a new kind of threat, and we need to come up with new measures to combat it.
@BradC it's entirely believable that Trump didn't report any symptoms. Doesn't mean he doesn't have any. We're only getting very specific pieces that Trump allows them to say
I don't think he knows anything. He's acting on instinct, decoupled from reality. So of course he's trying to discredit the election results, but the devious implementation of suppressing and invalidating votes is done by the professionals from the GOP
I trust Trump will do something incredibly dumb soon that I can't even imagine now. But it really looks like the election is slipping out of his hands, and I don't see how they can cheat if the margins are large
If my rule of 2016-2020 of "whatever is the dumbest possible outcome, will happen" would hold, Biden would be dying now. That's fortunately not what actually happened
> WASHINGTON — House lawmakers who spent the last 15 months investigating the practices of the world’s largest technology companies said on Tuesday that Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google had exercised and abused their monopoly power and called for the most sweeping set of changes to antitrust laws in half a century.
> Mike Pence’s team says they have not agreed to barriers at Wednesday’s vice-presidential debate. That means Kamala Harris and the moderator could have more protection than Pence.
