I'll tell you what's crazy, is the fact that anybody is surprised by this. These stories can come out all day every day (and often do), but the corruption is so deep that there will be no consequence. Just business as usual.
This. They are the problem. Because whatever side they're on they lend political capitol to the stupidity when it's their team doing it. You'll never have enough people to care enough to change things so long as half the people who could care at any one time are actively making excuses or running cover when it's their guy.
People need to have some goddamn principals. Corruption and backroom dealing is bad no matter who's doing it. Even if you like who's doing it you should still not like it because at the very least it de-legitimizes your cause.
Anytime either side is pushing something the other side disagrees with, they claim the opposition is being partisan. Then there are the flip flops, like claiming the debt ceiling is a big deal, then ignoring the issue once you're the one in power. Complain about heavy handed tactics when dealing with protests or "legal" pot, but not about guns. Have the IRS audit groups you don't like. Etcetera
Please don't start or perpetuate political flamewars on HN, regardless of what politics you favor or disfavor.
Political topics can obviously be far more important than anything else on HN's frontpage, but that doesn't make the flamewar style of discussion ok on this site. It's repetitive and indignant, and those are the two qualities which most destroy what we're trying for, i.e. gratifying curiosity and facilitating curious exchange.
Edit: your account has unfortunately been breaking the site guidelines, such as by arguing aggressively with other users. We eventually have to ban accounts that do this. From a quick look I don't think you're quite over that line yet, but it could easily get there, so it would be good if you'd review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and recalibrate.
Thank you. I feel this frustration about the 'both sides'ing of every political argument. There is a huge difference in the quality and quantity of the basic political/social norms (and laws) being broken under this administration compared with previous administrations. Bush, Clinton, Obama and Biden had faults, but none were so blatant about power, control, retribution and self-enrichment, and none had surrounding supporters so eager to push a self-serving agenda. It's not even a close comparison.
People got riled up when Biden was 'violating the Constitution' with multiple attempts at loan forgiveness. Some of the same people who hated Biden for this 'unconstitutional' behaviour voted for Trump because he promised to get rid of the Department of Education, in the misguided hope that their own student loans would be eliminated with the department. I don't quite know how we got to this level of stupid in the US - it may have always been there, just easier to see via social media?
> There is a huge difference in the quality and quantity of the basic political/social norms (and laws) being broken under this administration compared with previous administrations.
Indeed, but it's not just the administration that has issues whenever Republicans control it.
I distinctly 'member McConnell filibustering his own bill, the Republicans sabotaging ACA (aided, of course, by Democrats trying to achieve bipartisan ownership even though they had a majority at the time [1]), or worst of all the Republicans refusing the appointment of Merrick Garland (citing that Obama was a lame-duck outgoing President) [3], only to do just the same thing with Barrett at the end of 2020, right before the elections [4].
Republicans, when in power, demand that Democrats cooperate with them (and Democrats are spineless enough to always play ball) - and when Democrats are in power, even if they have majorities, they obstruct in all ways possible. It's madness.
I mean yeah one party is way, way worse but Democrats have funded all of the above, confirmed the appointments that are doing this, and pushed the conflation of policy protest with antisemitism. It’s really bleak at the national level!
Please don't perpetuate political flamewars on HN, regardless of what politics you favor or disfavor.
Political topics can obviously be far more important than anything else on HN's frontpage, but that doesn't make the flamewar style of discussion ok on this site. It's repetitive and indignant, and those are the two qualities which most destroy what we're trying for, i.e. gratifying curiosity and facilitating curious exchange.
The Big Beautiful Bill passed without any Democrats voting for it. Democrats are not great (or good) by any measure, but they did not confirm all the appointments that are doing this.
==Six nominees received no supporting votes from any Democratic senators or independent senators who caucus with Democrats: Hegseth, Russell Vought for director of the Office of Management and Budget, Gabbard, Kennedy, Howard Lutnick for secretary of commerce, and Linda McMahon for secretary of education. ==
This is precisely what I expected from this administration, it kicked off with not one, but two crypto pump-n-dump/bribe vehicles from the President and First Lady.
Anyone expecting less than nakedly open corruption and self-dealing is not paying attention.
A US president visiting his own golf course on a state visit!
I think it's just too painful for people to admit how fast their country is going down the drain.
I like to imagine how decent Germans must have felt in 1938. How did they keep themselves sane?
> A US president visiting his own golf course on a state visit!
Meh, I don't have too much of a problem with this one. A number of US Presidents, both modern and long-since dead, have been known to indulge in golfing [1].
There's so many truly bad things Trump has done, him visiting a golf course is hardly extraordinary in comparison.
Are you OK knowing how much it costs taxpayers for him to stay at his own golf course? It's corruption at its core. He's robbing taxpayers. It comes to around 10 million per trip of the taxpayer dollars.
He gives smoke and mirrors with "I don't take salary" but it's in plain sight he's profiting from his seat, which no other president did at this magnitude in recent times. They made Jimmy sell his peanut farm.
An annoying part is that this is a bit causative. They were so indoctrinated in the fear of how much this was happening before, that they convinced themselves it was normal and required.
That is, allowing it to become a normative conversation with no pushback that "government is bad" is a large part of how we got here.
What's crazy is that this is a well known and established strategy of the right, to the point that "every accusation is a confession" has become memetic, and yet it always works.
> It's crazy seeing the people who cried "Political partisanship" and "Weaponization of government" are doing it all now, in a higher magnitude than anything they complained about.
"The government is secretly controlled by an unaccountable, undemocratic Deep State", says the government secretly puppeteering civil finance regulators with CIA agents.
And the only logical conclusion is, no problem is solvable. Kind of the best thing the parasites could wish for, right? And only because people cant distinguish sincere politics anymore.
It's like the bullshit "hunter Biden laptop" story which, after years of investigations, found that he filled out a gun form incorrectly. That's called a political witch hunt. Not only that, but cries of censorship by Twitter were also bullshit seeing as Republicans (Trump specifically) submitted the same requests to take things down all the time.
The concept of “projection” is really crazy once you get a good feel for it. I see it happening in so many places now.
Shitty people seem to believe that everyone is like themselves; they assume that others would do the same shitty things they would do in a similar situation. They assign the emotional reactions and responses that they would have in a given set of circumstances to others, even if there is no evidence to support it.
I suspect this is also where nuclear brinksmanship comes from. “We would conduct a sneak attack first strike on them, if we could, so they must be planning on doing it to us.”
I think this is also why most cops don’t see anything wrong with breaking the law to carry out what they believe their duty to be. They see the world through the lens of criminal behavior.
Corrupt politicians know that they would be availing themselves of every possible option to personally enrich themselves and push their agenda; they assume that every politician in power must also be doing this and are just getting away with it.