[mediaman]

It's not either of those. Anthropic put a lot of effort into getting FedRAMP approved so the DOD could use them; they are now being punished for that, and the government at present has no other good options. Other options could of course be developed, but other vendors may question how unreliable and untrustworthy the current DOD leadership is as as customer.

[ksymph]

Seems like Microsoft/OpenAI [0] and Google [1] both have FedRAMP approval.

[0] https://devblogs.microsoft.com/azuregov/azure-openai-fedramp...

[1] https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/gemini-in...

[SecretDreams]

> untrustworthy the current DOD leadership is as as customer.

Less than a year left on this clock.

[dylan604]

That seems quite optimistic. Or am I just that pessimistic?

[FrustratedMonky]

No, you are not overly pessimistic.

Trump was impeached before and nothing happened. He can continue to ignore congress. I wouldn't be surprised if at this point he abolishes congress, and even jokes at a press conference saying "I am the Senate".

[viccis]

He was impeached by the House but that does nothing without the Senate carrying out its trial, which requires an onerous 2/3rds vote. Obviously without the trial in Senate, nothing happens, and nothing ever will until one party gets 2/3rds control.

[dylan604]

Or enough members of his party find their spine. Not sure which is more likely telling me they are both just as unlikely to happen.

[b112]

You sure? War with Canada is about to break out, and you can't have elections when at war.

[strangattractor]

In the US elections cannot be canceled even when Martial Law is declared. That does not mean a certain someone will not try to simply ignore the Constitution given his track record of simply ignoring the Constitution

[bhelkey]

Is this sarcasm? The US held elections during World War II [1].

[1] https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-...

[pavlov]

The US President in 1944 was someone who wanted to have elections. In 2026 this is not the case anymore. How much of a difference it makes, nobody knows.

[wat10000]

Elections won't be canceled. They're too important for the perception of legitimacy. Virtually every country on Earth now has elections. Russia, China, even North Korea has elections.

The modern playbook isn't to abolish elections, it's a combination of blocking opposition candidates, suppressing votes, intimidating voters, and lying about the results. That's what to watch for.

[wrs]

“Watch for”? That has been actively happening, at an accelerating pace. (Especially if you count “lying about someone else lying about the results”.)

[Drupon]

It's fairly easy to abuse a state of exception to cancel elections. Ukraine has done it, and it's been, along with banning opposition parties and attempting to imprison critics (Arestovych, etc.), a critical step in their government consolidating power.

[zzzeek]

turns out lots of people "know" that the president has no say in the affairs of US states running elections

[pavlov]

What are the states going to do with their local election results when the officials in Washington ignore them due to some manufactured state of emergency?

He already tried to get specific states' election outcomes discarded from the count on Jan 6, 2021.

[foobarchu]

He doesn't, it's literally enshrined in the constitution. If he decides to violate that, it's him violating the constitution yet again, not proof that he has a say.

It would also probably be the last straw for a lot of people who has been limping along on the belief in free elections.

[b112]

I guess that proves elections can't be delayed, right?

[stronglikedan]

> DOD

*DOW

[ok_dad]

No it’s still the DoD legally

[dpkirchner]

There is no such thing. That's a fantasy term used by deluded people to signal a particular virtue.

[b112]

I keep seeing DOW everywhere, and honestly had no idea it wasn't a legal namechange yet (or ever).

There's even a webpage for it.

So cut the guy some slack. No one knows wtf is actually going on these days.

[zzzeek]

pretty sure the Constitution doesn't say anything about "make a webpage" as some secret way for the Executive branch to overrule Congress

are you aware of how inept and corrupt the current Executive branch is ?

[b112]

None of what you just said, indicates whether a stated name change was an alias, or core name change.

[mindslight]

With a malevolent agent in the bully pulpit deliberately swamping the American zeitgeist with hostile nonsense ("flood the zone with shit"), it has become every American's duty to be on guard to avoid propagating the regime's bullshit. We are indeed at war, an information war of the US elites against We The People. So buck up.

[b112]

I'm not american, and further, whether a department name change is a primary name change, or an alias slapped on, seems pretty low on the list of things to care about.

[mindslight]

Is your argument that you're not involved enough in American politics to have responsible opinions about it, even though you're involved enough to comment in the first place?

I agree this in isolation is low stakes. The problem is the volume. The memetic assault is everywhere you turn, and propagating it helps the regime. And yes, it's far too easy to do accidentally. That doesn't mean we shouldn't appreciate others calling it out.

[mindslight]

... signal a particular vice. It's vice signalling. We generally think of war as bad and try to avoid it, most especially the people tasked with fighting said wars.

Nothing has changed about the performative-ness, in fact if anything it's gotten more performative and hollow. They just signal vices rather than virtues, so a bunch of rightist-flavored-Lenin's useful idiots think it is fresh or effective or anti-"woke" or at least different.

[jvandreae]

Ah, yes, the Orwellian newspeak that is the phrase "Department of Defense" is something worth protecting. What next, the Ministry of Truth?

I don't really give any weight to what a leftist considers a vice or a virtue.

[mindslight]

The "Orwellian newspeak" at least makes an effort to aim for positive values, despite falling short. That's the point.

Also, please define what you mean by "leftist". These days it seems like it gets applied to anybody who believes in Constitutionally-limited government and the rule of law. That used to just be called being an American, but social media is a hell of a drug.

[croes]

Pretty ironic that this is coming from the same people that are opposing preferred pronouns and like to deadname people.

[LordDragonfang]

Also by the people that just work there(, man).

I mean, as dumb as it is, there is a certain musicality to hearing someone with a southern accent sardonically call it the dee-oh-dubya.

[learingsci]

Is over $50,000, all arguments are invalid.