You're Not Crazy

Let's Get Some Perspective

Let's start off by getting some perspective, eh?

A recent poll from AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows a significant disconnect between the current mainstream political rhetoric in the United States and what actual citizens feel we should be focusing on.

Turns out people across the political spectrum want to see more spending on social safety nets, education, and healthcare, along with less spending on the military, foreign aid, and federal law enforcement agencies.

Then you get in to how much the average citizen even knows about how our government works or what the budget even actually is. For example, let's take the "we're spending too much on foreign aid" thing. The same polling shows that the average American estimates our government spends around 32% of its annual budget on foreign aid. The actual amount? Less than 1% of the budget.

It's easy to feel like everyone else in this country has lost their mind. The reality is that the "average voter" is not wishing for everyone's social support systems to crumble to ash. It may seem that way sometimes, especially when elected officials go on TV and talk about what "the American people" voted for as if everyone is on the same page. But recall: less than a third of eligible voters in the United States voted for Donald Trump. Then think about how many of those people were just voting party-line and otherwise don't pay attention to the news.

Now, we do know that the core Republican/MAGA base bottoms out around 25%. You'll never get that last 25% of people to agree with the other 75%. So of course, knowing that 1 in 4 of our countrymen are currently celebrating other people's misery as if that helps them in any way remains distressing, but it's not the majority of people. Not by a long shot.

From there, let's look at meaningful reactions—domestic and abroad—to the current efforts of the administration, their frontmen, and what they stand for.

Around the world (but especially in the EU), Tesla is seeing tanking sales by the double digit percentages while other EV manufacturers are growing. The Royal Society, one of the longest-standing coalitions of scientists across the world, is fixing to boot out Elon.

Recently-appointed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was booed by military families in response to anti-DEI efforts when visiting a base recently.

Snack brand "Lesser Evil" has also had to awkwardly distance itself from the Trump admin after it came out that the CEO is the father of "BigBalls," the 19-year-old hacker currently accessing the Treasury via Elon.

Then of course there's worldwide condemnation, shock, and horror as the current administration seems to have zero idea what kind of impacts their policy will have on their own citizens, let alone the world.

Things ain't great. That is for damned sure. Too many people in this country seem to think that there is a direct line between "federal budget cuts" and their quality of life. Let me take a quick moment to remind everyone that trickle down economics famously does not work, even less so when you apply the concept to the federal government.

A budget surplus does not result in more money in your pocket. If you are a person who looks at the prices when buying things, you are not the kind of person of whom a government trade deficit should be a financial consideration. The way money works at the scale of international trade is far and beyond a balanced checkbook. It is macroeconomic acrobatics mixed with an unhealthy dose of looking the other way.

The point here is this: shit sucks. We know this. And also, most people know this. A vast majority of US citizens did not vote for this. Spending policies of the current administration are completely misaligned with what US citizens actually want.

You are not crazy. You are not childish. You are not ridiculous. You are not alone. Don't let them convince you otherwise.

Tech Stuff

UK Wants a Back Door into Apple

The United Kingdom issued a secret order to Apple requesting blanket access to encrypted user data in iCloud. The order specifically targets Apple's "enhanced encryption" feature for iCloud which enables full end-to-end encryption for your data.

Governments around the world very much dislike end-to-end encryption, usually pointing out that criminals can use it to hide their crimes. It just happens to also be the case that end to end encryption makes general mass surveillance all the more difficult as well.

We don't know what is going to come of this yet. Apple has been quiet on this front, and most of this negotiation is happening behind the scenes. While Apple does have a track record of telling governments to fuck off when asked for access to encrypted user data, they're still a corporate entity doing global business operations, and as such are beholden to whatever laws are enacted in jurisdictions they operate in.

If you've got any technical savvy, I would recommend checking out something like Cryptomator. It's a tool that automatically encrypts files before they are saved to your existing cloud drive. It's like having your own layer of end to end encryption, regardless of what service you use.

TikTok Back in Stores

TikTok is back in both the Google Play store and the Apple App Store.

The current US administration told the tech giants to not worry about being prosecuted for breaking the law, which is a pretty wild concept.

As stupid as the TikTok ban law is, its a law that was passed by congress, signed by the president, and upheld by the Supreme Court, and then was just… ignored.

lol, laws.

Google's Minor-detecting AI

In advance of a possible bill that would ban pre-teens from social media, Google announced they'll be trying out using an AI system to identify users under 18 who are trying to access adult content.

In a blog post, they noted:

This year we'll begin testing a machine learning-based age estimation model in the U.S. This model helps us estimate whether a user is over or under 18 so that we can apply protections to help provide more age-appropriate experiences.

This is going to have some very funny outcomes, and I am personally excited to see who their AI systems start flagging as a minor.

That said, while this is a weird concept, it's also more in-line with where I feel AI should be used. Not necessarily to infer your age; that is still creepy. But to operate in the background trying to solve complex problems rather than rewriting your email to your boss to sound more "professional."

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Policy Stuff

Buget Proposal

The United States House GOP has put forth their budget proposal (PDF) which is expected to go to a vote later this month.

The proposal doesn't have much that comes out of left field for anyone who is paying attention. It's the usual Republican-proposed fare with a smear of Trump rhetoric ganache on top:

• Up to $4.5 Trillion in tax cuts, the vast majority of which goes to the richest people and corporations
• Increase the government's debt ceiling by $4 Trillion
• Cut "mandatory spending programs" by up to $2 Trillion, including cuts to SNAP, Medicare, and Medicaid
• Spending cuts for Energy, Education, Workforce, and Agriculture committees
• Spending increases for Judiciary, Armed Services, and Homeland Security committees

This isn't a done deal by any means, but we'll likely see some similar rendition of this proposal go through. The Republicans have a fairly slim majority right now, and some of the proposed cuts include stuff like Social Security, which some more moderate Republican representatives don't want to cut.

DOGE is Going Great

There's been a flurry of DOGE headlines this week, some meaningful, some not as much, but all of them dumb as hell.

First up, the Trump admin said that around 75,000 federal workers took the offer to voluntarily resign immediately and be paid through September. The offer was on and off the table a few times as judges weighed the legality, but ultimately the offer ended with less than 3% of federal employees taking the deal.

We still have no idea if they'll actually see any payment, but if they do, it means the Trump admin is planning to pay 75,000 people a full time salary for the next seven months to do nothing, which sounds right in line with their stated goals of being better stewards of federal money.

Meanwhile, as Musk's crew was found to have launched an insecure website as well as having published confidential information about employment statistics of a national intelligence agency, he continues to enrich himself with government contracts and subsidies to his various companies, including SpaceX which gets billions of dollars in NASA contracts annually.

But about those websites—Musk has claimed he and his squad are "maximally transparent" with their actions. His only meaningful outlet is his own private social media platform where he often says something vague and incorrect, such as implying that its ridiculous to think the government uses SQL (which it very, very much does)

Thanks to a security researcher, we did get a look at some of the stuff they intended to publish as things that DOGE has cut, which seems to be a big list of things that have been written to sound as absurd as possible.

Among the list is a claim that the government, "shelled out tens of thousands to create army of 2,500 LGBTQI+ allies," but does not actually say anything about what that is referring to. This is par for the course so far, as they aren't so much concerned with actually improving anything as they are with stoking culture war stuff.

Another example of them trying to spin public investment as a bad thing is, "NASA has allocated roughly $10 million to grants advancing DEI and 'environmental justice' since 2020." If you're wondering, "environmental justice" basically just means "ensuring communities aren't being destroyed by harmful waste from agriculture, factories, and chemical dumping."

If anyone has ever asked what an example of US propaganda is, that's it. "Hey, all you angry people, look, get mad at this concept that would actually help you but we made it sound bad!"

Anyway, to drive home my point of, "you're not crazy," the researcher who found the list is from Germany and accompanied the release with a simple statement:

People all around the world care, you are not alone. And: #TransRights.

Oh, also, as I was writing this I saw that the Trump admin is now trying to un-fire some employees of the National Nuclear Security Administration (y'know, the people who oversee our nukes) but hasn't been able to reach them since they hastily terminated all their accounts and access and no longer have their contact info.

So that's neat.

NATOh-No

Alright, let's set the stage: y'know how Russia famously interfered with the 2016 US election (and 2020, and all the other ones between)? Well JD Vance just gave a speech in front of a bunch of NATO leaders and insulted Romania's democracy for falling victim to that exact thing:

If your democracy can be destroyed with a few $100,000 of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn't very strong to begin with.
~ JD Vance

He also went on about why Germany should be more accepting of their modern far-right party—the AfD—which has largely been shunned by other political parties in Germany because of social beliefs that if you give a Nazi an inch, they'll take Europe.

Our new Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also gave remarks to NATO recently, in which he was like, "we're not going to help defend Ukraine against Russia, and also they should just give the annexed land to Russia, okie BYE" (paraphrased)

Eric Adams, Bribe-Taker Extraordinaire

New York City mayor Eric Adams did some crime, which is not surprising considering he is an elected official and former NYPD captain. He took a bunch of gifts from foreign interests and was charged with all the hallmarks of white collar crime: fraud, bribery, conspiracy, etc.

A mountain of evidence shows he did the things, but Adams says he didn't do it. Thankfully, Adams is a cop, so his opinion can be safely ignored on the matter of law enforcement, making the situation a bit clearer.

Now, why is his penchant for bribery and under-the-table dealigns notable? Well just recently, the Trump administration has pushed to drop all charges against Adams, suspiciously timed right after Adams negotiated a deal with Trump's "border czar" which included letting ICE operate on Rikers Island despite local sanctuary city laws.

And of course because nothing is ever actually subtle anymore, there has been talk between the Trump admin and Adams about an "agreement" they've made. So uh, it sure does seem like the Trump admin is asking Adams to comply with ICE deportation efforts in exchange for dropping his charges.

But what do I know? I just have eyes and ears and basic cognitive function.

In response to this, several high profile New York prosecutors have elected to resign rather than drop the charges, noting that they believe without a doubt that he is guilty and they don't want to capitulate to this directive.

Here's the Weather

More Stuff

• 160 unexploded WWII-era "practice bombs" were found buried under a children's playground in the UK
• Luigi Mangione has accepted $300,000 of fan-donated funds
• An 18-year-old dude was operating a swatting-for-hire operation and finally got caught after hundreds of incidents. He even swatted himself to throw off investigators.
• Igloo, the cooler company, is recalling a million of their coolers over concerns of fingertip amputation hazards
• A United States aircraft carrier collided with a foreign freight ship and miraculously there are no injuries reported
  • This is a 100,000-ton ship crashing into a 50,000-ton ship!
• Sri Lanka experienced a nationwide power outage because a monkey got up in their power grid
• A whale swallowed a dude whole for a second before spitting him back out, all of it captured on video