mozz

In general, they get grants of cash from the US which they are required to use to "purchase" from US suppliers more or less any weapons (with few export restrictions). We're giving them weapons but they still get to pick out what they think they need. This is a pretty good overview which seems like it's mainly missing:

• The fact that congress authorizes aid, and then the White House is generally responsible for actually sending it. That's important in cases like the most recent aid package congress passed, which Biden is at least partially simply deciding not to provide, which he is more or less able to do (the "more or less" is complicated and I don't really understand it).
• A detailed breakdown of what shipments got "paused" and what aid has actually been delivered since then. Presumably, the White House is able to keep the details of this information secret. Currently, Netanyahu is claiming that they're cutting off a lot of shipments they should be giving, and the White House is claiming that that's wrong and they've been delivering aid as normal (and as far as I know not saying how much that is); it would be nice to know the detail of what's being sent and who is lying (although I have a theory).

What's with the all caps

If the Biden administration is serious about protecting press freedoms, officials from Washington might want to have a stern talk with federal prosecutors in Detroit.

Biden's officials absolutely should not have a stern talk with prosecutors from anywhere; the DOJ's day to day business is totally separate from being dictated by any political official for very good reasons.

If you told me the FBI and federal prosecutors were overreaching and being wildly way too aggressive, I'd agree with you, but that has not a lot to do with Biden and it bloody well should stay that way.

Even that being said, I don't see all that much in this other than them aggressively investigating and prosecuting. That's their job. There's all this stuff like:

When Naser returned to the U.S. from the trip, he found himself subjected to intense FBI questioning and surveillance. And he wasn’t alone. Dennison was an unwitting pawn for the FBI. Anyone who communicated with him became a target.

In April 2023, federal prosecutors complained in a court filing that Naser “gleefully shared information” with me. My calls with Naser became a central focus of a hearing in June 2023, during which prosecutors admitted that the protective order did not prohibit Naser from talking to me about the evidence in his case.

“He did not improperly distribute this information,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Dmitriy Slavin in the June 2023 hearing. “Because information that is general discovery which is still concerning this case, there’s no limit on him sharing that information with the media, and he has made it his mission to share that information with the media.”

So basically, they asked him questions and served him with search warrants, and then they charged him with a crime. When he talked to journalists, the prosecution asked the judge to make him stop (and from the fact that he didn't stop, it kind of sounds like the judge told them no.)

And, while doing so, they cooperated with local law enforcement to do their investigation, which they had some ability to do because the guy pepper-sprayed his boss and took money (which he "believed he was owed") from the cash register.

I am sure that it is not fun being questioned by the FBI or charged with a federal crime, but this guy's using all this language like "Prosecutors appear to have subjected me to this attack" (their court filings). I mean it's their job to attack the defendant. And then it's the defendant's job to defend themselves (which is often an unfair battle if you're in a foreign country and the full weight of the federal government is trying to fuck you over). The prosecution doesn't get to decide if you go to prison; that's the judge's job to sort out with the prosecution doing their best to attack you. I get that it's an unfair process that needs reform but I don't see what is so outlandish about them in this case doing a prosecution of the guy they're trying to prosecute.

That irregularly light reflecting thing that didn’t quite follow the trajectory it was supposed to that just flew through the solar system a few years back on its way to somewhere else and we never got a chance to look closely at it to see what the fuck it even was

It became associated with aggressive internet shutins bleating about Pickle Rick and the szechuan sauce, although it's hard to tell where exactly the line was between "these guys are losers yelling and being obnoxious at McDonalds," and "stop cyberbullying we're all just internet weirdos who like a funny cartoon and that is fine." And then, Justin Roiland had some kind of sex abuse allegations and the worm turned and the world is officially supposed to hate Rick and Morty now, I think.

I mean, allegedly. I'm with you; some of it is still some great funny shit.

political extremists, tech nerds, privacy enthusiasts, and shitposters

Dude thank god

I miss my old nerd internet. I won’t say you’re wrong for wanting something that isn’t that, but I personally wish it was more that way than it currently is. SDF or mander is honestly a lot closer to how I like the culture and interactions to be, than Lemmy.world. I was super psyched when I came on and there were all these communists and science weirdos.

for the general masses? Lemmy is just not good.

For example, a NBA post on the NBA subreddit can get you thousands of interactions in a couple of hours. An NBA post on here will maybe get you a dozen over the course of a couple of days.

Honestly, when sports started showing up on the main page of Reddit it was confusing and alarming to me. I recognize that I am the weird one here (from the POV of the ordinary person society), but I much prefer just having my nerd stuff and having it be unencumbered by any normal person stuff

I think we actually have exactly the same view of Lemmy and its accurate position in relation to most normal people, just disagreeing over whether that is or isn’t a good thing

Please no let’s not start this

Hm, I thought it was missing some big stuff -- I had some impression that BBBA was targeting a 50% reduction in emissions by 2030, and the IRA reduced it to 40% (this was the only actual list I could find in quick searching, and says it was missing "A range of policies that were previously part of the Build Back Better Act ... like electric power transmission, CO2 pipelines, and building energy efficiency" which makes basically 0 sense to me and sounds like an LLM hallucination. What the fuck is a CO2 pipeline.)

I wasn't able to find a really detailed breakdown of what might have been missing from it, so honestly I could be wrong.

I do agree with you that the IRA was a massive step forward from the usual US government "total inaction or else make it worse" policy, and that Manchin supporting it despite the fact that it was actually trying to do some significant good things is a shocking and welcome surprise. You kinda have a point there.

I know it’s officially not cool to like Rick and Morty anymore, but I cannot read a description of a suspicious bad thing called “Project Nimbus” that Google is getting itself involved in, without picturing a weird creepy sexual supervillain riding a giant seashell into a meeting with their executives

I won't say you're wrong about yes he made it worse but he did ultimately accept the compromise version and help make it happen, but even that is a sort of charitable reading. He waited until the much more aggressive first iteration had gotten most of the way through to completion, and then fucked it all up (presumably in the hopes they'd just give up), and so everyone had to go back to the drawing board and do it again with a pared back version, which was the Inflation Reduction Act, and then when that passed he took all kinds of credit for it, even though he still did his best to kneecap its actual implementation when it came to anything that might lose money for any of his campaign contributors or personal investments, which are many and mostly destructive.

It is almost impossible to overstate what a piece of shit Joe Manchin is.

I know this whole message is preaching to the choir but:

You guys managed to find like the one time in history that US military ordinance killed civilians that unequivocally wasn't our fault, when they were attacking a clearly military target under occupation from a clearly malicious invading force

And you are, predictably, complaining like it's our fault you put the airfield right next to a fucking public beach and then didn't sound any kind of warning that it was under active bombardment and knocked one of the missiles off its military target and it fell on some people

Pack up

Go home

Or! Hear me out…

I mean it’s certainly not a policy reality, or a fucking priority or anything

😢