Day 16?

CIA offers buyouts to entire workforce to align with Trump priorities

The Central Intelligence Agency offered buyouts to its entire workforce Tuesday, citing an aim to bring the agency in line with U.S. President Donald Trump's priorities, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

I’m curious how many people are selling their US investments/equities when they’re boycotting the same corporations they invest in.

Aren’t you trying to be contrarian by going against a MAJORITY government in the US, they literally all voted for Trump. I’m not trying hard to be anything lol. Most people are a little bit too bitter about politics. All this fear is controlling you. Spending too much time and energy following everything about it. When in reality we can’t control Americans. How about we control things we can, like our health and diet? Seems like most of RS is overweight, myself included lol. We have it great here, I’m gonna live in my own bubble and ignore the noise and continue to choose to be happy. Even if costs of everything goes up I’m not gonna complain and be a good NPC.

I’m hopeful after 4 years we won’t see much difference in our standard of living.

^ Bookmark that post

Literally all = 25% of the American population voted for trump.
Why did those people even vote if it wasn't gonna be 100%
Enjoy your bubble over the next 4 years, and I literally mean that. I wish I had the ability to just not care or not know what's going on and I'm sure there's lots of people that feel that way.

I haven't posted here in a very long time but i've always kept up with current event topics like this by reading through everyone's input. I appreciate everyone's comments as it keeps me inline with whats happening and some of my concerns are being justified. I remembered when Ukraine-Russia tension was happening and I was legit panicking of a possible WW3. When COVID happened i kept up to date through RS.
The post above was a breath of fresh air and a good reminder to take some time to stop and just watch the birds and bees.

I had no real plans to do any significant boycotting other than making decisions based on price/value/quality. I'm patriotic but not nationalistic - I won't boo the US anthem but will certainly tell Americans to go fuck themselves if they think we'll let them annex us.

They have a majority govt but like all first past the post systems they did not have "literally all" people voting for Trump - he got 49.8% vs 48.3%. In the Presidential system that does let him be a dictator though.

The reality for me is that most of what Republicans do will make me richer so it'd be easy for me to just go along with it but I'm also a person of values and morals and watching people get punished for their gender, their orientation, their ethnicity, their location, etc is sad to see. Some of it is closer to me than others - I have many friends and family in the US who are fearful right now, more than 1 has said it feels like civil war is about to break out b/c the level of tension is that high. OTOH, I'm far from the fight for Palestinians in Gaza, the Ukrainians, and the Uiygurs in China (Genocide anyone?!)

I'll be richer but that don't make it right (and a lot of other things will be worse).

This is just lazy all-or-nothing logical fallacy for the sake of being contrarian without an intent of healthy discourse, by presenting the situation of having only two extreme options or outcomes i.e. the idea that if something can't be done completely or perfectly, it shouldn't be done at all otherwise you are a hypocrite.

You oversimplify a complex issue by just assuming two choices, with the intent to rouse direct conflict (hypocrite vs not) rather than shutting down any sort of actual discussion (what are things that make a larger impact than others when it comes to not choosing to buy US).

This is a discussion forum, maybe you are better off going to X.

im not sure why this even needs to be said, but buying non american right now isn't really about moral integrity, it's about diverting some of our spending away from our aggressor and putting it back into our own pockets. you're not a hypocrite because you still use american websites or have an iphone.

yah, there are some people who think black and white, either or, and not able to hold 2 things in tension together. It's called adolescent thinking, have not developed that kind of higher level of reasoning. So it's either buy all Canadian and boycott all US products or you're wasting your time circle jerking. No ... gradual weaning from US products can make a difference.

The moment Trump announced he wanted to take over Gaza...lol

https://www.thedailybeast.com/resize...200&height=630

https://heathercoxrichardson.substac...ebruary-3-2025

I thought this column from a historian really shines a light on to how bad things are in the US right now.

A private citizen who happens to be the world's richest person who has not passed any security clearances and who happens to have billions of dollars of business with the govt has now, with no authority beyond the President, gotten access to the govt payment system which contains every person's private information (SSN) and that person is now able to control who gets money from the govt.

Even if you are legally entitled to the money (say your SS payment) this person can prevent you from getting it. This person has demonstrated that they are petty and will hurt people who disagree with him even on minor things.

If you're a charity that is funded by the govt he can shut you down without any cause.
If you're a contractor that does work for the govt and competes against his businesses he can shut you down without any cause.
If you're a veteran with a pension he can block that pension no questions asked.

This is a coup.

Scary stuff. I wonder what that Trump supporter, one of the OGs, Steven Bannon, thinks of Musk.

-sounds like Bannon hates Elon. -calls him an oligarch haha:

https://www.npr.org/2025/01/19/nx-s1...5-billionaires

Steve Bannon: Well, there's two sets of oligarchs. There's what we call the lords of easy money on Wall Street. And then there's the oligarchs in the apartheid state of Silicon Valley. And they're clearly oligarchs. They have concentration of wealth and power. With President Trump, I think Musk has very little power. He has some influence. But has very little power.

First off, these oligarchs are completely created by the Democratic Party and the lords of easy money. Remember, for the last four years, they had no problem at all with the oligarchs until they flipped and surrendered after we won. Elon Musk came a little earlier because he saw the writing on the wall. He's a smart guy who could actually see the true polling and saw where this was going. So he's the first man out. But Zuckerberg came and surrendered afterwards. Bezos came and surrendered afterwards. Marc Andreessen came and surrendered afterwards. They saw the game was over

Kash Patel who'll likely be FBI director, also hates Musk, and some of his tweets are still up. America is turning into a banana republic.

Lmao FAFO...

Small protests are starting to pop up all over the country.. First was in LA against ICE but many more in other cities protesting against President Elon and all sorts of other things. They are small for now, because I guess people can still afford eggs.

Buckle up!

We should take them over while they are weak!!

Send in our one Canadian guy armed with an woodcutter axe

You mean this guy?

http://www.dominionblue.com/images/N...uckForBlog.gif

You're seeing anger and frustration online as well from some of the MAGA supporters. Trump aligning himself with Israel and being willing to not only send billions but also put boots on the ground is the ultimate betrayal.

https://gizmodo.com/elon-musks-enemy...ine-2000559365

Weird man! USAID is investigating Elon Musk and some how Elon decides to go shut it down.

https://snyder.substack.com/p/of-course-its-a-coup

Of course it's a coup.

They don't need MAGAs to flip, they need non-MAGA Republicans to. Most MAGA are tribalists and cannot be saved and a product of the destroyed education system.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GjOF5grW...pg&name=medium

In the last 36 hours or so Kanye has basically been Trump's inner voice unleashed:

- I banged Ivanka.
- I hate disabled people.
- I'm a Nazi and Hitler was great.
- Fat chicks are sex offenders because they offend me.

His feed is something to behold... dude's sending himself straight into the sun

ye gonna ye. guy needs to seek help

I dunno what kind of mind control his “wife” is under but I suspect that’s as manipulative and abusive as a relationship gets

Money and fame makes people do crazy shit.