America - The Official Thread

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Danoff
What about scissor lift?
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Trump could hardly get into a fire truck. I'd love to see him try and get on and off of a scissor lift.

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Famine
Well, it's not classified any more if he says it isn't...

Tired Oh Man GIF by Kitty Is Not A Cat
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But it's not fun anymore if he says it isn't. You can't impress your friends with classified information if it's not classified. Kinda defeats the point.
 
A few things I hadn't seen mentioned yet:

Senator Schumer strips the "One Big Beautiful Bill" name from the budget bill.



Trump threatens to arrest and deport Zohran Mamdani
www.newsweek.com

Donald Trump issues new warning to Zohran Mamdani

In a link on his website, Mamdani says his administration, if elected, would focus on getting ICE out of New York City facilities.
www.newsweek.com www.newsweek.com


And something that surprised me: 62% of self-identified Democrats said in a recent Ipsos poll that Democratic Party leadership should be replaced with new people.
www.usatoday.com

Democrats want new leaders, focus on pocketbook issues, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds

Kamala Harris’ November loss to Donald Trump has left the party rudderless and sparked a round of soul-searching about the path forward.
www.usatoday.com
 
Trumpian Stupidity™

Another stupid defunding...

A little less than four years from now, a killer asteroid will narrowly fly past planet Earth. This will be a celestial event visible around the world—for a few weeks, Apophis will shine among the brightest objects in the night sky.

The near miss by the large Apophis asteroid in April 2029 offers NASA a golden—and exceedingly rare—opportunity to observe such an object like this up close. Critically, the interaction between Apophis and Earth's gravitational pull will offer scientists an unprecedented chance to study the interior of an asteroid.

 
Isn't it just a smidge depressing that everyone knows that the President of the USA will send out a message today which will read:

"Happy Fourth of July to everyone including [list of political enemies and bogeymen, each individually preceded by insulting adjectives] who WANT TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY!"
 
Blitz24
Trump's budget passed so the leopards eating faces will come home to maul those who voted for Trump and are on social services.
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And I'm willing to bet that by this time next month, several things that were approved on that bill will be reversed or rescinded with no reason or explanation given, just so he can point at it and try to claim credit for "fixing the problem".

At this point I'm honestly starting to think that Trump has some form of undiagnosed dementia, and everyone around him either

  • realizes it, and is actively exploiting it for their own personal gains while they still can,
  • suspects it, but are too scared of reprisals to actually say anything out loud, or
  • doesn't care, because now their own incompetence seems normalized by comparison.
 
EngieDiesel
At this point I'm honestly starting to think that Trump has some form of undiagnosed dementia, and everyone around him either

  • realizes it, and is actively exploiting it for their own personal gains while they still can,
  • suspects it, but are too scared of reprisals to actually say anything out loud, or
  • doesn't care, because now their own incompetence seems normalized by comparison.
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Miranda Cosgrove Nickelodeon GIF by Paramount+
 
Famine
Isn't it just a smidge depressing that everyone knows that the President of the USA will send out a message today which will read:

"Happy Fourth of July to everyone including [list of political enemies and bogeymen, each individually preceded by insulting adjectives] who WANT TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY!"
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I just think it's very ironic that on the day we celebrate our independence from one king, conservatives have no problem wanting to install one right here in America.
 
Even SSA is trumpstained now. I had to double check it was a legit email when I saw it today.
www.theguardian.com

‘Blatant misinformation’: Social Security Administration email praising Trump’s tax bill blasted as a ‘lie’

Previously apolitical Social Security Administration lauded Trump’s debt-expanding bill after its passage
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

I guess since his goal is to erode trust in us government, he’s doing a great, some would say beautiful, job.

Next time you go to renew your passport, it’s probably going to say something like “Made possible by our great leader Donald Trump” somewhere in there.
 
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FuriousDemon
Even SSA is trumpstained now. I had to double check it was a legit email when I saw it today.
www.theguardian.com

‘Blatant misinformation’: Social Security Administration email praising Trump’s tax bill blasted as a ‘lie’

Previously apolitical Social Security Administration lauded Trump’s debt-expanding bill after its passage
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

I guess since his goal is to erode trust in us government, he’s doing a great, some would say beautiful, job.

Next time you go to renew your passport, it’s probably going to say something like “Made possible by our great leader Donald Trump” somewhere in there.
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When that email arrived, it screamed "scam" so loud, I saved it as a "Raw source" file and had an advanced version of ChatGPT check it out.

Trump made the campaign promise “No taxes on Social Security benefits.”

The SSA email says "The Social Security Administration (SSA) is celebrating the passage of the One Big, Beautiful Bill, a landmark piece of legislation that delivers long-awaited tax relief to millions of older Americans." and goes on to say “This is a historic step forward for America’s seniors,” said Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano. “For nearly 90 years, Social Security has been a cornerstone of economic security for older Americans. By significantly reducing the tax burden on benefits, this legislation reaffirms President Trump’s promise to protect Social Security and helps ensure that seniors can better enjoy the retirement they’ve earned."

So now we have SSA shilling for Trump and pretending he didn't lie about “No taxes on Social Security benefits.”
 
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Update on the SSA tax story. I figured that replacing Trump's campaign promise with the provisions in his "Big Beautiful Bill" would reduce the total benefit to seniors, I just had no idea by how much.

I got ChatGPT o3 to go digging for professional estimates of the two scenarios and that revealed that the benefit is down by about 80%

EDIT: Numbers are billions of USD

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GBO Possum
Why "oh dear"?
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ChatGPT is hardly the benchmark tool for any kind of analaytical/research work. I'm currently studying to become a software engineer and found that it tends to struggle with something as basic as converting binary, octal & hexadecimal into one another. Any calculator will do that more reliably than ChatGPT. That is by no means to say that it's useless. Heck, I myself rely on it probably way more than I should, but I'm aware of its shortcomings and would certainly not go as far as use it as the (sole) source to back up any kind of claim, at least not in this kind of context.
 
Baka_Marimo
Any calculator will do that more reliably than ChatGPT
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will do that more reliably than any LLM, or most ML-AI systems of any kind.
They are simply stupid (LLMs) - guessing words to connect to form a sentence that the person on the other side of the prompt likely wants to hear (and unless explicitly told will not call your BS but present it as a confident fact or at least hide it as a very possible result).
 
Baka_Marimo
ChatGPT is hardly the benchmark tool for any kind of analaytical/research work. I'm currently studying to become a software engineer and found that it tends to struggle with something as basic as converting binary, octal & hexadecimal into one another. Any calculator will do that more reliably than ChatGPT. That is by no means to say that it's useless. Heck, I myself rely on it probably way more than I should, but I'm aware of its shortcomings and would certainly not go as far as use it as the (sole) source to back up any kind of claim, at least not in this kind of context.
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I need to rebut this

You tar all versions of ChatGPT with the same brush. Plus users have access to 7 distinct versions of ChatGPT. I'm guessing you're using the default model "4o", which has its uses, but is prone to hallucination and is really only good for limited use cases. Sadly, too many people try using 4o, have bad experiences and decide that all LLMs are, as @Meythia stated, "simply stupid".

I was using ChatGPT "o3" (as I stated) in this case to search out the raw data for the chart and reason through the reliability of the discovered data. "o3" documents the step-by-step reasoning and sources it checked out. For example, in this case, as it checked, rechecked and fact checked itself, it went to 78 different sources online along the way. Its log of process allowed me to do reasonableness checks of its methodology and sources.

I'm not sure why any software engineer would choose to use an LLM as a number base converter, since there are far better tools. However, if you must, then you might use ChatGPT "o4-mini-high" or maybe "GPT-4.1". "o4-mini-high" seems to do a fine job of conversion based on the very limited tests I did while writing this post...

EDIT - Belatedly tagging @MatskiMonk who originally raised the concerns about ChatGPT, assuming that ChatGPT was the actual "source". It isn't.
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Darla Starch


Remember the last time a third party was formed off the back of a Republican split? 🍿
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I really don't know why Musk doesn't put his efforts behind the Libertarian Party. They have ballot access in all states and are probably the most established third party.
 

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