Red Mosquito

McParadigm wrote:So Russian state media was included in the press pool, and someone noticed. When they asked the White House about it, the Russian state media people were escorted out. An official later explained that "TASS was not on the approved list of media for today’s pool" and "not on the approved list for the press conference."

So am I wrong, or is the White House saying that Russian state media breeched the security of the White House during a meeting with a foreign leader and they just….didn’t catch it?

E.H. Ruddock wrote:

McParadigm wrote:So Russian state media was included in the press pool, and someone noticed. When they asked the White House about it, the Russian state media people were escorted out. An official later explained that "TASS was not on the approved list of media for today’s pool" and "not on the approved list for the press conference."

So am I wrong, or is the White House saying that Russian state media breeched the security of the White House during a meeting with a foreign leader and they just….didn’t catch it?

Yeah wth?

BurtReynolds wrote:They're a very sneaky people.

McParadigm wrote:

E.H. Ruddock wrote:

McParadigm wrote:So Russian state media was included in the press pool, and someone noticed. When they asked the White House about it, the Russian state media people were escorted out. An official later explained that "TASS was not on the approved list of media for today’s pool" and "not on the approved list for the press conference."

So am I wrong, or is the White House saying that Russian state media breeched the security of the White House during a meeting with a foreign leader and they just….didn’t catch it?

Yeah wth?

Also the same White House that relaxed the Wi-Fi security settings, because many of its own people were using unsecured personal devices and they wanted to make it easier for them to continue doing so. lmao (help)

Bi_3 wrote:There are some indications that Trump has now halted NATO funding.

tragabigzanda wrote: The point I take away -- not explicitly stated in the article, but informed by other experiences -- is that unlike economic views or political positions, religious beliefs are incredibly sticky; and tend to blind people to rational thinking.

This becomes problematic when, say, you're an individual in a position to deploy capital through a fund or a government contract, and you have the belief that there's a pre-ordained righteousness granted to one recipient over another; it becomes an existential threat when the belief is so widely shared by the ruling class that all individuals in similar positions must tow the line or get out.

I would imagine Burt's argument here would be something to the effect of "How is it different from Democrats awarding contracts or investment dollars to DEI-anchored initiatives or ESG moonshots?" And philosophically speaking, that would be fair.

But practically speaking, the key difference is how these belief systems operate in practice. Both involve ideological filtering, sure, but religious frameworks tend to carry an absolutism that makes them immune to challenge. When someone believes they have divine backing, there’s no room for negotiation — faith isn’t about evidence, it’s about certainty.

DEI and ESG initiatives, for all their flaws, at least try to justify themselves with data. You can argue about whether that data is cherry-picked or ideologically motivated, but the structure at least acknowledges external validation. Religion doesn’t play by those rules.

So the real problem isn’t just bias in funding — that happens everywhere. It’s that once faith-based decision-making gets entrenched, disagreement isn’t just dismissed, it’s framed as immoral or even dangerous. That’s when the system stops being a political tug-of-war and starts functioning like a theological hierarchy, where the only way to participate is to align with the dominant belief.

BurtReynolds wrote:The reign of the Christian culture of submission and humility is at an end. The neo-pagan honor culture of Appalachia is ascendent. Show respect or be destroyed.

Dev wrote:

BurtReynolds wrote:The reign of the Christian culture of submission and humility is at an end. The neo-pagan honor culture of Appalachia is ascendent. Show respect or be destroyed.

Stfu you goofy fucking loser