#U.S. problems

[justacynicalromantic]

Holy shit. The speed of Trump turning the U.S. into Russia 2.0 is faster than I can say Panama🤯 This is classic Putin Playbook.

Former prosecutor Jessica Aber, 43, who was found dead on Saturday, led investigations into intelligence leaks, war crimes against people linked to Russia, and suspects in the supply of secret technologies to Moscow.

Jessica Aber’s death feels like one of those stories that’s meant to fade quietly into the background — a tragic headline that people are supposed to forget. But when a career prosecutor who spent her life chasing Russian cybercriminals, CIA leaks, and war criminals turns up dead just weeks after resigning, forgetting isn’t an option.

Aber, the former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was found dead at her home in Alexandria on March 22. She was 43 years old. Police haven’t said how she died, but the timing — and her unfinished business — makes it impossible to ignore.

THE PROSECUTOR WHO WOULDN’T BACK DOWN

Jessica Aber wasn’t just a lawyer — she was the person you sent in when things got messy.

In January, just before her resignation, Aber helped put Asif Rahman, a former CIA analyst, behind bars for leaking top-secret information about Israeli military plans against Iran. The information ended up splashed across social media in October 2024.

Aber didn’t mince words when Rahman pleaded guilty. She warned that his leak had “placed lives at risk” and “compromised our ability to collect vital intelligence in the future.” That’s prosecutor-speak for this guy seriously screwed things up. Whatever Rahman leaked, it wasn’t just embarrassing — it was dangerous.

BIG CASES, BIGGER ENEMIES

Aber’s cases didn’t stop there. In November 2024, her office prosecuted a Virginia-based company accused of funneling sensitive U.S. technology to a Russian telecom firm with Kremlin ties. It wasn’t exactly an accident — the company allegedly disguised shipments and played fast and loose with American tech that Russia wasn’t supposed to have.

Then there was the war crimes indictment. Aber’s office charged four Russian-linked individuals with torturing and unlawfully detaining a U.S. national in Ukraine. She wasn’t just making legal noise — she was putting serious pressure on powerful figures with deep connections.

Aber’s career was a parade of people you wouldn’t want showing up at your funeral — oligarchs, cybercriminals, and corrupt players with resources to make problems disappear.

A SUSPICIOUS EXIT

Aber resigned in January 2025, just after Donald Trump returned to power. Nobody’s said she was forced out, but resigning from one of the country’s most powerful U.S. Attorney’s offices weeks after jailing a rogue CIA analyst feels a little too clean.

It’s not hard to imagine why someone like Aber might suddenly find herself in a tight spot. Trump’s return came with a wave of loyalty tests and DOJ shakeups — and Aber’s aggressive pursuit of Russian networks and CIA leaks doesn’t exactly scream “team player” in this new political climate.

If she was pressured to resign, what cases got quietly buried when she left?

A SYSTEM THAT’S GONE SOFT ON POWER

The Supreme Court’s ruling in July 2024 handed Trump near-total immunity for “core presidential powers,” including military command. Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that this decision could allow a president to order an assassination — and face no legal consequences.

By the time Aber resigned, that ruling had already cast a long shadow over the Department of Justice. Prosecutors like Aber — the kind who took on powerful players with foreign connections — were now working in an environment where accountability had been gutted.

If Aber’s investigations had exposed something that threatened powerful interests, the court’s ruling would have made it easier for those interests to apply pressure — or worse — without consequence.

Her resignation may have been voluntary. It may not have been. But by the time Aber walked away from her post, the guardrails protecting prosecutors like her were already crumbling.

WHAT DID ABER KNOW?

Jessica Aber knew things that mattered — things that powerful people wanted buried. She chased down Russian cybercriminals, locked up a CIA leaker who compromised military intelligence, and tangled with foreign operatives who wouldn’t hesitate to make problems disappear.

Now she’s gone, and the timing stinks.

[onlytiktoks]

Ralph Norman (Republican)

United States Representative for South Carolina

Original video ↓

[brw]

"but hamas is getting funded by extremist islamic hate groups!" do you think the U.S. government and military giving funding for israeli's war efforts against palestinians is a morally neutral and inherently righteous body that had no influence in the politics of southwest asia as a global colonial superpower. do you really think anything you can say about the people resisting oppression can't be said about the oppressors.

[gayvampyr]

leftist: kamala said she would continue aiding israel and allow the “war” (genocide) in gaza to continue. she also promised to be harsher on border policing and immigration, and to make the american military the most lethal globally to further american influence and imperialism. these are all things she admitted and made key parts of her campaign

online liberals: so you wanted trump to win? you’re a russian bot aren’t you. this is a psyop. election interference. you’re puritanical . [slur]

[vaguely-problematic]

the maga infighting on display is not a sign of the collapse of the gop or something.

it's just how maga works.

maga chews through their own people on an impressive basis, and yet it keeps on going. same feces new faces.

i wish the media wouldn't act like there's no other news

[ask-redsoldier-tf2]

Does the US military sell apples? If so can I order 500 of them? Thanks!

WHO INTHE HOLY HELL ARE YOU???

[their-name-is-fake]

And I was wrong about Pennsylvania but was right about Trump probably winning I would say yay me but well im not exactly thrilled

[brokendarkfairyempressforever]

lol watch me fail the act again 😭😭😭

[bitstitchbitch]

I have developed the wonderful skill of enjoying things while also being critical of them. 10/10, highly recommend

[lookninjas]

Been seeing a lot of discourse about this going around today (for some reason), so for the record:

I live in a place north of the 45th parallel. Our average temperatures for December range between 24 and 32 degrees fahrenheit, or -4 to 0 degrees celsius.

It was 56 F/ 13.3 C on December 25th.

That should worry you. It definitely worries me.

[lonestarbattleship]

"Double-O Day Aboard USS NEW YORK (BB-34)"

"A unique angle view during annual inspection of men aboard USS NEW YORK, anchored off Hawaii during combined Army and Navy manoeuvres."

Photographed on February 29, 1932 during Fleet Problems XIII.

World Wide Photos: LOS-12081

[theincpost]

Elon Musk’s Social Media Platform 'X' Crashes Big Time — Users Outraged!

Social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter and owned by Elon Musk, encountered a significant service disruption today, causing widespread inconvenience for users across the United States and India. Reports of malfunctions began flooding outage tracking platforms, revealing that the disruption impacted core features and basic usability for a large number of users. Thousands Report Issues…

[mistprints]

9 to 5 is an insane amount of the day spent working. We just aren’t being paid enough to work fewer hours because we aren’t paid what our work is worth. Bigger companies hide behind small ones with the “we can’t all afford to pay workers fairly” excuse. Well then the business fails at being profitable because workers’ wages are not margins you can cut to be profitable.

And then the big corporations spend obscene amount of money bribing politicians to make sure things stay this way: that minimum wage stays below cost of living so people are forced to work often multiple jobs just to survive, keeping them desperate and forced to work jobs with poor wages.

Education advancement is a potential major debt that many people cannot afford or risk even to get into the highest paying industries. Not all school systems are created equal due to budget cuts and poor, outdated standards, putting many students at a disadvantage for college already. People who would be amazing teachers are dissuaded by the state of these schools and the lack of support they get. It is one of the most important jobs of society and much like many vital services, is taken for granted.

We pretend the threat of homelessness is only for people who are “undesirable” and just didn’t want to work when in reality, many people are one missed paycheck away from being out on the street due to predatory housing situations and unchecked landlords that can give as little as a week’s notice for eviction if not less in some places.

“Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” is an old saying that’s been twisted. It’s an impossible task. That’s what it means. It’s a tongue in cheek saying that’s been mockingly turned into a political statement and I think the people using it know that people aren’t going to look it up or know this. You cannot pull yourself up by them, you need help.

Society works when we rely on the group. That’s how all civilizations have worked. Others have fallen for not doing this or for doing so poorly with too many people at the bottom of the ladder holding it up (capitalism relies on this to function). Social programs have always been a facet of this and grouping it all into one big negative buzzword drives me insane.

The fire department is a social program. It’s free to call them and it’s paid for by the city because the rich decided that a poorer neighbor’s house fire was a risk to their property and so there should be someone that handles that without costs to an individual that would deter them calling for help. Same with 9-1-1 (unless of course if the person is in the US and needs a personal ambulance ride. Then they’ll charge thousands).

All I’m saying is with the state of the majority of people in the U.S., we could stand to have more support beams to help out before it collapses around us.

People are reaching a breaking point and this stress test of how much they’ll take (costs rising while what you get decreases and wages remaining stagnant; the growing population of homelessness and their solutions being to make homelessness illegal; cuts to people’s rights to their own body by people who are not doctors and should not have anything do to with it but want political points to remain in power by voters who are too uneducated to know better—again, keeping the populous too tired and poorly educated to realize the branching issues with this outside of their narrow-minded ideals they want to force on everyone else) won’t end well.

These problems all branch from a source. That source is always, ultimately, corrupted people in power, driven by money. They are shortsighted and only care about their own benefits. And by letting them, believing their lies and keeping them in power blinded by promises that are at best empty and at worst detrimental, it’s making this world a lot worse to live in for the rest of us. Even if the consequences haven’t reached you directly yet, we are already seeing what happens in this Tragedy of the Commons situation with the greed of a few.

We have to stop people from being able to exploit it. There needs to be laws in place that even the rich are subject to for this to ever work.

[almostangrything]

No matter how much a country advertises democracy or justice or fair representation, a government will never fully be its people. Not all of them, at least. Many people in countries with bloodthirsty governments are ashamed of their government's actions. We should not go around hating a country simply because of a horrendous government. Yes, there were people to support said government. But that is not all people. Not even the majority.

[evidentutensil]

Every time I try to watch Star Trek: Enterprise I get about halfway through the second season and tap out. I must have watched the first season through about three times by now and I'm no further in the series... This time I'm going to try starting in the second season and if I don't finish it now, that's it, I'm not trying again.