You said that philanthropy is not misused to avoid taxes—that is definitely wrong, but if you want to believe it, please do.

You need to be more specific. I’m not going to waste my time refuting your statement because I can’t even begin to imagine how you came up with that.

I can’t say how the tax avoidance strategies of the super-rich work in practice, but in any case, their feigned philanthropy is a key part of it.

I assume that tax avoidance is also a factor.

I’d say what was passed under the name “big beautiful bill” is sadly more than just symbolic and the deportation of thousands upon thousands of foreigners is not either.

With this comment, you are simply stating that you are incapable of engaging in rational discussion.

Indeed, but I believe that was just a test run to see what people would tolerate — now it’s getting serious.

Yes, it’s really frightening how incredibly stupid many of my fellow countrymen are.

That’s because there is no longer any independent journalism. Neither in the traditional form of newspapers, magazines or TV, nor online. “The media” has long since been taken over because the billionaires who own it profit from fascism. The frightening thing is that the great utopia of the internet, namely to break the power of mass media, has turned out to be false: it has only made things worse - although people could freely obtain information, but they do not do so.

In the age of AI, it’s only going to get worse.

Unfortunately, it’s still Joseph Goebbels’ program: whoever controls the media controls people’s minds.

I think that’s just as true today as it was during the Nazi era, which is now reviving. Nothing has changed, since people are utterly incapable of learning from history.

Yes, this kind of irrational behavior is not a US phenomenon; unfortunately, these deluded people exist all over the world. Here in Germany, there are a lot of people who vote for a neo-Nazi party, but don’t even understand that it’s also a neo-liberal party that pursues policies that are absolutely not in the interests of these voters (edit: by neo-liberal I mean US-style capitalism that wants to abolish the welfare state that still exists in our country). Apparently, it’s enough for people to have an imagined enemy – namely, some minority group – to no longer recognize their real enemy.

Sad, but that’s the way it is. Unfortunately, I don’t expect it to be too long before we end up in the same situation as in the US: despite Germany’s history, fascists will be back in power – and once again, no one except the 1% will benefit from all the cruelty and inhumanity. The only question for me is whether there will be more resistance in Germany - I’m not so sure about that, unfortunately.

I don’t think they were aware of what this meant for them. Discussing why they voted the way they did, and why so many apparently didn’t vote at all, seems rather pointless to me now.

The question seems to me to be whether the American people will manage to shake off their agony and fight back. Despite the protests, which are naturally to be welcomed, I see no signs of this happening. I don’t think this will be enough, because these protests are not large enough to pose a threat to the government— and to my knowledge, there are no plans for a general strike.

It seems to me that the majority of US citizens have already resigned themselves to their fate or are not prepared to take the necessary risks to defend what remains of their democracy, which is a shame because I don’t think the majority of US citizens want a dictatorship (maybe some still don’t comprehend what this actually means for their lives).

Therefore, in my opinion, things will turn out as feared, because no resistance is to be expected from the Democrats, and I consider a recourse to the legal system to be absolutely unrealistic—it is already too deeply infiltrated (the proof of this is the fact that the incumbent president is still the incumbent president instead of being in prison for all his serious crimes).

I’m sorry to be so pessimistic, but I think this assessment reflects reality.

It’s interesting that this regime is already behaving as if the dictatorship it clearly aspires to has already been established. They obviously feel quite confident about their cause.

Well, they can afford to be, because it doesn’t look as if they have anything to fear in the way of consequences. Every day, I read alarming reports about abuse of power, open corruption, systematic racism, absurd policies that run counter to the interests of US citizens, blatant disregard for the law, and the involvement of high-ranking government officials in prostitution and pedophilia. But I never read anything that would suggest that those responsible are being held accountable.

I therefore assume that the establishment of a dictatorship à la Russia is already so far advanced that it won’t be prevented - and by that I mean a transformation of the plutocracy that has long been the norm in the US into an unvarnished autocracy, including all the associated methods of repression, in other words, the transformation of the US into a full-blown dictatorship.

I’m sorry, Dave…

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This unlawful attempt at forced brainwashing is truly scandalous and absolutely intolerable with its repugnant double standards.

No one disputes that the terrorist attack by Hamas was brutal.

Nevertheless, this by no means justifies the genocide being committed by Israel. There are also horrific images of this, of starving children, cold blooded murder of civilians and unbearable suffering - and Israel is even using every means at its disposal to prevent the world from seeing the full extent of their own atrocities.

If Israel were to adhere even remotely to international law and human rights, Thunberg would not be there.

It is absurd that this country continues to portray itself as the victim. They are the perpetrators and responsible for crimes against humanity.

These savages who represent Israel are truly the scum of the earth.

Unfortunately, only for their own benefit.

When I was working on data protection issues, I asked a specialist lawyer more than two years ago how something like this could be reconciled with the GDPR. He couldn’t answer the question, but said that with the best will in the world he couldn’t imagine that this would be OK under data protection law. Nevertheless, this approach is now common practice for the vast majority of news sites in Europe and also in the EU, which has strict regulations regarding tracking, at least in theory. I still don’t know the legal details, but at least I know that there are no serious penalties whatsoever if there is no distortion of competition involved - and since none of the news companies would sue another in this matter, this has become common practice even in the EU.

Trump is directly responsible for these excesses. In the press conference right after the conviction, he said:

This was a rigged trail by a conflicted judge who was corrupt. (…) This was done by the Biden administration in order to wound or hurt a political opponent.

These are, of course, allegations that have no basis in fact whatsoever. So I wonder: are there no legal means to prosecute Trump for these blatantly false allegations?

Shouldn’t the mere allegation that the judge was corrupt be enough to sue for defamation? I mean, it has to be enormously damaging to the judge’s reputation if someone makes such serious accusations against him.

Indeed. I’ll get to planning then. Maybe we can work together sometime.