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A historic drop in representation by Black members of Congress may be on the way after the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision Wednesday to further weaken the Voting Rights Act.

Or it could backfire, and instead of being gerrymandered into one district to give them one seat, they may affect two or more... if a suitable sensible economically literate candidate of whatever skin color is on the ballot, instead of polarizing far-far idiots (BOTH SIDES!)

There are also other "communities" of color - Hispanic, Asians, etc. - that could improve their representation.

The problem for Dems is that recent "progressive" agenda items pushed many "normies" and POC away, and just shouting that "we're the party protecting minorities" no longer works - they're full-fledged "Americans," many are better off than most Whites, and moved on past the "protection" or "community" and need more than lip service from Democrats who've been busy with picking winners through DEI, special "rights" of LGBTQQ++ and trans, and the incredible shrinking labor unions (both in number and influence of their bosses) who still represent a lot of Dems financing and organizing.

Minorities, many of whom are very religious, no longer feel they're represented or advanced by Dems economically, philosophically or culturally. They feel they've been used by "elitist" Dems to empower a narrow agenda - favoring union bosses (not rank-and-file) and gender-divergent.

If the 2024 elections exit polls didn't clearly show it, I don't know what does.

"Big tent" means party's priorities and solutions should reflect and conform to real needs of majority of the party, not the whims of current "elites" requiring conformity of all its constituents - that means actually listening to them, and adapting to changed demographic, not the same small group of "organizers" stuck in the past "civil rights" and "oppression" battles.

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"Sound and fury signifying nothing" - a very loud spectacle of minor diplo spat between two friendly "victims of aggression" countries, that was fanned by the usual KGB/FSB Russian disinformation and propaganda ops.

Ukrainian FM spokesman H. Tykhyi stressed that "Ukraine is not targeting Israel and provided proof and data" that this shipment was illegal. Consequently, the importer pulled the order and Panama-flagged Panormitis was turned away from Haifa Bay port. According to this data, since 2022 Russia has looted and profited from more than 1.7 million tons of agricultural products worth over 387M euros.

Ship was part of the Russian "shadow fleet" that helps prop up the Kremlin's war economy by concealing or spoofing their location data, and often engage in ship-to-ship transfers of their cargo while at sea to obscure its origin.

Now that Ukraine and Israel "kissed and made up" over manufactured public "much ado about nothing," Ukraine can turn world's attention to re-flagged "shadow fleet" ships with Ukrainian grain that have been headed for and unloaded in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Turkiye... usually with little to no outcry.

Ukraine's FM Andrii Sybiha welcomed the result: "This is a clear signal to all other vessels, captains, operators, insurers, and governments: do not buy stolen Ukrainian grain. Do not become part of this crime."

|------- The Russian bot network "Matryoshka" has circulated videos falsely claiming that an Orthodox rabbi "cursed" President Volodymyr Zelensky due to the dispute, or that Ukraine may bar Israelis from the Uman pilgrimage.

The falsehoods tried to exploit recent diplomatic spat between Ukraine and Israel over cargoes of looted grain from Russia-occupied Ukrainian territories arriving at Israeli ports.

The group said it had detected nine videos published on X and BlueSky on April 29, the same day Israeli and Ukrainian FMs traded accusations.

The clips falsely use logos of established media outlets such as RFI, Euronews, and AFP, combined with unrelated footage and overlaid text - a technique commonly employed by Matryoshka.
-------|

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As Trump's son-in-law returns to Pakistan for more talks with Iran, major news outlets are largely ignoring an egregious conflict of interest.

One reason why Iranians have told Trump before that they are not going to "negotiate" with non-/quasi-government entities like Witkoff and Kushner - they have no bribes to give them.

So Trump ostensibly decided to send Vance to Islamabad again, then reconsidered, likely given Vance dismal record of fiascos with Orban's election in Hungary and previous meeting with Iranians in Pakistan - the excuse given for change of plans was that he was concerned about Vance's "security"... apparently not realizing that this would look like he was not concerned about security of his son-in-law and partner in crypto crimes, since sons of Steve Witkoff are the co-founders and Zack is CEO of crumbling WLFI crypto empire and its rapidly declining coin price.

Trump family receives 75% of net proceeds when World Liberty Financial sells $WLFI coins, and gets a cut of USD1 stablecoin profits. At the end of 2025, the Trumps had made $1B in proceeds, and holding what was at the time $3B worth in unsold coins.

USD1 is one of the stablecoins integrated into TRON blockchain, which is owned by Justin Sun, a crypto billionaire who bought 3 billion of $WLF coins $45M just before 2024 elections, giving it a boost when World Liberty Financial was just starting and nobody wanted their coins, and in early 2025 he bought or was awarded another 1 billion coins worth at the time $30M, making him a WLFI advisor and largest token owner in what he then described as "excellent project." Sun also heavily invested in tanking $TRUMP memecoin.

It paid off last March when the SEC settled the lawsuit against him for fraud, selling the unregistered "crypto securities" and other "investment instruments" and money laundering for only $10M with no admission of wrongdoing, and several investigations into some of his companies were closed with no criminal or civil charges brought.

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The company behind President Donald Trump's social media network is changing leaders amid mounting financial losses...

Don't feel bad for ol' Devin Nunes. He made $6.3M in salary and bonuses and awarded restricted stock that at the time was worth $41M as CEO just in 2024 for being CEO of non-media "crypto treasury" company which cost investors over $1.1B in cash and more than $6B in "enterprise value" and which since merged with a money-losing "nuclear fusion" company and now looking to spin off Truth Social, as if any of these are viable companies, just like multiple other scammy crypto companies the Trump family is involved with.

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The Incredible Shrinking MAGA

"MAGA" is not a "coalition" it's a slogan that means whatever Trump wants it to mean on any given day - he said it himself: "I am MAGA" -

Trump said that "those who oppose his policies in the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement are not MAGA. ... I AM MAGA!"

Yes, all in CAPS!

So it's always been a "coalition," a "movement" of ONE (as cults of personality tend to be), there's only so much room to shrink.
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#21 | Posted by Corky at 2026-04-22 10:03 AM
Although social democracies aren't 'socialists' per say.

No, they are not 'socialists' per se.

That's why it's so disappointing that some "influencers" promoting dubiously "happy" countries as "socialist" (supposedly because they have those cherry picked, selected attributes that make them such) are constantly inverting the meaning into "democratic socialists / democratic socialism" - which, if one understands what socialism actually is, and if one ever asked or talked to people who have lived under a socialist system, would know is a contradiction in terms.

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#21 | Posted by Corky at 2026-04-22 10:03 AM
Although social democracies aren't 'socialists' per say.

No, they are not 'socialists' per se.

That's why it's so disappointing that some "influencers" promoting dubiously "happy" countries as "socialist" (supposedly because they have those cherry picked, selected attributes that make them such) are constantly inverting the meaning into "democratic socialists / democratic socialism" - which, if one understands what socialism actually is, and if one ever asked or talked to people who have lived under a socialist system, would know is a contradiction in terms.

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#6 | Posted by sentinel at 2026-04-20 10:09 AM
Not sure why "investigates" is in scare quotes. I don't doubt Netanyahu and his cabinet are pissed about this...

Because transgression of one soldier can be spun as the "policy" of "genocide" / "IDF" / "Israel" / "Nuttyahoo" etc., while ignoring actual policies of Fatah / PLO of having a fund to pay families for Palestinians "martyrs."

Here is the rest of the statement, and the history of Israel's investigations and prosecutions of crimes committed by IDF personnel:

|------- ... Later in the day, an official statement was released, confirming the photo was not AI.

... "Appropriate measures will be taken against those involved in accordance with the findings. Furthermore, the IDF is working to assist the community in restoring the statue to its place. The IDF is operating to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure established by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and has no intention of harming civilian infrastructure, including religious buildings or religious symbols."
-------|

It's much more fun (and profit, for a small group of trolls and "influencers") to flare up on usual channels and hype any incidents of some Israelis "behaving badly" and conflate and accompany them with long-debunked mythical attributes of "colonizers" / "occupiers" / "apartheid" / "genocide" etc. (documented going back to KGB in the 1950s) **, than seeing and reporting attacks against Israelis, or the aftermath of decades of Soviet Union / Russia, various Arab countries (some of which have since made peace with Israel after a number of military defeats), Intifadas and multiple "Palestinian" terrorist groups sponsored by Iran, etc.

---

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#22 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-04-13 12:11 PM
The article specifically mentions Abridge AI, which looks like more than just a speech-to-text converter

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#14 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-04-13 02:20 PM
Trump Says Iran Reached Out on Deal as US Blocks Hormuz

If a sentence starts with "Trump says..." you can safely ignore the rest of it.

Your sanity will thank you.
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#17 | Posted by snoofy at 2026-04-13 12:42 AM
Why'd you construct this entire persona just to try to argue with me, anyway?

1. What "construct" and "persona" are you talking about? You sound incoherent, like Trump.

2. Last thing on my mind is to "argue" with you... or one of your "rabbit holes" / "weaves" on a matter that is irrelevant to discussion about Nuance software or company, or AI.

#19 | Posted by snoofy at 2026-04-13 12:42 AM
Hoping you got the memo.

Pretty sure, I got the memo - let me guess, tequila again?

Go to sleep and have a good night (Please and Thank You).
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#10 | Posted by oneironaut at 2026-04-12 10:38 PM
Nuance was in Apple's Siri.

Yes, and Nuance software was licensed and embedded in many other phones and software packages. The company, Nuance Communications, was bought by Microsoft in 2022 for almost $20B, after some parts were spun off.

Nuance exposed patient data... 50,000 or so.

About 45,000 in 2018, it was due to a 3rd-party cloud data storage cyber breach. Nuance reported it to FBI contacted all patients, only 900 were possibly affected : "The DoJ found that the information was not used or sold for any purpose and that all the data had been recovered."

.

It could, as it AI can correct the "text processed" in the S2T, using a the model.

Using "AI" model to "correct the text processed" is horribly expensive overkill, as it's been successfully done by software well known as a "spell-checker" for decades.

.

AI methods are doing "signal processing" for instance the back tap in iOS and Android, could/would be done via old fashioned signal processing, today its done by modeling the data and other metadata about the context.

Again, very expensive processing overkill unless you absolutely, positively need extremely fast processing of huge amount of precise RT data... and the reason why it's being replaced by much faster much cheaper algorithmic discrete components.

.

So its a little more than a buzzword.

Real-world AI applications exist, obviously. What most companies advertise and most people started to refer to as "AI" today is just a buzzword for what people previously called "computers" / "technology" / "software" / "algorithm" etc. depending on their level of sophistication and the target audience they addressed.
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#4 | Posted by snoofy at 2026-04-12 01:26 PM
I worked at a company later purchased by Nuance (which I believe was in turn purchased by Apple) that used speech to text software to transcribe medical records. We didn't call it AI back then, but this is the same function.

Most popular STT program was developed by Dragon Systems, which was bought by infamous Lernout & Hauspie, which was then bought out of bankruptcy by Visioneer/Nuance (a name rebrand by ScanSoft after acquiring Nuance) part of which was later acquired by Microsoft.
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#1 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-04-11 11:06 PM
~will you allow AI to record your conversations with the PCP so that the PCP does not have to spend time typing in your responses?~

It's a basic speech-to-text, which is now on almost every phone or most devices with microphone. It's been available for quite a while and used to produce transcripts in medical and other industries to save time and/or labor, and has nothing to do with AI. Almost everything that was done by "computer" just a few years ago is now done by "AI" - it's a new buzzword.

Now that I read this article, i have to wonder, how will my medical information be sold?

Same way it was "sold" before. Some of your records will be processed by computer software, with or without the help of "AI", for billing, insurance and, if needed, provide assistance in diagnosis, course of action, etc.

Will it make me more or less able to buy life insurance? How will my health insurance rates rise?

Depends on what you told your doctor.

And if I tell my PCP that I am a trans, will Pres Trump come after me?

Depends. If Trump sees you and likes your new looks, he'll scream "Surrender!", will "grab you by the p***y" and will try to "TAKE your 'oil'!"
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#4 | Posted by Zed at 2026-04-09 12:38 PM
Everyone knows that Trump is mentally impaired. Netanyahu isn't the only one exploiting that.

Apparently not "everyone" knows that, or they are just using it to further promote the "ZioNazis" / "Nuttyahoo" line, that is now joining "Blue MAGA" with "woke Right" factions.

Reality is that Trump has never in his life did anything that he didn't think would benefit Trump (hence, "transactional") and, in fact, Netanyahoo was undermined several times by Trump's narcissistic desire to take credit for any "success" in the Middle East, e.g., in June 2025 when Trump stopped a devastating Israeli attack on Iranian IRGC and likely real long-planned "regime change" in Iran.

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I'm glad you seem to think that everything is fine for Christians in Israel

That's a blatant mischaracterization. I don't think "everything" is fine for Christians or religious or other minorities or just any people anywhere, especially in the Middle East. I simply pointed out how banal and insipid the report is, and that it was sensationalized, evidently only for the pretext of having yet another, one of many Israel-bashing threads.

I pointed out the facts which may not be immediately obvious to the people actually interested in facts, both of which seem to be in short supply on this site.

As Mark Twain said 'Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.'
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#16 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2026-04-04 02:39 AM
"During the most sacred days of the Christian calendar, Israeli authorities prevented the Catholic Patriarch of Jerusalem from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

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Report: Attacks Against Christians in Israel Escalating

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Trump says Kurds Kept Guns Meant for Iran Protesters: report

More BS from reckless Bull***tter-in-Chief:

April 5 2026 :
|------- Kurdish Iranian groups deny they received guns from US after Fox report

This is the second time in less than a month the Kurds have been put in spotlight by Trump - another misleading report happened in early March about a Kurdish offensive into Iran. It now appears that the details of the possible offensive were leaked in advance and it never materialised. ...

Kurdish groups, designated as terrorist organizations by Tehran, have largely refrained from armed activity in recent years. ...
-------|

IOW, Trump's usual "It was not me, I had a perfect plan..."
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#182 | Posted by ClownShack at 2026-03-21 10:38 AM
... 40 at the most, and overwhelmingly males trans-gendered into females (but, for some reason, hardly any females trans-gendered into males) want to play sports ...

... alienate conservative voters by supporting transgender rights or alienate liberal voters by ignoring transgender rights ...

Still not getting it - it's not a "liberal/conservative" issue, it's at least an 80/20 issue, and it's not about general "transgender rights" but the special "rights" of tiny number of males trans-gendered into females to PLAY in cis-female SPORTS, which are usually separated from male sports for very good reasons, and pissing off millions of people who champion women's rights and would generally vote for a Democrat.

.

#183 | Posted by snoofy at 2026-03-21 10:44 AM
Check this out: The existence of Trans people ...

Check this out: it's not about the existence of Trans people.

Oh so it's just like interracial marriage. Lots of anguish from outsiders.

Still clinging to false equivalence fallacy with civil rights of hundreds of millions...

Still don't want to understand both the numbers involved and very specific subset of issues and attempting to conflate the "rights" of participating in SPORTS by a tiny "very special circumstances" group with general civil rights of millions of POC and religious rights - as I've already explained.

And this is not just the US issue. But if that's one of the hills the US "progressives" want to die on... Dems will have tough time getting and holding onto power for decades, no matter how badly MAGA freaks eff up.

Apparently some people can beat their heads against the wall and expect different results longer than anticipated.

You can't always get what you want, especially in politics at the expense of millions of votes. Or Dems can keep at it and Let It Bleed.

Too bad we don't have a strong SANE third party, just different tiny ones with their own sets of inconsistent ideals and unworkable kooky ideas...
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#171 | POSTED BY BULLBRINGER
Males have inherent physical advantages over females in competitive sports. It's a biological fact.

#172 | Posted by ClownShack at 2026-03-21 12:22 AM
[Most] Males have inherent physical advantages over females in competitive sports.

But theres a whole world of psychology that completely eludes you.
But most, the majority of, transgenders do not want to play any sports.

Speaking of psychology, finally, you [may be beginning to] understand... Out of hundreds of thousands in school/college sports, 10-20, 40 at the most, and overwhelmingly males trans-gendered into females (but, for some reason, hardly any females trans-gendered into males) want to play sports against [physically] weaker cis-gender, which has been demonstrably shown to cause a huge [psychological] discomfort, anguish and sense of profound unfairness among their cis-gender opponents, their parents, friends, sports fans and outsiders.

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... What was so stressful about Monet's life that she'd spend the next half hour taking aim at stacks of plates, an old computer monitor, and a keyboard?
"Work," Monet said, without missing a beat.

Going someplace (in Manhattan?) and pay $75+ for 15 minutes of letting off steam by breaking few ceramic things? You don't have to be efficiency expert to understand how unproductive and ultimately unsatisfying that is.

Wouldn't be buying a stack of them at Goodwill or dollar store on the way home in suburbs and taking sweet time breaking them a lot cheaper and more fun? Maybe saving some inventory for the next time you need a "rage therapy" session. Or how about just buying a plushie to share the joy of tearing it apart with a Rottweiler puppy?

Never been to rage room but years ago, when we were moving to larger facilities, we got to trash some of our old MFPs after wiping SRAMs ("leave no data behind") to the tune of James Brown's "I feel good."

No "rage" - good time was had by all.

We donated the rest, newer ones with spare cartridges and refills.
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Jeffrey Epstein On His Majesty Putin's Secret Service :

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Klein: 'The White House is the Crisis'

Ezra Klein: The Trump administration is overwhelmed -- by its own violence, its own cruelty, its own lies, its own chaos. There is nothing unusual about a presidency being overwhelmed by crises. What is unusual about the Trump administration is that it has created those crises itself.

Not that unusual for administrations to inadvertently create crises, usually by saying something stupid off the cuff or trying to cover up minor things - Biden's and Obama's had plenty of own goals...

The 2015 movie Our Brand is Crisis was based on the 1993 book "The War Room" about Bill Clinton's campaign, and self-created crises permeated through his presidency.

What is really unusual now is that the crises are usually attempted to be avoided; with Trump it's the opposite - crises and chaos are organic, they're a feature, not a bug.

Doesn't hurt that "crises" justify the permanent "emergency powers" for tariffs, militarization of law enforcement, etc.