Another Day, Another Cybertruck Explosion - US Politics January 2025

New thread

One person was dead and at least seven people were injured after a Tesla Cybertruck exploded and caught fire outside of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on Wednesday morning, according to the authorities.

Saw this story and immediately logged into ILE to see if someone had created the Most 2025 Images thread yet.

Are they investigating this as a terrorist attack by ISIS?

excellent title tyvm

https://ewscripps.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/52f8e50/2147483647/strip/true/crop/680x383+0+22/resize/1280x720!/quality/90/

dammit

https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_focal-758x379,f_auto,q_auto:best/mpx/2704722219/2025_01/1735763888212_nbc_spec_cybertruck_fire_250101_1920x1080-904tol.jpg

https://ewscripps.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/52f8e50/2147483647/strip/true/crop/680x383+0+22/resize/1280x720!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fewscripps-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F6f%2F2c%2F8c82244e4ebcab737c9c8ea6a8f9%2Fggo1fbmwcaai10u.jpeg

which Back to the Future is that from

"If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're gonna see some serious shit."

Doc was a Nazi

cybertruck...welcome to the resistance

the cybertruck and the truck driven in New Orleans were both rented through Turo. Turo is also, I believe, where Luigi Mangioni worked before he stopped working. Have fun conspiracists!

Well!

I think Mangione was at TrueCar? xp

That's what they want you to think

The truth Hertz

We’re off to a fantastic start, aren’t we? Happy New Year, ILE!

Even if the political year had started splendidly, Raymond, this isn't a place where people giggle happily in political threads.

Oh, I’m aware, Alfred! My post was intended as deeply and profoundly (and darkly) sarcastic - which is the only way I know how to deal with American politics at present.

I saw a Tesla on the road yesterday with a minimalist bumper sticker (plain white text on black background) that read: MAKE THIS CAR NOT EMBARRASSING AGAIN

Kind of a hard one to parse, but I'm guessing it's someone who doesn't like Musk and worries a lot about what strangers think of them.

Not as easy to sing but yeah it gets to the heart of our modern era

damn if only that person didn't buy that car

Eh I kinda feel bad for people who bought Teslas in like 2018 or whatever

30 years from now, the old timers watching a cybertruck roll by in the parade of classic cars, oh the memories

Probably won't be any left without bullet holes by then

I saw a reporter praising the cyber truck and its sturdy design for not blowing up part of that Trump hotel. I’m sure some dorks ordered a bunch based on that.

We need more head-to-head comparisons where different models of SUVs and pickups crammed with miscellaneous fireworks and gas cylinders explode in front of an assortment of Trump-owned or branded buildings, so we can see if the cybertruck really is any sturdier.

My neighbor down the street had a Tesla Roadster parked outside until recently. It's only...what...16 years old and it looked terrible. All of the finish was peeling.

I think Cybertrucks will end up in similar shape: Rusted, dented, miscolored. Tesla is not famous for build quality.

this situation is weird, btw. active duty green beret Trump voter?

xp the cybertrucks i've seen looked remarkably shabby.

in the voice of Lady Bracknell

yeah these things look like shit, I see them several times a day

It is like people voluntarily getting an STD

rich people buying dumb shit and blowing (only) themselves up with it doesn’t seem like a net bad to me

Trump fans trying to kill him reminds me of chickens coming him to roost

otm

https://media1.tenor.com/m/dEqG1C3zcvYAAAAd/zelda-chicken-attack-maxou-kid-poulet.gif

Still haven't seen a motive - he reportedly loved the cybertruck he rented and loved trump. His wife left him and took their kid because she suspected him of cheating & he called some ex girlfriends out of the blue on his trip to Vegas, but gave them no sign of what he was up to. As a green beret who disarmed IEDs, he would've known how to create a more damaging explosion if he had wanted to, so it was probably just a guilt-ridden suicide with the cybertruck packed with fireworks exploding at trump's hotel to grab media attention, but why go for all that if you have nothing more to say about it?

You expect a guy who loves Trump and cybertrucks to suicide coherently?

Maybe if he'd also choked on a Trump Steak...

My god his family is so lucky he didn't self-destruct slightly differently.

Everything in his story seems like a family annihilation indicator.

So anyway the first Speaker vote is going on right now

lol he’s not going to go through on the first vote

Olivia Beavers
@Olivia_Beavers

Rep. Chip ROY does not say anything when his was called in the roll call

He stood in the middle aisle while his fingers danced on what looks like an IPad

probably more opportunities to add to this facial expression

Mike Johnson has the left the floor pic.twitter.com/z1ZgI0wZlV

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 3, 2025

the cybertruck guy tried to contact Shawn Ryan with his manifesto/email, it's about secret gravity propulsion stuff, the current drone flap is a dick measuring contest between China and the US, the only two nations who have this technology currently, etc etc, proper conspiracy theory stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xglaXVtQcis

(followup, his reported location of the gravity propulsion center is at Area 51

This is the location referenced in the email. pic.twitter.com/GL7ngrBBdl

— Shawn Ryan (@ShawnRyan762) January 3, 2025

he says he's on a "USAP" = unacknowledged special access program, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_access_program

weird, standard media just reporting that he said the US was on a slide toward collapse (who can argue with that?). he sounds schizo.

this is rad

Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s former trade negotiator and finance minister, who is vying to succeed Trudeau, proposed a 100% tariff on all Tesla vehicles and on US wine, beer and spirits. “We need to be very targeted, very surgical, very precise,” she told the Canadian Press..

wall street journal editorial board:

The Dumbest Trade War in History

"President Trump will fire his first tariff salvo on Saturday against those notorious American adversaries . . . Mexico and Canada. They’ll get hit with a 25% border tax, while China, a real adversary, will endure 10%. This reminds us of the old Bernard Lewis joke that it’s risky to be America’s enemy but it can be fatal to be its friend."

Essentially, this is a coup by a private corporation.

yup

OPM is old news - starting yesterday Elon has set his sights on the GSA. The word is they were ordered to cut their spending by 50%.

Stop paying rent

Capitalism is a helluva drug

lol as someone that has worked on gsa contracts good luck with all that

general strike now

I know that Musk really hates unions (he's said so), maybe going back to the trade union participation in South Africa's anti-apartheid fight.. and of course most Federal workers are represented by unions

it has dawned on me that they waited to pull this until they confirmed hegseth

Plane crash in NE Philly. Maybe aircraft are on strike.

"love" the notion of cutting the budget by canceling leases on unused federal buildings, while simultaneously insisting federal employees need to come back to the office

Another Day, Another Plane Crash

That is in a highly populated area too. A small medical plane. Likely unrelated from what people are saying but fucking hell. What an awful time.

Fucking hell what an awful time for February thread title. It’ll be reusable for four years, if not infinity.

Fun fact: GSA is not an appropriated agency. It is funded by fees it charges other government agencies to administer their contracts.

GSA procures the lion's share of what other entities need, which means that if you mess with GSA you are hampering functions all over Defense and Homeland Security (y'know, the allegedly "good Feds" like ICE).

An official Black History Month proclamation has gone out — it says, "American heroes such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Thomas Sowell, Justice Clarence Thomas, and countless others represent what is best in America and her citizens."

FFS

God forbid they mention anyone connected to the Civil Rights movements of the 20th century.

Harriet Tubman’s dream of getting the fuck out of Dodge and going to Canada should inspire everyone

shocked by their Candace Owens erasure

Clarence Thomas isn’t black. His skin was mistakenly dyed in an industrial accident

stfu Aimless, you don't get it at all

killfiled again, there are only a few these days but I am so sick of your garbage posting

I post one sentence and get two insults.

in case anyone else is unclear on the coup that is happening, let me share something I saw today from the NSF:

In response to White House Executive Order 13985, and a formal directive received from the National Science Foundation on January 28th, AUI and NRAO will immediately halt all DEI specific and related activities across the Observatory. All staff previously assigned to the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI) no longer have DEI activities as part of their portfolio, and have been reassigned to unrelated activities. Changes effective immediately (based on our review of the guidance provided):

The Office of Diversity and Inclusion situated in the NRAO Director’s Office is immediately closed.
The National Astronomy Consortium (NAC) program and National and International Non-Traditional Exchange (NINE) programs are canceled.
NRAO’s participation in several externally-led programs (LSAMP, CARSE) will be immediately discontinued.
The DEI components of Project RADIAL and SuperKnova will be immediately discontinued. DEI requirements in any NRAO subawards will be withdrawn.
Other key programs (ngVLA, NRDZ, Radar, SpectrumX, Cosmic AI) will continue their proposed activities without any proposed DEI components or considerations.
Across NRAO’s websites, all DEI materials will be removed, including the NRAO mission statement section.
DEI requirements in performance, recruiting, on-boarding, codes of conduct, and other employee activities will be removed, and supporting information deleted.
The NRAO Employee Diversity Group will no longer be officially supported.
DEI-related activities in Chile will be halted (subject to international partnership agreements and local Chilean law). A handful of small privately-funded DEI activities (Ham Radio, Sloan Foundation, Women in Engineering) will continue until completion, without any federal funding support. State-funded DEI activities in NM and WV are being reviewed, but will not be partially supported in future by Federal funds.
All NRAO awards, proposals and supplementary agreements will be reviewed for DEI components, and activities/funding modified to remove them.
The ODI Speaker series is cancelled

All changes are planned to be completed by February 5th. Additional actions may be required as further instructions and/or guidance are provided.

i don't know what was wrong with Aimless' statement there

yeah, I'm missing it. He was sarcastic?

he ignored the addition of Thomas to the canon

I mean maybe it was sarcasm, but I am so done with his shit

like, now is not the time for loftily removed bon mots

God forbid they mention anyone connected to the Civil Rights movements of the 20th century.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Friday, January 31

that's an on-the-mark post by Aimless, he didn't ignore it at all

I don't get you sleeve

same buddy, but I feel like you post in good faith where Aimless does not <3

he ignored the addition of Thomas to the canon

― sleeve,

he pointed out how they included no one from the civil rights movement?

as I said before:

like, now is not the time for loftily removed bon mots

― sleeve

even on ILX, sorry I don't make the rules history is calling us to action

The post was fine

I understand he was trying to be witty, that's not the fucking point

obv I need a break, sorry all, been a long week and this 2nd plane crash didn't help

tbrr, I've slagged off on Justice Thomas on ILE dozens of times, but I omit to specifically slag off on his utterly predictable, if reprehensible, inclusion by whoever ghost-wrote Trump's press release and it's seen as endorsing him as an American hero?? wtf, sleeve. get off my case.

sleeve i really do think you misread what Aimless was going for, either in content or in tone. all of us could probably do with logging off tho. it's been a long, horrible week.

yeah, I don't understand

Yeah tbh I found beamish’s post much more offensive and also kinda ignorant of who Thomas is.

Sowell and Thomas have been the two black guys conservatives like for 30 years now.

Surprised El Presidente didn’t shoehorn one of his cronies from the 80s in there, like Don King or somebody.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/31/trump-california-water-00201909

Jfc what a fucking idiot. I just can’t

“Some legal experts say the purges underway appear to be custom-made opportunities for the Supreme Court’s Republican-appointed majority to strike down the statutes any legal challenges would be based on, furthering its trend in recent years of expanding presidential authority.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/29/us/politics/trump-firings-officials-legal-test.html?unlocked_article_code=1.tk4.OKyE.P7eijrA3PaZ2&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

X-post - Army Corps of Engineers screwed up in New Orleans, thankfully Cali officials and farmers prevented them from flooding Cali farmland

How the fuck was my post offensive? Thomas despises being born black. Fuck off with this and be angry about things that actually matter. Maybe spend less time on this board as well.

As good a time as to carry on over here: Turning On The Giant Faucet Of Bullshit - US Politics February 2025