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.

100%. every anti-Trump person with access to media coverage should be repeating "the government is here to protect the American people from things like plane crashes and the President is dismantling it. last week, he gutted the aviation safety department last week and is going to replace them with his cronies if he replaces them at all." over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

i don't know if it would work, but it's what they should be doing.

10000% this

yup, he's doubling down on the DEI thing: "They want handicapped people doing air traffic control, I don't think so.." just barbaric shit

He even called out dwarfism!

Where are these little people Air Traffic Controllers?

Obama International Airport

sickening.

god could you imagine if he was POTUS on 9/11, 'Consoler in Chief'? He'd somehow blame it on the Central Park 5

what an embarrassing country

I wish embarrassment were our biggest worry. If so, I'd grin and bear it. But it's just a sidebar.

One of the most pernicious things about American racism is a cis male heterosexual non -handicapped person is just automatically assumed by many people to be inherently qualified for any kind of job.

Apparently being in a wheelchair means your brain doesn’t work.

well there's a governor in texas...

not funny, I take it back

I'm in a wheelchair and hate Abbott, so I'll allow it.

The Federal Aviation Administration’s leader stepped down on Jan. 20, months after Elon Musk demanded that he quit.

The move by Michael Whitaker means the FAA has no Senate-confirmed leader for one of the biggest crises in its history because he quit before Donald Trump took office...

FCC going after NPR and PBS now too.

Wait Wait Don't Tell Me (About Racism)

I don't know about PBS but NPR gets most of its funding from foundations and listeners, not the federal govt

NPR turned into the Bush administration’s propaganda unit after 9/11. They never pushed back on any insane shit.

Some local PBS affiliates, particularly LA, San Francisco’s, and Boston’s, do stellar work, but the entity as a whole is also a cowardly disaster

can you imagine being Whitaker today? i hope he's sitting in the warm sun enjoying a tasty drink, snuggling his loved ones and his phone's battery has been dead for days. (i'm sure this is not his reality.)

Reporter: Do you have a plan to go visit the site?

Trump: I have a plan to visit, not the site. Because you tell me, what’s the site? The water?

well, the nonprofit I work for received a grant payment today from the Dept of Justice lol

Reporter: Do you have a plan to go visit the site?

Trump: I have a plan to visit, not the site. Because you tell me, what’s the site? The water?

― Iza Duffus Hardy (President Keyes), Thursday, January 30, 2025

OK, sorry, I laffed

The next time my spouse asks me to do a chore I’m gonna nod and say “Yes I have a plan to do something, not that chore.”

“I have concepts of a plan to do something around here”

He even called out dwarfism!

someone who looks like the king of the goddamned Oompa Loompas should not be calling out dwarfism

He claimed he was going to go visit people who had been very badly hurt in the crash.

(There were no survivors.)

xp nor someone with tiny hands

There's an EO assigning blame for the crash:

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lgyiwtbfak2u

That’s not how that works

well that was fast

the FAA will do a thorough investigation of Obama's past kiteboarding

Is he seriously claiming there were people with "serious intellectual disabilities" working in the FAA/running ATC? Does he honestly think anyone buys this shit?

Is he only saying that because he daren't outright say "this is what happens when you let women/POC have jobs, they are useless"?

He would probably say that.

do you all have subscriptions to these websites? I can't get in to the Washington Post website anymore, nor do I want to

If you're OK with Firefox extensions from an underground site with a .ru domain, Bypass Paywalls Clean is the Firefox extension to use:
top level: https://github.com/bpc-clone/bypass-paywalls-firefox-clean
download: https://gitflic.ru/project/magnolia1234/bpc_uploads

I assume he read a boilerplate employment disclaimer that listed disabilities that would not automatically disqualify someone (even though they would) and because he's a moron assumed it was a list of recent hires.

Is he only saying that because he daren't outright say "this is what happens when you let women/POC have jobs, they are useless"?

“They were turned away because of the color of their skin,” Vice President JD Vance said of air traffic controllers. “That policy ends under Donald Trump’s leadership.”

I know I shouldn't be horrified by this anymore but I'm actually stunned they're going with this defense

I'm actually stunned they're going with this defense

yeah, echoes of the old 1990's 'reverse discrimination'

his efforts are paying off

Donald Trump is still historically unpopular compared with other new US presidents, a new poll showed.

“At 47%, President Donald Trump’s initial job approval rating for his second term is similar to the inaugural 45% reading during his first term, again placing him below all other elected presidents dating back to 1953,” wrote Megan Brenan, a senior editor for Gallup, which carried out the poll.

Yes a massive cognitive dissonance between the old arse covering way where thoughts and prayers, they’ll be a thorough investigation (hope it wasn’t our team that fucked up); then someone thrown under the bus causes properly attributed months or years later when no one is looking;

and the new way of saying a big boy did it an ran away, in fact it was 3 big boys and they were big and mean and ugly, in fact they …

“At 47%, President Donald Trump’s initial job approval rating for his second term is similar to the inaugural 45% reading during his first term, again placing him below all other elected presidents dating back to 1953,” wrote Megan Brenan, a senior editor for Gallup, which carried out the poll.

― Andy the Grasshopper, Thursday, January 30, 2025 7:33 PM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I’m sick of this type of reasoning. This idiot has insulated himself from all accountability. He was popular enough to do that. Seems popular.

yeah, agree. I don't think presidential job approval/popularity ratings mean anything anymore

yep, he was elected

that EO is completely insane

if that isn't a signal that literally no one is telling him "no" i don't know what is

I'm not even sure it's really an EO, it's so vague...just 'I'm telling So & So to investigate Biden"

It feels like a dictatorship. We’ll have to see if his whims are actually carried out. So far a judge blocked the federal grant freeze, which was completely non-specific in its wording.

Doesnt feel great knowing our only hope is thier considerable incompetence

I keep waiting for the Joe McCarthy 'Sir, have you no decency' moment from his own party, but haven't seen it yet
Heartened to see the Florida GOP mostly ignoring DeSantis on that BS immigration thing

Presidential approval was pretty meaningful last year.

It helps tell you how much the people are buying in and offers a useful metric for considering how elections will go in the future. Or you can just convince yourself that actually Trump is King Now and spiral into "America deserves this!!!" or whatever.