- blackeyeblitzarDid they really break the law? I’m not a fan of Apple and their aggressive walled gardens and general hostility. But I feel like the tax optimization with Ireland is well known to everyone and wasn’t an issue until now. It seems dishonest to go back and demand retroactive taxes afterwards. And I bet they aren’t the only company in this situation so are they being singled out unfairly?
- I think big tech deserves anti trust regulation and action because it is good for a competitive market that actually puts customers first. They’re too big and powerful and abuse their power to hurt fair competition. But I think the type of aggressive action you’re talking about - and the motivation to do it solely to weaken America - will open up a lot of destructive actions back and forth.
America choosing to spend less money on Ukraine, pushing for resolution to a conflict that has resulted in mass deaths for Ukrainian males, and renegotiating tariffs doesn’t deserve the kind of hysterical overreaction I’m seeing from Europeans. In the end, if it escalates to open warfare on each other’s economies rather than a reset of trade agreements, it’ll damage both the EU and US to China’s benefit.
- Thanks for sharing. That’s a much longer list than I expected. It certainly looks like they have lots of manufacturing capabilities. I do wonder if they’re the right company for software and AI, however that figures into defense.
- Boeing still makes really good planes in general. The 737 Max is very popular still, with 300 orders even after the Alaska door incident. Sure the Airbus equivalent got twice the orders in that time, but my point is Boeing is still highly respected and trusted by airlines. The 777X is very anticipated by airlines flying long routes, and has over 500 orders. And Boeing still makes the F18 super hornet.
- It’s not unsafe for anyone to visit the US either. Unless you’re violating the law in some way, like presenting false documents or overstaying a visa - in which case there would be consequences like in any other country. Sure mistakes can happen on rare occasions, like in any country, but “arbitrary” detention isn’t a thing. That’s just sensationalism from a biased news media that has no idea why anyone was denied or detained, since that isn’t public information.
- > What is happening now: people being critical of Trump are being rejected, legal visa holders are being detained because of the scale of the abuse.
The agencies don’t reveal reasons why someone was denied or detained, so there is no evidence whatsoever that someone was detained for being critical of Trump. The claim that this happened is from Philippe Baptiste, a French minister for higher education who has been attacking America continuously in a bid to attract researchers from the US.
- Yes absolutely. It’s odd to see people here suggesting Mexico as an alternative based on safety of travelers. It’s a giveaway that they’re simply being opportunistic in attacking America due to their opposition to the administration, rather than anything actually safety related.
As an example, this article from 2025 about a family of foreigners being shot dead also lists numerous other recent examples of tourists being killed, and links to those stories:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/01/world/americas/americans-...
Those aren’t even the only ones, and physical harm isn’t the only type of crime foreigners can experience in Mexico either. Moving a conference there for safety makes no sense whatsoever.
- Left on all sides is far left. It’s as left as their categorization goes. Unless you also agree that breitbart is not far right just because it is classified as right.
- This is just misinformation. Requiring factually accurate sex information to be submitted is not the same as discriminating against some group. It’s just common sense.
EDIT - response to defrost’s comment below:
The Australian passport doesn’t require fatally accurate information per your own link:
> Customers who identify as a gender other than male or female (intersex, indeterminate, unspecified, non-binary) may request that the gender in their ATD appear as X.
Sex isn’t a matter of “identifying” as something. It’s a biological reality. Progressive gender ideology cannot alter these facts, and it is unfortunate it has found its way into the identification documents of some countries.
- > Except the link you're responding to is literally linking to reports of threats to safety.
Typically when you break laws in a country, for example violating the terms of a visa, you face consequences. For everyone else, there’s no issue. But none of this is a “threat to safety”. Again, this is activist hyperbole.
> We know more than enough to point out that it shouldn't have happened at all.
You don’t know any real details. You just have vague claims from individuals that likely were breaking the law, and partisan news media amplifying their claims with zero investigation. There is no evidence of why these people were questioned or detained. We know at least a couple of the cases involve explicitly violating immigration law - visa overstays, attempts to cross the border after a denial, working while on a travel visa, etc.
> The Guardian is a centre-left outlet, not a far-left outlet.
- This index unironically puts countries that practice government censorship in the category of full democracies. Sorry but this isn't a democracy index - it's just a progressive index.
- Or maybe these democracy index things are entirely arbitrary
- Some quick math…
Jet fuel is about 7 pounds a gallon. So we’re talking about something like 4000 gallons. A bus is something 40 feet by 10 feet by 10 feet, which is like 20000 gallons. So it’s about a fifth of a school bus.
Still a lot, though!
- > The US is clearly demonstrating it is an unreliable partner in defence.
This feels like exaggeration to me. How is the US an ‘unreliable partner’? Has any country had parts for their existing defense purchases restricted? This type of reaction to the US choosing to not spend its own taxpayer money or military equipment on a far away conflict doesn’t make sense.
If anything, the truth is the opposite. The other countries in NATO have been unreliable partners that did not meet their spending requirements. For example, Germany, France, and Canada all underspent but benefited from the US taxpayer spending a lot.
> Western nations cannot buy into a platform when its supplier might go from being a democratic part of the West to aligning with dictators and autocrats literally overnight.
The US is not aligning with dictators. Pushing for a resolution to a conflict that is costing the world hundreds of billions, not to mention huge amounts of Ukrainian lives, is the only reasonable path. The EU has literally no solution for this conflict - just complaints that America is now seeking resolution and doesn’t want to keep wasting money or lives.