RememberTheApollo_

The internet runs on ads.

Ad companies pay for all the “free” popular social media we use. Ad companies dictate to social media what their clients want their ads to be associated with, not associated with, and drive media of all kinds to push inflammatory and click-bait content that drives engagement and views. It’s why you indirectly can’t swear, talk about suicide, drugs, death, or violence. Sure, you technically can unless ToS prohibits it, but if companies tell their ad hosts they don’t want to be associated with someone talking about guns, the content discussing guns gets fewer ads, fewer ads = less revenue, low-revenue gets pushed to the bottom.

So lowbrow political rage bait, science denialism, and fake conspiracies drives people to interact and then gets pushed to the top because it gets ad revenue. Content that delves into critical thought and requires introspection or contemplation languishes.

Ads are destroying society because stupid and rage sells views.

Politicians worldwide are facing a surge in violence, threats and harassment, a survey published on Wednesday by the global Inter-Parliamentary Union found, warning that the trend, fueled by new technologies, could have major repercussions for democracy.

The IPU survey, opens new tab, mostly conducted in 2025, was based on questions submitted to lawmakers in more than 80 countries, with detailed questionnaires to 519 elected officials in five - Argentina, Benin, Italy, Malaysia and the Netherlands - to provide a representative global picture.

EDIT: The Hill blocks links. Trying to find another source. https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5733236-gallup-stops-presidential-approval-ratings-polls/

Gallup will no longer track presidential approval ratings after more than eight decades doing so, the public opinion polling agency confirmed to The Hill on Wednesday.

The company said starting this year it would stop publishing approval and favorability ratings of individual political figures, saying in a statement it “reflects an evolution in how Gallup focuses its public research and thought leadership.”

‘Why not?:' White House says Trump floats naming Penn Station, Dulles airport after himself

President Donald Trump’s racist social media post featuring former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, as primates in a jungle was deleted after a backlash from both Republicans and Democrats who criticized the video as offensive.

The Republican president’s Thursday night post was deleted Friday and blamed on a staffer after widespread backlash, from civil rights leaders to veteran Republican senators, for its treatment of the nation’s first Black president and first lady. The deletion, a rare admission of a misstep by the White House, came hours after press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed “fake outrage” over the post. After calls for its removal for being racist -- including by Republicans -- the White House said a staffer had posted the video erroneously and it had been taken down.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries released a list of policies to impose "guardrails" on DHS on Wednesday night, including by restricting immigration agents from wearing masks and requiring them to display an ID and use body cameras. The Democrats also demanded agents be banned from entering private property without judicial warrants, along with requiring agents to verify that someone is not a U.S. citizen before holding them in immigration detention, among other things.

"The American people rightfully expect their elected representatives to take action to rein in ICE and ensure no more lives are lost. It is critical that we come together to impose common sense reforms and accountability measures that the American people are demanding," Schumer and Jeffries wrote.

The Democrats also said there are steps the administration can take immediately to "show good faith," including removing DHS Secretary Kristi Noem from her position and fully ramping down the immigration operation in Minneapolis.

Thune, a South Dakota Republican, called Democrats' demands "unrealistic and unserious," while saying they aren't "even willing to engage in a negotiation and discussion to try and reach a result."

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A new report warns that the number of soldiers killed, injured or missing on both sides of Russia’s war on Ukraine could hit 2 million by the spring, with Russia suffering the largest number of troop deaths recorded for any major power in any conflict since World War II.

Tuesday’s report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies came less than a month before the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.

As the war grinds through another bitterly cold winter, Russian strikes hit an apartment block Wednesday on the outskirts of Kyiv, killing two people. Nine others were injured in attacks in the Ukrainian cities of Odesa and Kryvyi Rih and the front-line Zaporizhzhia region.

The CSIS report said Russia suffered 1.2 million casualties, including up to 325,000 troop deaths, between February 2022 and December 2025.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he has no problem with the sharp decline in the dollar that’s been triggered by convulsions in global bond markets and growing skepticism about the U.S.’s reliability as a trading partner.

“I think it’s great,” Trump told reporters in Iowa when asked about the currency’s decline. “Look at the business we’re doing. The dollar’s doing great.”

Trump has long maintained that a weaker currency helps industries that he’s seeking to boost — particularly manufacturers, but also oil and gas. And U.S. corporations that export goods and services abroad typically report stronger earnings when they can convert foreign payments into a weaker greenback.

A $1.8 billion loan guarantee to an Arizona utility to deploy clean energy are among the projects the Energy Department has canceled following a review of loans made during former President Joe Biden’s administration, according to the department.

The conditional loan guarantee to Arizona Public Service Company, a subsidiary of Pinnacle West Capital Corp., was granted by the Biden administration in early January 2025, but never finalized. The financing to the utility, the largest in Arizona, was earmarked for the deployment of renewable energy sources, electric transmission lines and the construction of a battery energy storage project tied to an existing solar site, according to the Energy Department. The utility didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

The project was among some $30 billion in financing, made through the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office, that was canceled following a Trump administration review of Biden-era deals.

Scene with Jesus on the cross. A MAGA person wearing a thin blue line flag shirt pointing at Jesus saying “He should have just obeyed the law!”

President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, allowing him to deploy troops as protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement persist in Minneapolis.