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Captainant

Certifiably Surly
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Posts posted by Captainant

  1. 1 hour ago, Thetexashammer said:

    but the argument that "Britain can't win and extending the war is resulting in needless slaughter" is not without merit. 

    Fixed for historical comparison. This is some appeasement shit my dude. You think just giving up and letting Putin take Ukraine will satisfy his dictatorial hunger for power? 

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  2. 12 minutes ago, Bevo said:

    Maybe or maybe there is more involved.

    House Speaker Mike Johnson is negotiating with White House to advance Ukraine aid

    House Speaker Mike Johnson is negotiating with the White House as he prepares for the treacherous task of advancing wartime funding for Ukraine and Israel through the House
    BySTEPHEN GROVES Associated Press
    April 11, 2024, 7:53 PM

    WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Mike Johnson is negotiating with the White House as he prepares for the treacherous task of advancing wartime funding for Ukraine and Israel through the House, a top House Republican said Thursday.

    House Republican Leader Steve Scalise told reporters that Johnson had been talking with White House officials about a package that would deviate from the Senate’s $95 billion foreign security package and include several Republican demands. It comes after Johnson has delayed for months on advancing aid that would provide desperately needed ammunition and weaponry for Kyiv, trying to find the right time to advance a package that will be a painful political lift.

    “There’s been no agreement reached,” Scalise said. “Obviously there would have to an agreement reached not just with the White House, but with our own members.”

    Johnson, R-La., is being stretched between a Republican conference deeply divided in its support for Ukraine, as well as two presidential contenders at odds over the U.S.’s posture towards the rest of the world. President Joe Biden has repeatedly chastised Republicans for not helping Ukraine, saying they are doing the bidding of Russian President Vladimir Putin and hurting U.S. security. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican candidate, has said he would negotiate an end to the conflict as he tries to push the U.S. to a more isolationist stance.

    The Republican speaker is set to travel to the former president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida on Friday to meet with Trump and has been consulting him in recent weeks on the Ukraine funding to gain his support — or at least prevent him from openly opposing the package.

    Sen. Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican who often works closely with House lawmakers, said this week he and Trump have spoken with Johnson “in depth” about how to advance Ukraine aid. It is not clear whether Trump would lend any political support, but Mullin said he was hoping to get the former president behind the package, especially now that Johnson’s job is at stake.

    Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, has threatened to try to oust Johnson as speaker and warned that advancing funding for Ukraine would help build her case that GOP lawmakers should select a new speaker.

    Meanwhile, Johnson has been in conversations with the White House about legislation that would structure some of the funding for Kyiv as loans, pave the way for the U.S. to tap frozen Russian central bank assets and include other policy changes.

    Johnson has also been pushing for the Biden administration to lift a pause on approvals for Liquefied Natural Gas exports. At times, he has also demanded policy changes at the U.S. border with Mexico.

    “This becomes a more dangerous world with Russia in Kyiv,” said Rep. Don Bacon, a Republican who supports aiding Ukraine. “So we’re just got to find a the smart way to get a bill passed that we can get out and back to the Senate.”

    Still, Johnson is facing a practically open rebellion from a group of hardline House conservatives who are dissatisfied with the way he has led the House. With a narrow and divided majority, Johnson has been forced to work with Democrats to advance practically any major legislation.

    House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Thursday that the “only path forward” for the House was a vote on the Senate’s national security package. He also suggested that Democrats would help Johnson hold onto the speaker’s gavel if he did so.

    While Democrats have pressured Johnson to put the Senate package to a vote, they also may be divided on a vote as a growing number oppose sending Israel offensive weaponry while it engages in a campaign in Gaza that has killed thousands of civilians.

    The Biden administration, which would administer any military funding, has issued stern warnings to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that future U.S. support depends on the swift implementation of new steps to protect civilians and aid workers.

    “If we want to prevent handing Putin a victory in Europe, the House should do the right thing for democracy and pass the Senate’s aid package now,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Thursday in a floor speech.

     

    You are doing the fascist's work for them by legitimizing trump's continued interference with Ukraine receiving more military aid to defend themselves from trump's largest donor. He's going to Mar a Lago before working with the SITTING FUCKING PRESIDENT for fucks sake.

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  3. 1 minute ago, Captain Ron said:

    Is well along and on its way to being a viable launch vehicle. I think they are going to have the kinks in Super Heavy just about worked out quite soon. And while Starship might be a little bit more time, it's likely not far behind.

    Well and also that it will take at least DOZEN STARSHIP LAUNCHES AND ORBITAL REFUELINGS for each Artemis trip to the moon. NASA hadn't even thought about that aspect of the mission design until a guest speaker asked the question at a lecture. Starship hasn't even reached orbit, much less validated an orbital refueling procedure between two orbiting starships. And then they need at least a dozen of them to go flawlessly for a successful launch.

     

    It reeks of the same slapdash design ethos that the rest of musk's projects have begun to exhibit. Amazingly groundbreaking promises that are astoundingly under delivered 

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  4. 10 minutes ago, texasdago said:

    My dad was about to buy some lithium rechargeable battery charger for under $4.00 and I told him to keep away from that Temu garbage unless he wants to have the charger burn the house down.

    Yeah you shouldn't be buying anything that will charge your other devices from temu or AliExpress, or even Amazon if the vendor is shady enough. An under or out of spec charger can overheat quickly and become a serious fire risk, or it could just fry your device

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  5. 58 minutes ago, BevoAbyss said:

    Why in the hell does almost no one in the media call MAGA-GQP what it actually is? Fascist and theocratic, according to any dictionary not tossed out of a Texas school library.

    Let me tell you, there are few things that fascists hate more than being called a fascist. 

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  6. 11 minutes ago, scottsins said:


    Yes. Months. Point still remains.

    Honestly, no not really. That's eight percent as bad. Dude is going to jail for less than half a year for aiding and abetting one of the most damaging frauds on the American public. That's tiddlyfuckinwinks. 

    That is a fucking slap on the wrist for everything else that he's done that we know about. Give me a fucking break dude. Point is no good, doinked off the upright. 

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  7. 19 minutes ago, bolverk said:

    This is Christian Nationalism, and it is oh so very fucking dangerous.

    Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick pushes pastors to run for political office
    During a private meeting at Ed Young's Second Baptist Church in Houston, dozens of right-wing Christians strategized how to win seats in the 2024 elections.

    As millions of Texans prepared to stare at the sky Monday to glimpse the total solar eclipse, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick joined his pastor Ed Young in a prayer circle at Houston's Second Baptist Church, where they embraced conservative kingmakers and called for pastors and believers to run for office. 

    "If we don't win in 2024, we lose this nation," Patrick said ahead of the November elections, while standing on a small stage at the church's massive Woodway campus. "Today, it is a battle of darkness and light. There are people who pray to God, believe in God, raise their families in God's work and there are people over here who don't believe in God and want to kick God out. They hate God. That's the battle we're in."

    Patrick, a longtime member of the SBC-affiliated megachurch and one of the most powerful Republicans in Texas, attended the pastor's private luncheon organized by the American Renewal Project (ARP), a group founded by anti-gay Dallas political operative David Lane. The ARP has enlisted North Carolina's GOP Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson to recruit and train clergy and congregants to win seats on local school boards, city councils, county commissions and on the state legislature. The project's Houston meeting represented the first of 20 gatherings across Texas. 

    "We need America to get out of the chaos and come back to peace," said Patrick, who called North Carolina's Robinson a friend. "Whether its pastors or just believers, they need to stand up and either run for office, support people running for office…" and register citizens to vote in elections. 

    Patrick drew applause for praising anti-abortion state and federal laws and for verbalizing anti-immigration rhetoric alleging that "millions" of people including "criminals, sex offenders, and child abusers" were crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. He also claimed the Biden administration refused to do anything to stop the border "chaos" because migrants mean future Democratic voters. 

    "I'd rather be kicked out of office for my positions than kicked out of Heaven for my positions," Patrick said. "Vote me into office and vote me into Heaven." The speech a little more than a month after Pastor Young delivered a ranting sermon during which he referred to migrants coming into Texas as "undesirables," "garbage" and "raff" and suggesting that the United States is already "lost through foolishness." Ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, Young referred to the Democratic Party as "some kind of religion that is basically godless" and called for his congregants to vote out local officials.

    On Monday, Lane, the founder of the American Renewal Project, said 50 pastors and religious leaders ran for various political seats in North Carolina in 2022 to fight in "a war between God Jehovah and the false god of secularism." Lane aimed to replicate his successes in Texas and encourage more than 100 believers to run for statewide office in the coming years. "The American culture is nothing but the manifestation of the false religion that's governing America," Lane said. "If we're going to save the country for our kids and theirs, we have to move into the public square in obedience to Jesus' Kingdom" which he believes was assigned in the Gospel of Matthew.

    Patrick echoed the need for Christians to prepare for a sort of spiritual warfare during the "battle" of November elections, his words seemingly in line with to the aims of Christian nationalism, an ideology that seeks to merge American and Christian identities. "If we get ready for battle in the election in 2024, I believe the victory will be the Lord's," Patrick said. "But we have to stand up and fight.” The lieutenant governor spoke with certainty when saying "we're all going to Heaven" in the room with pastors and others wearing pins of an American flag with a cross. "We're already saved. We're gone," he said. "But what about the future? What are our children and grandchildren are going to inherit?"

    I live in Houston near 2nd Baptist. What's the process like to complain to the IRS or whichever powers that be to revoke their tax exempt status?

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  8. 16 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

    I'm not attempting to agitate you, but calling most reps is worthless. Ted Cruz basically goes straight to voicemail. Mike Johnson gives zero fucks. 

    Last time I actually took the time to write a letter and send it by mail to a rep's office I got a reply about 8 months later after the issue was resolved, and the reply was completely unresponsive to what I wrote. 

    They don't give a flying fuck what you have to say unless it comes with a five figure check

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  9. 29 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

    Well, if you did it, you would certainly be prosecuted.  😬😬

    Well duh. We're not incredibly wealthy people with access to politicians. No shit we would be prosecuted. That dichotomy and problem is the difference in upfront treatment and handling depending on your wealth. 

    We have a multi-tier justice system. My greatest wish is that trump would be sentenced to he tried as a black man, rather than a rich white man. 

     

     

    • Haha 2
  10. 3 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

    See, here's where you're wrong.  The Supreme Court has never really cared about facts.  Those get handled in the courts below.  It may be more obvious that the court is cherry-picking cases with certain fact patterns now that it is full-on activist, but that's the way it has always been.

    And those lower courts don't give a shit about the facts of the cases that they're grooming to send to the supremes.

    Citizens United. Kennedy v Bremmer. Shelby v Holder. 

    I could keep naming cases that hinged on counterfactual findings in the district level that were carried and helpfully ignored every step along the way to the supremes.

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  11. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/epa-limits-pfas-chemicals-drinking-water-first-time-rcna147000

    The EPA announced Wednesday that levels of PFOA and PFOS — two types of PFAS commonly used in nonstick or stain-resistant products such as food packaging and firefighting foam — can’t exceed 4 parts per trillion in public drinking water. 

    Three additional PFAS chemicals will be restricted to 10 parts per trillion. They are PFNA and PFHxS — older versions of PFAS — and GenX chemicals, a newer generation of chemicals created as a replacement for PFOA.

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  12. 28 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

    I think the various weather reporting outlets may be "over reporting" severe weather for clicks.  It may just be the weird weather patterns, but it often seems like they make things more dire than they actually are.  Of course, the Storm Prediction Center can make that easy and I don't think they're angling for clicks.

    When the core intent is not to inform the public, but to make money on advertisements it's not hard to see how perverse incentives can inevitably steer things in this direction. It'll take deaths from missing critical safety information like an impending tornado for anything to actually change

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  13. bump - Norfolk Southern has agreed to pay $600M in a settlement over the >$1,100M damages they caused (AP reporting)

    Norfolk Southern has agreed to pay $600 million in a class-action lawsuit settlement for a fiery February 2023 train derailment in Ohio, but residents worry the money not only won’t go far enough to cover future health needs that could be tremendous but also won’t amount to much once divvied up.

    “It’s not nowhere near my needs, let alone what the health effects are going to be five or 10 years down the road,” said Eric Cozza, who lived just three blocks from the derailment and had 47 family members living within a mile (1.61 kilometers).

    More than three dozen of the freight train’s 149 cars derailed on the outskirts of East Palestine, a town of almost 5,000 residents near the Pennsylvania state line. Several cars spilled a cocktail of hazardous materials that caught fire. Three days later, officials, fearing an explosion, blew open five tankcars filled with vinyl chloride and burned the toxic chemical — sending thick, black plumes of smoke into the air. Some 1,500 to 2,000 residents were evacuated.

    More than a year later residents still complain about respiratory problems and unexplained rashes and nosebleeds, but the greater fear is that people will develop cancer or other serious conditions because of the chemicals they were exposed to. Researchers have only begun to work on determining the lasting repercussions of the derailment.

    Norfolk Southern said the agreement, if approved by the court, will resolve all class action claims within a 20-mile (32-kilometer) radius of the derailment and, for residents who choose to participate, personal injury claims within a 10-mile (16-kilometer) radius of the derailment.

    The settlement, which doesn’t include or constitute any admission of liability, wrongdoing or fault, represents only a small slice of the $3 billion in revenue Norfolk Southern generated just in the first three months of this year. The railroad said that even after the settlement it still made a $213 million profit in the quarter.

  14. Anyone else been playing Balatro? It's a poker rogue like deck builder that's $15 on steam where each round you're playing hands to build chips and multiplier to hit an ever higher point total. After each round you earn some money that you can use to buy jokers or new cards for your deck or tarot cards that do crazy things like making wild cards or giving hearts a 1.5X score multiplier for each heart played. 

    So far the best have Ive played is a "flush five"  on a good run where I had managed to replace almost every card in my deck with jacks of spades lol. 

     

     

  15. 6 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

    i’m glad we’re on the same team though.  Anyone who hates Trump as much as I is do a friend of mine. And they are entirely right to be angry and pissed off at a number of things. Still, there is a hell of a lot of magical thinking and ignorance being displayed, as they can’t differentiate between factual situations and nuanced laws leading to different rulings, and instead find it easier just to say it’s all rigged in favor of the rich.

    The supreme court has been in the habit of issuing fact free rulings. Facts don't matter, and the points are all made up. You think the law matters? It's only so until one of the Supremes donors deigns differently. 

    Turns out RV's spend real good!

     

    It's not a refutation of facts, but an acceptance of their lack of standing in our brave new world

  16. 24 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

    Some of the comments:

    I am interested in the fact that Musk had a lawyer there who was not admitted to practice in Texas, engaged in the unauthorized practice of law, interfering with the deposition. Surely that is sanctionable.

    letting my client talk about running an alt account as a toddler then at the end going ahhh yes of course this will be confidential?

    "you're even less competent than Alex Jones's attorneys" should be a career-ending insult

     

    We need this:

    bafkreiawp3ltwdjcmxemlk2prsrq7f6hnencmzk

     

    18 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

    Yeah what's the hold up

    The sanctions filing is a few posts up and was filed yesterday, and lays all that out across 162 pages

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