ndawg

Oh, absolutely. I think there's a lot of waste all over our government, not just the military -- just like there is a lot of waste in private enterprises. Our government could almost certainly provide more value to Americans for substantially less tax revenue. To narrow this to the military, Americans (and American interests) could be made even more secure for less total cost. Slashing budget at the top is what I have a problem with. It's wishful thinking for how we'd like things to end up, without a plan to get there. Sure, but, those two anecdotes have a long way to go to suggest that both companies are any less wasteful over the long haul. Layoffs are the norm for these kinds of corporations. Remember, though, that the same dysfunctional managers responsible for accumulating all that dead weight are generally spared from layoffs. So what happens after the investors and executives make out like bandits from the drastic bottom line impact? The company promptly resumes course right back to where it started. And Fortune 500 companies have so much inertia behind them, as well as so much leverage at their disposal to thwart thriftier competition, that they really don't have get serious about eliminating waste in order to survive. If we project our government's "return on tax investment" over the span of the next, say, three decades, I think we'd find that slashing budgets would not bring about the long-term improvements we'd hope for. And in the short term, they'd run the real risk of jeopardizing the crucial infrastructure that Americans depend on. Libertarian ideals have merit; they are an important part of the landscape of our political theory. But a lot of libertarians (especially on the internet) have an Achilles heel. They often see a kind of intellectual elegance in being able to settle difficult policy matters by reusing the same small set of simple foundational premises. However, they're usually high on their own supply, and the rest of us see it for what it is: oversimplification. Libertarians are like any other radical movement; they love to bet on those radical ideas when they feel safe from any consequences. The trouble is that other Americans wouldn't be.

"Trim the fat" is a terrible approach to reducing waste in private enterprises. What makes you think it would work for our government?

Yeah. Two things seem clear about how they see us: 1. They assume our worldview is shaped in the same manner theirs is 2. Know that would be a gullible way for us to arrive at a worldview Yet they simply cannot reach the realization that, by this logic, they must be gullible. Denial is a bitch.

You feel more comfortable asserting that the entirety of mainstream media, comprised entirely of companies constantly racing against one another to be the first to get any scoop of import as an existential matter of their financial survival, and who are hurt, not helped, financially by a landslide election... are still so blinded by precisely the same, monolithic bias... that they'd all keep their hands off a juicy, profitable story just to keep this one in the bag for ole Joe. In the words of Ben Shapiro, facts do not care about your feelings.

If there were ever a Smithsonian for internet posters in denial, this piece of work would certainly belong in it.

So let me get this straight.. mainstream media outlets, already an endangered species, are so rabid in their ideological opposition to Trump that they'd risk their survival by ignoring journalistic standards just to kill a hit piece on Trump's opponent? Oh, right, yeah, if right wingers would be that stupid, I suppose it makes sense that they'd assume everyone else is that stupid, too.

I found it surprising, too, but I think the explanation is that all the stereotypes we have for millenials are of the urban variety. Rural millenials may not have anything in common with them, in the same way that non-white boomer aged Americans aren't really similar to white baby boomers by and large.

We had one Trump / Pence 2020 sign right up in the grill of our cul de sac in Northwest Hills, but it retreated back towards their house a few months ago, after some particularly heinous event that has passed out of my memory. I don't think it's there at all anymore, since the first debate.

The entire point of the replies to you was to state what should be obvious: the Republicans are once again hypocrites. Your "I've got my finger on the pulse of public opinion better than y'all" schtick is misplaced here.

It's time to start learning how to give Republican toddlers the medicine they keep resisting by hiding it in their food. If the Democrats gain the trifecta, they should sign two pieces of legislation together. First, a stimulus bill that doesn't grant money to Americans directly, but instead matches whatever package each state agrees to offer their public. Second, disrupt the flow of money from wealthy states to poorer states.

I agree with all this, with one slight deviation. I don't think he "believes" in Fox News or Rush Limbaugh. The word "believes" does not seem precise here; I'd argue that I think he likes what he hears from Fox News and Rush, and he likes the feeling he gets when he repeats it. He would never take actual action on the basis of this belief, though. If he could, he'd obviously repeal Obamacare, but only because he liked the feeling of repealing it, and not because he believed that it's somehow the cause for our dysfunctional health care system. When normal people express shock at what these people "believe" I think we end up mistakenly trying to challenge these stances as if they were "beliefs." This is why pointing out obvious inconsistencies or hypocrisies never seems to get anywhere; their relationship with their opinions is different from ours because their opinions are, effectively, stored in a different part of their brain from ours -- in neurological pez dispensers of dopamine. Trump, and Trumpkins, like prosperity gospel zealots or cultists, don't have any actual beliefs at all. Just little pez dispensers.

Yeah, Barr is just waiting until after early voting is done to make sure his story has the maximum impact on the people who will wait to vote on Election Day which is... *checks notes* mostly Trump’s existing base.

But also decided to float the idea of releasing a leaked recording of the interview before Sunday to... harm CBS ratings?

Right. We've been conditioned to think that threats to our democracy will come in the form of some dark, sinister plot happening entirely behind closed doors, with layers of subterfuge all hidden behind a well-polished image. Nope, it's just a giant asshole who learned the one trick that mob bosses all use to maintain plausible deniability -- keep it hypothetical.

Yes, and one thing that really sets 2020 apart from 1920 or 1820 is that the internet makes it easier than ever for those morons to be convinced they are smart, and to be encouraged band together with likeminded morons who are also in denial about their stupidity.

I think he's trying to publicly float the idea of offering political favors in exchange for campaign contributions, while retaining plausible deniability. Going back channel is actually riskier for him than being out in the open like this, since on the surface it looks like a denial.

"Look, I could be selling political favors to Exxon in exchange for campaign contributions of, say, $25,000,000. But I'm not doing that. But nobody gives me credit for not giving Exxon political favors in exchange for $25 million. Exxon, if you're listening, nobody is giving me any credit for not granting you permits that may otherwise be tied up for a campaign contribution of $25 million."

Look, remote work may sound good on the surface, but there's a real dark side to it. The male brain was just not designed to be constantly presented with a difficult choice between paying attention to a really boring meeting or masturbating, day-in, day-out.

We are at the point where an unscrupulous falconer has emerged to play a not insignificant role in the story. Shut it all down.

FIFY. It's their feelings. It's all about their feelings.

Yep. Everyone who associated their reputation to the Republican party already called it back long ago. The poor souls who remained were the ones who tied not their reputation but their core identity to the party. The former saw Trump as an interloper who killed the GOP the minute he secured the nomination, and the latter were completely oblivious to it's death, and were duped into supporting an international crime syndicate that stole the GOP's name.

Frome the NW Hills rec center here in Travis county... checking in. Trump (and OU) sucks.

Lol Anastasis are you defending your work?

#2. Stupid has never been better organized.

TRUMPKINS: "sEe! hUnTeR bIDeN iS cOrRuPt! BoTh sIdEs!" SANE AMERICANS: "Well, let's take a look. Yeah, this story is deeply flawed. I can go over all of the logical inconsistencies as well as the evidence that shows both the motive and expressed intent to fabricate a hit piece on Biden." TRUMPKINS: "tWiTtEr BuRiEd tHe StOrY! iT's A cOnSpiRaCy!" SANE AMERICANS: "Twitter indeed made an overtly hypocritical decision to limit the spread of this particular fake news story, which is not consistent with their past history of allowing fake news to be freely spread on their platform. However, that fact is not in dispute. Again, can we look at the evidence and rationale together for why this is a fake news story?" TRUMPKINS: ... TRUMPKINS: ... SANE AMERICANS: "Are you still there?" TRUMPKINS: "tWiTtEr BuRiEd tHe StOrY! iT's A cOnSpiRaCy!"