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Posted
29 minutes ago, hobbes2702 said:

You cannot be socially liberal and fiscally conservative.

 

24 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

It's code for "I'm a selfish asshole but please don't call me that".

Meh. It's closer to "I have enough social awareness to know that I can't say the N-word, openly hate on hispanics, or say "faggot"......I just want to make sure that all folks who fall in the "other" bucket are kept in their place by genteel and otherwise polite means, and for my spot in society to be sacrosanct, even at their expense."

I tried out that approach for a while on my journey, out of a naive belief that it could be sincere.  And sure, finite resources are finite resources.....but when we make those resources even MORE finite by slashing taxes on the top 1%, stacking the deck so they reap all the benefits of any economic strength/growth....you realize that it's insincere bullshit.

If you are genuinely "socially liberal," meaning that you give a shit about other human beings who are not part of your immediate cultural circle, then you have a much more open view of resource allocation/hoarding/direction by the government.

I mean, if you have any doubt about the government putting its finger on the scales in favor of one class....don't be looking at the people who are barely getting by.  Look at, oh, just as a CRAZY example, the literal richest man in the world, who has the ACTUAL FUCKING US GOVERNMENT TELLING PEOPLE TO BUY STOCK IN HIS COMPANY.

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Posted
5 minutes ago, safe sex said:

Tahoe would never narc on a fellow racist.

We all knew that.  But it was what he pretended he would do. 

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Posted (edited)
18 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

 

Meh. It's closer to "I have enough social awareness to know that I can't say the N-word, openly hate on hispanics, or say "faggot"......I just want to make sure that all folks who fall in the "other" bucket are kept in their place by genteel and otherwise polite means, and for my spot in society to be sacrosanct, even at their expense."

I tried out that approach for a while on my journey, out of a naive belief that it could be sincere.  And sure, finite resources are finite resources.....but when we make those resources even MORE finite by slashing taxes on the top 1%, stacking the deck so they reap all the benefits of any economic strength/growth....you realize that it's insincere bullshit.

If you are genuinely "socially liberal," meaning that you give a shit about other human beings who are not part of your immediate cultural circle, then you have a much more open view of resource allocation/hoarding/direction by the government.

I mean, if you have any doubt about the government putting its finger on the scales in favor of one class....don't be looking at the people who are barely getting by.  Look at, oh, just as a CRAZY example, the literal richest man in the world, who has the ACTUAL FUCKING US GOVERNMENT TELLING PEOPLE TO BUY STOCK IN HIS COMPANY.

Never did the thought occur to me that we would turn on the tv and see The President Of The United States of America hawking cars on the property at 1600 Pennsylvania.

Oh and another thing, I wonder if Elon is figuring out what everyone else in the Trump orbit eventually does. Trump is the only one who is coated with polytetrafluoroethylene. Everyone else around him that engages in the same activities suffers bigly.

Edited by Thatguy
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Posted

Fiscally conservative means balancing the budget.  A government that spends 100 trillion and taxes 101 trillion is more fiscally conservative than a government that spends 10 trillion and taxes 9 trillion.

Hence, I can be the most generous provider of benefits for the people in the world and still be fiscally conservative.

Depends on how you define socially liberal.  I've always thought of that as liberal in the sense of providing freedoms to people.  I don't really think of it as one who necessarily thinks government should only be about "charity".

I think government should be involved in charity (assisting people) when it benefits the common good.  Hence, hefty government spending for education, social security, health.   

I'm fiscally conservative and favor a real, actual progressive tax system.

 

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Posted
1 hour ago, Da Fino said:

So you just gave up on the animal-tobacco theme?

Don't be a stupid idiot and put that on me. It's just funny satire that pokes fun at bankers and the finance world, nothing christofascist or magat about it.

Posted
20 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

Oh and another thing, I wonder if Elon is figuring out what everyone else in the Trump orbit eventually does. Trump is the only one who is coated with polytetrafluoroethylene. Everyone else around him that engages in the same activities suffers bigly.

 

fbJ54Cpuacwu.gif

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Posted
17 minutes ago, hobbes2702 said:

You’re fucking dense 

Lighten up Francis. But, I meant exactly what I said. We are a wasteful country and it is bothersome to me. Issues like abortion, lgbtq, whatever - I’m extremely tired of politicians telling us what we can and cannot do. I fall left on basically all of that. I do not think our manner of defaulting to throw money at social problems is helpful at all.  You seem to think my ideas are in conflict with one another, but they aren’t. 

Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, Vegas64 said:

Being in the Utilities & Transmission business I saw this and said "oooh, an announcment on power-- this might be market moving, what is Trump going to screw up now!" 

But then I realized they are talking about political power. Boring.

Follow-up: they announced that they were going forward with the Next Generation Air Dominance 6th Gen fighter.  Boeing won the account and it will be called the “F-47”.  At one point Hegseth listed all the other numbered “F” fighters in the inventory (this will be more Fs).  It’s also named after Trump (“47”) but he said the generals picked the name. 
 

Trump said it will “go higher than 2, which you rarely see” (he means Mach 2) and also said that it will be a “Level 6, not Level 5.” 

Actually this is a slap at Elon who has loudly demanded an end to manned fighters. 

Edited by 956 Worldwide
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Posted
11 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Follow-up: they announced that they were going forward with the Next Generation Air Dominance 6th Gen fighter.  Boeing won the account and it will be called the “F-47”.  At one point Hegseth listed all the other numbered “F” fighters in the inventory (this will be more Fs).  It’s also named after Trump (“47”) but he said the generals picked the name. 
 

Trump said it will “go higher than 2, which you rarely see” (he means Mach 2) and also said that it will be a “Level 6, not Level 5.” 

Actually this is a slap at Elon who has loudly demanded an end to manned fighters. 

honestly don't know if you are fucking around or not

Posted
2 minutes ago, immamac said:

honestly don't know if you are fucking around or not

Based on Boeing up 5% today, I’m saying real. 

Posted

Actually this is a slap at Elon who has loudly demanded an end to manned fighters. 


One thing I agree with Elon on. We can get more performance and serviceability with unmanned fighters.
Posted
18 hours ago, Mo Horn said:

And Americans can now get fatter and deeper in debt all at the same time

Some people say a man is made out of mud
A poor man's made out of muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bones
A mind that's weak and a back that's strong
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
 
I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine
I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I loaded sixteen tons of number 9 coal
And the straw boss said, "Well a-bless my soul!"
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
 
I was born one mornin', it was drizzlin' rain
Fightin' and trouble are my middle name
I was raised in the canebrake by an old mama lion
Can't no high-toned woman make me walk the line
 
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
If you see me comin' better step aside
A lot of men didn't, a lot of men died
One fist of iron, the other of steel
If the right one don't getcha, then the left one will
 
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
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Posted
2 minutes ago, Bullneck said:
Some people say a man is made out of mud
A poor man's made out of muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bones
A mind that's weak and a back that's strong
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
 
I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine
I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I loaded sixteen tons of number 9 coal
And the straw boss said, "Well a-bless my soul!"
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
 
I was born one mornin', it was drizzlin' rain
Fightin' and trouble are my middle name
I was raised in the canebrake by an old mama lion
Can't no high-toned woman make me walk the line
 
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
If you see me comin' better step aside
A lot of men didn't, a lot of men died
One fist of iron, the other of steel
If the right one don't getcha, then the left one will
 
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

No alt text provided for this image

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Posted

To give you an idea of just how completely fucked the maga/Q brain is, I flipped over to Glen beck radio show because I hate myself. 

During the segment he rails on about keeping our money here to help us not to go to Ukraine where it winds up missing anyhow. Playing the hits of course. 

TIME FOR AN AD BREAK

leading into the break he talks about how he can only pitch companies or products he can vouch for, that he knows will help enrich or ease his listeners lives. 
 

Then he goes into the actual ad… for the IFCJ. The international fellowship of Christians and Jews, begging for donations to help war torn Israeli families and children who don’t have a morsel to eat or pillow to lay their heads. 

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Posted

Previously, I'd never read WIRED magazine for their political reporting or op/eds, but with Elmo Mush in the White House, they've really found their calling.

"Chaos is a ladder" strategy

Elon Musk and Donald Trump Have Chosen Chaos
Elon Musk secured his choke hold on the mechanics of the federal government weeks ago. Along with Donald Trump, he has already standardized chaos across the US.

Two months into the second Trump administration, the United States is in pure chaos mode. Tens of thousands of workers are fired one week and forcibly rehired the next. Tariffs rise and fall based not on strategy but on one man’s ire. Deportations fly in the face of judicial orders, careening the country toward a constitutional crisis. The only constant is the volatility itself.

On paper, that may be surprising. A central premise of Donald Trump’s appeal is that he is an apex businessman. Same with Elon Musk. The elevator pitch: Through the sheer force of their combined savvy, America will be saved from “bankruptcy”—or worse. There aren’t many Harvard Business School case studies, though, that suggest maximum instability is the path to success.

There’s plenty of Occam’s razor at work here: The US is wobbling wildly because its president and de facto CEO are some combination of self-serving and inept. But in between and among the absurdities, something darker takes shape. Inherent in every chaotic act is a challenge. Every outrage is a test.

In the meantime, the uncertainty has international consequences. Tourism has plummeted, as potential visitors cancel their trips to a country increasingly, openly hostile to noncitizens. Europe is rearming itself in the face of a heightened potential for conflict, as Ukraine becomes the fulcrum on which decades of solidarity between the US and Europe may pivot. Allies have considered sharing less intelligence with their US counterparts, given the Trump administration’s increasingly cozy relationship with Vladimir Putin.

It’s a heel turn worthy of a WWE Monday Night RAW plotline. But the US is not in the business of selling spectacle. Its value lies in its reliability. Instead it is now erratic, unpredictable. It’s messy. International politics is a relationship business; Donald Trump seems intent on undermining America’s relationships at every turn. (Well, except toward Moscow.)

There’s the slash-and-burn approach to budgeting, a seeming race to create a minimally viable government. The operative part of a turnaround plan is the “plan” part. Firing as many people as possible as quickly as possible—without apparent consideration for actual skills or value that they bring to the role—does not qualify as a plan. It’s just more instability.

The good news is that many of those employees are being reinstated, as the gears of the judiciary have slowly begun to turn. But that reinstatement itself may prove temporary, depending on what higher courts say. And even if those workers do come back, how motivated will they be to stay now that they know how their employer views their worth?

More to the point, who would go work for the US government in its current state? Civil service doesn’t pay great, but at least you get to feel like you’re serving a higher calling with a side order of job security. The only callings being served right now are Donald Trump’s retribution tour and Elon Musk’s amateur hour AI jamboree. Eventually they’ll run out of SpaceX interns to hire.

(A quick side note: Donald Trump reportedly told transportation secretary and Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Battle of the Seasons champion Sean Duffy that he should hire Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduates to work as air traffic controllers. The average starting salary for an MIT undergraduate is $126,438. The starting salary out of ATC school is $43,727. Business savvy!)

As for Musk, he secured his choke hold on the mechanics of the federal government weeks ago. But the installation of Starlink terminals at the White House, his repeated attacks against federal judges on X, his open dismissal of Congress—none of these are normal. The longer they go on, though, the more they feel like they might be.

That’s the point, really. The standardization of chaos. The steady insistence that no matter how outlandish, how dangerous, this tilt away from democracy gets, it’s actually nothing to get upset about. Attempt to remake the US government as quickly and radically as possible, because otherwise how will you know how far you can push it? Shoot for the moon; even if you miss, you’ll land among the kakistocracy.

The good news is that there is a way out of this. The courts have already stopped DOGE at various turns and reversed some of its most extreme activities. Congress could wake up tomorrow and remember that it’s a coequal branch of government. Public pressure can remind politicians that elections aren’t decided only by whose corner the world’s richest man is in. Boundaries do exist, even if they need to be reinforced with rebar.

And then there’s the bad news, which is the likelihood that Trump and Musk will at some point stop pretending to care about any official checks on their power. Or that they already have.

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Posted
3 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Holy crap, almost triple?  I'm in the wrong business.

And their drivers are getting paid less per order than they were a few years ago

Posted
Quote

(A quick side note: Donald Trump reportedly told transportation secretary and Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Battle of the Seasons champion Sean Duffy that he should hire Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduates to work as air traffic controllers. The average starting salary for an MIT undergraduate is $126,438. The starting salary out of ATC school is $43,727. Business savvy!)

Donald Trump GIF by Late Night with Seth Meyers

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Posted

Where our Christ-followers thread posters at?

Effects of USDA cuts by DOGE hitting the food banks, especially in rural areas.

Key passage:
The halt to the funds, which was first reported by Politico, comes in addition to other recent cuts to federal food assistance. Earlier this month, the Agriculture Department halted two other programs that distributed food to banks and schools. Lawmakers are also mulling cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps, which were used by about 42 million people in the 2023 fiscal year.

Food bank directors fear that an across-the-board contraction to federal food assistance could drive more people to food banks just as they are losing access to critical supplementary funds.

“This is perhaps the first moment in the history of food banking that we have seen record low unemployment and record high demand at food banks,” Mr. Hall said. “Any circumstance that would cause even a modest increase in demand at food distributions will result in a food crisis.”

Representatives of the Agriculture Department did not respond to requests for comment.

 

image.thumb.png.cc1e36f57dd8ca4f7bfff78d0491cb29.png
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/us/politics/food-banks-usda.html

Quote

 

Food banks across the country are scrambling to make up a $500 million budget shortfall after the Trump administration froze funds for hundreds of shipments of produce, poultry and other items that states had planned to distribute to needy residents.

The Biden administration had slated the aid for distribution to food banks during the 2025 fiscal year through the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which is run by the Agriculture Department and backed by a federal fund known as the Commodity Credit Corporation. But in recent weeks, many food banks learned that the shipments they had expected to receive this spring had been suspended.

Vince Hall, chief of government relations for Feeding America, a nationwide network of over 60,000 food pantries and other distributors, said that when he asked U.S.D.A. officials about the suspended shipments, he was told that the department was reviewing the food aid programs funded through the Commodity Credit Corporation.

It was unclear whether the review was related to the activities of Elon Musk’s DOGE team, which has sought to curtail spending across the government.

The halt to the funds, which was first reported by Politico, comes in addition to other recent cuts to federal food assistance. Earlier this month, the Agriculture Department halted two other programs that distributed food to banks and schools. Lawmakers are also mulling cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps, which were used by about 42 million people in the 2023 fiscal year.

Food bank directors fear that an across-the-board contraction to federal food assistance could drive more people to food banks just as they are losing access to critical supplementary funds.

“This is perhaps the first moment in the history of food banking that we have seen record low unemployment and record high demand at food banks,” Mr. Hall said. “Any circumstance that would cause even a modest increase in demand at food distributions will result in a food crisis.”

Representatives of the Agriculture Department did not respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Hall said that Feeding America had struggled to get clear guidance from U.S.D.A. about how long the review will take, and whether the funds would ever be restored. Food banks have been left with little time to identify new funds and supplies, and with no assurance that the aid would ever be restored.

In the meantime, Mr. Hall added, rural communities would most likely feel the deepest immediate impact. Emergency food assistance programs, including those funded through the Commodity Credit Corporation, are “the food lifeline for rural America,” he explained, because they come with funding to improve food storage and distribution, which can be more challenging in rural areas.

The direct impact to communities across the country is likely to vary by state.

“It’s really hard to make up that volume that C.C.C. had been providing, especially at a time when the need is so great,” said Danny Faccinetti, vice president of Oregon Food Bank, which is expecting to lose access to 30 truckloads of food under the freeze.

Oregon’s food banks reported a 31 percent increase in use of their services in the 2024 fiscal year, which ended in June, compared with the year before. In late 2024, the funds in question made up 18 percent of all food aid they had distributed.

“It’s going to be a really, really big hit for certain areas,” Mr. Faccinetti continued, adding: “We’re already maximizing some of the donations that were available to us, so it would be difficult to make that up.”

In Maryland, food bank officials were notified that the U.S.D.A.’s freeze would deprive them of 12 truckloads of items like chicken, eggs, collard greens and blueberries. They are expecting to have four additional shipments frozen as well, for a total of almost $1.3 million in lost goods. But they seem relatively certain they will be able to weather the immediate impact of that cut without having to shortchange the approximately one million people who rely on their distribution centers.

In nearby Virginia, however, Eddie Oliver, the executive director of the Federation of Virginia Food Banks, said one food bank lost a scheduled shipment of seven loads of food, accounting for about a third of what the food bank was expecting this year through the Emergency Food Assistance Program.

“It’s going to be hard for us to replace that,” he said, noting the current economic climate. “Collectively, Virginia food banks are spending five times more money on food than we did in 2019, both because of higher food prices and greater demand at our pantries.”

Cynthia D. Kirkhart, the chief executive of Facing Hunger food bank, which manages about 250 pantries in West Virginia, put the losses her state is facing in more quantifiable terms.

“One thousand fifty cases of cheese; boned chicken by the can, 600 cases; fresh milk, 1,200 cases — all that stuff’s not coming,” she said.

In New Mexico, food bank officials are also doing some fast calculations in order to weather the unexpected suspension of federal assistance.

Food bank administrators there are bracing for missing 24 truckloads of food, including milk, cheese, cranberries and meats, that they had expected to receive between April and June. Officials are contemplating canceling contracts for future food purchases in order to free up funds needed immediately, according to Sonya Warwick, the communications director for Roadrunner Food Bank, part of the Feeding America network.

New Mexico’s network of food pantries includes several rural areas that are experiencing significant food insecurity, Ms. Warwick said, citing places like McKinley County, which includes tribal land and has a large Native American population, and where more than 30 percent of children are at risk of hunger.

While the state has allocated some extra funds for food aid, it is not enough to meet the growing need amid dwindling resources, Ms. Warwick added.

“None of us have crystal balls, but what we can do is encourage the community to get involved and get engaged,” she said.

If they cannot find resources through private donors, some food banks worry that they may need to cut back on the assistance they can offer the needy.

“Essentially, we had anticipated receiving many truckloads of U.S.D.A. food over the next few months,” said Cathy Kanefsky, the president and chief executive officer of the Food Bank of Delaware.

“Now it’s uncertain whether we will receive this food, meaning less meals we can provide to our neighbors,” she said, adding: “The effect on our neighbors could be devastating.”

 

 

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Posted
34 minutes ago, bolverk said:

The average starting salary for an MIT undergraduate is $126,438. The starting salary out of ATC school is $43,727. Business savvy!

$43,000? That's minimum wage for most people in WA. That'll encourage the best and brightest. But yeah, sucking on the gubmint teat and all that. Get rid of 'em. What could go wrong? 

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Posted
2 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Follow-up: they announced that they were going forward with the Next Generation Air Dominance 6th Gen fighter.  Boeing won the account and it will be called the “F-47”.  At one point Hegseth listed all the other numbered “F” fighters in the inventory (this will be more Fs).  It’s also named after Trump (“47”) but he said the generals picked the name. 
 

Trump said it will “go higher than 2, which you rarely see” (he means Mach 2) and also said that it will be a “Level 6, not Level 5.” 

Actually this is a slap at Elon who has loudly demanded an end to manned fighters. 

Ok, hear me out.

First the B-21, now F-47????

The Tri-Service sequential aircraft numbering system is like the only thing McNamara did right.  This getting out of sequential order on aircraft numbering is getting out of hand.  

Yet another thing being enshittened.

/rant.

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Posted
19 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Where our Christ-followers thread posters at?

Effects of USDA cuts by DOGE hitting the food banks, especially in rural areas.

Key passage:
The halt to the funds, which was first reported by Politico, comes in addition to other recent cuts to federal food assistance. Earlier this month, the Agriculture Department halted two other programs that distributed food to banks and schools. Lawmakers are also mulling cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps, which were used by about 42 million people in the 2023 fiscal year.

Food bank directors fear that an across-the-board contraction to federal food assistance could drive more people to food banks just as they are losing access to critical supplementary funds.

“This is perhaps the first moment in the history of food banking that we have seen record low unemployment and record high demand at food banks,” Mr. Hall said. “Any circumstance that would cause even a modest increase in demand at food distributions will result in a food crisis.”

Representatives of the Agriculture Department did not respond to requests for comment.

 

image.thumb.png.cc1e36f57dd8ca4f7bfff78d0491cb29.png
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/us/politics/food-banks-usda.html

 

 

IMG_3188.jpeg

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