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Posted
7 minutes ago, Okie State said:

When I finally blew up on my group chat with my brothers about Trump being a fucking traitor, I was told to 'grow up'. I responded that we won't agree on this and it doesn't matter anyway because we're all fucked and left it at that.

Grow up...fucking rich.

My brother a month ago. "The President doesn't affect your personal life in anyway, be it Joe Biden it has no impact on your life at all."  man the white male privelege.

Dumb mother fucker with a Masters and a great job that only exist because the government regulated a massive plant owned by a foriegn company and forced them to mitigate pollution.

Election day choices and his own dick? that's a blasting.

I don't think he pulled out of the market in Jan when i pulled my moms investment.  Also smooth brained platitudes and fold wisdom"markets go up and down, gotta ride them out."

 

We talk a few times a year. Its better that way. 

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Posted
26 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

this seems legit, on the up and up ....

Control and management of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve has been turned over by the DOE to a company with virtually no history: Strategic Storage Partners, LLC, with the U.S. Government paying $1.4 billion or $280 million every year to have it managed. 

Huh.  My old man was offered the job (heading up the SPR) like 25 years ago.  He'd have been quite good at it.  On a gov't salary.  But, I mean, that's STUPID....where's the grift in that?

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Posted (edited)
42 minutes ago, Firemans4Horn said:

 

And.....this.  More than anything else, this.

We have blown it all up, pissed it all away.  EIGHTY FUCKING YEARS of post-war leadership and the prosperity that comes with it, poof, gone.  AND FOR NO FUCKING REASON.

A perfect summary from that piece:

Quote

We have a deeply stupid government—from our economically illiterate president to our craven and foolish secretary of state, from the freelancing billionaire dilettante who is gutting American soft power to the vaccine-denying health secretary who is firing as much talent as he can. From the senior economics advisor who thinks comic books are good investments, to the senators who voted to confirm this cabinet of hacks, to the representatives who stumble over themselves justifying each new inane MAGA pronouncement.

But also, we have the government we deserve.

The American age is over. And it ended because the American people were no longer worthy of it.

 

Edited by Brisketexan
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Posted
38 minutes ago, Firemans4Horn said:

 

We honestly never should have earned trust.  It wasn't our misadventures that mattered, but the allies we fucked over along the way. Kurds out front say hi.

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Posted
Just now, Brisketexan said:

And.....this.  More than anything else, this.

We have blown it all up, pissed it all away.  EIGHTY FUCKING YEARS of post-war leadership and the prosperity that comes with it, poof, gone.  AND FOR NO FUCKING REASON.

Oh there is a reason. A black dude made fun of a wealthy narcissist.

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Posted
28 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

We have blown it all up, pissed it all away.  EIGHTY FUCKING YEARS of post-war leadership and the prosperity that comes with it, poof, gone.  AND FOR NO FUCKING REASON.

Well, the scary part is that I'm pretty sure there is a reason. We are being "led" by people who want to burn it all down. They don't care about any of that shit. 

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Posted

Didn't even realize Dr. Oz was up at bat. Jesus.

image.thumb.png.5ebe8818dbbf0e8fd54980795fea2727.png
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/health/dr-mehmet-oz-senate-confirmation.html

Quote

 

The Senate on Thursday confirmed Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity TV doctor, 53-45 and mostly along party lines to lead Medicare and Medicaid, which insure nearly half of all Americans.

The future of both programs is the subject of fierce debate: Republicans are contemplating significant cuts to Medicaid, which provides health care to low-income Americans. The Trump administration and G.O.P. lawmakers have proposed sizable reductions in Medicaid spending in part to find savings to pay for President Trump’s tax-cut package.

Dr. Oz, 64, has for years been a vocal proponent of Medicare Advantage, the private insurance plans for older Americans, despite federal inquiries and lawmakers’ concerns that insurers have overbilled the government by tens of billions of dollars a year. He promoted it on his TV show and acted as a broker for one company that sells the plan.

At his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee last month, he seemed to acknowledge problems with Medicare Advantage, and tried to reassure senators that there was a “new sheriff in town.”

Democrats on the committee grilled him at length about the potential steep cuts to Medicaid, which could result in a substantial number of people becoming ineligible for health coverage.

In recent days, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has overseen deep cuts to the Health and Human Services Department, including laying off roughly 10,000 employees on top of another 10,000 buyouts, retirements and departures early on in the new Trump administration.

The cutbacks also affect Dr. Oz’s agency, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which has a budget of about $1.5 trillion in annual spending. Still, Dr. Oz has given few clues as to what if any changes he has planned.

Dr. Oz’s ability to secure enough votes for confirmation was up in the air until recently. Then, earlier this week Senator Josh Hawley, the Missouri Republican, said he had decided to support his nomination because Dr. Oz told him that he would no longer support transgender care for minors and was “unequivocally pro-life.” Mr. Hawley had publicly said he was withholding his support over Dr. Oz’s previous positions on these issues.

Senators largely sidestepped criticism of Dr. Oz’s extensive and often murky financial ties to companies he will oversee in his new position.

He and his wife are wealthy. All told, his business and family ventures are valued in the neighborhood of roughly $90 million to $335 million.

In an attempt to avoid conflicts, he announced in February he would sell his interest in more than 70 companies and investment funds.

He has made tens of millions of dollars over the years pitching dietary supplements and promoting health-related companies on his television show.

The investments he said he planned to sell included stakes in UnitedHealth Group, the giant conglomerate that is the nation’s largest provider of private Medicare plans; Inception Fertility Holdings, a privately held company that operates a chain of clinics; and Amazon, which has a vast reach that now includes an online pharmacy and sells myriad medical devices and equipment.

In addition, he pledged to resign from various paid advisory jobs.

Still, the breadth of his financial ties to countless health-related companies has prompted lawmakers and ethics experts to express doubts about his ability to be independent.

 

 

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Posted
1 hour ago, Red Five said:

Well, the scary part is that I'm pretty sure there is a reason. We are being "led" by people who want to burn it all down. They don't care about any of that shit. 

For most the only reason is their fear of Donald Trump mean tweeting them. For many it's worth it to own the libs. Then there's a small group of morons who really believe in this shit, e.g., the dumbfucks behind project 2025. 

Posted
14 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Interesting article on justsecurity indicating that the quality of advocacy of Trump's DOJ is below normal standard.  https://www.justsecurity.org/109967/supreme-court-alien-enemies-act/

I kind of expected that, the bigger question is whether it will make any difference.

That's because it's impossible to advocate for the positions they have been with forthrightness and quality legal arguments. They're stuck with trying to confuse the facts and issues and making ideological public policy arguments. 

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Posted
7 hours ago, B00M said:

Tell them details they’re unaware of.

Lol. Good luck with that. If they didn’t hear it on a Fox News prime time opinion show, it never happened. 

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Posted
15 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/drew-magary-feel-dumb-being-american-20255797.php

 

I feel dumb for being an American
 

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

That is, I try not to think about it all the time. I thought about it all the time back at the end of the 2010s, and it made me angry. Violently angry. That anger did me no good. It helped the bad guys more than it ever helped me, so this time around, I’m much more fastidious about my information load management. I focus on my salad. I don’t follow any political accounts on social media, and I’ve muted any friends of mine there who regularly air their political grievances. I want to stay informed, but on my terms.

Both of my sons are now off to school, and my wife has left for work, leaving just me and the dog. It’s as good a time as any to rip off the Band-Aid. I open the Washington Post’s front page on my phone. I know that this newspaper has been hopelessly compromised, but so have the rest of them. The majority of the news media is coalescing into a single propaganda arm now. But I know that, which means that I know how to maneuver around it. I can skim these front pages and articles for useful information while ignoring the dreck. I can also track down bits of good news and then bail on the article before the inevitable “but some are saying” follow-up. So I skim, I absorb, I close the tab, and then I think. Then I let the back of my consciousness process those thoughts while I try to go about my day as if it were any other.

I go to work in my office all morning. Then I break for lunch and a workout, and then I shower and then take a nap with the dog. It’s a good day in my world so far.

But America still manages to pierce my shield. The news comes in dribs and drabs, giving me more to process. They’re grabbing kids off the streets, redacting entire chapters of the nation’s history, firing all of the good scientists, and rifling through the passport database to hunt down those they consider to be foreigners. My wife is afraid to travel now because, despite being a U.S. citizen, she wasn’t born here. She isn’t sure they’ll let her back in here if she leaves. I also wasn’t born in the U.S., so maybe that means that I can’t go anywhere either. My wife has also heard a rumor going around that the goon squad’s next act will be sniffing around the passport database to find out which U.S. citizens have listed a new gender for themselves upon reissue or put an X in that space. What will they do to these people? Who’s next after that?

I don’t know, so I spend the afternoon banging out a post about the NFL. I don’t bother to write a post about greater America, because then I’d have to think about greater America, which would give me hives. Sometimes I open the release valve just so I have somewhere to put the aggravation, even if it doesn’t stay there. Most of the time though, I try to keep the valve shut. Perhaps you’ve tried to distract yourself in a similar fashion.

But distractions are only so effective against the gathering storm. I live in a country that lived fast and is now dying young. A strongman has taken things over and used the good will of both America’s citizenry and of its public officials to rob it blind. He can get away with it all too, because he already has, and because my fellow Americans hired him to do it again. And no one in power is fighting back because, in my lifetime, no one has ever wanted to lose Republican customers. Not even Democrats.

This is the end result, and it has a nasty logic to it. It only looks like Republicans don’t know why they’re dismantling useful, heretofore apolitical public services. But they know why. They know that this will make millions of people sick and kill millions more. They know this will make America both poorer and dumber. Those are the end goals here, because a destitute country is one that’s easier for them to rule. Ask Vladimir Putin. Ask Kim Jong Un. Ask Pol Pot. The more a dictator can expand the wealth gap inside the walls of their kingdom, the more comfortable they feel.

And comfort is the true dictator here. Like every other American, I have been trained to both expect and demand comfort at all times. Comfortable housing. Comfortable cars. Comfortable businesswear. If I’m ever uncomfortable, then something must be amiss. That’s an awfully spoiled way to live. From Bill Bryson:

“It really is extraordinary how long it took people to achieve even the most elemental levels of comfort. There was one good reason for it: life was tough. Throughout the Middle Ages, a good deal of every life was devoted simply to surviving.”

Americans need not worry about survival anymore, and so they occupy themselves with pettier matters, like a momentary lapse of comfort. To be uncomfortable feels wrong to the average American, and virtually all of our inner conflict stems from an endless disagreement over our respective sources of that discomfort. Some Americans find racism uncomfortable, as they should, while some Americans find confronting racism to be a personal affront. They’d rather not think about racism, so they don’t — or they simply pretend there is no racism at all. And if you ask them to think about racism, they swear vengeance. You are the woke, and you must pay. In a country where everyone abhors being inconvenienced, it was only a matter of time before the worst of us decided that our greatest inconvenience was one another.

I try not to let that thought overtake me, because the stress will kill me before the goon squad does.

Later, my daughter texts me from a protest on her college campus. I ask her to send me a photo so I can see her fighting for justice. She texts back, “I don’t wanna make anyone uncomfy. We’re all disguised and wearing masks and stuff, just in case.” I understand. I’m proud of her. I also hope that her masked face isn’t being scanned right now by a distant satellite and then logged into Trump’s janky-ass “Enemies” folder. I try not to think too hard about that last part, because I’d rather be proud than afraid. If I can’t be proud of my country, I can be proud of my family. That’s how I’ll survive this, I tell myself, however long it lasts.

What I try not to tell myself is that this could last for a long time. An excruciatingly long time. And what happens as more and more of American society falls apart? Will my family die if we don’t flee? When will we know it’s time to? When will we know if the water we’re in has started to boil? Will we still be in the pot? Will you?

I try not to dwell on it, because it makes me feel uncomfortable. More important, it makes me feel DUMB. I’d tell you I feel ashamed to be an American right now, but that turn of phrase has grown hackneyed. I just feel f—king stupid. Embarrassed. STAINED. Why do I live here? Do I REALLY owe this country anything? What if I defect to another country? Would I be a coward for that? Would it be worth the moral abdication? Is it a moral abdication at all? Everyone else who’s left America by choice doesn’t seem too pained by their decision. And I get it: Who would want to live in this spiritual vacuum of a place?

I try to think about why I AM still here. The answers come faster than you’d think. Everyone I love either lives in America or is American. All of them. I love these fine Americans to death and want to take care of them. I also love my house. I love my adopted home state of Maryland, which is one of the very few whose representatives actually seem to get it. I love my work-wife state of California, even if Gavin Newsom is a scumbag of the highest order. I love the food in America, I love the music, and I love the scenery. So it’s not just mere convenience keeping me an American, nor is it loyalty to the flag. It’s love, and all of the grief that love entails. I don’t know when America will be gone — it feels like awfully soon — but I try not to work myself up about that part of it. After all, just because this place can’t keep its s—t together doesn’t mean that I can’t.

The day is over, and everyone is home. I have done my processing and have earned the right to chill. I’ve got a gummy working its way through my system, a fresh near beer sitting on my armrest and my dog in my lap. Sometimes I think about keeping a happiness journal, where I could sit down at night and make a tally of everything that made me happy that day, large or small. I haven’t started it, though, because I already know what makes me happy, and I already know where to find it. It’s all here, right where my day started. Against all odds, that’s a comforting thought.

It’s also a fleeting one. I turn on some basketball, and every other ad is one for Trump. I try not to think about it.

 

Drew Magary is one of the best writers in America and he was cool to meet after he and David Roth did their podcast together. I knew that was him before I even looked at the link. I have mentioned it several times, but anyone who wants to get great news on politics, sports, the environment, nature or really anything they want to write about needs to get a subscription to Defector.com. David Roth's political articles alone are worth paying for. I met him in New York at a Defector birthday celebration in 2023 and he's a really, really smart guy. I will try to link some of his articles here.

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Posted
8 hours ago, ChiTownDoc said:

See those names?  Maybe one white guy among that crew… he wasn’t gonna attend no matter what.  POS

Remember when (maybe) Joe Biden looked at the time at Dover AFB? 

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Posted
47 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

 

 

Imagine being an Air Force general and NSA director and getting fired on the say so of fucking Laura Loomer. The left wing equivalent of Laura Loomer doesn't exist as a public figure, much less would that person ever have any influence over staffing of the highest ranks of the fucking US military. 

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Posted
1 hour ago, Bojack said:

Imagine being an Air Force general and NSA director and getting fired on the say so of fucking Laura Loomer. The left wing equivalent of Laura Loomer doesn't exist as a public figure, much less would that person ever have any influence over staffing of the highest ranks of the fucking US military. 

I imagine Loomer would do things that the experienced general will not. Game, set. Match.

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Posted
18 hours ago, Red Five said:

I have to see Trumpy family this weekend. Trumpy family, with zero ability to keep their thoughts on this stuff to themselves. 

I briefly considered stepping in front of a bus so I wouldn't have to do it. 

Push them in front of a bus instead.

Posted
1 hour ago, Firemans4Horn said:

No one in his entire family line has ever served. “Suckers and losers” he called them. 
 

 

Sucks for the ones who voted for Kamala. Fuck all the rest of ‘em. 

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Posted

I have entirely stopped communicating with the trump supporters in my family.  Fuck them.  I am the only one in my family who feels a responsibility to care for my 95-year-old mother, so I'm stuck here for now, but I certainly don't have to talk to dipshits.

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Posted

I went to an MLB game the other day and they played the national anthem. My first time hearing it live since the election. I realized I didn’t care. Actually, that’s untrue. I realized I was angry about what is happening and sad about what used to be. About this ridiculous ritual of honoring a country that is currently tearing itself apart.

It’s like having a happy marriage and then your spouse starts doing meth and cheating on you and gambling away your life’s savings in a shitty Oklahoma casino. Then your anniversary rolls around and you just think “Why, why, for the love of God, why??? We had everything and you blew it apart.” And now you want me to watch the wedding video and pretend that it still means something?

Colin Kaepernick was ahead of his time but he was absolutely right.

I’m not sure what to think about July 4 this year. Maybe I’ll plan a trip to Montreal and drink French wine. Maybe Americans won’t be allowed to visit Montreal by that time.

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Posted
4 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:

I went to an MLB game the other day and they played the national anthem. My first time hearing it live since the election. I realized I didn’t care. Actually, that’s untrue. I realized I was angry about what is happening and sad about what used to be. About this ridiculous ritual of honoring a country that is currently tearing itself apart.

It’s like having a happy marriage and then your spouse starts doing meth and cheating on you and gambling away your life’s savings in a shitty Oklahoma casino. Then your anniversary rolls around and you just think “Why, why, for the love of God, why???” We had everything and you blew it apart. And now you want me to watch the wedding video and pretend that it still means something?

Colin Kaepernick was ahead of his time but he was absolutely right.

I’m not sure what to think about July 4 this year. Maybe I’ll plan a trip to Montreal and drink French wine. Maybe Americans won’t be allowed to visit Montreal by that time.

I’m planning on either not standing or timing it so I’m not in the stands during the national anthem this coming season

Posted
4 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:

I went to an MLB game the other day and they played the national anthem. My first time hearing it live since the election. I realized I didn’t care. Actually, that’s untrue. I realized I was angry about what is happening and sad about what used to be. About this ridiculous ritual of honoring a country that is currently tearing itself apart.

It’s like having a happy marriage and then your spouse starts doing meth and cheating on you and gambling away your life’s savings in a shitty Oklahoma casino. Then your anniversary rolls around and you just think “Why, why, for the love of God, why??? We had everything and you blew it apart.” And now you want me to watch the wedding video and pretend that it still means something?

Colin Kaepernick was ahead of his time but he was absolutely right.

I’m not sure what to think about July 4 this year. Maybe I’ll plan a trip to Montreal and drink French wine. Maybe Americans won’t be allowed to visit Montreal by that time.

The next sporting event I attend, I'll just go slam a beer during the NA.  I have no pride left.  Hell, I'm totally embarrassed to be an American. 

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Posted
5 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:

I went to an MLB game the other day and they played the national anthem. My first time hearing it live since the election. I realized I didn’t care.

Yeah, we had the pledge of allegiance at our annual investors conference at work last month and it was certainly a "fuck this" moment. To be fair though, I hated the pledge as anti-American before this year. It was an extra level of "fuck this" now.

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Posted
Just now, SimonBolivar said:

Yeah, we had the pledge of allegiance at our annual investors conference at work last month and it was certainly a "fuck this" moment. To be fair though, I hated the pledge as anti-American before this year. It was an extra level of "fuck this" now.

Grown ass adults were reciting the pledge of allegiance? Lol

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