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10 hours ago, C-Man said:

New House Repub Tells Audience ‘We Need a Lot More Daniel Pennys’ Because There Are ‘Far Too Many Jordan Neelys’ In This Country

https://www.mediaite.com/news/new-house-repub-tells-audience-we-need-a-lot-more-daniel-pennys-because-there-are-far-too-many-jordan-neelys-in-this-country/

Texas Congressman-Elect Brandon Gill, y'all. Married to Dinesh D'Souza's daughter.

 

4 hours ago, Satchel said:

Don’t sleep on turnip, Vance, and the shit weasel known as Representative Gill attending the Army-Navy game as a threesome.

To refresh y’all’s memory, Neely, apparently a mentally disturbed homeless person was acting out on a train. It is arguable that Penny acted righteously by restraining  Neely, up until the moment his chokehold knocked out Neely. He was filmed as he continue to choke the man for another sixty seconds, despite being assisted by other passengers who helped hold down Neely. Despite the warnings of others that he was now killing Neely.

The newly elected Rep from North Texas’ remarks were broadcast on Right Side Broadcasting media. 
 

The Wiki entry for Neely’s murder.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Jordan_Neely

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This is Trump's America.

When the star QB posts this, then fuck the star QB and his NIL millions. And if the MegaStar Backup QB is a Trumper, then F him, too. 

How different is this than Aggy? None. 

Don't make any excuses for Star QBs. Time's up for excuses.

If Star QBs do not understand voting for Trump is voting for fascism, misogyny, (etc.), then our university can only be failing in its educational mission. 

Add on Abbott and Rogan (et al) on the sidelines ...  and joining the SEC-confederacy conference ... and wondering how many UT players and UT fans in the stadium are MAGA.... wondering about CDC and other leaders at UT .... makes me wonder why I should give a shit about Longhorns football.

Sure, beat OU and Aggy and F the SEC ... but I barely tune in, have not watched a game, just check out the highlights. 

Feels like my interest is heading toward zero.

That's Trump's America. 

QE Trump.webp

Edited by BevoAbyss
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1 minute ago, royiv said:

Another opportunity to grift by privatizing airport security.

 

1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

For every one of these, finish the sentence with "and replace it with a 'private sector' product/service provided by Elon Musk at a greater cost, thus continuing to funnel billions of taxpayer dollars into Elon's pockets."

None of these people actually want to eliminate any of these major government functions.  They just want their patrons/oligarchs to profit from them.

BING!

Literally his next post

 

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23 minutes ago, Pancho said:

I don’t understand the point or purpose

 

If this weren't grift for privatization, this would honestly be a good thing. TSA is a boondoggle and security theatre. That said, I'm not sure how you'd non-invasively and safely change security procedures at every US airport 

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For me, I like TSA because it stops non-terrorists from bringing weapons on the plane. Or at least it makes it less likely since people don’t want their weapons confiscated and face prosecution. I know a couple of people who are armed 100% of the time outside of their house, and one or two here have posted about a weapon within reach at home because they believe a home invasion is a real possibility.

theres a fair number of people that feel they’re law abiding citizens until they’re not. And we all know tempers flare on flights because we honesty don’t like our fellow citizens. Perhaps eliminating tsa would lower the temperature but I don’t think so.

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48 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Enrollees in FlyX will glide through security as Neualink seamlessly screens out anyone with malign intentions.  Once you are boarded and in your seat, you will be placed into Flight Mode for your safety and comfort.  Enjoy scrolling X’s top accounts or your favorite podacsters like Joe Rogan, Lex Friedman, and Joe Rogan, all without any need for inflight WiFi through Neuralink technology, which will also override your need to use the bathroom or feel cramped for the duration of your flight.  Premium FlyX enrollees may choose to disable X scrolling or Joe Rogan and elect to enjoy GrokSleep.  Say farewell to intrusive government security theatre. 
 

 

The resident libertarian would love it.

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2 hours ago, Captainant said:

If this weren't grift for privatization, this would honestly be a good thing. TSA is a boondoggle and security theatre. That said, I'm not sure how you'd non-invasively and safely change security procedures at every US airport 

Here's what I have come around to on privatization of government services and programs:  the profit motive is inconsistent with providing services to citizens, where a certain level of "quality" must be expected.

"Competition" sounds great, but what it really means is nothing more than price competition, because everything else falls to the wayside, see, e.g. enshittification.

Yes, profit motive is associated or conflated with efficiency, but all that means today is cutting costs to the barest minimum while also providing a barely satisfactory service.  As taxpayers, we are stakeholders in more than just the cost of services, we are also beneficiaries, of the services directly, where applicable, and to fellow taxpayers and consumers of the services.  We are also at least indirect stakeholders in the provision of employment and living wages and benefits to those employees. 

Capitalism, as currently conceived, implemented, and regulated, can only satisfy us as to the cost of services.  And that's not good enough.  Period.

As to TSA being a boondoggle, no argument here.  But the solution there is for Congress to address the issues raised by two decades of TSA.  That's something that Congress doesn't do often enough, in my opinion.

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Memecoins like Fartcoin are riding Trump's victory to huge valuations. Experts say it may have only begun.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/personal-finance/memecoins-what-are-they-why-are-they-popular-cryptocurrency-rcna184223

Quote

Yes, it’s called Fartcoin. Yes, it is totally useless.

And yes, it has nevertheless grown in value over the past week to a market capitalization of more than $800 million — about equal to those of Office Depot, Guess jeanswear, and the parent company of Steak N’ Shake.

In the day after this article published, Fartcoin’s value seesawed. Starting at about $620 million (7 a.m. Sunday), it rose to a peak of $889 million before settling back $836 million at 9:35 p.m. ET Monday.      

ADVERTISING

The carnival-casino era of cryptocurrencies has come back with a vengeance, riding a broader wave of investment in bitcoin that was itself spurred by the election of Donald Trump. It’s minting millionaires while potentially harming others — yet everyone, even the losers, seem to be in on the joke.

The wave of “memecoiners” is a mix of longtime bitcoin holders and people simply desperate to change their fortunes in an era of sky-priced homes and equities, according to Toe Bautista, research analyst for GSR, a decentralized finance group. While many memecoin traders, flush from gains thanks to bitcoin’s 130% increase this year — 50% of which has come since Trump’s election last month — are simply “moving down the risk curve” into areas of pure speculation, Bautista said. Others see the potential of making 10 times their money overnight.

“A lot of it is people thinking, ‘I can get some sort of edge by having a better chance at a lottery ticket,” Bautista said.  

Memecoin buyers and sellers alike are, for the most part, aware that their trading activity amounts to the riskiest kind of gambling, Bautista said. It’s all about exiting one’s position to avoid getting left with “holding the bag” and failing to trade up and strike while the price is hot.

“Because they’re worthless, you’re betting on the ‘greater fool,’” he said, referring to the idea that someone else will pay a higher price for a given memecoin. “You’re thinking, ‘I’m early to this, someone will buy the bags.’ But there’s no underlying driver of its value.”

For the most part, the greatest risk in trading memecoins, which tend to be based on the lifespan of viral internet memes, is the meme itself fading away from the cultural zeitgeist. And indeed, the gains from a given news cycle for a very select few can be substantial. Blockchain data shows at least one holder of a coin created in the wake of the Peanut the Squirrel incident last month, which involved the death of a rodent possibly being kept without permission by a New York man, is sitting on nearly half a billion dollars.   

Today, that coin, PNUT, is down about half from its peak value of $2.47 as that news story has faded from view. 

Yet there are also operational risks to memecoins, as illustrated by the rise and rapid fall of “Hawk” coin, released earlier this month by Haliey Welch, a Tennessee woman who has parlayed a viral lewd street interview into a successful podcast. 

Over the course of 24 hours, Hawk’s market cap peaked at $500 million before collapsing to $28 million, prompting complaints about dramatic losses in funds. Those complaints have not been independently verified by NBC News. 

Facing accusations of insider trading, Welch released a statement saying neither she nor anyone on her team had sold the coins, blaming instead “sniper” algorithmic bots designed to sell as prices begin to surge.

Bautista said that indeed, algorithmic trading, which has long been part of mainstream trading on Wall Street, is now routinely deployed in the memecoin space. He estimates that of the top-20 traded coins in crypto, half are memecoins whose trades are almost entirely driven by bots designed to spot and respond to price movements.

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Is it legal? Some believe memecoins are permitted because the Securities and Exchange Commission has never formally categorized bitcoin as a security. Yet the agency has taken actions against exchanges that have permitted trading of other tokens. And, crucially, many memecoins, including Fartcoin, do not appear able to be legally purchased from U.S. soil on most of the crypto exchanges offering them.

Ground zero for launching memecoins is a website called Pump.fun, which allows users to “launch a coin that is instantly tradeable in one click for free.” Launched in January 2024, the site has generated over $288.4 million in revenue since its inception, according to analytics data cited by CoinTelegraph, a crypto industry publication. 

Earlier this month, the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority said the website was not authorized in the country and warned anyone who interacted with a product or service associated with the site had no investor protections.

Despite this, the site’s terms and conditions state that its provisions are governed by “the laws of England.”

A spokesperson for the website was not immediately available for comment.   

It may be the digital Wild West, but some tools have been developed to help nonsavvy memecoin participants avoid outright scams. A site called Rugcheck.xyz bills itself as capable of scanning memecoin ownership data to determine whether an actor or small group of actors are capable of putting their thumb on the scale of the market. Pump.fun itself says it prevents “rugs,” or sudden price dumps, by making sure that any tokens it launches have no presales or small-batch allocations that would benefit insiders. 

It is not clear how much longer the current crypto “bull” cycle will last, but at least one analyst believes it is still in relatively early innings given likely developments next year — namely, potentially further reductions in interest rates by the Federal Reserve, and the implementation of more crypto-friendly policies by the Trump administration.

“There are lots of events in 2025 that can help drive bitcoin and crypto prices up further,” said Gracy Chen, CEO of crypto group Bitget, in an interview with NBC News. 

In fact, Trump world has already shown signs of accelerating its embrace of cryptocurrencies. Bloomberg News reported on Friday that World Liberty Financial, a crypto project “inspired by Trump,” has been buying millions of dollars worth of tokens beyond bitcoin, a sign that the decentralized finance lending platform could launch soon. Trump has been named as an eventual “financial beneficiary” of World Liberty.  

A spokesperson for World Liberty did not respond to a request for comment.

Yet there is clearly a dark side to the memecoin world. Omid Malekan, who teaches crypto at the Columbia Business School at Columbia University, said it is emblematic of the economic “nihilism” that has taken root among many young Americans who feel they have been priced out of the American Dream. 

“All these kids are like, ‘All the good stocks are way too expensive. And houses? I can’t afford them,’” Malekan said. “So, ‘I’ll gamble on something that can ‘10x’ my money, and if I lose it all, Who cares, I was screwed anyway.’”

 

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We are seeing a new normal where Trump will sue media outlets if he perceives their commentary as defamatory but no one sue him for the same action as he will declare himself immune. Obviously a court will eventually decide those arguments but I imagine that he will have the WH counsel if not the DOJ backing him.

and of course if the non-Trump side of these actions need a relationship with the WH or the federal govt, they must cave to his demands.

totally normal.

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4 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

We are seeing a new normal where Trump will sue media outlets if he perceives their commentary as defamatory but no one sue him for the same action as he will declare himself immune. Obviously a court will eventually decide those arguments but I imagine that he will have the WH counsel if not the DOJ backing him.

and of course if the non-Trump side of these actions need a relationship with the WH or the federal govt, they must cave to his demands.

totally normal.

A fascist, using the levers of government as a cudgel? That just sounds completely preposterous!

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1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

So much this.

The goal of a for-profit enterprise: deliver the least possible amount of goods/services (that is, at the lowest cost) for the highest possible revenue.  The perfect model is to provide nothing, in exchange for lots of money.  If you can sell one egg for 50 cents, it's even better if you can sell one egg for $1, or $5, or even $10.  The only purpose of a for-profit enterprise is to make money/deliver shareholder value.  Delivering goods/services is just the incidental way that the enterprise achieves that goal.

The goal of a government service agency: to provide the service.  That's it.  Sure, in doing so, it should do so with costs in mind, but that's not the GOAL.

So, to translate:

The goal of TSA: to prevent security threats from making it onto a plane.

The goal of Elon Musk's XSecurity: to make lots of money.

If one of our agencies is not doing a great job (and TSA is one of those agencies), then we should demand that our elected officials exercise sharper oversight, enforce standards and accountability, and make the enterprise run better.  That's literally the fucking job we elected them to do.  But INSTEAD of that....they are going to 1) hand the job over to their crony, who 2) will line their pockets and/or ensure that they don't face any primary or other election challengers, and 3) will not give a fraction of a fuck about how well the job is being done.

 

Some things should not be "run like a business" because they AREN'T A FUCKING BUSINESS.  

So much this. People love to bitch about government agencies and functions that don’t work optimally and, by all accounts, TSA falls into that category. We have elected officials that are tasked with overseeing our government and ensuring that it is running optimally, but instead of holding those individuals accountable to doing their job, we let them bitch about how nothing works and nod along with them and keep re-electing them because “hey, he agrees with me this shit really is broken!”

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54 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

So much this.

The goal of a for-profit enterprise: deliver the least possible amount of goods/services (that is, at the lowest cost) for the highest possible revenue.  The perfect model is to provide nothing, in exchange for lots of money.  If you can sell one egg for 50 cents, it's even better if you can sell one egg for $1, or $5, or even $10.  The only purpose of a for-profit enterprise is to make money/deliver shareholder value.  Delivering goods/services is just the incidental way that the enterprise achieves that goal.

The goal of a government service agency: to provide the service.  That's it.  Sure, in doing so, it should do so with costs in mind, but that's not the GOAL.

So, to translate:

The goal of TSA: to prevent security threats from making it onto a plane.

The goal of Elon Musk's XSecurity: to make lots of money.

If one of our agencies is not doing a great job (and TSA is one of those agencies), then we should demand that our elected officials exercise sharper oversight, enforce standards and accountability, and make the enterprise run better.  That's literally the fucking job we elected them to do.  But INSTEAD of that....they are going to 1) hand the job over to their crony, who 2) will line their pockets and/or ensure that they don't face any primary or other election challengers, and 3) will not give a fraction of a fuck about how well the job is being done.

 

Some things should not be "run like a business" because they AREN'T A FUCKING BUSINESS.  

Explain for profit healthcare, smart guy.

Wait, bad example.  

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While we all like to complain about govt agencies being inefficient and unhelpful, I actually have had the opposite experience with many govt agencies and employees.  It’s also my guess that when you have a bad experience it’s because they’re understaffed. Whenever I spoken to a person directly, on the phone or in person, it’s almost always a good service.

sure I’ve waited in long lines at the post office. They have 1 person working at a 4 station front desk. You know what it reminds me of? Walmart. I’ve never once seen Walmart appropriately staff their stores.

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16 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

While we all like to complain about govt agencies being inefficient and unhelpful, I actually have had the opposite experience with many govt agencies and employees.  It’s also my guess that when you have a bad experience it’s because they’re understaffed. Whenever I spoken to a person directly, on the phone or in person, it’s almost always a good service.

sure I’ve waited in long lines at the post office. They have 1 person working at a 4 station front desk. You know what it reminds me of? Walmart. I’ve never once seen Walmart appropriately staff their stores.

I have a friend, actually a friend of my wife's, from Oklahoma, that ran a small business after his father died.  Among other things, they got in a sales tax snit with the state.  Apparently, they were not at fault, but it took a couple of levels of appeal to resolve and involving various levels of incompetence or uncaring by state officials.

He cites that as an example of how the government sucks.  And, I can't really argue with that.  But he also bitches a lot about his experience with ATT internet and how incompetent they are.  And I bet I could tease out a bunch of other examples where private businesses suck too.

But, consistent with what I know about Oklahoma government, like Texas, they've cut budget for all services to the barest minimum, leading to things like his experience with the tax authorities and ours with the DPS and drivers' licenses, among other things.

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40 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

sure I’ve waited in long lines at the post office. They have 1 person working at a 4 station front desk. You know what it reminds me of? Walmart. I’ve never once seen Walmart appropriately staff their stores.

 

Tell us more about this Walmart, plebe.

 

 

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11 minutes ago, Vegas64 said:

I mean, TSA precheck even sucks these days. CLEAR for life.

Depends on the airport and time of day. In Austin regular Pre-check is often faster than clear+precheck because of the bad configuration of the security checkpoint and the generally oversubscribed nature of the facility.

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I was eating in New Braunfels today and in a booth next us was a 70-something dude in his MAGA hat. He made eye contact and said “Go Trump!” I replied “Hell Yes! I can’t wait for social security and Medicare to be eliminated next month. It’s gonna save a shitload of taxes!” He looked like he had no idea what I was talking about.
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13 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:


I was eating in New Braunfels today and in a booth next us was a 70-something dude in his MAGA hat. He made eye contact and said “Go Trump!” I replied “Hell Yes! I can’t wait for social security and Medicare to be eliminated next month. It’s gonna save a shitload of taxes!” He looked like he had no idea what I was talking about.

 

NB area is hard core maga 

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This is Trump's America.
When the star QB posts this, then fuck the star QB and his NIL millions. And if the MegaStar Backup QB is a Trumper, then F him, too. 
How different is this than Aggy? None. 
Don't make any excuses for Star QBs. Time's up for excuses.
If Star QBs do not understand voting for Trump is voting for fascism, misogyny, (etc.), then our university can only be failing in its educational mission. 
Add on Abbott and Rogan (et al) on the sidelines ...  and joining the SEC-confederacy conference ... and wondering how many UT players and UT fans in the stadium are MAGA.... wondering about CDC and other leaders at UT .... makes me wonder why I should give a shit about Longhorns football.
Sure, beat OU and Aggy and F the SEC ... but I barely tune in, have not watched a game, just check out the highlights. 
Feels like my interest is heading toward zero.
That's Trump's America. 
QETrump.thumb.webp.ba32695a9e1685e37c5ed0ad31f01ae7.webp
Do you even Southlake, bro?
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10 minutes ago, Dnaguy said:

Private contractors as security instead of TSA? What’s the worst that could happen?

spacer.png

Oh right…..

Trump wants to brag about having the tallest building downtown again

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9 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Enrollees in FlyX will glide through security as Neualink seamlessly screens out anyone with malign intentions.  Once you are boarded and in your seat, you will be placed into Flight Mode for your safety and comfort.  Enjoy scrolling X’s top accounts or your favorite podacsters like Joe Rogan, Lex Friedman, and Joe Rogan, all without any need for inflight WiFi through Neuralink technology, which will also override your need to use the bathroom or feel cramped for the duration of your flight.  Premium FlyX enrollees may choose to disable X scrolling or Joe Rogan and elect to enjoy GrokSleep.  Say farewell to intrusive government security theatre. 
 

 

Elon, probably…

IMG_8771.gif

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3 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Depends on the airport and time of day. In Austin regular Pre-check is often faster than clear+precheck because of the bad configuration of the security checkpoint and the generally oversubscribed nature of the facility.

True, but no matter what time of the day, the Clear staffers are nicer and have fuckloads more common sense.  This is likely the exception.  I totally agree with many here that privatizing everything is not the answer.  Fuck Medicare for All. Dumbest shit ever. 

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