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The Justice Department has concluded that a military veteran’s presidential pardon for charges that he stormed the U.S. Capitol also extends to his separate conviction for illegally possessing stolen grenades and classified information, according to a court filing Tuesday.
Jeremy Brown, a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Army, was sentenced in April 2023 to seven years and three months in prison after a federal jury in Florida convicted him of weapons charges. Federal agents investigating Brown’s alleged role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol were searching Brown’s home in Florida when they found stolen Army grenades, an unregistered rifle and a stolen classified document.
But it wasn’t until Tuesday that the Justice Department said it believes Trump’s pardon of Brown also covers his conviction in Florida. A court filing by the U.S. Attorney’s office says it reached that conclusion after consulting Justice Department “leadership.”
There is no reasoning published yet that I can find.
I wonder if the pardon covers these criminal activities:
I am still astounded how playing the rubes (which is how it started, IMO) turned into a complete embrace of the dumbest shit on earth.
I know that Trump is a profoundly stupid person. Tuberville and MTG (to name a couple), too.
But there are plenty of people – both among voters and the moral midgets that they elect – who aren’t that dumb and who play along nonetheless.
I just can’t wrap my head around it.
JKB
Half the staff of the British LGBTQ+ “charity” Stonewall may have to be laid off after Trump froze USAID funds. The Global Equity Fund (GEF) administered by the US State department has been their largest funder in recent years to spread LGBTQ+ in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. How exactly does this promote goodwill toward the US in these areas?
@JKB:
Your inability to understand the simplest of concepts does not negate their value.
Just as your inability to understand the solar system does not mean the earth is flat.
just nutha
@JKB: If you have to ask how advocating the idea that you shouldn’t assault people who are different from you “promote(s) good will”…
But it wasn’t until Tuesday that the Justice Department said it believes Trump’s pardon of Brown also covers his conviction in Florida
A nation governed by rule-of-opinion. Who needs laws? Let’s just check with the boss.
JKB
@just nutha: If you have to ask how advocating the idea that you shouldn’t assault people who are different from you “promote(s) good will”…
I was told by Leftist professors that cultural imperialism was a bad thing. In any case, what we see is that wealthy LGBTQ+ people aren’t willing to fund these charities. But condemning the children of the US to crushing national debt is a good thing, apparently.
In any case, they can restart funding for AIDS efforts and such, but now in the light, I don’t expect too much support in Congress for paying high salaries to British LGBTQ+ activists. We shall see, but now that this activity is has been exposed at least there can be an open discussion about US foreign aid priorities.
JKB
Ruh Roh
“If she wins, the flood of reverse discrimination claims will be like nothing we’ve ever seen. Straight, White people everywhere could be filing.”
Said Johnny C. Taylor Jr., chief executive of the human resources association SHRM.
Quoted in “Her claim of anti-straight bias could upend discrimination law/The Supreme Court will hear a case that could unleash a wave of workplace bias claims by Whites, men and people who are straight” (WaPo).
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday in [Marlean] Ames’s bid to revive her case, which was stymied in the lower courts because of past rulings that set a higher legal bar for men, straight people and Whites to prove bias in the workplace than for groups that have historically faced discrimination. That higher standard is unconstitutional, her suit says….
I know that Trump is a profoundly stupid person. Tuberville and MTG (to name a couple), too.
But there are plenty of people – both among voters and the moral midgets that they elect – who aren’t that dumb and who play along nonetheless.
We live in an age where “opportunism” intersects “low info conditioning and distraction,” intersects apathy.
The American public has had decades+ of marinating in a bath of dumbing down media distraction. Click bait did not begin with the internet, and opportunists were destined to exploit every single human weakness and proclivity.
Add in a working class pedaling so hard to stay above water, they have little time or interest in unpacking the complexities of their universe. (I do not judge this, but reflect on my early years scratching about to get established. Having time to educate oneself about politics and policy is a luxury. A good many people are ripe for predigested disinfo b.s.)
But condemning the children of the US to crushing national debt is a good thing, apparently.
Kind of rich considering you supported the $7.8T increase in debt from the first Trump administration. And no doubt you will further support borrowing during the second in order to transfer additional billions to the fabulously wealthy.
But condemning the children of the US to crushing national debt is a good thing, apparently.
The total of foreign aid prior to the current administration’s cuts was something like 1% of the budget. First, that’s a pretty good ROI on goodwill. Second, it’s certainly not what is contributing to “crushing” debt.
Rob1
$2.5T cuts minus $4.5T gifting = minus $2T, or an increase in debt. Can Elon not “grok” this? Can his supporters and fanboys?
WASHINGTON (AP) — With a push from President Donald Trump, House Republicans sent a GOP budget blueprint to passage Tuesday, a step toward delivering his “big, beautiful bill” with $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and $2 trillion in spending cuts
On video for the record, Zelensky should ask Vance if he would have supported ending WWII earlier, before Europe had been secured from the murderous, genocidal Nazis.
It would be interesting to hear how Reichsmarschall Vance responds, and what he “understands” about a nation’s sovereignty.
Meanwhile in Ukraine: “US Vice President Vance accused Zelensky of not wanting to end the war with Russia quickly.
[Vance] “When we talked to him at a hotel in Munich, I tried to politely but firmly point out to him that the war needed to be ended as soon as possible. But he clearly didn’t understand that.”
@JKB:
Judging by your inane comments you have never spoken to a professor, right left or center.
wr
@JKB: Gosh, aren’t we all stunned to discover that JKB is cheering for the return of Jim Crow?
steve
“The Global Equality fund is a public/private venture that is overseen by the state department and it pools funds from several countries and private entities. Current partners include “Current GEF Partners include: Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Uruguay, the Arcus Foundation, the John D. Evans Foundation, FRI: the Norwegian Organization for Sexual and Gender Diversity, the MAC AIDS Fund, Deloitte LLP, Royal Bank of Canada, Hilton, Bloomberg L.P., Marriott International, the Human Rights Campaign, and Out Leadership.[1]”
In recent years the GEF has been giving a bit over $200,000 a year. So I am not really curious enough to go find out how much of that money comes from USAID vs other nations and private entities but given that Stonewall has over 100 employees I doubt that the less than $200,000 that would be the US share was making anyone rich or will cause them to lose half of their employees. While there has been some unhappiness with the recent leadership of Stonewall (I dont know if it is merited since I dont follow it) the organization has been given credit by a lot fo people in helping to decrease violence against LGBQT people and making employment opportunities more equal for them.
The War of 1812 would have ended sooner had the Americans let the British keep the White House.
Daryl
I’m seeing reports of Musk and Starlink taking over the FAA system for managing US Airspace.
If that doesn’t set off red flags…
Musk and DOGE laid of over 400 FAA employees. Now he’s given an FAA contract? What conflict of interest?
His rockets have about a 12% failure rate. His Cybertrucks catch on fire more than the old Ford Pintos. His Boring company seems mired in failure. His Nueralink killed 1500 animals and while the single human effort allegedly worked, the effects wore off over time. He is also addicted to Ketamine, by his own admission.
Fly in airspace managed by Musk? Ain’t no f’ing way.
@Rob1: The theory is tariffs will bring in $2 trillion.
Kathy
On this week’s Ancient Geeks podcast, I thought I should relate my one and, sadly, only visit to a Vegas attraction called “Star Trek: The Experience” in 2008.
There was a “4-D” movie featuring Robert Picardo as a guide through an encounter with the Borg. I forget what exactly happened. The “4-D” refers to actuators in the seats that poke you when Borg are trying to insert nanoprobes or something. the short movie was 3-D.
The other was a motion simulator. The story is the Enterprise D has travelled back in time to secure one of Captain Picard’s ancestors. This includes a simulated transporter ride to the Enterprise, it ends with the motion simulator ride in a shuttle over Vegas, dodging and shooting back at rogue Klingons. It was nice.
The highlight, though, is the middle. After being transported, an actor in a TNG uniform leads the audience to a turbolift, which ends up at a replica of the Enterprise D bridge. We stood behind the railing where Worf was stationed for many years.
Alas, the bridge was empty, save for two other actors in Starfleet uniforms (that must have been a Trekkie’s dream job) give some exposition, and eventually get Riker and Geordi on the viewscreen. This felt lame, but there’s no other way you’d be able to have Frakes and Burton appear several times daily on the ride.
Unfortunately, the attraction closed a few weeks after I visited. For years there were rumors of it being resurrected elsewhere, but nothing ever happened.
The queue for the movie and ride was lined with props, photos, and other memorabilia from the various series and movies. There were actors in some form of Trek costume roaming the line entertaining guests. That time there was a Klingon and Ferengi.
The gift shop had lots of Trek merch. I got a DVD of “the best” Trek time travel eps, various series. Also an isolinear chip keychain, and a more generic Trek keychain as a souvenir for a friend at work.
They had a restaurant called Quark’s, but I didn’t try it. Mostly it was the kind of stuff you find at Chili’s, at higher prices and with Trek-themed names.
I’m writing this on Tuesday night, and the series of events that went on before the House passed the Elon Musk Gets Another Tax Cut and Granny is in a Snowbank Act, a.k.a., the budget, are yet another indicator that the rules of politics are being bent beyond recognition.
At the onset of voting, it was clear that Pastor Mike didn’t have the votes. In fact, the House recessed and was going home for the night. Aaron Fritschner, who works for Rep Don Beyer (D-VA-8) posted these two skeets on BlueSky:
I am skipping over a lot, but read it all:
This vote is reminiscent of the vote for Johnson for Speaker, where the vote was held open for an hour while arms were twisted off the floor. At that time, the story that went around was that members were taken into antechambers of the House floor and talked with Trump.
I stand by the post I wrote earlier today, saying that this vote is political suicide for any Republican in a tight district that receives a lot of Medicaid money. That said, how do you get people to vote against their political interests? You threaten them with something. What that thing is will probably come out soon. In the end, though, it doesn’t matter. This vote shows that our crisis is deepening. Conventional wisdom would make one think that Johnson would be short at least a handful of votes. And, at the start of this vote, he probably was. But the call went out, threats were made, and Reps got in line.
What this means to me is that the same thing will probably happen in the Senate: the skids are greased. This bill is going to kill people. It is political and policy poison. Maximum delay needs to be applied by Democrats in the Senate. More on that in future posts. Until then, call your Senators and tell them that this bill is terrible.
Trump shut down the secret federal law enforcement misconduct database.
Maybe the cops complaining about the J6 pardons, will be happy about that.
I suppose Trump’s DOJ can defend it with Matt B’s excuse for why all trials are not recorded.
Too complex, Judicial inertia and transcripts are good enough.
FY2024 tariff income was $77bn. Which means that tariff income should increase by $1923bn, i.e., ~2600%, to make up for the $2tn shortfall.
Total imports in 2024 were worth $3.36tn. So we would need an average tariff of ~60% on everything.
But which such a high rate, imports would decline drastically. In other words, we would probably need to end up of tariffs far in excess of 100% to make the math work.
This is a completely bonkers idea. Less serious even than thoughts and prayers.
Funny how “crushing debt” is never considered when Republicans are drooling over tax cuts and doing whatever they can to cripple the IRS’ efforts to collect revenue – revenue that would alleviate that “crushing debt.”
@drj: Fortune will not comment on whether he believes tariffs will bring in $2T, only say that this is the theory. To comment on the reality of the theory would open him up to feelings of inadequacy as he’s forced to defend further inflating the bank account of the oligarch puppetmaster of the Nazi-adjacent criminal trying to rule from a golden throne, instead of letting his grandmother get end-of-life care.
He’ll just weakly deposit his feces in the corners and hope nobody notices the stench rather than do it in the middle of the room under a sign that says “I left you all this stinky shit.”
Daryl
I know that you will all be surprised to learn that the $4.2T in tax cuts (over 10 years) in the GOP Budget, currently being debated and voted on, do not include “no taxes on tips or SS benefits.” Another promise forgotten.
During his first term, US President Donald Trump pursued aggressive tariffs and tax cuts that led to a sharp increase in both the trade and budget deficits. Having seemingly learned nothing, he appears determined to double down on these destructive policies, risking a global downturn.
Congress is set to vote on a budget resolution that will pave the way for trillions of dollars in additional borrowing over the next 10 years and will accelerate the pace at which the national debt is growing…
Right now, MAGA is trying to add trillions to the deficit with corporate socialism and tax cuts for billionaires.
Musk’s reckless and indiscriminate mass layoffs won’t put a dent in the debt — but will increase suffering of middle class children and their families. Freezing aid will not reduce the debt — but it will starve and kill children globally. Gutting Medicaid will main and kill the least privileged Americans.
So when Trump and his supporters pretend to care about crippling debt and the next generation, they don’t.
Conservatives want to increase debt and deficits while stripping healthcare from average Americans. Trump supporters want kids here and abroad to suffer and die, so the right can shower welfare onto predatory oligarchs like Trump, Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg and their greedy friends. They are amoral, anti-American, and full of crap.
I don’t want this to sound confrontational, but you have been asserting his mental decline since his first term.
While I agree that age is playing a role here, I continue to think that rather than a man in serious decline, he is just an awful narcissist who just, says, and thinks awful things.
I am unconvinced his behavior is dementia. But, rather, just a reflection of who he is and always has been.
condemning the children of the US to crushing national debt
Who is being crushed?
I have been hearing about this crushing debt my entire life. And while I fully understand that debt repayment is a too-large part of the budget, it is crushing non one anymore than my mortgage is crushing me.
You know what is crushing people? The ongoing lack go affordable and easy to obtain healthcare, as I noted yesterday working with a family member having to deal with a job transition and health care costs.
I would rather have a diversion of funds away from tax cuts to serious health care options for the population.
Jen
It really does feel that we are doomed to repeat the past as soon as it’s barely faded.
Idiots decide that certain childhood diseases aren’t that bad (they’re natural!), so a movement begins to undermine vaccination, and then people have to experience illness firsthand (or see it in their communities) before they decide maybe vaccination is actually a good idea.
Same with authoritarianism. Someone on here posted a link to an analysis that showed people, regardless of social class, who experience economic stress are more likely to support authoritarians. On a psychological level, this sort of makes sense. If you’re stressed about making ends meet, you don’t have the mental space to be civically engaged. You turn that over to someone who can “get things done” while you sit at home and wonder about how you’ll afford eggs–someone else’s free speech, bodily autonomy, or anything else gets pushed into the bin.
Basically, we’re selfish bastards and even more so when we’re under financial stress.
Most definitely not Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and the other greedy, self-dealing, welfare queen oligarchs who want to add trillions to the deficit by cutting taxes for themselves — while gutting Medicaid and firing middle class civil servants.
Crippling debt requires conservatives starve children with aid freezes and cuts to food stamps, while billions in handouts are showered on Musk and Bezos and while millions are wasted sending Trump to football games and NASCAR.
The corrupt, dishonest, fiscally-irresponsible American right is up to its ears in fecal matter.
I’d hope for Bezos to divest the paper, but if he did, some other RW billionaire would probably pick it up. Murdoch already has the FOX in print niche covered with WSJ and the NY Post. WAPO will likely fade away, but WAPO is a hobby for Bezos, he’ll happily sacrifice it in an effort to protect Amazon from Trump/Musk.
BTW, since you brought up Niven in the podcast, don’t you think an attraction like the Trek experience would work great for The Smoke Ring? I envision more something like Disney’s hang gliding ride, Soarin’, as the point would be fantastic vistas and strange creatures, rather than an exciting series of maneuvers that bother one’s inner ear.
I know, how many people even know bout it? You’d have to make a hit movie of it, then maybe a TV show or three.
Rob1
@Fortune:
There’s supportable theory based on a boatload of prior data, and then there’s the self-serving nonsense of a fabulist, which is what we have in Trump.
Really, who issues a statement-on-hat that “Trump was right” 30 days into his noxious experimentation, except for the most diminutive of intellects.
A couple weeks ago I saw someone make the point it’s not so much narcissism as solipsism, the idea that other people are merely roles in a movie about Trump.
Scott
The growing totally preventable tragedy in West Texas:
A person who was hospitalized with measles has died from measles in West Texas, the first death in an outbreak that began late last month.
Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center spokesperson Melissa Whitfield confirmed the death Wednesday. It wasn’t clear the age of the patient, who died overnight.
Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The measles outbreak in rural West Texas has grown to 124 cases across nine counties, the state health department said Tuesday. There are also nine cases in eastern New Mexico.
It was a child.
Fortune
@Rob1: I saw the number from the Tax Foundation, but I don’t know the quality of their work. I don’t have much faith in the tariffs in general or any forecast of their revenue.
I am unconvinced his behavior is dementia. But, rather, just a reflection of who he is and always has been.
There is observable mental decline as evidence in the vast video record. I say this as someone who has cared for seniors on the downhill slope, which prompted formal education on the subject including care. Dementia is an umbrella term.
They had a restaurant called Quark’s, but I didn’t try it.
But you would have had a root beer if their was a Klingon customer there at the time.
Rob1
Cost cutting was just another misdirect to cover their real goal of pillage.
Musk’s cost-cutting drive quietly deletes billions in claimed savings from website
‘Wall of receipts’ drops five largest savings claimed by ‘department of government efficiency’ after debunking
In the latest embarrassment to befall the site, Doge has stealthily expunged all of the five largest items on the “wall of receipts” after the much-vaunted “savings” were revealed to be so much hot air.
@Kathy: A good friend of mine — met her as a student in the first writing class I ever taught, and then hired her as a writer on multiple shows — wrote or co-wrote that Vegas Trek attraction. As a lifelong Trek fan, it was the great thrill of her career…
wr
@Jen: “Idiots decide that certain childhood diseases aren’t that bad (they’re natural!)”
First child just died in the Texas measles outbreak. Good news — death is natural, too.
wr
@Fortune: “I saw the number from the Tax Foundation, but I don’t know the quality of their work. I don’t have much faith in the tariffs in general or any forecast of their revenue.”
So you saw some statistic quoted by some organization you know nothing about on a subject you know nothing about.
And you chose to repeat it here.
Thanks for sharing! Your contribution is really invaluable!
I felt it was directed at a wider audience than Trek enthusiasts. The movies feel that way, too.
Daryl
@Rob1:
The only trips to Mars will be in Musk’s ketamine-addled confusion.
To date he’s managed low-earth orbit.
Mars would be a 34-month round-trip journey in, you know, actual Space.
I’m not saying it can’t happen. But it’ll take a far more serious person than Musk.
@Rob1: Fair. As I say, I think age is playing a role.
Charontwo has been noting his mental state for almost a decade now, as if it is going to catch up with him at some point. I just feel that the observations don’t match the observed outcomes.
Moreover, I still think that the best explanation for his behavior is that he has poor character and it highly self-absorbed. Blaming dementia, or any version of “he is losing his mind” strikes me as giving him too much credit.
I was told by Leftist professors that cultural imperialism was a bad thing. In any case, what we see is that wealthy LGBTQ+ people aren’t willing to fund these charities. But condemning the children of the US to crushing national debt is a good thing, apparently.
‘Leftist professors’? Be careful of them, they’re eating your dogs, eating your cats.
Be that as it may …
Until just the other day, Trump and other ‘fiscal conservatives’ did not seriously care about ‘crushing national debt’ at all. In fact Trump loved ‘crushing national debt’ so much that he added trillions to it with his 2017 tax cut. And now, while Elon lies about foreign aid millions going to Gaza for condoms, ‘fiscally conservative’ Republicans are preparing to re-up (rhymes with ‘throw-up) the 2017 tax cut, thereby guaranteeing an increase in the ‘crushing national debt.’
Kathy
A country for sale, and doomed to destruction if it should find a buyer.
I suppose Trump’s DOJ can defend it with Matt B’s excuse for why all trials are not recorded.
Where in the hell have I ever defended Trump’s DOJ on anything?!
As I remember that’s usually you. Or at least you will claim “Trump has no control over his DOJ, so therefore it’s OK that I keep voting for and supporting someone who extends the police state.” Which is what you did under Barr. I expect it to get worse under Trump and like most Trump supporters you’ll pretend you didn’t vote for this when he was exceedingly clear this was what he would do.
So do me a favor and keep my name out of your posts unless you’re citing actually something that I wrote or a topic I have ever commented on.
For the record, I completely support the recording–in one form or another–of trials. And, that’s before we get to the fact that most trials are transcribed… which is a form of recording. And most of those transcripts are publicly available… but you’ve never really been interested in actually making fact based arguements or sweating the details.
I saw the number from the Tax Foundation, but I don’t know the quality of their work.
I too regularly cite sources without vetting them. That’s a sign of how rigorous a thinker I am.
But, if you actually did the research, you’d find that the Tax Foundation is highly regarded.
The key thing about tariffs is not whether or not they are revenue generating–they are. It’s more *who* pay’s the tax. And the lie propagated by Trump and his followers is that foreign entities pay tariffs. They don’t. Full stop.
They are ultimately paid by consumers. So they are a regressive tax on Americans and should be understood as such. More problematically, they are a regressive tax that can be levied by the Executive Branch which usupring another one of Congress’s responsibilities–and like so many other topics, should be taken back by Congress (but there are significant structural reasons for that not happening).
IMO, Niven’s specialty is in dreaming up rather detailed strange environments The Smoke Ring, the Ringworld, the Wok World. But not just the odd construct, he also has detailed ecosystems, strange creatures, and invariably humans trying to cope or adapt. And then he does a story on top of that.
But, if you actually did the research, you’d find that the Tax Foundation is highly regarded.
I thought they were but I figured people would have a better time believing them if I didn’t say so.
The key thing about tariffs is not whether or not they are revenue generating
I haven’t defended tariffs, only said where the revenue was coming from in theory. In this context the only question was whether they’re revenue generating.
I thought they were but I figured people would have a better time believing them if I didn’t say so.
This type of victim-based thinking is really sad. If you believe something to be true, just say it. Better yet, do the research first so you can be sure and then speak your truth.
I haven’t defended tariffs, only said where the revenue was coming from in theory.
I didn’t suggest you were defending tariffs. In fact, like most of your posts you neither appear to defend or support them.
I’m just saying that we should be clear that all we are really seeing here is a shift in tax burdens via Congress cutting a progressive tax and replacing it with a regressive tax that was instituted by the Executive branch.
And to your point, we can’t even guarantee what will happen with the taxes, so we can’t even be sure that the revenues are being made up. Which should cause people who go on and on about existential budget threats and debt to lose their minds… but of course, those people really aren’t principled (despite some being Principal… Investment Bankers).
Blaming dementia, or any version of “he is losing his mind” strikes me as giving him too much credit.
¿Por qué no los tres?
There is plenty going on with him that interacts, personality disorders, drug cocktails, maybe more. But dementia seems to be in the mix, given his many symptoms, both physical and behavioral (specific to dementia) that point to that. And dementia can aggravate personality disorders and other mental conditions.
I once asked a psychiatrist who specializes in geriatric patients if people’s defining characteristics grew stronger as they aged. He replied: “That is categorically true.”
Seems to be the case with Trump.
Jim X 32
@wr: And now we know the meaning of his initials: Jim Krow Bobby
The key thing about tariffs is not whether or not they are revenue generating–they are. It’s more *who* pay’s the tax. And the lie propagated by Trump and his followers is that foreign entities pay tariffs. They don’t. Full stop.
The tariff shows up on the CBO’s books as revenue. The incidence, who’s poorer at the end of the day, does not appear in CBO’s books. So not only is a tariff ultimately regressive, it can be used to support a regressive extension of the Trump 1.0 tax cuts. All good from Trump’s point of view.
As to the need for cuts to rich people’s taxes, yesterday Conner commented, “You do realize that the top 10% basically pay half of the income taxes. Right?” I’ve seen some version of that a hundred times. Turns out back in 2021 Jonathan Chait did a nice job of fisking this. The usual statement is that the top 1% pay 40% of taxes. Chait has a beautiful bar chart, but he breaks it out as top1%, next 4%, next 15% ….
The claim is effective because 1% pay 40%, or Connor’s 10% pay half, sounds so unfair. But it’s apples and oranges. 1% of people, 40% of taxes. Why do the top 1% pay more? Because they get 21% of income. And that’s another fudge. When the rich, and Conner, talk about taxes, they always talk about INCOME taxes, not total taxes. Chait cites total taxes. The top 1% pay 24% of total taxes on 21% of total income. Progressive, but ever so slightly. Don’t whine to me that the wealthy are so terribly oppressed.
Reagan, W. Bush, and Trump all passed top heavy tax cuts. They promised lower taxes on the wealthy would spur investment and grow the economy. The results are before us, but Trump wants to do it again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me four times …
Fortune
@gVOR10: By your own explanation the phrase “top heavy” tax cuts is deceptive.
Daryl
@gVOR10:
@Fortune:
The bottom line is that trickle-down economics has been a failure since the beginning. A scam sold by the wealthy to benefit the wealthy. Never worked. Never will. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tax-cuts-rich-50-years-no-trickle-down/
The massive tax cuts for the wealthy about to be given out? Same. No tax-free tips, overtime, or SS benefits, for those who need them, as was promised. Just another give-away for the wealthiest amongst us.
So, now he’s saying the EU’s reason to exist, is to ‘screw’ the US.
This attitude underpins Trump’s deal making philosophy, which is clearly binary:
‘a deal is not successful unless I get everything I want,’ and of course the obvious
inference to be drawn is that ‘everyone exists to screw me.’
Not a lot of room there for ‘mutually beneficial.’
Adding to that the bullshit that you can’t tax capital because some investor is putting it at risk. Well then what the fuck about the guy (or teenager really) at the chicken packing plant putting his body at risk? Why is that risk unimportant? Or am I just a fucking communist now?
Maybe that’s the reason to study economics so I can write a book about how these rich people are a bunch of weird-ass, stupid, dicks that have convinced the rest of us that we should kiss their asses and throw money at them. Bring back the fucking guillotine .
JohnSF
@Min:
@al Ameda:
While Trump remains entirely ignorant of the actual history, where the US was, for it’s own good reasons, highly supportive of the institutions that evolved into the European Union:
The OECD, the European Coal and Steel Community, the EEC, the WEU, etc.
JohnSF
Meanwhile, in Romania:
Calin Georgescu, the leading candidate in the annulled first round of presidential elections, and recipient of praise from Vance and Musk is arrested.
Various premises raided.
Reports are that his bodyguards house contained, under a floor-space, various weapons, a million or so dollars worth of cash, etc.
charontwo
Bluesky with what Trump posted to Truth Social, video embed re Gaza:
But counting on tariffs as revenue generation should ultimately be self-defeating, no? The populist/protectionist justification is to reduce imports by the country initiating the tariff. Then the revenue generation goes away. I don’t think even Trump has been so deluded as to suggest his tariff plan won’t impact economic behaviour at all.
@Pete S: this is a man who thinks he can cause a hurricane to veer out of its course by using a sharpie on a map, so, no, I wouldn’t be as optimistic as you are.
Beth
Here’s a depressing thought experiment that I’ve had rattling around in my head that I’ve wanted to share with you all. It’s probably a little more “Word Jazz”y than I’d like. I want to refine these thoughts a bit more so I’m just gonna see what happens.
I’ve come to the understanding that I had a wildly abusive childhood. I’ve had a tough time accepting this because I’m fairly confident that I wasn’t getting raped or beaten, but I also basically don’t remember most mod my childhood. Most of what I do remember is jumbled and off. The abuse I endured was partly because I wasn’t wanted. At least in the planning sense. I’m confident that my mom wanted a baby, but not an actual individual child. She wanted something to give her unconditional love in the exact way she wanted (“deserved”). My dad was an absent idiot ruined by a version of Englishness that exhausted in his destruction. He was almost certainly gender and sexuality diverse but had that beaten out of him. The abuse I endured was mostly psychological. I was ignored and abandoned within my family. I was made to be the black sheep.
Now that my kids are getting older I’m noticing that they have a whole lot of similar behaviors and issues that I do. We have rampant wild ADHD. I’m definitely the genetic source of that. I’m pretty sure it came from my grandpa. A couple of days ago my son was doing something minor. Being a kid with ADHD at the end of his meds. I freaked out at him and halfway through the freakout I stopped dead. I realized that the behavior I was punishing him for was something I would be doing except for something in me that says “you can’t do that because something bad happens.” Something very bad.
After he went to bed I turned to my partner and I asked what happened to me that I would freak out over a behavior that I almost certainly would do myself. She pointed out that I don’t punish our daughter for the same behavior. I realized that my parents decided I was a boy and boys DO NOT DO THAT. My sisters almost certainly got away with things that I got punished for. (They were just as abused, just differently). I’m also certain that I was a flamboyant kid and also one of those trans kids that tell everyone when they are young. I think some physical abuse that was bad enough to remember had something to do with that.
So what’s the point of all of this? I think in all of us there are things inside us that we can’t look at. Cause if you look at the thing you will have to deal with what happened to you and what you are. People will go to enormous lengths not to look at the thing. I don’t think any of that is particularly original or controversial. But think it’s important now because we are ruled by men who have decided that they can’t look at the thing and they are going to take it out on all of us. I don’t know if Trump has dementia or not. He’s old enough that there’s undoubtedly a problem. The bigger issue though, is that he had a wildly abusive childhood. So much of what he’s doing strikes me as someone lashing out because it feels better to hurt someone else than it does to do the work of healing. That shit’s hard.
To deal honestly with the thing means that you actually have to face it and that shit looks back at you. It’s easier to just not deal and make it everyone else’s problem. There is no fundamental force of nature that says that things have to be like this. These are all choices. Starting with honestly dealing with yourself.
A small postscript: I think I can tell which trolls here had an abusive childhood.
I stand by the post I wrote earlier today, saying that this vote is political suicide for any Republican in a tight district that receives a lot of Medicaid money.
Certainly something to hope for, but I’m not inclined to dismiss my firm conviction that working class voters (particularly white ones) will always find a way to vote against their interests without proof to the contrary.
Talk to me again about this when the R/D swing in the House is closer to 45 or 5o members, not 5 or 6. Understand, any swing is desirable, but I’m not counting on this vote to be some big poison pill for the GQP.
Charontwo has been noting his mental state for almost a decade now, as if it is going to catch up with him at some point. I just feel that the observations don’t match the observed outcomes.
It’s like how tax cuts increase revenues. You just have to have faith.
I actually think Charontwo just deadfastly does not want to accept the alternative, as it is a complete violation of their worldview.
In the words of Elvis Costello, in the song “Miss Macbeth”:
Sometimes people are just what they appear to be,
With no redemption at allllll!
People attempt to form a structure on the world, and make assumptions to preserve their firmly held beliefs. If you believe there is goodness in everyone, then looking at Trump is like staring into the sun.
Is there anything good about him? Anything? At least Hitler liked dogs.
Gosh, aren’t we all stunned to discover that JKB is cheering for the return of Jim Crow?
Please. He wants an air of respectability constructed around it. More of a James Corvid than a Jim Crow.
(And no calipers, we have AI based facial recognition for that.)
Daryl
@Beth:
@gVOR10:
@Fortune:
Beyond those numbers are the things that the wealthy benefit from that are not captured in tax rates and are not feasible for the normal person to take advantage of. Bezo’s for instance. I don’t care what he pays, it doesn’t begin to cover his use of;
Infrastructure – our road’s our airports, our ports.
Police/Intelligence/Military – they allow Bezo’s to do business domestically and abroad.
Education – what’s the value in 1.5M employees educated in US schools?
Oh wait…Bezo’s paid 0% for years, he now pays an effective tax rate of 1.1%.
And Amazon’s 22% rate is not near enough, either.
I didn’t suggest you were defending tariffs. In fact, like most of your posts you neither appear to defend or support them.
When someone repeatedly states things without supporting them, they almost always either
a) support them, but don’t want to be judged for supporting them
b) don’t give a shit what the argument is so long as it gets them what they want. Just flat out bad faith motherfuckery.
Fortune
@Gustopher: The other possibility is I’ve only written a few comments about tariffs and Matt was being dramatic about “most” of them.
Just nutha ignint cracker
@Steven L. Taylor: There are people getting crushed out here where I live. I see them every day and on the two or three nights I’m out coming home later in the evening huddled under tarps in the rain and sleeping in tents and building entryways.
That being said. It’s not the because of debt that future generations will be paying off (or building even more spectacularly, given the political choices that we tend to make here). They’ve been getting crushed most of my adult life and the numbers have only gotten bigger. It’s a combination of effects–NIMBY, rampant speculation in residential property, restrictive building codes, erosion of wages in working class jobs that haven’t kept pace with inflation, conservative notions of meritocracy, libertarian notions of taxation as confiscation, liberal tacking to the center in order to win–bringing bigotry lite, tax cuts for the rich lite, nation building lite, queer bashing lite and all the other half loaves of moderation, for a short-form list. Correcting the budget deficit won’t fix the crushing happening. It’s systemic at this point.
Jen expressed the problem best: “Basically, we’re selfish bastards and even more so when we’re under financial stress.” Some of us* are getting crushed, and it’s the balance of us who are doing it.
*Of course, it’s possible that those who are getting crushed are “those people” rather than part of “us.” I’ll let you guys decide that.
these rich people are a bunch of weird-ass, stupid, dicks that have convinced the rest of us that we should kiss their asses and throw money at them. Bring back the fucking guillotine .
Yes, we need to de-norm the rapacious rich. I’ve been talking guillotines for a while now. I’m relieved to see someone here talking about fighting, not just doom-scrolling.
These are all choices. Starting with honestly dealing with yourself.
People overestimate how hard it is to be honest, and underestimate how much power there is in knowing who you are. As I was cringing away from passing cop cars as I slept under an overpass with nothing but the change I’d found in pay phones, it began to occur to me that I had fucked things up pretty thoroughly. I cast about for someone to blame. But that is a very weak and self-defeating approach. So I decided that no one made me fuck up, I did that. Mea total culpa.
I had a reasonable degree of shit – teen mother, abandoned by father, constantly on the move, poverty, alienation, molestation by family friend, as well as creepy seduction by my mother. Did it all have an effect? Yep. Could I have blamed my subsequent fuck ups on mommy and daddy and family friend etc…? Sure. But playing victim is a weak move. It’s a weak self-definition. I could make a case for playing victim but . . .
These are all choices.
Why choose the victim role? Crazy mother? Bye bye, crazy mother, we won’t be talking again. Don’t fit in? La di da, off to the next place. A guy tried to kill me once, I could have been traumatized, waaah. Instead I told the prick how close I’d come to burying a chef’s knife in his fat gut, and bought a gun.
Events leave a mark, but the importance of that mark is a choice each of us makes. People survived Dachau and moved on, and I’m supposed to cry poor me? What am I, a pussy? Fuck that.
Just nutha ignint cracker
@Rob1: Speaking only for myself, I’m perfectly happy with Elon leaving for Mars whenever it suits him to go. Tomorrow is not too soon.
Just nutha ignint cracker
@Fortune: And yet you’re willing to promote the $2 trillion estimate. Pick a side, mugwump.
Fortune
@Just nutha ignint cracker: My side on tax policy? I haven’t generated a model so how would I know? Rob1 asked a question, I answered it, when he asked for a source I gave it but wisely said I wasn’t going to stand by it, and now everyone who participated will remember. Did you contribute more to the conversation?
Jay L Gischer
@Beth: That was so beautiful and painful all at once.
Grumpy realist
@Michael Reynolds: I suspect that Trump and all his supporters have also fallen into the trap of being addicted to self-pity and looking around for anyone to blame.
I should point out to all the anti-vaxxers that Mother Nature always wins. Ditto to those who think we don’t need scientists and statisticians in the government. Pretending that global warming doesn’t exist ends up with your beachfront property sinking below the waves, no matter how much you scream. Even if it doesn’t immediately go below water, you can bet that insurance companies are going to keep a sharp eye on the actual statistics of hurricanes and increased bad weather and your property insurance will go up. Pretending that statistics are different than they are doesn’t solve the problem; it just means that the blowback is bigger and meaner when it occurs.
just nutha
@Daryl: Never let in be said that I’m not generous in acceptance. I’m even okay with Musk having a Ketamine-addled delusion that he has emigrated to Mars.
As long as it’s happening outside the realm of government operations.
Jay L Gischer
@Michael Reynolds: You are what you are because you needed to be that. I do not challenge it.
AND, crying can be very valuable. Very. One can cry one moment and be tough the next. Very tough. Or vice-versa. It isn’t a binary.
You aren’t accountable to me or anybody else here. I would expect that if you were to ask yourself why you are so averse to crying, it might be difficult for you. Do it only if you need to, or expect to gain from it. I’m not the boss of you. I’m more of a hint: Maybe there’s something valuable there.
I have more than *just* faith, I have links saved on file to observations by several mental health professionals regarding this fellow. Not that they are right, necessarily, but they do seem to make sense to me.
People attempt to form a structure on the world, and make assumptions to preserve their firmly held beliefs.
I do tend to be pretty firm when it comes to things like the laws of thermodynamics, the law of conservation of energy, the laws governing thermal (i.e., “blackbody”) radiation, the measured properties of substances – the sort of things that make AGW a certainty for example. I am also a firm believer in the non-existence of any supernatural events that violate the laws of nature – no miracles for me.
I actually think Charontwo just deadfastly does not want to accept the alternative, as it is a complete violation of their worldview.
I grant that there are people who are much better than me at pop psychoanalysis. Even so, I do think Trump is an exceptionally sadistic malignant narcissist. (To clarify. “malignant narcissist” means comorbidity of Antisocial Personality Disorder and Narcissist Personality Disorder, thus lots of sadism also).
I actually think Charontwo just deadfastly does not want to accept the alternative, as it is a complete violation of their worldview.
Opinions vary, but I do not believe I have a worldview that requires Trump to be demented.
Intriguing. I wonder of Musk understands the personal risk he’s taking, and if his actions go bad how fast Trump would blame him for everything and chuck him under a bus? Musk’s behavior is consistent with that of a person who thinks it’s all just a game.
Add in a working class pedaling so hard to stay above water, they have little time or interest in unpacking the complexities of their universe. (I do not judge this, but reflect on my early years scratching about to get established. Having time to educate oneself about politics and policy is a luxury. A good many people are ripe for predigested disinfo b.s.)
This.
Even people who do have enough interest run into problems of time, money, and obligations. The world is complex. Understanding a small part of it takes significant time and effort.
A March meeting of outside advisers to the United States Food and Drug Administration to discuss the composition of flu vaccines for this fall’s flu season has been canceled, a member of the advisory committee told CNN.
The meeting of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, or VRBPAC, is held every March “to pick flu strains, because it’s a six-month production cycle for a vaccine released in September,” Dr. Paul Offit, a member of VRBPAC, told CNN Wednesday.
He said this year’s meeting had been set for March 13, and he received an email this afternoon saying it had been canceled.
“No indication it’s been postponed,” he told CNN; “cancelled.”
Many countries rely on FDA testing and approval of new medications and devices. See, it would be inefficient for each of over 100 countries to do their own testing and certification. So the bulk of it gets done by the FDA and the European Medicines Agency.
Why choose the victim role? Crazy mother? Bye bye, crazy mother, we won’t be talking again. Don’t fit in? La di da, off to the next place. A guy tried to kill me once, I could have been traumatized, waaah. Instead I told the prick how close I’d come to burying a chef’s knife in his fat gut, and bought a gun.
I think we need to find a better way to articulate this. You were traumatized. You were a victim. Objectively. That’s how trauma works. It echos and sticks with us. I know I’m stuck with shit that isn’t mine. Circumstantial evidence suggests my maternal grandfather had ADHD and the same learning disabilities my daughter have. I’m stuck with his trauma because of epigenetics and the abuse he dished out to his kids (and me).
On the other hand, what’s the point in wallowing? Not like either of us are gonna not get special victim points. We got shit to do and I ain’t got time.
And you didn’t get a reasonable amount of shit. That’s a fuck ton of shit. You and I are bad judges of what happened to us. That’s the kinda shit that comes out when someone watches you load the dishwasher and asks why you do it like that and you tell them it’s so you don’t get yelled at. By who? By you because mommy trained when you couldn’t know.
Or maybe you are special and ducked the cptsd. But people are way more fragile than the lies we tell ourselves.
@Steven L. Taylor: There’s something more going on in that noggin than just bad character. But that too. The behavioral lapses and gaps have become more frequent, and his physical movement is showing newer signs of diminishment. Forgetfulness is more apparent beyond just his usual lying behavior.
We have a tendency to write these things off to “old age” until they become full blown.
But people are way more fragile than the lies we tell ourselves.
A conundrum. We can be variously both more fragile or stronger than the lies we tell ourselves.
just nutha
@gVOR10: I’m willing to forgo total victory, but I won’t hold anyone else to this. 😉
steve
@Fortune: I dont have access to their budget and I dont know how many of the people they are talking about are part-time but for that much money they are laying off 5 or 6 low paid FT staff so yes. If they are staffed with a hundred people all working 5 or 6 hours a week then they could be laying off half their staff, but that still seems like an an exaggeration to me.
I’m stuck with his trauma because of epigenetics and the abuse he dished out to his kids (and me)
In my case, my time in prison gave me time to closely examine the rocks in my mind garden (and what scurries away when you flip them over). Therapy gave me tools to recognize what my triggers are, and how to be a member of society on a daily basis…
ETA while I’ve certainly made oodles of mistakes raising our daughter, I have (to the best of my abilities) tried to make different mistakes than the ones from my childhood. For the most part, we all strive to do the best we can.
I wouldn’t go that far. I externalized it. Things outside are easier to manage than things inside. Unfortunate for Sambo’s and a few other restaurants. OTOH, I was an amazing employee, and they were a sort of Ponzi scheme, so fuck ’em.
More people might have babies if they realized that all they can do is their best. And it’s usually good enough.
As a father I give myself a C+, maybe a B. I was never going to be one of those TV dads that make us all look bad by playing and frolicking and you know, doing dad stuff. But, somewhat to my surprise, both kids still initiate contact and actually seem to not want us to die, despite a fairly nice inheritance. We have a backlog of WILTYs and Taskmasters we can’t watch til oldest kid is with us. Some families watch sports, we watch British comedians.
Comments
126 responses to “Wednesday’s Forum”
Adding to the ongoing list:
‘Unknown disease’ that can kill within days leaves 53 dead in Congo
This AI-generated video that the current occupant posted of a Trump Gaza resort is beyond depraved.
@Kingdaddy:
I can’t guess the motivation of whoever created that, but Trump taking it seriously says he is mentally pretty far gone.
Well, I feel safer.
Vet’s Capitol riot pardon covers separate weapons case: Prosecutors
There is no reasoning published yet that I can find.
I wonder if the pardon covers these criminal activities:
Criminal records of Jan. 6 rioters pardoned by Trump include rape, domestic violence
@Kingdaddy:
It’s also utterly stupid. Painfully so.
Which brings me to a (sort of) follow-up point.
I am still astounded how playing the rubes (which is how it started, IMO) turned into a complete embrace of the dumbest shit on earth.
I know that Trump is a profoundly stupid person. Tuberville and MTG (to name a couple), too.
But there are plenty of people – both among voters and the moral midgets that they elect – who aren’t that dumb and who play along nonetheless.
I just can’t wrap my head around it.
Half the staff of the British LGBTQ+ “charity” Stonewall may have to be laid off after Trump froze USAID funds. The Global Equity Fund (GEF) administered by the US State department has been their largest funder in recent years to spread LGBTQ+ in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. How exactly does this promote goodwill toward the US in these areas?
@Kingdaddy:
Back in 2020, Musk called Trump “a fucking moron.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musk-called-donald-trump-a-fing-moron-at-2020-meeting-at-the-white-house/
@JKB:
Your inability to understand the simplest of concepts does not negate their value.
Just as your inability to understand the solar system does not mean the earth is flat.
@JKB: If you have to ask how advocating the idea that you shouldn’t assault people who are different from you “promote(s) good will”…
@Scott:
A nation governed by rule-of-opinion. Who needs laws? Let’s just check with the boss.
I was told by Leftist professors that cultural imperialism was a bad thing. In any case, what we see is that wealthy LGBTQ+ people aren’t willing to fund these charities. But condemning the children of the US to crushing national debt is a good thing, apparently.
In any case, they can restart funding for AIDS efforts and such, but now in the light, I don’t expect too much support in Congress for paying high salaries to British LGBTQ+ activists. We shall see, but now that this activity is has been exposed at least there can be an open discussion about US foreign aid priorities.
Ruh Roh
@drj:
We live in an age where “opportunism” intersects “low info conditioning and distraction,” intersects apathy.
The American public has had decades+ of marinating in a bath of dumbing down media distraction. Click bait did not begin with the internet, and opportunists were destined to exploit every single human weakness and proclivity.
Add in a working class pedaling so hard to stay above water, they have little time or interest in unpacking the complexities of their universe. (I do not judge this, but reflect on my early years scratching about to get established. Having time to educate oneself about politics and policy is a luxury. A good many people are ripe for predigested disinfo b.s.)
@JKB:
Kind of rich considering you supported the $7.8T increase in debt from the first Trump administration. And no doubt you will further support borrowing during the second in order to transfer additional billions to the fabulously wealthy.
@JKB:
First prove that a “higher standard” for whites has existed. Pretty straight forward the reverse existed. Period.
@JKB:
The total of foreign aid prior to the current administration’s cuts was something like 1% of the budget. First, that’s a pretty good ROI on goodwill. Second, it’s certainly not what is contributing to “crushing” debt.
$2.5T cuts minus $4.5T gifting = minus $2T, or an increase in debt. Can Elon not “grok” this? Can his supporters and fanboys?
On video for the record, Zelensky should ask Vance if he would have supported ending WWII earlier, before Europe had been secured from the murderous, genocidal Nazis.
It would be interesting to hear how Reichsmarschall Vance responds, and what he “understands” about a nation’s sovereignty.
@JKB:
Judging by your inane comments you have never spoken to a professor, right left or center.
@JKB: Gosh, aren’t we all stunned to discover that JKB is cheering for the return of Jim Crow?
“The Global Equality fund is a public/private venture that is overseen by the state department and it pools funds from several countries and private entities. Current partners include “Current GEF Partners include: Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Uruguay, the Arcus Foundation, the John D. Evans Foundation, FRI: the Norwegian Organization for Sexual and Gender Diversity, the MAC AIDS Fund, Deloitte LLP, Royal Bank of Canada, Hilton, Bloomberg L.P., Marriott International, the Human Rights Campaign, and Out Leadership.[1]”
In recent years the GEF has been giving a bit over $200,000 a year. So I am not really curious enough to go find out how much of that money comes from USAID vs other nations and private entities but given that Stonewall has over 100 employees I doubt that the less than $200,000 that would be the US share was making anyone rich or will cause them to lose half of their employees. While there has been some unhappiness with the recent leadership of Stonewall (I dont know if it is merited since I dont follow it) the organization has been given credit by a lot fo people in helping to decrease violence against LGBQT people and making employment opportunities more equal for them.
Steve
@Rob1:
The War of 1812 would have ended sooner had the Americans let the British keep the White House.
I’m seeing reports of Musk and Starlink taking over the FAA system for managing US Airspace.
If that doesn’t set off red flags…
Musk and DOGE laid of over 400 FAA employees. Now he’s given an FAA contract? What conflict of interest?
His rockets have about a 12% failure rate. His Cybertrucks catch on fire more than the old Ford Pintos. His Boring company seems mired in failure. His Nueralink killed 1500 animals and while the single human effort allegedly worked, the effects wore off over time. He is also addicted to Ketamine, by his own admission.
Fly in airspace managed by Musk? Ain’t no f’ing way.
@steve: So Stonewall was exaggerating?
@Rob1: The theory is tariffs will bring in $2 trillion.
On this week’s Ancient Geeks podcast, I thought I should relate my one and, sadly, only visit to a Vegas attraction called “Star Trek: The Experience” in 2008.
There was a “4-D” movie featuring Robert Picardo as a guide through an encounter with the Borg. I forget what exactly happened. The “4-D” refers to actuators in the seats that poke you when Borg are trying to insert nanoprobes or something. the short movie was 3-D.
The other was a motion simulator. The story is the Enterprise D has travelled back in time to secure one of Captain Picard’s ancestors. This includes a simulated transporter ride to the Enterprise, it ends with the motion simulator ride in a shuttle over Vegas, dodging and shooting back at rogue Klingons. It was nice.
The highlight, though, is the middle. After being transported, an actor in a TNG uniform leads the audience to a turbolift, which ends up at a replica of the Enterprise D bridge. We stood behind the railing where Worf was stationed for many years.
Alas, the bridge was empty, save for two other actors in Starfleet uniforms (that must have been a Trekkie’s dream job) give some exposition, and eventually get Riker and Geordi on the viewscreen. This felt lame, but there’s no other way you’d be able to have Frakes and Burton appear several times daily on the ride.
Unfortunately, the attraction closed a few weeks after I visited. For years there were rumors of it being resurrected elsewhere, but nothing ever happened.
The queue for the movie and ride was lined with props, photos, and other memorabilia from the various series and movies. There were actors in some form of Trek costume roaming the line entertaining guests. That time there was a Klingon and Ferengi.
The gift shop had lots of Trek merch. I got a DVD of “the best” Trek time travel eps, various series. Also an isolinear chip keychain, and a more generic Trek keychain as a souvenir for a friend at work.
They had a restaurant called Quark’s, but I didn’t try it. Mostly it was the kind of stuff you find at Chili’s, at higher prices and with Trek-themed names.
This is frightening, even to me:
https://heymistermix.com/p/things-are-worse-than-i-thought
I am skipping over a lot, but read it all:
https://heymistermix.com/p/politics-ain-t-dead
ETA: The site is free to everyone, but you should register to see the comments, you should.
https://heymistermix.com/
Mistermix used to be a front pager at BJ, but bailed a few days ago.
Trump shut down the secret federal law enforcement misconduct database.
Maybe the cops complaining about the J6 pardons, will be happy about that.
I suppose Trump’s DOJ can defend it with Matt B’s excuse for why all trials are not recorded.
Too complex, Judicial inertia and transcripts are good enough.
@Fortune:
This is truly one of the dumbest “theories” ever.
FY2024 tariff income was $77bn. Which means that tariff income should increase by $1923bn, i.e., ~2600%, to make up for the $2tn shortfall.
Total imports in 2024 were worth $3.36tn. So we would need an average tariff of ~60% on everything.
But which such a high rate, imports would decline drastically. In other words, we would probably need to end up of tariffs far in excess of 100% to make the math work.
This is a completely bonkers idea. Less serious even than thoughts and prayers.
@Fortune:
That’s not theory, it’s propaganda.
Funny how “crushing debt” is never considered when Republicans are drooling over tax cuts and doing whatever they can to cripple the IRS’ efforts to collect revenue – revenue that would alleviate that “crushing debt.”
At Bezos’ order, the Washington Post editorial page will now focus on “personal liberties and free markets,” as the current opinion editor steps down (or is pushed out).
@drj: Fortune will not comment on whether he believes tariffs will bring in $2T, only say that this is the theory. To comment on the reality of the theory would open him up to feelings of inadequacy as he’s forced to defend further inflating the bank account of the oligarch puppetmaster of the Nazi-adjacent criminal trying to rule from a golden throne, instead of letting his grandmother get end-of-life care.
He’ll just weakly deposit his feces in the corners and hope nobody notices the stench rather than do it in the middle of the room under a sign that says “I left you all this stinky shit.”
I know that you will all be surprised to learn that the $4.2T in tax cuts (over 10 years) in the GOP Budget, currently being debated and voted on, do not include “no taxes on tips or SS benefits.” Another promise forgotten.
Trump’s Looming Deficit Disaster (Project Syndicate)
The House GOP Budget Blueprint Promises More Borrowing, More Debt, and Not Enough Spending Cuts (Reason)
Right now, MAGA is trying to add trillions to the deficit with corporate socialism and tax cuts for billionaires.
Musk’s reckless and indiscriminate mass layoffs won’t put a dent in the debt — but will increase suffering of middle class children and their families. Freezing aid will not reduce the debt — but it will starve and kill children globally. Gutting Medicaid will main and kill the least privileged Americans.
So when Trump and his supporters pretend to care about crippling debt and the next generation, they don’t.
Conservatives want to increase debt and deficits while stripping healthcare from average Americans. Trump supporters want kids here and abroad to suffer and die, so the right can shower welfare onto predatory oligarchs like Trump, Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg and their greedy friends. They are amoral, anti-American, and full of crap.
@ptfe:
We all know that Fortune is a sad little troll who does not have the guts to affirm a single positive belief.
@charontwo:
I don’t want this to sound confrontational, but you have been asserting his mental decline since his first term.
While I agree that age is playing a role here, I continue to think that rather than a man in serious decline, he is just an awful narcissist who just, says, and thinks awful things.
I am unconvinced his behavior is dementia. But, rather, just a reflection of who he is and always has been.
@JKB:
Who is being crushed?
I have been hearing about this crushing debt my entire life. And while I fully understand that debt repayment is a too-large part of the budget, it is crushing non one anymore than my mortgage is crushing me.
You know what is crushing people? The ongoing lack go affordable and easy to obtain healthcare, as I noted yesterday working with a family member having to deal with a job transition and health care costs.
I would rather have a diversion of funds away from tax cuts to serious health care options for the population.
It really does feel that we are doomed to repeat the past as soon as it’s barely faded.
Idiots decide that certain childhood diseases aren’t that bad (they’re natural!), so a movement begins to undermine vaccination, and then people have to experience illness firsthand (or see it in their communities) before they decide maybe vaccination is actually a good idea.
Same with authoritarianism. Someone on here posted a link to an analysis that showed people, regardless of social class, who experience economic stress are more likely to support authoritarians. On a psychological level, this sort of makes sense. If you’re stressed about making ends meet, you don’t have the mental space to be civically engaged. You turn that over to someone who can “get things done” while you sit at home and wonder about how you’ll afford eggs–someone else’s free speech, bodily autonomy, or anything else gets pushed into the bin.
Basically, we’re selfish bastards and even more so when we’re under financial stress.
@Kathy: For that matter, if we had just taken our beating at Pearl Harbor, think of all the lives that would have been saved.
For that matter, a lot of people died at Normandy.
@Daryl:
So I take it you’re not a candidate for Elon’s Mars mission?
@Kathy: My brother and I got to visit The Experience not long before it closed as well!
@Steven L. Taylor:
A: The folks who have been repeatedly told they are being crushed by national debt and now are crushed by the thought of it.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Most definitely not Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and the other greedy, self-dealing, welfare queen oligarchs who want to add trillions to the deficit by cutting taxes for themselves — while gutting Medicaid and firing middle class civil servants.
Crippling debt requires conservatives starve children with aid freezes and cuts to food stamps, while billions in handouts are showered on Musk and Bezos and while millions are wasted sending Trump to football games and NASCAR.
The corrupt, dishonest, fiscally-irresponsible American right is up to its ears in fecal matter.
The Guardian, and others, report, Bezos directs Washington Post opinion pages to promote ‘personal liberties and free markets’ The editorial page editor, David Shipley, was fired/resigned this morning. I’d cancel my subscription, but I already did. It doesn’t run out for a few months yet.
I’d hope for Bezos to divest the paper, but if he did, some other RW billionaire would probably pick it up. Murdoch already has the FOX in print niche covered with WSJ and the NY Post. WAPO will likely fade away, but WAPO is a hobby for Bezos, he’ll happily sacrifice it in an effort to protect Amazon from Trump/Musk.
ETA – I see @Kingdaddy: was faster than I was.
@DK:
Republicans are the very definition of incompetence with a heavy dose of malfeasance.
@Daryl: it’s like it has not heard the phrase, “shit in one hand, hope into the other and see which fills first”.
@Steven L. Taylor:
It was a crime to close it.
BTW, since you brought up Niven in the podcast, don’t you think an attraction like the Trek experience would work great for The Smoke Ring? I envision more something like Disney’s hang gliding ride, Soarin’, as the point would be fantastic vistas and strange creatures, rather than an exciting series of maneuvers that bother one’s inner ear.
I know, how many people even know bout it? You’d have to make a hit movie of it, then maybe a TV show or three.
@Fortune:
There’s supportable theory based on a boatload of prior data, and then there’s the self-serving nonsense of a fabulist, which is what we have in Trump.
Really, who issues a statement-on-hat that “Trump was right” 30 days into his noxious experimentation, except for the most diminutive of intellects.
@Steven L. Taylor:
A couple weeks ago I saw someone make the point it’s not so much narcissism as solipsism, the idea that other people are merely roles in a movie about Trump.
The growing totally preventable tragedy in West Texas:
First measles death reported in West Texas outbreak
It was a child.
@Rob1: I saw the number from the Tax Foundation, but I don’t know the quality of their work. I don’t have much faith in the tariffs in general or any forecast of their revenue.
@Steven L. Taylor:
There is observable mental decline as evidence in the vast video record. I say this as someone who has cared for seniors on the downhill slope, which prompted formal education on the subject including care. Dementia is an umbrella term.
@Kathy:
But you would have had a root beer if their was a Klingon customer there at the time.
Cost cutting was just another misdirect to cover their real goal of pillage.
@Kathy:
Was it “up or down” town?
@Kathy: A good friend of mine — met her as a student in the first writing class I ever taught, and then hired her as a writer on multiple shows — wrote or co-wrote that Vegas Trek attraction. As a lifelong Trek fan, it was the great thrill of her career…
@Jen: “Idiots decide that certain childhood diseases aren’t that bad (they’re natural!)”
First child just died in the Texas measles outbreak. Good news — death is natural, too.
@Fortune: “I saw the number from the Tax Foundation, but I don’t know the quality of their work. I don’t have much faith in the tariffs in general or any forecast of their revenue.”
So you saw some statistic quoted by some organization you know nothing about on a subject you know nothing about.
And you chose to repeat it here.
Thanks for sharing! Your contribution is really invaluable!
@Rob1:
I think up, as the then Vegas Hilton was quite a ways off downtown Vegas.
@wr:
I felt it was directed at a wider audience than Trek enthusiasts. The movies feel that way, too.
@Rob1:
The only trips to Mars will be in Musk’s ketamine-addled confusion.
To date he’s managed low-earth orbit.
Mars would be a 34-month round-trip journey in, you know, actual Space.
I’m not saying it can’t happen. But it’ll take a far more serious person than Musk.
@Daryl:
I’d say that investing one or two trillion in getting the nazi in chief to mars would be money well spent, provided it was a one way trip.
@Kathy: There is a lot of untapped IP out there. We will be discussing books soon, and I am sure Niven will get a lot of discussion.
@Rob1: Fair. As I say, I think age is playing a role.
Charontwo has been noting his mental state for almost a decade now, as if it is going to catch up with him at some point. I just feel that the observations don’t match the observed outcomes.
Moreover, I still think that the best explanation for his behavior is that he has poor character and it highly self-absorbed. Blaming dementia, or any version of “he is losing his mind” strikes me as giving him too much credit.
@JKB:
‘Leftist professors’? Be careful of them, they’re eating your dogs, eating your cats.
Be that as it may …
Until just the other day, Trump and other ‘fiscal conservatives’ did not seriously care about ‘crushing national debt’ at all. In fact Trump loved ‘crushing national debt’ so much that he added trillions to it with his 2017 tax cut. And now, while Elon lies about foreign aid millions going to Gaza for condoms, ‘fiscally conservative’ Republicans are preparing to re-up (rhymes with ‘throw-up) the 2017 tax cut, thereby guaranteeing an increase in the ‘crushing national debt.’
A country for sale, and doomed to destruction if it should find a buyer.
With apologies to king Jugurtha.
@Paul L.:
Where in the hell have I ever defended Trump’s DOJ on anything?!
As I remember that’s usually you. Or at least you will claim “Trump has no control over his DOJ, so therefore it’s OK that I keep voting for and supporting someone who extends the police state.” Which is what you did under Barr. I expect it to get worse under Trump and like most Trump supporters you’ll pretend you didn’t vote for this when he was exceedingly clear this was what he would do.
So do me a favor and keep my name out of your posts unless you’re citing actually something that I wrote or a topic I have ever commented on.
For the record, I completely support the recording–in one form or another–of trials. And, that’s before we get to the fact that most trials are transcribed… which is a form of recording. And most of those transcripts are publicly available… but you’ve never really been interested in actually making fact based arguements or sweating the details.
@Fortune:
I too regularly cite sources without vetting them. That’s a sign of how rigorous a thinker I am.
But, if you actually did the research, you’d find that the Tax Foundation is highly regarded.
The key thing about tariffs is not whether or not they are revenue generating–they are. It’s more *who* pay’s the tax. And the lie propagated by Trump and his followers is that foreign entities pay tariffs. They don’t. Full stop.
They are ultimately paid by consumers. So they are a regressive tax on Americans and should be understood as such. More problematically, they are a regressive tax that can be levied by the Executive Branch which usupring another one of Congress’s responsibilities–and like so many other topics, should be taken back by Congress (but there are significant structural reasons for that not happening).
@Steven L. Taylor:
IMO, Niven’s specialty is in dreaming up rather detailed strange environments The Smoke Ring, the Ringworld, the Wok World. But not just the odd construct, he also has detailed ecosystems, strange creatures, and invariably humans trying to cope or adapt. And then he does a story on top of that.
@Matt Bernius:
I thought they were but I figured people would have a better time believing them if I didn’t say so.
I haven’t defended tariffs, only said where the revenue was coming from in theory. In this context the only question was whether they’re revenue generating.
@Fortune:
This type of victim-based thinking is really sad. If you believe something to be true, just say it. Better yet, do the research first so you can be sure and then speak your truth.
I didn’t suggest you were defending tariffs. In fact, like most of your posts you neither appear to defend or support them.
I’m just saying that we should be clear that all we are really seeing here is a shift in tax burdens via Congress cutting a progressive tax and replacing it with a regressive tax that was instituted by the Executive branch.
And to your point, we can’t even guarantee what will happen with the taxes, so we can’t even be sure that the revenues are being made up. Which should cause people who go on and on about existential budget threats and debt to lose their minds… but of course, those people really aren’t principled (despite some being Principal… Investment Bankers).
@Steven L. Taylor:
¿Por qué no los tres?
There is plenty going on with him that interacts, personality disorders, drug cocktails, maybe more. But dementia seems to be in the mix, given his many symptoms, both physical and behavioral (specific to dementia) that point to that. And dementia can aggravate personality disorders and other mental conditions.
@charontwo:
I once asked a psychiatrist who specializes in geriatric patients if people’s defining characteristics grew stronger as they aged. He replied: “That is categorically true.”
Seems to be the case with Trump.
@wr: And now we know the meaning of his initials: Jim Krow Bobby
@ptfe: So it shall be written.
@Fortune: So it shall be done.
So, now he’s saying the EU’s reason to exist, is to ‘screw’ the US.
How long until his MAGAs start repeating that too?
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1894803496072790092
@Matt Bernius:
The tariff shows up on the CBO’s books as revenue. The incidence, who’s poorer at the end of the day, does not appear in CBO’s books. So not only is a tariff ultimately regressive, it can be used to support a regressive extension of the Trump 1.0 tax cuts. All good from Trump’s point of view.
As to the need for cuts to rich people’s taxes, yesterday Conner commented, “You do realize that the top 10% basically pay half of the income taxes. Right?” I’ve seen some version of that a hundred times. Turns out back in 2021 Jonathan Chait did a nice job of fisking this. The usual statement is that the top 1% pay 40% of taxes. Chait has a beautiful bar chart, but he breaks it out as top1%, next 4%, next 15% ….
The claim is effective because 1% pay 40%, or Connor’s 10% pay half, sounds so unfair. But it’s apples and oranges. 1% of people, 40% of taxes. Why do the top 1% pay more? Because they get 21% of income. And that’s another fudge. When the rich, and Conner, talk about taxes, they always talk about INCOME taxes, not total taxes. Chait cites total taxes. The top 1% pay 24% of total taxes on 21% of total income. Progressive, but ever so slightly. Don’t whine to me that the wealthy are so terribly oppressed.
Reagan, W. Bush, and Trump all passed top heavy tax cuts. They promised lower taxes on the wealthy would spur investment and grow the economy. The results are before us, but Trump wants to do it again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me four times …
@gVOR10: By your own explanation the phrase “top heavy” tax cuts is deceptive.
@gVOR10:
@Fortune:
The bottom line is that trickle-down economics has been a failure since the beginning. A scam sold by the wealthy to benefit the wealthy. Never worked. Never will.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tax-cuts-rich-50-years-no-trickle-down/
The massive tax cuts for the wealthy about to be given out? Same. No tax-free tips, overtime, or SS benefits, for those who need them, as was promised. Just another give-away for the wealthiest amongst us.
@Min:
This attitude underpins Trump’s deal making philosophy, which is clearly binary:
‘a deal is not successful unless I get everything I want,’ and of course the obvious
inference to be drawn is that ‘everyone exists to screw me.’
Not a lot of room there for ‘mutually beneficial.’
@gVOR10:
Adding to that the bullshit that you can’t tax capital because some investor is putting it at risk. Well then what the fuck about the guy (or teenager really) at the chicken packing plant putting his body at risk? Why is that risk unimportant? Or am I just a fucking communist now?
Maybe that’s the reason to study economics so I can write a book about how these rich people are a bunch of weird-ass, stupid, dicks that have convinced the rest of us that we should kiss their asses and throw money at them. Bring back the fucking guillotine .
@Min:
@al Ameda:
While Trump remains entirely ignorant of the actual history, where the US was, for it’s own good reasons, highly supportive of the institutions that evolved into the European Union:
The OECD, the European Coal and Steel Community, the EEC, the WEU, etc.
Meanwhile, in Romania:
Calin Georgescu, the leading candidate in the annulled first round of presidential elections, and recipient of praise from Vance and Musk is arrested.
Various premises raided.
Reports are that his bodyguards house contained, under a floor-space, various weapons, a million or so dollars worth of cash, etc.
Bluesky with what Trump posted to Truth Social, video embed re Gaza:
“Repost“
@Matt Bernius:
But counting on tariffs as revenue generation should ultimately be self-defeating, no? The populist/protectionist justification is to reduce imports by the country initiating the tariff. Then the revenue generation goes away. I don’t think even Trump has been so deluded as to suggest his tariff plan won’t impact economic behaviour at all.
@Min:
If Trump muscles the US into the EU (so they can’t screw us), and out of NATO, I will acknowledge his genius as an artist if not President.
@Fortune: Or maybe JKB was. Hmmmm…
@Pete S: this is a man who thinks he can cause a hurricane to veer out of its course by using a sharpie on a map, so, no, I wouldn’t be as optimistic as you are.
Here’s a depressing thought experiment that I’ve had rattling around in my head that I’ve wanted to share with you all. It’s probably a little more “Word Jazz”y than I’d like. I want to refine these thoughts a bit more so I’m just gonna see what happens.
I’ve come to the understanding that I had a wildly abusive childhood. I’ve had a tough time accepting this because I’m fairly confident that I wasn’t getting raped or beaten, but I also basically don’t remember most mod my childhood. Most of what I do remember is jumbled and off. The abuse I endured was partly because I wasn’t wanted. At least in the planning sense. I’m confident that my mom wanted a baby, but not an actual individual child. She wanted something to give her unconditional love in the exact way she wanted (“deserved”). My dad was an absent idiot ruined by a version of Englishness that exhausted in his destruction. He was almost certainly gender and sexuality diverse but had that beaten out of him. The abuse I endured was mostly psychological. I was ignored and abandoned within my family. I was made to be the black sheep.
Now that my kids are getting older I’m noticing that they have a whole lot of similar behaviors and issues that I do. We have rampant wild ADHD. I’m definitely the genetic source of that. I’m pretty sure it came from my grandpa. A couple of days ago my son was doing something minor. Being a kid with ADHD at the end of his meds. I freaked out at him and halfway through the freakout I stopped dead. I realized that the behavior I was punishing him for was something I would be doing except for something in me that says “you can’t do that because something bad happens.” Something very bad.
After he went to bed I turned to my partner and I asked what happened to me that I would freak out over a behavior that I almost certainly would do myself. She pointed out that I don’t punish our daughter for the same behavior. I realized that my parents decided I was a boy and boys DO NOT DO THAT. My sisters almost certainly got away with things that I got punished for. (They were just as abused, just differently). I’m also certain that I was a flamboyant kid and also one of those trans kids that tell everyone when they are young. I think some physical abuse that was bad enough to remember had something to do with that.
So what’s the point of all of this? I think in all of us there are things inside us that we can’t look at. Cause if you look at the thing you will have to deal with what happened to you and what you are. People will go to enormous lengths not to look at the thing. I don’t think any of that is particularly original or controversial. But think it’s important now because we are ruled by men who have decided that they can’t look at the thing and they are going to take it out on all of us. I don’t know if Trump has dementia or not. He’s old enough that there’s undoubtedly a problem. The bigger issue though, is that he had a wildly abusive childhood. So much of what he’s doing strikes me as someone lashing out because it feels better to hurt someone else than it does to do the work of healing. That shit’s hard.
To deal honestly with the thing means that you actually have to face it and that shit looks back at you. It’s easier to just not deal and make it everyone else’s problem. There is no fundamental force of nature that says that things have to be like this. These are all choices. Starting with honestly dealing with yourself.
A small postscript: I think I can tell which trolls here had an abusive childhood.
@charontwo:
Certainly something to hope for, but I’m not inclined to dismiss my firm conviction that working class voters (particularly white ones) will always find a way to vote against their interests without proof to the contrary.
Talk to me again about this when the R/D swing in the House is closer to 45 or 5o members, not 5 or 6. Understand, any swing is desirable, but I’m not counting on this vote to be some big poison pill for the GQP.
@Steven L. Taylor:
It’s like how tax cuts increase revenues. You just have to have faith.
I actually think Charontwo just deadfastly does not want to accept the alternative, as it is a complete violation of their worldview.
In the words of Elvis Costello, in the song “Miss Macbeth”:
People attempt to form a structure on the world, and make assumptions to preserve their firmly held beliefs. If you believe there is goodness in everyone, then looking at Trump is like staring into the sun.
Is there anything good about him? Anything? At least Hitler liked dogs.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: He mirrored the BBC headlines.
@wr:
Please. He wants an air of respectability constructed around it. More of a James Corvid than a Jim Crow.
(And no calipers, we have AI based facial recognition for that.)
@Beth:
@gVOR10:
@Fortune:
Beyond those numbers are the things that the wealthy benefit from that are not captured in tax rates and are not feasible for the normal person to take advantage of. Bezo’s for instance. I don’t care what he pays, it doesn’t begin to cover his use of;
Infrastructure – our road’s our airports, our ports.
Police/Intelligence/Military – they allow Bezo’s to do business domestically and abroad.
Education – what’s the value in 1.5M employees educated in US schools?
Oh wait…Bezo’s paid 0% for years, he now pays an effective tax rate of 1.1%.
And Amazon’s 22% rate is not near enough, either.
@Matt Bernius:
When someone repeatedly states things without supporting them, they almost always either
a) support them, but don’t want to be judged for supporting them
b) don’t give a shit what the argument is so long as it gets them what they want. Just flat out bad faith motherfuckery.
@Gustopher: The other possibility is I’ve only written a few comments about tariffs and Matt was being dramatic about “most” of them.
@Steven L. Taylor: There are people getting crushed out here where I live. I see them every day and on the two or three nights I’m out coming home later in the evening huddled under tarps in the rain and sleeping in tents and building entryways.
That being said. It’s not the because of debt that future generations will be paying off (or building even more spectacularly, given the political choices that we tend to make here). They’ve been getting crushed most of my adult life and the numbers have only gotten bigger. It’s a combination of effects–NIMBY, rampant speculation in residential property, restrictive building codes, erosion of wages in working class jobs that haven’t kept pace with inflation, conservative notions of meritocracy, libertarian notions of taxation as confiscation, liberal tacking to the center in order to win–bringing bigotry lite, tax cuts for the rich lite, nation building lite, queer bashing lite and all the other half loaves of moderation, for a short-form list. Correcting the budget deficit won’t fix the crushing happening. It’s systemic at this point.
Jen expressed the problem best: “Basically, we’re selfish bastards and even more so when we’re under financial stress.” Some of us* are getting crushed, and it’s the balance of us who are doing it.
*Of course, it’s possible that those who are getting crushed are “those people” rather than part of “us.” I’ll let you guys decide that.
@Gustopher:
Up until he tested a cyanide capsule on her.
@Beth:
Yes, we need to de-norm the rapacious rich. I’ve been talking guillotines for a while now. I’m relieved to see someone here talking about fighting, not just doom-scrolling.
@Beth:
People overestimate how hard it is to be honest, and underestimate how much power there is in knowing who you are. As I was cringing away from passing cop cars as I slept under an overpass with nothing but the change I’d found in pay phones, it began to occur to me that I had fucked things up pretty thoroughly. I cast about for someone to blame. But that is a very weak and self-defeating approach. So I decided that no one made me fuck up, I did that. Mea total culpa.
I had a reasonable degree of shit – teen mother, abandoned by father, constantly on the move, poverty, alienation, molestation by family friend, as well as creepy seduction by my mother. Did it all have an effect? Yep. Could I have blamed my subsequent fuck ups on mommy and daddy and family friend etc…? Sure. But playing victim is a weak move. It’s a weak self-definition. I could make a case for playing victim but . . .
Why choose the victim role? Crazy mother? Bye bye, crazy mother, we won’t be talking again. Don’t fit in? La di da, off to the next place. A guy tried to kill me once, I could have been traumatized, waaah. Instead I told the prick how close I’d come to burying a chef’s knife in his fat gut, and bought a gun.
Events leave a mark, but the importance of that mark is a choice each of us makes. People survived Dachau and moved on, and I’m supposed to cry poor me? What am I, a pussy? Fuck that.
@Rob1: Speaking only for myself, I’m perfectly happy with Elon leaving for Mars whenever it suits him to go. Tomorrow is not too soon.
@Fortune: And yet you’re willing to promote the $2 trillion estimate. Pick a side, mugwump.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: My side on tax policy? I haven’t generated a model so how would I know? Rob1 asked a question, I answered it, when he asked for a source I gave it but wisely said I wasn’t going to stand by it, and now everyone who participated will remember. Did you contribute more to the conversation?
@Beth: That was so beautiful and painful all at once.
@Michael Reynolds: I suspect that Trump and all his supporters have also fallen into the trap of being addicted to self-pity and looking around for anyone to blame.
I should point out to all the anti-vaxxers that Mother Nature always wins. Ditto to those who think we don’t need scientists and statisticians in the government. Pretending that global warming doesn’t exist ends up with your beachfront property sinking below the waves, no matter how much you scream. Even if it doesn’t immediately go below water, you can bet that insurance companies are going to keep a sharp eye on the actual statistics of hurricanes and increased bad weather and your property insurance will go up. Pretending that statistics are different than they are doesn’t solve the problem; it just means that the blowback is bigger and meaner when it occurs.
@Daryl: Never let in be said that I’m not generous in acceptance. I’m even okay with Musk having a Ketamine-addled delusion that he has emigrated to Mars.
As long as it’s happening outside the realm of government operations.
@Michael Reynolds: You are what you are because you needed to be that. I do not challenge it.
AND, crying can be very valuable. Very. One can cry one moment and be tough the next. Very tough. Or vice-versa. It isn’t a binary.
You aren’t accountable to me or anybody else here. I would expect that if you were to ask yourself why you are so averse to crying, it might be difficult for you. Do it only if you need to, or expect to gain from it. I’m not the boss of you. I’m more of a hint: Maybe there’s something valuable there.
@just nutha:
Sorry, no. A ketamine based delusion wouldn’t include the fatal radiation dose he’d get on a real trip to Mars.
@Beth: We’re really gonna miss you, Beth. Don’t be a stranger. Please.
And let us know when your book comes out.
@Gustopher:
I have more than *just* faith, I have links saved on file to observations by several mental health professionals regarding this fellow. Not that they are right, necessarily, but they do seem to make sense to me.
I do tend to be pretty firm when it comes to things like the laws of thermodynamics, the law of conservation of energy, the laws governing thermal (i.e., “blackbody”) radiation, the measured properties of substances – the sort of things that make AGW a certainty for example. I am also a firm believer in the non-existence of any supernatural events that violate the laws of nature – no miracles for me.
I grant that there are people who are much better than me at pop psychoanalysis. Even so, I do think Trump is an exceptionally sadistic malignant narcissist. (To clarify. “malignant narcissist” means comorbidity of Antisocial Personality Disorder and Narcissist Personality Disorder, thus lots of sadism also).
Opinions vary, but I do not believe I have a worldview that requires Trump to be demented.
@gVOR10:
Intriguing. I wonder of Musk understands the personal risk he’s taking, and if his actions go bad how fast Trump would blame him for everything and chuck him under a bus? Musk’s behavior is consistent with that of a person who thinks it’s all just a game.
@Rob1:
This.
Even people who do have enough interest run into problems of time, money, and obligations. The world is complex. Understanding a small part of it takes significant time and effort.
@gVOR10:
I’m fine with taking him up on his suggestion to de-orbit the ISS…as long as we put him on it first.
Jesus Christ. Does this mean we just won’t have a flu vaccine? Or that we will get one, but it will be of questionable effectiveness?
And how many Americans will die because of shit like this?
FDA meeting to choose flu vaccine composition canceled without explanation
@Mikey: More on why this is so fucking terrible:
https://insidemedicine.substack.com/p/scoop-fda-vaccine-meeting-abruptly
@Mikey:
@Mikey:
Many countries rely on FDA testing and approval of new medications and devices. See, it would be inefficient for each of over 100 countries to do their own testing and certification. So the bulk of it gets done by the FDA and the European Medicines Agency.
I just jope Europe continues to hold out.
@Michael Reynolds:
I think we need to find a better way to articulate this. You were traumatized. You were a victim. Objectively. That’s how trauma works. It echos and sticks with us. I know I’m stuck with shit that isn’t mine. Circumstantial evidence suggests my maternal grandfather had ADHD and the same learning disabilities my daughter have. I’m stuck with his trauma because of epigenetics and the abuse he dished out to his kids (and me).
On the other hand, what’s the point in wallowing? Not like either of us are gonna not get special victim points. We got shit to do and I ain’t got time.
And you didn’t get a reasonable amount of shit. That’s a fuck ton of shit. You and I are bad judges of what happened to us. That’s the kinda shit that comes out when someone watches you load the dishwasher and asks why you do it like that and you tell them it’s so you don’t get yelled at. By who? By you because mommy trained when you couldn’t know.
Or maybe you are special and ducked the cptsd. But people are way more fragile than the lies we tell ourselves.
@Jay L Gischer:
Full agree.
@just nutha:
Oh, I’m like herpes I never go away. lol.
@Steven L. Taylor: There’s something more going on in that noggin than just bad character. But that too. The behavioral lapses and gaps have become more frequent, and his physical movement is showing newer signs of diminishment. Forgetfulness is more apparent beyond just his usual lying behavior.
We have a tendency to write these things off to “old age” until they become full blown.
@Beth:
A conundrum. We can be variously both more fragile or stronger than the lies we tell ourselves.
@gVOR10: I’m willing to forgo total victory, but I won’t hold anyone else to this. 😉
@Fortune: I dont have access to their budget and I dont know how many of the people they are talking about are part-time but for that much money they are laying off 5 or 6 low paid FT staff so yes. If they are staffed with a hundred people all working 5 or 6 hours a week then they could be laying off half their staff, but that still seems like an an exaggeration to me.
Steve
@gVOR10:
Well of course he did, it was a sign how he loved her. He didn’t want her to struggle along alone after he was gone.
Also how else would he know it was really cyanide and not a placebo?
@Beth:
In my case, my time in prison gave me time to closely examine the rocks in my mind garden (and what scurries away when you flip them over). Therapy gave me tools to recognize what my triggers are, and how to be a member of society on a daily basis…
ETA while I’ve certainly made oodles of mistakes raising our daughter, I have (to the best of my abilities) tried to make different mistakes than the ones from my childhood. For the most part, we all strive to do the best we can.
@Rob1:
The meat is weak. The energy is strong.
@Rob1:
The meat is weak. The energy is strong.
@Beth:
I wouldn’t go that far. I externalized it. Things outside are easier to manage than things inside. Unfortunate for Sambo’s and a few other restaurants. OTOH, I was an amazing employee, and they were a sort of Ponzi scheme, so fuck ’em.
I do miss the pancakes.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
More people might have babies if they realized that all they can do is their best. And it’s usually good enough.
As a father I give myself a C+, maybe a B. I was never going to be one of those TV dads that make us all look bad by playing and frolicking and you know, doing dad stuff. But, somewhat to my surprise, both kids still initiate contact and actually seem to not want us to die, despite a fairly nice inheritance. We have a backlog of WILTYs and Taskmasters we can’t watch til oldest kid is with us. Some families watch sports, we watch British comedians.