RFK Jr. illegally rescinded $11B in public health grants, states’ lawsuit says

RFK Jr. killed grants "with no warning or legally valid explanation," states say.

See full article...

 

[Jakelshark]

my sister in law just got laid off over this crap

they really want a recession...

 

[Scary Devil Monastery]

There's no replacing Katsulas period, far as I'm concerned.

I was thinking Dinklage could make a pretty good G'kar, but they'd, um, have to change the mutual-kill he shares with Londo. Now I'm thinking he would make a better Garibaldi, actually.

Honestly not on board with all the remakes of movies and series which had great cast and chemistry to start with. B5 only needs effects touchup, if even that.

Problem is, any remake will more likely than not be nothing more than an effort to squeeze an old winning formula for new revenue in lieu of trying to figure out a new winning formula.

That said, I think both Londo and G'kar fall in the same category as David Suchet's 'Poirot'. Those roles are tied down too hard for anyone else, no matter how talented, to cast them.

 

[Tonkaman]

Consider the idea that most of the social safety net isn't available before the age of 65 to anyone with a job who isn't a single mother.

Consider how much this angers and irritates working-class and middle-class people who are struggling with the cost of living, paying $17,000+ for one child in daycare per year, and paying $12,000+ for family health insurance plans per year that still have $5,000 deductibles and you have to pay $25-50 out of pocket for every doctor's visit.

When you look at it from that perspective, you'll understand why people are not very invested in this topic. They're not getting any services or benefits for their family. They're just paying lots of taxes and paying a massive portion of their take home income to childcare and family healthcare....and no political party is offering them any relief.

So when given the option of caring about programs that do nothing for them, they've got other things on their mind that take a much higher priority. This doesn't make them bad people. It makes them normal people who have to focus on the things in their life they can take action on. They can only vote every two years, and mostly they're presented with unserious clowns campaigning on issues that aren't going to help them.

So their response to that problem is to vote for the people promising to cut the safety net for those over 65, rather than the people promising to expand the social safety net to those under 65? That's some genius level thinking there...

 

[LotusPoet]

Honestly not on board with all the remakes of movies and series which had great cast and chemistry to start with. B5 only needs effects touchup, if even that.

Problem is, any remake will more likely than not be nothing more than an effort to squeeze an old winning formula for new revenue in lieu of trying to figure out a new winning formula.

That said, I think both Londo and G'kar fall in the same category as David Suchet's 'Poirot'. Those roles are tied down too hard for anyone else, no matter how talented, to cast them.

Agreed.
But it's a better convo than that Dancing dipshit.

 

[dehildum]

I'm at loss understanding how people support or al least accept the dismantling of their own social security net.

They think they are dismantling your safety net, not theirs.

 

[Scary Devil Monastery]

Wow, this is the first time I've seen someone LARP as a Democrat.

Here's some US history: Eisenhower was a pretty good president, built out the Interstate system. Republican after FDR. Nixon was a crook, still got us the Clean Air Act and EPA. Republican. Bill Clinton the great Democrat president? Conservative, passed welfare reform which put people on SS Disability so they can afford to eat, which in turn accelerated the SS crisis. NAFTA? Bush Sr/Clinton. China in the WTO? Clinton. Both parties contributed to factories shutting down, lol if you think there's a working class party in this country. Obama? Greatest accomplishment was passing a law that made you pay a fine if you didn't give a health insurance company your business. If that sounds like a business-friendly solution, it was based on a Republican program, Romneycare! He bailed out the banks while people were losing their houses. Libya and Syria too, sorry for all the refugees Europe. He backed Al Qaeda affiliates to counter Russia and do Israel a solid. From a geopolitical standpoint, Trump in 2016 was an improvement over Obama by simply not overthrowing as many governments.

For election drama, Clinton bought superdelegates in 2016, and Kamala was the Clinton wing pick and she got VP to ally with the Obama wing. She dropped out in 2020 because she was going to lose her home state in the primaries, yet they ran her for president in 2024. Trump didn't elect Trump, Democrat megadonors did. And their stakes are low--sure, the market will tank but it's not like they're spending it all this decade anyway. They can wait it out while the rest of us lose our jobs. Trump didn't get my vote, but it's clear Democrats don't represent me either. Reject the party of Pelosi and Abigail Disney, withdraw support and let a new party fill the vacuum.

That's some nice cherry-picking there. The only ones there which aren't VERY selectively focusing on the exceptions in the respective administration would be Clinton and Eisenhower.

And I note that neither Reagan, Bush, or dubya made that list - which is to be expected because there are few cherries to pick from those.

The trend, since Nixon, is that republicans have steadily dismantled existing systems while steadfastly pushing an agenda where to ever increasing degrees worsen conditions for the working class and funnel money to the already wealthy and networked.
But Reagan is where that really took off. That was when, for the GOP, the cruelty became the whole point.

Sure, the Democrats have just been the ratchet more often than not but, with notable exceptions, they weren't driving the bus in the opposite direction of progress.

What you've got is a system with first past the post mechanics. As long as that persists there will be no third party, any such by necessity being absorbed by the two opposites.
That's why most of the OECD use ranked-choice. The whole world knows FPTP is a primitive system with the logical end result of one party composed of everyone who isn't too big an asshole and the other party being full-on douchebag.

The effects of that, combined with high voter apathy and a voter base supremely dedicated to willful ignorance, means that in practice you've only got three options, two of which are in practice the same - aiding the fascist to power deliberately or not, or voting against the fascist.

Americans failing to realize that are akin to the Germans in 1932 who failed to account for that high voter apathy and a fractured opposition guaranteed the win for that moustachioed little bohemian corporal who only had 12% of the citizenry.

The Democrats were the least shitty alternative between them, voting for Trump, or being the non-voter unwilling to turn the fascist down.

Doesn't make them a good choice. By any metric they're a horrible one with an agenda so twisted to the right that today Eisenhower would be a center-left democrat and Reagan himself would be democrat center-right.
The democrat far right meanwhile are almost identical in politics to european extreme right-wingers such as the german AfD, swedish SD and the french Rassemblement National.
In many ways the democrat party TODAY is in itself best described as the entire normal US political spectrum from the 40's to 80's, with Reagan and Goldwater to the right, Eisenhower in the middle, and FDR to the left.

Not a great party. Too wide a tent, no compromise possible between far right policies and social democratic ones.

But it is what it is; this election was the choice between a political landscape, or a fascist one.

The fascists having won it's unlikely you'll be seeing free and fair elections again this side of an armed uprising.
Those were the stakes and the working class and middle class you speak of will have to realize that a party not representing them well would still have been infinitely favorable to what they allowed to take power.

 

[Mrbonk]

Consider the idea that most of the social safety net isn't available before the age of 65 to anyone with a job who isn't a single mother.

Consider how much this angers and irritates working-class and middle-class people who are struggling with the cost of living, paying $17,000+ for one child in daycare per year, and paying $12,000+ for family health insurance plans per year that still have $5,000 deductibles and you have to pay $25-50 out of pocket for every doctor's visit.

When you look at it from that perspective, you'll understand why people are not very invested in this topic. They're not getting any services or benefits for their family. They're just paying lots of taxes and paying a massive portion of their take home income to childcare and family healthcare....and no political party is offering them any relief.

So when given the option of caring about programs that do nothing for them, they've got other things on their mind that take a much higher priority. This doesn't make them bad people. It makes them normal people who have to focus on the things in their life they can take action on. They can only vote every two years, and mostly they're presented with unserious clowns campaigning on issues that aren't going to help them.

The answer is reform not fuck everyone else over. The problem is repeatedly over decades Death Culters do NOT want to actually work towards reform that helps everyone.

 

[moongoddess]

Conversely, Congress is about to learn it has no more leverage with the States, not even Constitutional or military leverage, if it keeps cutting federal funding to enough safety nets.

The States are just as able to ignore the federal executive branch as the executive branch is able to ignore the judicial branch.

The oligarchs are going to find out the hard way how little wealth they get to keep if they shred all of their institutional financial leverage and then try to hold even a single small state hostage with martial law.

You'd think that various states legalizing marijuana despite a Federal law making it illegal, would have taught Congress (and maybe, even the oligarchs) that truth.

I hope that states aren't forced to remind the Federal government that (despite it's name) the National Guard of each state answers to that state's governor first and foremost.

 

[moongoddess]

Raising taxes on the rich has benefits beyond that, and I say that as someone who is in the top 3% or so.

When rich people are able to accumulate wealth faster than working people, they are able to outcompete everyone else in the asset markets.

Which is why, as someone who's teetering on the edge of being in the 1%, like a slogan I heard recently: "More millionaires, NO billionaires." The proposal that goes along with that slogan supports not simply progressive taxation, but outright governmental confiscation of all personal assets over a $100 million dollar limit. I cry crocodile tears for those who can't rough it on a mere $3-4 million a year in spending money (which is what $100 million will generate, without ever touching principal), and that limit would make it a LOT harder for the wealthy to just outright buy the government.

Huge levels of wealth inequality and democratic government are simply not compatible. They never have been, and they never will be!

 

[moongoddess]

View attachment 106547


Also...is it just me, or is that show starting to be eerily prescient ?

I'm in the middle of a B5 rewatch (abut 3/4 through season 4 right now), and "eerily prescient" is an understatement!

 

[jarvis]

I don't care what anyone thinks about this - I'm angry that the assassination attempt failed and only grazed his ear.

 

[scrimbul]

This is happening across the entire government, everywhere you look, and many more places you don't even know to look. Experts are being fired and state capacity gutted.

The endgame to this wonton destruction is the death of the current State and it's replacement with something new. That something new looks an awful lot like techno-feudalism. They discuss this publicly. Their stated goals include the end of democracy and total unification of corporate and state power. They love to talk about their goal to end the era of liberalism that began with the enlightenment and the industrial revolution. They fucking describe themselves as "the dark enlightenment".

Yeah, you don't fix this with democracy.

You fix it with guillotines.

Until the 75 million political left and 90 million non-voters come together on this fact, this doesn't stop.

And you can't just target only the wealthy Right either. Even people who were 'duped' or betrayed are now still accomplices.

It's going to take a few more years and mass economic collapse for this to be agreed on and learned.

You can get democracy back but the Overton Window will have to, through sheer catastrophe followed by temporary authoritarianism, to a democratic socialist center-left first, and it won't be done peacefully.

This is why it's going to be 10 years before things stabilize and cleanup can even begin.

 

[cameron2]

That's 50 measles clinics and 21 health care workers who won't report any measles cases, or complications from measles, or deaths from measles.

"We are proud to report that reported measles cases have dropped to zero in Texas!"

 

[Contingency]

That's some nice cherry-picking there. The only ones there which aren't VERY selectively focusing on the exceptions in the respective administration would be Clinton and Eisenhower.

And I note that neither Reagan, Bush, or dubya made that list - which is to be expected because there are few cherries to pick from those.

The trend, since Nixon, is that republicans have steadily dismantled existing systems while steadfastly pushing an agenda where to ever increasing degrees worsen conditions for the working class and funnel money to the already wealthy and networked.
But Reagan is where that really took off. That was when, for the GOP, the cruelty became the whole point.

Sure, the Democrats have just been the ratchet more often than not but, with notable exceptions, they weren't driving the bus in the opposite direction of progress.

What you've got is a system with first past the post mechanics. As long as that persists there will be no third party, any such by necessity being absorbed by the two opposites.
That's why most of the OECD use ranked-choice. The whole world knows FPTP is a primitive system with the logical end result of one party composed of everyone who isn't too big an asshole and the other party being full-on douchebag.

The effects of that, combined with high voter apathy and a voter base supremely dedicated to willful ignorance, means that in practice you've only got three options, two of which are in practice the same - aiding the fascist to power deliberately or not, or voting against the fascist.

Americans failing to realize that are akin to the Germans in 1932 who failed to account for that high voter apathy and a fractured opposition guaranteed the win for that moustachioed little bohemian corporal who only had 12% of the citizenry.

The Democrats were the least shitty alternative between them, voting for Trump, or being the non-voter unwilling to turn the fascist down.

Doesn't make them a good choice. By any metric they're a horrible one with an agenda so twisted to the right that today Eisenhower would be a center-left democrat and Reagan himself would be democrat center-right.
The democrat far right meanwhile are almost identical in politics to european extreme right-wingers such as the german AfD, swedish SD and the french Rassemblement National.
In many ways the democrat party TODAY is in itself best described as the entire normal US political spectrum from the 40's to 80's, with Reagan and Goldwater to the right, Eisenhower in the middle, and FDR to the left.

Not a great party. Too wide a tent, no compromise possible between far right policies and social democratic ones.

But it is what it is; this election was the choice between a political landscape, or a fascist one.

The fascists having won it's unlikely you'll be seeing free and fair elections again this side of an armed uprising.
Those were the stakes and the working class and middle class you speak of will have to realize that a party not representing them well would still have been infinitely favorable to what they allowed to take power.

You call it cherry picking, I call it demonstrating that you have an un-nuanced understanding of US politics. Clinton is a political saint to many older Democrats and my list of Clinton's misdeeds is truthful but not generally raised. It is telling that you accept it at face value. Blue dress, "I did not inhale," sure, welfare reform isn't high on many lists. It's like you learned all this from Youtube or something. "Reagan bad, Bush bad, Trump bad. You say Reagan good, Bush good, Trump good. You are dumb. " That's been your response to others here regardless of what they actually wrote, and it's weak at best. I've already talked you down from post-FDR to post-Nixon, hey, there's that Gerald Ford guy, move those goalposts even further. Also, please remind the poor dumb Americans of that Hitler guy, they don't red good her.

I have a US politics homework assignment for you, mostly based on your arguments here:
1) The US "democrat far right" you mentioned, can you name a couple in office and their platform?
2) Bush Sr--what during his tenure as president stands out to you as particularly objectionable?
3) What is a dixiecrat and where are they now?
4) I punch you in the face any chance I get, can I count on your vote next election? Why or why not?

 

[scrimbul]

AP already called it, good chum. Just revel in this sub. [:chefkiss:]

In more good news today: Greedy Old Perverts held onto two Florida seats, both red as cheeks on a baboon’s bum. Held onto, just. LOLZ

Time to cut off your piquing, and go tally some numbers: total turnout, minus Dem votes, minus GOP votes. GOP votes today are as high as they can go (least until Elmo gets into the voting machinery, so be sure to recount too!), making every still-checked ballot some human whose butt you need to kindly kick into motion, till y’all are rolling as an unstoppable boss.



Take it from one who, every morning for 4 decades wants that one easy gulp: bollocks. What you need, mate is coffee. Coffee so demonically black and hard you can stand a spoon in it, and then the spoon melts.

None of us here has yet earned a right to self-pity. You haven’t, I sure as shit haven’t; so stop it. Y’all have been gifted an unparalleled once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reforge your world. Carpe diem: shorts, pants, shoes. Just like Superman.



Of course it is! All of this has happened before and will happen again.

Mythmaking has its own Power. Training videos for your soul, if you like.

View attachment 106564

…

To all our American friends today: Don’t sweat the shit of the day. Socks don’t fret before entering the spin cycle, and they come out of it. Fix your eye on the part you choose to play in it. So that, no matter how those against you will trick and bully, distract and con, you hold; and always push forward.

All of this carnage was already unavoidable. Just a price to be paid for napping on the job. You must look beyond: to where you must stand on 11/3/2026, and every step to it. You can rebuild what’s been lost in your future. Humanity’s slogged through far worse.

Today, you know you must construct an absolute Democratic supermajority to effect your goals unimpeded, so tally up what you’re short by then go out and get it.

And, once you’ve got it, never again let the indolent cusses on the hill forget who holds their stones by constantly kindly squeezing.

You're too optimistic here.

As the GOP gets more desperate there's a lot more damage they can cause en masse in ways that can't be fixed with elections and politics at a later date.

A theoretical Democratic supermajority first has to purge its circular firing squad elements, including and especially its 'moderate' right fringes that fled to it as the sane party then keep disrupting it with capital and special interests, those people need to get in line with a proper progressive-left Overton Window.

Then you still have to have plans as a supermajority to impose Nuremburg Trials 2.0 on the GOP and strip it from power, something you cannot do without holding both the legislative and executive branches and temporarily suspending any judicial branch judgements standing in the way using already shattered judicial precedent and rule of law in bad faith.

To do THAT needs far better numbers than Wisconsin or barely held GOP districts represent and the GOP has a lot of levers to pull to kill enough mid-term voters in 2026 to cause absolute havoc merely by exploiting or not helping against the right natural disasters.

These people will not be removed by democracy. Period. They have a lot of electoral machinery, rule of law and federal funding to vindictively destroy over the next decade before they are finally defeated and it can be definitely proven to people outside the country that the GOP will never hold power again AND its constituent industrial bases that considered themselves cheated are in an even worse political and economic state until a date set to end the Reconstruction 2.0 than mere chronic structural unemployment.

Without that EXACT outcome all you have is chaos, pain and exhaustion for both sides.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

Honestly not on board with all the remakes of movies and series which had great cast and chemistry to start with. B5 only needs effects touchup, if even that.

I mostly agree with that. The one advantage a B5 remake with JMS at the helm would have would be if he could get whatever studio is funding it to agree to guarantee that he gets five seasons, and he gets to tell the story he wanted to the first time (but had to compromise on).

But while roles can be recast, recasting chemistry is much harder. And it wasn’t just the Londo/G’Kar double act, there were so many great casting choices.

And fun fact: during scenes that required Centauri women to be in the background (non-speaking extras), JMS insisted on (where possible) hiring women who had undergone treatments that left them naturally bald. I thought that was a lovely touch.

 

[launcap]

It's the awful, corrosive outcome of emphasizing independence and individual ability as virtues, without also teaching that strengthening (and relying on) one another makes the whole community stronger. It's where individual freedoms morph into "I got mine, screw you," and it's why you get people who benefit from Social Security or Medicare but still spew vitriol about "freeloaders" (because acknowledging that we all benefit from a social safety net is anathema to their entire framework of self-worth).

I tend to think of nations in D&D alignment terms (been playing it for years - started with AD&D..)

The UK: True Neutral with lawful tendancies.
Germany: Lawful Neutral.
Russia: Lawful Evil.
USA: Chaotic Neutral with evil tendancies

Doubtless a gross simplification but it suits my OCD brain.

 

[launcap]

We just got an email from our commissioner that our state has joined in a 23 state lawsuit to stop these cuts.

My prediction:

The States will win the lawsuit, all the way up to and including the Supreme Court (who will, eventually, realise that Trump is fatal for their continued existance, power and relavence).

Trump and his toadies will ignore the courts.

The States will then deny any co-operation with the Federal government, esentially becoming self-governing and trade only with ally states while ignoring anything that the Federal government says and does.

Martial law will be invoked and, after a lot of death, fail. The US will devolve into several hostile entities.

Putin will have to have an operation to repair the ribs he broke laughing so hard.

 

[launcap]

as a side note, I wonder what kind of offers the secret service agents are getting... and sucks to be them in this round...

Someone should point them to the actions of the Praetorian Guard..

 

[Ranma]

Nearly all of the plaintiffs are represented by a Democratic attorney general. Kentucky and Pennsylvania have Republican attorneys general and are instead represented by their governors, both Democrats.

It's all about party now. What's actually good for the people or the country be damned.

 

[scrimbul]

Wow, this is the first time I've seen someone LARP as a Democrat.

Here's some US history: Eisenhower was a pretty good president, built out the Interstate system. Republican after FDR. Nixon was a crook, still got us the Clean Air Act and EPA. Republican. Bill Clinton the great Democrat president? Conservative, passed welfare reform which put people on SS Disability so they can afford to eat, which in turn accelerated the SS crisis. NAFTA? Bush Sr/Clinton. China in the WTO? Clinton. Both parties contributed to factories shutting down, lol if you think there's a working class party in this country. Obama? Greatest accomplishment was passing a law that made you pay a fine if you didn't give a health insurance company your business. If that sounds like a business-friendly solution, it was based on a Republican program, Romneycare! He bailed out the banks while people were losing their houses. Libya and Syria too, sorry for all the refugees Europe. He backed Al Qaeda affiliates to counter Russia and do Israel a solid. From a geopolitical standpoint, Trump in 2016 was an improvement over Obama by simply not overthrowing as many governments.

For election drama, Clinton bought superdelegates in 2016, and Kamala was the Clinton wing pick and she got VP to ally with the Obama wing. She dropped out in 2020 because she was going to lose her home state in the primaries, yet they ran her for president in 2024. Trump didn't elect Trump, Democrat megadonors did. And their stakes are low--sure, the market will tank but it's not like they're spending it all this decade anyway. They can wait it out while the rest of us lose our jobs. Trump didn't get my vote, but it's clear Democrats don't represent me either. Reject the party of Pelosi and Abigail Disney, withdraw support and let a new party fill the vacuum.

While the Democratic Party might be forced to collapse in order to collapse the GOP entirely and the younger breed of fascists with the older ones, you specifically have such a corrupted view of recent political history that is so far off the rails that it's no wonder you're not in any political party, you're not observant enough and trying to sound like you are.

You're wrong, and it's time to never post about this again.

 

[Contingency]

While the Democratic Party might be forced to collapse in order to collapse the GOP entirely and the younger breed of fascists with the older ones, you specifically have such a corrupted view of recent political history that is so far off the rails that it's no wonder you're not in any political party, you're not observant enough and trying to sound like you are.

You're wrong, and it's time to never post about this again.

"HERETIC!" He shouted at the top of his lungs. You said my view is corrupted, off the rails, not observant, and I'm putting on airs, I'm wrong and I shouldn't post anywhere again.

You know what you didn't say? Citing any of that recent history I said to show it was untrue. Arsetechnica, they didn't send their best lol

 

[DancinginAshes]

What's going to be available to any of them after 65 under Trump?

Probably the same stuff that's available now. Everyone is afraid of angering the old people because they have nothing better to do than vote in every election.

 

[DancinginAshes]

That alone should tell you all you need to know regarding who operates in bad faith.
Because interestingly enough the ACA was just a reformulation of the old republican HEART act.
The GOP condemning what is essentially their own old act has only one answer - they do not and have not in living memory cared about the country or their constituents.



Purely? No, but in context it's still the difference between normal politics and deliberate sabotage of the nation.
The democrats at least tried, on multiple occasions, to restrict private money in politics. And failed, which from there on meant every congressperson came to the House with one or two topics where they had to carry water for a corporation in reciprocity.
Even there, though, you can tell there's a difference in to whom democrats and republicans sold themselves.
The republican-sponsored causes were often outright malicious. And no wonder, when their entire platform has been to wreck shit people need and tell the sheep voting for them it's all the fault of the godless libs.



So let me get this straight. You state that rather than vote for the guy who doesn't do what they want they'll vote for the guy who's been actively hurting them and putting them in the seat they're in in the first place.

Fuckin' genius, mate. Like jews deciding that rather than vote for someone who won't address antisemitism, why not vote for dog damn Hitler. That'll teach'em, fer sure, eh?
The stupid stings and burns there.




Education, factual history, common sense and reason?

Yeah, from your above comments, I get it. You're not a fan of any of them.

Deliberate sabotage of the nation?

People vote with their feet, and they're leaving California, Illinois, and New York in droves. Why would they leave those states for Florida and Texas if they were afraid of the Republicans trying to destroy them?

You going to say it's because they're ignorant and not educated? Look around social media, and you'll notice that most people complain about how many idiots they have in their office workplace....and most of those morons have college degrees. We have a society of overcredentialed people that didn't learn anything in college because they weren't forced to due to the low academic standards. The memes about clueless MBAs destroying good teams are based on the lived experience of white collar workers. Those are the educated people you claim as your own.

(I have a liberal arts degree, so I know exactly who these people are because I went to school with them)


Democrats campaign on bright and shiny ideas and rhetoric, but they govern from the same pig trough that Republicans do. Everything is a grift. Every piece of legislation or new program is an opportunity for patronage and personal enrichment. If they were so smart and benevolent, then the states that they've had control of for decades wouldn't be such disasters.

You're just not smart enough to understand that Democrats aren't friends to the common people any more than the Republicans or the EU leadership is. The commoners are expendable rabble to the people that go to Davos and embassy parties in Paris, London, D.C., and Berlin.

 

[DancinginAshes]

The answer is reform not fuck everyone else over. The problem is repeatedly over decades Death Culters do NOT want to actually work towards reform that helps everyone.

Do you find it odd that California, Illinois, and New York are all experiencing a years-long trend now of working-class and middle-class U.S. citizens migrating out of those states towards purple and red states that offer more opportunities for home ownership and better schools? By better schools, I mean they can actually afford to live in an area with good public schools...which often isn't the case in the three states I mentioned. The median home price in California is now $861,000, for example. In Illinois and New York state, you can find affordable homes...but they're unlikely to be anywhere within acceptable commuting distance of the urban areas where the best jobs are. If you can work remote then great, but if you can work remote then why would you deliberately move to Illinois or New York state when you can find better options elsewhere?

Those three pillars of "responsible government that helps everyone" don't seem to be helping everyone. They're great places to live if you're rich or if you're poor, but everyone in the middle gets squeezed relentlessly without receiving much positive in return.

 

[Pariah]

All politics is the honor system. Democracy functions by mutual consent. Laws are valid because we collectively agree they are valid. When we stop agreeing, then rule of law is out the window.

The reason we should do politics in good faith is because when that breaks down, only violence is left.

The argument for being a law abiding citizen is a joke when the President is a unreformed, convicted criminal.
Why should I feel obliged to fallow the law anymore when it is obvious the new law of the land is take what you can get by any means?

 

[Melon of Troy]

When did having testimony from people who know the candidate stop being a thing? After Anita Hill?

She bravely testified and got her life turned upside down...


...so that Clarence Thomas could spend 40 years poisoning the supreme court

 

[Cherlindrea]

I'm at loss understanding how people support or al least accept the dismantling of their own social security net.

I think there's a myriad of reasons people accept or support this. 1) some people are in denial it's happening, because to admit it's happening will mean they have to either stand up and do something, or be guilty by silent complicity; 2) some people assume that this will hurt "the others" more than themselves, so they're willing to accept it; 3) some people believe that "their" Senator/Representative/President will save them and exempt them (largely because those groups were implicitly hinted at being protected) and only "the bad people" will be hurt--for an example of this, see the guy that voted for Trump when Trump promised brutal deportations and his wife was then deported.

I'm sure there's other factors and beliefs, but these are the main ones I'm seeing from people. I really suspect that #1 is the biggest category of "those who are okay with this". I know my Boomer father falls into it.

 

[Walker On Earth]

"HERETIC!" He shouted at the top of his lungs. You said my view is corrupted, off the rails, not observant, and I'm putting on airs, I'm wrong and I shouldn't post anywhere again.

You know what you didn't say? Citing any of that recent history I said to show it was untrue. Arsetechnica, they didn't send their best lol

You know how we know you're blowing smoke? It's because you don't support any of your purported 'facts' with evidence. Oh, no, you don't feel the need to prove you're right; that's far too pedestrian for the likes of you. No, we have to prove you're wrong. And you, apparently, get to be the sole judge of whether that's the case. No. Support. Your. Claims. With reputable links and cites. BTW, as long as we're playing more superior than thou ... I outrank you. By a considerable margin. That's not me beating my withered breast. That's you being a jackass ignoramus who thinks they can bluff their way out of any challenge to their claims.

Prove me wrong. You being so all world-weary superior to those of us in our seventies and eighties.

 

[Contingency]

You know how we know you're blowing smoke? It's because you don't support any of your purported 'facts' with evidence. Oh, no, you don't feel the need to prove you're right; that's far too pedestrian for the likes of you. No, we have to prove you're wrong. And you, apparently, get to be the sole judge of whether that's the case. No. Support. Your. Claims. With reputable links and cites. BTW, as long as we're playing more superior than thou ... I outrank you. By a considerable margin. That's not me beating my withered breast. That's you being a jackass ignoramus who thinks they can bluff their way out of any challenge to their claims.

Prove me wrong. You being so all world-weary superior to those of us in our seventies and eighties.

Is this a contest to determine who's superior, or the superior jackass? I feel I got a chance at both.

You and the last guy favor style over substance. Write a whole paragraph on why I'm awful, won't contest anything. Dude over here demanding MLA cites, meanwhile he can't be bothered to point out a single thing he disagrees with. "And they better be from sites I agree with, you pathetic worm!" Alright Suckrates, go spend five minutes finding something you believe is false, post it, and we'll see where that goes.

 

[Walker On Earth]

Is this a contest to determine who's superior, or the superior jackass? I feel I got a chance at both.

You and the last guy favor style over substance. Write a whole paragraph on why I'm awful, won't contest anything. Dude over here demanding MLA cites, meanwhile he can't be bothered to point out a single thing he disagrees with. "And they better be from sites I agree with, you pathetic worm!" Alright Suckrates, go spend five minutes finding something you believe is false, post it, and we'll see where that goes.

You mean like in this craptastic post? Now. Show. Your. Work. Support. Your. Claims.

 

[MedicalGeek]

my sister in law just got laid off over this crap

they really want a recession...

They do. Desperate people who are in the verge of homelessness or already sleeping in their cars will take any work at any wage and tolerate almost any abuse.

 

[LotusPoet]

Is this a contest to determine who's superior, or the superior jackass? I feel I got a chance at both.

You and the last guy favor style over substance. Write a whole paragraph on why I'm awful, won't contest anything. Dude over here demanding MLA cites, meanwhile he can't be bothered to point out a single thing he disagrees with. "And they better be from sites I agree with, you pathetic worm!" Alright Suckrates, go spend five minutes finding something you believe is false, post it, and we'll see where that goes.

No idea what the convo is even about, but I got a giggle out of "Suckrates"

 

[Koga Onutalepo]

No idea what the convo is even about, but I got a giggle out of "Suckrates"

The convo is about Contingency being the standard bottom-shelf zero-substance troll and getting all pissy about called out on that fact.

 

[Scary Devil Monastery]

You mean like in this craptastic post? Now. Show. Your. Work. Support. Your. Claims.

The entire premise of defending the indefensible and exculpating fascism relies fully on presenting extraordinary claims, demanding others present evidence against those claims, and ignoring such evidence when presented.

While trying to shitpost their way past it. In this the fascist apologist perfectly mimics the troll rhetoric of OG nazism.

 

[Contingency]

You mean like in this craptastic post? Now. Show. Your. Work. Support. Your. Claims.

Apologies, I misjudged you. I thought you'd dispute a claim, we get bogged down defining the word "is" like an armchair philosopher and it'd be a drawn out affair. You know, normal flame war.

Well, you threw out "craptastic" as your best insult and failed to even link my post directly. You have managed to demonstrate a lack of rhetorical, artistic, and now even technical merit. "Suckrates" you are not. Even "Kant" would be overly generous.

The convo is about Contingency being the standard bottom-shelf zero-substance troll and getting all pissy about called out on that fact.

Yes, that is me, slinger of such incendiaries as "Eisenhower Interstate System" and "free trade agreements hurt the working class." I'll be honest, I don't think it's a me problem, I think it's a you problem. I've been on the internet a long time. 20 years ago, you guys would find one thing, take it out of context, and hammer it home. It wouldn't be a fair shake, but at least you know they had to skim it to craft a reply. You and the last couple guys, nothing indicates you even saw the original post. Professor "Twitter sent me" up there, he couldn't even quote the post, much less a single point.

Maybe the Ars front page is just dregs now, but there's been a drop in the quality of discourse on the Internet. It's just people screaming at each other now. I like to think at least a counterpoint or objection is a basic obligation. Like, I disagree with you, here's where you're wrong. This "you are a poopy butthole" stuff, it makes yo momma jokes look like a poet's symposium. If you're going to be mean, at least do it with a flourish for the entertainment of the crowd. Instead, "craptastic." Surely, I treat with genius here at Ars.

The entire premise of defending the indefensible and exculpating fascism relies fully on presenting extraordinary claims, demanding others present evidence against those claims, and ignoring such evidence when presented.

While trying to shitpost their way past it. In this the fascist apologist perfectly mimics the troll rhetoric of OG nazism.

That's easily reflected back on you. You have made the extrordinary claim that I'm a fascist apologist, yet offer nothing to back it up. You made a weak argument, I cited information that torpedoes it, and so clearly I must be secret Hitler. Whatever, you probably weren't even alive when Godwin's law was coined.

 

[scrimbul]

The convo is about Contingency being the standard bottom-shelf zero-substance troll and getting all pissy about called out on that fact.

Basically, yeah.

In the short term, probably should review the posts for something reportable and get his ass booted.

But the double-standards against liberal politicians also stopped being interesting in the runup to the 2008 election.

I would think most people would be tired of debating why liberals worldwide have to play a perfect game against double standards.

Without exception the people who have the absolute least morals and lecture most loudly about having no morals tend to be Republicans followed by Republicans pretending to be both-sides-ist astroturfers from out of conservative think tanks.

Like, if liberals even once played a decade long election cycle the way conservatives have the last century, they'd likely not only stand a good chance of winning, but also ousting their conservative opposition into the political wilderness for at least half a century, but their tent is too large to allow them to do it and vote totals are all they have even if the vote totals and blocs are inconsistent, fickle, and sometimes in such conflict with every other faction as to be not worth pandering to.

But it would at the very least be more interesting than 'heads I win, tails you lose' to every liberal incumbent, even the ones getting 2 terms.