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Posted
1 hour ago, bolverk said:

I like the explanation of how it would be funded: "tariffs and other intelligent things."

Now that Musk apparently has some control over Treasury payment systems, we know where things are headed - Bitcoin is going to go To the Fucking Moon!

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Posted
1 minute ago, Brian Fantana said:

Someone needs to [definitely not anything that would get me or the board's owners in legal trouble] Apartheid Justin Hammer like yesterday

 

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Posted
6 hours ago, miguelito said:

When will the guardrails kick in?

We still have guardrails, right?

Right?

Just wait, Musk has infected Texas - Texas is setting up a DOGE agency modeled after Leon’s, and Texas is also establishing a Bitcoin reserve.  Becauee let’s do thing that end up costing the taxpayers more while making people like Leon even richer.

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Posted
1 minute ago, atomheartbevo said:

Just wait, Musk has infected Texas - Texas is setting up a DOGE agency modeled after Leon’s, and Texas is also establishing a Bitcoin reserve.  Becauee let’s do thing that end up costing the taxpayers more while making people like Leon even richer.

It would be the ultimate act of irony if the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission disbanded our fledgling Texas DOGE Agency. 

Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, Bateshorn said:

I can't decide which is worse: The Nazis in charge, or the limp dick dip shits that are the current opposition.  I mean, its the former, but the entire Democratic party is just pathetic rn. 

“You fuckers voted for this, so enjoy it. Hope the price of eggs was worth it” - me if I was the leader of the opposition

also me to American voters

Mixed Martial Arts Middle Finger GIF by UFC

Edited by Js1
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Posted (edited)

https://the.ink/p/usaid-fought-apartheid-musk-is-killing

As we speak, an unelected billionaire, born in South Africa, is staging an unconstitutional coup in the United States, shutting down an agency that happened to fight the apartheid regime he and his family thrived under as rich whites.

Now take a moment and read that again.

This is not a drill. All the drills are behind us now.

The billionaire, of course, is Elon Musk, who decided in recent days to disembowel USAID, the nation’s primary agency for foreign aid, an indispensable tool of diplomacy and the exercise of soft power, and one of the largest aid providers on the planet. 

 

USAID, it turns out, was important in bringing about the end of apartheid in South Africa. And, in an inversion of today’s anti-congressional coup, that work by the agency came about because Congress actually overrode former President Reagan’s veto of aid and asserted its leadership role in the making of U.S. law, in this case the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act (CAAA).

Because the CAAA was seen as the American people’s policy and not the administration’s policy, it gave USAID entry to South African communities that were hesitant to work with the U.S. government.

Edited by tx 3 putt
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Posted
20 hours ago, InkaUtexas said:

We got a lot of lawyers here. Which one of you fucks is this?

One deputy counsel, Clayton Cromer, has experience working for a white shoe law firm and in the Austin AI and tech scene, TPM has learned. It’s not clear what he and other appointees bring to the table in terms of personnel law.

Aggy.  https://duckduckgo.com/?q=clayton+cromer&ia=web#:~:text=Clayton J. Cromer - lw.com

That will open a pdf, because he's been scrubbed from Latham & Watkins website.

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Posted (edited)
46 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

From that article

https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-government-young-engineers/

The 19 year old


The coup has l ready happened.  Musk’s people have the keys to the government.  The President Musk memes aren’t memes, they are more true than people realize.

As an engineer myself, except one with an actual degree, such technocrats can be really dangerous in positions outside their narrow expertise, if any.

This is especially true of some code-monkey savants under 25 years of age.  I think there's something even worse about operating and navigating in the abstract world of electrons, bits, bytes, and strings of code that make these kind of geeks worse than many or most of those that have gone before.

Being smart, especially in a very narrow field, does not guarantee competence, even in that field.

Look at the conspiratorial ramblings of this tool.https://substack.com/@weeklybyte

Edited by TwiceHorn
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Posted
Just now, TwiceHorn said:

As an engineer myself, except one with an actual degree, such technocrats can be really dangerous in positions outside their narrow expertise, if any.

This is especially true of some code-monkey savants under 25 years of age.

Being smart, especially in a very narrow field, does not guarantee competence, even in that field.

Code monkey savants? LOL. Elon is weaponizing the autists. Agree that this does not ensure competency, but fully watching people react. 

Posted (edited)
9 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

In English next time?

He gets off on seeing people upset. It's why he's in the health insurance game

Edited by Captainant
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Posted
4 minutes ago, Captainant said:

He gets off on seeing people upset. It's why he's in health insurance game

Not specific to this poster, but this aspect of Americans (seeing the “not us” suffer) is baffling to me.  Except when it comes to aggy.

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Posted
20 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

And it's being used against us - witness Leon trying to dismantle an agency that literally A) buys food from American farmers and goods from American companies  that would otherwise not be produced or even rot (and by keeping those farmers going, it contributes to our national security) and B) shipping it overseas where it buys us some goodwill (good for American business)

How much of the budget specifically goes to this function?

 

It's amazing how easily distracted people are. 

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Posted
13 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

How much of the budget specifically goes to this function?

 

It's amazing how easily distracted people are. 

A truly tiny fraction of it -- something like 1%.  Which is why this crusade by Elon and his minions is so fucking insanely stupid.  The ROI we get on USAID dollars is incredibly positive.  It costs us next to nothing, yet it does all of those things Bolverk listed.

Meanwhile, the MAGA dipshits think that Elon is really coming in and cleaning house, and reining in spending.  He's doing nothing of the sort.  Because his real mission has zero to do with America's fiscal health, and everything to do with creating an isolated, authoritarian nation state that cedes limitless power to him.

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Posted
Just now, Brisketexan said:

A truly tiny fraction of it -- something like 1%. 

Well that’s what they care about most 

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Posted
3 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Meanwhile, the MAGA dipshits think that Elon is really coming in and cleaning house, and reining in spending.  He's doing nothing of the sort.  Because his real mission has zero to do with America's fiscal health, and everything to do with creating an isolated, authoritarian nation state that cedes limitless power to him.

3 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Well that’s what they care about most 

I honestly think the USAID stuff is personal for him.  

Think about if you grew up in a certain environment that you were mostly happy in, then something changed it fundamentally., and then decades later you got the chance to dismantle something that was a part of helping to fundamentally change the environment you grew up in, no matter how small it is (such as USAID in this case).

 It's like the Gen Xers in Russia who have a fondness for the Soviet Union, because in their minds things were somehow better (ignoring all of the other problems). They remember the good times, and right now a lot of them are faced with a "a big chunk of the world hates us, so fuck it, let's really give them a reason to hate us!". People get nostalgic when they get into their 40s and 50s.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

People get nostalgic when they get into their 40s and 50s.

My wife's concert ticket agenda is nodding its head to this.

But say what you will, U2 puts on a good show.

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Posted
Just now, DaysOff said:

Ana thinks he'll get to go on a rocket ride someday. Keep simping and grinding little buddy.

Not so sure of that. When asked if he'd like a ride, they'd eventually move on to the next person after listening to his rambling response that fails to answer the question 

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Posted
22 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

How much of the budget specifically goes to this function?

 

It's amazing how easily distracted people are. 

Yeah amazing so many people are distracted by 200+ years of Constitutional order being steamrolled by an unelected billionaire. If GOP doesn’t like it- they’ve got both houses of Congress. 
 

Never mind the costs to privacy, national security and literal human lives. *waves hands* it’s just so unimportant 

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Posted
1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

My wife's concert ticket agenda is nodding its head to this.

But say what you will, U2 puts on a good show.

Dre Day Super Bowl halftime really let that cat out the bag. 

Posted
1 minute ago, Pig Bellmont said:

Yeah amazing so many people are distracted by 200+ years of Constitutional order being steamrolled by an unelected billionaire.

Unelected billionaire vs. unelected bureaucrats. Meh Constitutional order. LOL.  

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Posted
1 minute ago, Anastasis said:

Well, that would seem to be the problem wouldn't it. 

Why is that the problem?

Something that we get serious ROI for that is a rounding error in our budget should go in the "we're good with this, no need to fuck with it -- hell, even if we trim inefficiencies and shit, it's fractions of pennies on the dollar of the total budget.  Let's focus on real spending items first" bucket.

Yet....it's targe #1 for an authoritarian, racist oligarch whose clear goal is to isolate the US and become its de facto authoritarian ruler.  THAT tells us exactly why USAID is being targeted here.  It has ZERO to do with America's fiscal health, and 100% to do with Elon's personal agenda.  

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Posted
5 minutes ago, DaysOff said:

Ana thinks he'll get to go on a rocket ride someday. Keep simping and grinding little buddy.

4 minutes ago, Foosters said:

Not so sure of that. When asked if he'd like a ride, they'd eventually move on to the next person after listening to his rambling response that fails to answer the question 

Yeah, for somebody who is some big on space, he seems to get really shy when asked why he doesn't take a trip into orbit on one of his own rockets.

Almost as if it's a facade.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Why is that the problem?

Something that we get serious ROI for that is a rounding error in our budget should go in the "we're good with this, no need to fuck with it -- hell, even if we trim inefficiencies and shit, it's fractions of pennies on the dollar of the total budget.  Let's focus on real spending items first" bucket.

Yet....it's targe #1 for an authoritarian, racist oligarch whose clear goal is to isolate the US and become its de facto authoritarian ruler.  THAT tells us exactly why USAID is being targeted here.  It has ZERO to do with America's fiscal health, and 100% to do with Elon's personal agenda.  

If the things that you are telling me are so fucking essential (and I tend to agree that they are good things that we should be doing) make up less than 1% of the USAID budget, USAID is non-essential. 

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Something that we get serious ROI for that is a rounding error in our budget should go in the "we're good with this, no need to fuck with it -- hell, even if we trim inefficiencies and shit, it's fractions of pennies on the dollar of the total budget.  Let's focus on real spending items first" bucket.

Yet....it's targe #1 for an authoritarian, racist oligarch whose clear goal is to isolate the US and become its de facto authoritarian ruler.  THAT tells us exactly why USAID is being targeted here.  It has ZERO to do with America's fiscal health, and 100% to do with Elon's personal agenda.  

It really is a national security issue if it helps even a few tens of thousand American farmers have the difference between a good year and a bad year, and keeps them in production and not shutting down and getting out of the farming business, so that down the road, if the shit hits the fan, we've got those farmers still chugging along that can help keep our food supplies going.

For instance, this stuff is what USAID does and it helps use keep our agriculture chugging along.

https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2024/04/18/usda-usaid-deploy-1-billion-emergency-food-assistance

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Agency for International Development will deploy $1 billion in Commodity Credit Corporation funding to purchase U.S.-grown commodities to provide emergency food assistance to people in need throughout the world, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and USAID Administrator Samantha Power announced today.

“America’s farmers are the most productive and efficient in the world, and we rely on them to supply safe and nutritious food not only to our nation, but to the global community,” Secretary Vilsack said. “With many millions of people in dire need worldwide, the U.S. agricultural sector is well positioned to provide lifesaving food assistance. The United States produces more commodities than are consumed, and therefore has the opportunity to partner with USAID and extend this food to those in our global community who are struggling.”

“During this time of staggering global hunger, America is extending a hand to hungry communities around the world – and American farmers are crucial to that effort,” said Administrator Power. “USAID is honored to collaborate with USDA to purchase, ship and distribute our surplus food supplies to people in urgent need across the globe.”

In October 2023, USDA stated its intention to bolster efforts to combat global hunger by purchasing U.S.-grown commodities and working with USAID, the lead federal coordinator for disaster assistance, to ensure those commodities reach people in need around the world.

An initial tranche of approximately $950 million will support the purchase, shipment and distribution of U.S. wheat, rice, sorghum, lentils, chickpeas, dry peas, vegetable oil, cornmeal, navy beans, pinto beans and kidney beans – commodities that align with traditional USAID international food assistance programming. USAID will determine where the available commodities will be most appropriate for programming without disrupting local markets. USDA will purchase the commodities and transfer them to USAID for distribution.

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Posted
1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

For someone who has said a lot of stupid shit, that ranks up there.

First, nothing is "essential."  If we want to live like isolated cavemen, we can make do.  We can cut all government spending, and live as warring tribes, with no utilities, roads, anything.  Humanity will survive as roving bands of hairless apes, we've done it before.

Second, the relative cost of something has very little correlation to whether it's essential/necessary/very helpful.  I am on the top floor of a building constructed using modern techniques.  I suspect that the cost of the bolts used to connect the girders that form the structure of this building was less than 1% of the total construction budget.  But if you suggested eliminating that item from the budget because, after all, if it's just 1% of the cost, it's "non-essential," I'd ask that you give me a chance to vacate the fuck out of the premises before you do so.

Tying cost to whether it's truly valuable is dumb as shit.  Shit, I am on a medication that's essential to maintaining my health, and its cost is less than 1% of my annual budget.  By that measure, I should drop it, as it's "non-essential."  How stupid.

 

We are not talking about the precious bolts holding your ledge to the wall. This notion that if you cut out a wasteful component of government spending, it's mad max, anarchy, no roads, no electricity, no "anything", we all devolve to hairless apes...I mean, you just tell on yourself.

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Posted (edited)
5 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

This notion that if you cut out a wasteful component of government spending,

You're begging the question.

You presume it is wasteful....because it is just 1% of our budget.  The size of the spend is not what drives whether it is wasteful or not.  The 1% they spent on bolts for this building?  Not wasteful.  The .001% they spent on new fancy light fixtures in the lobby?  Definitely wasteful, and silly, nobody cares.

USAID: provides a lot of bang for the buck.  Provides real-deal strategic benefit both at home and abroad.

FFS, "has a high ROI" should be one of the main criteria that puts something in the "not wasteful spending" bucket.  You, on the other hand, literally said that because it's not a large percentage of the budget, it is therefore non-essential/a wasteful component of government spending.  And that is one of the stupidest things I've read on this board.

Edited by Brisketexan
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Posted (edited)
8 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

 

We are not talking about the precious bolts holding your ledge to the wall. This notion that if you cut out a wasteful component of government spending, it's mad max, anarchy, no roads, no electricity, no "anything", we all devolve to hairless apes...I mean, you just tell on yourself.

So what should replace their role? Or nah, fuck em and let them eat manioc ?

Edited by InkaUtexas
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Posted
20 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

It really is a national security issue if it helps even a few tens of thousand American farmers have the difference between a good year and a bad year, and keeps them in production and not shutting down and getting out of the farming business, so that down the road, if the shit hits the fan, we've got those farmers still chugging along that can help keep our food supplies going.

For instance, this stuff is what USAID does and it helps use keep our agriculture chugging along.

https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2024/04/18/usda-usaid-deploy-1-billion-emergency-food-assistance

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Agency for International Development will deploy $1 billion in Commodity Credit Corporation funding to purchase U.S.-grown commodities to provide emergency food assistance to people in need throughout the world, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and USAID Administrator Samantha Power announced today.

“America’s farmers are the most productive and efficient in the world, and we rely on them to supply safe and nutritious food not only to our nation, but to the global community,” Secretary Vilsack said. “With many millions of people in dire need worldwide, the U.S. agricultural sector is well positioned to provide lifesaving food assistance. The United States produces more commodities than are consumed, and therefore has the opportunity to partner with USAID and extend this food to those in our global community who are struggling.”

“During this time of staggering global hunger, America is extending a hand to hungry communities around the world – and American farmers are crucial to that effort,” said Administrator Power. “USAID is honored to collaborate with USDA to purchase, ship and distribute our surplus food supplies to people in urgent need across the globe.”

In October 2023, USDA stated its intention to bolster efforts to combat global hunger by purchasing U.S.-grown commodities and working with USAID, the lead federal coordinator for disaster assistance, to ensure those commodities reach people in need around the world.

An initial tranche of approximately $950 million will support the purchase, shipment and distribution of U.S. wheat, rice, sorghum, lentils, chickpeas, dry peas, vegetable oil, cornmeal, navy beans, pinto beans and kidney beans – commodities that align with traditional USAID international food assistance programming. USAID will determine where the available commodities will be most appropriate for programming without disrupting local markets. USDA will purchase the commodities and transfer them to USAID for distribution.

What the fuck?  Bootstraps or sandal straps or whatever those shithole country people wear.   Just like Christ said, "Fuck you this bread is mine." right after, "yeah bitch, I can raise Lazarus, right after you put down this dick."   Amen. 

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