The Big Ugly Bill

[Patooka]

While I totally agree with you. Most of the Democrats certainly did not believe in obvious indicators which were noticed by the Jan 6 crowd during the 2020 POTUS election.

It is downright reprehensible that you knowingly and willingly still spout this bullshit. It's been 5 fucking years and neither you or anyone of your tribe have supplied anything even remotely close to actionable evidence about voter fraud in 2020. The only proof of election fraud was done by MAGA fuckwits as I've pointed out to you before. Whatever credibility you may have once had has been shredded to oblivion.

 

[Harry Bosch]

As an aside, hopefully this bill once and for all destroys and annihilates the meme that republicans are prudent financial manages carefully protecting our financial future by reducing the deficit! Sorry for that long-tortured sentence, but I've been hearing that BS for 40 years.

I totally agree with Musk. We don't have a Democrat or Republican party, we have one big uniparty called the "Porky Pig Party".

Well, I agree in general that both sides spend like drunken sailors. There are three big differences though. First, the republicans specifically run on balancing the budget. Trump, Bush 1, Bush 2, Reagan, Nixon, and all the congressman in their party ran on balancing the budget. They all specifically claimed that people should vote for them because they are more financially responsible. What nonsense. Number 2, the budget will never get balanced unless taxes are risen. The budget has built in expenses that automatically increase each year. Finally, #3, it was democrats who instituted paygo. Clinton specifically. And he convinced the republican congress that it was a good idea. Paygo means that if the government wants a new program, they pay for it (either through tax increases or cuts in another program). Bush 2 scrapped paygo immediately before his inauguration. We are bankrupting the country. Maybe we do need a third party...

 

[Swammerdami]

I simply copy/paste/Google an excerpt to locate webpage(s) for a quote.

That approach has become annoyingly ineffective, since Google decided to abandon returning links to web pages that contain the search text, in favour of returning AI bullshit, spun up using the text as a prompt, rather than as a search term.

It used to be reliable, but now one is very lucky to get a useful result, particularly when the search string is more than a handful of words.

Yeah. Any recommendations for a different search engine? I try Bing once in a while but it never fails to annoy me right away. DuckDuckGo is even more annoying IIRC.

Search is not my only complaint about Google. Not long ago, I could enter one English word into Google Translate and obtain a longish list of synonyms in the target language. Now I just get a SINGLE translation. Am I doing something wrong?

 

[Jarhyn]

I simply copy/paste/Google an excerpt to locate webpage(s) for a quote.

That approach has become annoyingly ineffective, since Google decided to abandon returning links to web pages that contain the search text, in favour of returning AI bullshit, spun up using the text as a prompt, rather than as a search term.

It used to be reliable, but now one is very lucky to get a useful result, particularly when the search string is more than a handful of words.

Yeah. Any recommendations for a different search engine? I try Bing once in a while but it never fails to annoy me right away. DuckDuckGo is even more annoying IIRC.

Search is not my only complaint about Google. Not long ago, I could enter one English word into Google Translate and obtain a longish list of synonyms in the target language. Now I just get a SINGLE translation. Am I doing something wrong?

Yeah, using Google rather than slightly less polished competitors?

It takes a while for second choice to supplant first in a case of enshittification, unless the thing being supplanted has already peaked on "shit".

 

[ideologyhunter]

Last hurrah? It's their motif, their tribal yawp, and they'll never give it up. The national debt was a 'measly' trillion in 1981, when Reagan started the big build-up of this mantra. Low taxes = turbo-charged economy = more revenue for gov. = miracle play on the debt. It didn't work 44 years ago, it sure as hell hasn't worked since then, but then neither has religion, which is also GOP armament. (Question: how many of the big mouths in the GOP firmament really believe in either one?)

 

[Swammerdami]

Yeah. Any recommendations for a different search engine? I try Bing once in a while but it never fails to annoy me right away. DuckDuckGo is even more annoying IIRC.

Yeah, using Google rather than slightly less polished competitors?

It takes a while for second choice to supplant first in a case of enshittification, unless the thing being supplanted has already peaked on "shit".

Why did you post, only to NOT identify the "slightly less polished ... second choice"? Should I ask Google what that second choice is?

Oct 30, 2024 — Meet The 7 Most Popular Search Engines In The World · 1. Google · 2. YouTube · 3. Amazon · 4. Microsoft Bing · 5. TikTok · 6. Baidu · 7. Yandex.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

As an aside, hopefully this bill once and for all destroys and annihilates the meme that republicans are prudent financial manages carefully protecting our financial future by reducing the deficit! Sorry for that long-tortured sentence, but I've been hearing that BS for 40 years.

I totally agree with Musk. We don't have a Democrat or Republican party, we have one big uniparty called the "Porky Pig Party".

Well, I agree in general that both sides spend like drunken sailors. There are three big differences though. First, the republicans specifically run on balancing the budget. Trump, Bush 1, Bush 2, Reagan, Nixon, and all the congressman in their party ran on balancing the budget. They all specifically claimed that people should vote for them because they are more financially responsible. What nonsense. Number 2, the budget will never get balanced unless taxes are risen. The budget has built in expenses that automatically increase each year. Finally, #3, it was democrats who instituted paygo. Clinton specifically. And he convinced the republican congress that it was a good idea. Paygo means that if the government wants a new program, they pay for it (either through tax increases or cuts in another program). Bush 2 scrapped paygo immediately before his inauguration. We are bankrupting the country. Maybe we do need a third party...

2008, the deficit spending skyrockets after Phil Gramm's great idea helps bankrupt global banks. 30 year bonds -> 2038 is when that debt starts maturing. That is kind of the deadline for getting the house in order. But the average voting public trust the Republicans with the economy. When the Republicans haven't overseen much of great economies. Reagan had a bit of run, HW Bush lost because of a recession, W's economy was dependent on record low interest rates moving houses, which came at a massive cost in 2008. Trump's economy wasn't anything special. Yet, the GOP have the voting public in their pocket because they sell such a good story.

Indeed, the GOP is looking to default, they want the Federal Government out of most things, so the private equity firms can take the rest. The Democrats can't really do anything else, they needed to become centrists to just win elections and promise tax cuts. We have stopped paying for things, since Reagan. And the American people are addicted to the concept of lower taxes. They loved the Housing Boom, they abused it... and it cost us dearly. Now we are looking at a wall in the late 2030s. No Social Security, no Medicare, no Medicaid.

 

[Jarhyn]

Yeah. Any recommendations for a different search engine? I try Bing once in a while but it never fails to annoy me right away. DuckDuckGo is even more annoying IIRC.

Yeah, using Google rather than slightly less polished competitors?

It takes a while for second choice to supplant first in a case of enshittification, unless the thing being supplanted has already peaked on "shit".

Why did you post, only to NOT identify the "slightly less polished ... second choice"? Should I ask Google what that second choice is?

Oct 30, 2024 — Meet The 7 Most Popular Search Engines In The World · 1. Google · 2. YouTube · 3. Amazon · 4. Microsoft Bing · 5. TikTok · 6. Baidu · 7. Yandex.

There's DuckDuckGo right there. It's about 10 years behind Google. From my perspective, anyway, it's only slightly less polished than Google is now.

DuckDuckGo has a reason for existing and being simple, too.

What they lack for is a well paid graphic artist and experienced experience designer of some kind.

That said, it's way easier to keep a site secure and simple when it uses fewer assets in a simpler way.

Under the hood of DuckDuckGo is a pretty respectable engine, and I encourage you to look into how it is architectured and maintained.

Edit: You're the one that brought it up, even.

Edit2: DDG might see a lot more traffic soon, too, since the tech giants are deciding to be evil. Search the news for Peter Thiel and Palantir. They're literally trying to live the (fucked up boot-on-face-) dream and make a semi-intelligent list like some conspiracy theory nightmare using AI. It is THE most fucked up horror of fascist technology that I can imagine.

I'm an effort to not feed it, it might be prudent to start using things like DDG.

 

[thebeave]

OBVIOUSLY this was prepared as an emotion-laden summary rather than as a submission for peer review.
And it does contain a citation ("Sec. 80307–80309") for sincere worries about the factuality.

Thus the complaint by thebeave, and then bilby, misses the point. The character of BUB and Trumpism more generally should be well known by now. Asking for citation is just a pretense.

That's my feeling too. Since there's nothing dependent upon the hyperbole or lack thereof in that list that anyone here do about it (emojis are a dead giveaway, of course the whole list is phrased hyperbolically for effect), I don't see how it matters.
If there's an item on the list that looks wrong to you, look it up. I posted it because other sources have addressed almost every single one of those points in exhaustive articles elsewhere. It's not like there's a paucity of information on the devastation in store in the wake of this legislation.

My main question at this point, is how much of this debacle could be un-done if the American electorate woke up and got rid of the fascists? How much could be un-done in 2027 if the Dems got the House (which I doubt) or the House and the Senate (which I doubt even more)? Assuming the Trump junta remains in force through 2028, how much could be undone by a Dem president with or without Congress in 2029?

IMHO it's a bleak picture in any of those scenarios, unless there's a major upheaval within the fascist Party that can weaken it sufficiently to allow sanity back into the picture. The fascists have full control of the levers of power and are not going to relinquish that control just because some law says they're supposed to, or because a lot of people voted for another Party. They will use those levers of power to perpetuate their own regime, no matter what, even if means that the Commander in Chief orders the military to find and kill every opposition politician, and place every "blue" State under federal Martial law.

Sounds like you and Swammerdami are advocating for truthiness.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

OBVIOUSLY this was prepared as an emotion-laden summary rather than as a submission for peer review.
And it does contain a citation ("Sec. 80307–80309") for sincere worries about the factuality.

Thus the complaint by thebeave, and then bilby, misses the point. The character of BUB and Trumpism more generally should be well known by now. Asking for citation is just a pretense.

That's my feeling too. Since there's nothing dependent upon the hyperbole or lack thereof in that list that anyone here do about it (emojis are a dead giveaway, of course the whole list is phrased hyperbolically for effect), I don't see how it matters.
If there's an item on the list that looks wrong to you, look it up. I posted it because other sources have addressed almost every single one of those points in exhaustive articles elsewhere. It's not like there's a paucity of information on the devastation in store in the wake of this legislation.

My main question at this point, is how much of this debacle could be un-done if the American electorate woke up and got rid of the fascists? How much could be un-done in 2027 if the Dems got the House (which I doubt) or the House and the Senate (which I doubt even more)? Assuming the Trump junta remains in force through 2028, how much could be undone by a Dem president with or without Congress in 2029?

IMHO it's a bleak picture in any of those scenarios, unless there's a major upheaval within the fascist Party that can weaken it sufficiently to allow sanity back into the picture. The fascists have full control of the levers of power and are not going to relinquish that control just because some law says they're supposed to, or because a lot of people voted for another Party. They will use those levers of power to perpetuate their own regime, no matter what, even if means that the Commander in Chief orders the military to find and kill every opposition politician, and place every "blue" State under federal Martial law.

Sounds like you and Swammerdami are advocating for truthiness.

I hate the entire "The character of BUB and Trumpism more generally should be well known by now. Asking for citation is just a pretense." (my emphasis) Okay, while what I posted wasn't completely true, it still makes the point...

I hate it when MAGA Hats do this shit, I hate it when liberals do this shit.

Except when dealing with obvious facts like the sun rising in the east, people should not shy away from supporting their work or what they promoted. We don't need hyperbole to explain what is happening under Trump is a bad and becoming more permanent thing.

 

[Elixir]

Sounds like you and Swammerdami are advocating for truthiness.

Looks like you need your hearing checked.
Alleging that my post asserts that “a particular statement is true based on the intuition or perceptions of some individual or individuals, without regard to evidence” is just naked bullshit. The EVIDENCE is
RIGHT HERE. If you dispute that evidence or have evidence to the contrary of what was asserted, lay it out. Don’t whine about not being spoon-fed.

 

[bilby]

Except when dealing with obvious facts like the sun rising in the east

Like most "obvious facts", this is not true. The Sun doesn't rise at all; We are rotated towards it by the planet we stand on.

Earth rotates on its own axis, producing the 24-hour day.

(Emphasis in original)

Source: https://science.nasa.gov/

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Except when dealing with obvious facts like the sun rising in the east

Like most "obvious facts", this is not true. The Sun doesn't rise at all; We are rotated towards it by the planet we stand on.

Earth rotates on its own axis, producing the 24-hour day.

(Emphasis in original)

Source: https://science.nasa.gov/

Dude, you can take your heliocentrism and go for a hike!

 

[bilby]

Dude, you can take your heliocentrism and go for a hike!

Not yet, I can't. It's still dark in Brisbane at 6am, because it's midwinter here.

So I won't be taking a hike until the Sun comes up the Eastern horizon stops obscuring the light from the Sun.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Dude, you can take your heliocentrism and go for a hike!

Not yet, I can't. It's still dark in Brisbane at 6am, because it's midwinter here.

So I won't be taking a hike until the Sun comes up the Eastern horizon stops obscuring the light from the Sun.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Most of the worst part don't kick in until after the elections of 26.

I thought there were not going to be elections in 26?

There will be elections. The question is whether they'll be legitimate.

Saddam Hussein used to hold elections in Iraq and routinely got 95%+ of the votes.

Putin won 88% of the votes the last time an election was held in Russia.

If we see Dem strongholds like Washington, Oregon, and California suddenly go red, that'll be the only indicator we'll need.

While I totally agree with you. Most of the Democrats certainly did not believe in obvious indicators which were noticed by the Jan 6 crowd during the 2020 POTUS election.

Those protesters learned the hard way that the only thing that counts is what can be proven. And you can't prove anything unless politically driven courts give you standing to present evidence and due process.

You would think that both sides would want better election integrity but in practice....only when it benefits their ideology.

And what evidence do you have of Democrats not wanting election integrity?

Remember, the current ballot fraud rate is effectively zero. But the improperly denied voter rate has been enough to tip both 2016 and 2024. The Republicans are not trying to fix ballot fraud because there's nothing to fix. It's all about disenfranchisement.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

As an aside, hopefully this bill once and for all destroys and annihilates the meme that republicans are prudent financial manages carefully protecting our financial future by reducing the deficit! Sorry for that long-tortured sentence, but I've been hearing that BS for 40 years.

I totally agree with Musk. We don't have a Democrat or Republican party, we have one big uniparty called the "Porky Pig Party".

Musk has fraud glasses on. Everything he sees that he doesn't understand is fraud and/or waste. But he doesn't understand anything complex.

And he was stupid enough to think that an AI can sniff out fraud/waste.

 

[laughing dog]

Most of the worst part don't kick in u

Those protesters learned the hard way that the only thing that counts is what can be proven. And you can't prove anything unless politically driven courts give you standing to present evidence and due process.

Where did a court deny any election denier standing or due process? And how was any such decision politically driven?

As an aside, hopefully this bill once and for all destroys and annihilates the meme that republicans are prudent financial manages carefully protecting our financial future by reducing the deficit! Sorry for that long-tortured sentence, but I've been hearing that BS for 40 years.

I totally agree with Musk. We don't have a Democrat or Republican party, we have one big uniparty called the "Porky Pig Party".

LOL - You agree with one of the largest inhabitants of "Porky Pig" sty on the planet.

 

[Elixir]

“We don't have a Democrat or Republican party, we have one big uniparty called the "Porky Pig Party"
… said the Super-Sow.

 

[thebeave]

Sounds like you and Swammerdami are advocating for truthiness.

Looks like you need your hearing checked.
Alleging that my post asserts that “a particular statement is true based on the intuition or perceptions of some individual or individuals, without regard to evidence” is just naked bullshit. The EVIDENCE is
RIGHT HERE. If you dispute that evidence or have evidence to the contrary of what was asserted, lay it out. Don’t whine about not being spoon-fed.

I turned up the speaker volume to the maximum, then re-read what you wrote and I still didn't hear anything. I guess you're right.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time going through the emoji-laden post (that seems to have originated from some rando's Facebook page) and double check whether the claims align with the text in the actual bill. I did however, decide to take a quick look at one claim from the emoji text to see how it compares to the bill you linked:

WHEN LGBTQ+ KIDS HAVE NOWHERE LEFT TO GO
Sec. 44125: Strips healthcare + protections
Your gay nephew? Your trans friend? Denied care, expelled from school, forced into the shadows

And I can't even find Sec. 44125 at all. There's a section 40000, but that has to do with Science, Commerce and Transportation. I might be missing something, so hopefully you can at least point me in the right direction so I can check it out.