What comes next after the Trump win?

[Elixir]

Let's not make this partisan

It’s rightfully just classist.

Has Trump even suggested burning California?

No, but he suggested that a giant faucet would solve the problem. Trump is amazing at solving problems (for Donald Trump).

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Am I correct that no cause has been identified for the L.A. fires? Oh sure, very dry vegetation and very strong winds caused the fires to spread, but as one influential American points out "You can't start a fire without a spark."

No lightning, no electrical malfunctions, but there HAVE been arrests for arson. I hate to start fake rumors, but could it be that some MAGA disciple listened to the insane defecations from his Orange Messiah's mouth badmouthing the Great Golden State, and decided to do the Lord's Work? Insurance companies are already guesstimating the cost as $100 billion and counting. (Is this the 2nd most expensive tragedy in American history? The 1906 earthquake/fire in San Francisco cost only $12 billion in 2023 dollars; the Johnstown Flood only half a billion. Katrina devastation exceeded $100 billion.)

Let's not make this partisan. Any number of things could have started the blaze, from a dumbass with no poor intentions to a dumbass with poor intentions to something that didn't involve direct human involvement.

Even if the fires weren't deliberately set by QOPAnon terrorists, there are hundreds of thousands of Trumpists insane enough to follow this example and think they are following the religious dicta erupting from the Orange Turd's pie-hole.

Has Trump even suggested burning California?

He hasn't, but we can surmise he doesn't care about the safety of liberals given everything he has done. He may or may not encourage such things, but I wouldn't put it past him at the same time.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Let's not make this partisan

It’s rightfully just classist.

Has Trump even suggested burning California?

No, but he suggested that a giant faucet would solve the problem. Trump is amazing at solving problems (for Donald Trump).

“You turn the faucet and it takes one day to turn it, and it’s massive, it’s as big as the wall of that building right there behind you. You turn that, and all of that water aimlessly goes into the Pacific (Ocean), and if they turned it back, all of that water would come right down here and right into Los Angeles,” he said.

A link to Trump clearly and unquestionably stating he things there is a large faucet.

 

[bilby]

Am I correct that no cause has been identified for the L.A. fires? Oh sure, very dry vegetation and very strong winds caused the fires to spread, but as one influential American points out "You can't start a fire without a spark."

Given the conditions, it's surprising that so few fires start.

Tens of millions of cigarette butts are discarded in LA each and every day.

That so few fires start in dry, windy weather is remarkable testament to the lack of irresponsibility shown by the Angeleno smoking community.

Cities are constantly full of sources of ignition. Identifying which was the cause of a given fire is pretty much valueless.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I found another article, not the one I was looking for but it does give some more information about the idiot's plans. What really gets me is in the article I can't find, Musk wanted to end things like early childhood education for low income kids, decrease Medicaid, and other programs that help poor Americans survive. Talk about an evil, greedy bitch, I doubt there is one worse than Musk and his side kick Vivic.

Not exactly what you were after, but:

Why Medicaid cuts could be a 'crisis' for people with disabilities

If the new administration slashes federal Medicaid spending, millions of people with disabilities would be cut off from critical health care services.

www.statnews.com

And what happens to someone in long term care if Medicaid is cut? Anyone in long term care pretty much by definition has no ability to earn, and if they were on Medicaid they don't have assets.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lindse...-aim-federal-agencies-where-cuts-can-be-made/

Pentagon: Ramaswamy has suggested the commission could look for cuts to the Defense Department’s budget, saying the agency has “nearly a trillion dollars of budget—they can’t even tell you where it goes,” as Ernst—who is leading a group of Republican senators called the “DOGE caucus”—claimed on X the agency “wastes $125 billion on bloated bureaucracy” (Musk’s SpaceX has a reported $3.6 billion in federal contracts with the Pentagon).

It's not bloated bureaucracy, it's the whole government contracting system. In bending over backwards to be fair it ends up being incredibly wasteful. Everything is work to the contract, common sense doesn't apply. Bid cheap, then get paid big bucks to fix the flaws that weren't spelled out in excruciating enough detail in the original. You can't simply direct contracts to the companies that previously did a better job of not exploiting the flaws. And in many cases a requirement to pay "prevailing" (that is, what the union says it is) wage. I do not know how to fix this, but it needs a scalpel, not an axe.

Internal Revenue Service: Musk is expected to take aim at the IRS, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal citing anonymous sources—he has reportedlybeen in discussions with the agency to create a free tax filing app, posts from both Musk and DOGE’s X accounts suggested simplifying the tax code, and Ernst suggested an audit of the agency.

Well, duh, can't have auditors that will catch your tax misdeeds!

Federal Trade Commission, Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission: While Musk and Ramaswamy have not directly addressed their plans for these agencies, Musk is reportedly expected to make cuts to them, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Yeah, anyone whose job it is to enforce the rules needs to go. Can't be accountable!

NASA: Musk and Ramaswamy have not identified specific cuts from NASA, but Congressional authorization for some funding to the agency are set to expire this year and Ernst has claimed that cuts could be made from the “more than $500 million” spent to give “bureaucrats and contractors unearned bonuses” at the agency. Forbes has reached out to NASA for comment.

While I've always thought we spend too much money on defense, I'm not sure this is a good time to cut that, and conservatives usually want more money spent on defense.

There have been other articles that claim they want to cut Medicare and SS too, despite the liar in chief saying he won't do that.

We do spend way too much on defense, but it's the bloated procurement process.

And note that defense contractors mostly have a single customer. You need consistent defense spending over a long period of time. Otherwise you get things like the Navy recently doing major overhauls on some older cruisers--and then scrapping them. And you get the contractors quite legitimately wanting a higher profit margin to make up for inconsistent demand. They can't just turn on and off their production capacity! But the government is prohibited from long term funding and thus it's all over the place on political whim and who is more powerful.

 

[ZiprHead]

Seen elsewhere:

Trump committed crimes but we are the ones who have to serve a four year sentence.

 

[ZiprHead]

Your local bartender would like to have a word with you.

 

[crazyfingers]

I don't typically like videos and don't watch them unless there is something describing them

 

[Swammerdami]

Biden's Farewell Address attracted special attention: It was NOT like a typical Farewell Address, but recalled the warnings from Eisenhower and Washington. Here's an excerpt:

President Eisenhower spoke of the dangers of the military-industrial complex. He warned us that about, and I quote, “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power.” Six days — six decades later, I’m equally concerned about the potential rise of a tech-industrial complex that could pose real dangers for our country as well. Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation enabling the abuse of power. The free press is crumbling. Editors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact-checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit. We must hold the social platforms accountable to protect our children, our families and our very democracy from the abuse of power. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is the most consequential technology of our time, perhaps of all time. Nothing offers more profound possibilities and risks for our economy, and our security, our society. For humanity. Artificial intelligence even has the potential to help us answer my call to end cancer as we know it. But unless safeguards are in place, A.I. could spawn new threats to our rights, our way of life, to our privacy, how we work, and how we protect our nation. We must make sure A.I. is safe and trustworthy and good for all humankind. In the age of A.I., it’s more important than ever that the people must govern. And as the Land of Liberty, America — not China — must lead the world in the development of A.I. You know, in the years ahead, it’s going to be up to the president, the presidency, the Congress, the courts, the free press, and the American people to confront these powerful forces. We must reform the tax code. Not by giving the biggest tax cuts to billionaires, but by making them begin to pay their fair share. We need to get dark money — that’s that hidden funding behind too many campaign contributions — we need to get it out of our politics. We need to enact an 18-year time limit, term limit, time and term, for the strongest ethics — and the strongest ethics reforms for our Supreme Court. We need to ban members of Congress from trading stock while they are in the Congress. We need to amend the Constitution to make clear that no president, no president is immune from crimes that he or she commits while in office. The president’s power is not limit — it is not absolute. And it shouldn’t be. And in a democracy, there is another danger — that the concentration of power and wealth. It erodes a sense of unity and common purpose. It causes distrust and division. Participating in our democracy becomes exhausting and even disillusioning, and people don’t feel like they have a fair shot. We have to stay engaged in the process.

I Googled for this transcript, and was not surprised to see the only easy hit was behind the paywall of the N.Y. Times. Surely there are non-pay-for-view transcripts. Should I have Binged instead of Googled?

There is a "control-U" trick to read a NY Times article without paying; that's how I got the above.