Elections; 2024
POSTED BY: THG
UPDATED: Friday, November 21, 2025 00:12
VIEWED: 206031
PAGE 507 of 514
Quote:Except, it didn'twork for you. At least, not in the story you told about yourself.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Why don't you come up with a plan for how we can be prosperous again? That would be a lot more forward-looking.
SECOND:
I already did come up with a plan that is guaranteed to work.
Quote:I notice you didn't mention the most important person in your life: yourself. A
SECOND:
From your viewpoint, it would be an experiment that started 62 years ago in my family in Texas. From my perspective, it is a proven fact. The most important people in my life, parents/sisters/my mother's sister/her children joined the same religion.
Went off the straight and narrow, didja, eh?
Also, not hearing anything about wife and children. Either they don't exist, or they're not JW either.
Quote:Clearly, you stopped believing when you went to fight in Vietnam. And considering your obsession with Trump, and politics, you're not JW now either.
Results: everyone in the family who joined jw.org is prosperous. Even my parents, who worked at Burger King, became rich (multi-millionaires) and lived long lives, filled with health and mental stability. Nobody in this part of the family retired from working. They are, or were, restaurateurs, teachers, nurses, engineers, even doctors and scientists in the next generation. They never cheat on taxes; they never vote; they pay no attention to politics.
So, let me recap your story for you:
You dumped your family religion and went off to fight in Vietnam, where you discovered your true calling: calmly and efficiently shooting people from a helicopter. But thanks to a helicopter accident, you busted your ankles.
So when you returned to civilian life, you tried making $ like your dad, managing a fast food franchise. But your busted ankles hurt too much to let you stand on your feet all day, so you got a degree in engineering and played a small part in designing control systems for chemical plants.
Took some of your savings and made a what-the-hell play on Texas oil and the rest is history. At least, according to you: you got lucky, and got wealthy owning the rights to a commodity producing piece of land and making other people work for you.
Moral of the story? You can be a right bastard. You can even be a sociopath who enjoys killing. You can work hard and get an education.
But if you REALLY want to get wealthy, get lucky.
Or marry someone wealthy, or inherit your parents' wealth.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA
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Quote:Have you seen the show My 600-lb Life?
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
You're the most judgemental person there ever was outside of Estus Pirkle.
It has been my experience that people who behave this way are the ones suffering from the most guilt and doing their damnedest to make sure nobody else knows what skeletons are really inside that closet of theirs.
Oh.... If I could be a fly on the wall and bear witness to all the evil shit you do every day when you know nobody is watching.
https://eztvx.to/shows/2870/my-600-lb-life/
The show always starts the same but the endings can be different. In the beginning, the 600-pounder can hardly move around the house, except when there is food to eat. Then they go to Dr. Now, where a nurse weighs the 600-pounder. Dr. Now gives them a diet booklet to read and the nurse schedules another weighing in two months.
Dr. Now does not brag about being lighter than the 600-pounder. This is not at all about Dr. Now. It is about being fat and an early death if the 600-pounder does not change their habits.
The homes of 600-pounders all look the same. They are poor people. The cars they own all look the same. They are poor people. There isn't much variation from one episode to the next, other than it is always a different 600-pounder who needs to change their eating habits or die young.
Some of the 600-pounders are enraged by the injustice of it all. How dare Dr. Now tell them what to eat? The Doctor shrugs. What can the Doctor do, change the force of gravity so that the 600-pounder weighs 200 pounds? That is what Trumptards want. They want the force of gravity changed so they don't have to change. They will become light as soap bubbles floating through life without trouble. Fortunately, there is Donald Trump who tells them he can control the gravity that is pulling his Trumptards down. All they have to do is believe Trump can fix their lives.
Trump is certainly NOT telling them to change themselves and go on a diet. Instead, Trump will remake America, lowering gravity, so that Trumptards don't have to diet. You are already at a perfectly healthy weight, per Trump. In vivid contrast, Doctor Now would remind Trumptards that the scales show they are very much in danger from their unfortunate lifestyles and unhealthy habits.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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As Trump's election is certified, Americans should declare war on stupidity
Shame is what keeps us in check, or at least it should. It certainly used to. Trump, devoid of shame, has gone to great lengths to eviscerate that societal check.
By Rex Huppke | 5:09 a.m. ET Jan. 5, 2025
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2025/01/05/trump-pres
idential-election-certification-embrace-stupidity/77409672007/
On the eve of Donald Trump’s election certification, the best thing sensible Americans who oppose him and the MAGA leadership can do is remember that stupidity should be embarrassing.
Trump exists in our political sphere because he persuaded people to forget that simple fact. He somehow turned dunderheads like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and, of course, himself – public figures who routinely utter abject nonsense – into people who get taken seriously.
Following the New Orleans terrorist attack on New Year’s Day, Trump ranted about immigration when the suspect killed in the attack was a U.S. citizen. That was stupid and unhelpful. For a president-elect and elected leaders who protect him, it should be deeply embarrassing.
Trump has made stupidity acceptable. It shouldn't be.
When Greene hypothesized that Jewish space lasers started California wildfires, that was not a mistake or an “oops” moment. It was stupid, and it should have been the embarrassing end of her political career.
When Kennedy encourages people to drink bacteria-laden raw milk, he should be laughed out of the country. Instead, Trump has picked him to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is utterly stupid and should be profoundly embarrassing for Trump.
Yet here we are, waiting for Trump to return to the White House and install harebrained MAGA acolytes in all positions of power, confidently and without shame.
It’s that last bit that’s the problem: “without shame.”
Bringing back shame may be powerful tool to deal with Trump
Shame is what keeps us in check, or at least it should. It certainly used to.
If we tolerate stupidity in the public sphere, it will flourish
Trump, devoid of shame, has gone to great lengths to eviscerate that societal check.
How else do you explain politicians supporting him – a convicted felon, an inveterate liar, a man found liable of sexual abuse – for a third time? The decision to put someone like Trump back in the most powerful position in America should be embarrassing. It wasn’t.
That’s enough to make people who dislike Trump, whether because of his politics or his personality, feel powerless. I get that.
However, I’d argue the best way to reclaim power in the age of Trumpism is to stop tolerating stupidity.
Stupidity isn't about book smarts, it's about choosing ignorance
Before I go further on that, let’s be clear what I mean by “stupidity.” I’m not talking about any level of education.
Heck, most of the people Trump surrounds himself with are highly educated but dumb as fence posts.
Stupidity is speaking authoritatively about things you don’t understand at all. It’s the willingness to say something objectively false and refuse to admit you’re wrong. It’s the lack of curiosity that allows our leaders to accept bologna conspiracy theories over provable facts.
Those, to me, are traits that should be embarrassing.
Stop giving elected officials embracing stupidity a pass
But since Trump’s first presidential win, some people have been afraid to call out such traits.
The argument is, essentially: “Well, he won people over, so we shouldn’t call him dumb lest we insult his voters, who we must do our best to understand.”
That hasn’t worked out particularly well. If anything, proud ignorance has flourished.
So now, as we await whatever fresh hell a new Trump administration will bring, it’s time to stop pandering to politicians who have embraced a reality disconnected from actual reality.
Nobody's job is to make fools feel comfortable
When Trump blames an act of domestic t
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Trump has tapped an unprecedented 13 billionaires for his administration. Here's who they are
https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-tapped-unprecedented-13-billionaires-t
op-administration-roles/story?id=116872968
We have a convicted criminal billionaire about to be sworn in as president with the richest cabinet in American (and, perhaps, world) history, all with an agenda of making the rich even richer. (It’s worth noting — something almost always ignored by the mainstream press — that Trump’s conviction was for using his fortune for election interference leading to a stolen 2016 election; by hiding his affair with Stormy Daniels he kept information away from the public that he believed could have led to his loss that year.)
https://hartmannreport.com/p/saturday-report-1425-is-the-scarlet
As an example of Trump's fundamental depravity, shamelessness and inability to take responsibility for what he did:
Donald Trump Calls for Stormy Daniels Case Judge Juan Merchan to Be Disbarred
Jan 04, 2025 at 7:00 PM EST
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-judge-juan-merchan-disbarred-200
9762
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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SECOND attempts to conflate his life with his parents', and doesn't succeed.
Quote:I notice you didn't mention the most important person in your life: yourself.
SECOND:
From your viewpoint, it would be an experiment that started 62 years ago in my family in Texas. From my perspective, it is a proven fact. The most important people in my life, parents/sisters/my mother's sister/her children joined the same religion.
Went off the straight and narrow, didja, eh?
Also, not hearing anything about wife and children. Either they don't exist, or they're not JW either.
Quote:Clearly, you stopped believing when you went to fight in Vietnam. And considering your obsession with Trump, and politics, you're not JW now either.
Results: everyone in the family who joined jw.org is prosperous. Even my parents, who worked at Burger King, became rich (multi-millionaires) and lived long lives, filled with health and mental stability. Nobody in this part of the family retired from working. They are, or were, restaurateurs, teachers, nurses, engineers, even doctors and scientists in the next generation. They never cheat on taxes; they never vote; they pay no attention to politics.
So, let me recap your story for you:
You dumped your family religion and went off to fight in Vietnam, where you discovered your true calling: calmly and efficiently shooting people from a helicopter. But thanks to a helicopter accident, you busted your ankles.
So when you returned to civilian life, you tried making $ like your dad, managing a fast food franchise. But your busted ankles hurt too much to let you stand on your feet all day, so you got a degree in engineering and played a small part in designing control systems for chemical plants.
Took some of your savings and made a what-the-hell play on Texas oil and the rest is history. At least, according to you: you got lucky, and got wealthy owning the rights to a commodity producing piece of land and making other people work for you.
Moral of the story?
You can be a right bastard.
You can even be a sociopath who enjoys killing.
You can work hard and get an education.
But if you REALLY want to get wealthy, get lucky.
Or marry someone wealthy, or inherit your parents' wealth.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
(President) Elon Musk killed PBM reform without knowing what a PBM is
By Kevin Drum | January 5, 2025 – 1:04 pm
https://jabberwocking.com/elon-musk-killed-pbm-reform-without-knowing-
what-a-pbm-is/
I was puttering around on something else when I ran across this:
Quote:https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1873972860106268740
What is a “pharmacy benefit manager”? https://t.co/wQSRCreBDK
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 31, 2024
Well, Elon, a pharmacy benefit manager is a company that handles negotiations with pharma companies on behalf of health insurers. Three big ones control almost the entire market and they supposedly bring down the cost of drugs through their collective buying power.
But they're also in the business of being maximally profitable, which doesn't always match up with saving consumers money. After years of PBM abuses being reported, in 2024 Congress was finally ready to do something:
Quote:Unfortunately, the bill failed to pass. You, Elon, should know this since you were the one who killed it. It was part of last month's Continuing Resolution that you mounted a jihad against, demanding that the CR should maintain current funding and absolutely nothing else.¹ This meant ditching PBM reform because it was 500 pages long and you insisted that page count was the proper metric for judging the bill.
Bipartisan lawmakers introduced a new bill on Tuesday that aims to crack down on the business practices of drug supply chain middlemen who are widely accused of inflating prescription medication prices and harming U.S. patients and pharmacies.
....Lawmakers and drugmakers alike argue that PBMs overcharge the plans they negotiate rebates for, underpay pharmacies and fail to pass on savings from those discounts to patients. Auchincloss said those practices have allowed PBMs to trap $300 billion in revenue in the middle of the drug supply chain between manufacturers and patients.
....Among the bill’s other efforts, it requires PBMs to share 80% of rebates with patients and prohibits several other practices. It would bar requiring patients to obtain branded medications when a cheaper generic version is available, steering patients to PBM-affiliated pharmacies and excluding any in-network pharmacy from filling a prescription, among other tactics.
So PBM reform died. And now you're telling us you never even knew what it was?
¹Except for hurricane relief, farm subsidies, the Key Bridge, Virginia class subs, and pediatric cancer research.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Trump tells the world that he is Looney Tunes.
Trump’s Sunday evening tale of woe continued, in third person no less: “Ultimately, the Biden/Harris DOJ forced Bragg to concoct anything to embarrass TRUMP. But it was even more so what the CORRUPT and TOTALLY CONFLICTED POLITICAL HACK Judge did, and is doing, on this sham trial.”
He then claimed he is legally not allowed to speak about the judge’s “conflicts of interest,” even after calling Merchan a “TOTALLY CONFLICTED POLITICAL HACK” in the previous sentence.
“I even have, STILL, an Unconstitutional Gag Order where I am not allowed to speak about the Judge’s highly disqualifying Conflicts of Interest. Virtually ever legal scholar and pundit says THERE IS NO (ZERO!) CASE AGAINST ME,” he lamented.
“The Judge fabricated the facts, and the law, no different than the other New York Judicial and Prosecutorial Witch Hunts,” Trump added. (No, Mr Trump, the judge did not fabricate laws or facts.)
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-blasts-corrupt-and-broken-legal-sy
stem-ahead-of-hush-money-sentencing/
That Trump speech was absolutely Looney Tunes
It'd be like if Ebenezer Scrooge spent all night with those ghosts, woke up, saw the poor kid out his window, and instead of tossing him a coin to buy a Christmas goose, spit on him and dropped an anvil on his head.
https://www.reddit.com/r/redscarepod/comments/1e73q52/that_trump_speec
h_was_absolutely_looney_tunes/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Trump preparing to abandon yet another promise
January 6, 2025
The Great Walkback continues. First, Donald Trump said he couldn't guarantee that his tariffs wouldn't raise prices. Then he admitted that he couldn't bring down the cost of groceries after all. Today comes news that he's backing down from his sweeping tariff plan on everyone:
Quote:This stuff accounts for less than 5% of US imports — and some of it is subject to high tariffs already. Stay tuned for more abandoned Trump promises.
President-elect Donald Trump’s aides are exploring tariff plans that would be applied to every country but only cover critical imports, three people familiar with the matter said — a key shift from his plans during the 2024 presidential campaign.
....Exactly which imports or industries would face tariffs was not immediately clear. Preliminary discussions have largely focused on several key sectors that the Trump team wants to bring back to the United States, the people said. Those include the defense industrial supply chain (through tariffs on steel, iron, aluminum and copper); critical medical supplies (syringes, needles, vials and pharmaceutical materials); and energy production (batteries, rare earth minerals and even solar panels), two of the people said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/01/06/trump-tariff-econom
y-trade/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Shouting into the void, huh?
That's what it's come to.
I'm sure there's better things you can be doing with your time, Second.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:I've gotten satisfaction many times over many years by telling certain assholes that smoking causes cancer. They irritably respond with, "None of your business", "You can't make me stop!" or some other nitwit Trumptard retort. Where does the satisfaction come in? When they suffer and die horribly from smoking. The very real advantage to building long-term wealth by not smoking is one of many things I picked up at JW.org, without joining that religion. Trumptards' behavior is constructed mostly from habits that kill them and make them poorer but they see their behavior as expressing Freedom and Happiness.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Shouting into the void, huh?
That's what it's come to.
I'm sure there's better things you can be doing with your time, Second.
https://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/questions/smoking-sin/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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