Do you feel like the winds of change are blowing today too?
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 16:05
VIEWED: 185382
PAGE 106 of 479
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Yeah.
Thanks for doing your part in adding to the debt. You're more expensive than the average govt employee. AND we don't even get any work out of you.
Time to kick you off the rolls.![]()
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA
You won't hear me bitching when it happens.
I'm nothing if not adaptable when ya need to be.
Not really worried that he's going to kick 71 Million people off of medicaid though either. Unless somehow everything else under the sun gets fixed in America and we suddenly find ourselves in a new Golden Age, ending Medicaid would be immediate political suicide and the nearly dead Democratic Party would suddenly have 80/20 support on the very same day that it happens.
There's 330 Million or so people in the country. With 71 Million of them on Medicaid, that's at least 1 in 5 people on it. If you aren't on Medicaid, chances are very good that somebody you love is. And if you can actually sit back and say that you don't know anybody on it well... good on you and your rich family and your rich friends in your rich neighborhoods.
And if that's really the case, then I don't give a single fuck about your judgement of my healthcare situation.

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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Another thing comes to mind while we're on the topic of healthcare...
"Hey Siri! How much would health insurance cost me out of pocket through the ACA if I were making $25,000 per year but I wasn't getting health insurance offered through my employer?"
Quote:
Income Eligibility:
To qualify for these subsidies, your income must fall within a certain range, generally between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level.
Subsidy Calculation:
The amount of the subsidy is determined by your income and the cost of the second-lowest-cost Silver plan in your area.
Income Limits:
For a single individual, the 2025 federal poverty level is $15,060, and the 400% of the federal poverty level is $60,240.
Subsidy Impact:
With a $25,000 income, you're likely to qualify for a significant subsidy, potentially reducing your monthly premium to a small percentage of your income (e.g., 2-4%).
"Hey Siri! How much is 2-4% of $25,000?"
Quote:
2-4% of $25,000 is $500 to $1000.
"Thank you Siri. You've been most helpful today."
Anybody telling me that I'm costing them more than useless federal employees do can go right ahead and get fucked.
There's no job I can get that wouldn't end up with me going through the ACA and paying in the vicinity of $500 to $1,500 out of pocket per year for insurance, and whatever the cost of the rest of that would be was already being fucking paid for everybody who was working and needed health insurance too.
My yearly cost for health insurance that is being paid above and beyond what a sub-contractor earning $30k per year and on the ACA is almost nothing. Even after fighting my property taxes, the last increase made those cost more per year than what I would be paying for health insurance if I was working.
You don't get to have these kinds of arguments with people who have a very deep understanding of things you've been privileged enough in life to never have to think about.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:You get all huffy about gummint employees suckin' on the gummint teat, but you get plenty defensive when the shoe's on the othe foot, don't you?
SIX
and if that's really the case, then I don't give a single fuck about your judgement of my healthcare situation.
How about this, SIX ... instead of bitching and whining about poor little ole you, why don't you take that ginormous IQ you claim that you have, and DO something with it?
I know, it's not fair that you can climb out of the hole that youre in and others ... for lack of IQ ... can't. But instead of advocating for a better life for everyone, you insist that everybody be dragged down into the hole you insist on living in?
You remind me of a fable. There were two farmers, living side by side. One, by dint of hard work and a little good fortune, managed to scrape together enough to buy a cow.
The second farmer slowly grew consumed about his neighbor's good fortune.
One day, he heard a rustling in the leaves and came across a tiny creature trapped in a spider's web. So he carefully freed the little thing. The little creature, in a tiny voice, told him in return he would grant the farmer anything he wanted. Anything at all.
So the farmer thought about what he wanted more than anything in the whole world.
Select to view spoiler:
SO HE WISHED HIS NEIGHBOR'S COW WAS DEAD.
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"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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dumbass Mayor says to the State and Nation how dare you say Emperor has no clothes
you must always cheer 'Greatest Ally'
maybe that works in Israel but in seems he never heard of 'The Streisand effect' in the USA?
Miami Beach cinema draws mayor's ire after showing controversial documentary "No Other Land"
https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/miami-beach-mayor-vs-o-cinema-no-ot
her-land-oscar-winning-documentary/
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Lawyers Can Slow a Trump Dictatorship. But They Have to Do Something Uncomfortable First.
By Frank Bowman | March 17, 2025 5:36 PM
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/03/dictator-trump-lawyers-doj
-emil-bove.html
. . . Ho and his judicial colleagues confronting analogous cases need to stop thinking like single judges dealing with a single awkward case. Rather, they need to recognize that they are representatives of the justice system and the legal profession confronted with an unapologetic attack on the rule of law. When government lawyers misbehave, federal judges must be more assertive in the exercise of their powers as members of the judicial branch and as integral players in disciplinary mechanisms of the legal profession.
If confronted by apparent government attorney misconduct or apparent defiance of court orders, judges should first do the very thing Clement rejects—insist on determining the facts. Do not accept vague unsworn platitudes. Put the relevant witnesses, including lawyers, on the stand under oath. Let counsel adverse to the government ask questions. If the case is one like the Adams matter, where the government may be improperly colluding with the other side, judges should ask questions themselves. They should make factual findings. This alone would serve the immensely valuable purpose of advising the public of the judicial view of government misbehavior.
Second, when appropriate, judges should use their civil contempt powers promptly and sternly. As I have written elsewhere, there is, distressingly, some doubt that the Marshals Service would enforce contempt remedies against executive branch officials. But the test must be conducted. At the worst, direct executive branch defiance of judicial contempt orders will clarify for the public the true nature of the Trump regime.
Finally, if a reasonable basis exists to believe that government lawyers have misrepresented facts to the court or otherwise behaved unethically, judges should promptly refer offenders to disciplinary authorities of the court or the relevant state bar. As the Supreme Court held in Imbler v. Pachtman, the government lawyer “stands perhaps unique, among officials whose acts could deprive persons of constitutional rights, in his amenability to professional discipline by an association of his peers.” The organized bar should address judicial referrals of misbehaving government lawyers without hesitation and, when merited, with stringent punishment. Even amoral or timorous lawyers will hesitate to misbehave if it becomes clear that doing so endangers their livelihood.
The rule of law in America is in peril. The formal institutions created by the Constitution to ensure the survival of the rule of law are wavering. But the idea that law, not one man, should rule is older than the Constitution. That idea is, or should be, the bedrock commitment of the legal profession. Indeed, we lawyers tout it all the time, at least when our professed devotion has no cost. The question now is whether the legal profession will use its power over its own members to ensure that law survives.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Trump administration pulls US out of body investigating Ukraine invasion — essentially a unilateral concession to Russia with no Russian concessions in return because Trump is a giant asshole
Russia and allies were target of International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine
By Robert Tait | Mon 17 Mar 2025 10.49 EDT
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/17/trump-russia-ukraine
The Trump administration is withdrawing from an international body formed to investigate responsibility for the invasion of Ukraine in the latest sign that the White House is adopting a posture favouring Vladimir Putin.
The Department of Justice said it was pulling out of the International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine (ICPA) two years after the Biden administration joined it with a commitment to hold Putin, Russia’s president, to account for the 2022 invasion and subsequent crimes committed by Russian forces.
An announcement by the justice department was expected later on Monday.
The centre was established to hold the leaders of Russia and its allies in Belarus, North Korea and Iran accountable for a category of crimes listed as aggression under international law for undertaking and supporting the attack.
That is not all the giant asshole Trump did for Putin:
The justice department also said it was reducing the work of its war crimes accountability team (WarCat), set up by Garland in 2022 to hold Russia accountable for atrocities committed following its invasion of Ukraine.
Garland said at the time that “there is no hiding place for war criminals” and vowed that the department would “pursue every avenue of accountability for those who commit war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine”.
The unit provided logistical help, training and direct assistance to overburdened Ukrainian prosecutors, who are investigating more than 150,000 possible war crimes, including the summary execution of prisoners, the targeted bombing of civilians and torture.
It is the Winds of Change Blowing from Hell, 6ixStringJack and Signym
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Do you feel like the winds of change are blowing today too? Blew in an opportunity to cheat small-time shareholders:
Texas Republicans want to curb shareholder lawsuits, like the one that blocked Elon Musk's $50B check
By Benjamin Wermund, Austin Bureau | March 17, 2025
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/musk-sharehold
er-lawsuit-texas-legislature-20220446.php
Elon Musk began moving his companies to Texas after a Delaware judge blocked a more than $50 billion pay package for the Tesla CEO last year.
Now Texas Republicans, who have welcomed the billionaire with open arms, are pushing legislation that business law experts say would make that court outcome next to impossible here.
Their proposal, a priority of House Speaker Dustin Burrows, would make it significantly harder for shareholders to file lawsuits in Texas against publicly traded companies, like the one that spurred Musk to ditch Delaware and urge other companies to follow suit.
Shareholders could only bring so-called derivative claims that allege wrongdoing by executives if they held a 3% stake in the company, which for Tesla, would shrink the eligible pool to only a handful of big financial firms.
Brian JM Quinn, a business law professor at Boston College, said if the proposal becomes law, there would be “no lawsuit against Elon Musk for anything in Texas.”
But the legislation would go far beyond the billionaire Tesla, SpaceX and X CEO. It would insulate all corporate directors and officers from most shareholder claims brought in the state’s new business courts, unless it could be proven that they committed fraud or knowingly broke the law. And the changes would shield executive’s emails, texts and other communications from shareholder inspection in most cases.
The bill would mark a significant expansion of protections for corporations in the state’s new court system that launched just last year and is a key piece of Gov. Greg Abbott’s effort to convince more businesses to incorporate in the state. The Republican governor has yet to comment on the proposal.
State Rep. Morgan Meyer, a Dallas Republican who authored the bill, told a House judicial committee this month that the changes will shield businesses from “meritless, distracting lawsuits” and allow companies to “flourish, create new Texas jobs and contribute to Texas' soaring economy.”
The changes would only apply to publicly traded corporations or companies that opt into the new rules via the court.
Democrats fear the bill will open the door to political cronyism because of the close control the governor wields over the courts. Unlike most judges in the state, who are elected, Abbott appoints the 10 business court judges every two years. It’s a far shorter term than similar circuits in other states and a pace that experts have said could put political pressure on judges who want to keep their seats.
State Rep. Ann Johnson, a Houston Democrat, said she opposed the business courts when they were created, not because she didn’t support the idea of having a specialized system for corporations, but because the judicial appointments took the courts out of the voters’ control. She said it is too soon to add fresh protections for those companies.
“We haven’t even gotten to see if this plays out,” she said. “We just did this, and now they want to expand the authority of it to bring more businesses into that fold of potential political protection. And that scares me.”
But business leaders say the legislation is not about appeasing politically active CEOs like Musk, who spent heavily to help President Donald Trump win the White House and is now carrying out aggressive cuts to the federal government. They say it will create a legal system in the state that is attractive to companies looking to relocate.
“This is well beyond SpaceX,” Glenn Hamer, the president and CEO of the Texas Association of Businesses, said during a hearing on the bill this month. “I guarantee there will be a lot of companies with directors and CEOs that have
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Quote:So, lets circle back to the original source of the dispute, SIX. It's not government employees.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:You get all huffy about gummint employees suckin' on the gummint teat, but you get plenty defensive when the shoe's on the othe foot, don't you?
SIX
and if that's really the case, then I don't give a single fuck about your judgement of my healthcare situation.
How about this, SIX ... instead of bitching and whining about poor little ole you, why don't you take that ginormous IQ you claim that you have, and DO something with it?
I know, it's not fair that you can climb out of the hole that youre in and others ... for lack of IQ ... can't. But instead of advocating for a better life for everyone, you insist that everybody be dragged down into the hole you insist on living in?
You remind me of a fable. There were two farmers, living side by side. One, by dint of hard work and a little good fortune, managed to scrape together enough to buy a cow.
The second farmer slowly grew consumed about his neighbor's good fortune.
One day, he heard a rustling in the leaves and came across a tiny creature trapped in a spider's web. So he carefully freed the little thing. The little creature, in a tiny voice, told him in return he would grant the farmer anything he wanted. Anything at all.
So the farmer thought about what he wanted more than anything in the whole world.Select to view spoiler:
SO HE WISHED HIS NEIGHBOR'S COW WAS DEAD.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA
It's your vengeful attitude.
If your REAL concern was the deficit, you'd be focusing on big ticket items, things that could make a REAL difference. But you're not. You want to grind government employees under your heel because they have job protections and bettrr pay and benefits than yiu.
Trump and Elon dismantling unions? Trump and Elon dismantling worker protections that unions fought for, and won, 100 years ago? Protections that YOU enjoyed? Believe me, without them, your jobs ... they could have been much, much woorse.
So far, that's what they're doing. They hobbled the National Labor Relations Board, dismantled the TSA union, and did away with Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. Their belief is that unions are the problem, when in reality its management. They could have achieved greater efficiency and savings by corralling the bureacracy of chiefs and directors and deputy executive officers and human resources departments, NOT the people who simply work in the conditions set for them. They could have fired inefficient, nonproductive workers and everyone would gave been happier, including the rest of the workforce who have to work extra hard to pick up the slack.
So, when did you start taking big business' side?
Your vengeful attitude is putting you on the wrong side. You think that all the low-wage employees that you worked with want to see a future low-wage America, with no unions and no way up? Everyone working towards Making American (Business) Great Again?
I'm all for reducing the deficit. I'm all for getting rid of programs and departments that aren't part of the government's core mission. I'm all for firing unproductive employees, and ineffective, wasteful bureaucrats who like to pad their budgets bc it makes them feel more powerful.
But I'm not for union busting.
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"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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Here comes the pushback
Quote:
Obama Judge Rules Against DOGE Shutdown Of USAID, Orders Employee Access Reinstated
Tuesday, Mar 18, 2025 - 12:27 PM
In the latest legal turn of events - since the United States is now governed by activist judges, an Obama-appointed federal judge on Tuesday found that Elon Musk and DOGE likely violated the constitution when it shut down deep state slush fund USAID, and has ordered them to restore access for current (remaining) employees.
US District Judge Theodore Chuang ruled in favor of more than two dozen unnamed current and former USAID employees and contractors who challenged the Trump administration's efforts to shutter the organization.
In a 68-page decision, Chuang granted in part their request for a preliminary injunction, ruling that DOGE and Musk likely violated the Constitution's Appointments Clause and separation of powers.
Musk has been ordered to reinstate access to email, payment and other electronic systems for all current USAID employees and personal services contractors, while the Trump administration is now prevented from taking any further actions related to the shutdown of USAID - including placing employees on administrative leave, firing USAID workers, closing buildings, bureaus or offices, and deleting the contents of its websites or collections.
Of note - the order does not currently require the reinstatement of fired employees, after roughly 83% of USAID programs have been officially canceled according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
"After a six-week review, 5200 contracts that are now cancelled spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, and even harmed the core national interests of the United States," he said.
This latest judicial move to block the Trump administration comes days after DC District Court judge James Boasberg (who was in charge of the FISA court when the Obama administration was spying on Trump), issued a two-week halt on deporting illegal immigrant gang members. On Tuesday Trump called for Boasberg's impeachment, drawing a sharp rebuke from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who said it was "not an appropriate response."
The Trump administration is also in the process of reinstating over 24,000 federal workers after a different Obama judge, US District Judge James Bredar, ordered the mass reinstatement of employees at 18 federal agencies last week, determining that the administration’s justification for the firings—poor performance—was not supported by evidence. The ruling follows another decision by a federal judge in San Francisco, who also found terminations at six agencies to be illegal.
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"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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“This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Tuesday.
Chief Justice John Roberts pushed back against President Donald Trump and his allies’ calls to impeach judges who’ve ruled against the administration.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose,” Roberts said Tuesday in a rare and brief statement issued just hours after Trump publicly joined demands by his supporters to remove judges he called “crooked.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/18/john-roberts-donald-trump-imp
each-federal-judges-00235742
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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