I love the irony of putting two people in charge of an efficiency department. Satire is dead.

Conservatives are generally hierarchical pussies. Whoever is high ranking and assertive about being the new leader will be the new leader and everybody will line up to be his footrest. Even without a decent choice, they will push somebody into the position even if they’re bland garbage. Source: the shit show that was them searching for a House Speaker and settling for Mike Johnson.

The ones with the balls to break away from the party only did so to follow trump, and they now control the party because eventually the cowards got in line like good little followers. I think that trump losing this time may have convinced enough to steer the party back to a less extreme position, but his win taught them that the country is ready for full on christofascism, and there’s nothing to be gained from the inevitable failure that would be an attempt to fracture/mutiny the party. They’re more evil than dumb.

You’re absolutely right and I hate it. Once he finally dies, prepare for neotrumpism, which is the same thing but more quiet and headed by smarter, prettier, younger people. And it could happen sooner than people are prepared for. Vance will be a heartbeat away from the presidency. Who do you think will be in his inner circle?

Boo fucking hoo. Stop voting for policies that directly hurt you and yours just to spite perceived threats, and then maybe I’ll give a shit about your woes.

– an “enemy from within”

Welp, better late than never.

I would love to be proven wrong, but I’m not sure there’s anything in our wildest dreams that could snap anybody in his base out of their trance at this point. What line is there that he hasn’t already crossed?

Too clever for such a stupid man to come up with. Your throwaway joke while taking a shit is beyond his capabilities.

Do we know for certain that Brandon isn’t II?

Same. And I’m pretty sure it doesn’t take much more than trying to stop the broken world we inherited from breaking further and encouraging them to explore passions even when we don’t understand them. That’s the level of respect we yearned for and never got, so let’s just try to be who we wanted boomers and gen x to be and I think we’ll all be okay. Ideally we could fix what’s broken, but it always takes longer to clean up a mess than to make one. We just need to be willing to plant trees whose shades we’ll never enjoy.

My first thought when I saw this was that this looked like some Facebook boomer shitposting from like 10-15 years ago, but with kinda recent slang and image subbed in. I’m sure some gen x would unironically be all in on this, but it’s the small percentage of them that are basically just boomers who time traveled. They’re the same people who still like old westerns and rant about how nobody has common sense anymore, which if you think about for more than 5 seconds reveals that whatever they think is common sense must not be “common” sense at all, actually, and perhaps the current “common sense” is stuff that they never learned, like how to clear the cache for a phone app that’s acting up.

If we make sure that billionaires can keep more of their billions, then surely some of their billions will trickle down to the very same destination that taxing them in the first place would have ensured that it would end up at. It’s actually smarter that way because it’s an investment that accrues interest and they will also employ people who otherwise would’ve been suckling on the teat of big government social programs. Billionaires actually are paying more money into our systems by being job creators than if they were taxed like the middle class are.

Just kidding. Can you imagine actually believing bullshit like that? Fuck, that kinda made my stomach churn to even pretend to believe in.

I’m in a similar boat. There have been some setbacks, but I’ve been planning a desktop build to replace my gaming laptop from 2015 for a long while now. SteamOS has given me the confidence to commit to an AMD build with a Linux OS. I’ve been on the fence between a few distro options though. Maybe mint, maybe Nobara, there have been a few others.

No, but 100 dead troops is enough to grandstand about to get enough outrage to justify an all-out war in the region.

Just dropping a link to the relevant, most recent upload from Some More News aka Cody’s Showdy. TL;DW: the cyber truck is an oversized, overpriced, unreliable, terrible design that’s dangerous to everybody in and around it.

Unfortunately, about half of Congress politicizes objective science and spreads obvious lies about science things because their donors pay them to. And about 1/3 of the people just believe whatever they say.

Thanks, much appreciated! I just hope that some of what I say gets through to at least one person and teaches them something or helps them in some way. It’s all for nothing if I’m just telling people who already know all of this.

It’s tough to hold onto hope regarding these things, but it’s worth it.

The litmus test for whether something is a lawful order is to ask what will happen if you refuse. If the penalty for refusal is your arrest, say that you would prefer not to but will comply under threat of arrest. If it actually wasn’t a lawful order but you complied to avoid arrest, you’ll learn from a lawyer and get to sue over that.

As somebody else noted, driving is a privilege, not a right; if you’re pulled over for a traffic offense, you’re obligated to hand over your license and other related documents as requested depending on the state, probably registration and proof of insurance. If you don’t, then in many states it’s assumed that you were driving without being licensed to do so, and you’re probably going to jail.

On the flip side, if the cop asks to search your vehicle, you can tell him no. Don’t stop him from doing it anyway, just reiterate that you don’t consent to it and fight in court. There are some situations (like you’re under arrest and your car is being inventoried and impounded) in which they don’t need your consent to get in your car. Probable cause also gets them access to your car without your consent.

If you’re asked to do a field sobriety test, just refuse. Same for a breathalyzer. They’ll probably take you in and have you use a lab machine at the station, but that’s preferable to their bullshit games if you know you’re not doing anything wrong. Make quantitative science be the only evidence. Don’t drink and drive in the first place and you’ll be fine on that front.

I’m 99% sure that you’re kidding, but a shitload of people actually think like that. Decades of copaganda in TV and movies weren’t for nothing, and now social media is full of it. The 80s was saturated with loose cannon cops who get results and it convinced people that sometimes it’s okay to violate rights. Now it’s cops doing tiktok dances or flipping water bottles to convince people that hey, they’re regular people just like me, and well, golly gee, I’m not a fascist so how can I possibly believe that they’re fascists?

Have one involuntary interaction with a cop and your view will change. The cops primarily target brown and/or poor people, so it’s no wonder that the vast majority of thin blue line dipshits are financially comfortable honkies who’ve never had the cops target them.

Sidenote: I’ve always chuckled at the people who have both a thin blue line bumper sticker and Gadsden flag bumper stick/license plate. Basically a billboard that says “tread on those ones, officers” but they’re always the same people claiming “I don’t have a racist bone in my body!” Okay, but only because bones can’t be racist; it’s your brain that’s racist.

Courts have ruled that the police have absolutely no duty to protect and serve you. That shit is a slogan. The reality is that they exist to protect capital and serve capitalists. Cops are class traitors, punishing anybody who steals or threatens value of capital. Some cops do some good, but that isn’t and never was the real intent.

This. You have rights, but the police will lie, cheat, and steal their way into getting whatever they want, especially when what they want is for you to waive your rights.

When stopped by the police (in America), you say “I invoke my fifth amendment right to not answer questions and I don’t consent to any searches and seizures. Am I being detained or am I free to go?” That question starts a clock for what is a reasonable amount of time to detain you for their investigation because you’ve made it clear that you’d like to leave as soon as you’re legally allowed to.

As for any kind of force, just stay silent and unthreatening. They’re gonna do what they’re gonna do, and anything you do can be used as rationalization for escalation, which they really seem to fucking love. Be polite when you do choose to speak. Obey lawful commands and let them arrest you if that’s what they’re gonna do. You don’t fight armed thugs in the street, you fight them in court. File complaints and sue when they violate your rights and cause undue harm. Swinging at them or shouting in their face is how you get shot. Let their ego win the moment and then administratively destroy their career and life later on.

I’m also not a lawyer, but this is what any half decent lawyer would tell you to do. Just shut the fuck up (but invoke your right to shut the fuck up or your silence can actually be used against you) and be as passive as possible so your lawyer has a slam dunk case getting your charges dropped and/or suing the everloving fuck out of them, hopefully nullifying their qualified immunity in the process. Nothing you do or say to the police can help you, but it sure as shit will be used against you. Even things you think are innocuous can corroborate that you’re who they’re looking for, so just shut the fuck up.

Keep going. I’m almost there.