pdb, cognitive dissident

@charlotte-fc.bsky.social where are you?

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

Look what's happening at the French Embassy in Washington DC.

This. Srsly.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

This 1984 maxim has never felt more narratively accurate.

It definitely sounded better in the original Russian.

Oh for fuck's sake, by all means let's put the guy who wants to make polio great again in charge of HHS.

I've been told that's definitely true for pregnancies, too.

But, we've always been at war with Eastasia, right?

She got the Mar-a-Lago early bird special. It comes with the all-you-can-inject salad bar and the plastic surgery buffet.

Please tell me it's just for the IP address(es) for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Srsly though, what about the non-US Google sites? Literally the rest of the world calls it the Gulf of Mexico. This is like changing the Donbas map to make it Russia. The rest of the world disagrees.

Came here to post this, relieved someone beat me to it. /s

Not just the visuals.

He stole the "founder" designation at Tesla, too, after he pushed out the original founders.

He founded X Payments in December 1999, a year after PayPal was founded.

The 2 later merged, but he wasn't a PayPal founder, despite claims to the contrary.

100% copycat.

If ever. They'll just be spoonfed another scapegoat. Lather, rinse, repeat.

And the world should be disgusted.

They're about to be on the business end of this HL Mencken classic:

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

Unfortunately, those of us who unambiguously did not want this are along for the ride.

Not unlike several HS classmates who joyously celebrated "liberation day" on Jan 20.

Of course, the federal employee purges haven't been for them, nor the first wave of deportations, so their illusion won't be shattered for years.

Yes.

@umichbball.bsky.social ditch Twitter and start posting here, please.

"For patriots who never back down"?

No wonder they have so many SA allegations, complaints and convictions.

#nomeansno

President of #Georgia, Salome Zourabichvili meets with her Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Paris.

"Thank you, President Zelenskyy, for your steadfast and unwavering support for the Georgian people", - Zourabichvili writes.

Historically true. I fully expect DOGE to recommend slashing entitlements, and for them to blame Dems for overspending and overcommitting as they do it. And for 80mm voters to blame who they're told to blame.

Don't disagree in the least, but the point remains that SCOTUS is unlikely to be of any help in protecting SS benefits when DOGE comes to the inevitable conclusion that the only way to materially reduce federal spending is to slash entitlements, which make up almost 60% of spending.

Sure, but by law, they can also cut benefits and terminate the program with a single bill passed by the house and senate and signed by the president.

SCOTUS ruled in Flemming v Nestor in 1960 that you don't own your SS and fedgov can cancel the program at any time and owes you nothing.

Now, if we somehow caused the govt to distribute those IOUs to SS beneficiaries, we would have valid govt bonds in the hands of 3d parties, & enforceable debt claims that the fedgov would, in theory, need to honor as they come due.

Except they can't, because they already spent the money.

3/3

It also means the surplus only exists on paper, because the $ was spent in the year it was collected, whether on SS benefits or B-1 bombers or block grants

Which means there is no trust fund.

It's an entitlement program, not a retirement acct, and it is, de facto, unfunded.

Sad, but true.

2/3

The soc sec trust fund is a collection of special govt bonds payable by govt to govt - IOUs payable from my right pocket to my left pocket.

FICA taxes each yr pay current retirees & there's no property rights on SS benefits.

That means you don't own your social security "account".

1/3

✋

Don't think Hegseth was making any promises about the sexual predation or misogyny, he's just gonna stop drinking...which just means he won't have the booze to take the edge off when he's feeling especially rapey.

*every M-OSU game in Ann Arbor, that is.