America - The Official Thread

[NotThePrez]

Trump is absolutely going to kill his own people over this.

Live updates: White House to pause federal grants and loans starting on Tuesday

The White House is pausing federal grants and loans starting on Tuesday as President Donald Trump’s administration begins an across-the-board ideological review of its spending.

apnews.com

Red states are, by and large, some of the poorest states that rely more on federal dollars. Bubba T. Cousindiddler of backwoods Mississippi likely voted for Trump and is on Medicaid, SNAP, and other government assistance. They're about to get a shock when their medication is now no longer covered.

Medicaid needs to be revamped to get people who shouldn't have it off of it, but we shouldn't blanketly just stop it in 24 hours. Same with pretty all government handouts. There are a lot of people who get assistance that shouldn't and there are a lot of people who need assistance for legitimate reason that don't get it. It's a broken system, but what Trump is doing is just going to kill lots of people. I actually wouldn't be surprised if this is what turns some Republicans against Trump. Reps and Senators are about to get a ton of angry phone calls from people who can't eat or medicate themselves.

I'm planning on talking about this to family and friends later today. I don't know alot about how the government issues grants and funding, but I do recognize that the ramifications of this decision have the potential to be devastating in our area, beyond anything regarding healthcare and medicine.

 

[Joey D]

I'm planning on talking about this to family and friends later today. I don't know alot about how the government issues grants and funding, but I do recognize that the ramifications of this decision have the potential to be devastating in our area, beyond anything regarding healthcare and medicine.

Florida is one of the top five states to get federal dollars:

Which states rely the most on federal aid? | USAFacts

A fifth of state and local government revenues come from federal funding.

usafacts.org

Apparently, 33% of the budget is federal dollars too:

Is $1 of every $3 DeSantis spends from the feds?

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' State of the State address contrasted the pressures of rising inflation during President Joe

www.politifact.com

So yes, Florida will be in a world of hurt over this.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Anyone want to take a wager on whether Amtrak, a personal favorite of Joe Biden, will even last until the summer?

 

[Famine]

Shall we mention cutting the program, created by Bush Sr, to supply anti-retrovirals to other countries to combat the HIV pandemic - which has thus far saved an estimated 25m lives?

I mean, he already killed a million Americans through incompetence and ignorance (etc!), and got back in, so what's a few million foreigners?

 

[Danoff]

he already killed a million Americans through incompetence and ignorance

...at least incompetence and ignorance. Arguably worse. Let's not forget the very intentional effort to suppress case numbers and pretend it wasn't happening.

I thought about going this route to explain to @ScottPuss20 that they were wrong about Trump, but I figured the pandemic was a rabbit hole.

 

[MatskiMonk]

the ramifications of this decision have the potential to be devastating in our area, beyond anything regarding healthcare and medicine

I'm sure the savings made on purchasing eggs will more than cover any shortfalls.

 

[Blitz24]

I'm sure the savings made on purchasing eggs will more than cover any shortfalls.

Even better, the costs of eggs will go higher!

 

[dylansan]

Medicaid portals down in all 50 states.

 

[Famine]

Medicaid portals down in all 50 states.

hE dOeSn'T kIlL hIs OwN pEoPlE mAtE

 

[Joey D]

This is going to overwhelm hospitals. When people don't have insurance, they use the ER for everything since ERs can't turn people away. They are going to go to the ER for every single thing under the sun, and the hospital will not be able to collect any money for it. Small hospitals also run on a shoestring budget (no, hospitals don't make a ton of money), and they typically don't have the operating capital to last more than a few months. Without Medicaid dollars, they will sink before summer or have to lean out so much that the care they provide will be awful.

 

[CTznOfTime]

I'm always amazed when people are willing to publicly admit that they support Trump. It's like taking a dump on the US flag or saying you tan your testicles or something.

Not only do the people who publicly support trump are willing, they are proud and feel that they cannot be persecuted...

They have their freedom of speech protecting them....

I wonder if they feel their freedom of speech can protect them from medical sickness and illness or other mental incapacity...

...Which most likely is afflicting them since they are supporting trump.


[Sorry I am quoting a few old posts that I wanted to, but never got around to do so because I haven't been back on this thread since my bitterness from the election]

It would be quite the enabling act if Trump won.

He won

Now what ?

Trump is absolutely going to kill his own people over this.

Live updates: White House to pause federal grants and loans starting on Tuesday

The White House is pausing federal grants and loans starting on Tuesday as President Donald Trump’s administration begins an across-the-board ideological review of its spending.

apnews.com

Red states are, by and large, some of the poorest states that rely more on federal dollars. Bubba T. Cousindiddler of backwoods Mississippi likely voted for Trump and is on Medicaid, SNAP, and other government assistance. They're about to get a shock when their medication is now no longer covered.

Medicaid needs to be revamped to get people who shouldn't have it off of it, but we shouldn't blanketly just stop it in 24 hours. Same with pretty all government handouts. There are a lot of people who get assistance that shouldn't and there are a lot of people who need assistance for legitimate reason that don't get it. It's a broken system, but what Trump is doing is just going to kill lots of people. I actually wouldn't be surprised if this is what turns some Republicans against Trump. Reps and Senators are about to get a ton of angry phone calls from people who can't eat or medicate themselves.

Since when has trump ever cared about killing anyone....
Didn't he say he could shot someone on 5th ave, and he would still be cheered...

Yet a certain Luigi.... And suddenly it is the end of the world....
Luigi totally silenced, but the one who needs to be silenced, the orange turd, still is free to golf around...

Funny how that works...
Truth to power goes from one ear, out the next...

I'm planning on talking about this to family and friends later today. I don't know alot about how the government issues grants and funding, but I do recognize that the ramifications of this decision have the potential to be devastating in our area, beyond anything regarding healthcare and medicine.

Yet I would bet that those family and friends who support trump will continue to do so, claiming it is for the good of the country and that they are willing to lose a limb or two, as long as trump is successful..... But got forbid if any of the left inflict them with a paper cut....

 

[Keef]

In case any of you forgot that nearly half of Oklahoma, and the entirety of Tulsa, has sat on a Native reservation since 2020. And the state of Oklahoma has done everything it can to fight against that Supreme Court decision.

 

[CTznOfTime]

I guess Reparations will have to take a sit back down, first ticket to be addressed next are the rights and the land of the Natives...

Mexico will have to wait their turn after Reparations.

 

[Danoff]

Trump administration offers roughly 2 million federal workers a buyout to resign

An email went out to the federal workforce Tuesday evening.

www.nbcnews.com

Elon (it seems) offers to let federal employees continue to work remotely until the end of September in exchange for an upfront resignation. Apparently he did something like this at twitter, which, of course he's using the same brilliant techniques. Except this time the goal at the outset is to mismanage. Elon is perfect for the job.

 

[Scaff]

Give it 6 months, 12 at the outside, and the USA is going to be a very. very different place.

 

[TB]

 

[CTznOfTime]

USA no more...

DSA = Divided States of America

 

[Jezza819]

USA no more...

DSA = Divided States of America

The United States of America

Born: July 4, 1776 Died: November 5, 2024

It was fun while it lasted.

 

[Liquid]

The USSA.

Nothing to do with the antiquated left-right spectrum, this is pure dictatorship vs democracy. And once again, I believe that the Soviet Union might have publicly been defeated but actually won the war; turns out lots of people in the United States do want a dictator, in that classic "dictator I agree with" kind of way.

A lasting, lingering legacy that has slowly eaten away at the USA like a necrosis, whether it's fascism or communism, it turns out that seizing power, plutocracy and authoritarianism have won out and taken hold.

But don't worry, the leopards will never eat your face...

 

[Biggles]

Give it 6 months, 12 at the outside, and the USA is going to be a very. very different place.

The world is going to be a very, very different place. The return of Trump has already had profound repercussions for Canada, Mexico, Greenland and Panama ... and that's just for starters. Ukraine, Israel and Palestine, the Mid East in general, China and the Far East and Europe. The American electorate decided to give Trump another shot at the being-in-charge thing because it all worked out so well the last time ... and under Biden groceries had become more expensive. The old New World Order is going to be replaced by the new Trumpy World Order.

 

[Scaff]

The world is going to be a very, very different place. The return of Trump has already had profound repercussions for Canada, Mexico, Greenland and Panama ... and that's just for starters. Ukraine, Israel and Palestine, the Mid East in general, China and the Far East and Europe. The American electorate decided to give Trump another shot at the being-in-charge thing because it all worked out so well the last time ... and under Biden groceries had become more expensive. The old New World Order is going to be replaced by the new Trumpy World Order.

 

[wowbaggerBR]

The world is going to be a very, very different place. The return of Trump has already had profound repercussions for Canada, Mexico, Greenland and Panama ... and that's just for starters. Ukraine, Israel and Palestine, the Mid East in general, China and the Far East and Europe. The American electorate decided to give Trump another shot at the being-in-charge thing because it all worked out so well the last time ... and under Biden groceries had become more expensive. The old New World Order is going to be replaced by the new Trumpy World Order.

Argentina is putting up fences in its borders. We are reverting decades of work trying (and mostly failling) to integrate the continent.

World will look far different in a few years time. Different, but nothing new and mostly bad.

 

[Biggles]

Nationalism worked out so well for everyone in the 19th century: endless wars culminating in a cataclysmic War-To-End-All-Wars - that didn't - and a second go-around that killed tens of millions more people. Why not give it another shot? What could possibly go wrong?

Now the country leading the charge towards unrestrained nationalism is the world's economic and military superpower led by a narcissistic egomaniac (or two) with the only bulwark against it being ... China. It's time for the western democracies to cooperate together to protect the ideals of liberal democracy.

 

[Danoff]

It's time for the western democracies to cooperate together to protect the ideals of liberal democracy.

Perhaps the first thing to do for those western democracies is to learn the lesson that the US is putting out right now, and realize how you die from within. You're all on notice at the moment, and I think you could all have something of a consensus to fix that problem. In the future, when it is a problem, the consensus won't be there. That's the US lesson.

 

[TheCracker]

Nationalism worked out so well for everyone in the 19th century: endless wars culminating in a cataclysmic War-To-End-All-Wars - that didn't - and a second go-around that killed tens of millions more people. Why not give it another shot? What could possibly go wrong?

Not to mention that, historically, facist leaders rarely die of old age. It's a wonder that anyone would want to model their career along those paths.

 

[Biggles]

Perhaps the first thing to do for those western democracies is to learn the lesson that the US is putting out right now, and realize how you die from within. You're all on notice at the moment, and I think you could all have something of a consensus to fix that problem. In the future, when it is a problem, the consensus won't be there. That's the US lesson.

That's a good point: all the western democracies are facing some variation of rightwing populism at the moment. I'm curious though, at the heart of this is income inequality (and I guess income insecurity) which you have, in the past, dismissed as not-a-thing. What are your feelings about that now?

Liberal democracy is a messy thing, full of flaws and failures ... but you have to look at the alternatives. As Churchill put it in 1947:

‘Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’

People seem to have short memories - or in the case of Americans - no memory at all. So why not give nationalism, protectionism, racism and quasi-fascism another shot?

 

[Danoff]

I'm curious though, at the heart of this is income inequality (and I guess income insecurity) which you have, in the past, dismissed as not-a-thing. What are your feelings about that now?

You're referring to the income inequality thread I started because I couldn't see why income inequality was a problem. I said these things in that thread:

Yea, that's fine. I agree, wealth should not equal extra rights. Why is the solution to this (which is not income inequality, but crony capitalism) always more government though, when it is created by government? Laws that favor large institutions shouldn't be possible because we shouldn't have so many laws - and raising taxes (which is always the proposed solution) does exactly zero to solve that issue.

First, a lot of what people blame on income inequality (which I maintain is not something that can or should be eliminated), is crony capitalism. Elon is a good example of crony capitalism, and Trump in general has long been a fan.

I also said this:

I want to talk for a second about passive income. I considered posting this in the tax discrimination thread, but income inequality seems like a better fit. I've still not seen anyone explain to me why income inequality is a problem in and of itself, the problem always ends up being something else (crony capitalism caused by government overreach). But I do want to talk about the income inequality that is created by wealth inequality for a moment.

Wealth inequality is not necessarily a problem in and of itself either. It is not a problem that I have more or less income or wealth than my neighbor. But crony capitalism and corruption are big problems that large wealth inequality can capitalize on.

Is the solution to stop the ultra rich from accumulating so much? I can see an argument for that when it comes to their ability and efforts to destabilize governments. I still think that the structure and extent of the government being destabilized plays a major role in its destabilization.

If we can't build a government that can resist destabilization by agents or groups with vast resources. And if we can't rely on the population to support the government that protects them from this destabilization. What are we left with? Attempt to prevent the accumulation of vast resources within a small group is one answer. I'm not sure I have others.

Wealth inequality is not exactly what I would call that problem though. The problem is not that the wealth is unequal, it's that the resources are enough to put someone in a position to topple the government. It's more of a wealth threshold problem than an inequality problem. What the poorest person has in comparison is not particularly relevant.

 

[Joey D]

Trump White House rescinds order freezing federal grants after widespread confusion

President Donald Trump’s budget office rescinded an order freezing spending on federal grants, less than two days after it sparked widespread confusion and legal challenges across the country, according to two people familiar with the matter.

apnews.com

 

[Blitz24]

Trump is trying to push through as many EO as possible and hope that someone doesn't react to one of them, so he can claim he "fulfilled his promises".

 

[Keef]

Trump White House rescinds order freezing federal grants after widespread confusion

President Donald Trump’s budget office rescinded an order freezing spending on federal grants, less than two days after it sparked widespread confusion and legal challenges across the country, according to two people familiar with the matter.

apnews.com

All this lately has reminded me of how much chaos there was in 2016-2020. Just constant ridiculous and random decisions. I'd post news and it would be old in 6 hours. It was exhausting and eventually I had to just separate myself and not participate nearly as much as I used to.