The direction of society lately

[thollandpe]

And three more top military brass get fired, including the chairman of the joint chiefs:



His replacement, you can guess his gender and skin color, is called a “highly unusual choice” and has ZERO of these code-required qualifications, that the officer must have served as one of the following:
Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff;
Chief of Staff of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, or Space Operations; or
Commander of a unified or specified combatant command.

Uniformity, inequity, and exclusion.

[rwsaunders]

I’m waiting with bated breath to find out who killed JFK.

[thollandpe]

I’m waiting with bated breath to find out who killed JFK.

It was the DEIs, silly.

Note that the military firings, which also include the JAGs, have nothing to do with the crash of the aircraft carrier USS Truman, or the loss of:
Air Force F-35
Army UH-60
USMC King Air
Navy E/A-18

It’s been a month.

[j44ke]

Steve Cohen spoke at a conference in Miami yesterday. You may love him or hate him as the Mets Owner, but as an investor, he is sharp. He's negative on the economy for a few reasons tariffs etc, but ultimately, DOGE is just austerity by another name. A big reason Europe and UK lagged the US so much post Financial crisis, and post covid, is austerity. It's crushing.

Elon Musk is no idiot, he knows his austerity package of firing federal workers, cutting services and programs is going to cause massive hardship and people will begin to feel poorer much quicker. One thing Americans really hate is being poorer. Elon knows once this truth hits home, the anger from the masses will cause the poltiicians to fold.

How it will manifest itself in the US, I do not know but it will make the US a more miserable place. Under the Tories austerity programs, the UK became a much shittier place.

I'm with Cohen. I give the Musk/Trump circle jerk a year and a half. You can't add all this unemployment to the economy - unemployment from classically stable middle class jobs with benefits and loss of commensurate spending that wll impact the service sector directly - and not have pessimism grind the pistons of the US economic engine to a paste. Trump won't give a fck about individuals losing their jobs, but he will panic about the stock market, the Fed, and approval ratings come mid-term elections. And that's when those two will run out of lube.

But that's just one of many issues that this administration is creating for the country - because no bad outcomes will be their fault - and if Trump is truly committed to creating a Pasta Putinesco out of US democracy, he'll be likely to squeeze tighter and revenge-seek more forcefully and more widely. Just saw that Putin restarted nationalizing businesses and infrastructure in the name of national security. We'll see if Trump views that as an economic model that can ensure future success. I think that's the distant blinking light of possible futures that Amazon Boy and Facebook Boy saw when they looked down the road 5-10 years. I think it is also too late for them.

[Mabouya]

I'm with Cohen. I give the Musk/Trump circle jerk a year and a half. You can't add all this unemployment to the economy - unemployment from classically stable middle class jobs with benefits and loss of commensurate spending that wll impact the service sector directly - and not have pessimism grind the pistons of the US economic engine to a paste. Trump won't give a fck about individuals losing their jobs, but he will panic about the stock market, the Fed, and approval ratings come mid-term elections. And that's when those two will run out of lube.

As far as I'm concerned, the mid-term elections can't come soon enough. If the next 1.5 years are at all like the last month (and nothing says they won't be, and probably worse) and the Dems aren't able to retake at least one chamber of Congress to slow down this out-of-control Trump Train, then a) the party might as well call it quits, and b) American voters are even worse than I thought.

[ides1056]

A high percentage of the federal workforce is veterans, I believe. That won’t sit well.

[Mark Walberg]

I I give the Musk/Trump circle jerk a year and a half. ....

This is what they are counting on.

[suspectdevice]

A high percentage of the federal workforce is veterans, I believe. That won’t sit well.

Have you talked to any veterans under the age of 40 lately? Unless they were commissioned officers(college folks), their highest level of educational attainment was American public highschools post -9/11.

We have fascism today because that exact demographic was tought how to reflexively salute the flag and be evaluated solely by their standardized test scores.
School budgets, slashed, civics, art, music, inquiry-based education, slashed, burnt, disfigured beyond recognition.

American teachers and their unions didn’t want to raise fascists, but federal education policy under both “parties” and typical regressive republicanism at the local level kinda forced their hands.

Remember folks. Young men were inspired to go to the polls against America by manosphere bloggers. They cheer RFK’s idea for re-education camps, many of the young veterans i know think of themselves as “libertarians” and cheer Javier Millei and Musk as… heroes. No espirit de corps for fellow oath takers is evident, just glee seeing what they (wrongly) believe to be the “destruction of the administrative state”

On the bright side, I know two active duty service people in their early 20’s who are receiving gender affirming care. I have been trying to check in with them weekly. Their unit commanders and comrades are (so far) ignoring EO’s and directives that are designed to hurt and demoralize these brave volunteers.

[j44ke]

This is what they are counting on.

Yep. A lot of damage between now and then.

[suspectdevice]

The german elections-
Der Lienke (the Left) won the under 30 vote.
America- Der Cheeto won the under 30 vote.

It’s like education and treating healthcare and housing as fundamental human rights is an effective inoculation against fascists!

[echappist]

The german elections-
Der Lienke (the Left) won the under 30 vote.
America- Der Cheeto won the under 30 vote.

It’s like education and treating healthcare and housing as fundamental human rights is an effective inoculation against fascists!

As a pedantic git by trade, I’ll have to ask you to cite your sources.

The youth vote, variously defined as under-30 or 18-29, was reported to favor Harris at 52-46. Granted, that vote (although not the same longitudinal group from 2020) definitively shifted toward Trump from 2020 by 10 points, which in itself is disconcerting. But that was not the premise upon which you based your contention.

As for Germany, I’m sure you know it’s a parliamentary system, so there are two different types of “winning”: out right over 50%, or alternatively plurality (highest among all contestants but not necessarily over half). Which one is it, and what are the exact numbers?

[echappist]

I actually looked up the results, and I think the premise in post #309 is highly suspect.

The actual breakdown by age are as follows (screenshot taken from DW's article on the election):



Most pertinently, the SPD, the Greens, the Left, and the BSW are the left-leaning parties. Together, they obtained 54% of the 18-24 vote and 47% of the 25-34 vote.

The CDU/CSU, FDP, and AFD are the right-leaning parties, albeit with the former two more like Bush I/ Nixon GOP (pro-business tilt, FDP particularly so) and the AFD more like the present-day GOP. They obtained 39% of the 18-24 vote and 45% of the 25-34 vote.

Preference for the left-leaning parties in Germany really isn't as pronounced as writer of post #309 proclaims to be.

[BBB]

Speaking of "Der Cheeto"(and infographics)...how is his golf game going?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmc...e-infographic/

[ides1056]

It’s cost 12 million of taxpayers’ money so far.

[EBH]

The US is on a "distinguished" list among those who voted against a resolution demanding Russian withdrawal from Ukraine.
The 16 that voted against Monday’s resolution alongside the U.S. and Russia were Israel, Haiti, Hungary, Palau and the Marshall Islands; the African countries Burkina Faso, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Niger and Sudan; and Belarus, North Korea, Syria, Eritrea, Mali and Nicaragua.

[rwsaunders]

All Star team, huh?

[Scott G.]

The US is on a "distinguished" list among those who voted against a resolution demanding Russian withdrawal from Ukraine.
The 16 that voted against Monday’s resolution alongside the U.S. and Russia were Israel, Haiti, Hungary, Palau and the Marshall Islands; the African countries Burkina Faso, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Niger and Sudan; and Belarus, North Korea, Syria, Eritrea, Mali and Nicaragua.

The charitable explanation of the US position is convincing Putin that he has won a great victory
and the Russians can now go home in honor. Putin is the man riding the tiger, the only way for
him to keep his head is to bring home a victory.

[takashi]

IMG_0836.jpg

Putin is for sure riding something

[thollandpe]

Putin is the man riding the tiger, the only way for him to keep his head is to bring home a victory.

“Here’s a better peace plan for Ukraine.

‘Russia, you’ve already sustained twice as many casualties as the US did in WW2. Leave Ukraine or suffer four times more, and collapse as a country in the process.’

Done.” —Adam Kinzinger

[72gmc]

Being a dictator means never having to say you made a really bad call and got your ass handed to you.