Like most Conservatives, whatever they believed before they called themselves Conservative is what they pretend is Conservativism is. It's reverse engineering the term Conservativism to match their own beliefs. Most current Conservative beliefs aren't actually Conservative
US 2024 Presidential Election
- Thread starter gorfias
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- Feb 7, 2011
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A lot of people who regret moving out of California can't move back. They sold their houses when they had mortgages close to 2% interest, and if they wanted to come back they would only be able to get mortgages that are 7% interest. Interest rates went up, affordability went down. Those who moved out because it was already unaffordable aren't going to be coming back because it's gotten even less affordable...but they want to. And the interest rate going up doesn't have anything to do with the governing of California, interest rates are up globally.
Here you go:I can't find any other source saying Texas has more of a tax burden than California.
How the 50 States Rank By Tax Burden
Residents of New York state are burdened by taxes the most, while Alaska residents have the lowest tax burden, a WalletHub study found.www.cpapracticeadvisor.com
Is California Really a High-Tax State?
Key Findings For families of modest means, California is not a high-tax state. California taxes are close to the national…
itep.org
Trump Orders Freeze On All Federal Grants And Loans
Democrats warned that Trump’s latest order could harm programs used by millions of Americans, including early childhood programs, and food and rent assistance.
US places dozens of senior aid officials on leave, citing possible resistance to Trump orders
The decision follows Trump’s executive order last week that directed a sweeping 90-day pause on most U.S. foreign assistance disbursed through the State Department.
apnews.com
Trump To Tariff Chips Made In Taiwan, Targeting TSMC
The tariffs would ensnare cutting-edge smartphone and PC-related chips for Apple, AMD and Nvidia if enacted. But Trump is betting his plan will bring more chip production to the US.
There are all sorts of ways to look at this.Trump To Tariff Chips Made In Taiwan, Targeting TSMC
The tariffs would ensnare cutting-edge smartphone and PC-related chips for Apple, AMD and Nvidia if enacted. But Trump is betting his plan will bring more chip production to the US.www.pcmag.com
1) Broadly, it is more expensive to make things in the USA than other countries, because labour costs are higher. Both due to tariffs initially and production costs later, the end cost to the customer is going to increase, i.e. inflation. This is rarely popular.
2) Chances are, all other major economic areas will do similarly. Trade will decrease, and ultimately risks a decline in quality when inferior home products end up politically favoured over better foreign. It will also breed competitors. China has a tech industry in large part because it has piggy-backed off US outsourcing. Thus instead of global behemoths like Intel, every major area will have it's own mini-Intel: and chances are at least one will end up better than Intel.
3) Who is going to work in these factories? US unemployment is very low; some of this is general churn as people move jobs, there's some voluntary economic inactivity, and let's face it, some of the unemployed are effectively unemployable. This is going to mean immigrants (politically painful), and/or a squeeze on other parts of the US labour market. The latter means job shortages in some industries and reduced capacity, probably also wage increases - which might be good, except that it's also likely to be offset by increased costs i.e. inflation.
4) It's potentially beneficial if the USA transitions back to more manufacturing. Some studies suggest that there is more economic growth available from manufacturing than services; this theory suggests the decline of manufacturing is a significant part of why economic growth has slowed since the 1980s in the West.
5) Countries will probably benefit from elements of specialisation, because it's not possible to maintain top industries in everything. For instance, if you've got a limited pool of physics graduates, you might have to consider how that talent is distributed: being great at a few things, or mediocre at a lot of things. Is this part of a properly worked-out strategy to develop industries with good future prospects that the USA can sustain?
6) Is it really a good idea to then try to also impoverish your allies and neighbours? To all intents and purposes, anything Canada makes the USA already has via trade. So the USA has it's own ~330 million people's worth of production, plus key elements of Canada's ~40 million as and when it wants. It seems clever to steal Canada's industry, but to steal Canada's industry is essentially to give the USA 330 million people's worth of production, plus nothing. It's actually a net loss.
- Feb 7, 2011
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I would also point out that it usually takes years to set up new production facilities on a large enough scale to replace overseas production. If chip makers wanted to build fabs in the US on the same scale as what is currently in Taiwan it would take longer to do so than Trump's entire second term in office, and would potentially cost more than what those companies would lose because of tariffs. They can wait Trump out and hope the next administration drops this tariff nonsense.
Medicaid Portals Are Down Across All 50 States Amid Trump Funding 'Pause'
After declining to name Medicaid as a program safe from the Trump administration's woke "freeze," press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the sites should be back up shortly.
This spending freeze really rips the mask off of how many people on the internet are just outright liars. I can't speak to the Medicare portal itself, maybe it was caught in the confusion of the order, maybe critical staff were given the boot and something they did got neglected, maybe it was coincidence, maybe it was sabotage...Medicaid Portals Are Down Across All 50 States Amid Trump Funding 'Pause'
After declining to name Medicaid as a program safe from the Trump administration's woke "freeze," press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the sites should be back up shortly.www.huffpost.com
But right now, the internet is covered in people saying things like "my job uses government grants, and now we're all not allowed to work" or "my company is gonna go bankrupt cause they cut off our contract" or "we have to reject kids with cancer and send them home untreated now", and anyone who has ever done anything with government contracts knows that every one of those people is totally full of crap. Nothing with government happens that fast. Grant programs take freaking forever to work through, and typically you have your funds before you start the project that uses them, because you can't start something not knowing if it'll be paid for. Government contracts work the opposite way, you expect your line of credit to get stretched because you will be waiting weeks or months to actually get paid. The pause wouldn't have serious downstream effects for months. Payments from the government just don't work that way, hell payments between businesses don't work that way, most things are run on net 30 payment terms.
Any payments being paused now are either for things that happened 30-90 days ago or for grant-based programs that haven't even started yet, which means everyone telling stories about their place of work suddenly having no money to continue working is just lying for fake internet points.
First up, I'll say that the freeze is utterly moronic, probably illegal, & (if it went ahead) would threaten to destroy vital services and livelihoods.
That said, this--
On the Medicaid portals... that outage won't have been directly caused by the freeze of course, but it coincided a little too neatly. I wouldn't be surprised if some administration nutcase took them down as a stunt, intending to send a message to people who use gov funds that they can't rely on them. Similar to those thugs who targeted minorities in the wake of the Brexit vote-- the message is, "see, the country is with us now, you're not safe".
That said, this--
-- is pretty much true. Government funding doesn't work on an instant, overnight basis in the vast, vast majority of cases, and these agencies obviously don't work on a day-to-day budget. Yet I've seen some of these idiotic little stories too. The Internet is awash with fake anecdotalism, trawling for anonymous validation and Reddit karma. And most of these stories are that (I suppose a few might be fringe cases or employers overreacting).
On the Medicaid portals... that outage won't have been directly caused by the freeze of course, but it coincided a little too neatly. I wouldn't be surprised if some administration nutcase took them down as a stunt, intending to send a message to people who use gov funds that they can't rely on them. Similar to those thugs who targeted minorities in the wake of the Brexit vote-- the message is, "see, the country is with us now, you're not safe".
What has Trump done that is anti judiciary, anti minority, and anti free press? All you do is say these people are these things, where are the actual examples?
Trump didn't fucking write Project 2025 and at least half the stuff people say is in there, isn't even fucking in there. What civil rights legislation has he rolled back? DEI is bullshit to begin with, being against DEI is not far right. When did he say he was going to (or has) fired anyone for their political beliefs?
That is almost entirely anecdotal evidence of people regretting the move out of California. People are opposed to change so the fact that people actually moved means the situation got pretty bad in the 1st place.A lot of people who regret moving out of California can't move back. They sold their houses when they had mortgages close to 2% interest, and if they wanted to come back they would only be able to get mortgages that are 7% interest. Interest rates went up, affordability went down. Those who moved out because it was already unaffordable aren't going to be coming back because it's gotten even less affordable...but they want to. And the interest rate going up doesn't have anything to do with the governing of California, interest rates are up globally.
Here you go:
Is California Really a High-Tax State?
Key Findings For families of modest means, California is not a high-tax state. California taxes are close to the national…
Ah, ok that break down makes more sense. However, you still have to deal with the higher home/rental prices which probably makes that one extra % of so of saved money on taxes have not that much of an effect.
That isn't true. I got friends on Facebook saying stuff like SNAP and Section 8 are frozen, that is not true.
It's not necessarily that malign, it can just be a classic type of panic.
I run a university course, and every once in a while a student contacts me in a tizzy because they think we're going to fail them for some reason or other. They think we're going to fail them because some other student on the shared cohort Whatsapp group said so. They and numerous others think that Whatsapp rumour is true even despite it plainly going against the official guidance we gave them, which was subsequently reinforced it in two briefings. They could even check that information, because it's still available to them with a few mouse clicks. And instead, the mere rumour has thrown them into a full blown panic.
Such is the human condition.
Those students may be diagnosing and treating your and my illnesses in a few years. Something to look forward to.
RFK Jr. Proposed Different Vax Schedules for Black and White People
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. once proposed that Americans should receive vaccines on different schedules based on their race, according to a bombshell report. President Donald Trump’s nominee for health secretary made the inflammatory claim in a 2021 talk posted to his Children’s Health Defense...
I suppose in most places that could be the case. I will allow for that possibility in my mind everywhere but the reddit front page. There i maintain my cynicism, lol.
RFK Jr's senate confirmation hearing is currently ongoing. Some highlights:
--
Michael Bennet: “Did you say that Lyme disease is highly likely a materially engineered bioweapon?”
Kennedy: "I probably did say that.”
--
Bennet: "Did you write in your book, and I quote, ‘it’s undeniable that African Aids is an entirely different disease from western Aids’?”
Kennedy: “I’m not sure.”
--
Cortez Masto: "You would agree also as an attorney that federal law protects [A woman's] right to that emergency care [if a pregnancy was life-threatening to the mother], correct?”
Kennedy: “I don’t know.”
---
Brimming with confidence!
--
Michael Bennet: “Did you say that Lyme disease is highly likely a materially engineered bioweapon?”
Kennedy: "I probably did say that.”
--
Bennet: "Did you write in your book, and I quote, ‘it’s undeniable that African Aids is an entirely different disease from western Aids’?”
Kennedy: “I’m not sure.”
--
Cortez Masto: "You would agree also as an attorney that federal law protects [A woman's] right to that emergency care [if a pregnancy was life-threatening to the mother], correct?”
Kennedy: “I don’t know.”
---
Brimming with confidence!
We can forgive him some lapses, after all, that worm might have eaten the parts of his brain containing the relevant memories.
For any of the Medicaid related stuff I'm about to bring up, my wife works on the back end of Medicaid at the state level and I've been hearing all about it for the past week or so.
Agree with you on government not generally moving that fast. Medicaid in particular is a grant-based program though - it's administered at the state level but partially federally funded by grant meaning that if those grants are frozen a significant amount of Medicaid funding will be dead in the water. Unlike most grants these aren't for a one off project, but are a primary source of funding for Medicaid and are regularly disbursed, subject to meeting goals and audits. Depending on the state, it's usually at least half funded by federal grants, with poorer states getting more than that. In my state nearly 2/3 of Medicaid funding is federal.
Medicaid portal was definitely shut down in time with the announcement about grant freezes. Whether this was coincidence or stunt I don't know but it freaked her the fuck out.
No, he just praised it and the people who wrote it, described it as a "plan for our movement", then pretended he' never heard of it when it got bad press. He has also been prone to appointing people who wrote parts of it for any slots he didn't fill based on social media footprint or being plausibly accused of being a Russian asset.
I wonder if that's a brain worm not sure or a ghost writer not sure or just an age-related memory decline not sure?
Surprised no one has mentioned the thing where all federal employees are being offered a "deferred resignation" option with full pay and benefits until 9/30 to try to reduce the federal workforce. Then again I half expect anyone who takes it will have to sue to actually get paid, knowing Trump. Except they can't sue the US without the permission of the US, a fact that I fully expect Trump to abuse vigorously in the coming years.
Trump Threatens Funding Cuts For K-12 Schools That Teach Gender Ideology And Critical Race Theory
Trump is expected to sign the order, along with two others related to education, on Wednesday.
www.forbes.com
I have friends who tell me "You said [thing] once and I was really thinking about that the other day..." and I often have no fucking idea what they are talking about, unless they jog my memory with a lot more context. Sometimes not even then.
I have said a lot of things over the years. Some of them I really believed in, some of them sounded like a good idea at the time, some of them were just filling the gaps in a conversation. I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's nice, I suppose, some of it made a real impact for someone, but seems a little awkward when it didn't necessarily mean so much to me that I bothered remembering it for myself.
I assume it's very similar for other people. I guess at least some of them publicly wrote stuff they weren't so invested in, so it could be read back to them later.
The timeline of this federal funding freeze saga is so fucking insane.
Monday 27th:
OMB memorandum instructs federal agencies to "temporarily pause" disbursement of federal funds. It states it applies to "all federal financial assistance [...] that may be implicated by the executive orders", but doesn't detail which agencies/ programs. It is supposed to go into effect 5pm the next day.
Tuesday 28th:
1: White House press briefing. Karoline Leavitt says there is "no confusion" about which programs are affected, and says Medicare & social security aren't affected. She's asked about several specific other programs (Medicaid, Low Income Heating Program, & Meals on Wheels) but doesn't give a direct answer for them.
2: White House issues a "Q&A" to clarify what's affected. It still doesn't list which agencies and programs are affected, but specifies several that are exempt, including Medicaid.
3: Group of nonprofits sues. Judge Loren Alikhan issues a stay, delaying the freeze until 5pm Monday 3rd Feb.
4. 22 Democratic state attorneys general sue. Judge John McConnell to hear that one.
Wednesday 29th:
1. OMB memorandum is rescinded by another single-line OMB memorandum.
2. Karoline Leavitt states on Twitter that
"This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze. It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo", and that the freeze remains in effect. However she then says its the EOs that remain in effect-- but those EOs did not constitute the subsequent freeze.
3. Judge McConnell (due to hear the AGs' suit) says that Leavitt's statement does not render the suit moot (heh), because it's ambiguous whether the freeze is actually cancelled. He could issue a restraining order.
...and that takes us to today. Have I got that in the right order? What a coms clusterfuck.
Monday 27th:
OMB memorandum instructs federal agencies to "temporarily pause" disbursement of federal funds. It states it applies to "all federal financial assistance [...] that may be implicated by the executive orders", but doesn't detail which agencies/ programs. It is supposed to go into effect 5pm the next day.
Tuesday 28th:
1: White House press briefing. Karoline Leavitt says there is "no confusion" about which programs are affected, and says Medicare & social security aren't affected. She's asked about several specific other programs (Medicaid, Low Income Heating Program, & Meals on Wheels) but doesn't give a direct answer for them.
2: White House issues a "Q&A" to clarify what's affected. It still doesn't list which agencies and programs are affected, but specifies several that are exempt, including Medicaid.
3: Group of nonprofits sues. Judge Loren Alikhan issues a stay, delaying the freeze until 5pm Monday 3rd Feb.
4. 22 Democratic state attorneys general sue. Judge John McConnell to hear that one.
Wednesday 29th:
1. OMB memorandum is rescinded by another single-line OMB memorandum.
2. Karoline Leavitt states on Twitter that
"This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze. It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo", and that the freeze remains in effect. However she then says its the EOs that remain in effect-- but those EOs did not constitute the subsequent freeze.
3. Judge McConnell (due to hear the AGs' suit) says that Leavitt's statement does not render the suit moot (heh), because it's ambiguous whether the freeze is actually cancelled. He could issue a restraining order.
...and that takes us to today. Have I got that in the right order? What a coms clusterfuck.
I can't find where he said that. The foundation that writes it also didn't like how little Trump cared about it in his 1st term. The people that wrote it are conservatives, it's not shocking that a republican president would appoint people that are from conservative circles. Plus, half the things people say are in Project 2025 aren't even in it and this document gets released every election cycle for last 40 years. Thus, I see no reason to be worried about Project 2025.