All federal discretionary spending combined is $1.6T. This includes what most of us view as primary gov functions. I would be surprised if he even managed to get $150B.
If we're serious about cutting gov spending, then we need to spend less on "mandatory" ($5.2T) spending (i.e. entitlements) just because that's where the money is.
The best way to do that is to reduce the cost of medical care. We should have also raised the retirement age significantly about 20 years ago, I'm not sure what we do now. Maybe means testing.
If it were still scientifically accurate, then maybe it would be. Or maybe we've become more accepting of that class.
These words were used as insults because they denoted membership of that class. That creates verbal landmines if you're trying to talk accurately about the class itself and/or your interactions with it.
Very true, that's why I said "normally illegal". That University didn't want to support Jews against protesters.
The Protesters shut down buildings to the point where the cops (repeatedly) have to get involved, there were multiple arrests, Protesters said on tape "Zionists don't deserve to live" and threaten Jews to their faces, and the U wanted to pretend was purely a 1st AM issue.
Different legal bodies can have different opinions on whether or not threatening Jews is a crime. The Feds think it is and Khalil should face some sort of justice (deportation being the easiest and quickest). The U disagreed, which is why the U lost a lot of federal funding.
I asked Google's AI the history of that word/medical-phrase.
...gained prominence in the mid-20th century as a replacement for earlier, more offensive terms like [snip] to describe intellectual disability.
Faict, the term was instantly used offensively. Then it was replaced with [snip] which itself instantly became offensive. But "mid-20th" lines up with his age which is 72.
Fred is weird here because he's pointing to the problems, admitting that the policies he doesn't like are solutions, then says it's important that we don't use them too much because [the rich].
The "R word" is an example of the Euphemism treadmill where we decide on a polite euphemism (or medical/scientific word) which is then used in a negative way for long enough that it's also replaced. That one was the official gov definition until 2013, so presumably it was polite and acceptable when he was working with them in his much younger days.
DavidTC: You can’t pass laws that do not clearly explain what people cannot do, that people cannot read and understand what behavior is barred.
Khalil led an organization which did things that are normally illegal. We're only attempting to give that a pass because he claimed it was a "protest".
At best his "protest" was a complaint about how another gov conducts itself in a war it didn't start. Most likely his "protest" also included harassment of Jews because they're Jews which is also illegal.
I agree that immigrants have the right to free speech and if that's what we're deporting him over we shouldn't. However pretending Khalil wasn't also crossing lines is not useful.
There is a good chance that the courts will prevent Khalil from being deported over his speech but will allow him to be deported over his other activities.
Trump-as-a-businessman has repeatedly shown that he doesn't care about court orders or business agreements, just how they're enforced. So if there is no way to enforce something then the agreement or order doesn't exist.
We're paying that government a ton of money to house those people ergo we have a lot of leverage. Worse, their gov has no reason to refuse to send him back.
Highly likely that just asking for him to be sent back would do the trick.
If that's not working then the big question should be "why" and I don't see any non-seriously-corrupt reasons on the table.
Burt: Which I interpret to mean Khalil has been critical of the Netanyahu government in Israel and is expected to be critical of it again in the future.
...participation and roles of [REDACTED] And Khalil in antisemitic protests and disruptive activities, which fosters a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States. My determination for [REDACTED] is also based on [REDACTED] citations for unlawful activity during these protests.
That is more than simply being critical of Israel's gov. The gov is trying to deport him because "fighting antisemitism" is a foreign policy objective? Since when is that a thing? And notice he's not claiming that what Khalil is doing will hurt our relationship with Israel.
When does this end up in front of an Immigration Judge?
JayBird: the dance where someone asks for evidence and then, when it’s provided, they say “that’s not conclusive!” or “that’s not *PROOF*!”
Unfortunately for the conspiracy people, at the moment we don't have "proof", much less "conclusive proof".
What we have is unfalsifiable guesswork along with China being stupidly sensitive about having bad news.
Let me quote wiki here: Most scientists are skeptical of the possibility of a laboratory origin, citing a lack of any supporting evidence for a lab leak and the abundant evidence supporting zoonosis. Though some scientists agree a lab leak should be examined as part of ongoing investigations, politicization remains a concern. In July 2022, two papers published in Science described novel epidemiological and genetic evidence that suggested the pandemic likely began at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market and did not come from a laboratory.
So we're probably never going to know with 100% surety unless China really did do it and kept records we'll find eventually. However the longer something like that doesn't show up, the more convinced we should be that this was Mother Nature.
If this were a Murder case then we probably have enough to put Mother Nature in jail but we'd occasionally lose that trial. China would always be let go by law enforcement without a trial.
I have some sympathy for this theory because it passes a number of smell tests.
Covid's home town has that lab, which researches something that might be Covid.
China takes "face" seriously so if it did something embarrassing and stupid it would behave the way it has and lie about it. They lie and/or suppress a ton of other normal data.
The US for diplomatic reasons might reasonably not want to poke China about this since we have other priorities and it doesn't really matter.
So the margin of error (fog of war?) is very large.
Having said that, we don't have evidence Covid is man made and explaining that lack through China being a bad actor is somewhat anti-scientific... but we should also keep in mind that China really is a bad actor.
That's the way the media has represented it. Here is a deeper dive from a lawyer who is deeply opposed to Trump: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXXsAiKYDIM
He titled the video, "Supreme Court - ALL 9 JUSTICES - Tell Trump, No More Deportations Without Due Process!"
InMD: It may be that the entire ROI model needs to be reconsidered to keep both studios and theaters afloat.
Hollywood has "special" accounting to keep down how much they're going to "share" with various people/groups. They both include things they probably shouldn't (increasing the cost to make the movie) and exclude income streams.
So some of these "unprofitable" movies will in fact make money for the studio, just not other interested groups.
And I can't reply to posts at this level so if we continue we should move it down to the bottom.
Every Presidential Election Team Blue has had for the last 50+ years has been against na.zism. If that's all you've got, then you've got nothing because there's nothing you can say on that subject against Trump that you haven't already said a dozen or so times.
I would love for Team Blue to discover and advocate for good government, rule of law, gov reform, and so on. I would love even more for Blue to run on economic growth.
Philip: What do you expect will change as a result?
The political calculus at the moment is Trump was just elected and his base is solidly behind him, so any GOP member can expect to lose their next election if they oppose him.
Trump crashing the economy on a whim is also him losing the backing of his base (or just making the other 80% so angry that they're willing to stand up to him) that GOP politicians will have to oppose him to get elected.
It might even get so bad that his cabinet needs to replace him with Vance leading the coup.
Big picture the root problem with Trump is he wins elections, so him being able to do what he wants is a feature of Democracy and not a bug.
On “From the NY Times: DOGE Savings “85 percent less than its objective””
Military spending is roughly half of that $1.6T discretionary spending
I think Musk didn't review that, so he was promising $1.5T in cuts to $0.8T in spending.
Those numbers are also why I think even $150B in cuts is wrong.
"
All federal discretionary spending combined is $1.6T. This includes what most of us view as primary gov functions. I would be surprised if he even managed to get $150B.
If we're serious about cutting gov spending, then we need to spend less on "mandatory" ($5.2T) spending (i.e. entitlements) just because that's where the money is.
The best way to do that is to reduce the cost of medical care. We should have also raised the retirement age significantly about 20 years ago, I'm not sure what we do now. Maybe means testing.
On “Open Mic for the Week of 4/7/2025”
If it were still scientifically accurate, then maybe it would be. Or maybe we've become more accepting of that class.
These words were used as insults because they denoted membership of that class. That creates verbal landmines if you're trying to talk accurately about the class itself and/or your interactions with it.
On “The Emergency Ordinary Times Facelift”
That exactly. Well done.
On “Open Mic for the Week of 4/7/2025”
Very true, that's why I said "normally illegal". That University didn't want to support Jews against protesters.
The Protesters shut down buildings to the point where the cops (repeatedly) have to get involved, there were multiple arrests, Protesters said on tape "Zionists don't deserve to live" and threaten Jews to their faces, and the U wanted to pretend was purely a 1st AM issue.
Different legal bodies can have different opinions on whether or not threatening Jews is a crime. The Feds think it is and Khalil should face some sort of justice (deportation being the easiest and quickest). The U disagreed, which is why the U lost a lot of federal funding.
On “From Freddie de Boer: Abundance, Up To A Point”
There are bad ideas on both sides, both sides can correctly point to the others' and say that they're wrong.
The Right also suffers from Trump. He over shadows what they stand for and even overshadows what the Left is wrong about.
So big picture there is a big political realignment going on to the point where I'm not even sure what the various parties stand for.
On “Open Mic for the Week of 4/7/2025”
I asked Google's AI the history of that word/medical-phrase.
...gained prominence in the mid-20th century as a replacement for earlier, more offensive terms like [snip] to describe intellectual disability.
Faict, the term was instantly used offensively. Then it was replaced with [snip] which itself instantly became offensive. But "mid-20th" lines up with his age which is 72.
On “From Freddie de Boer: Abundance, Up To A Point”
Fred is weird here because he's pointing to the problems, admitting that the policies he doesn't like are solutions, then says it's important that we don't use them too much because [the rich].
On “Open Mic for the Week of 4/7/2025”
The "R word" is an example of the Euphemism treadmill where we decide on a polite euphemism (or medical/scientific word) which is then used in a negative way for long enough that it's also replaced. That one was the official gov definition until 2013, so presumably it was polite and acceptable when he was working with them in his much younger days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill
On “From Freddie de Boer: Abundance, Up To A Point”
I think it just got fixed.
Thank you!
On “Open Mic for the Week of 4/7/2025”
DavidTC: You can’t pass laws that do not clearly explain what people cannot do, that people cannot read and understand what behavior is barred.
Khalil led an organization which did things that are normally illegal. We're only attempting to give that a pass because he claimed it was a "protest".
At best his "protest" was a complaint about how another gov conducts itself in a war it didn't start. Most likely his "protest" also included harassment of Jews because they're Jews which is also illegal.
I agree that immigrants have the right to free speech and if that's what we're deporting him over we shouldn't. However pretending Khalil wasn't also crossing lines is not useful.
There is a good chance that the courts will prevent Khalil from being deported over his speech but will allow him to be deported over his other activities.
"
Yes, that.
Trump-as-a-businessman has repeatedly shown that he doesn't care about court orders or business agreements, just how they're enforced. So if there is no way to enforce something then the agreement or order doesn't exist.
"
We're paying that government a ton of money to house those people ergo we have a lot of leverage. Worse, their gov has no reason to refuse to send him back.
Highly likely that just asking for him to be sent back would do the trick.
If that's not working then the big question should be "why" and I don't see any non-seriously-corrupt reasons on the table.
"
Burt: Which I interpret to mean Khalil has been critical of the Netanyahu government in Israel and is expected to be critical of it again in the future.
...participation and roles of [REDACTED] And Khalil in antisemitic protests and disruptive activities, which fosters a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States. My determination for [REDACTED] is also based on [REDACTED] citations for unlawful activity during these protests.
That is more than simply being critical of Israel's gov. The gov is trying to deport him because "fighting antisemitism" is a foreign policy objective? Since when is that a thing? And notice he's not claiming that what Khalil is doing will hurt our relationship with Israel.
When does this end up in front of an Immigration Judge?
"
Yep. Trump is unfit for office. The unfortunate reality is a lot of things which are illegal for the President have no enforcement mechanism.
If we're very lucky he'll go down as the 2nd worst President we've seen. If we're unlucky then he'll be number 1.
"
JayBird: the dance where someone asks for evidence and then, when it’s provided, they say “that’s not conclusive!” or “that’s not *PROOF*!”
Unfortunately for the conspiracy people, at the moment we don't have "proof", much less "conclusive proof".
What we have is unfalsifiable guesswork along with China being stupidly sensitive about having bad news.
Let me quote wiki here: Most scientists are skeptical of the possibility of a laboratory origin, citing a lack of any supporting evidence for a lab leak and the abundant evidence supporting zoonosis. Though some scientists agree a lab leak should be examined as part of ongoing investigations, politicization remains a concern. In July 2022, two papers published in Science described novel epidemiological and genetic evidence that suggested the pandemic likely began at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market and did not come from a laboratory.
So we're probably never going to know with 100% surety unless China really did do it and kept records we'll find eventually. However the longer something like that doesn't show up, the more convinced we should be that this was Mother Nature.
If this were a Murder case then we probably have enough to put Mother Nature in jail but we'd occasionally lose that trial. China would always be let go by law enforcement without a trial.
"
I have some sympathy for this theory because it passes a number of smell tests.
Covid's home town has that lab, which researches something that might be Covid.
China takes "face" seriously so if it did something embarrassing and stupid it would behave the way it has and lie about it. They lie and/or suppress a ton of other normal data.
The US for diplomatic reasons might reasonably not want to poke China about this since we have other priorities and it doesn't really matter.
So the margin of error (fog of war?) is very large.
Having said that, we don't have evidence Covid is man made and explaining that lack through China being a bad actor is somewhat anti-scientific... but we should also keep in mind that China really is a bad actor.
"
That's the way the media has represented it. Here is a deeper dive from a lawyer who is deeply opposed to Trump: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXXsAiKYDIM
He titled the video, "Supreme Court - ALL 9 JUSTICES - Tell Trump, No More Deportations Without Due Process!"
"
InMD: It may be that the entire ROI model needs to be reconsidered to keep both studios and theaters afloat.
Hollywood has "special" accounting to keep down how much they're going to "share" with various people/groups. They both include things they probably shouldn't (increasing the cost to make the movie) and exclude income streams.
So some of these "unprofitable" movies will in fact make money for the studio, just not other interested groups.
And I can't reply to posts at this level so if we continue we should move it down to the bottom.
On “What To Expect When You’re Expecting a Trade War”
He's a narcissist who has surrounded himself with "Yes" men.
"Not budging" and "being unreasonable" are part of the package, even before we get into dementia.
"
Every Presidential Election Team Blue has had for the last 50+ years has been against na.zism. If that's all you've got, then you've got nothing because there's nothing you can say on that subject against Trump that you haven't already said a dozen or so times.
I would love for Team Blue to discover and advocate for good government, rule of law, gov reform, and so on. I would love even more for Blue to run on economic growth.
These would be easy issues to steal from Trump.
"
Philip: What do you expect will change as a result?
The political calculus at the moment is Trump was just elected and his base is solidly behind him, so any GOP member can expect to lose their next election if they oppose him.
Trump crashing the economy on a whim is also him losing the backing of his base (or just making the other 80% so angry that they're willing to stand up to him) that GOP politicians will have to oppose him to get elected.
It might even get so bad that his cabinet needs to replace him with Vance leading the coup.
Big picture the root problem with Trump is he wins elections, so him being able to do what he wants is a feature of Democracy and not a bug.
"
China is massively unstable and should be expected to implode some day (see also: Russia).
Apple should have been in the process of moving for years.
"
The Republican Party is very weak, the voters overrode it to pick Trump. The "appointed" candidate both cycles was someone else.
The unfortunate reality is the system allows for popular but unfit candidates to be voted in.
The good news is Trump crashing the economy will lower his popularity. This is also the bad news.
On “Open Mic for the Week of 4/7/2025”
I misspoke. The Supremes dislike creating Constitutional crisis.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.