Glonzo the Bureaucrat 🇬🇱 🌹

Exactly. Student loans shouldn't exist!

Our direct disposable income may go down, so maybe we're gonna have to cut back on burrito taxis and pedicures - in return, nobody will ever go bankrupt from medical bills ever again. That's a trade-off everyone should be willing to make.

Who says no?

Incorrect. I said billionaires, you're quoting a figure about "the top 1%."

The top 1% is more than just "billionaires."

You have less disposable income so you buy fewer and less-nice things. In exchange, you literally never have to worry about healthcare bills, you go to college for free, if you're laid off from your job you have enormous income protections, and child care is basically free too.

Worth it? Yeah.

"capital" in this case being two million working people like me who are overwhelmingly Democratic voters and who can't pay the rent with soaring rhetoric about "capital was panicking."

the shutdown four months ago ended because two million federal employees were about to go bankrupt, and people who rely on SNAP benefits to put food on the table were about to go hungry.

Democrats file new war powers resolutions and call for public hearings on Iran strikes Senators say Trump allies such as Hegseth and Rubio should be forced to testify to Congress on ‘unnecessary war’

is that what Democrats are doing? the answer is no, that's not what they're doing.

House votes down war resolution; U.S. gas prices on the rise The House narrowly rejected a war powers resolution that would halt Trump’s attack on Iran.

they are overwhelmingly opposing it. almost all of them voted for a war powers resolution which would have stopped it. the few who did not should be primaried.

ok I'll choose to engage someone else, have a nice night.

...no, you showed a chart showing that second-quintile Texans pay 10% of their income as state taxes. they certainly don't pay 23% income taxes. nor a 25% sales tax.

Norway's taxation scheme isn't regressive. But everyone pays more and has less disposable income.

Value Added Tax - VAT

Add a 25% value added tax applied to the purchase of almost all goods and services.

Norway - Individual - Taxes on personal income Detailed description of taxes on individual income in Norway

Start with a 22 percent flat income tax on everyone, combined with steeply progressive additional income taxes starting at $23,000 of income.

You get it by collecting 42 percent of GDP as taxes. Which means higher progressive taxes on *everyone.*

What percentage of GDP is collected as taxes in Norway? What percentage of GDP is collected as taxes in the United States?

Do you want a Nordic-style social democracy with free health care, child care, higher education, etc.? Yes or no.

wave to @jerrybeach73.bsky.social, because holy shit Hofstra's dancing!

Minesweeper but it's the Strait of Hormuz. Source: sweepthestrait.com

Chat, what does it look like when a San Antonio-class takes a leaker Silkworm to the stern?

i am being absolutely serious here: CENTCOM had one job and it was literally to prepare for an Iran contingency

Did Australia scrap theirs already? The Anzac-class, I think?

Sleepin' with the fishes (and the sport divers...)

CENTCOM: Hey Navy, send me some modern escort frigates capable of defending a convoy from Iranian stand-off weapons.

CNO: Sorry, best I can do is a 40-knot corvette with a helicopter and a deck gun. 🤷‍♂️

A sticker on the bottom of a wastebasket that says Federal Prison Industries, Terminal Island, Calif. - MF'D 1968

My old office in South Dakota had a steel wastebasket with this sticker on the bottom. Don't make 'em like they used to.

"but all those pulp mill jobs..."

bruh you still can't eat the fish that come out of Ward Cove and it's been 30-some years since the mill shut down.

If we can continue to use technology to generate more food from less land, that means we can increase the proportion of land reserved for conservation purposes, just as increasing the density of human population in cities prevents the need for sprawl into undeveloped areas.

Yes, we need to decarbonize agriculture. Good news: we're rapidly figuring out how to harness the practically-infinite energy provided by our nearby nuclear fusion device known as the Sun. We can power tractors and combines and drones with solar-generated electricity.

Backbreaking farm labor is not equivalent to being a steward of the ecosystem. Technology is not the enemy of sustainability; it can be used for both evil and good.