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Trump's Tariffs are the Largest Tax Increase in Decades

Posted by DeathMonkey on Thursday May 16 2019, @05:16PM (#4267)
51 Comments
News

A CNBC analysis of data from the Treasury Department ranks the combined $72 billion in revenue from all the president’s tariffs as one of the biggest tax increases since 1993. In fact, the tariff revenue ranks as the largest increase as a percent of GDP since 1993 when compared with the first year of all the revenue measures enacted since then, according to the data.

Trump’s tariffs are equivalent to one of the largest tax increases in decades

And about that massive welfare program he's setting up for farmer bailouts? $62 MILLION went to Brazilian criminals:

Trump administration showers Brazilian crooks with $62M bailout money meant for struggling U.S. farmers

Remember when tax hikes, welfare, bailouts and criminals were bad?

Who doesn't love making fun of the kids these days?

Posted by Snow on Thursday May 16 2019, @03:32PM (#4266)
5 Comments
/dev/random

A few days ago while wasting my life on reddit, I came across this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OADXNGnJok

Two high school (?) kids are given 4 minutes to figure out how to dial a number on a rotary phone. It's adorable.

I love how they 'reset' the phone between tries. The dial tone impersonation also cracked me up.

Damn kids these days...

Is Albania's government falling?

Posted by Arik on Sunday May 12 2019, @05:42AM (#4251)
17 Comments
Code
https://www.rt.com/news/459085-albania-tirana-protest-molotov/

It's typically not a good indicator of the long term health of a state when "protesters" wearing fire-retardant gear and respirators have the police holed up in front of the "government headquarters" and are throwing molotov cocktails at them.

"Opposition protestors tossed Molotov cocktails at the Albanian government headquarters on Saturday, while the police responded with tear gas. The Balkan country’s accession to the EU is to be decided in less than two months."

If you watch the video, it's actually very odd. The "protesters" start with bottle rockets, firecrackers, and fireworks of all sorts. Which strikes me as an attempt to provoke a reaction. When no reaction is forthcoming, then the molotovs start coming out, and also smoke to cover their positions. And then tear gas comes at them. But these folks were equipped to handle that as a minor inconvenience, and apparently the standoff continues.

I'm not going to give you any kind of good guy/bad guy analysis here. Maybe the cops are the good guys, because they literally have their backs to the wall and molotovs coming at them before they return fire. And even then they're trying to be non-lethal. Hard to ask for more restraint from them really. Did he order it, or is that the cops themselves?

Maybe the protesters are the good guys though. Because Albanians have been ripped off by their own government for generations and I doubt very much their current PM is a saint, or uninvolved in the most recent rip-offs which stripped the country of so much of what little it had left.

In terms even of pattern recognition, this is an odd one. If the Russian Federation has a stand on such a matter, RT will usually let me know. The same way that in this country NPR will let me know what the Democrats (well some of them) think, Faux News will let me know what the Republicans (well some of them) think, CNN and MSNBC will let me in on what the dumbest think... but anyhow, from RT, on this, mum's the word it seems. Russia doesn't seem to have a position.

Only slightly odd. Albania IS a historical Soviet bloc nation. Ideally, I'm sure Putin and his team would like to keep every one of them on board. But it's on the other side of hostile territory, recently looted, and even back in the Soviet days it never really paid its way.

Hrmm so here's my best guess. West is indeed financing a "color revolution" event against its own client. RT refrains from saying so because Russian Federation not inclined to waste any capital against it because they already wrote this off, and lost effective control, some years ago. I'm just guessing comment if I'm wrong.

I do know that the "Democratic Party" boycotted the election then refused to accept the results - pattern recognition sees that as starting to match with a Shadow intel operation.

But the US and EU have backed Rama publicly, and he's not getting any support from RF. Sure sounds like "we" are overthrowing our own puppet government.

If you know more about him, please post. Sources too if possible. I really don't know much about him.

Obvious Sockpuppets

Posted by Azuma Hazuki on Friday May 10 2019, @11:27PM (#4242)
100 Comments
Soylent
It's becoming more and more clear we have a problem with sockpuppets in this place.

They're not all that bright, either; the classic tell is consecutive or near-consecutive UIDs, as is the case with John Miller (UID 6613) and "real" Donald Trump (UID 6614). Less well-known, but all the more obvious, are NPC-$BIGNUM (UUID 7144) and NPC-$BIGNUM+1 (UID 7147).

I don't think these are the same person--that is, I don't think rDT/John Miller and the two NPCs are all the same person--but it's fairly obvious each of them has the corresponding pair of socks. And rDT/JM also apparently are "highly correlated with a bunch" of ACs, most of which have been judiciously Spam modded out of existence from the sound of it.

So...what's the point? At the very least, this is using the SN posting system in bad faith. The NPC twins appear to be trying to play a satirical good cop/bad cop game (and failing rather badly...), rDT and JM are poor satire (though they've been improving a bit lately) and who knows WTF the AC socks are really on about. This is needlessly deceptive, if you ask me: if your opinions cannot stand up to the test of collision with reality on a one to one basis with other accounts, extra sockpuppet accounts are not going to change that.

The NPC twins in particular are very obviously here for the sole purpose of stirring shit and causing chaos. Admins: what, if anything, is going to be done about this? You're showing yourselves to be rather weak-willed and careless in the face of sinister forces....

Happy Mother's Day! -- Its this Sunday you ungrateful child!

Posted by Snow on Friday May 10 2019, @08:30PM (#4241)
8 Comments
/dev/random

I'm not sure we actually have any mothers here... I can only think of one cis-female (Azuma) and one noncis-female(can't remember the name... not sure if they even post here anymore). Oh, and cafebabe. I don't think that any of them are mothers yet though.

Nonetheless, maybe there is a lurker mom. Azuma might be a cat mom, but if so, her cats wont get her anything because cats are selfish like that.

I do want to make a special call out to Mrs Gaaaaark, because she is a fucking saint.

And to all you ungrateful sons who still have moms with us, CALL YOUR MOM this Sunday. She would love to hear from you!

Any good children have special plans for you mom? If so share them below so all of us late planners can steal your idea.

As for me, my lack of planning was able to successfully delay Mother's day until next weekend. My siblings are taking mom out Sat and Sun, so she is fully booked this weekend. My plan is to take her and my daughter to a local petting zoo. My mom can parade her around like a proud grandma. Maybe I'll make some sandwiches for a picnic there... We'll see.

Not sure what to do for my wife. I might make my daughter make a card for her tonight so we can present it on Sunday.

Anyways, post your plans below so I can steal them if they are better than my ideas!

janrinok says I need to do my journal, as part of my therapy

Posted by aristarchus on Thursday May 09 2019, @02:41AM (#4230)
61 Comments
Soylent

Soylent News has a racism problem. The problem is not so much the racists, though we do seem to have plenty of those in the comments, and I offer all of them a virtual punch in the face. The real problem is the inability to discuss racism. For example, our most recent inability resulted in the mod-banning of the TMB, just because he is Native American. This is not right.

So in the interest of raising the level of discourse here on SoylentNews, I thought it might be a good idea to submit some recent studies and confessions on exactly this topic. But my efforts have been rebuffed, with great vehemence and vitrol. For example, one rejection reads:

We're sorry, your submission "My regrettable libertarian romance: I rebounded from my experimental phase, but many don't" was declined for the following reason:
My regrettable liberal romance: I rebounded from my experimental phase, but many don't

The editors felt it inappropriate for them to correct the issue themselves.

Well, duh! the prior submission was all about the Dunning-Kruger Effect, so of course they felt it was inappropriate. And who the hell of the Eds thinks I am a liberal? Are we politically illiterate on SN? Θεέ μου.

The submission, in all its rejected glory, can be found here: My regrettable libertarian romance: I rebounded from my experimental phase

And the next rejection was even more, well, childish? What are the Eds afraid of? That they might be racists? (They are.) and not know it? (They don't.) But that is no reason to reject a submission from the Pew Research, pointing out that racists don't know they are racists, unless they know they are racists, and intentionally seeking to draw our attention away from it? No reason given for this rejection. Hmmm. Here it is:
The most racist people are also the least likely to recognize their own racism

And then, we have a follow up to our TMB disturbing study, what with the facts and all, that still offends the eds. Rejection notice:

We're sorry, your submission "Americans See Advantages and Challenges in Country’s Growing Racial and Ethnic Diversity" was declined for the following reason:
"whites are more likely than blacks to say diversity is very good for the country"

The reason is a quote from the Fine Article? I do not understand! Are the Eds saying that the submission does not make some point that they think I am making? Or is the fact that most "whites" are not racist means that the Eds of SoylentNews are not racist? Puzzling Evidence, per David Byrne and Talking Heads. Original (disappeared quickly, this is the point, these submissions did not languish in the queue for days, they were killed in a matter of hours: why? Truth hurts?):
Americans See Advantages and Challenges in Country’s Growing Racial and Ethnic Diversity . Of course, the entire point of the submission was to point out that racists are a minority, a white Republican minority, in America. We cannot be talking about that on SN, Richard Spencer and Milo would not be happy.

Finally, a submission pointing out that, well, read the title:
Nearly half of white Republicans say it bothers them to hear people speaking foreign languages

Some may be aware, if they peruse the queue, that I on occasion submit submissions from places other than America or its lapdog, Britain, in languages that Americans find opaque and disturbing. And of course, this is most prevalent among the least educated, and therefore Republican, Americans. Really, we should internationalize SoylentNews. We have Unicode, and we can't use it? Why? The only explanation is, yes: Racism. So before you say, "I am not in favor of Racism, but . . ." , allow me to say, "μπορεί τα γαϊδουράκια να βρουν το δρόμο τους στην πισίνα γονιδίων σας."

Even my submission where I purposely made no comments, no editorializing, no nothing, rejected! Must be racism!

********Update! Yet another rejection! This one is Is there life after the Alt-right Apparent answer, from the eds, is no. Nothing but death, destruction, darkness, nihilism, hatred, racism, misogyny, pro-business attitudes, and The Dark Side. Once you go alt-right, you'll never be able to be a normie again. Kinda the point, eh? But some of us reject the premise. Come back from the Dark Side, Soylent! It is not too late for you! We'll burn you in a Jedi funeral! Promise.

_______________
And this:https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=33637
It was going to be an alt-right white wedding! (yeah, right!)

Iran to resume its nuclear program

Posted by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 08 2019, @05:58PM (#4229)
78 Comments
Code

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced Wednesday that his country was taking steps to halt its compliance with elements of a landmark nuclear accord, in a move that appeared certain to aggravate tensions with the United States.

In a televised speech, Rouhani said that Iran would hold on to stockpiles of excess uranium and heavy water used in its nuclear reactors. He set a 60-day deadline for new terms to the nuclear accord, after which Tehran would resume higher uranium enrichment.

In November, the United States reimposed sanctions that have strangled Iran’s oil and banking sectors as well as its foreign trade. The sanctions came after the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the pact that Iran negotiated with world powers in 2015 and that curbed its nuclear program in exchange for widespread sanctions relief.

Iran had been complying fully with the terms of the deal even after the Trump administration unilaterally withdrew last year, according to the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Iran announces it will stop complying with parts of landmark nuclear deal

Great job Trump!

One reason people say they own a cat

Posted by DannyB on Wednesday May 08 2019, @02:07PM (#4227)
21 Comments
/dev/random

There are many reasons. Who owns who is unclear.

Some people in a rural area say they keep a cat because: "it keeps the vermin down".

What does that mean exactly?

1. the cat reduces the population of vermin?

2. the cat has a remarkable ability to not vomit up the vermin?

The google definition of vermin, and especially the google images page for vermin, would suggest that meaning 2 is what is intended by that "keeps the vermin down" phrase.

Satisfaction obtained! Duel concluded. No fatalities.

Posted by aristarchus on Saturday May 04 2019, @07:52AM (#4217)
48 Comments
Digital Liberty

So there it is. janrinok did not respond directly to my challenge, like a gentleman, but he is English, so some accommodation is in order.

But he did, or, at least he might have, reigned in his dog, (and, yes, I know that the proper word is "reined", but there was precipitation) and with that admission, I consider the matter to be partially closed.

In the future, I expect aristarchus submissions to be given equal consideration with all other submissions, and not be dismissed without cause, hint, or license. And I expect Editors to be able to distinguish alt-right agitprop, and islamophobic hysteria, and Runaway submissions when they fit one of those categories,

But, and let me make this clear, the next time there is such an affront to justice and myself, or any other honorable Soylentil, I will demand satisfaction in blood. Or ouzo. Either way.

----------
Followed immediately by this:

We're sorry, your submission "Perché l’associazione ultra cattolica di Bannon vuole una scuola di sovranisti in Italia:" was declined for the following reason:
Submissions must be in English - https://soylentnews.org/faq.pl?op=editorial. -- JR

Do you not realize, denizen of the Fairy Isles to the West, that to a Greek Italian is English? Americans are the problem. Monolingual troglodytes who Steve Bannon is going to bambozzle.
----------------------
Further followed by a newsworthy submission:
https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=33468
Rejected by takyon with the words:

We're sorry, your submission "2 from white supremacist group plead guilty in Charlottesville rally violence" was declined for the following reason:
nope -takyon

Seems nothing has changed. #freearistarchus!!!!

_______
And I would be remiss if I did not profusely thank Azuma Hazuki for her invaluable service as a second in this affair. Without her, the matter would not have ended as amicably as it did. ありがとう、お姉さん.

I don't eat brains.

Posted by Arik on Saturday May 04 2019, @04:56AM (#4215)
11 Comments
Code
Rockabilly guys may be insane/but rockabilly guys they don't eat brains
Those death metal guys they like to wear black/they like to draw pentagrams on their back
They like headbangin'/Those death metal guys.

Rockabilly guys like hot rod cars/they like hot women and their neighborhood bar
Death metal guys will grow long hair/and work real hard to have an evil stare
They're kind of medieval/those death metal guys.

Jerry Lee Lewis shot his bass player down/down to the ground with a .38 round
But death metal guys would have eaten his brains/and people call Jerry Lee Lewis insane.

Rockabilly guys like rockabilly chicks/death metal guys think they're all country hicks
But death metal guys still live with their mom/on the internet learning how to embalm
So they go kill a dog/those death metal guys!

It's really kind of hard to live in harmony/hot rod cars and blasphemy
Hair in your face or hair way up high/I'm a rockabilly cat not a death metal guy!

<solo>

I'm a rocka, I'm a rocka, I'm a rockabilly guy
Rocka, I'm a rocka, I'm a rockabilly guy
Yeah! Woo!
I'm a rocka, I'm a rocka, I'm a rockabilly guy
And I don't eat brains
Like death metal guys
Like death metal guys
Like death metal guys
Like death metal guys
Death metal guys!

<not an html link disclaimer here> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0EJjqVjPgU </stdsclaim.ho>