Yeah lol, people would probably have a great travel experience and want to make it permanent. Strikes only work if your job is important to someone, otherwise they work against you
I'm gonna guess that the airports will shut down in the US if TSA is not available. They're not just gonna let people through without any security in place.
They let people through unscreened on holidays. I let them buy me out of my ticket on a long weekend once and flying the next day was so nice. A few dozen of us were just waved past security and right to the gate. Just had to show we had a boarding pass. This was at a big Texas airport too.
They are legally not allowed to strike. They would be fired immediately for dereliction of their position. It's part of the negotiation when they take a federal job.
I have a friend who is a TSA agent and he's a lovely and intelligent person. He took the job because it was the best thing available to him and federal jobs (usually) come with very good benefits and health coverage. He hadn't seen a doctor for about 6 years before he got the job because his insurance and PTO was so terrible at his last job.
If my job ever skips a check I'm not coming back until I get it. Fuck that. Everyone not getting paid because of this should stay home and let chaos happen. Cause some real consequences to Musk and the rest of them.
And they ripped out funding for pediatric cancer research. $250 million.... or around 0.05% of president Musk's net worth. Why do repubs hate kids with cancer?
Yeah, those people living in the (checks notes) mountains in (checks notes again) inland North Carolina knew the risks of not getting Hurricane insurance!
Why can't the government take care of it's people instead of making them rely on private insurance? It's the government. They should be doing things like taking care of their citizens during times of crisis.
They want to strip away everything that reduces infant mortality, so that people start having more kids again since so many of them will die young.
Then later they give it back, and since they already took away the right to abortion... Boom, population explosion and a bunch of poor kids are born to later be exploited in factories and wars.
You already know that in an abortion, no one is typically killing the fetus (which btw is less of a human than a chicken egg is human), they're just removing it from the body it's parasiting off of. Not the mother's fault it can't survive, and I'm pretty sure you're for curing cancer or tape worm which also contain more human dna than a fetus does.
Besides, in many cases the fetus is already dead or terminal anyway.
And even if this was codified under law as murder, it wouldn't be the mother doing it, but a licensed professional, much like police, soldiers or wardens.
Thats's a lot of mental gymnastics to insert yourself into someone's health care and sex life. That's kind of weird...
Republicans have spread this myth that women use abortion like birth control. Just like the myth of the black welfare Queen, spitting out kids just to draw a check. It's all bullshit and they know it, they just hate poor people.
Okay, I don't agree with the emotional concept that a fetus is a person innately, but I can at least understand where that type of thinking comes from. Claiming it's a fully-developed human is just demonstrably wrong. You're entitled to your opinion, but feelings aren't facts. I sincerely hope this is a sad attempt at trolling.
Claims science, states no actual science, strawmans up an example that isn't related to the original in any way. claims gaslighting with no actual reference to gaslighting behavior.
No slurs or personal attacks, but i feel like you're going for the subtle approach so you probably don't need those right now.
Hmm, so this is up there, i feel like it's missing something though, can't quite place what, but i'll keep an eye on the replies in case i spot it.
Anyway, 8/10 shitpost, good job, no notes.
While i have you, it sounds like you are a person familiar with how science works and will give me an actual answer rather than deflect.
What is your solution for fetal anomalies that will inevitably lead to stillbirth or death in the first few hours of life? What is your solution for pregnancy abnormalities that put the life of the mother at serious risk? What is your solution for women who are desperately trying to escape monstrously abusive relationships that got pregnant from marital rape or coercion?
A fetus is objectively not fully formed. What do you think its doing in the womb for all those months, just hanging out? When abortions happen its just a bundle of cells that cant think, breathe, or live on its own.
Cancer is a bunch of cells. By your logic it is immoral to treat cancer. Cancer has human DNA. Cancer can also live independent of the human that spawned it.
Then how come they can't survive without leeching off a host? 80% of pregnancies spontaneously end in miscarriage. That doesn't sound viable or fully developed to me. If it could survive outside the womb, you'd have a point. But it can't, so you don't.
You know who was actually fully-developed? All the women who have died due to pregnancy complications thanks to draconic laws that take away their rights over their own bodies. I'll hold you responsible for murdering them.
You clearly don't know biology do you & are you capable of sustaining yourself I you were left in a jungle ?
BTW, it's around 13.5 percent but regardless it's not 80% (that's a lie)
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. (2020)
National Center for Health Statistics. (1999). Trends in Pregnancies and Pregnancy Rates.
JAMA Network. (2020)
I hold you responsible for the billions of deaths of unborn children, because of your stupidity & selfishness & inhumanity
BTW, it's around 13.5 percent but regardless it's not 80% (that's a lie)
Sure, if you only measure after 6 weeks.
For women of reproductive age, losses between implantation and clinical recognition are approximately 10–25%. Loss from implantation to birth is approximately one third [39, 46, 48, 49].
A recent re-analysis [39] of data from three studies [46, 48, 49] concluded that, in normal healthy women, 10–40% is a plausible range for pre-implantation embryo loss and overall pregnancy loss from fertilisation to birth is approximately 40–60%.
Says the person claiming a fetus is a fully developed human.
are you capable of sustaining yourself I you were left in a jungle ?
Millions of people live in the jungles of the world. How many fetuses live outside wombs? Oh right, none. Because there's a difference between having the skills to survive in the jungle, and being a fully developed human capable of independent biological survival.
Have you ensured that every single one of your gametes resulted in a child? Then you're a genocidal hypocrite.
No. A fully developed human would be post-pubescent. Until then you are either a fetus incapable of living outside your mother’s body, or a baby capable of independent life with some sort of care.
Oh fuck right off with that bullshit. Abortions are a medical procedure. Women have died because they can't get them. Or should we just let fetuses that die in utero rot inside the womb and kill the poor woman who lost her baby through no fault of her own?
That's just one example off the top of my head.
Nobody wants to or is killing children. That's some hyperbolic bullshit.
Fair, but I would suggest that married couples who want more than one child should be allowed to choose to have as much sex as they want until they're ready to have that next child. Of course, anti-abortion crusaders never think about the fact that it isn't just those dirty sluts getting abortions. Married people have sex too.
Nevermind how much "god damn those evil foreigners are at it again" rhetoric makes me gag. Peter Thiel and Marc Andressen are fully American and they suck just as hard. If anything, the problem isn't Elon, its Stanford University and the endless line of factory produced insane far-right techbro degenerates that it rolls out which gave us our modern hellscape.
But most of the time you can choose your job... Of course working for the TSA might be more comfortable, but what you do with your life is not usually forced.
Yes, you can choose your job, but it is a pretty big pain in the butt to do so. I don't feel like the "you can just get a better job" argument is a strong one in general.
People being forced to work without pay is slavery. No one deserves to be a slave, even if they're normally paid to do something and that something is not useful.
Work is work. They're patting down people and scanning x-ray screens. If you disagree with the TSA, vote to abolish it. Until then, requiring that department to work without pay only affects the Working Class.
I don't get to make the decision either way. But I know that they couldn't be out there humiliating disabled people if working class people refused to take those jobs.
Just because they're poor fucks like the rest of us doesn't mean they aren't pieces of shit, just like the police.
You're acting like it's the only job in the world. Maybe don't have kids if the only way you can put food on the table is by ruining air travel for 100% of people?
TSA agents are ineffectual on the best of days, but without pay? Between that and the amazing production quality at Boeing I'm quite content to not fly anywhere.
Sorry, but unemployed TSA should get no sympathy. In fact, if you want to kill government programs, it should be at the front of the line. Pork barrel security theater bullshit.
Fuck the TSA and the idiots on power trips working for them.
Have you seen the kind of people these kinds of jobs attracts? We aren't talking about Starbucks workers, we are mostly talking about people that get off on power trips.
For real. Like Fox News pundits, they're being paid to not understand the consequences of their own work. They're a drain on tax funds performing ineffective security theater at the cost of convenience, privacy, and sometimes the flights of ordinary people. If you're TSA, you should consider something else that would be of greater social benefit.
How about their kids? Should they get sympathy? Because these people won't be able to feed them.
Government shutdowns affect far more than just the employees, and in this case those employees are literally being used as slaves. Maybe that deserves sympathy too... unless you think "idiots on power trips" deserve to be enslaved. I don't think anyone does personally.
Yes, I do. Because people deserve to be paid. Not paying someone and forcing them to work has a name. Slavery.
If you get hired for a job, even if it's an immoral job, you deserve to be paid. People who work at payday loan places, people who work for TurboTax, people who work on oil rigs, people who work on factory farms and slaughterhouses all deserve to be paid and children do not deserve to suffer because politicians can't get their shit together.
A government shutdown is in no way a good thing just because certain government departments you personally don't like will not pay their employees. There's a lot of other people who are helpful that also will not be getting paid.
Or do you think it's a good thing to not have things like air traffic controllers and food inspectors? If so, you're a libertarian and you will be very unhappy with Trump's dictatorship.
David Pekoske, the head of the TSA, tweeted that 95% of TSA employees are classified as essential workers and will work without pay in the event of a shutdown. Air traffic controllers are also considered essential employees and would be asked to work without pay. Federal employees would receive backpay after the shutdown ends.
Yalls petty ass arguing is a prime example of why the fascists just won. Can't agree on a god damn thing and just tearing each other apart over petty bullshit
It may be wrong, but here I'm hoping someone starts a paparazzi site where people anonymously tip off the location of these celebrities and keep track of where they are all the time.
They would shut anything down. I mean Elon even shut down open source reporting of celebrity jet flights.
Meanwhile he would have no problem attaching a bomb collar around everyone's neck. One that he personally can use to blow them up and does just because he feels like it.
President Musk flexing his muscles even before puppet inauguration.
One thing I wondered is what would happen if Putin and Musk disagree at some point about what Trump is supposed to do? But the answer is actually easy: whoever strokes Trump's ego better at the time gets their policy through. Trump lives in the moment.
I don't know, I still think Putin has info on Trump that Trump really doesn't want to be public for whatever reason. So I'm thinking he would defer to Putin.
I used to think that, but there's nothing Trump could have done that the loony right wing public wouldn't gleefully dismiss as not important. (Well, apart from a lewd orgy with trans Muslim Mexican immigrants, but I don't think any of those exist, and Trump would just call it faked anyway.)
Now I think that Putin just rings him up to tell him what a great president he is and all the world admires how strong a leader he is, not like those weak Democrats who (insert policy Putin wants dropped), no, Trump is a strong and courageous leader and everyone can tell how strong and virile he is because he supports policies like (insert policy that Putin wants implemented).
I mean maybe there's a video of Trump shouting "Yes, shove that big beautiful black dildo in me harder!", but I don't think it's necessary at all. See how easy it was for the North Korean president to get Trump to completely change direction. He just sweet talked him for a bit. Trump is an absolute sucker for someone he perceives as strong telling him he's great. American foreign policy is at the whim of any world leader who can make Trump feel proud of himself for a week.
Putin probably gave him a few billion to buy him. It's peanuts money for an oligarch. Putin could reveal the amount and banking details, how much was invested into the different building projects Trump is so proud of.
They just wouldn't believe it. They wouldn't accept that it was real, and any investigation would either confirm that belief or be obviously political and corrupt.
"There's a big secret that somebody knows that will totally sink Trump's career at long last and if we can just find what it is and tell everyone else we'll win" is a lie liberals have been feeding to one another for thirteen years running.
We have him glad-handing Jeffery Epstein and nobody seems to fucking care. We have him on record paying off prostitutes and taking bribes from the Saudis and implying he'd like to fuck his daughter. We have videos of him saying insane shit about having sex on a yacht during a speech to the fucking Boy Scouts. We have him rambling incoherently about "Eating the Dogs and the Cats" in the middle of a national debate.
But don't worry, there's something even deeper and weirder and crazier. And that's going to make all the difference.
And that's why he's friends with Vladimir Putin. It's certainly not just that they're both white nationalists who agree with each others' politics.
what would happen if Putin and Musk disagree at some point
Nothing significant. Musk is running on a purely American strain of right-wing revanchism. Trying to deflect all our problems onto Evil Foreign Man is a big part of why the country is as fucked as it is today. We simply cannot let ourselves believe that the fascist strain gripping our country by the taint is American born and bred. So every four years, Republicans accuse the Democrats of being Chinese and Democrats accuse the Republicans of being Russian, and then the parties do old fashioned American Protestant Capitalism to the country while we all writhe in torment, looking for someone else to blame.
It’s a thing that’s been happening a lot over the past few years where US politicians refuse to sign bills that approve government spending (such as continuing to pay government employees) until their demands about some unrelated thing are met.
And if someone is going to hijack a plane to pilot it into a building, i doubt their mission would depend on a large tube of toothpaste and a nail clipper
Lol the idea of a medical courier waiting in line at the TSA rummaging through their organ containers because they flagged it sus in the x-ray machine.
You didn't say announce a shutdown. If you meant announce it and not actually do it, you sure weren't clear about that since you said it would make sense to do it.
Ruining the holidays for a bunch of government employees, not just TSA. I am more worried about air traffic controllers, NASA, NOAA, FDA, the VA (yeah they suck, but a lot of people depend on them and making them work unpaid is definitely not going to improve anything), and thousands of other government employees that will go without pay. The longer it lasts, the worse it will be for the economy.
Damn. Imagine just showing up to work knowing you won't be paid, with a bunch of other coworkers who are in the exact same socio-economic hostage crisis.
Gotta wonder if there's some kind of organizational remedy. Like... a collection of workers who could all respond together as a single labor unit to demand a different set of policies on pain of withholding their labor until their demands are met.
I am old enough to remember when Reagan used military and scabs to bust the air traffic controllers' strike. Hopefully this time people won't cross picket lines.
There's no picket lines, because there's no organizing and no threat of a strike. Reagan did his work and Clinton/Bush/Obama/Trump/Biden made sure it stuck.
More likely what we're going to see isn't a single unified organized effort, but a bunch of individuals just walking off the job or phoning it in because they're too demoralized to continue doing these thankless jobs. Then we may well still need to send in the military as scabs, just on a more permanent basis, since military scabs can't legally quit.
Mandatory military service in exchange for free public education is already being floated. Canada should build a wall and make America pay for it, cause they are about to have a serious illegal immigration problem.
Mandatory military service in exchange for free public education is already being floated.
Excited to see the biggest rug-pull in US history when that back half fails to materialize.
Canada should build a wall and make America pay for it
The Canadian far-right is such a fucking joke. They want to be American so badly. Far from building a wall, I suspect they'll be the ones shoving open the gates if we ever get a President deranged enough to try an annexation.
Two sides of the same coin. The distinction between the two is primarily whether you consider the information conveyed beneficial or nefarious.
Either way, Americans are already the most propagandized people on earth. You don't need to send people to college to indoctrinate them. You've got consumer-grade mass media doing the job just fine.
Then we may well still need to send in the military as scabs, just on a more permanent basis, since military scabs can’t legally quit
The big difference will be that those jobs can't be replaced as easily. ATC had quasi-analogous people in the military, and the only real match there is the VA. The issue is the amount of military doctors/nurses working in the armed forces does not compare to the civilian side. For the rest? NASA/NOAA/FDA have one-if-not-none person that may be able to substitute in.
With that thought, I'd be more than willing to place money on this being one of the thrusts of the idiotic doge. Why have national parks? Why care about food and drug quality? Healthcare for vets? Bahahaha, the money overlords care about their own supply, which they can ensure with their money. Everything there is focused solely on the peons, which have no meaning to the people pulling these strings.
Remember when the goverment was first shut down in a long time, if ever before, when Republicans thought it would be a good ratfucker move to harm Obama's presidency, and it blew up in their faces, and our Country went from a AAAA rated borrower to a AAA borrower due to government disfunction? We seriously need a law that prevents this stupid shit from happening again. Maybe if they don't pass funding, we just renew the last passed funding. It pisses me off so much. Imagine getting paid a significant amount of tax payer money, a life long sipend, and better health care than most the county, and not even doing your job and letting the goverment shut down. At some point here the lawlessness is going to convince enough people that it seriously doesn't matter anymore.
We seriously need a law that prevents this stupid shit from happening again. Maybe if they don't pass funding, we just renew the last passed funding
What we do in Australia is of the government can't pass a budget we dissolve the government and go for elections.
Clearly the MP are not doing their jobs so make them run for their jobs again.
That works in a parliamentary system, because the state and the government are two different things. In the U.S. system, they are functionally the same thing. We can't dissolve the government, or we'd have to rebuild the entire state apparatus from the ground up.
I get it, but having people feel bad for the TSA of all organizations is a tall order. Why not pick a less controversial gov agency effected like say the National Parks and Museums?
Probably because parks and museums usually just close whenever this happens, so they're not working without pay. They're just on an indefinite suspension
I know, and that makes me even less inclined to have sympathy for the TSA as a whole. I know I should feel bad for the people working at the TSA, but I can't.
I can't imagine coming in to work if I'm not being paid on time. Indeed, if there's even a whiff of maybe I won't get paid, I'm not coming in unless I'm paid in advance.
Every government worker that is told they're not getting paid should do that. Money in my account now, before I come in to work.
There is no guarantee that they will get paid. For that to happen, congress will have to pass a spending bill that not only authorized future spending but also explicitly gives back pay for the time they were working without paying after the shutdown.
So far this has always happened, but I do remember some noises about not doing it around the last shutdown.
So especially after those comments last time, there is no certainty that if you come in to work for the government during a shutdown you will be paid.
There's a reason the country lost credit rating, and it's because people are slightly less confident that it will actually pay its debts, including simple payroll.
The more I think about it, the more I can see this is a really good example of Hanlon's razor.
If they were evil, they would not tell you they're not paying you. They simply wouldn't pay you. They're actually stupid because they told people they expect them to work without getting paid.
Why would anyone remember? You clearly don't remember how often this happens.
This happens constantly and 80% of the time it's republicans playing games (not being unable to agree, but agreeing and then doing stupid shit because of the tea party or Trumpers or whatever)
Theater of security isn't helpful anyway. I say it's even harmful, as it makes cars more attractive over public transport and get more shit in our lungs as result.
That said: fuck everyone who works for the TSA, bunch of useless dickheads who take out their anger on those trying to fly while objectively failing to catch basic security failures. Much like anyone who works for an insurance company: they can rot for all I care
Until working is optional I never blame the lowest in the hierarchy. I've worked some shit jobs of questionable morality in my time because I had to eat and pay rent and couldn't gamble having a roof over my head on a better job coming along.
All airport jobs look shit, I mean that sympathetically.
If we want to abolish the TSA and move the money into a dramatically expanded AmTrak, I'm here for it.
But if you think the modern era of school shootings and abortion clinic bombings and J6 riots is going to give us a de-securitized airport system, I'd kindly ask you to pass me what you're smoking.
We made flights more secure with the better door to the cockpit. The TSA part is equally effective as a metal detector is. It wouldn't be less secure to not do the enhanced screening the TSA does. It would mean several companies lose out on massive contracts for that fancy equipment, which is why it won't happen.
The TSA part is equally effective as a metal detector is.
You're confusing the workers for their tools. Like saying I don't need a mechanic to fix my car, just a wrench and a jack.
It would mean several companies lose out on massive contracts for that fancy equipment, which is why it won’t happen.
The government kickbacks to hardware supplies isn't the reason you think TSA are being rude to you. And this stuff doesn't get meaningfully less expensive when businesses buy direct.
fuck everyone who works for the TSA, bunch of useless dickheads
Federal government creates a giant CYA department to account for their massive intelligence failure 23 years ago and now I'm going to be angry at the now-currently-unpaid 23 year old directing me through a metal detector so I don't try and bring a gun onto a high speed high occupancy mid-air aluminum tube because she isn't doing the REAL WORK of playing candy crush in a squad car like a proper police officer.
FFS, I'd argue that TSA is the most useful form of police officer currently on duty. I've been through my local airport a hundred times and I consistently find them to be polite, patient, and stoic in a way street cops never are.
because she isn't doing the REAL WORK of playing candy crush in a squad car like a proper police officer.
Your words, not mine, fuck the police and don't put words in my mouth
FFS, I'd argue that TSA is the most useful form of police officer currently on duty
You'd very much be wrong. While the cops aren't great by any means the TSA consistently fails audits and has, last I heard, stopped an estimated 0 incidents of terrorism. Cops at least do have track records of stopping some crimes
I've been through my local airport a hundred times and I consistently find them to be polite, patient, and stoic in a way street cops never are.
I'm very glad you've had that experience, actually. Having flown out of 12 states and 4 countries: US TSA is the rudest and slowest of the security teams 99.9% of the time and it's not even close
the TSA consistently fails audits and has, last I heard, stopped an estimated 0 incidents of terrorism
My coworker just got done negotiating payment on a $7000 fine for carrying a gun through security. She was not the only one at the courthouse for this kind of infraction. The TSA certainly seems to be catch some number of potential incidents. But one more notable consequence of the TSA (and contemporary international organizations) has been a sharp plunge in the frequency of airplane hijackings, which I certainly appreciate.
US TSA is the rudest and slowest of the security teams
As someone who regularly travels through Europe, you could not possibly be more incorrect. Italy is far and away the rudest. And I've seen airports from Korea to Turkyie get jammed up for hours due to their comparatively primitive security screenings. Had a domestic Japanese flight that ended up taking me four hours just to board, because of security delays. Taking the Shinkansen
from Sapporo to Tokyo would have been faster, despite going a third the speed of the plane.
The TSA certainly seems to be catch some number of potential incidents
Should have been more clear (oh wait just reread my comment and I already was clear on this your point is irrelevant): incidents of actual terrorism and not people forgetting something in their bag with 0 intention of actually doing something with it. They also love to take shit that should be allowed, too, because they're thieves on a power trip
But one more notable consequence of the TSA (and contemporary international organizations) has been a sharp plunge in the frequency of airplane hijackings, which I certainly appreciate.
Not the TSA at all, that's the air Marshalls and other increased security in the actual plane like hard locked cockpits
incidents of actual terrorism and not people forgetting something in their bag
You're backing yourself into a corner, because you now seem to acknowledge TSA is doing something, you just think its a thing that only applies to "good" people rather than "bad" people.
And your rubric is contradictory. If the TSA stops you with a gun before you get on the plane, you get to say "My bad, please just let me off with warning" or they've failed at their jobs. But if you let someone with a gun onto a plane and then they hijack the plane, they've failed to stop a terrorist. How does a TSA agent stop a terrorist incident on these terms? Is the argument that the TSA is useless because terrorist attacks aren't being thwarted at the moment the individual passes through the metal detector?
air Marshalls and other increased security in the actual plane like hard locked cockpits
Are additional measures that help screen for less-conventional weapons and strategies. But, again, we seem to be using "stopped a terrorist attack" as only happening after it has begun. TSA isn't on board the planes, so there's no way they can ever do the thing you're giving Air Marshals and locked doors credit for.
That TSA as a first-stage screen reduces the number of incidents air marshals and door locks have to prevent as a last resort doesn't seem to matter.
Its the TSA employees that need to hear that, not me
I'm a fucking customer service rep in my normal job, I get that public facing roles suck. I walk up with my ID ready, ready to follow the arbitrary rule changes theyve made in the last few weeks, and use basic politeness even when they're incredibly rude to my face
I'll let them know the next time I get through security just fine that some internet stranger thinks they are all fuckwits. I agree they are useless but to just generalize every single TSA employee as a dickhead is definitely a choice
No, but they also deserve to do meaningful work, which the TSA is not. They should morph the agency and personnel into something that actually serves a function beyond security theater.
Musk and Trump showed me, that I don't have to think about being a good enough person...
Obviously I easily am (it's enough not to kill/rape/extort,.... who would have thought it's so easy?)
Shutdown doesn't mean no pay, it means no check issued for non essentials. You get furloughed and don't work unless you choose to, everyone that is expected to work is covered by supplemental budget.
David Pekoske, the head of the TSA, tweeted that 95% of TSA employees are classified as essential workers and will work without pay in the event of a shutdown. Air traffic controllers are also considered essential employees and would be asked to work without pay.
Federal employees would receive backpay after the shutdown ends.
Slaves have to work bud, employees choose to. You could just say your hyperbole is a bit much rather then insist gainfully employed people are actual slaves anymore than any of the test of us wage slaves.
They've never not been paid, doing otherwise is fraud even for the government.
And no, that's not slavery. Slavery is a forced servitude, you're not a slave because your mom asked you to take out the trash for "$20 next week if finances work out".
Not the everything is literally slavery or literally Hitler no matter how hard you wring your hands and stir the pot.
Do you know what happens when you live paycheck-to-paycheck, like the vast majority of Americans, and they stop paying you for a while? Do you know what happens to children in those situations?
Yeah we all hate Elon Musk, but government employees who work during a shutdown are reimbursed for full pay when the shutdown is over. Threads like this make me wonder how much of lemmy is high school sophomores. We don't know how long this latest shutdown will last, but they're getting to be almost a routine political tactic now instead of Congress doing its fucking job and taking care of its bookkeeping. This really isn't a billionaire thing.
They have bills that don't wait for shutdowns to end.
This is absolutely a billionaire thing b/c it demonstrates that billionaires have no concern for the people they affect since they have the luxury of cash coffers that most Americans don't have.
Look I'm not objecting to being angry at billionaires, but TBH there are millions and millions of people who don't live paycheck to paycheck and aren't inconvenienced by a delay in getting paid. You don't have to be anywhere near a billionaire to be in that category. If you want me to be the enemy for not jumping up and down cheering for this post, fine - or get a sense of perspective.
I'm not sure if you realize this, but "millions and millions" is still "single digit millions". The talking heads say things like "millions and millions" because it sounds like a lot, but that's actually a minority.
That still leaves hundreds of millions of Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck. In fact, they're living at least 4 paychecks out on revolving debt.
Nearly half of Americans "at least somewhat agree" that they're living paycheck to paycheck (source) - which means MORE than half are not. Clearly not "single digit millions" and clearly not a minority.
Anyway, what I said was that you don't have to be anywhere near a billionaire. So please don't conjure numbers out of thin air to counter this simple fact.
The source in that article is a an analysis of Bank of America's internal data. It is not "half of all Americans", it is "half of Bank of America customers". Which already qualifies the dataset as people who have a bank account (and at that, one as expensive and hostile to low-income customers as BoA)
If it were more than single digit millions, it would be "tens of millions". And even once you get to "over a hundred million", you're still talking of less than a third of Americans.
"Millions and millions of Americans" is something that spin doctors say to make you think that it's a majority of Americans. It's very far from it. "Millions and millions of people" may even be less than a majority of Minnesotians
Edit to add: This federal reserve study showed that 6% of American adults are completely unbanked (as in, no bank accounts at all) and 16% are underbanked (having a checking or saving account, but no other banking products or use alternative products like payday advance or money orders).
Further in the study it shows over half of Americans have carried a balance on a credit card in the past 12 months.
Don't worry about it. This person has announced that they will be putting this in every post they decide doesn't fit their personal criteria until they're banned.
And their bio is a lie. They proved that in the same thread.
The current definition is actually just "thing on internet". But the reason the person you're responding is upset is they are a hyper conservative bootstrapper.
All TSA agents should strike at the same time those days, wearing green hats and fake mustaches
Nothing would change, the TSA does nothing but harass lawful citizens.
Yeah lol, people would probably have a great travel experience and want to make it permanent. Strikes only work if your job is important to someone, otherwise they work against you
I'm gonna guess that the airports will shut down in the US if TSA is not available. They're not just gonna let people through without any security in place.
If the choice is profits or security for customers...
But there's probably some more systems that prevent it
Right, because all the terrorists are just waiting for an impromptu TSA strike.
They let people through unscreened on holidays. I let them buy me out of my ticket on a long weekend once and flying the next day was so nice. A few dozen of us were just waved past security and right to the gate. Just had to show we had a boarding pass. This was at a big Texas airport too.
They aren't allowed to strike.
Disruption is the point of striking.
They are legally not allowed to strike. They would be fired immediately for dereliction of their position. It's part of the negotiation when they take a federal job.
What will they do if all TSA agents are fired tho?
If the government is going to be derelect in its duty to pay its workers, then workers can do the same to their positions.
Though I would be looking for another job and quit without notice when one is found in this case. Fuck Musk. No one voted for his ass.
Have you met them? They're basically otherwise unemployable.
The comment about weight was unnecessary, even though I broadly agree with the message.
I was imagining that their point was that police officers are supposed to be fit.
I have a friend who is a TSA agent and he's a lovely and intelligent person. He took the job because it was the best thing available to him and federal jobs (usually) come with very good benefits and health coverage. He hadn't seen a doctor for about 6 years before he got the job because his insurance and PTO was so terrible at his last job.
Yeah, there's always some exception. Hope your friend is doing well.
So far they've gotten paid every time, just late.
So far...
If my job ever skips a check I'm not coming back until I get it. Fuck that. Everyone not getting paid because of this should stay home and let chaos happen. Cause some real consequences to Musk and the rest of them.
Go to work and do nothing but look for a new job on your phone. What are they gonna do, not pay you anymore?
And they ripped out funding for pediatric cancer research. $250 million.... or around 0.05% of president Musk's net worth. Why do repubs hate kids with cancer?
Because they're not profitable.
Also 900 million will not be going to North Carolina hurricane relief.
Cold heartless bastards
Assuming I did my math correctly these two things would have been a combined total of .002% of the federal budget.
Can't buy a B2 with hurricane relief.
You mean the state that put this asshole in power?
Leopards getting fat here.
why can't north carolina use hurricane insurance instead of relying on the feds?
Yeah, those people living in the (checks notes) mountains in (checks notes again) inland North Carolina knew the risks of not getting Hurricane insurance!
Technically it was a tropical storm. Case denied.
Why can't the government take care of it's people instead of making them rely on private insurance? It's the government. They should be doing things like taking care of their citizens during times of crisis.
this isn't something unpredictable there are consistent tropical storms in North Carolina as with most of the south east United states.
Ummmmm this would be largely flood insurance and that’s a federal program.
They want to strip away everything that reduces infant mortality, so that people start having more kids again since so many of them will die young.
Then later they give it back, and since they already took away the right to abortion... Boom, population explosion and a bunch of poor kids are born to later be exploited in factories and wars.
If you don't want to have an abortion, no one's ever been forcing you.
Why you think it's appropriate to force others is weird.
Nah, you don't really believe that.
You already know that in an abortion, no one is typically killing the fetus (which btw is less of a human than a chicken egg is human), they're just removing it from the body it's parasiting off of. Not the mother's fault it can't survive, and I'm pretty sure you're for curing cancer or tape worm which also contain more human dna than a fetus does.
Besides, in many cases the fetus is already dead or terminal anyway.
And even if this was codified under law as murder, it wouldn't be the mother doing it, but a licensed professional, much like police, soldiers or wardens.
Thats's a lot of mental gymnastics to insert yourself into someone's health care and sex life. That's kind of weird...
Republicans have spread this myth that women use abortion like birth control. Just like the myth of the black welfare Queen, spitting out kids just to draw a check. It's all bullshit and they know it, they just hate poor people.
Not that im disagreeing with your overall argument, but a fetus has 100% human dna... otherwise it wouldnt develop into a human lol
A fetus does indeed have 100% human DNA, but a tape worm has about 70% human DNA.
An 8 week fetus is about 20 g, an 8 week tape worm can become up to 30 ft, weighing several pounds. 70 % of a pound is more than 20 g.
And with the new slave mother laws, the fetus isn't more than a handful of grams at the cut off date, making it all the more poignant.
I'm pro-choice, but saying a fetus doesn't have human DNA is fucking retarded.
Imagine thinking a clump of cells is a "child" anymore than the mole on my ass.
It's a fetus, not a child.
Okay, I don't agree with the emotional concept that a fetus is a person innately, but I can at least understand where that type of thinking comes from. Claiming it's a fully-developed human is just demonstrably wrong. You're entitled to your opinion, but feelings aren't facts. I sincerely hope this is a sad attempt at trolling.
Claims science, states no actual science, strawmans up an example that isn't related to the original in any way. claims gaslighting with no actual reference to gaslighting behavior.
No slurs or personal attacks, but i feel like you're going for the subtle approach so you probably don't need those right now.
Hmm, so this is up there, i feel like it's missing something though, can't quite place what, but i'll keep an eye on the replies in case i spot it.
Anyway, 8/10 shitpost, good job, no notes.
While i have you, it sounds like you are a person familiar with how science works and will give me an actual answer rather than deflect.
What is the scientific definition of "parasite"?
Ooo, gaslighting. Another word you don't understand. Keep going. I'm so close.
What is your solution for fetal anomalies that will inevitably lead to stillbirth or death in the first few hours of life? What is your solution for pregnancy abnormalities that put the life of the mother at serious risk? What is your solution for women who are desperately trying to escape monstrously abusive relationships that got pregnant from marital rape or coercion?
I'm trying so hard not to reply to this nonsense...
Do you believe people who are unresponsive and comatose for a long period should be kept alive despite the families wishes?
By definition a fetus is not a fully developed human....
A fetus is objectively not fully formed. What do you think its doing in the womb for all those months, just hanging out? When abortions happen its just a bundle of cells that cant think, breathe, or live on its own.
Yeah a bunch of cells which have FULLY FORMED into a person. Something a fetus has in no way done.
A coma involves brain activity in a highly developed nervous system, often with a high chance of recovery.
A fetus has a tiny, undeveloped nervous system, with no higher brain functions.
These are not at all equivalent. One is a person, and the other is not.
Cancer
Cancer is a bunch of cells. By your logic it is immoral to treat cancer. Cancer has human DNA. Cancer can also live independent of the human that spawned it.
We should stop killing cancer too.
A tiny cluster of cells is not a "fully developed human"
Okay, troll.
Then how come they can't survive without leeching off a host? 80% of pregnancies spontaneously end in miscarriage. That doesn't sound viable or fully developed to me. If it could survive outside the womb, you'd have a point. But it can't, so you don't.
You know who was actually fully-developed? All the women who have died due to pregnancy complications thanks to draconic laws that take away their rights over their own bodies. I'll hold you responsible for murdering them.
You clearly don't know biology do you & are you capable of sustaining yourself I you were left in a jungle ? BTW, it's around 13.5 percent but regardless it's not 80% (that's a lie)
I hold you responsible for the billions of deaths of unborn children, because of your stupidity & selfishness & inhumanity
Sure, if you only measure after 6 weeks.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5443340/
Says the person claiming a fetus is a fully developed human.
Millions of people live in the jungles of the world. How many fetuses live outside wombs? Oh right, none. Because there's a difference between having the skills to survive in the jungle, and being a fully developed human capable of independent biological survival.
Have you ensured that every single one of your gametes resulted in a child? Then you're a genocidal hypocrite.
No. A fully developed human would be post-pubescent. Until then you are either a fetus incapable of living outside your mother’s body, or a baby capable of independent life with some sort of care.
Fetuses are NOT babies. Stop being obtuse.
I assume you've adopted multiple unwanted children in the foster system including severely disabled ones, right?
Since you think that "unborn children" shouldn't be "killed," you've got to be a major part of the solution.
Tell me about your severely disabled kids you adopted from the foster system.
Oh fuck right off with that bullshit. Abortions are a medical procedure. Women have died because they can't get them. Or should we just let fetuses that die in utero rot inside the womb and kill the poor woman who lost her baby through no fault of her own?
That's just one example off the top of my head.
Nobody wants to or is killing children. That's some hyperbolic bullshit.
I just went through about 3 pages of their comment history.
Therein lies a tale.
There are no orphanages in the U.S.
Also, please name the 100% effective contraceptive.
Besides abstinence and surgical sterilization.
Fair, but I would suggest that married couples who want more than one child should be allowed to choose to have as much sex as they want until they're ready to have that next child. Of course, anti-abortion crusaders never think about the fact that it isn't just those dirty sluts getting abortions. Married people have sex too.
Get the fuck out of here
Is it too late to abort you? Because you blatantly fail at having a basic grasp on reality.
Whoa whoa whoa you can't go around funding kids healthcare. Then they are gonna become adult voters who expect more free healthcare.
You want kids who get to adulthood on the skin of their teeth, or kids who don't get to adulthood at all. There's no in-between.
You know what everyone hates more? A grown adult behaving like a kid.
I don't want nor will ever have kids, so please take it to heart when I say: You are behaving like an immature toddler.
For the double murder point, the fetus is classified as a potential human.
Why can't I get life insurance on a fetus?
Just a reminder that Elon Musk is not from the United States.
...which is why he had to buy a president instead of buy the presidency.
He's legally a US citizen by way of his mother.
Nevermind how much "god damn those evil foreigners are at it again" rhetoric makes me gag. Peter Thiel and Marc Andressen are fully American and they suck just as hard. If anything, the problem isn't Elon, its Stanford University and the endless line of factory produced insane far-right techbro degenerates that it rolls out which gave us our modern hellscape.
I'm sorry but, FUCK THE TSA. Go join a real theater group, assholes.
Fuck the TSA, but the people who work there because it is a paying job deserve stable employment like the rest of us. They don't make the decisions.
Does this goes for the police as well?
When they have enough oversight that the "thin blue line" is no longer a thing.
Everyone should know the Chris Dorner story.
Depends how responsible you think the system is for their behavior and if you feel people deserve a second chance.
I think ACAB, but I believe their bad behavior is mostly due to systemic pressures.
But most of the time you can choose your job... Of course working for the TSA might be more comfortable, but what you do with your life is not usually forced.
Yes, you can choose your job, but it is a pretty big pain in the butt to do so. I don't feel like the "you can just get a better job" argument is a strong one in general.
People being forced to work without pay is slavery. No one deserves to be a slave, even if they're normally paid to do something and that something is not useful.
It's sad that this is apparently a unique take. Sure, "fuck giant corporations", I agree. But pay the fucking workers who literally do everything.
Nobody is forcing them to take security theater jobs oppressing other people. Even the workers can get fucked imo.
Work is work. They're patting down people and scanning x-ray screens. If you disagree with the TSA, vote to abolish it. Until then, requiring that department to work without pay only affects the Working Class.
I don't get to make the decision either way. But I know that they couldn't be out there humiliating disabled people if working class people refused to take those jobs.
Just because they're poor fucks like the rest of us doesn't mean they aren't pieces of shit, just like the police.
Because it's so easy to find a job.
I guess if all you do is worship at the altar of the dollar bill and have no morals then this is a logical argument to make.
Or, you know, have children that rely on you.
But yeah, fuck them.
Let them eat cake.They'll be fine.You're acting like it's the only job in the world. Maybe don't have kids if the only way you can put food on the table is by ruining air travel for 100% of people?
TSA agents are ineffectual on the best of days, but without pay? Between that and the amazing production quality at Boeing I'm quite content to not fly anywhere.
Sorry, but unemployed TSA should get no sympathy. In fact, if you want to kill government programs, it should be at the front of the line. Pork barrel security theater bullshit.
Fuck the TSA and the idiots on power trips working for them.
It's not the employees' fault, saying they should get no sympathy is a dick move.
That aside, I agree the TSA is a great example of the kind of spending that needs cut and the department dissolved.
Have you seen the kind of people these kinds of jobs attracts? We aren't talking about Starbucks workers, we are mostly talking about people that get off on power trips.
Yeah I was going to say this. Just because their pay is shit, does not make TSA employees nice people.
You don't exactly work together to keep those psychos out dontcha
For real. Like Fox News pundits, they're being paid to not understand the consequences of their own work. They're a drain on tax funds performing ineffective security theater at the cost of convenience, privacy, and sometimes the flights of ordinary people. If you're TSA, you should consider something else that would be of greater social benefit.
How about their kids? Should they get sympathy? Because these people won't be able to feed them.
Government shutdowns affect far more than just the employees, and in this case those employees are literally being used as slaves. Maybe that deserves sympathy too... unless you think "idiots on power trips" deserve to be enslaved. I don't think anyone does personally.
Do you have that same attitude towards ICE agents kids?
People lose their jobs all the time and still feed their kids. A government shutdown is a good thing.
Yes, I do. Because people deserve to be paid. Not paying someone and forcing them to work has a name. Slavery.
If you get hired for a job, even if it's an immoral job, you deserve to be paid. People who work at payday loan places, people who work for TurboTax, people who work on oil rigs, people who work on factory farms and slaughterhouses all deserve to be paid and children do not deserve to suffer because politicians can't get their shit together.
A government shutdown is in no way a good thing just because certain government departments you personally don't like will not pay their employees. There's a lot of other people who are helpful that also will not be getting paid.
Or do you think it's a good thing to not have things like air traffic controllers and food inspectors? If so, you're a libertarian and you will be very unhappy with Trump's dictatorship.
If the government shuts down, it means they go home, not that they're forced to work without pay.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2024/12/20/tsa-holiday-travelers-longer-airport-lines-shutdown/
Second time I've had to do this in this thread.
Working on oppression is not a job to be respected.
It's a fucking TSA agent. They don't really have the power to oppress you, just to annoy you to no end.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/flying-cash-law-enforcement-without-154150138.html
Yalls petty ass arguing is a prime example of why the fascists just won. Can't agree on a god damn thing and just tearing each other apart over petty bullshit
Fuck the TSA it's a jobs program. They are so goddamn worthless.
What are you ? A right-winger
It's going to be a long 4 years
It may be wrong, but here I'm hoping someone starts a paparazzi site where people anonymously tip off the location of these celebrities and keep track of where they are all the time.
They would shut anything down. I mean Elon even shut down open source reporting of celebrity jet flights.
Meanwhile he would have no problem attaching a bomb collar around everyone's neck. One that he personally can use to blow them up and does just because he feels like it.
It’s just not on Twitter.
https://mastodon.social/@elonjet
Clicking on mastodon reminded me I have a mastodon account!
Isn't there a large time desync now?
It varies. Some days it's better than other weeks. It's a bot using the best OSInt available for the purpose, but there are inherent limitations.
Possibly far less. Depends on how many missiles get launched.
President Musk flexing his muscles even before puppet inauguration.
One thing I wondered is what would happen if Putin and Musk disagree at some point about what Trump is supposed to do? But the answer is actually easy: whoever strokes Trump's ego better at the time gets their policy through. Trump lives in the moment.
I don't know, I still think Putin has info on Trump that Trump really doesn't want to be public for whatever reason. So I'm thinking he would defer to Putin.
I used to think that, but there's nothing Trump could have done that the loony right wing public wouldn't gleefully dismiss as not important. (Well, apart from a lewd orgy with trans Muslim Mexican immigrants, but I don't think any of those exist, and Trump would just call it faked anyway.)
Now I think that Putin just rings him up to tell him what a great president he is and all the world admires how strong a leader he is, not like those weak Democrats who (insert policy Putin wants dropped), no, Trump is a strong and courageous leader and everyone can tell how strong and virile he is because he supports policies like (insert policy that Putin wants implemented).
I mean maybe there's a video of Trump shouting "Yes, shove that big beautiful black dildo in me harder!", but I don't think it's necessary at all. See how easy it was for the North Korean president to get Trump to completely change direction. He just sweet talked him for a bit. Trump is an absolute sucker for someone he perceives as strong telling him he's great. American foreign policy is at the whim of any world leader who can make Trump feel proud of himself for a week.
Whether or not the public would dismiss it and whether or not he thinks they would dismiss it are two very different things.
Which does point towards some non-hetero sexcapade, because pretty much everything else he's famous for already having done.
I still think he's pathetically easy to manipulate for dictators.
Putin probably gave him a few billion to buy him. It's peanuts money for an oligarch. Putin could reveal the amount and banking details, how much was invested into the different building projects Trump is so proud of.
At this point, I'm not sure that would be enough to sink him.
Young boys. It's the only thing I can think of that might sway enough of them.
They just wouldn't believe it. They wouldn't accept that it was real, and any investigation would either confirm that belief or be obviously political and corrupt.
You're right. And now with AI, they have all the plausible deniability they need.
"There's a big secret that somebody knows that will totally sink Trump's career at long last and if we can just find what it is and tell everyone else we'll win" is a lie liberals have been feeding to one another for thirteen years running.
We have him glad-handing Jeffery Epstein and nobody seems to fucking care. We have him on record paying off prostitutes and taking bribes from the Saudis and implying he'd like to fuck his daughter. We have videos of him saying insane shit about having sex on a yacht during a speech to the fucking Boy Scouts. We have him rambling incoherently about "Eating the Dogs and the Cats" in the middle of a national debate.
But don't worry, there's something even deeper and weirder and crazier. And that's going to make all the difference.
And that's why he's friends with Vladimir Putin. It's certainly not just that they're both white nationalists who agree with each others' politics.
Have you never heard of Nineteen Eighty Four? There is nothing that can sway Trump' supporters. 2+2=5
Nothing significant. Musk is running on a purely American strain of right-wing revanchism. Trying to deflect all our problems onto Evil Foreign Man is a big part of why the country is as fucked as it is today. We simply cannot let ourselves believe that the fascist strain gripping our country by the taint is American born and bred. So every four years, Republicans accuse the Democrats of being Chinese and Democrats accuse the Republicans of being Russian, and then the parties do old fashioned American Protestant Capitalism to the country while we all writhe in torment, looking for someone else to blame.
Out of the loop, what do you mean SHUT DOWN THE GOVERNMENT???
It’s a thing that’s been happening a lot over the past few years where US politicians refuse to sign bills that approve government spending (such as continuing to pay government employees) until their demands about some unrelated thing are met.
I believe the term for this is “political blackmail”.
Why it is accepted and legal, I don’t understand.
Sounds like terrorism to me
No, no, terrorism is when you kill people who have money.
because it's a tool that can be useful
It shouldn’t have to be useful. This is just a sign of failed governance.
It's useful in a healthy democracy. Which the US isn't.
Maybe as a last resort. Not the defacto standard, every couple of months let’s hold the entire government hostage.
Hey let’s do some really evil shit and if you don’t agree, we’re gonna shut down the government and not pay anyone.
Yes, of course, as a last resort.
Useful to whom?
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/congress-has-to-pass-another-stopgap-funding-bill-what-happens-in-a-shutdown/3784733/
Don't worry, the DEA will work for IOUs until the matter is settled.
And if someone is going to hijack a plane to pilot it into a building, i doubt their mission would depend on a large tube of toothpaste and a nail clipper
"Heh heh heh, finally, I can sneak enough explosive toothpaste into the plane!"
That's the terrorists right now, how do you feel now, huh? It's not a joke. TSA is extremely serious. 😤
We need to teach him to be scared of us.
He made a bunch of his cars bulletproof and even a couple that can withstand a chemical attack. I think he's been scared the whole time.
His personal cars or do you mean the cybertruck? Because if it's the latter then it's not quite as bulletproof as advertised.
Good luck. He can afford a personal army to protect him.
There are more of us.
With military-grade weapons? I doubt it.
With how loosy-goosy the US is with weapons purchasing? There's a chance.
There's also a chance that Musk's security forces will spray bullets into the crowd from sniper positions.
If that ever happened, itd push the guillotines out overnight.
Sure it would. Just like all the other "if this happens, the guillotines will come out" events where that didn't occur when it happened.
Yeah him to hold still until the end of time.
Musk says Americans will have to face 'hardship' if Trump wins
Why do they have to work? Doesn’t it make more sense to shutdown US airports?
Or just run them without TSA, like we used to before 9/11
Because people need to eat.
Also, some air travel is essential.
Or do you want to stop medical couriers from delivering organs for transplant?
Lol the idea of a medical courier waiting in line at the TSA rummaging through their organ containers because they flagged it sus in the x-ray machine.
Are you trying to imply...that the medical couriers ...are transporting ...food?
You do know that 'also' is a word used to separate two different points, right?
Yeah but implying that medical couriers are selling their payloads on a cannibal black market is juicer than a fat mans liver.
With some fava beans.
And a nice chianti.
I'm not?
They are only doing it in the first place because they need to eat
The rich would give in long before this and have the mattered settled in an emergency meeting because they have places they want to go
You think they pass by tsa?
No, hence why I said shutting down airports
Yes, but private airports, or airstrips, exist and probably have little to no TSA involvement. Some guy nearby lands his helicopter in his back yard.
You one comment ago:
You this comment:
Which is it? Does it make sense to shut down U.S. airports or is that something that wouldn't happen?
How are you confused on that
If they were to announce airport shutdowns then the budget would be passed to prevent that
You didn't say announce a shutdown. If you meant announce it and not actually do it, you sure weren't clear about that since you said it would make sense to do it.
Ruining the holidays for a bunch of government employees, not just TSA. I am more worried about air traffic controllers, NASA, NOAA, FDA, the VA (yeah they suck, but a lot of people depend on them and making them work unpaid is definitely not going to improve anything), and thousands of other government employees that will go without pay. The longer it lasts, the worse it will be for the economy.
Damn. Imagine just showing up to work knowing you won't be paid, with a bunch of other coworkers who are in the exact same socio-economic hostage crisis.
Gotta wonder if there's some kind of organizational remedy. Like... a collection of workers who could all respond together as a single labor unit to demand a different set of policies on pain of withholding their labor until their demands are met.
I've heard of these! They're called onions!
Like an ogre, they have layers.
I am old enough to remember when Reagan used military and scabs to bust the air traffic controllers' strike. Hopefully this time people won't cross picket lines.
There's no picket lines, because there's no organizing and no threat of a strike. Reagan did his work and Clinton/Bush/Obama/Trump/Biden made sure it stuck.
More likely what we're going to see isn't a single unified organized effort, but a bunch of individuals just walking off the job or phoning it in because they're too demoralized to continue doing these thankless jobs. Then we may well still need to send in the military as scabs, just on a more permanent basis, since military scabs can't legally quit.
Mandatory military service in exchange for free public education is already being floated. Canada should build a wall and make America pay for it, cause they are about to have a serious illegal immigration problem.
Excited to see the biggest rug-pull in US history when that back half fails to materialize.
The Canadian far-right is such a fucking joke. They want to be American so badly. Far from building a wall, I suspect they'll be the ones shoving open the gates if we ever get a President deranged enough to try an annexation.
There will be "education," but the traditional description for it is indoctrination.
Two sides of the same coin. The distinction between the two is primarily whether you consider the information conveyed beneficial or nefarious.
Either way, Americans are already the most propagandized people on earth. You don't need to send people to college to indoctrinate them. You've got consumer-grade mass media doing the job just fine.
The big difference will be that those jobs can't be replaced as easily. ATC had quasi-analogous people in the military, and the only real match there is the VA. The issue is the amount of military doctors/nurses working in the armed forces does not compare to the civilian side. For the rest? NASA/NOAA/FDA have one-if-not-none person that may be able to substitute in.
With that thought, I'd be more than willing to place money on this being one of the thrusts of the idiotic doge. Why have national parks? Why care about food and drug quality? Healthcare for vets? Bahahaha, the money overlords care about their own supply, which they can ensure with their money. Everything there is focused solely on the peons, which have no meaning to the people pulling these strings.
Remember when the goverment was first shut down in a long time, if ever before, when Republicans thought it would be a good ratfucker move to harm Obama's presidency, and it blew up in their faces, and our Country went from a AAAA rated borrower to a AAA borrower due to government disfunction? We seriously need a law that prevents this stupid shit from happening again. Maybe if they don't pass funding, we just renew the last passed funding. It pisses me off so much. Imagine getting paid a significant amount of tax payer money, a life long sipend, and better health care than most the county, and not even doing your job and letting the goverment shut down. At some point here the lawlessness is going to convince enough people that it seriously doesn't matter anymore.
What we do in Australia is of the government can't pass a budget we dissolve the government and go for elections.
Clearly the MP are not doing their jobs so make them run for their jobs again.
That works in a parliamentary system, because the state and the government are two different things. In the U.S. system, they are functionally the same thing. We can't dissolve the government, or we'd have to rebuild the entire state apparatus from the ground up.
This is exactly what happened a few days ago in France. While it's not perfect, it's still a whole lot better than a shutdown.
I get it, but having people feel bad for the TSA of all organizations is a tall order. Why not pick a less controversial gov agency effected like say the National Parks and Museums?
Probably because parks and museums usually just close whenever this happens, so they're not working without pay. They're just on an indefinite suspension
And yet I can feel for them more, If the TSA was gone tomorrow I could not care.
The way it setup it will not mean the removal of the stupid safety theater, it will mean the closing of the airport.
I know, and that makes me even less inclined to have sympathy for the TSA as a whole. I know I should feel bad for the people working at the TSA, but I can't.
Not even a government shutdown can stop the TSA from harassing people
"Oh you're not gonna pay me today? Guess I'm not working today."
I can't imagine coming in to work if I'm not being paid on time. Indeed, if there's even a whiff of maybe I won't get paid, I'm not coming in unless I'm paid in advance.
Every government worker that is told they're not getting paid should do that. Money in my account now, before I come in to work.
Not much difference toward feeding family or paying bills if you're not getting paid. Better to take the time off and find a new job.
There is no guarantee that they will get paid. For that to happen, congress will have to pass a spending bill that not only authorized future spending but also explicitly gives back pay for the time they were working without paying after the shutdown.
So far this has always happened, but I do remember some noises about not doing it around the last shutdown.
So especially after those comments last time, there is no certainty that if you come in to work for the government during a shutdown you will be paid.
There's a reason the country lost credit rating, and it's because people are slightly less confident that it will actually pay its debts, including simple payroll.
Congress passed a law in 2019 to ensure back pay for furloughed employees. Kinda moot for the moment though
The more I think about it, the more I can see this is a really good example of Hanlon's razor.
If they were evil, they would not tell you they're not paying you. They simply wouldn't pay you. They're actually stupid because they told people they expect them to work without getting paid.
I'm voting "both evil and stupid." That is, modern Republicans.
Ok, but they can't: for TSA not working is their job description. They work by not working.
The Wu Wei method of airport security
two memes in one post?
So is a South African buying his way into the U.S. presidency, but here we are.
You know, I've heard of a solution to the CEO problem recently thats making the news cycle..
Can't build a wall tall enough for southafrica. Us Mex people know that.
this is why we need a wall tall enough to keep planes out /s
But that would required....a constellation of satellites capable of carrying a net that would wall off the country! Who could makr such a thing?
I hope that US citizens will remember who caused the chaos out of pure spite when the next election comes around.
Why would anyone remember? You clearly don't remember how often this happens.
This happens constantly and 80% of the time it's republicans playing games (not being unable to agree, but agreeing and then doing stupid shit because of the tea party or Trumpers or whatever)
Remember? Mmmmwwwwhahahahaha!
Not a chance, not with the publics goldfish like memory span and media companies pushing their narrative.
The next election will be like the kind they have in Russia.
Not unlikely, indeed. Sorry for you, chaps. We went through this about 80 years ago, and we mostly learned our lesson.
"let them eat cake" -Elon Musk
Theater of security isn't helpful anyway. I say it's even harmful, as it makes cars more attractive over public transport and get more shit in our lungs as result.
Unfortunately it wouldn't come to removal of said theater, it will leed to unpaid employees doing a bad job
Indeed. Doing other way around is much better.
You're kind of missing the point
Fuck musk and fuck everyone Like him
That said: fuck everyone who works for the TSA, bunch of useless dickheads who take out their anger on those trying to fly while objectively failing to catch basic security failures. Much like anyone who works for an insurance company: they can rot for all I care
Until working is optional I never blame the lowest in the hierarchy. I've worked some shit jobs of questionable morality in my time because I had to eat and pay rent and couldn't gamble having a roof over my head on a better job coming along.
All airport jobs look shit, I mean that sympathetically.
Eating and paying rent ≠ permission to be a power crazy dickhead just because you can (TSA workers).
They're not the lowest in the hierarchy. They're selling us out, like prison guards.
We can find a better jobs program than making air travel suck.
If we want to abolish the TSA and move the money into a dramatically expanded AmTrak, I'm here for it.
But if you think the modern era of school shootings and abortion clinic bombings and J6 riots is going to give us a de-securitized airport system, I'd kindly ask you to pass me what you're smoking.
We made flights more secure with the better door to the cockpit. The TSA part is equally effective as a metal detector is. It wouldn't be less secure to not do the enhanced screening the TSA does. It would mean several companies lose out on massive contracts for that fancy equipment, which is why it won't happen.
You're confusing the workers for their tools. Like saying I don't need a mechanic to fix my car, just a wrench and a jack.
The government kickbacks to hardware supplies isn't the reason you think TSA are being rude to you. And this stuff doesn't get meaningfully less expensive when businesses buy direct.
Federal government creates a giant CYA department to account for their massive intelligence failure 23 years ago and now I'm going to be angry at the now-currently-unpaid 23 year old directing me through a metal detector so I don't try and bring a gun onto a high speed high occupancy mid-air aluminum tube because she isn't doing the REAL WORK of playing candy crush in a squad car like a proper police officer.
FFS, I'd argue that TSA is the most useful form of police officer currently on duty. I've been through my local airport a hundred times and I consistently find them to be polite, patient, and stoic in a way street cops never are.
Your words, not mine, fuck the police and don't put words in my mouth
You'd very much be wrong. While the cops aren't great by any means the TSA consistently fails audits and has, last I heard, stopped an estimated 0 incidents of terrorism. Cops at least do have track records of stopping some crimes
I'm very glad you've had that experience, actually. Having flown out of 12 states and 4 countries: US TSA is the rudest and slowest of the security teams 99.9% of the time and it's not even close
My coworker just got done negotiating payment on a $7000 fine for carrying a gun through security. She was not the only one at the courthouse for this kind of infraction. The TSA certainly seems to be catch some number of potential incidents. But one more notable consequence of the TSA (and contemporary international organizations) has been a sharp plunge in the frequency of airplane hijackings, which I certainly appreciate.
As someone who regularly travels through Europe, you could not possibly be more incorrect. Italy is far and away the rudest. And I've seen airports from Korea to Turkyie get jammed up for hours due to their comparatively primitive security screenings. Had a domestic Japanese flight that ended up taking me four hours just to board, because of security delays. Taking the Shinkansen from Sapporo to Tokyo would have been faster, despite going a third the speed of the plane.
Should have been more clear (oh wait just reread my comment and I already was clear on this your point is irrelevant): incidents of actual terrorism and not people forgetting something in their bag with 0 intention of actually doing something with it. They also love to take shit that should be allowed, too, because they're thieves on a power trip
Not the TSA at all, that's the air Marshalls and other increased security in the actual plane like hard locked cockpits
You're backing yourself into a corner, because you now seem to acknowledge TSA is doing something, you just think its a thing that only applies to "good" people rather than "bad" people.
And your rubric is contradictory. If the TSA stops you with a gun before you get on the plane, you get to say "My bad, please just let me off with warning" or they've failed at their jobs. But if you let someone with a gun onto a plane and then they hijack the plane, they've failed to stop a terrorist. How does a TSA agent stop a terrorist incident on these terms? Is the argument that the TSA is useless because terrorist attacks aren't being thwarted at the moment the individual passes through the metal detector?
Are additional measures that help screen for less-conventional weapons and strategies. But, again, we seem to be using "stopped a terrorist attack" as only happening after it has begun. TSA isn't on board the planes, so there's no way they can ever do the thing you're giving Air Marshals and locked doors credit for.
That TSA as a first-stage screen reduces the number of incidents air marshals and door locks have to prevent as a last resort doesn't seem to matter.
Leave it to Weevil to be entirely unable to read
Fun fact, when you're a dickhead to people, they usually respond in turn. Stop being a piece of human shit and they'll be nice too :)
Its the TSA employees that need to hear that, not me
I'm a fucking customer service rep in my normal job, I get that public facing roles suck. I walk up with my ID ready, ready to follow the arbitrary rule changes theyve made in the last few weeks, and use basic politeness even when they're incredibly rude to my face
Abolish the TSA, they're entirely useless
I'll let them know the next time I get through security just fine that some internet stranger thinks they are all fuckwits. I agree they are useless but to just generalize every single TSA employee as a dickhead is definitely a choice
The reading comprehension on this fucking website I swear to god
I wonder how this will affect unexpected delays during holiday travel.
Badly
i feel sorry for SNL. how will they survive this?
They may not have to.
I'm still seeing that the shutdown is looming. Did anything change?
Nope. Elon Musk is still the president.
Lol I meant has the shutdown happened, but thank you for the update.
But TSA is a sham. Pure theater and makework.
Sure, but people still go there to try and make money for their livelyhood, sham or not they don't deserve to be unpaid.
No, but they also deserve to do meaningful work, which the TSA is not. They should morph the agency and personnel into something that actually serves a function beyond security theater.
Agree. TSA could be doing more meaningful work for the amount spent
Bullshit jobs for a bullshit way of life.
They don't deserve to be put on mind-numbing pretend work.
Did we not abolish the TSA yet? Funny how we're always losing ground on everything.
Who in their right mind is going to work without being paid?
People who expect to be paid eventually and still need the healthcare? Other than that...
They'll get back pay after the government re-opens. They just can't get paid during the shutdown.
Because if they don't do that pro-bono work demanded of them they would be fired.
Musk and Trump showed me, that I don't have to think about being a good enough person... Obviously I easily am (it's enough not to kill/rape/extort,.... who would have thought it's so easy?)
But they're going to get paid when the budget is approved again, right?
It's a problem for who lives paycheck to paycheck, though
Most people making 50k are working 4th-next-paycheck to 5th-next-paycheck tho.
And Christmas accentuates the problem as we collectively decided that we need to spend a paycheck in useless stuff to gift each other
At least half of them voted for that. 🤷
I mean.... Good? TSA is worthless anyway, they should be shut down forever. I hope it's one of the first agencies that are completely abolished
As I said elsewhere, those people have kids to feed and forcing people to work without pay is slavery.
So no, not good.
That's not how this works.
Shutdown doesn't mean no pay, it means no check issued for non essentials. You get furloughed and don't work unless you choose to, everyone that is expected to work is covered by supplemental budget.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2024/12/20/tsa-holiday-travelers-longer-airport-lines-shutdown/
You might want to check before you make these declarations. I do.
Slaves have to work bud, employees choose to. You could just say your hyperbole is a bit much rather then insist gainfully employed people are actual slaves anymore than any of the test of us wage slaves.
Ed:
Also if you read up there are programs specially for this because it's so absurd and common. https://www.ussfcu.org/federal-government-shutdown-assistance.html
USAA and Navy Federal offer the same zero interest loans as well.
They get paid, I'm not sure your intention with this random hyperbolic doomsaying is but it's unproductive and misleading at best.
Sure. "We'll pay you eventually, double swearsies, but you are required to work until then" totally isn't slavery.
They've never not been paid, doing otherwise is fraud even for the government.
And no, that's not slavery. Slavery is a forced servitude, you're not a slave because your mom asked you to take out the trash for "$20 next week if finances work out".
Not the everything is literally slavery or literally Hitler no matter how hard you wring your hands and stir the pot.
Do you know what happens when you live paycheck-to-paycheck, like the vast majority of Americans, and they stop paying you for a while? Do you know what happens to children in those situations?
Yeah we all hate Elon Musk, but government employees who work during a shutdown are reimbursed for full pay when the shutdown is over. Threads like this make me wonder how much of lemmy is high school sophomores. We don't know how long this latest shutdown will last, but they're getting to be almost a routine political tactic now instead of Congress doing its fucking job and taking care of its bookkeeping. This really isn't a billionaire thing.
Doesn’t help that much if you live paycheck to paycheck.
Valid point of discussion, but that's a much deeper level of thinking than 90% of the comments here.
They have bills that don't wait for shutdowns to end.
This is absolutely a billionaire thing b/c it demonstrates that billionaires have no concern for the people they affect since they have the luxury of cash coffers that most Americans don't have.
Look I'm not objecting to being angry at billionaires, but TBH there are millions and millions of people who don't live paycheck to paycheck and aren't inconvenienced by a delay in getting paid. You don't have to be anywhere near a billionaire to be in that category. If you want me to be the enemy for not jumping up and down cheering for this post, fine - or get a sense of perspective.
I'm not sure if you realize this, but "millions and millions" is still "single digit millions". The talking heads say things like "millions and millions" because it sounds like a lot, but that's actually a minority.
That still leaves hundreds of millions of Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck. In fact, they're living at least 4 paychecks out on revolving debt.
Nearly half of Americans "at least somewhat agree" that they're living paycheck to paycheck (source) - which means MORE than half are not. Clearly not "single digit millions" and clearly not a minority.
Anyway, what I said was that you don't have to be anywhere near a billionaire. So please don't conjure numbers out of thin air to counter this simple fact.
Please be a more conscientious consumer of media.
The source in that article is a an analysis of Bank of America's internal data. It is not "half of all Americans", it is "half of Bank of America customers". Which already qualifies the dataset as people who have a bank account (and at that, one as expensive and hostile to low-income customers as BoA)
If it were more than single digit millions, it would be "tens of millions". And even once you get to "over a hundred million", you're still talking of less than a third of Americans.
"Millions and millions of Americans" is something that spin doctors say to make you think that it's a majority of Americans. It's very far from it. "Millions and millions of people" may even be less than a majority of Minnesotians
Edit to add: This federal reserve study showed that 6% of American adults are completely unbanked (as in, no bank accounts at all) and 16% are underbanked (having a checking or saving account, but no other banking products or use alternative products like payday advance or money orders).
Further in the study it shows over half of Americans have carried a balance on a credit card in the past 12 months.
Not a meme.
meme
/mēm/
noun
A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.
Any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.
A self-propagating unit of cultural evolution having a resemblance to the gene (the unit of genetics).
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition • More at Wordnik
Don't worry about it. This person has announced that they will be putting this in every post they decide doesn't fit their personal criteria until they're banned.
And their bio is a lie. They proved that in the same thread.
I read their bio just now and had a chuckle at the wild self deception.
The current definition is actually just "thing on internet". But the reason the person you're responding is upset is they are a hyper conservative bootstrapper.
Yeah, they use "politics" when they mean "thing I didn't want to think about" and "meme" for "picture with words that I liked".