1mo ago

It's good to be da king

Things didn't end well for the last guy...

335 comments

Or just don't show up to work, and start looking for another job.
What they gonna do? Shoot you for "being sick and unable to report to work"?
Message for Government Employees: If you work a government job, DON'T GO TO WORK WHEN THE GOVERNMENT IS SHUT DOWN. Fuck that BS, don't let the government treat you like a slave. Calling out from work is not a crime (even if it is, fuck them anyways).
- 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.
  
  They aren't allowed to strike.
- Have you met them? They're basically otherwise unemployable.
  
  Meh, I'm sure their local police force, who are toally well trained and organized and not filled with overweight people, would gladly accept them, just look at what the average cop looks like. These TSA agents will fit right in.
  (Not that I want there to be more cops, but sadly thats where these people will end up. 🤷‍♂️)
  
  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.
- 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.
  
  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?
- 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.
- 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.

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?
  
  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.
- 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.

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.
- 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.

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.
- 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.
- 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.

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.
- 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.

How bout they just dont show up? The TSA is a fraudulent agency anyway. Pre-9/11 security worked just fine.
- 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.
- 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?
  
  They are only doing it in the first place because they need to eat
  Or do you want to stop medical couriers from delivering organs for transplant?
  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

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!
  
  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.

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.
- Why doesn't the "no new wars!" gang cut military spending by 65-80%? Defense readiness doesn't cost $800B/ year.
- Maybe if they don’t pass funding, we just renew the last passed funding.
  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.

"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.
  
  Love this attitude. The harsh reality is, not everyone is a kid working at maccas and they have families to feed and bills to pay.
  
  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.
- 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

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.

Not even a government shutdown can stop the TSA from harassing people

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.

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

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.
- 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
- 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

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

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.
  
  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.
- You don't like poorly trained, poorly paid rent-a-cops screaming at you to take of your shoes and empty your pockets and x-ray you while they steal your Nintendo Switch?

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...
- Because if they don't do that pro-bono work demanded of them they would be fired.
- They'll get back pay after the government re-opens. They just can't get paid during the shutdown.

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

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?)

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.

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.

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.
  
  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.

335 comments