GoCommiesGo

11 minutes ago, Fergasun said:

The GOP is just following the playbook they used with Obama.  They love to push the country to the brink and blame Dems for it.  

This is precisely why they can’t negotiate, if you keep allowing them to dictate and bypass the budget process they will always do it. 
 

Put a clean debt ceiling bill out for  vote. Get people on the record for blowing up the country, invoke the 14th and let them fight against the economy in court.
 

Ideally you can remove the entire stupid mechanism totally and allow the budget process to be what it should be. But, that’s a pipe dream. 

@Larry Completely agree with that. They need to put it out there in straightforward terms, keep it short and simple. 
 

If the GOP has a budget goal, that should be dealt with in the budgeting process, not by holding the nation hostage to pay for the already approved budget. 

I’ll preface this with I’m a federal employee. I do not want them to negotiate with the GOP, I want Biden or one of his surrogates to go  on major news networks and explain that the GOP is refusing to pay the budget that was already passed. 
 

They are refusing to pay the debt of the country they already agreed to and are using this one mechanism to hold the entire country hostage. I want the Dems to blast it constantly on every major network they can. I then want Biden to invoke the 14th amendment and give a speech on why he’s doing it, and how the government shall pay its debts. 
 

If they negotiate at all, this is going to repeat itself indefinitely. At some point you have to make a hard choice and not negotiate with the hostage takers. 

2 hours ago, China said:

Median pay for top U.S. CEOs rose 7.7% last year to a record $22.3 million, a new study found, as big stock awards helped the group stay ahead of inflation while U.S. workers' pay fell behind.

Whenever I see something like this I always think of the planet money episode about CEO pay. 
 

Episode 682: When CEO Pay Exploded

Quote

Today on the show, we go on a quest to find out why it happened. The story starts with a promise that Bill Clinton made on the campaign trail to tie CEO pay to company performance. We meet an economist who had a smart plan for how to do that--and then, we hear how he watched companies take that plan way too far. We meet the board members who thought they were getting something for nothing, and the compensation consultants who tried to show them the truth. And, we learn why Silicon Valley workers took to the streets to protest an accounting rule.

Great episode that provides a really interesting breakdown on CEO compensation. 

7 hours ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

Dorsey added that Musk “should have walked away” from acquiring Twitter for $44 billion, and faulted Twitter’s board in hindsight for trying to compel Musk to follow through with the deal despite Musk’s attempts to back out of the purchase last year

Is Musk involved in a Brewsters Millions situation?
 

If blows 45 billion does he then get a 100 billion for spending it all and having nothing left to show for it? 

9 hours ago, Dont Taze Me Bro said:

 

Thats cool, so how are you going to entice people that go down that path to actually apply for the police academy?  They don't typically offer a great salary for someone to literally be willing to take a bullet for complete strangers.  

 

 

Considering it’s one of the only jobs left in the country that offers a pension after 20 years, that’s a big incentive. 
 

Offer signing bonuses (this is done already), tuition forgiveness after X years served. Provide a stipend to students similar to what Wes Moore is proposing for teachers.
 

Starting salary now is 58k in Anne Arundel county, non inclusive of OT. The signing bonus is 20k and dispersed over three years of service. Starting pay and benefits are solid out of the gate, long term pay is good also. The career perception needs to be changed, I don’t want a bunch of people driving around with punisher skills on their cars enforcing rules.
 

There are a lot of good cops, wanting to have a better prepared officer should be a good thing. 
 

—Edit—

As my wife just pointed out. Teachers are now being asked to take a bullet from a complete stranger, should we lower their requirements? 

2 hours ago, Dont Taze Me Bro said:

 

What should the minimum requirements be then?

Associates Degree in criminal justice as a minimum. Ideally a bachelor’s in criminal justice or some derivative related to it. 
 

If your job is to enforce a complicated set of standards we should require something similar to at least other professions paid by the state / county.
 

My wife is a teacher, she has a bachelor’s and was required to get her masters within a set period of time. My cousin is a forensic laboratory technician for Baltimore police. Minimum requirements was a bachelor’s degree. They had a more rigid entry requirement to their jobs and they don’t have even get qualified immunity for making mistakes. 
 

—edit—

Our local community college offers an associate’s degree for law enforcement. 
 

Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice

Quote

If you want to help people while contributing to the safety and overall well-being of the country and the global community, you might want to consider one of Anne Arundel Community College’s highly regarded Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice programs.

You’ll train under current and former criminal justice professionals, who have expertise ranging from local, state and federal law enforcement to military intelligence analysis. And you’ll be in good company. Law enforcement agencies at all levels — such as the Maryland Transportation Authority Police, Department of Homeland Security and Transportation Security Administration — have sent their employees to our Homeland Security and Criminal Justice Institute for training for more than 10 years.

I don’t think this is controversial, asking a person to undergo some type of higher education for a career that is as important as law enforcement is a big ask. 
 

Most professional jobs require advanced degrees. I’m not advocating for a four year program out the door. But a two year program should be the bare minimum to get in the door. 

It blows my mind that as a country, we don't have a single universal standard for police training. State to state we can have wildly different standards from recruitment, training and continuous learning for LEOs. 

In some states training requirements are set at county levels or lower. I will never understand it. Hell in some places it takes more training to be a cosmetologist then a cop. 

I live in Anne Arundel County Maryland. The minimum requirements to be a county cop are; 

2 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

I’m sure Musk is going to challenge Tucker on the environmental crisis.  That has to be what the interview is about.

Or, hear me out on this. It's Tucker stroking Elon's ego about fighting the woke mind virus on Twitter and how the big bad liberal companies are hurting an upstart privately owned business. 

Just spit balling. 

I can only picture that interview going down one way. 

We could all be so lucky to be like Rick Fox. Man was anchoring championship teams and was so good looking he was working in Hollywood at the same time.

Kuzma may be on to something with Spencer. 

Didn't think I'd see this day for many years. Buddy and I have been kicking around the idea of getting season tickets again. My family had them for 10 years, 1999 - 2010, he had them for four years. We both dropped out around the same time. Exciting to think about going back. 

I keep thinking about how this is like the game "The Oregon Trail", we made it to the end but lost some good people to dysentery along the way. 

Just now, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

They left Twitter because he labeled them state affiliated media 

I understand, that and he's angry they actually left. Him shouting "defund" is an easy thing for people of a certain though process to rally around. They see NPR and think that the government gives them all their money and therefore chooses what they report. 

He's not a deep person, there are no interconnecting dots here. He's effectively Charlie working in the mailroom right now. 

1 minute ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

What did NPR report that has gotten Musk all hot and bothered?

 

They left twitter, and now he's unhappy. He's a man child and can't control his big feelings. 

1 hour ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

NPR gets most of its money from local affiliates, who get most of their money from the government. So I guess it depends on how you want to slice the cheese. However, there is no evidence that the government has influence on what they say/write.

That's not accurate. NPR gets the majority of it's money from corporate sponsorships, from what I can see it receives 1% from direct federal funding and 10% from indirect sources. 

NPR Funding 

Quote

 Presently, NPR receives funding for less than 1% of its budget directly from the federal government, but receives almost 10% of its budget from federal, state, and local governments indirectly. ²

NPR - Public Radio Finances

Chart is NPR overall funding. 

18 hours ago, The Evil Genius said:

As someone who has worked with contracts at the State level for 22+ years now, I can say without a doubt that this should be a huge ****ing deal.

 

I personally have to take annual ethics training and fill out annual disclosure forms. Both talk at length about gifts from "friends" and what is and what isn't needed to be disclosed (hint, almost every gift does and some gifts cannot legally be accepted at all). I can only imagine being a judge would compound that risk and tarnish any and all appropriate appearance of impartiality. 

 

FYi in California, the gift limit total for the entire year from everyone for me would be $590 from certain sources. Now times that by 200,000 for Clarence and it's just a nothingburger? 🙄

 

 

I'm a contracting officer at the federal level, if you accept a gift (you shouldn't) it has to be less than $20.00 per occasion and cannot exceed $50.00 for the year. Like you we take annual ethics training and have to fill out our annual disclosure for myself and spouse. 

The issue is not if you can do it, it's the perception that you create for the entirety of yourself and agency. It has always been told to me; the possible perception of impropriety is unacceptable. This to me is a huge deal, it's so far outside of what morally and ethically should be done. The ambiguity this creates is just outside of anything, and it may have had no influence on him, but the perception is there. That is the issue. 

But I'm sure they will investigate themselves and determine nothing wrong has been done. 

5 hours ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

I'm not sure how many of you have spent time around combat veterans but most aren't people that I would recommend transitioning to hanging around elementary schools.  And the vast majority of veterans have no combat/weapons experience.  So they would be as useful as your average mechanic or secretary. 

I have two very good friends who are combat veterans. One is an officer still serving the other is a retired marine, multiple tours, specifically Fallujah. Under no circumstances would I want either working in that capacity at my kids school. 
 

Super small sample and anecdotal, but I’ve known both of these guys for  almost 35 years. I wouldn’t trust them in that capacity around my kids. 

3 hours ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

 

 

10 minutes ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

 

I will say, I think it tightened up and got better after about the 5th episode.  I don't still don't think it's good TV by any stretch but I liked it despite some bad writing, questionable acting and some over the top bull****.

 

I also did like looking at the actress that played Rose.  My goodness.

I finished it last night. It got better, but I mean, it wasn't good. But for some reason I had to finish it. So, I guess in some way it was good?  

I enjoyed watching the Far character constantly berating people, that was funny. 

My understanding is that it would have to wind its way through federal court, running out the clock on Desantis seems to be the plan. Also, from what I've read the agreement itself appears to be valid.  

Does it have a foot shaped gas pedal? If not, I'm out. 

3 minutes ago, China said:

Child care in America can cost as much as rent or a mortgage, and high-quality care can be hard to come by.

We live in a HOCL area, we had our first kid enrolled in a center as a one-year-old in 2011. We got incredibly lucky that a new center was just finishing construction about ten minutes from our house. It was $1,275 a month. We had our second kid in 2015, the first people to know my wife was pregnant was that center. Our son was born in February, he didn't enroll until September, the only reason we were able to get him enrolled is because another couple had to move. 

We told the center in July / August of 2014, we had to prepay for a month to hold our spot for a year later. The price for a baby was $1,925 a month, our daughter was still going there. Our daughter was in her final year at the daycare. Our total out of pocket cost for that year averaged out to $2,500 a month. It was more than the mortgage on our house.

We have friends that are our age and have a one-year-old, they have her in a daycare in a lower cost of living area, I think they pay something like $275 a week. I'd love to know what they think affordable is for childcare. 

1 hour ago, skinsmarydu said:

Awesome. 

 

On the other side of life, getting a fraud alert isn't so good.  Bank has to issue another card, and my Chewy and phone bill were in the mix.  I ****ing hate this.  Time to be creative, get cash and a "gift card" to pay **** by phone.  

It's just a little humiliating.  I'm normally flawless.

That's not a you thing. My parents have two cards, and really only one they use. They also may be the most financially literate people I know, and their PenFed card got compromised like 4 times in the span of six months. It happens, it's just super inconvenient. 

I had ACL & LCL reconstruction done end of January this year, 14 years ago I had ACL reconstruction and some meniscus repair on my other knee. I was 26 the first time and 40 now. 

It's crazy how far medical recovery has come in that 14 years. I'm 8 weeks out and walking with a limp without crutches, the first time I was still on crutches and working on weight bearing. I'm floored with how fast and how much smoother this has been especially at an older age and being less active prior to surgery. I'll be able to resume light cardio in another four weeks and back to full activity six months from surgery. The first time it was one year to full activity, medical improvements are neat to see in places you don't really think of them.