The Goat Pen

If I had known we'd be getting a young administration picked to actually fight and dismantle bureaucracy, I might have actually voted for Trump.

The main bureaucracy that needs dismantling is the DoD but that will never happen, not even slightly. We spend a trillion a year on "defense" and then people bitch and moan when we send some shit that was flagged for the junkyard anyway to fight Russia via proxy. Best money the DoD ever spent and it all goes to the (hopefully American) contractors who restock the shelves. God forbid if we put a boot on the ground anywhere though. Spending a trillion a year so folks can sit around and play solitaire at the Pentagon or whatever base they're on and nobody bats an eye, but one faggot gets a sex change operation in prison and people's heads explode...

hedge wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 12:20 pm "Thomas Massie needs to be in charge of the BATF but he got Sec of Agriculture because goddammit, its important that people be able to drink milk straight from a cow. I actually have no idea why he wanted that position and I'm sure he'll be very small government about it, but the man could be so much more impactful in a good way somewhere else."

Dept. of Ag is in charge of a lot of "welfare" programs (food stamps and the like). Somebody gone be hongry...

Farmers are probably on the government tit more than just about any other part of the economy not directly affiliated with defense, but they tend to be extremely conservative. If the Department of Agriculture makes massive cuts, how are the farmers going to claim Trump is their savior?

Listen, I'm actually for government subsidies for agriculture because of the importance of keeping a diversified food supply from multiple regions, but I don't mind watching hypocrites have their heads explode.

Food stamps are just as important in Kentucky as they are New York.

Massie's district I believe is the richest part of the state, but I'd be surprised if he suggests cuts on food programs for Americans.

Now farm subsidies are probably a different story. I'd be fine with this government taking ethanol out of gas completely.

DooKSucks wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 1:59 pm

hedge wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 12:20 pm "Thomas Massie needs to be in charge of the BATF but he got Sec of Agriculture because goddammit, its important that people be able to drink milk straight from a cow. I actually have no idea why he wanted that position and I'm sure he'll be very small government about it, but the man could be so much more impactful in a good way somewhere else."

Dept. of Ag is in charge of a lot of "welfare" programs (food stamps and the like). Somebody gone be hongry...

Farmers are probably on the government tit more than just about any other part of the economy not directly affiliated with defense, but they tend to be extremely conservative. If the Department of Agriculture makes massive cuts, how are the farmers going to claim Trump is their savior?

Listen, I'm actually for government subsidies for agriculture because of the importance of keeping a diversified food supply from multiple regions, but I don't mind watching hypocrites have their heads explode.

Megafarms are a huge issue - you should see Kennedy talk about how Smithfield wiped out pig farming in North Carolina and now keeps their supply chain on poverty wages just to keep the family farm

But you don't have to try very hard to imagine the screams of bloody murder if they went back to the old way of producing hogs and bacon prices doubled...

hedge wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 12:20 pm "Thomas Massie needs to be in charge of the BATF but he got Sec of Agriculture because goddammit, its important that people be able to drink milk straight from a cow. I actually have no idea why he wanted that position and I'm sure he'll be very small government about it, but the man could be so much more impactful in a good way somewhere else."

Dept. of Ag is in charge of a lot of "welfare" programs (food stamps and the like). Somebody gone be hongry...

Almost all the authority these federal agencies have is doling out money to the states with restrictions based on policy. Your state wants free federal money from the fed for highways? Keep a 55 mph speed limit. States that don’t get less or no fed money for their roads. It bribery with fed tax dollars. You can call it welfare if you like. But Ramaswamy did a perfect job illustrating how the DOE gives 10% of the budget to so many schools and in virtually all cases, that conditional bribery money is only given if the school district matches the policy proposals of the director who is running the agency.

Put a new director in place and you get policy changes. And as such the states alter their policies if they want to continue feasting on the federal tit.

eCat wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 2:27 pm

DooKSucks wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 1:59 pm

hedge wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 12:20 pm "Thomas Massie needs to be in charge of the BATF but he got Sec of Agriculture because goddammit, its important that people be able to drink milk straight from a cow. I actually have no idea why he wanted that position and I'm sure he'll be very small government about it, but the man could be so much more impactful in a good way somewhere else."

Dept. of Ag is in charge of a lot of "welfare" programs (food stamps and the like). Somebody gone be hongry...

Farmers are probably on the government tit more than just about any other part of the economy not directly affiliated with defense, but they tend to be extremely conservative. If the Department of Agriculture makes massive cuts, how are the farmers going to claim Trump is their savior?

Listen, I'm actually for government subsidies for agriculture because of the importance of keeping a diversified food supply from multiple regions, but I don't mind watching hypocrites have their heads explode.

Megafarms are a huge issue - you should see Kennedy talk about how Smithfield wiped out pig farming in North Carolina and now keeps their supply chain on poverty wages just to keep the family farm

1) RFK, Jr bitched, moaned, complained, lied and did all sorts of shit to try to harm hog farming over the past 30-40 years. He is far from the hog farmer's friend. He can eat shit and die.
2) "Megafarms" is a laughable term invented by RFK, Jr in his quest to harm farmers. Those "megafarms" literally saved thousands of family farms in NC and Iowa over the years.
3) Smithfield in its current CCP-owned form is a collection of assholes, but they're still buying shitloads of pork from their contract farmers. They have not "wiped out" hog farms in NC or Iowa.

hedge wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 4:13 pm But you don't have to try very hard to imagine the screams of bloody murder if they went back to the old way of producing hogs and bacon prices doubled...

Doubled? Hell, we're talking tripling and quadrupling...if not more.

That is really where all the power is for these agencies who create rules on the fly based solely on the policy of the director appointed by the POTUS to run it. It’s barbaric but this silliness is the fault of federal legislators too pussy to create bills to be voted into law for fear that they will lose them r seat in congress if they do.

somehow I don't think pig farmers existing as contract farmers for Smithfield are doing well.

innocentbystander wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 4:29 pm

hedge wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 12:20 pm "Thomas Massie needs to be in charge of the BATF but he got Sec of Agriculture because goddammit, its important that people be able to drink milk straight from a cow. I actually have no idea why he wanted that position and I'm sure he'll be very small government about it, but the man could be so much more impactful in a good way somewhere else."

Dept. of Ag is in charge of a lot of "welfare" programs (food stamps and the like). Somebody gone be hongry...

Almost all the authority these federal agencies have is doling out money to the states with restrictions based on policy. Your state wants free federal money from the fed for highways? Keep a 55 mph speed limit. States that don’t get less or no fed money for their roads. It bribery with fed tax dollars. You can call it welfare if you like. But Ramaswamy did a perfect job illustrating how the DOE gives 10% of the budget to so many schools and in virtually all cases, that conditional bribery money is only given if the school district matches the policy proposals of the director who is running the agency.

Put a new director in place and you get policy changes. And as such the states alter their policies if they want to continue feasting on the federal tit.

"Here, Congress has acted indirectly under its spending power to encourage uniformity in the States' drinking ages. As we explain below, we find this legislative effort within constitutional bounds even if Congress may not regulate drinking ages directly. South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203, 206 (1987).

The federal government is well within its right to encourage state actions by conditioning funding upon implementation of certain policies by the states. This has been going on for decades. It's not new, and for those of you who act like it is new, you are just illuminating your ignorance.

eCat wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 4:35 pm somehow I don't think pig farmers existing as contract farmers for Smithfield are doing well.

They're not starving. That's for sure. Is it as good as it was when Murphy, Prestage, Goldsboro Milling, etc were the controlling the first iterations of contract farming? No. Are the Chicoms easy to deal with? No. But....are things absolutely dire for those farmers like your statement implies? No.

I'm not in favor of the CCP owning Smithfield, and it's a travesty that it was approved, but Wormhole Brain Kennedy is going to make things much worse if he gets his way.

DooKSucks wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 4:39 pm

innocentbystander wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 4:29 pm

hedge wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 12:20 pm "Thomas Massie needs to be in charge of the BATF but he got Sec of Agriculture because goddammit, its important that people be able to drink milk straight from a cow. I actually have no idea why he wanted that position and I'm sure he'll be very small government about it, but the man could be so much more impactful in a good way somewhere else."

Dept. of Ag is in charge of a lot of "welfare" programs (food stamps and the like). Somebody gone be hongry...

Almost all the authority these federal agencies have is doling out money to the states with restrictions based on policy. Your state wants free federal money from the fed for highways? Keep a 55 mph speed limit. States that don’t get less or no fed money for their roads. It bribery with fed tax dollars. You can call it welfare if you like. But Ramaswamy did a perfect job illustrating how the DOE gives 10% of the budget to so many schools and in virtually all cases, that conditional bribery money is only given if the school district matches the policy proposals of the director who is running the agency.

Put a new director in place and you get policy changes. And as such the states alter their policies if they want to continue feasting on the federal tit.

"Here, Congress has acted indirectly under its spending power to encourage uniformity in the States' drinking ages. As we explain below, we find this legislative effort within constitutional bounds even if Congress may not regulate drinking ages directly. South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203, 206 (1987).

The federal government is well within its right to encourage state actions by conditioning funding upon implementation of certain policies by the states. This has been going on for decades. It's not new, and for those of you who act like it is new, you are just illuminating your ignorance.

Of course it is their right. But that does not make it right. By the by the age of drinking for the country is now federal law at 21 not set by state law. So your example is irrelevant.

"By the by the age of drinking for the country is now federal law at 21 not set by state law. So your example is irrelevant."

Marijuana is illegal under federal law (I think Biden is getting it moved off of Schedule I, where it has sat for decades along with heroin and the like, but Trump will probably put it back) but it's legal in many states. So what's your point?

hedge wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 5:11 pm "By the by the age of drinking for the country is now federal law at 21 not set by state law. So your example is irrelevant."

Marijuana is illegal under federal law (I think Biden is getting it moved off of Schedule I, where it has sat for decades along with heroin and the like, but Trump will probably put it back) but it's legal in many states. So what's your point?

My point is that our legislators fail to legislate. They have abdicated their most important responsibility (making laws) and surrendered all control over deciding how to run this country and INSTEAD create federal agencies to make the rules. And these agencies set up policy as they go along. And that policy is political first, and foremost. Its generally NOT in what is in the best interest of the people. That is because these agencies report into the President, not congress. And the President appoints who he thinks should be running them INSTEAD OF enforcing existing federal law that our lawmakers never made. Our legislators have done this (stopped writing laws and started creating agencies) out of FEAR of being voted out of office if they are on the wrong side of what the people think should or should not be illegal.

Our resident divorce attorney thought he was making a smart point when he brought up the drinking age but all he did was make a smart ass of himself. In that one case, that ONE CASE, the federal government did step up and set federal law mandating that no one under the age of 21 may purchase or consume, alcohol. We did that under Reagan in the 1980s because the vehicular homicide rate on our interstates tripled (and in some cases, quadrupled) in the 1970s thanks to 18, 19, and 20 year olds drinking and driving. Been there, done that. 18 to drink does not work for the United States. We had to have MADD in 1982 lobby congress and beg and plead of Reagan to make it stop. So they did.

You brought up Marijuana. Why is there no federal law making it illegal? Why must it be named on Schedule I by the damn DEA and FDA for it to be a crime? It is that way because congress is too PUSSY to write a fucking law criminalizing something so addictive for our most vulnerable people that it ruins our sons who would rather spend their life smoking grass than waking up in the morning and working a job. Its not lethal, but it can (and often does) ruin your long life.

Ramaswamy is going to work for some "agency" that will likely be funded out of Elon Musk's own wallet, not taxpayers. As congress will never create it. And this agency is going to investigate all the federal agencies to see what they do and where the fat can be trimmed. For some of them, they shouldn't even exist anymore. Why do we have an ATF? Shut it down faster than we shut down the Civil Aeronautics Board. There is no point to it anymore. And that is not the only one that needs to disappear. But in the world of reality, these agencies become cancerous as they grow and grow and find new purpose to their existence out of fear of being dismantled because people might lose jobs and pensions. They become needless jobs programs instead of necessary for government. And all the fault here, it is in the empty and useless hands of congress.

innocentbystander wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 5:05 pm

DooKSucks wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 4:39 pm

innocentbystander wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 4:29 pm

Almost all the authority these federal agencies have is doling out money to the states with restrictions based on policy. Your state wants free federal money from the fed for highways? Keep a 55 mph speed limit. States that don’t get less or no fed money for their roads. It bribery with fed tax dollars. You can call it welfare if you like. But Ramaswamy did a perfect job illustrating how the DOE gives 10% of the budget to so many schools and in virtually all cases, that conditional bribery money is only given if the school district matches the policy proposals of the director who is running the agency.

Put a new director in place and you get policy changes. And as such the states alter their policies if they want to continue feasting on the federal tit.

"Here, Congress has acted indirectly under its spending power to encourage uniformity in the States' drinking ages. As we explain below, we find this legislative effort within constitutional bounds even if Congress may not regulate drinking ages directly. South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203, 206 (1987).

The federal government is well within its right to encourage state actions by conditioning funding upon implementation of certain policies by the states. This has been going on for decades. It's not new, and for those of you who act like it is new, you are just illuminating your ignorance.

Of course it is their right. But that does not make it right. By the by the age of drinking for the country is now federal law at 21 not set by state law. So your example is irrelevant.

You fucking ingrate, that law is the law the case deals with. The feds enforce it through DOT funds. You are a goddamned idiot.

DooKSucks wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 7:22 pm

innocentbystander wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 5:05 pm

DooKSucks wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 4:39 pm

"Here, Congress has acted indirectly under its spending power to encourage uniformity in the States' drinking ages. As we explain below, we find this legislative effort within constitutional bounds even if Congress may not regulate drinking ages directly. South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203, 206 (1987).

The federal government is well within its right to encourage state actions by conditioning funding upon implementation of certain policies by the states. This has been going on for decades. It's not new, and for those of you who act like it is new, you are just illuminating your ignorance.

Of course it is their right. But that does not make it right. By the by the age of drinking for the country is now federal law at 21 not set by state law. So your example is irrelevant.

You fucking ingrate, that law is the law the case deals with. The feds enforce it through DOT funds. You are a goddamned idiot.

No, YOU are the ingrate! There is a LAW. LAW. Do you know what a federal law is, Lawyer? There is NO FUCKING FEDERAL AGENCY that sets the drinking age for the United States to be 21 based on their independent policy. Congress set the age. They set the age by naming the age in the bill and having Reagan sign that bill into law. The fact that the states are bribed by the fed to enforce this law created by the fed does not change the fact that the age of 21 (set in 1984 by congress) is law. They don't have to bribe. The fed does anyway but they don't have to.

The fed DOES bribe states to set the maximum speed limit at 55 mph. A federal agency has determined 55 to be the magic number. There is NO federal law setting speed limits in the USA. None. That is determined by the states. The drinking age was once determined by the states. It no longer is.

Do you understand the difference, you ingrate?

Title 23 U. S. C. § 158 (1982 ed., Supp. III) directs the Secretary of Transportation to withhold a percentage of otherwise allocable federal highway funds from States "in which the purchase or public possession ... of any alcoholic beverage by a person who is less than twenty-one years of age is lawful." South Dakota, which permits persons 19 years old or older to purchase beer containing up to 3.2% alcohol, sued in Federal District Court for a declaratory judgment that § 158 violates the constitutional limitations on congressional exercise of the spending power under Art. I, § 8, cl. 1, of the Constitution and violates the Twenty-firstAmendment. The District Court rejected the State's claims, and the
Court of Appeals affirmed.
Held: Even if Congress, in view of the Twenty-first Amendment, might lack the power to impose directly a national minimum drinking age (a question not decided here), § 158's indirect encouragement of state action to obtain uniformity in the States' drinking ages is a valid use of the spending power. Pp. 206-212.

You really are a goddamned idiot