SqueakyCleanDave

[diarrheaworldstarhiphop]

[castle-engineer-deactivated2019]

This is one of those things that I already knew was true, but seeing it so blatantly displayed makes me feel like like I am finding out about it for the first time.

[pennamites-deactivated20180910]

CIA is getting lazy

[friendly-neighborhood-patriarch]

O.o

[arirosie]

It is really creepy how they all have the same freaking script

[pinetreeanarchism]

What the fuck

[sorasshadow1]

These clips are likely from local news operations owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, here’s the wikipedia page but John Oliver dedicated a whole episode to them a while back. Basically they’re a conservative group buying up a lot of local stations and forcing their rhetoric into places we’d normally trust implicitly. 

[liquiidambar]

We need to be careful with our takeaway from this. I’ve worked at a Sinclair run station, everyone hates the must-runs, even the more conservative staff. Local stations usually really pride themselves on being objective and covering stories that matter to their area but are never going to see the light of day nationally. It’s easy to say the people who air this are all snakes, but for the most part, it’s people who know these things will be aired with or without them (on air news jobs are highly competitive), so they do what they have to so they can continue to provide a public service.

To look at this and decide to disengage from the news is dangerous. Call them out, make noise about Sinclair, develop better media literacy and support good reporting when you find it. But don’t stop consuming the news. The well being of your world depends on a well informed public. It’s wrong how hard it is to find out the truth in this environment, but you have to try.

[squeekycleandave]

This.

[politicalprof]

Ht: the Daily Show

[squeekycleandave]

That.

[politicalprof]

Status anxiety, or, why the poor “have” to eat shit and die:

Much is being made – properly – of the draft Trump plan to delimit what the poor can buy with their food support funds. Such plans are insulting, thoughtless, cruel: you name it.

They’re also pretty common. The conservative Heritage Foundation claimed, in 2011, that most Americans living in poverty aren’t really poor since they owned consumer goods like refrigerators. Former Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz complained that the poor needed to spend their money on health care instead of iPhones (since those things are of equal cost and utility in society). You’ve probably heard hundreds of similar concerns. I certainly have.

It’s not that hard to see what’s going on. After all, the class system only works if one is seen to be of a different class than someone else. The rich wear Rolexes and you wear Timexes. They fly in first class and, if you’re rich enough, you get business. Or preferred economy. The rich get Ferraris and Rolls Royce. You get entry level Lexuses and BMWs. 

And what do the poor get? Well, the class system requires that the answer to that question be “less.” They get less. Of everything. All the time. And of less quality, too, since quality is also a marker of class status and wealth. 

Notably, this problem is intensifying in the modern era of compressed salary growth. As we all know, almost all the wealth that US society has generated in the last nearly 50 years has gone to the top 10% of wealth holders in the United States. 90% of that growth has gone to the top 1% of the top 10%. What this means is even middle class people today have a hard time buying entry level Lexuses, Timexes, and semi-luxurious houses. So they shift their buying down to regular houses and Walmart watches (if at all) and, dear lord, Chrysler 200s. 

But to confirm their middle class status, the middle class needs the poor to stop buying items like Chrysler 200s and Walmart watches and even mildly decent houses. They need to the poor to be poor by the NEW standard, not by the old one. So they need the poor to eat government cheese and give up their mobile phones. The middle class need the poor to act poor to make them believe the middle class is middle class.

Meanwhile, the rich just got a massive tax cut. But there’s nothing to worry about over there. Nope. After all, that poor person might have a moment of middle class comfort in their life. Let’s take it away for our own good!

[squeekycleandave]

This.

[mentallydefectiveandborntoo-blog]

[squeekycleandave]

Take me there!

[politicalprof]

One useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three is a Congress.

John Adams (via politicalprof)

That.

[morbidrodz]

[squeekycleandave]

Take me there.

[themensthings]

[squeekycleandave]

This.

[deathspraycustom]

Hi 2018

[squeekycleandave]

That.

[la-laborista-republiko]

Unions are not only the primary way that workers can protect themselves and their interests in the workplace; but it’s also the primary vehicle through which working people gain a voice and a seat at the table in a capitalist society.

What Reagan and Bush and Clinton realized as representatives of the ruling class (along with corporations and the Bourgeoisie more generally), is that by destroying unions through policy changes, through propaganda campaigns, and through neoliberal trade agreements, they could effectively destroy working peoples ability to fight for their own class interests, both in specific workplaces as well as in the society at large.

The fact that unions have been decimated while wealth inequality has soared, and the quality of life for working people has plummeted is no coincidence.

The fact that these vampires were able to help trick working people into supporting policies that directly hurt them, and are still able to do so, is a sad testament to the power of ideology and manufactured consent.

(Montaigne)

[squeekycleandave]

This.

[bob-belcher]

[kishona]

block me even

[accras]

PSA☝️

[squeekycleandave]

THIS.

[grupert-awesome]

[squeekycleandave]

That.

[justsomeantifas]

them: if you don’t like a corporation just don’t buy from them me:

me: I could go on if you want me to

[squeekycleandave]

This.

[your-raifu-is-shit]

M82B1-P

Alright, now you guys are just fucking with me. I’m like 78% sure this doesn’t actually exist outside of the fever dreams of a madman, but let’s roll with it anyway.

Firstly, hats off to Barrett (or, I suppose, “Birdman Weapon Systems”) for finally introducing a competitor to the Mk23 in the “crew-served handgun” category. Whatever else I have to say about this atrocity, God bless those crazy bastards for trying to help that sadly deprived market.

.50 BMG handguns do exist, so the basic concept here is slightly less retarded than it appears at first glance. I highly doubt the experience of shooting one even remotely approximates the concept of “fun” and if you need to ask if this is practical you should probably have fewer crayons in your diet, but it is at least possible.

I don’t know if there’s enough ear pro in the world to safely fire this thing, but I suppose people who are concerned about that probably aren’t the target consumers for this sort of product.

Based on how the normal M82 works (with the barrel telescoping back into the receiver for a short distance when fired) I’m pretty sure this won’t even cycle properly. The reduced length of travel and available mass would require a serious re-work of the action, and might even make semi-automatic fire impossible. You could always make it manually operated, but then you might as well just get that Thunder single-shot I linked above.

It’d give the average Californian politician a heart attack though, so it’s got that going for it. 5/10, just because I hope Dianne Feinstein sees this piece of shit and finally croaks.

[squeekycleandave]

This.

[your-raifu-is-shit]

Why's the Moist Nugget just about the best sniper rifle to carry into an active battle zone.

Because it’s been carried in more or less every single war fought since 1891 and used by the likes of Vasily Zaytsev and Simo Hayha.

Because long after you and I are dead it’ll still turn up in active battlefields.

Because when wars are fought with lasers and plasma guns it’ll still turn up in active battlefields.

Because when the God-Emperor decides to get off his ass and begin the Unification of Terra his poorest conscripts will have them.

Because when the Sun goes out and Earth itself is finally devoid of life and reduced to a barren rock there will STILL be a bunch of these fucking things buried under what used to be a Russian field, smothered in cosmoline and vodka, and still in fine condition to be used.

[squeekycleandave]

That.

[squeekycleandave]

This.

[yesterdaysprint]

[squeekycleandave]

That.

[garethwashere]

ROOTS_BLOWER

[squeekycleandave]

This.