The context. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Cherokee_War

Imagine thinking anyone other than the people paying for the war have a say. Ukraine is of course free to reject any deal if they wish to continue the war without aid from the US taxpayers.

I get it. Elements of the US government certainly contributed to the war starting. Go after those people. Stop taking money out of my pocket to fight people on the other side of the planet I have nothing against who have done nothing to me on behalf of people I don’t know and weren’t exactly standing on the corner minding their own business prior to Russia invading. Especially with current deficit levels and inflation.

Messed up last year and worked 3 forty hour work weeks in a 9 day period. Saved a ton of material from going to the landfill. Literally a ton. That’s not a figure of speech. Saved the company 10s of thousands of dollars. Then the tax man came. Never again. There’s a significant portion of the plant that doesn’t work overtime beyond a few hours over income taxes.

I think a lot of people don’t realize how much doesn’t get done because people decide it just isn’t worth overtime at a certain point once the tax man gets involved.

Article 1 section 9 clause 7 of the US Constitution. Lying about what the money is used for in the books is defrauding the taxpayers.

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/section-9/

Kind of like the idea that care for veterans especially veterans wounded in war isn’t counted as defense spending.

It’s fraud if the stated allocation is a cover up for something else. Or even just overpaying on line item A because funding for line item B from the same company is approved at a level lower than the people buying line item B were hoping for.

It’s fraud. Just like the book deals politicians get after they get out of office are bribes. Even if the people that are paying the bribe have to buy every copy of the book and put them in a warehouse somewhere or burn them. I’ll take your point about congress and say if Congress allocated money for the purposes of bribing someone overseas under the pretense of using it for something else that just means they’re in on the fraud.

Not a false premise if they would bust a private citizen for faulty records keeping. Say on the record what the money is for. All that congress letting it continue means is that either they are in on the fraud or don’t care.

Would an IRS audit of a private company’s/individual’s books call money earmarked as thing A but really a payoff for thing B fraud? All those roads to nowhere in Afghanistan, were they bad investments or bribes to local honchos to get them on the US side or at least to not fight the US? I’d call that fraud once the attempt is made to hide what taxpayer money was actually used for. Legal use of the money or not.

Most of the time I think the people that are so bothered by what happens even just 100 miles from where they live, that something just has to be done are the real concern.

I’ll give something of a pass for thinking it every now and again after a say a hurricane or something. If it’s a regular thing? That’s dangerous. That’s the sort of logic that justifies doing a lot of bad things for “the right reasons” so the people doing it can think of themselves as the good guys.

The empire always comes home.

If it gets that heavy I’m breaking out the crew served but yeah probably not needed.

Having taken people who aren’t gun people to the range I always take a selection of my collection. See what they like. M1 carbine is always a fan favorite. AR15 not so much. I’d use my carbine for self defense but some of them are junk. They’re also expensive.

Then again when people ask me what gun they should get my questions are usually what they want it for and do they have a gun they aren’t thinking of that will do that if they take the money a new gun would cost for ammunition and range time in preference to buying a new gun without being able to afford the new gun, instruction and range time.

Wait. There’s green people in England?!?!🤯🤯🤯

Just got done eating some. Smeared over a couple of medium rare new york strips. And a baked potato. I know. I know.

Score! I’m closing in on 500 bucks still on the exchange. Would have been there but I used some to try buying things and well my Nostr zap funds. Starting to look into what kind of wallet to use and the relative merits. Not really what I’d call tech savvy though I guess that’s relative too.

At work picking up some overtime ahead of my regular shift. Works out to a 15 hour shift.

Local Wafflehouse is on the limited/storm menu.

You to. I guess y’all get more snow up that way. I’ve only been to Missouri from May to August though.