Wrong Flag

Quote:A Texas state house candidate posted an artificial intelligence-generated image of himself for his campaign — but it didn't get received quite the way he may have hoped.

Tom Glass of McDade, running for the 17th House District, posted the picture alongside his announcement of a key endorsement, while fully admitting it to be AI-generated.

Quote:This image, however, drew swift mockery from political consultant and former Texas House chief of staff Joey Parr, who pointed out some obvious mistakes.

"Nice Chilean flag, @tomgglass," wrote Parr, indicating that the AI had mixed up the flag of Texas with the flag of Chile — both of which are red, white, and blue with a "lone star," but otherwise laid out very differently. "And the wrong capitol." The image showed the U.S. Capitol instead of the Texas Capitol.

Boru

‘Suicide is only one option': Social Security staff newly assigned to phone duties raise concerns over training

https://www.govexec.com/management/2026/...ng/411429/

Quote:The Social Security Administration has instructed employees newly assigned to answering phones to tell callers expressing suicidal thoughts that suicide is “one option,” raising concerns from employees and experts in the field who called the approach unorthodox


SSA recently began shifting new swaths of its workforce to phone answering duty, including those who normally receive and process retirement and disability claims, manage the agency’s technology and work in the agency's finances unit. Those employees received brief, three-hour training before they began answering calls.

As part of that training, they were warned some callers may express suicidal ideation and presented with examples using a theoretical employee named Fiona. 

It's important for Fiona to keep the caller engaged and to remind her that suicide is only one option,” the animated trainer told employees in the video, a copy of which was obtained by Government Executive, “and that there is no urgency to make any decisions.”

(February 16, 2026 at 1:04 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote: ‘Suicide is only one option': Social Security staff newly assigned to phone duties raise concerns over training

https://www.govexec.com/management/2026/...ng/411429/

Quote:The Social Security Administration has instructed employees newly assigned to answering phones to tell callers expressing suicidal thoughts that suicide is “one option,” raising concerns from employees and experts in the field who called the approach unorthodox


SSA recently began shifting new swaths of its workforce to phone answering duty, including those who normally receive and process retirement and disability claims, manage the agency’s technology and work in the agency's finances unit. Those employees received brief, three-hour training before they began answering calls.

As part of that training, they were warned some callers may express suicidal ideation and presented with examples using a theoretical employee named Fiona. 

It's important for Fiona to keep the caller engaged and to remind her that suicide is only one option,” the animated trainer told employees in the video, a copy of which was obtained by Government Executive, “and that there is no urgency to make any decisions.”

Because three hours’ training is sufficient to deal with suicidal callers, right?

Boru

(February 16, 2026 at 1:04 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote: ‘Suicide is only one option': Social Security staff newly assigned to phone duties raise concerns over training

https://www.govexec.com/management/2026/...ng/411429/

Quote:The Social Security Administration has instructed employees newly assigned to answering phones to tell callers expressing suicidal thoughts that suicide is “one option,” raising concerns from employees and experts in the field who called the approach unorthodox


SSA recently began shifting new swaths of its workforce to phone answering duty, including those who normally receive and process retirement and disability claims, manage the agency’s technology and work in the agency's finances unit. Those employees received brief, three-hour training before they began answering calls.

As part of that training, they were warned some callers may express suicidal ideation and presented with examples using a theoretical employee named Fiona. 

It's important for Fiona to keep the caller engaged and to remind her that suicide is only one option,” the animated trainer told employees in the video, a copy of which was obtained by Government Executive, “and that there is no urgency to make any decisions.”

Translation: "Off yourself so we don't have to pay out benefits."

I'm surprised they're not offering a how-to pamphlet.

Those Futurama booths will be popping up in empty shopping malls soon.

Quote:Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales long tried to duck questions about an alleged affair with a former aide who died by suicide, but that strategy has now brutally backfired.

Gonzales ignored requests from local news stations—who were even uninvited from an event the married Republican was attending—for months after the scandal surfaced. He also dodged the scandal when cornered on camera, likely hoping the issue would disappear until after his primary.

Now, a bombshell report by the San Antonio Express-News has renewed national attention to the vulnerable, Trump-endorsed candidate in the first week of early voting, placing his alleged infidelity fresh in the minds of Texas voters heading to the polls.

A Gonzales staff member is quoted as alleging that the 45-year-old lawmaker did “nothing” when made aware that the woman he had an affair with—Gonzales’ former regional district director, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles—was in a deteriorating mental state.

Not long after, in September, the 35-year-old Santos-Aviles set herself on fire outside her home in the Texas Hill Country, the local medical examiner said.

Gonzales did not immediately address the death of Santos-Aviles, ABC’s San Antonio affiliate KSAT reported at the time. Instead, the station reported that Gonzales released a statement only after being approached for comment, saying he was “heart-stricken.” He then went radio silent on the matter—ignoring more than 15 requests for information from the news outlet.

Similarly, Gonzales’ office did not respond to two requests for comment from the Daily Beast on Wednesday. However, it issued a statement to the conservative New York Post suggesting that the Express News article was a hit piece orchestrated by his opponent, Brandon Herrera.

Gonzales told the tabloid he was “not going to engage in these personal smears and instead will remain focused on helping President Trump secure the border and improve the lives of all Texans.”

How MAGA Congressman Tried to Run From Bombshell Affair Rumor

Outcry after Ambassador Mike Huckabee suggests Israel has God-given right to Middle East land

Arab states have reacted with fury after U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee suggested Israel has a biblical right to take over large swaths of the Middle East.

“It would be fine if they took it all, but I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about here today,” Huckabee told podcaster Tucker Carlson during an interview posted on YouTube on Friday, as the two discussed his Christian Zionist beliefs and interpretations of the Old Testament regarding land promised to Abraham's descendants, stretching across multiple modern-day countries.

His comments drew swift condemnation from across the region.

A joint statement from the foreign ministries of over a dozen Arab and Muslim nations, including U.S. allies Qatar and Saudi Arabia, expressed their “strong condemnation and profound concern” regarding Huckabee’s comments, affirming their “categorical rejection of such dangerous and inflammatory remarks.”

Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry described Huckabee’s comments as “extremist rhetoric” and called for the State Department to clarify its position on them, while Egypt described the comments as a “flagrant breach” of international law.

Iran warned the remarks could further “embolden” Israel in its “illegal measures against Palestinians as well as its constant aggression against the nations of the region.”

Carlson, who has increasingly questioned U.S. support for Israel, said that this area would include “basically the entire Middle East,” including parts of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

“I’m not sure it would go that far,” Huckabee said, “but it would be a big piece of land.”

Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a longtime proponent of Israeli expansion in the Middle East, appeared to welcome the remarks. He posted on X Saturday: "I (heart) Huckabee."

Huckabee, a devout Christian and outspoken Zionist, has frequently drawn on the Bible when discussing the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, but the latest remarks go a step beyond that in seemingly referring to a much larger hypothetical expansion of the Israeli state.

https://www.nbcnews.com/world/israel/out...rcna260133

(November 15, 2025 at 5:16 am)Rev. Rye Wrote:

(November 15, 2025 at 4:53 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: (Bold mine)

No, because no AF member is apologizing for rape or excusing those who do.

Boru

I just wanted to be sure. Something like a MAGAt justifying molesting children on a podcast just needs to be seen to be believed, and knowing that she’s an admin (thus likely to know the nuances of the rules better than I) and not sharing the video made me wonder.

I finally found the stream where this happened.

Dean Withers Show, Episode 328
Forward to 3:26:13

The only reason I”m not posting the stream itself is because I don’t know how to make YouTube Streams work with our video coding. Figured It Out.

A Marine veteran in the Senate yells out that the American soldiers don't want to fight in Israel only to have his hand broken by a GOP senator.

(March 6, 2026 at 3:30 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote: A Marine veteran in the Senate yells out that the American soldiers don't want to fight in Israel only to have his hand broken by a GOP senator.

I'm sure the DOJ will prosecute that violent assault. /s