Cirrus
10d ago
Unironically, this is why we need to bring back earmarks. Congress needs to go back on the record and be more prescriptive in specifying where and how appropriated funds should be spent. Congress did away with ‘pork barrel spending’ over a decade ago and the result hasn’t been a decrease in federal spending. Rather, it just relieves Congress of accountability and permits the kind of opaque ‘fraud’ exemplified here to take root.
Cirrus
22d ago
Well said. Especially this part:
I still took roughly a 100k pay cut to come to my current job. Largely, it was because of stress and hours worked, and because my wife, who works here, liked it so much, although with the commute (I had to come in 5 days a week prior to the EO but worked from home in my private industry job), it ends up being a long day anyway. The first time I was a federal employee, I was a theoretical physicist at a DoD lab--unlike DoE national labs, where the employees are contractors, DoD lab employees are federal employees--but I made a lot less money than I do now… The general sense I get when I talk to people at other agencies about the "buyout" is that there's a lack of belief in it's legitimacy. If you reply "resign" to an email, is there any gaurantee that they have to pay you for the full 8 months? Can they fire you or lay you off in that time? Can they require you to come into work?
As someone in a similar situation (former private sector, now federal employee who received this email) I made the change and accepted a pay cut because of the better working accommodations. If the Trump administration wants federal employees to work like private sector workers, will they be paid like private sector workers?
The ‘resign’ email is poorly worded and leaves a lot of open questions, like you said. Where will the money come from? Does it require Congressional appropriations? Which agency will pay it? Like you noted, will employees who accept the offer be expected to work through September 30, or will they be placed on admin leave immediately?
This idea has Elon’s DOGE written all over it. It’s a bold move, using the OPM to communicate directly to all federal employees and circumvent their various agencies, but seems easy to be challenged in court.
Cirrus
22d ago
Getting multiple W-2’s and having taxes withheld for the IRS would show you have multiple jobs. Also, all federal employees have to sign annual ethics forms that, among other things, require them to list all sources of income outside their job.
Cirrus
1mo ago
The pardons only absolve the accused from being indicted, right? They don’t restrict Fauci and Milley from being investigated, do they?
Fauci is old enough at this point that sentencing him to a jail term is meaningless. Destroying their legacy and reputation would be much more enduring; no lobbying firm will touch Milley with a ten-foot pole if he’s the subject of a Congressional investigation, even if it doesn’t result in an indictment. Fact finding, getting to the bottom of it, etc. That’s what voters wanted when they pulled the lever for Trump, isn’t it?
Cirrus
1mo ago
Don’t believe every claim you read. A post-election survey by the Associated Press shows that Trump won 55% of the white vote in 2020 versus 56% in 2024. He improved with Latinos (35% in 2020 to 43% in 2024) and blacks (8% in 2020 to 16% in 2024), but these remain small segments of the voting population compared to whites. Do the numbers suggest a racial reckoning for Democrats? Hardly—they just failed to turn out the non-white vote. In 2020, whites were 74% of the voting population; in 2024 whites increased to 75%. This in a country where the white population is declining in both percentage and real terms.
Trump won in 2024 for the same reason he won in 2016: the Democrats picked a terrible candidate who failed to inspire non-white voter turnout. The Democrats have a long-term formula for electoral success, they just have to get their heads out of their asses and pick someone personally likable. I am amazed at how hard this has been for them.
Cirrus
1mo ago
Jobs and border security are topics safely within the Overton Window, yet correlated to racial identity politics fairly well. Politicians are allowed to talk about them while maintaining plausible deniability about being white identitarians. That’s the upside to civic nationalism, if you subscribe to the idea that Americanism is closely associated with European/white heritage.
How many of those criminals waltzing across the border are ethnic Swedes, Poles, or Irish?
Cirrus
1mo ago
As others mentioned in this sub-thread, racial identity is an important consideration but by no means is it the only factor supporting one’s quality of life. Economic prosperity counts for a lot as well. A rising economic tide is enough to cover a multitude of sins. But when that tide recedes, racial preferences remain.
For example, George Floyd wasn’t the only black man to have died in police custody. Nor was his death the only one recorded and sensationalized in the media. But the reaction to his death was so much larger—why? Because the COVID economy crushed people and they wanted a reason to vent their frustrations. The unemployment rate was something like 10 percent at the time, and people were locked in their homes and going stir crazy.
Cirrus
1mo ago
I expect this view won’t be popular on here, but I think the fact that Fridman is a Jew helps a lot. Fellow Jews like Netanyahu and Zelenskyy feel more welcome on his podcast rather than going on Joe Rogan, for instance. “Fridman is one of us.” That gives Fridman entreé to a lot of interviews with powerful Jews that non-Jewish interviewers might not get. Hence why his podcast has accumulated so much popularity.
Cirrus
1mo ago
Indeed, the adults are back in the room. The clown show of the past is over and the incoming administration is more competent and laser focused now than ever before. Now is the time for Republicans to come together for unity around the policies that Make America Great: infinity low-wage legal immigration, continued funding for Ukraine and Israel, continue the Trump corporate tax cuts, increased military spending to counter threats from China and Iran, and Trumpian shitposts to make sure that the Woke Left never transes the kids again! Tired of winning yet?
Cirrus
1mo ago
Remember that this is happening as (officially) inflation is 2.7 percent, the unemployment rate is 4.2 percent, the S&P 500 has had a gangbuster year-to-date return of 24 percent, and housing prices have increased by 4.4 percent year-over-year.
Now imagine how much more violent and disorderly the people will get when the economy contracts into a recession next year. A Middle East oil shock, a government shutdown, a tariff war, there are lots of ignition points…
Cirrus
2mo ago
A $1 million donation and some obsequious praise for Trump, in exchange for Trump not going after Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act? Sounds like a pretty darn good return on investment.
Cirrus
3mo ago
I am also so glad they do not seem to understand what happened to them.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” — Upton Sinclair
Money in elections is such a curse, sometimes.
Cirrus
3mo ago
Deepwater Horizon happened due to onerous regulations that crowded out terrestrial oil drilling in favor of offshore drilling, which is inherently less profitable and far more dangerous. A foreign E&P company (BP) outsourced its well driller to a firm that bungled the job and had lax safety standards. That sounds a lot like the circumstances behind the COVID-19 lab leak. Regulations caused the job to be offshored/outsourced… foreign entity screws the pooch…
Cirrus
3mo ago
Judge Juan Merchan’s sentencing of Trump for his felony convictions happens later this month. And who’s to say that another Trump assassination attempt won’t happen between now and January?
Harris and Biden mouth the words required of them. Now they can have plausible deniability if the left’s shock troops act to stop Big Orange Hitler from taking office. We’ll see if Trump actually gets to January 20, 2025.
Cirrus
3mo ago
(Meta: why is it that Trump is rarely referred to by first name?)
I’ve thought about that too. Referring to people by their first names invites a sense of closeness and familiarity, maybe makes them appear more approachable or likable even. So it could be strategic on the part of ‘Kamala’ supporters. Alternatively, the name ‘Kamala’ is more unique and memorable for most people than ‘Harris’ as a way to identify her—many Harrises but only one Kamala. A few politicians also are commonly referred to by their first names: Lula (da Silva) by is an example. I don’t think gender has much to do with it.
Cirrus
3mo ago
Why should Americans care about what Chinese do to Uhygurs, or what Turks do to Kurds, or what Israelis do to Palestinians? (I noticed you left out the current administration’s tacit approval of that genocide. What a bunch of Nazis!!!)
America has a proud history of making trade and diplomacy with authoritarian dictators. The problem is with the arrogant internationalists who want to impose their neoliberal capitalist pride-flag agenda on the rest of the world against their will. It’s cultural imperialism… and yet Trump is the Nazi for opposing this. Because 2024 became the year that up is down and 2 + 2 = 5.
Cirrus
4mo ago
The GOP’s 2028 nominee won’t be any Republican that people are talking about today. It won’t be a white man. Given the inexorable demographic trends, it will be an Hispanic populist outsider. Think Nick Fuentes but with greater respectability, and who has ties to the military. America will want a military leader to deal with challenges posed by China or Iran. Someone Trumpian and with a bio that could fill out a webpage like this.
Cirrus
4mo ago
America has remained low trust? There are a multitude of economic counter arguments one can make. The simplest is that few people would invest in a low-trust society, and yet the American economy remains the envy of the world. The US dollar is the world’s reserve currency. The US routinely runs current account deficits, as foreigners just seem to love holding US-denominated assets. The legal system has its foundations in common law, which requires a great deal more trust than civil law. American industries operate quite profitably based on trust such as banking, and anything that relies on brands.
What I think you’ve identified, quite appropriately, is the mistrust that reasonable Americans now have toward the people and institutions who have betrayed them. Technology has made it harder for politicians and journalists to lie. Television showed Americans what was going on during e.g. the Vietnam War. The Internet gave Americans more perspectives that were censored or ignored by the mainstream press. Social media allowed Americans to communicate with each other without needing a propagandist to soft chew their ideas for them. And it turns out that many conspiracy theories turned out to be conspiracy facts, and Americans realized that the faceless bureaucracy supposed to represent the better angels of our nature actually had its own self-serving motives. So maybe the ‘conspiracy nuts’ were previously the ‘compliant citizens’ who woke up to a nation that—somewhere along the line—stopped being theirs. Is it any wonder, then, why some of those people might resort to taking their nation back by force?
Cirrus
4mo ago
Yes, Trump is the man who flouts traditional norms night, noon, and day. Like that time his administration pressured Twitter and Facebook to censor truthful news stories like the Hunter Biden laptop. Or when he used the FBI to spy on an incoming President’s campaign. Then used his media connections to concoct an elaborate hoax about Russian influence by his opponent. Or those times his cronies indicted his opponent for process crimes on totally novel and unprecedented legal theories. Or how his inflammatory rhetoric caused his opponent to almost be assassinated twice in two months.
But hey, Trump said mean words about people so…
Cirrus
4mo ago
I expect to see counters about how the entire government is corrupt, and I don't even disagree with all of it. But he is so incredibly blatant about it that he doesn't even try to create plausible deniability.
Is this a criticism of Trump? Because I see this as a great positive. Would you rather have a public servant who is good at hiding corruption from the people?
Cirrus
4mo ago
I suppose that sounds right. Maybe they always wanted to produce a sequel sooner but were delayed due to COVID/production hell, etc.
Also, maybe they legitimately wanted to make a good sequel? Just one that fundamentally alters the Joker’s character, and it took time to arrive at something satisfactory to all parties concerned. (Except, of course, to the audience.)
Cirrus
4mo ago
It’s possible that the director/screenwriters/producers believed that the 2019 film produced a moral panic and they didn’t want blood on their hands. Perhaps they believed that they might be perceived as responsible for some incel-inspired shooting or violence against the state? So, they had to make a sequel to defang Phoenix’s Joker and make his character weak and pathetic. “Look at your ‘hero’ now, you filthy incels!”
The production studio, believing this same ridiculous notion, merely did a cost-benefit analysis. “Which will lose us less money: a box office bomb or a lawsuit and reputational damage of aggrieved families of the Great Incel Shooting of 2024?”
Cirrus
5mo ago
Jesus healed sinners and the demon-possessed with the instruction to sin no more. His miracles weren’t meant to be a blank check to go out to continue to sin. (“A wicked generation looks for a sign”, says Jesus from Matthew 16.) That’s a big difference. Today’s social justice calls on people to tolerate and not change their ways, but Jesus calls on people to be loving. And sometimes being loving means calling on people to repent of evil and change from their sinful behaviors. God does not tolerate evil. He patiently waits, but there will come a day of the Lord where He will no longer wait.
As for Matthew the tax collector, he was by no means an elite. He may have gotten rich but only by cooperating with the Romans against his own people, much like the Jewish Councils in the Warsaw Ghetto and elsewhere occupied by the Nazis. There was no mistaking who the ruling class was at those times; the film The Pianist also depicts them a little bit.
Cirrus
5mo ago
If you want to compare historical wars with the present situation in Ukraine, I would suggest the Mexican-American war as a better template. Mapped over to historical events…
The United States —> Russia Mexico —> Ukraine Texas —> Crimea/DPR/LPR
I’m a bit short on time, but try to read the Wikipedia page and draw the comparisons. To me at least there are many similarities.
Perhaps there’s a simple reason for this anti-British deal. Two of the key players you mentioned, Philippe Sands and Lord Hermer, are both Jews. You even mentioned that Lord Hermer harbors anti-British sentiment. Subversive Jews are trying to undermine the UK’s geopolitical power when the nation is weak and vulnerable. Starmer, though not a Jew, fits the role of the useful idiot here.
Since you’re looking for possible explanations for this seemingly irrational behavior, I thought I would supply an explanation.
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