it pays to have a real hand skill. i used to always say that when things collapsed, i could make uniforms for the military. chris martenson says that in times of great change, things get simpler. if you were an "administrative assistant" before, now you'll make coffee. if your were a "landscape designer," you're now a farmer. jobs get basic and the multi syllabic, do nothing "positions" become just work. grab a broom and make yourself useful!
there's a town in NY called Newburgh. it's on the Hudson, has a stunning inventory of victorian houses, some nice restaurants right on the water and is a pretty easy commute to NYC. it's seemed poised for a renaissance for decades. it has everything going for it and yet, it's mired in poverty and drugs.
when we asked our pioneering friend who lives there why the town can't shake off the poverty and crime, he says "poverty is big business."
the other day, they were talking about this on the Duran podcast. those small european countries are so happy that the usa has turned off the money flow to the george soros groups bent on destabilizing them. they want to manage their own countries and not worry about CIA funded color revolutions and regime changes. not the bureaucrats in brussels, of course. they aren't happy. ursula von lederhosen is miserable but who cares about her?
thank you. we drive up there a few times a year because we have things stored in a warehouse in wappinger's falls and we're slowly bringing our stuff down here. the housing stock is beautiful. maybe without the USAID funded anti-poverty groups weighing it down, the town can start to recover on it's own
Ohs noes! I might have to figure out how to use 'Linked In' to find something I can slouch through for a living. I wonder what a venn diagram of these jokers and the people who were angry about being let go for not coming into the office would look like. Pretty concentric, methinks.
The answer is "government". Alas, even if the DOGE succeeds in cutting federal jobs, there's plenty of state governments that hire the incompetent - so long as they meet the quotas ;-)
Mindblowing. I have no sympathy. Guess what? "International Development" is not an "Industry". Imagine the lack of self-awareness required to post something like that??
Next there will be a post from a child trafficker lamenting the death of their "industry" and expecting sympathy at the change in their career prospects.
Firstly, how is it that his company is going under in just 2 weeks? No contracts have been cancelled (yet). Yet an entire industry has been stamped out in a week? I figured this had to be parody of the absurdity we're seeing all over the DC landscape.
Wheeeee!!! Greedy bastards pushed too hard and too long. They FAFO.
Many will have grifted enough to be set for life, some may have to get jobs, but we don't have to support the moochers, who don't produce a penny's worth of value, going forward.
I keep remembering the scene in the movie, "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1984) after the mutineers successfully take over the ship. They humiliate one of the officers by putting a stick in his mouth - like the officers made the sailors do for punishment - and making him dance a jig. The officers comeuppance has come at last.
WELL SAID! Or as Hunter said: "On some nights, I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio."
And...drive like you are in Rome...all gas and no brakes. Not for the faint of heart...like watching this show. It is glorious. I never thought I would like a show where Las Cucarachas were disguised as moles. BRING IT.
Make sure you answer the question that will come up. My favourite is "USAID helps people and gives them food!" and I love to answer that COVID gain of function research was given $38 million dollars by USAID for BEN HU to develop COVID as a bio weapon. What does that have to do with feeding people?.
A bit nervous I would say: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine only received about $75 billion of the $177 billion in U.S. taxpayer money sent as aid.
I'm currently in FL on emergency leave looking after ailing retired civil-servant parents. He just had surgery and is facing chemo. She has early Alzheimer's and her short-term memory is 30 sec to 5 min, depending on topic - she's quite lucid in the moment, but the moment ain't very long. And BOY does she love her CNN! Today they had it on for EIGHT STRAIGHT HOURS. It was nothing but hysteria about the Trump buyout plan and the horror, the horror of shrinkin' the guvmint.
She kept asking me and her husband 'Who is Kash Patel? Why is Trump attacking the government?' He kept explaining that Trump was a chaos agent who just wanted to get people riled up to distract them from his 'real agenda,' which he didn't elaborate on.
Her dementia is relatively new - it began abruptly in lte 2021, after two mRNA 'vaccines' and at least one 'booster.'
But I think I can testify that even if watching CNN doesn't cause dementia, it makes it worse, once you have it.
The worst part is that while USAID is obviously a huge corruption machine, it's one of the smallest huge corruption machines in DC. Hopefully DOGE uses this momentum to go after the corruption in the DoE, or the other DoE, or the DoD!
This is just a tiny tiny tiny glimpse at the malfeasance of the swamp.
Yes, yes, and hell yes! BC and SC, y'all have hit the nail squarely on the head. We don't know, and can't yet fathom how many of these "Acacia Centers for Justice" there are out there. Still reading, but R. Starbuck makes this point too. Peel back a few layers and you'll be stunned to find that these NGOs/"non profits" are overrun with people connected to names like Warren, Biden, Clinton, etc. We've been robbed. And if we don't stop it, we'll continue to be.
This project has to be seen through to the end with the people responsible put in prison, or the hell Trump went through 2021-2024 will look like a picnic, and they will come for all of us.
Those shrilling the loudest give you a clue to where to look next. I don't think we've yet seen what the DJT team is going to unleash on the swamp. Wait until his Cabinet is in place, or as it comes into place. It will be a continual assault on the entrenched interests.
"the circle of malfunction is like a plasmid for anti-social outcomes. it takes taxpayer money and uses it to fund agencies that create outcomes (like homelessness or illegal immigration) which taxpayers hate. these agencies then donate some of that taxpayer money to politicians who then force taxpayers to pay more money to solve the now larger problem."
This sounds exactly like how public employee unions work. Take taxpayer money, use it to fund their preferred candidates, perform terribly at their jobs, then use that as an excuse to grant themselves even more funding. And in some states, they've even managed to embed protection for this model into state constitutions!
The National Unions, yes. Just like politics, idiots at the top, pretty decent people at the local level. Not to say the practices of some Local Unions are stellar.
People who do the "anti-union" bit are usually spoiled trust fund kids come pseudo-techbro libertarian who spend all their time online, without connection to actual facts.
I am anti-union and have no access to a trust fund, and don't spend all my time online. I have a business that I started in 1997 and it is still going fine.
Unions are shit for shit-working shit-brained shit-shaggers. I have watched union folks work; they don't. They just milk clocks.
Hi, I am a lifelong union employee and union organizers.
Parasites are everywhere, inside of unions and outside of them. You are apparently a parasite outside of them that needs to rationalize it by shitting on people you don't know and an ignorant ideology that has nothing to do with a solution.
Congratulations. It doesn't matter if you own your own business (not sure how this adds credibility) or how much time you spend on line. You have a strong opinion about something, as an outsider, you don't know anything about. Any other ways you'd like to share how you've wasted your life?
I grew up, at best, lower middle-class, but never on welfare. After the USN for some years, I put myself through college with the help of my spouse. Then yes, into tech and then into Sr. Mgmt of multi-national teams in tech.
My son has been in a Local Iron Workers Union for most of his adult life, 25 years or so. He's been laid off just once I believe. His work ethic is stronger than mine probably. But the stories he tells...about the Locals and about what the Local members think of the Local leaders let alone the National leaders.
And just to set the deck, until mid-late 2019, would have considered myself a classical liberal. Today...not so much. Put whatever label you want on that.
I would love to see what they do, if anything, to the National Labs, which are DOE, DOD, Darpa. LANL has not ever passed a financial audit as far as I can find out about. I can't imagine the powers that have taken over even wanting to expose the labs because military supremacy(?) over China and Russia.
The actual work being done at DOE and DOD labs is however legitimate and high quality, the number of frivolous non scientist/engineer positions of bureocracy they've managed to tag to even the Constitutionally LEGAL agencies is ridiculous. Unfortunately, we don't have what we actually need - which is conversion of all our positions to at-will so we can dump the grifters and the empty suits. The amount of redundancies in things like HR, facility management, budget process, shit, even having paid millions to develop a slightly different pixel pattern for each service is where a LOT of the waste goes. Along with the black ops stuff being as slush fund and unaccountable with no oversight as any of the other agencies.
I am convinced the black ops stuff is real. I am a retiree from LANL. I saw first hand some of the programs at the Lab. One was hot dry rock geothermal energy. It was found to be more expensive to do than almost any other mode of producing energy to drive turbines. It was actually supported by oil companies. It was, in fact, research into fracking operations at tax payer expense. The Yucca Mountain High Level Waste Repository was known almost from the first 13 million $ spent that it would never come to fruition. That was in the days when a million$ meant something.
Who knows what the meteorologists and epidemiologists have been and are doing regarding weather manipulation and modification. Modelers knew what their funders wanted. That's one of the ways CO2 became a culprit without much investigation into whether it is a driving force of extreme weather. There is still controversy concerning that, not "settled science". Start with a false premise that CO2 is a problem, come up with false solutions like electric cars, hot dry rock geothermal energy, and all the environmental outfits' solutions that profit from the public's fear, etc.
These were not admins doing the work on these projects. It was the scientists and engineers. My husband was a PhD electrical engineer there. I was a mere data analyst. Yes, some people did worthy work. There were 8,000 employees when we took a generous retirement plan in 1993. There are now 18,000 employees. When one of the directors in the 70s was asked how many people worked at the Lab, he answered "optimistically, about half of them".
The acquisition process and all the big equipment contracts are RIFE with fraud, waste and abuse though - and so many improper set asides and kickback deals with retired flag/GO's now at major OEM's in bed with Congress and Congress Aides on both sides. Should audit the plus up / pork / NDAA rider process - BS top to bottom.
The revolving door. Trump has revoked security clearances from some high level idiots in recent days. I'd suggest a much broader sweep of revocations that includes any government employee leaving government employee in the last ten years.
Also, why do you think the 'blob' is trying so hard to keep DOGE from analyzing Treasuring Dept payments? Treasury has never had a transparent audit before. The blob, left and right, are terrified.
I knew someone a couple of decades ago that doled out taxpayer funded grants at one of the Cabinet agencies. They were educated at one of those trendy private colleges that spews out fed bureaucrats. That individual took great pride in being able to reward or punish people with that money.
The United States federal government is the largest and deadliest organized crime syndicate in history.
Through the unLawful and illegal use of its enforcement arm, the U.S. military, it has wreaked death, destruction, murder, unrest, and suffering throughout virtually every part of the world.
The U.S. Cavalry, the domestic arm of the U.S. Army, carried out an almost complete genocide of the native peoples. All in the name of the "sea to shining sea" empire. Land theft, murder, mutilation, rape. "Buffalo Bill" became famous (!!!) for his mass killing of buffalo to help starve the Plains people into submission.
At home in more recent times, this crime syndicate has slowly unraveled basic freedoms and their protections through criminal B.S. "legislation." This includes garbage legislation such as the U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act or the PREP Act. Or the CARES Act. And much more...
In the earlier part of the last century during its "Prohibition," (more unLawful legislation) the U.S. government ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohol. This alcohol they knew bootleggers often used to make "spirits." As a result of this mass poisoning, unknown to the bootleggers and other Americans, it is estimated that the U.S. government indirectly killed about 10,000 Americans.
I could go on, but I hope this answers your question, Owain.
The era of theater kid occupied government has ended. The era of autist anon occupied government has begun. All the right demoralization agents are melting down.
I am almost...(almost) embarrassed to say that the start of this administration has me more excited than I have ever been before....giddy in fact and hope they keep going....and going....and going. Though minor in the scheme of things, Somalia and that pitiful excuse of a government representative from Minnesota....well it just makes me smile....bring on the others of the "squad".....so much to do so little time. I am 70.....keep on getting on...
It should be borne in mind that there is nothing more difficult to arrange, more doubtful of success, and more dangerous to carry through than initiating changes. The innovator makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old order, and only lukewarm support is forthcoming from those who would prosper under the new. Their support is lukewarm ... partly because men are generally incredulous, never really trusting new things unless they have tested them by experience.
It's well past time we starved the beast! Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Speaking of disinfectants, LySol comes to mind. Sunlight (Sol) shall wash away all the 'Lyes'...
Well in terms of optimism, for me, not since JFK. But time has tempered my optimism. The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.
The most wonderful thing about having lived with and cared-for someone with autism is that I know that they are literal. No lying. wysiwyg. Their age is less-important than what they know and, of course "the content of their character," is ageless and extremely important. Part of that amazing character is that lying is too uncomfortable. I prefer that to the chaotic borderline personality disorder that I have seen of late, especially in the current hysterics during the hearings for Presidential appointments.
My family member with autism always makes me think of the line from *Jerry Maguire* when Tidwell's wife says she's pregnant and "incapable of bull****." That is this guy, to a T, and you're right that it can be a tremendous asset to his employer.
And I was a little blown away by Walter Curt's comfort at phrasing things the way he did. I mean, maybe "journalist" just means "blogger," but if he had said "Imagine being a bureaucrat losing your job because of a blind guy," I would expect the outrage squad to say something.
I don't know. There IS Bill Gates. Also another young autistic man I know does not fit the description. There may be differences among the larger group.
I'm sure you are right about the person you cared for.
I do - having worked with High Functioning Autistics quite a lot. And I agree, Bill Gates is not autistic. There's zero evidence in any of his mannerisms or behaviours for that idea.
There's a "sweet spot":
High IQ, no significant impairment to the cognitive functions barring social ones/skills, and a positive home/social environment during age 0-20. Also, most often, no medication for the often co-morbid ADHD.
This group makes up maybe at best ca 5% of all autistics, if that, and they generally don't like to be grouped in with the normal autistics, given that they cannot relate to them due to the vast difference in cognitive abilities.
It sure is something, to have students clinically proven to have IQs in the 150+ range, and being their teacher. I often feel it served as whetstone for my own intellectual faculties.
However, and this will come become obvious as DOGE moves on and the employment of HFAs become more common (typically, unemployment among autistics of all kinds is way above 50%, based on my nation of course) - as brilliant that they can be in some limited areas, they are equally stupid in others. Musk's recent spat with Youtuber 'Asmongold' f.e. over Musk's claimed status as a "Gamer" and one of the top three players in the world for a specific computer game. When Musk was called out on having paid people to play his games to get him the rating he had, he lashed out in a couple of very telling ways: he essentially threw an autistic tantrum online over being publicly challenged and denied credit for something he thought he controlled (the narrative about himself, in this case).
What is also obvious (to me, could be wrong) is that the cult of personality around him isn't good for his mental health - he is becoming more erratic and more prone to lash out and retaliate without being strategic or smart about it (his behaviour during the initial H1B-debacle f.e.) because he has been weened on the "tech-bros" egging him on whatever he does.
And being autistic, it is much more difficult for him to realise that for all the professed admiration for him online (just scroll through this thread for some good examples of near-sycophantic adulation) the support and admiration is conditional on Musk's own behaviour, not his person as such.
Those in my family fall into that 5%. And we can learn social skills and to detect at least some social cues, but sometimes I have to think about what I’m supposed to do in a social situation. I’m a woman, but being with women is more challenging than being with men.
I've only had three women in my "mentorship group" when I was working.
All three women were highly logical, rational, task-oriented problem-solvers, with IQs above 130.
And they all much preferred the company of men, or other women of their own type. As one said: "Normal girls just want to talk about shampoo all the time! How retarded!"
It's been very educational for me, working with HFAs for so many years, helping them learn how to adapt their strengths and create postive behavioural patterns to solve otherwise anxiety-causing social situations.
A little acting, a little role-playing, and again and again explaining that we all do that, but most people don't - sometimes can't - think about it the way autistics often do; alleviate stress and anxiety frees up brainfunction. making the handicap less of bother, was the idea.
Maybe it is working with such people that has made me so verbose, I sometimes think.
imho, and I could be wrong, but having lived with autism, I do not see signs of autism in Gates. He is far too connected to people and he knows not to trust.
Certain people, you give them a hard problem and they just buckle down and solve it. Steve Jobs was like that. It’s fascinating to see Elon being turned loose on our deficit spending
And I've been informed that all government employees are tireless and dedicated to the Public Good. I'm sure they'll have no problem finding other jobs. No, really. Heh heh.
I’m gonna start a trade school for them, teaching the newly in-demand skills in areas of farm labor, lawn mowing, and toilet scrubbing. I’d apply for a government grant to do so, but apparently they’re going to have to pay out of pocket now.
I have to admit, I didn’t think this type of thing was possible. Rather, I was skeptical that Trump, who never before seemed to care much for shrinking government or spending, would make it a priority. I thought maybe he just wanted to appease Musk to get his support.
And I definitely didn’t bank on autistic teenagers finding and attacking the choke points.
They made it personal and went after him. He quickly realized that if you can take their money away, they have no power. That is why he is doing it. This will change the next elections as well. He is going after their power like his life depends on it, and it very well may.
I definitely saw that as a possibility and hoped it would be the case. He was clearly deeply affected by the assassination attempt.
It was hard to tell though. Despite how his enemies paint him, he’s not a naturally vindictive guy. The deal is everything. And he was running around saying stuff like he’s gonna build the FBI, his moral enemies, a big beautiful building. Even now he’a praising the CIA.
Part of the picture is that he’s greatly influenced by who he last talked to. It’s really just in the last year that he’s found the people who see what he can be (and who he can trust) and pulled them into his inner circle. As I said above it was hard to tell if he was just trying to harvest their supporters. Take Angela McArdle, chair of the LP. He called her to Mar-a-Lago a year to negotiate a deal to speak at the LP convention. He basically honored the deal, but I think he was also influenced by her, which was hard to know at the time.
Anyway, this is an amazing turn of events. We have to regulate our expectations a bit. What’s done by an executive order can be reversed by an executive order. But no doubt, these changes to the federal bureaucracy will be lasting no matter what happens. It’s the first time the right will gain any real ground in 100 years.
A good friend of mine (military) use to brief him everyday when he was in office the first time. He said that he would take in all the information given by everyone and make a decision based on all the facts. He is doing a great job of surrounding himself with good people
I was a federal civil service employee of DoD from 1982 until 2003 and from there I was a "support contractor in DoD offices until 2019. From 1972 I was a USAF airman.
Reagan said the most frightening sentence for most Americans is "I am from the federal government and I am here to help you."
To most federal civil servants the most frightening sentence is "I am here to figure out what the hell you do".
The most common answers to that question, if made public, would cause rebellion in the streets of honest citizens carrying about the country.
You did warn them. I keep a hard copy of "dear Washington DC" on my coffee table and I have that warm, happy feeling every time I look at it. The left can't stand that brilliant, innovative problem-solvers are not only uncovering the millions spent on USAID and sushi and coffee K-cups, but they are telling us all about it.
Well, see what happens when I whore out my integrity for the sake of the nation? Never did my dainties sacrifice so well.
And funny thing. A couple of hours ago a FOX Money reporter who'd covered Latin America for like 40 years, many of them with the WSJ, was telling how bad USAID was even in the Reagan years, funding socialist projects to go toe-to-toe with the Soviet Union in the fight to woo hearts and minds etc. by handing out bigger goodies but in the same flavor family.
Anyway. It's just been day after day, since the Inauguration, of what Flounder said and I continue to feel all sparkly.
Beautiful post, El Gato! Explains what’s happening perfectly. Find the point of leverage and pry it open. To DOGE…Keep prying! Keep publicizing the black mold underneath the rocks turned over. Let’s Go!!!
It just couldn't be more beautiful. The amount of "WTF?" these young, brilliant minds must be encountering - giving them a big fat eyeful of the government they never spent a lot of time thinking about before.
ALL GAS, NO BRAKES, BABY!
They're just shaking the rug now...wait till they snap it.
Yee haw!
Yippee-kai-YAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!
Roll the windows down, turn up Freebird, and stick your head out the window with your tongue hanging out like a dog kind of yeeeehaaaaw
"Where do normal people find normal jobs?" Unbelievable. I'm picking my jaw up off the floor, for the fourteenth day in a row.
Lolol
Me too. I'm gonna need surgery on my face muscles from all the smiling and laughing.
Im not even sure I've done a single productive thing in the last two weeks!...;)
I’ll need a spa month from just the blue light in my face.
Hey. you've been spreading your good cheer here!! Now THAT'S a service I can embrace.
It only hurts because your smiling and laughing muscles haven't had enough exercise the last few years. You'll get them back in shape in no time ;-)
Good point Ryan. I've been wondering this morning why my jaw and cheeks hurt.
it pays to have a real hand skill. i used to always say that when things collapsed, i could make uniforms for the military. chris martenson says that in times of great change, things get simpler. if you were an "administrative assistant" before, now you'll make coffee. if your were a "landscape designer," you're now a farmer. jobs get basic and the multi syllabic, do nothing "positions" become just work. grab a broom and make yourself useful!
there's a town in NY called Newburgh. it's on the Hudson, has a stunning inventory of victorian houses, some nice restaurants right on the water and is a pretty easy commute to NYC. it's seemed poised for a renaissance for decades. it has everything going for it and yet, it's mired in poverty and drugs.
when we asked our pioneering friend who lives there why the town can't shake off the poverty and crime, he says "poverty is big business."
the other day, they were talking about this on the Duran podcast. those small european countries are so happy that the usa has turned off the money flow to the george soros groups bent on destabilizing them. they want to manage their own countries and not worry about CIA funded color revolutions and regime changes. not the bureaucrats in brussels, of course. they aren't happy. ursula von lederhosen is miserable but who cares about her?
What a great comment, carolyn. (Born in Brooklyn, I grew up near Newburgh, NY. It was starting to "get rough" even back then.)
thank you. we drive up there a few times a year because we have things stored in a warehouse in wappinger's falls and we're slowly bringing our stuff down here. the housing stock is beautiful. maybe without the USAID funded anti-poverty groups weighing it down, the town can start to recover on it's own
Boom. Exactly
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zStZiLu_F_U
They meant "where do people who don't know a single useful skill and have no brain find jobs?"
Ohs noes! I might have to figure out how to use 'Linked In' to find something I can slouch through for a living. I wonder what a venn diagram of these jokers and the people who were angry about being let go for not coming into the office would look like. Pretty concentric, methinks.
McDonald's. Taco Bell. Burger King. Sonic.
I doubt they could handle the indignity of doing something so "honest."
I doubt they have the skilz for that. Maybe the UK could use them.
They might be able to get a job by filling out government grant forms for money.
I know of many critters in my own county who do that. They need to be cut off, TOO.
The answer is "government". Alas, even if the DOGE succeeds in cutting federal jobs, there's plenty of state governments that hire the incompetent - so long as they meet the quotas ;-)
Poor babies!! I hear there's some jobs picking fruits & vegetables that have just come available.
😂🤣
His "whole 13-year career" of never having a real job 😂
Costco is now paying $32/hr. Sorry, but they'll need to move to Topeka or Amarillo. At they won't have to fight thatvDC traffic.
Except they'd have to go in to the job in person. And work.
Day-um! $32/hr?! If it wasn't a 60 mile drive to get to Costco I'd apply. The drive would eat up all my wages. 😢
Mindblowing. I have no sympathy. Guess what? "International Development" is not an "Industry". Imagine the lack of self-awareness required to post something like that??
Next there will be a post from a child trafficker lamenting the death of their "industry" and expecting sympathy at the change in their career prospects.
I read that as parody. It has to be.
Firstly, how is it that his company is going under in just 2 weeks? No contracts have been cancelled (yet). Yet an entire industry has been stamped out in a week? I figured this had to be parody of the absurdity we're seeing all over the DC landscape.
Wheeeee!!! Greedy bastards pushed too hard and too long. They FAFO.
Many will have grifted enough to be set for life, some may have to get jobs, but we don't have to support the moochers, who don't produce a penny's worth of value, going forward.
I keep remembering the scene in the movie, "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1984) after the mutineers successfully take over the ship. They humiliate one of the officers by putting a stick in his mouth - like the officers made the sailors do for punishment - and making him dance a jig. The officers comeuppance has come at last.
Start at the 3:30 mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yum10wFfif0
I hope you are happy. You just cost me 2 hours (that I now have to spend watching the whole movie). ;>)
My deepest apologies. 😪
You can read the book too you know.
However, the takes more than two hours and you have to turn the pages.
Maybe even the other books in the trilogy - all are worth your while..
WELL SAID! Or as Hunter said: "On some nights, I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio."
Hunter S. Thompson
😂🤣 I thought you were takling about the "other" Hunter!
In my world there is only ONE!
Dr. Thompson, I presume.
How ‘bout “Stairway to Hell” (my apologies to the greatest rock band ever!), where those Ba’al lickers should be kicked to.
Best. Band. Ever.
Got.That.Right
Yes, Ryan! Great choice in music!
You could substitute 'burnin' for you' by Blue Oyster Cult "as well
Yes, indeed! Another classic. You're speaking my language.
And, while I'm a tasteful person, you forgot the tag line - 'motherf****er'!
Rat’s Ass MF!
Mike Foxtrots
Breaks...Brakes. :-)
Glad to see your glitch is fixed.
And...drive like you are in Rome...all gas and no brakes. Not for the faint of heart...like watching this show. It is glorious. I never thought I would like a show where Las Cucarachas were disguised as moles. BRING IT.
Make sure you answer the question that will come up. My favourite is "USAID helps people and gives them food!" and I love to answer that COVID gain of function research was given $38 million dollars by USAID for BEN HU to develop COVID as a bio weapon. What does that have to do with feeding people?.
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886452197501640786
No breaks works too tho!...;)
Guy on X called them, “DOGE Team Six”😂
It does. I like it.
That’s why the sofa beds.
Yeah. I noticed it earlier
Snap it hard like my mama used to do.
They're just getting the surface critters at this point. Snap to!
A bit nervous I would say: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine only received about $75 billion of the $177 billion in U.S. taxpayer money sent as aid.
“I don’t know where all this money is.”
I know. And he says it like it's no big deal.
What a slap in the face.
“When people fear their government, there is tyranny, and when government fears their people there is liberty.”
Thomas Jefferson
I'm currently in FL on emergency leave looking after ailing retired civil-servant parents. He just had surgery and is facing chemo. She has early Alzheimer's and her short-term memory is 30 sec to 5 min, depending on topic - she's quite lucid in the moment, but the moment ain't very long. And BOY does she love her CNN! Today they had it on for EIGHT STRAIGHT HOURS. It was nothing but hysteria about the Trump buyout plan and the horror, the horror of shrinkin' the guvmint.
She kept asking me and her husband 'Who is Kash Patel? Why is Trump attacking the government?' He kept explaining that Trump was a chaos agent who just wanted to get people riled up to distract them from his 'real agenda,' which he didn't elaborate on.
Her dementia is relatively new - it began abruptly in lte 2021, after two mRNA 'vaccines' and at least one 'booster.'
But I think I can testify that even if watching CNN doesn't cause dementia, it makes it worse, once you have it.
Love it!!
Oh well. I'm all amped up on mountain dew
The worst part is that while USAID is obviously a huge corruption machine, it's one of the smallest huge corruption machines in DC. Hopefully DOGE uses this momentum to go after the corruption in the DoE, or the other DoE, or the DoD!
This is just a tiny tiny tiny glimpse at the malfeasance of the swamp.
Yes, yes, and hell yes! BC and SC, y'all have hit the nail squarely on the head. We don't know, and can't yet fathom how many of these "Acacia Centers for Justice" there are out there. Still reading, but R. Starbuck makes this point too. Peel back a few layers and you'll be stunned to find that these NGOs/"non profits" are overrun with people connected to names like Warren, Biden, Clinton, etc. We've been robbed. And if we don't stop it, we'll continue to be.
This project has to be seen through to the end with the people responsible put in prison, or the hell Trump went through 2021-2024 will look like a picnic, and they will come for all of us.
Those shrilling the loudest give you a clue to where to look next. I don't think we've yet seen what the DJT team is going to unleash on the swamp. Wait until his Cabinet is in place, or as it comes into place. It will be a continual assault on the entrenched interests.
We named our son after Owen Glendower. Kewl name
Our son as well, with this spelling.
"the circle of malfunction is like a plasmid for anti-social outcomes. it takes taxpayer money and uses it to fund agencies that create outcomes (like homelessness or illegal immigration) which taxpayers hate. these agencies then donate some of that taxpayer money to politicians who then force taxpayers to pay more money to solve the now larger problem."
This sounds exactly like how public employee unions work. Take taxpayer money, use it to fund their preferred candidates, perform terribly at their jobs, then use that as an excuse to grant themselves even more funding. And in some states, they've even managed to embed protection for this model into state constitutions!
Governments are the only entity on the planet that when they fail they get bigger. (I count unions as the governments’ front office)
The National Unions, yes. Just like politics, idiots at the top, pretty decent people at the local level. Not to say the practices of some Local Unions are stellar.
People who do the "anti-union" bit are usually spoiled trust fund kids come pseudo-techbro libertarian who spend all their time online, without connection to actual facts.
@23 Skidoo!
I am anti-union and have no access to a trust fund, and don't spend all my time online. I have a business that I started in 1997 and it is still going fine.
Unions are shit for shit-working shit-brained shit-shaggers. I have watched union folks work; they don't. They just milk clocks.
Hi, I am a lifelong union employee and union organizers.
Parasites are everywhere, inside of unions and outside of them. You are apparently a parasite outside of them that needs to rationalize it by shitting on people you don't know and an ignorant ideology that has nothing to do with a solution.
Congratulations. It doesn't matter if you own your own business (not sure how this adds credibility) or how much time you spend on line. You have a strong opinion about something, as an outsider, you don't know anything about. Any other ways you'd like to share how you've wasted your life?
And some people spout off without a clue. "bro".
I grew up, at best, lower middle-class, but never on welfare. After the USN for some years, I put myself through college with the help of my spouse. Then yes, into tech and then into Sr. Mgmt of multi-national teams in tech.
My son has been in a Local Iron Workers Union for most of his adult life, 25 years or so. He's been laid off just once I believe. His work ethic is stronger than mine probably. But the stories he tells...about the Locals and about what the Local members think of the Local leaders let alone the National leaders.
And just to set the deck, until mid-late 2019, would have considered myself a classical liberal. Today...not so much. Put whatever label you want on that.
(edit: changed to: "...mid-late 2019")
Don’t you step in dem pies! Familiar?
by the time they are done, quite a bit of the deficit will be gone.
do not settle for quite a bit, all it the goal. This is our $$$$.
At this point, this is our great grandkids’ money😬
I am afraid that as long as we have SS, Medicaid and Medicare, we will have a very bad deficit problem. Still: every little bit helps.
🤞🙏
I would love to see what they do, if anything, to the National Labs, which are DOE, DOD, Darpa. LANL has not ever passed a financial audit as far as I can find out about. I can't imagine the powers that have taken over even wanting to expose the labs because military supremacy(?) over China and Russia.
They are probably hard at work on a strongly-worded position paper right now.
New nightmare unlocked, thanks!
Makes me sick. And they feel entitled for it!
The actual work being done at DOE and DOD labs is however legitimate and high quality, the number of frivolous non scientist/engineer positions of bureocracy they've managed to tag to even the Constitutionally LEGAL agencies is ridiculous. Unfortunately, we don't have what we actually need - which is conversion of all our positions to at-will so we can dump the grifters and the empty suits. The amount of redundancies in things like HR, facility management, budget process, shit, even having paid millions to develop a slightly different pixel pattern for each service is where a LOT of the waste goes. Along with the black ops stuff being as slush fund and unaccountable with no oversight as any of the other agencies.
I am convinced the black ops stuff is real. I am a retiree from LANL. I saw first hand some of the programs at the Lab. One was hot dry rock geothermal energy. It was found to be more expensive to do than almost any other mode of producing energy to drive turbines. It was actually supported by oil companies. It was, in fact, research into fracking operations at tax payer expense. The Yucca Mountain High Level Waste Repository was known almost from the first 13 million $ spent that it would never come to fruition. That was in the days when a million$ meant something.
Who knows what the meteorologists and epidemiologists have been and are doing regarding weather manipulation and modification. Modelers knew what their funders wanted. That's one of the ways CO2 became a culprit without much investigation into whether it is a driving force of extreme weather. There is still controversy concerning that, not "settled science". Start with a false premise that CO2 is a problem, come up with false solutions like electric cars, hot dry rock geothermal energy, and all the environmental outfits' solutions that profit from the public's fear, etc.
These were not admins doing the work on these projects. It was the scientists and engineers. My husband was a PhD electrical engineer there. I was a mere data analyst. Yes, some people did worthy work. There were 8,000 employees when we took a generous retirement plan in 1993. There are now 18,000 employees. When one of the directors in the 70s was asked how many people worked at the Lab, he answered "optimistically, about half of them".
DOGE target.
We'll see. Aaron Mate has a very even handed article re USAID. If you subscribe, it's worth a read.
Link?
The acquisition process and all the big equipment contracts are RIFE with fraud, waste and abuse though - and so many improper set asides and kickback deals with retired flag/GO's now at major OEM's in bed with Congress and Congress Aides on both sides. Should audit the plus up / pork / NDAA rider process - BS top to bottom.
The revolving door. Trump has revoked security clearances from some high level idiots in recent days. I'd suggest a much broader sweep of revocations that includes any government employee leaving government employee in the last ten years.
Also, why do you think the 'blob' is trying so hard to keep DOGE from analyzing Treasuring Dept payments? Treasury has never had a transparent audit before. The blob, left and right, are terrified.
Agree with you given what I know about these things. Not as much as you, obviously.
I was involved in a couple of secret programs and am somewhat cautious, so I won't talk about them.
I knew someone a couple of decades ago that doled out taxpayer funded grants at one of the Cabinet agencies. They were educated at one of those trendy private colleges that spews out fed bureaucrats. That individual took great pride in being able to reward or punish people with that money.
The largest and deadliest organized crime syndicate in the world, with the world's deadliest enforcement arm, the U.S. "military."
Agree.
Please explain.
The United States federal government is the largest and deadliest organized crime syndicate in history.
Through the unLawful and illegal use of its enforcement arm, the U.S. military, it has wreaked death, destruction, murder, unrest, and suffering throughout virtually every part of the world.
The U.S. Cavalry, the domestic arm of the U.S. Army, carried out an almost complete genocide of the native peoples. All in the name of the "sea to shining sea" empire. Land theft, murder, mutilation, rape. "Buffalo Bill" became famous (!!!) for his mass killing of buffalo to help starve the Plains people into submission.
At home in more recent times, this crime syndicate has slowly unraveled basic freedoms and their protections through criminal B.S. "legislation." This includes garbage legislation such as the U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act or the PREP Act. Or the CARES Act. And much more...
In the earlier part of the last century during its "Prohibition," (more unLawful legislation) the U.S. government ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohol. This alcohol they knew bootleggers often used to make "spirits." As a result of this mass poisoning, unknown to the bootleggers and other Americans, it is estimated that the U.S. government indirectly killed about 10,000 Americans.
I could go on, but I hope this answers your question, Owain.
That would be on the Treasury systems. DOGE got that too.
Limited, so far.
Jesus. I knew, but it hadn't registered, that there are two profoundly corrupt DoEs.
Is this giving the others tome to zip up and purge? 😬
I don't even think that's possible, the grift is so extensive.
🎯🎯🎯
The era of theater kid occupied government has ended. The era of autist anon occupied government has begun. All the right demoralization agents are melting down.
I love it.
Use free speech against them. Keep shoving them into the spotlight and let them destroy themselves.
I am almost...(almost) embarrassed to say that the start of this administration has me more excited than I have ever been before....giddy in fact and hope they keep going....and going....and going. Though minor in the scheme of things, Somalia and that pitiful excuse of a government representative from Minnesota....well it just makes me smile....bring on the others of the "squad".....so much to do so little time. I am 70.....keep on getting on...
It's SO MUCH FUN to watch. I'd about given up on turning it around. It may not get totally fixed but things will probably never be the same. ❤️
Yeah, when it all comes out some regular folks are going to be so unsettled they'll ignore it out of shock
It should be borne in mind that there is nothing more difficult to arrange, more doubtful of success, and more dangerous to carry through than initiating changes. The innovator makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old order, and only lukewarm support is forthcoming from those who would prosper under the new. Their support is lukewarm ... partly because men are generally incredulous, never really trusting new things unless they have tested them by experience.
Niccolo Machiavelli
like. Machiavelli knew what was afoot. Probably knew what a hand was too.
RG I think you're right about that, given my family and friends' reactions already.
"Some?" You mean ALL the dumbocraps?
Its the opposite of ED...
It’s been much more than 4 hours-and I’m not calling my doctor-I’m calling the neighbors!
"Drill, baby, drill...!"
Lmao. Lmao. Lmao.
Winner!
It's well past time we starved the beast! Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Speaking of disinfectants, LySol comes to mind. Sunlight (Sol) shall wash away all the 'Lyes'...
... Hydrochloric acid also comes to mind....
I love HCl. But my favorite is, and had always been H2SO4.
We can get that from the sky sprays.
Very good.
Well in terms of optimism, for me, not since JFK. But time has tempered my optimism. The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.
Niccolo Machiavelli
I love the drama! Schadenfreude is tasty. Although you have to wonder if this might train a new breed of grifter…
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886132832495378684?s=19
58% of all funds sent to Ukraine are unaccounted for while Zelensky is on a multi home buying spree!!
Dang! I hear a "certain party" here in the States is looking for some new blood........
Clowns. Look at this
https://x.com/greg_price11/status/1886209173743919468?s=19
It never ceases to amaze me that there's a species of snakes that can walk on 2 legs....and he's one of them.
but look he's smiling. He's showing you the light hearted side of grifters.
Worthless POS is probably invested in/bribed by avocado farms and Corona brewing.
Didn't he go to avacados after that? Ole! Where's the mariachi band?
@Jersey- it's Schadenfreudelicious
My new favorite word!
@Ketch- A Facebook friend used it and it very quickly became mine as well!!!
unintended consequences may abound
Certainly it will
It's weaponized autism vs. the theater kids.
Bureaucrat Budget Blitzkrieg!
The most wonderful thing about having lived with and cared-for someone with autism is that I know that they are literal. No lying. wysiwyg. Their age is less-important than what they know and, of course "the content of their character," is ageless and extremely important. Part of that amazing character is that lying is too uncomfortable. I prefer that to the chaotic borderline personality disorder that I have seen of late, especially in the current hysterics during the hearings for Presidential appointments.
My family member with autism always makes me think of the line from *Jerry Maguire* when Tidwell's wife says she's pregnant and "incapable of bull****." That is this guy, to a T, and you're right that it can be a tremendous asset to his employer.
And I was a little blown away by Walter Curt's comfort at phrasing things the way he did. I mean, maybe "journalist" just means "blogger," but if he had said "Imagine being a bureaucrat losing your job because of a blind guy," I would expect the outrage squad to say something.
You are right. Autism runs in my family, and those who have it don’t understand lying.
Glad you said that... I believe that it is genetic as well.
I don't know. There IS Bill Gates. Also another young autistic man I know does not fit the description. There may be differences among the larger group.
I'm sure you are right about the person you cared for.
Bill Gates is in no way autistic.
Yes, please do not confuse autistic with evil.
People talk about the "spectrum". I admit I don't know much about it. So you may be right.
I do - having worked with High Functioning Autistics quite a lot. And I agree, Bill Gates is not autistic. There's zero evidence in any of his mannerisms or behaviours for that idea.
There's a "sweet spot":
High IQ, no significant impairment to the cognitive functions barring social ones/skills, and a positive home/social environment during age 0-20. Also, most often, no medication for the often co-morbid ADHD.
This group makes up maybe at best ca 5% of all autistics, if that, and they generally don't like to be grouped in with the normal autistics, given that they cannot relate to them due to the vast difference in cognitive abilities.
It sure is something, to have students clinically proven to have IQs in the 150+ range, and being their teacher. I often feel it served as whetstone for my own intellectual faculties.
However, and this will come become obvious as DOGE moves on and the employment of HFAs become more common (typically, unemployment among autistics of all kinds is way above 50%, based on my nation of course) - as brilliant that they can be in some limited areas, they are equally stupid in others. Musk's recent spat with Youtuber 'Asmongold' f.e. over Musk's claimed status as a "Gamer" and one of the top three players in the world for a specific computer game. When Musk was called out on having paid people to play his games to get him the rating he had, he lashed out in a couple of very telling ways: he essentially threw an autistic tantrum online over being publicly challenged and denied credit for something he thought he controlled (the narrative about himself, in this case).
What is also obvious (to me, could be wrong) is that the cult of personality around him isn't good for his mental health - he is becoming more erratic and more prone to lash out and retaliate without being strategic or smart about it (his behaviour during the initial H1B-debacle f.e.) because he has been weened on the "tech-bros" egging him on whatever he does.
And being autistic, it is much more difficult for him to realise that for all the professed admiration for him online (just scroll through this thread for some good examples of near-sycophantic adulation) the support and admiration is conditional on Musk's own behaviour, not his person as such.
Those in my family fall into that 5%. And we can learn social skills and to detect at least some social cues, but sometimes I have to think about what I’m supposed to do in a social situation. I’m a woman, but being with women is more challenging than being with men.
I've only had three women in my "mentorship group" when I was working.
All three women were highly logical, rational, task-oriented problem-solvers, with IQs above 130.
And they all much preferred the company of men, or other women of their own type. As one said: "Normal girls just want to talk about shampoo all the time! How retarded!"
It's been very educational for me, working with HFAs for so many years, helping them learn how to adapt their strengths and create postive behavioural patterns to solve otherwise anxiety-causing social situations.
A little acting, a little role-playing, and again and again explaining that we all do that, but most people don't - sometimes can't - think about it the way autistics often do; alleviate stress and anxiety frees up brainfunction. making the handicap less of bother, was the idea.
Maybe it is working with such people that has made me so verbose, I sometimes think.
Thanks
Interesting!
imho, and I could be wrong, but having lived with autism, I do not see signs of autism in Gates. He is far too connected to people and he knows not to trust.
YES!
Is it possible that we're REALLY seeing the beginning of actual change?
Is it possible they're going to shrink leviathan - the biggest organized theft in human history?
A week in, and its lookin' good!
God willing!
Certain people, you give them a hard problem and they just buckle down and solve it. Steve Jobs was like that. It’s fascinating to see Elon being turned loose on our deficit spending
Uniparty delenda est!
What a great time to be alive and witness this.
And I've been informed that all government employees are tireless and dedicated to the Public Good. I'm sure they'll have no problem finding other jobs. No, really. Heh heh.
I’m gonna start a trade school for them, teaching the newly in-demand skills in areas of farm labor, lawn mowing, and toilet scrubbing. I’d apply for a government grant to do so, but apparently they’re going to have to pay out of pocket now.
I might invest in that venture.
Hey, teach them to code! :)
You’ve outdone yourself explaining this to the little kitties, Gato.
I have to admit, I didn’t think this type of thing was possible. Rather, I was skeptical that Trump, who never before seemed to care much for shrinking government or spending, would make it a priority. I thought maybe he just wanted to appease Musk to get his support.
And I definitely didn’t bank on autistic teenagers finding and attacking the choke points.
Now, I’m almost tired of winning. Almost.
They made it personal and went after him. He quickly realized that if you can take their money away, they have no power. That is why he is doing it. This will change the next elections as well. He is going after their power like his life depends on it, and it very well may.
I definitely saw that as a possibility and hoped it would be the case. He was clearly deeply affected by the assassination attempt.
It was hard to tell though. Despite how his enemies paint him, he’s not a naturally vindictive guy. The deal is everything. And he was running around saying stuff like he’s gonna build the FBI, his moral enemies, a big beautiful building. Even now he’a praising the CIA.
Part of the picture is that he’s greatly influenced by who he last talked to. It’s really just in the last year that he’s found the people who see what he can be (and who he can trust) and pulled them into his inner circle. As I said above it was hard to tell if he was just trying to harvest their supporters. Take Angela McArdle, chair of the LP. He called her to Mar-a-Lago a year to negotiate a deal to speak at the LP convention. He basically honored the deal, but I think he was also influenced by her, which was hard to know at the time.
Anyway, this is an amazing turn of events. We have to regulate our expectations a bit. What’s done by an executive order can be reversed by an executive order. But no doubt, these changes to the federal bureaucracy will be lasting no matter what happens. It’s the first time the right will gain any real ground in 100 years.
A good friend of mine (military) use to brief him everyday when he was in office the first time. He said that he would take in all the information given by everyone and make a decision based on all the facts. He is doing a great job of surrounding himself with good people
I was a federal civil service employee of DoD from 1982 until 2003 and from there I was a "support contractor in DoD offices until 2019. From 1972 I was a USAF airman.
Reagan said the most frightening sentence for most Americans is "I am from the federal government and I am here to help you."
To most federal civil servants the most frightening sentence is "I am here to figure out what the hell you do".
The most common answers to that question, if made public, would cause rebellion in the streets of honest citizens carrying about the country.
You did warn them. I keep a hard copy of "dear Washington DC" on my coffee table and I have that warm, happy feeling every time I look at it. The left can't stand that brilliant, innovative problem-solvers are not only uncovering the millions spent on USAID and sushi and coffee K-cups, but they are telling us all about it.
Well, see what happens when I whore out my integrity for the sake of the nation? Never did my dainties sacrifice so well.
And funny thing. A couple of hours ago a FOX Money reporter who'd covered Latin America for like 40 years, many of them with the WSJ, was telling how bad USAID was even in the Reagan years, funding socialist projects to go toe-to-toe with the Soviet Union in the fight to woo hearts and minds etc. by handing out bigger goodies but in the same flavor family.
Anyway. It's just been day after day, since the Inauguration, of what Flounder said and I continue to feel all sparkly.
I am reliably informed that "learning to code" fixes this."
Hahahahahahahaha hahahhahaha hahahhahaha Hahahahahahahaha hahahhahaha Hahahahahahahaha Hahahahahahahaha hahahahaha!!!!
Beautiful post, El Gato! Explains what’s happening perfectly. Find the point of leverage and pry it open. To DOGE…Keep prying! Keep publicizing the black mold underneath the rocks turned over. Let’s Go!!!
This has been the single most enjoyable bad cat to read ever. Good times!
It just couldn't be more beautiful. The amount of "WTF?" these young, brilliant minds must be encountering - giving them a big fat eyeful of the government they never spent a lot of time thinking about before.
see ! there ARE valuable young workers in the US. No need to import them from other places !