The current second Trump administration: a compendium of horrors

The fucker just issued an executive order giving all employees off and closing offices both 12/24 AND 12/26.

I’m sitting on plenty of use or lose I have to burn - as well as plenty of work to do such that I wasn’t planning on taking 2 full days off next week in addition to xmas. But given the fucker’s consistent war against the bureaucracy, why on earth is he showing such largesse? Given what lazy fuckups we government employees are, why do we merit 2 more days off? How does this fit into budgetary efficiency?

Re last post, sorry you do not have a boss who handles such leave situations informally.

Before I retired, I was a federal software developer. This would have created emergency work for me to make sure we could handle an unprecedented holiday pattern. I mostly liked emergency work – less paperwork and approvals. But that’s me.

As to why Trump gives you guys so much time off, obviously he doesn’t generally think what feds do is of value.

He also doesn’t care that this will cost the government money for paid overtime to complete essential work after Christmas. Trump believes in debt.

Also, it’s not his money.

I would refine that, actually. Where money is moving toward Trump, he considers it his. In any case where money is moving away from Trump, he makes sure it’s someone else’s.

It doesn’t. It’s intended to burnish his credentials as being favorable towards Christians.

I missed this news from last Sunday:

Trump says building DC triumphal arch is domestic policy chief’s ‘primary thing’

I’m no expert, but expect stone arches are tough to tear down. That one in Rome, commemorating victory over the Jews, is still standing strong some 1,944 years later. And Trump’s will be bigger.

“Trump-Kennedy Center”

On a positive note, I have the feeling there are quite a few “T’s,” "R’s, “U’s,” “M’s,” and “P’s” sitting idle in storage spaces across the country/continent/world, so … low-cost to the benighted US taxpayer:

Trump’s Name Will Be Removed From Apartment Buildings After Residents Demand It - NPR

That’s because people are dedicated to preserving those. If you’re not committed to keeping it, a stone arch ought to be as easy to take down as it is to put up.

If you’re in a hurry, there are nitrate-based alternatives.

Not that I expect there to be any sensible rationale behind it, but what exact triumph is this arch boondoggle intended to commemorate?

Perhaps the new documentary coming out:

Triumph of the Will Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

Maybe they could build it upside-down like David Macauley’s l’Arc de Defeat

That Trump exists among us in all his glory!

It’s been done before. With great satisfaction.

Oh, yeh, before clicking in I suspected it was that. Neatly done, to take out the swastika without taking down the building it sat on. Probably had to patch some spalling, but otherwise…

It’s Zeppelinfeld, Nuremburg and still there, but a little worse for wear.

Well, yeh, all those rambunctious rock & roll fans must trash the place during the concerts held there now. Speer must be spinning slowly in his grave.

Trump is actually stealing Venezuela’s oil: “We have a lot of oil there. As you know, they threw our companies out, and we want it back.”

The Atlantic: After pretending the attacks on Venezuela were about drugs, Trump confirms it’s about the oil

Lubricate the Red, White and Blue - Dana Lyons

Oh, I’d go anywhere to fight for oil
Be it olive, safflower or crude
For cooking, for cars
Take a rocket to the stars
For a back rub, romantic rendezvous
In your engine, on your face
Or almost any place
A little dab of oil will get you through
Oh, I’d go anywhere to fight for oil
To lubricate the red, white and blue

I debated over whether to put this in the Clusterfuck thread. But this has not yet had the chance to become a clusterfuck. It is, however, horrific; so it seems to belong here.

Basically, US Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) has introduced a bill that will allow privateering. Yep, letters of marque to private operators. The idea is that they can help stop drug smuggling in the Caribbean:

If this bill passes, and I’m not prepared to guess as to whether it will or won’t, I cannot see any possible good coming of it. What I can see are a whole lot of vessels not involved in any way with drug smuggling being stopped, searched, or simply blown out of the water by a bunch of private people who are looking to stir stuff up in international waters, under the guise of “protecting the United States” and “patriotism.”

And Trump being responsible for these Letters of Marque? I’m having flashbacks to January 6, 2021.

And for personal profit.

Basically, Mike Lee thinks American organized crime needs a boost. More! More! We need more!