The Right loves the idea of the military. The actual flesh-and-blood soldiers however are treated with contempt and abuse.
And a start to end transgender rights starting with military:
From article:
In his order, Trump claimed that service by troops who identify as a gender other than their biological one “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life” and is harmful to military readiness, requiring a revised policy to address the matter.
Blockquote
Said with a straight face after Hegseth’s approval.
Outside Europe, more than you think:
The poor saps probably figure that, being overseas, the leopards can’t eat their faces.
I don’t find that very persuasive. Seven countries think Trump will be “good for America”, which only means their citizens are as poorly informed as many Americans, and none of those countries are places I’d ever want to live.
And on the question of whether Trump will be good or bad for their own country, only India and Saudi Arabia saw benefits, the latter for obvious reasons. On the question of world peace, China joins the other two in feeling posirive, and no one else. Perhaps those three countries are unaware that Trump is about to go to war with some of America’s closest allies.
Who knew that not only “gender ideology,” but thinking that the U.S. Constitution might be both sexist (because, among other things, it refers to the President as “he”) and racist (because it provided for the protection of states to “import” persons through 1808), was not only “irrational” but “un-American” - and yet, it says so in the “Restoring America’s Fighting Force” executive order?
And inside Europe, it’s not all unicorns and sunshine either. No doubt there’s a shitload of Serbians excited by Trump’s assault on the world order because it’ll free them to take another shot at Kosovo.
There are trumpists in every country in Europe. So, you cannot say there’s any nation that literally totally despised the Orange Fuck.
An email sent today, to most or all U.S. government employees, is getting a lot of publicity. Some headlines suggest it is a buyout offer, although I do not read it that way.
The way I read it, it is encouraging government employees to resign, allowing them to continue work from home (something Trump falsely claims almost all government workers do) until September 30 in return. What’s clear is that:
– It solicits all government employees to resign, no matter how mission-critical
– The resignation terms being offered are ambiguous. Whatever the reality of how the Trump administration will interpret it, some government employees will inevitably resign with a mistaken conception of the real Trump administration resignation terms.
Intent? Gut the federal workforce.
Legality? I have no idea.
See:
.
I wonder if the work fast and break things approach being taken here will open holes in government computer systems for hackers to walk through:
OPM sued over privacy concerns with new government-wide email system
Would setting up an email account with millions of recipients take more than three workdays to do in a tested safe manner? As a federal software developer until I retired two years ago, I was a bit of a cowboy myself, but this may take it to a new level. Or not. I am not an expert in this technical area, so other opinions are welcome.
I wouldn’t take ANY deal from Trump unless it paid cash, in full, up front.
Mostly agree.
It’s not Trump’s money. He hardly ever pays income tax. So he won’t be upset if the payments go out. However, I can always dream that courts will rule against spending unappropriated funds.
Years ago, the government sometimes gave $25,000 buyouts to encourage retirements. Trump’s eight month payments, if paid, will often come to far more money, even counting inflation.
Suppose you are a VA surgeon making $300,000 annually (many make more). According to the email, you can go home and make $200,000, for the next eight months, without picking up a scalpel. It’s unclear from the email if you can take another job during the eight months, but let’s say you can. If you operate at a private hospital, with most of your revenue coming from medicare and Medicaid, you will be legally double-dipping. Trump is likely fine with that.
I read this morning (maybe another thread here) that there is no federal authority for the multi-month severance buyout being offered; the maximum period for a nonworking administrative leave is ten days.
So, yeah. Legality = squat. Not that this bothers these cackling goblins.
It doesn’t even require them to work from home:
This program begins effective January 28 and is available to all federal employees until February 6. If you resign under this program, you will retain all pay and benefits regardless of your daily workload and will be exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements until September 30, 2025 (or earlier if you choose to accelerate your resignation for any reason).
Bolding mine. Also, near the bottom of the email:
I am committed to ensuring a smooth transition during my remaining time at my employing agency. Accordingly, I will assist my employing agency with completing reasonable and customary tasks and processes to facilitate my departure.
The way I read it, you’ll be sent home and nothing will be asked of you anymore, except maybe for the occasional (former) coworker contacting you ask where you left the files for the ??? project, or who to contact about some esoteric thing, and your obligation to respond to those requests will end on September 30…
Just to be clear, and not because I’m concerned about any monitoring and possible retribution, but I definitely AM NOT A FEDERAL EMPLOYEE. And if I were, I would be stationed in - Florida - that’s it!
But I don’t believe his purging of the NLRB and EEOC have been mentioned yet (at least in this thread.
They really are trying to cover all their bases here. An impressive attempt. Will have to see how it turns out.
This showed up on the Daily Kos yesterday about the “buyout”:
Yeah - but my concern is that when the federal unions file in court, they will be told that their only recourse is the NLRB (or MSPB - Merit Systems Protection Board IIRC). And if he guts those entities, what recourse is there?
I wonder how many fed employees work 100% remotely and live more than - say - 50 miles from their work station. Those are the first folk likely to have to make tough decisions. Our office is underutilized, but has approx 8 years left on a VERY favorable lease. Will he consolidate us with another office and eat the rent? Or just break leases with landlords?
IMHO, it isn’t quite this simple.
Trump’s actions can have no end of knock-on economic consequences which can help or hurt things like the equity market and the Fed Funds rate.
There’s a point where “deficits don’t matter,” and there’s a point where they start to inflict quantifiable pain on the people with whom he actually communicates.
The less money in the Federal coffers, the harder it becomes for Trump to enrich himself, his family, and the people with whom he shares the top tier income/net worth stage.
The Trump Org. is/was famously built on debt. It would be easy to say that – since it wasn’t his money – he didn’t care how much went out.
But he did. Famously.
I think Trump views every dollar in the US GDP as either his or one of which he needs to figure out how to get a piece. I think many in his orbit see it exactly the same way.
I think it’s been a while …
“The forest was shrinking but the trees kept voting for the axe, for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that because his handle was made of wood he was one of them."
– Turkish Proverb
I certainly agree with that.
Tim Kaine said:
“If you accept that offer and resign, he’ll stiff you. He doesn’t have any authority to do this. Do not be fooled by this guy.” (sorry, out of gift links).
I recall from back when I was a fed that there was a union contract clause saying that conditions of employment could not be changed just by an email. This protected employees getting too many emails to read them all, but management could use a provision like that to say, whoops, we hoped we could pay severance, but we can’t.
Trump’s policies are inflationary, but when the inflation will hit is unpredictable. Talking Turkish, Erdoğan took power in 2003, but it took almost twenty years for inflation to spike much above what was normal for Turkey.