Not sure which is scarier with AOC. Is it her baring her big white teeth that look like they are about to bite my head off, or is it her flaring nostrils and buggy eyes that almost appear ready to pop like balloons in my face?
She has the perfect face for mixing a martini and serving it from behind a bar. There's nothing more to her than her 'bartender face'.
PS: When she and Adam Schiff bug out their eyes to make a point, they look like brother and sister - from the same corrupt family.
She really isn't bad looking until she says something at which point the insanity comes out like a cannon shot. If she was back tending bar she'd be a typical one night stand girl.
I remain convinced that she was picked to run for her seat - and won - largely because she has a fleeting resemblance to Meghan Markle who was popular then. They made her up and dressed her in a similar way in everything promotional. And she’s shown herself to be a reliable screech.
People are inherently sexist. It's right there in the genes. It was always completely stupid to rail against this trait. All it did was drive sexist impulses underground, and made it impossible to be honest about human nature.
A good and decent human being will not treat people unfairly due to their sex, but will self-acknowledge their sexism and seek to override any impulses to be unfair or disrespectful of anyone's human dignity.
Most men will hold the door for a lady even when it's one that acts like trash. As much as I dislike Nasty Pelosi, I would still hold the door for her, and help her be seated and comfortable.
I would then exit the chamber and signal to the executioner to proceed.
I voted for the defense workers. We need them. Pretty women are needed too, but they get to take the pretty with them to new job interviews, a big advantage in getting another job. Pretty has its privileges.
Hawt girl privilege is a massively powerful force in everyday life. Especially in the workplace. You're not supposed to notice that and most certainly not supposed to talk about it, but it's human nature. The Power of Glamour, as Virginia Postrel put it.
One of my sub-theories within my grand theory that I have developed over my long life to understand why things work in society as they do is this:
Feminism brought women into the workforce, whereupon the hot girls dominated the attention of men and non-hot girls became hugely envious. This in turn explains why there are so many angry, unattractive women on social media. And it just gets worse over time, because even the hot women eventually age out of hotness. 97% of working women are pathologically envious of the 3% of working women who are both hot and young, or young-ish.
There's nothing to be done about it. Life is unfair.
I respectfully disagree that "Feminism" brought women to the workplace. Rosie the Riveter* brought women into the workplace. Another name for Rosie was necessity. Dads, uncles, brothers and nephews were all aboard ship headed to the ETO or the PTO. I was two at the time, but remember being told by my aunts on the assembly lines stateside. Men unable to keep their minds on their work brought the level down to "Feminism." *Molly Pitcher sorta kinda.
I think that if you looked at workplace participation over time, you would find massive increases in the proportion of women each decade, starting in the 1970s. But also, the women at work were no longer merely the support staff. They began to compete with men for jobs.
Imagine something like an architectural or engineering office in 1965 vs 2025. There were female secretaries of course, but essentially zero women among the professional staff, managing partners, etc. in 1965. In 2025 it's typically 50%, with many firms owned or headed by women. This was unheard of a few decades before.
I'm not saying there were no women prior to that; I'm saying there were very few. The wartime recruitment of women into blue-collar jobs who replaced men gone off to war didn't have much lasting affect on any profession.
MDM, I’m inclined to attribute increased women’s participation in the work force to WWII. Then as our population became more urban (less rural?) women’s participation further increased particularly as inflation, together with the burdens of income tax, SSI and other payroll taxes made two income families increasingly necessary. Feminism mostly increased the visibility of income differences between the sexes.
The problem with defense workers is that since WWII we have had that same thought that has led us to a gigantic military/industrial complex that is the center of huge deficits. Fire them all and start over. Pretty women are much more preferable.
Well DB you sure have my cognitive dissonance in overdrive today. Defense or pretty girls? Sheesh! And both representing the ultimate in management challenges.
When I started my Career I had a Full Colonel who was a 2nd Lt (ARMY) in WWII who survived bombings while on patrol. He had no problem hiring women so long as their wasn't more than one in any one office.
There's a great meme picturing Trump holding up a signed EO, with an inset photo of a pretty young hispanic woman, that states "9s and above are not illegal".
02/19/25: And as for the victims of the on-going sequel, The Amityville DOGE Massacre ...
"There are plenty of ambulances in the DC area. I’m sure she can find one to chase."
With the DOGE layoff, there will now be 500 lawyers chasing each ambulance.
Correction: With the ambulance drivers also getting the good-bye after the tax revenues from all the once-employed lawyers having dried up, there will now be 1,413 lawyers chasing each surviving ambulance.
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“Once upon a time, the Wall Street Journal had the most intelligent staff in newspapering.” Until they hired Peggy Noonan who if she was writing about snow in winter would include at least one sentence deprecating DJT.
Noonan pantsed herself in a recent podcast interview with Bari Weiss. She told Weiss that she declined to meet Trump in person when he visited the WSJ offices in 2016, because she was afraid she'd be charmed by him and that would cause her to lose her objectivity.
Which demonstrates that she is both emotionally incontinent and unprofessional.
because it's the wsj nc. rinos collecting largess for bashing maga and america. pays well and you are a protected species while doing the marxists work.
I haven't read him much recently, but for a long time I have thought very highly of him. He was one of the first and bravest black writers who was pointing out the flaws of the Left.
Then Coolidge made things right by cutting waste, fraud and abuse and returning the country to fiscal responsibility. Read Amity Shlaes book, the forgotten man. What an eye opener!
And making the books sloppy beyond imagination or outright missing is a standard ploy of embezzlers. Can be truly hard to trace what happened. But the results flagrantly speak for themselves. Yes, this money was illegally redirected to enrich corrupt people.
The years between the end of the Civil War and before income tax - when federal and state governments were small and stayed out of taxpayer's way and pockets - saw the great boom of invention and expansion in the US. These were the decades of innovation and discovery: railroads, electricity, automobiles, communication, food preservation for mass distribution, airplanes, oil industry... and no foreign wars.
These were the years the federal government was financed via tariffs - a tax based on the voluntary exchange of goods and services, not confiscation of wages under threat of imprisonment to finance the whims of politicians and their anonymous, unaccountable, unelected hangers on.
Amen. That point is what is missing in this whole debate. The expansion of government is what got us into this mess, and going off tariffs into the direct income tax was a death knell.
With less chains the government has around the peoples necks - or better yet, no chains - releases the infinite imagination and resourcefulness of the people to create and innovate and prosper. It really is so elementary a child could grasp it.
What’s shocking is that it seems “revolutionary” to so many.
Except for the four million government workers with undeserved 'civil service entitlement', the rest of America survived the last 40+ years under a the crazy business climate of LBO's, buyouts, recapitalizations, mergers, acquisitions, companies moving south to avoid unions, then moving offshore for cheap labor. Millions of American citizens were downsized without notice or given much in terms of severance and extended healthcare. I know because it happened to me twice. WE MOVED ON because we were always told to maintain marketable skills, which we did. When we moved on we often had to take a lower level job to 'get our foot in the door' so we could prove our value and move up. It was decades of yo-yo career moves. I blamed the government for moving all the jobs offshore but nobody put me on the internet (or 6:00 news back then) so I could cry about my story and threaten to sue.
Millions of American workers are looking on today and thinking: Shut up and move on.
We all knew this media BS was coming. Last week, I stated in my comments that Trump risks looking like the tyrant and dictator the left wants to illustrate, especially to dissuade moderates and libertarians to continue with Trump in the mid-terms. Trump is doing an amazing job and I fully support it, but he needs to have someone manage this image campaign because the mid-terms will be here before we blink an eye and all of the daily news about layoffs and stories about 'family destroyed' will be used in campaign ads.
Trump is taking the candy away from the spoiled rotten babies in DC and they are screaming their full heads off. Any RESPONSIBLE adult would do that. Trump needs to make this lesson very clear to the American people.
While I understand the inclination to try & manage the narrative & acknowledge that the other side is the equivalent of The Borg, in the end actions speak louder than words. Like Lincoln said - 'You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time”
Capt. Penny who had a kids program on a Cleveland TV station in the 50 & 60's at 5:00 said the same thing but his last sentence was" but you can't fool Mom".
I worked with a lot of Civil Service employees over 42 years in DOD, DFAS, DLA. They were really smart people and did good work. Those who were not as good still did good enough to keep their jobs though they mostly never moved up.
Don't tell me I don't deserve my retirement or the others. The places I worked could have been shut down or moved by a stroke of pen from Congress. There were a lot of jobs that got downgraded or terminated and employees lost a lot of potential income. A lot of them had to experience same things you went though Shrugged.
The last place I worked we had to work mandatory overtime 2-3 times a year (10 hour days & 8 on Saturday) because of our huge workload plus continuing education training courses on-line.
I feel bad for the temporaries being let go because my guess is that most of them are former military or retired military members. They were preferred because of their excellent work standards. All this is the fault of past Congresses who spent us into a 36 Trillion dollar debt. Sadly todays government workers are going to suffer the consequences.
Not crying, defending Shrugg's attack saying Gov't employees don't deserve their retirements. I didn't work 22 yrs Active Duty and 20 yrs Civil Service to have someone, obviously jealous, tell me I don't deserve my benefits. He's wrong about that and so are you if you agree. Their are always sluggards in every workforce.
02/20/25: My apology, Stephen. My remark was a jest, not to be meant ill-spirited.
You are an individual who will witness tragedies involving people you personally know or knew.
The problem is this: With 36 trillion dollars in debt, the U.S. will have no choice but to fire / forcibly retire hundreds of thousands of government workers. Impersonal economic forces will eventually eclipse the stories of the fates of above individuals, whose significance will quickly pale in comparison to the larger-picture chaos. "The Forgotten Man" theme from the 1930s will re-appear.
DOGE isn't anywhere near identifying one retrievable trillion dollars so far, and when they hit that mark, that's only 1/36th of the tsunami about to turn WDC / eastern MD / northern VA into a 2025-26 "Hooverville."
And there will be no pity exhibited from millions of Americans whose money has been extorted by exorbitant taxation in the past decades, creating our inevitable, ghastly scenario. Remember, many of them will also become unemployed once the Federal spigot runs dry.
Thank you Don. I was probably a little too defensive but I was just lucky maybe to work and associate with good people. I agree with everything you said and saw a lot of wasteful programs. Here is one most probably don't know about. If you lived more than X number (I don't remember) of miles from the work place their were gov't funded van pools you could ride in. (During Obama) It was justified by saying they were helping Climate change by having less vehicles on the road. Telework ended most of that.
Telework was started at DLA. If the Supply Agencies (formerly called Depots) were attacked by any means the work could continue from home by Item Managers keeping the flow of parts/supplies to Military. (Security minded) Just about all logistics are direct shipped from the manufactures. Then eventually all were doing it and down hill it went.
I just wish Trump would tell those being let go that they would be hired first as retirements create openings.
I retired a year ago. My wife is several years younger and needs to work a few more years to hit the magic 65 number so she can claim Medicare. A year and a half ago her employment was terminated without notice for 'cost reduction'. Her entire department was eliminated. She was offered some (12 weeks) severance and we were very thankful for that buffer.
We moved on but she worked for four months of full days applying to over 150 positions in her field to do so. She landed one that was 'perfect' but it was four states away. She drove to that new job on my last day of work when I retired a year ago. I entered retirement as a remote couple. We have about a year to go.
I don't share this to get sympathy. I share it because millions and millions of Americans have had something similar happen to them in the last several decades. Many never get a new job that returns them to their previous level of income. They move on.
Do I feel sorry for entitled Fed workers who had inflated pay and benefits for similar work and very little oversight for job performance?
02/19/25: An excellent, sad, sad story. You're right. It's high time that the Feds find out what we've been insulted with (and worse). The worst development in my lifetime in this respect: people getting getting fired by email. This is f-ing BARBARIC.
A great maxim from the business world is "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem." As DOGE has so 'efficiently' pointed out, NGO's are a big part of the problem, not the solution. Lawyers like the one whining here are problems. They have allowed the government overall to treat the American citizens like 'mushrooms' - 'keep them in the dark and feed them s***.' Now the light is on, and there will definitely be collateral damage for a while. There are some other great sayings that come to mind as well regarding this - "Cream always rises to the top" being one. Sooooo, if you are really good at being a lawyer, I doubt your career overall is ended. If what you actually do is really important, it will do doubt be recognized at some point, but right now we need the whole thing put on hold until real adults figure out who is screwing who and permanently removes them from the payroll. Sit down and shut up ... there are adults in the room, and they really know their business - like Trump, and Musk, and Hegseth, and Homan, and Rubio, and Bondi ... well, you get it.
Little Miss Hannah said: "...it kind of came on me all at once that I might not have health insurance in a few weeks..."
Our daughter put herself through college -- twice -- without health insurance. She didn't take chances with her health. She didn't drink, smoke, or take recreational drugs. She ate healthy foods and exercised. And btw, she was asthmatic. She learned how to take care of herself. She's a nurse.
Out where I live (Northern AZ) I say "take a vacation to the Grand Canyon... let me take your photo Kamala... back up.... a little more... just a little more.... ooooppppsss". Sorry.
The "why" question has been missing from political and public discourse for so long that, if ever it's uttered, the youngsters are completely flummoxed by it. "Why did you get fired?" "Why did you run out of money?" "Why did you get pregnant?" You know, those questions to which the answer begins with "I screwed up."
She's an attorney. If she thot that her agency did not fall under the President's authority as the head of the Executive,then she's safe. You remember.....define " if "
Here's what I have to say to all the federal workers losing their jobs, especially (but not only) the ones who fashioned themselves as some sort of internal resistance answerable to no one:
Joe Crocker is so emblematic of our times. Never was a big fan. I don’t think there are many people who would rank him in the top 10 category of all time performing artists, but his performances were so authentic. And it is that reality that so many people are craving, not the sales job.
The entire brouhaha over these layoffs is truly infuriating. As Don mentioned, the fact that the country is in debt to the tune of trillions never even gets a mention in legacy media reporting, That is by design, because even beyond the Executive's right and power to do this, that fact alone glaringly justifies it.
The number of regular citizens who have gone through these same measures at their private companies when they were in financial straits or merged with other companies is legion, I being one of them. We got very little notice, and in some cases no buyouts whatsoever. It happens ALL THE TIME!
That they actually think they have some special entitlement to their positions is both laughable and infuriating. The very fact that they put up such resistance on such lame and arrogant grounds proves they need to go and go quickly.
Where were all the animal activists when the fleas were eating the dog's faces? Where were they When they cut these dogs' vocal cords so they didn't have to hear the torture? Did they get a kickback to keep silent?
The truth is, these folks don't really believe they serve the public, they believe they rule us. Their workdays are spent pushing numbers around and developing new regulations, each of which is a stealth tax passed on to consumers with no requirement to provide evidence of a quantifiable benefit. The regulatory state protects big businesses from competition at the expense of small businesses and consumers, not in defense of them.
So I worked for a 3rd party vendor who had a contract with the IRS to upgrade just one piece/regulation of the IRS. The only way to describe what a cluster it was is to say that by the time we implemented the upgrade it was already obsolete. It did give me an opportunity to see inside the belly of the beast & that is why I contend that reform is impossible, the whole thing needs to be gutted.
Yes. A half a lifetime ago I worked for a defense sub-contractor. We regularly had DOD inspectors on site to perform in-progress and final inspections. Everyone dreaded interacting with them. Without exception they were unfriendly, arrogant and irrationally critical and demanding. I understood that they are tasked with insuring quality, but so were the prime contractor's source inspectors who were generally the opposite—friendly, accommodating and constructively critical. Any manufacturer having to work with the DOD understands the $100 hammer, the regulations for producing such written by people who have never driven a nail.
I voted for the pretty women keeping their jobs, because we all know they’re Republicans.
You can't say that. Look at AOC, she's pretty... Pretty stupid.
Not sure which is scarier with AOC. Is it her baring her big white teeth that look like they are about to bite my head off, or is it her flaring nostrils and buggy eyes that almost appear ready to pop like balloons in my face?
She has the perfect face for mixing a martini and serving it from behind a bar. There's nothing more to her than her 'bartender face'.
PS: When she and Adam Schiff bug out their eyes to make a point, they look like brother and sister - from the same corrupt family.
She's hawt, but I pity the fool that gets involved with her beyond a mere hookup.
Upper right corner of the hot-crazy chart.
Her biggest issue is her biological clock ticking ; she just can't figure it out .
She really isn't bad looking until she says something at which point the insanity comes out like a cannon shot. If she was back tending bar she'd be a typical one night stand girl.
Those teeth are scary for more reasons than one.
02/19/25: Yes. They once belonged to Nancy Pelosi.
02/19/25: Zoology research.
The problem with AOC is she pretty untill she opens her mouth and her brains fall out.
High school hallway chatter: She's pretty; pretty ugly and pretty apt to stay that way.
Actually, isn’t AOC yesterday’s babe? The new face of the Democratic Party is Jasmine Crockett.
No, the face of the democrats is still Nasty Pelosi or possibly mad Maxine.
I remain convinced that she was picked to run for her seat - and won - largely because she has a fleeting resemblance to Meghan Markle who was popular then. They made her up and dressed her in a similar way in everything promotional. And she’s shown herself to be a reliable screech.
C'mon guy's you know in your hearts that if AOC was a MAGA honey you all would be slobbering all over yourselves.
That's because if she was MAGA she wouldn't be batshit crazy.
It is sexist, of course, but "pretty women" got my vote. I'm married to one. A pretty woman not a federal worker.
I guess I'm a sexist then because I voted for the pretty woman.
When you look at the competition, it was really the only choice.
Yep.
02/19/25: Quite true. Not one of our better polls.
Exactly. I would have voted for "no-one"
People are inherently sexist. It's right there in the genes. It was always completely stupid to rail against this trait. All it did was drive sexist impulses underground, and made it impossible to be honest about human nature.
A good and decent human being will not treat people unfairly due to their sex, but will self-acknowledge their sexism and seek to override any impulses to be unfair or disrespectful of anyone's human dignity.
Most men will hold the door for a lady even when it's one that acts like trash. As much as I dislike Nasty Pelosi, I would still hold the door for her, and help her be seated and comfortable.
I would then exit the chamber and signal to the executioner to proceed.
Sexist or not , the answer was definitely not one of the other choices . Darn cat !
Me too, and a third generation Republican to boot.
I’m with you though pix I’ve seen of govt workers look more like ads for birth control.
I voted for the defense workers. We need them. Pretty women are needed too, but they get to take the pretty with them to new job interviews, a big advantage in getting another job. Pretty has its privileges.
Hawt girl privilege is a massively powerful force in everyday life. Especially in the workplace. You're not supposed to notice that and most certainly not supposed to talk about it, but it's human nature. The Power of Glamour, as Virginia Postrel put it.
One of my sub-theories within my grand theory that I have developed over my long life to understand why things work in society as they do is this:
Feminism brought women into the workforce, whereupon the hot girls dominated the attention of men and non-hot girls became hugely envious. This in turn explains why there are so many angry, unattractive women on social media. And it just gets worse over time, because even the hot women eventually age out of hotness. 97% of working women are pathologically envious of the 3% of working women who are both hot and young, or young-ish.
There's nothing to be done about it. Life is unfair.
I respectfully disagree that "Feminism" brought women to the workplace. Rosie the Riveter* brought women into the workplace. Another name for Rosie was necessity. Dads, uncles, brothers and nephews were all aboard ship headed to the ETO or the PTO. I was two at the time, but remember being told by my aunts on the assembly lines stateside. Men unable to keep their minds on their work brought the level down to "Feminism." *Molly Pitcher sorta kinda.
I think that if you looked at workplace participation over time, you would find massive increases in the proportion of women each decade, starting in the 1970s. But also, the women at work were no longer merely the support staff. They began to compete with men for jobs.
Imagine something like an architectural or engineering office in 1965 vs 2025. There were female secretaries of course, but essentially zero women among the professional staff, managing partners, etc. in 1965. In 2025 it's typically 50%, with many firms owned or headed by women. This was unheard of a few decades before.
I'm not saying there were no women prior to that; I'm saying there were very few. The wartime recruitment of women into blue-collar jobs who replaced men gone off to war didn't have much lasting affect on any profession.
MDM, I’m inclined to attribute increased women’s participation in the work force to WWII. Then as our population became more urban (less rural?) women’s participation further increased particularly as inflation, together with the burdens of income tax, SSI and other payroll taxes made two income families increasingly necessary. Feminism mostly increased the visibility of income differences between the sexes.
The problem with defense workers is that since WWII we have had that same thought that has led us to a gigantic military/industrial complex that is the center of huge deficits. Fire them all and start over. Pretty women are much more preferable.
Well DB you sure have my cognitive dissonance in overdrive today. Defense or pretty girls? Sheesh! And both representing the ultimate in management challenges.
When I started my Career I had a Full Colonel who was a 2nd Lt (ARMY) in WWII who survived bombings while on patrol. He had no problem hiring women so long as their wasn't more than one in any one office.
I also voted for the defense workers for the same reasons as you jimok
Why not by bra size, starting with 38D?
Be careful with that idea. The Trannies will start measuring their man-boobs.
I didn’t want to go there DJ but in my life time I’m almost certain I used that as a deciding factor, all things being equal more than once.
To my everlasting shame of course!
The ‘of course’ part didn’t give it away, Don? You really ought to get out more!
why shame? simp?
Ah yes, the Wall Test.
Better yet, the pencil test.
Reminds me a little bit of junior high.
IYKYK!
"They'd get in her way!" said Shirley Eujest.
There's a great meme picturing Trump holding up a signed EO, with an inset photo of a pretty young hispanic woman, that states "9s and above are not illegal".
Funny, my first interpretation of "EO" was "explosive ordnance".
Oh crap. I should have thought of that before voting.
02/19/25: And as for the victims of the on-going sequel, The Amityville DOGE Massacre ...
"There are plenty of ambulances in the DC area. I’m sure she can find one to chase."
With the DOGE layoff, there will now be 500 lawyers chasing each ambulance.
Correction: With the ambulance drivers also getting the good-bye after the tax revenues from all the once-employed lawyers having dried up, there will now be 1,413 lawyers chasing each surviving ambulance.
❤️❤️ I Subscribe and urge others to do so. I was top first once, and it was a great thrill. Don really likes you. And that's a good thing. Benis a very lucky guy. Sure you're not my sister from another mother? You too are a charter member of CAPE. One tip: to all your subscribers, hit the follow button. It only takes a moment, and you'll make them feel happy Love ya gal.🤢
“Once upon a time, the Wall Street Journal had the most intelligent staff in newspapering.” Until they hired Peggy Noonan who if she was writing about snow in winter would include at least one sentence deprecating DJT.
Noonan pantsed herself in a recent podcast interview with Bari Weiss. She told Weiss that she declined to meet Trump in person when he visited the WSJ offices in 2016, because she was afraid she'd be charmed by him and that would cause her to lose her objectivity.
Which demonstrates that she is both emotionally incontinent and unprofessional.
Muy Ja ja (emotionally incontinent)!
Why, why, why is she still there? Taking up room and money better spent on cleaning staff or office supplies.
because it's the wsj nc. rinos collecting largess for bashing maga and america. pays well and you are a protected species while doing the marxists work.
Also, using oxygen not meant for her.
She is ugly and her mother dresses her funny!
and jason riley. cannot trust him. he's a racist mole.
I haven't read him much recently, but for a long time I have thought very highly of him. He was one of the first and bravest black writers who was pointing out the flaws of the Left.
I believe Riley was up for an award but lost it due to plagiarism charges TPG.
Ah, sorry to hear that.
02/19/25: The WSJ is just as corrupt as all the rest. And they were just as f-d-up long before Murdoch grabbed them.
Once again, you never heard of the Great Depression of 1921 precisely because Silent Cal cut government by 40% - and into the Roaring 20's we went.
When $4,700,000,000,000 goes missing we have serious crime going on.
Do you understand how much a trillion is? Because I am a dumb engineer I will tell you:
It is a stack of $100 bills that is 789 miles high.
Or, end to end, it is $100 bills that travels the circumference of the earth 6 times.
And it was stolen from you and continues today - both parties.
Dang, now I pissed myself off again... I hope it pisses you off as well.
That was Harding, a president besmirched by yellow journalists over a tempest literally in a teadome
Losing my memory I guess...
Then Coolidge made things right by cutting waste, fraud and abuse and returning the country to fiscal responsibility. Read Amity Shlaes book, the forgotten man. What an eye opener!
“The business of the United Staes is business.”
But hanging on to your slide rule with a death grip! 😉
4.7 did not disappear, did not get stolen. It went where it was supposed to go or those that were due to receive it would have been screaming.
The money is not traceable because proper bookkeeping was not done.
And making the books sloppy beyond imagination or outright missing is a standard ploy of embezzlers. Can be truly hard to trace what happened. But the results flagrantly speak for themselves. Yes, this money was illegally redirected to enrich corrupt people.
So you belive it when people say 4.7 trillion was stolen ?
One would need more details--$4.7 trillion over what time period, etc.
But it is absolutely true it did not evaporate, and (as you say above) "...went where it was supposed to go".
I am certain this will be revealed to be the world's most gigantic RICO case.
I disdain misleading cluckbait.
And those that mindlessly cluck in agreement.
It's garbage, doesn't matter which side it comes from.
"4.7 Trillion Is Missing" is cluckbait.
Yes, the money went where it was supposed to go - bureaucrats, politicians, wealthy donors, China, the Biden family, etc.
So you belive it when people say 4.7 trillion was stolen ?
Well , lack of proper bookkeeping is often referred to as embezzlement .
Cluck cluck
Mission Accomplished.
The years between the end of the Civil War and before income tax - when federal and state governments were small and stayed out of taxpayer's way and pockets - saw the great boom of invention and expansion in the US. These were the decades of innovation and discovery: railroads, electricity, automobiles, communication, food preservation for mass distribution, airplanes, oil industry... and no foreign wars.
These were the years the federal government was financed via tariffs - a tax based on the voluntary exchange of goods and services, not confiscation of wages under threat of imprisonment to finance the whims of politicians and their anonymous, unaccountable, unelected hangers on.
Amen. That point is what is missing in this whole debate. The expansion of government is what got us into this mess, and going off tariffs into the direct income tax was a death knell.
With less chains the government has around the peoples necks - or better yet, no chains - releases the infinite imagination and resourcefulness of the people to create and innovate and prosper. It really is so elementary a child could grasp it.
What’s shocking is that it seems “revolutionary” to so many.
The years that Made America Great, so,,, lets rein in government at all levels and Make America Great Again!
Poll answer: Nobody.
Except for the four million government workers with undeserved 'civil service entitlement', the rest of America survived the last 40+ years under a the crazy business climate of LBO's, buyouts, recapitalizations, mergers, acquisitions, companies moving south to avoid unions, then moving offshore for cheap labor. Millions of American citizens were downsized without notice or given much in terms of severance and extended healthcare. I know because it happened to me twice. WE MOVED ON because we were always told to maintain marketable skills, which we did. When we moved on we often had to take a lower level job to 'get our foot in the door' so we could prove our value and move up. It was decades of yo-yo career moves. I blamed the government for moving all the jobs offshore but nobody put me on the internet (or 6:00 news back then) so I could cry about my story and threaten to sue.
Millions of American workers are looking on today and thinking: Shut up and move on.
We all knew this media BS was coming. Last week, I stated in my comments that Trump risks looking like the tyrant and dictator the left wants to illustrate, especially to dissuade moderates and libertarians to continue with Trump in the mid-terms. Trump is doing an amazing job and I fully support it, but he needs to have someone manage this image campaign because the mid-terms will be here before we blink an eye and all of the daily news about layoffs and stories about 'family destroyed' will be used in campaign ads.
Trump is taking the candy away from the spoiled rotten babies in DC and they are screaming their full heads off. Any RESPONSIBLE adult would do that. Trump needs to make this lesson very clear to the American people.
All I can say is Boo frickin Hoo.
While I understand the inclination to try & manage the narrative & acknowledge that the other side is the equivalent of The Borg, in the end actions speak louder than words. Like Lincoln said - 'You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time”
Capt. Penny who had a kids program on a Cleveland TV station in the 50 & 60's at 5:00 said the same thing but his last sentence was" but you can't fool Mom".
Then, you had Ghoulardi at night . . . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Anderson
Never missed him. He loved to pick on "Dorothy Fuldheim" on Channel 5.
As you put it Shrugged,welcome to reality.
I worked with a lot of Civil Service employees over 42 years in DOD, DFAS, DLA. They were really smart people and did good work. Those who were not as good still did good enough to keep their jobs though they mostly never moved up.
Don't tell me I don't deserve my retirement or the others. The places I worked could have been shut down or moved by a stroke of pen from Congress. There were a lot of jobs that got downgraded or terminated and employees lost a lot of potential income. A lot of them had to experience same things you went though Shrugged.
The last place I worked we had to work mandatory overtime 2-3 times a year (10 hour days & 8 on Saturday) because of our huge workload plus continuing education training courses on-line.
I feel bad for the temporaries being let go because my guess is that most of them are former military or retired military members. They were preferred because of their excellent work standards. All this is the fault of past Congresses who spent us into a 36 Trillion dollar debt. Sadly todays government workers are going to suffer the consequences.
DSCC?
02/19/25: You must stop crying "Wolf!"
Not crying, defending Shrugg's attack saying Gov't employees don't deserve their retirements. I didn't work 22 yrs Active Duty and 20 yrs Civil Service to have someone, obviously jealous, tell me I don't deserve my benefits. He's wrong about that and so are you if you agree. Their are always sluggards in every workforce.
02/20/25: My apology, Stephen. My remark was a jest, not to be meant ill-spirited.
You are an individual who will witness tragedies involving people you personally know or knew.
The problem is this: With 36 trillion dollars in debt, the U.S. will have no choice but to fire / forcibly retire hundreds of thousands of government workers. Impersonal economic forces will eventually eclipse the stories of the fates of above individuals, whose significance will quickly pale in comparison to the larger-picture chaos. "The Forgotten Man" theme from the 1930s will re-appear.
DOGE isn't anywhere near identifying one retrievable trillion dollars so far, and when they hit that mark, that's only 1/36th of the tsunami about to turn WDC / eastern MD / northern VA into a 2025-26 "Hooverville."
And there will be no pity exhibited from millions of Americans whose money has been extorted by exorbitant taxation in the past decades, creating our inevitable, ghastly scenario. Remember, many of them will also become unemployed once the Federal spigot runs dry.
Good luck, sir.
Thank you Don. I was probably a little too defensive but I was just lucky maybe to work and associate with good people. I agree with everything you said and saw a lot of wasteful programs. Here is one most probably don't know about. If you lived more than X number (I don't remember) of miles from the work place their were gov't funded van pools you could ride in. (During Obama) It was justified by saying they were helping Climate change by having less vehicles on the road. Telework ended most of that.
Telework was started at DLA. If the Supply Agencies (formerly called Depots) were attacked by any means the work could continue from home by Item Managers keeping the flow of parts/supplies to Military. (Security minded) Just about all logistics are direct shipped from the manufactures. Then eventually all were doing it and down hill it went.
I just wish Trump would tell those being let go that they would be hired first as retirements create openings.
I retired a year ago. My wife is several years younger and needs to work a few more years to hit the magic 65 number so she can claim Medicare. A year and a half ago her employment was terminated without notice for 'cost reduction'. Her entire department was eliminated. She was offered some (12 weeks) severance and we were very thankful for that buffer.
We moved on but she worked for four months of full days applying to over 150 positions in her field to do so. She landed one that was 'perfect' but it was four states away. She drove to that new job on my last day of work when I retired a year ago. I entered retirement as a remote couple. We have about a year to go.
I don't share this to get sympathy. I share it because millions and millions of Americans have had something similar happen to them in the last several decades. Many never get a new job that returns them to their previous level of income. They move on.
Do I feel sorry for entitled Fed workers who had inflated pay and benefits for similar work and very little oversight for job performance?
Hell no.
Time to move on kids. Just to help them understand, here's a WSJ article from two days ago that shows what work life is really like in America: https://www.wsj.com/business/airlines/southwest-airlines-layoffs-7964f7d0
02/19/25: An excellent, sad, sad story. You're right. It's high time that the Feds find out what we've been insulted with (and worse). The worst development in my lifetime in this respect: people getting getting fired by email. This is f-ing BARBARIC.
Everybody does layoffs. Chevron. Intel. Amazon. Ford. Boeing. Southwest Airlines. Many more. Point is…. There’s no entitlement to a govt job.
A great maxim from the business world is "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem." As DOGE has so 'efficiently' pointed out, NGO's are a big part of the problem, not the solution. Lawyers like the one whining here are problems. They have allowed the government overall to treat the American citizens like 'mushrooms' - 'keep them in the dark and feed them s***.' Now the light is on, and there will definitely be collateral damage for a while. There are some other great sayings that come to mind as well regarding this - "Cream always rises to the top" being one. Sooooo, if you are really good at being a lawyer, I doubt your career overall is ended. If what you actually do is really important, it will do doubt be recognized at some point, but right now we need the whole thing put on hold until real adults figure out who is screwing who and permanently removes them from the payroll. Sit down and shut up ... there are adults in the room, and they really know their business - like Trump, and Musk, and Hegseth, and Homan, and Rubio, and Bondi ... well, you get it.
Little Miss Hannah said: "...it kind of came on me all at once that I might not have health insurance in a few weeks..."
Our daughter put herself through college -- twice -- without health insurance. She didn't take chances with her health. She didn't drink, smoke, or take recreational drugs. She ate healthy foods and exercised. And btw, she was asthmatic. She learned how to take care of herself. She's a nurse.
To those who have been fired, direct them to the top of a cliff where a sign says "Jump Here." This is a public service announcement.
Out where I live (Northern AZ) I say "take a vacation to the Grand Canyon... let me take your photo Kamala... back up.... a little more... just a little more.... ooooppppsss". Sorry.
02/19/25: If it were a 4,000 foot drop, she'd still be talking, trying to finish her first "sentence" when she hit the Colorado River.
Indeed. And We the People approve this message.
…WITH GUITARS!! (The Clash, “Know Your Rights”)
WELCOME BACK Z !!
The "why" question has been missing from political and public discourse for so long that, if ever it's uttered, the youngsters are completely flummoxed by it. "Why did you get fired?" "Why did you run out of money?" "Why did you get pregnant?" You know, those questions to which the answer begins with "I screwed up."
Having a fairly good hunch that you probably will be fired and not taking a buy out is not so bright.
Perhaps these fired workers weren’t the best and brightest after all.
Trump is eating the elephant one bit at a time.
I doubt that most of them really believed RIF’s were coming, as insulated from the realities of the private sector as they had become.
She's an attorney. If she thot that her agency did not fall under the President's authority as the head of the Executive,then she's safe. You remember.....define " if "
Sounds like she's part of the 99% who give the rest a bad name.
Here's what I have to say to all the federal workers losing their jobs, especially (but not only) the ones who fashioned themselves as some sort of internal resistance answerable to no one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjs3zvvnDEY
Why don't you cry me a river?
Excellent!
Joe Crocker is so emblematic of our times. Never was a big fan. I don’t think there are many people who would rank him in the top 10 category of all time performing artists, but his performances were so authentic. And it is that reality that so many people are craving, not the sales job.
The entire brouhaha over these layoffs is truly infuriating. As Don mentioned, the fact that the country is in debt to the tune of trillions never even gets a mention in legacy media reporting, That is by design, because even beyond the Executive's right and power to do this, that fact alone glaringly justifies it.
The number of regular citizens who have gone through these same measures at their private companies when they were in financial straits or merged with other companies is legion, I being one of them. We got very little notice, and in some cases no buyouts whatsoever. It happens ALL THE TIME!
That they actually think they have some special entitlement to their positions is both laughable and infuriating. The very fact that they put up such resistance on such lame and arrogant grounds proves they need to go and go quickly.
Welcome to the real world, idiots.
And good riddance to you.
Taxpayers are already seething….wait till $400 million Fauci spent on animal Tranny surgeries is mainstream…..April 15th coming up….send in your taxes and filings….law abiding chumps….. https://oversight.house.gov/release/mace-opens-hearing-on-oversight-of-taxpayer-funded-animal-cruelty/
Where were all the animal activists when the fleas were eating the dog's faces? Where were they When they cut these dogs' vocal cords so they didn't have to hear the torture? Did they get a kickback to keep silent?
The truth is, these folks don't really believe they serve the public, they believe they rule us. Their workdays are spent pushing numbers around and developing new regulations, each of which is a stealth tax passed on to consumers with no requirement to provide evidence of a quantifiable benefit. The regulatory state protects big businesses from competition at the expense of small businesses and consumers, not in defense of them.
So I worked for a 3rd party vendor who had a contract with the IRS to upgrade just one piece/regulation of the IRS. The only way to describe what a cluster it was is to say that by the time we implemented the upgrade it was already obsolete. It did give me an opportunity to see inside the belly of the beast & that is why I contend that reform is impossible, the whole thing needs to be gutted.
Yes. A half a lifetime ago I worked for a defense sub-contractor. We regularly had DOD inspectors on site to perform in-progress and final inspections. Everyone dreaded interacting with them. Without exception they were unfriendly, arrogant and irrationally critical and demanding. I understood that they are tasked with insuring quality, but so were the prime contractor's source inspectors who were generally the opposite—friendly, accommodating and constructively critical. Any manufacturer having to work with the DOD understands the $100 hammer, the regulations for producing such written by people who have never driven a nail.
Sounds like it was a nest of snakes; all of the poisonous variety!
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