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Trump / Musk (other than DOGE)

  • Thread starter Thread starter nycfan
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  • Replies: 12K
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  • Politics 
superrific said:
You need to read CFord's posts more carefully. I can't actually state with confidence that he's correct; I don't know much about this issue. But he's never shown himself to be anything but a good faith poster, and he's not some busy bee with a Cliff Clavin complex. There is absolutely no reason to doubt his sincerity; and since he rarely toots his own horn, I'm willing to believe that he's knowledgeable here.

If we assume that he's correct, then your points here are simply not responsive. They might be right. But they don't address the issue. If a university has a total endowment of $1B, and $750M of that is earmarked for purposes that are not related to research, then the university cannot by law direct more than $250M to making up a shortfall of federal funds. A different set of laws -- those that governs fiduciary responsibilities for trustees -- would probably constrain that $250M considerably more, because trustees generally cannot deplete a fund to cover present expenses. So maybe the university has $50M in flexible funding. Nothing you say can get around that. You can have the best arguments in the world for how that $1B should be used, but it doesn't matter because it can't be used that way.
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The Widener Library is a well-known example of a donor’s restrictions on a gift. Harvard had to get the Widener heirs to waive some conditions of the agreement for much needed modifications nearly 100 years later.
 
BlooVooDoo said:
The Widener Library is a well-known example of a donor’s restrictions on a gift. Harvard had to get the Widener heirs to waive some conditions of the agreement for much needed modifications nearly 100 years later.
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What's Perkins Library's excuse? I haven't been there in a long time and maybe it's been renovated, but in the mid 90s it was the Trump of libraries. Unimaginably bad in every relevant way. I never knew a building could contain so much vile graffiti, let alone an academic library (the ratio of graffiti in Perkins to graffiti in Davis had to have been 10000 or more). Also, I don't think it's being too picky to expect not to hit your head on unpadded, exposed metal when browsing the stacks. There were some 6 foot ceilings in that bitch, or maybe 7 foot with pipes and buttresses dipping down into regular human head range.
 

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www.bloomberg.com
Billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has a key ally in the US Department of the Treasury: Tom Krause, a veteran technology executive who’s now a special government employee, or consultant, at the agency. Until a federal judge temporarily blocked DOGE’s access on Saturday, Krause had “read-only” access to Treasury’s payments system, which handles more than 1.2 billion transactions a year. The government calls it “America’s checkbook,” an essential window into the federal spending that President Donald Trump is looking to slash by $1 trillion or more.

Krause, 47, who’s serving as fiscal assistant secretary at Treasury, will keep his day job: chief executive officer of Cloud Software Group, which owns a company called Citrix Systems. His deep cost-cutting there shows why he may have appealed to Trump and Musk, the president’s adviser and Tesla Inc.’s CEO—and also why some people familiar with Krause’s record are unsettled about his new government role.

...
Using a time-honored playbook, Citrix’s new owners financed the purchase mostly by loading up the company with debt—and then started eliminating thousands of employees to cut costs. Its financial results are improving.

But investing in cybersecurity isn’t like buying, and turning around, a struggling chain that sells groceries or furniture. It means handling risks to critical services more like those of owning a hospital or medical practice—matters of life or death where PE cost-cutting has provoked congressional inquiries.

At Citrix, employees raised an alarm about Krause’s approach and say their fears were borne out. Losing personnel left security software and hardware more vulnerable as bad actors stepped up their attacks, according to interviews with a dozen former Citrix staffers. They include executives, managers and software engineers involved in security. Many were dismissed after the buyout, and most asked for anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters.

Hugh Boyd worked for 14 years at Citrix as a product security engineer before he lost his job in January 2024. Boyd, who says he’d been planning to retire anyway, notes that the company’s software includes millions of lines of code and complicated systems that have to work together to provide protection.

“What they did is probably one of the single biggest mistakes you can make in a security organization,” he says of the new owners’ staff reductions. “If you start running people off who are highly qualified and who have been doing this at the company for years, you’re really putting yourself in a precarious position from a security standpoint.”

...

After the company instituted cuts, intruders infiltrated Citrix’s products in two major hacks. In 2023, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, the US government’s top online watchdog, ranked two vulnerabilities in Citrix software as the No. 1 and No. 2 most exploited flaws by hackers.
 
altmin said:

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www.bloomberg.com
Billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has a key ally in the US Department of the Treasury: Tom Krause, a veteran technology executive who’s now a special government employee, or consultant, at the agency. Until a federal judge temporarily blocked DOGE’s access on Saturday, Krause had “read-only” access to Treasury’s payments system, which handles more than 1.2 billion transactions a year. The government calls it “America’s checkbook,” an essential window into the federal spending that President Donald Trump is looking to slash by $1 trillion or more.

Krause, 47, who’s serving as fiscal assistant secretary at Treasury, will keep his day job: chief executive officer of Cloud Software Group, which owns a company called Citrix Systems. His deep cost-cutting there shows why he may have appealed to Trump and Musk, the president’s adviser and Tesla Inc.’s CEO—and also why some people familiar with Krause’s record are unsettled about his new government role.

...
Using a time-honored playbook, Citrix’s new owners financed the purchase mostly by loading up the company with debt—and then started eliminating thousands of employees to cut costs. Its financial results are improving.

But investing in cybersecurity isn’t like buying, and turning around, a struggling chain that sells groceries or furniture. It means handling risks to critical services more like those of owning a hospital or medical practice—matters of life or death where PE cost-cutting has provoked congressional inquiries.

At Citrix, employees raised an alarm about Krause’s approach and say their fears were borne out. Losing personnel left security software and hardware more vulnerable as bad actors stepped up their attacks, according to interviews with a dozen former Citrix staffers. They include executives, managers and software engineers involved in security. Many were dismissed after the buyout, and most asked for anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters.

Hugh Boyd worked for 14 years at Citrix as a product security engineer before he lost his job in January 2024. Boyd, who says he’d been planning to retire anyway, notes that the company’s software includes millions of lines of code and complicated systems that have to work together to provide protection.

“What they did is probably one of the single biggest mistakes you can make in a security organization,” he says of the new owners’ staff reductions. “If you start running people off who are highly qualified and who have been doing this at the company for years, you’re really putting yourself in a precarious position from a security standpoint.”

...

After the company instituted cuts, intruders infiltrated Citrix’s products in two major hacks. In 2023, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, the US government’s top online watchdog, ranked two vulnerabilities in Citrix software as the No. 1 and No. 2 most exploited flaws by hackers.
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Fyi, Citrix provides security products for thousands of hospitals.
 
I will just respond to Super with 2 things and leave that discussion for another time and place. Otherwise, we derail the thread.

1) I am as anti-Trump as anyone here, so of course that makes me more acceptable than pre-Trump.

2) My views have not changed dramatically from my former party, the party itself has. Furthermore, I am much more involved in following, and studying political principles, as well as learning from many informed people here. My posts (I think) are more thoughtful and less combative/mud-slinging than 10 years ago.

But I assure you, there are many policies and political theory that we would very much disagree on, still. Nothing wrong with that. Unfortunately, we have an absolute self serving corrupt THREAT leading our country again. Real policy discussion doesn't much matter now, when we have a group of total lunatics in absolute control (regardless of party or politics.)
 

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www.cnbc.com

  • President Donald Trump will sign an executive order directing the Department of Justice to pause enforcing a nearly half-century-old law that prohibits American companies and foreign firms from bribing officials of foreign governments to obtain or retain business.
 
Mulberry Heel said:
Most of the Trumpers in these red states won't care, at least initially, and they'll probably celebrate the cuts. Why? Because most of these institutions are likely located in thriving college towns and large blue-voting areas in these red states that are prospering while their rural counties are dying out, economically and demographically. So watching, say, big cuts at UK or Ole Miss or Nebraska won't bother these people unless their favorite college sports teams take a hit, which is unlikely. Seeing all of those upper-middle-class urbanites and college town professional class types suffer will bring them great joy. And by the time they're adversely affected by these or other cuts down the line it will be too late.
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Except the hospitals in rural Nebraska will close due to NIH cuts and not in Omaha.
 
Kraftyheel89 said:
I will just respond to Super with 2 things and leave that discussion for another time and place. Otherwise, we derail the thread.

1) I am as anti-Trump as anyone here, so of course that makes me more acceptable than pre-Trump.

2) My views have not changed dramatically from my former party, the party itself has. Furthermore, I am much more involved in following, and studying political principles, as well as learning from many informed people here. My posts (I think) are more thoughtful and less combative/mud-slinging than 10 years ago.

But I assure you, there are many policies and political theory that we would very much disagree on, still. Nothing wrong with that. Unfortunately, we have an absolute self serving corrupt THREAT leading our country again. Real policy discussion doesn't much matter now, when we have a group of total lunatics in absolute control (regardless of party or politics.)
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Yes, agree with all that.
 
Zoo_View said:
Y’all do realize this resonates with MAGAts and “moderates” and “independents.”
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Of course. Doesn't make it any less pathetic. His malignant narcissism won't allow anyone or anything (e.g. the Super Bowl) to steal the spotlight.
 
altmin said:

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www.cnbc.com

  • President Donald Trump will sign an executive order directing the Department of Justice to pause enforcing a nearly half-century-old law that prohibits American companies and foreign firms from bribing officials of foreign governments to obtain or retain business.
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Sounds right.
 

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www.wsj.com

Elon Musk-Led Group Makes $97.4 Billion Bid for Control of OpenAI​

Unsolicited offer complicates Sam Altman’s plans to convert OpenAI to a for-profit company​

 

Trump White House says it can talk to Justice Dept. on criminal cases​

In contrast to guidance from the first Trump administration, the memo specifies that the president can discuss any types of cases with the attorney general.


“… The memo largely reflects guidance given during the first Trump administration, though it more clearly specifies that the president is not prohibited from discussing any types of cases with the attorney general.

The White House routinely issues such memos to staff at the beginning of an administration. They are intended to limit who speaks to the Justice Department about investigations and prosecutions — an effort to shield cases from political interference.

… In the post-Watergate era, the White House and Justice Department have tried to maintain clearer lines of separation to prevent the president and his aides from influencing sensitive cases.

Like previous administrations, the Trump administration states in its memo that it is standard protocol for the White House and Justice Department to communicate about policy and national security matters.

But White House counsel David A. Warrington also makes clear that President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and their counsels may ask about criminal and civil investigations.

That guidance, which is not legally binding, is significant in an administration that has vowed to upend the Justice Department and the FBI, which Trump and his allies have accused of mistreating him. Legal experts say the guidance could erode guardrails that have traditionally given the Justice Department a degree of independence from the White House that does not exist for other executive branch agencies. …”
 
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