Trump / Musk (other than DOGE)

[ChileG]

You were trying to make a point. Your unnecessary, but not uncommon, comment about me made that clear.

Either way, every position, including manager, has it's official responsibilities to list that are not likely to be exciting or impressive. They're just your job.

It didn’t ask for a list of responsibilities. They could look at the job descriptions for that.
Listing responsibilities and accomplishments are two different things. But this does illustrate one of the major and very many flaws in asking people for lists such as these.

 

[nycfan]

 

[ChileG]

1. Trump didn't claim it:

The NSA’s Secret Sex Chats

Intelligence officials maintained a chatroom to discuss polyamory and transgender surgeries, internal documents reveal.

christopherrufo.com

2. Musk didn't claim it.
3. Opinion noted.
4. I don't think it was under an official rubric of federal DEI. That isn't what's claimed. It's saying that the authors tried to disguise it as DEI discussions.

Do you agree, if true, those discussions have no place in an NSA internal messaging tool?

I am wondering what this has to do with DOGE, even assuming it is all true.

 

[McAdooSmackinYou]

Asking for 5 bullets sounds so simple and reasonable. Kind of like sex screening female athletes to make sure they don't have balls. Leave it to conservatives to come up with solutions to problems we didn't know we had.

 

[Bobfripp]

The President runs the executive branch. The question of how hands-on he can run it is for the courts to decide.

How he, Trump, can run the executive branch, was long ago decided by precedent (the past 250 years), and doesn't need to be relitigated.

 

[UNCatTech]

Even the people that didn't care at first and are annoying "the managers mean well!" brown-nosers got tired of it after a couple months.

Wow, so there's hope for Zen.

 

[LosPollosHermanos]

It's a catch 22. Gonna be a lot of terrorists converting to Christianity if it gets them into the U.S.A.

 

[Calheel]

Nate Silver's post today about Elon's "spiky" intelligence

Elon Musk and spiky intelligence

Like a lot of successful people, he’s world-class in some dimensions of intelligence but deficient in others.

www.natesilver.net

 

[ZenMode]

How he, Trump, can run the executive branch, was long ago be decided by precedent (the past 250 years), and doesn't need to be relitigated.

From what I've read and heard, that doesn't seem to be entirely true. Some people are required to be fired with cause, but he apparently didn't provide that cause when firing them. Others require Congressional notification before firing them, which he may not have done. Others, like those on probation there doesn't seem to be any reason that he can't terminate them.

 

[ZenMode]

No. We have different views on whether to have expectations.

I do not have particularized expectations of NSA employees because a) I don't know what they do (neither do you); b) I don't know the culture of the agency; c) I have no idea of the context in which these alleged statements were allegedly made; d) I don't do intelligence work; and e) I can't imagine what basis I might have to form an expectation.

You, by contrast, never let your ignorance get in the way of forming an opinion. Your thought process appears to be like this: a) this sounds bad; b) I don't like it; c) I don't care to find out any actual information; d) NSA employees should not be doing this.

To me, "I don't like it" is not a valid basis for a policy opinion.

I mean, to a point you are correct. Since I can't see any legit reason to discuss gangbangs and polygamy, as part of our national security, I find it very hard to believe they are using their time effectively.

If they want to spend every waking minute talking about those things outside of work, I could not possibly care less if I tried.

However, I don't think it's a coincidence that you instinctively dismissed the story, while instinctively giving the benefit of the doubt you those employees involved.

 

[ZenMode]

I am wondering what this has to do with DOGE, even assuming it is all true.

Misusing internal NSA message boards would seem to be ammunition for Doge.

"Look at these people, who are supposed to be protecting our national security, wasting taxpayer money talking about gangbangs on government time!"

I would agree with that sentiment. If true, the people involved don't seem to be intelligent enough to be handling national security responsibilities. I mean, how could they possibly not know that everything they do, as part of the NSA, isn't going to be tracked?

 

[McAdooSmackinYou]

lol

 

[Mulberry Heel]

I'm happy for the ruling, but really, what is "congressional will" these days? Congressional Republicans appear to have no will whatsoever when it comes to Donald J. Trump. In fact, they're all spineless and actually fold like a House of Cards.

 

[superrific]

I mean, to a point you are correct. Since I can't see any legit reason to discuss gangbangs and polygamy, as part of our national security, I find it very hard to believe they are using their time effectively.

However, I don't think it's a coincidence that you instinctively dismissed the story, while instinctively giving the benefit of the doubt you those employees involved.

I'm not giving the employees the benefit of the doubt. I'm just unwilling to castigate them without knowing more. And you just don't seem to be able to recognize that. Maybe it's not a case of you being silly about something; it's a personality difference, like Myers Briggs.

In court, sometimes a judge will instruct a witness that "yes, no, and I don't know" are all acceptable answers. That is to say, human logic is three valued, and you just see it as two-valued. So you interpret anything that is not critical of something as being in favor of it, which is why you characterized me as giving anyone the benefit of the doubt.

And this is what happens: you have a need to assign a judgment to whatever you read. You read this claim that employees are doing something, and you have to see it as bad or good. You don't really know anything about it, but bad seems more intuitive an option for you so you go with that. Then, when someone disagrees with you that it's bad, you automatically assume they think it's good. And that's just not how most people work, in my view. Hence the instructions in court: most people accept "I don't know" as a valid answer and indeed often the right answer.

I dismissed the story because of a long, deep experience with right-wing agitators lying and/or badly exaggerating about these topics. It's not instinct; it's definitely learned. It comes from watching falsehood and falsehood emanate from the right-wing culture warriors, for decades. It's all lies, all the time. They have earned that lack of trust a hundred times over.

By contrast, I instinctively took the position "I don't know" instead of judging the employees about whom I knew nothing.

 

[superrific]

It's a catch 22. Gonna be a lot of terrorists converting to Christianity if it gets them into the U.S.A.

You can't possibly be serious.

 

[nycfan]

 

[mpaer]

A few years ago the Republican Legislature in West By God impeached the Dem Supreme Court and replaced them with Members from the legislature. The reason was some fancy expensive desks/furniture they had bought-which of course their version of GSA had approved

 

[UNCatTech]

White House sent this out to amplify …

 

[Patb78]

If that’s not the pot calling the kettle black.

 

[JCTarheel82]