Trump / Musk (other than DOGE)

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finesse said:
blatherskites
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TIL this word. Today forward, I will use this word.
tallheel95 said:
Sure he may be trolling
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Yes, absolutely. Also, I’ve said this time and again, don isn’t particularly clever. He’s floods the zone, self promotes, and he has zero conscience so he understands how to identify a mark. Those are his superpowers. What comes out of his “mouth” is genuine insight into his worldview and aims, bc he has relatively no inner executive.

If don can make a version of this grotesque video come to light, he’ll absolutely do it, it just depends on what it costs him elsewhere. Whether it’s imperializing Gaza, Greenland, or parts of Canada (seems truly absurd) don’s psychology fixates on tangibles, and relatively nothing is more tangible than land and structures. See his obsession with Mt. Rushmore.

Don is a rapidly deteriorating old narcissistic sociopath, with what to his name, other than a social movement based on bigotry and political “principles” as firm as boiled noodles? He sees imperialism as a legacy project.
 
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So they're firing people for talking about being trans at work? Because I read that exchange and that's the entirety of the discussion - was GRS worth it, would it be easier to obtain under Tricare (their US Government provided healthcare), how it impacted their quality of life and dysphoria, etc.

In 2014 I suffered a pretty catastrophic sports injury and needed surgery. Sometimes people would ask me about it. Does anyone really think I and those asking should have been fired for those discussions on the clock?

These people are being targeted for being LGBTQ, rather than any substantive violation of law or policy.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
Not cool Trump lawyers.

Kind of surprised that the US attorney handles DC crimes. DC has their own police force and other services. I would have thought the prosecutors office would fall under local control as well.
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They are *not* Trump's lawyers. That's the point. They're the United States Attorney's Office. They represent the United States, and that entity is not coterminous with the President.
 
ZenMode said:
This is all assuming that the reports are true. I posted the chat screenshots to give some legitimacy to the claims, not because they are unusually explicit. I posted more details from the original article below.

What is the overall value of employees who are so unintelligent that they would think it acceptable to use a tool dedicated to intelligence related to national security for personal chat of any kind? I have occasional personal chats on MS Teams, but they're one-on-one, not on a general, public board.

Second, what is the overall value of employees who are so unaware that they not only waste an intelligence community board for personal chat, but explicit personal chat (some detail below).

Are these really the quality of people, and level of decision making ability, we want working in national security?

One popular chat topic was male-to-female transgender surgery, which involves surgically removing the penis and turning it into an artificial vagina. “[M]ine is everything,” said one male who claimed to have had gender reconstruction surgery. “’ve found that i like being penetrated (never liked it before GRS), but all the rest is just as important as well.” Another intelligence official boasted that genital surgery allowed him “to wear leggings or bikinis without having to wear a gaff under it.”

These employees discussed hair removal, estrogen injections, and the experience of sexual pleasure post-castration. “[G]etting my butthole zapped by a laser was . . . shocking,” said one transgender-identifying intel employee who spent thousands on hair removal. “Look, I just enjoy helping other people experience boobs,” said another about estrogen treatments. “[O]ne of the weirdest things that gives me euphoria is when i pee, i don’t have to push anything down to make sure it aims right,” a Defense Intelligence Agency employee added.
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What is the overall value then of nearly everyone appointed by Donald Trump? What is the overall value of Elon Musk himself? These folks post, say, and do things that are far more eggregious. Is that the level of decision making ability we want controlling every aspect of our government including national security?

Or is that kind of thinking simply a straw man argument to avoid the pretty obvious conclusion that these folks are likely being fired for theater rather than any kind of weighty decision of their overall value to national security?
 
ZenMode said:
I agree that there is absolutely nothing inherently wrong with adults discussing these things and infinitely more graphic should they want to.... On their own time and on apps that are not internal to the NSA and intended for intelligence community use.
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I don't think its a big deal. You are going to want National Security types discussing non work related things on these encrypted channels for a couple of reasons.

Knowledge workers always discuss personal business on these types of platforms. If you use slack or teams at your job, surely not every message is work related.

Using an encrypted communication medium ensures that all conversations are protected instead of hoping that every employee knows when to switch back and forth between encrypted and non encrypted, even in the middle of a conversation. Its more foolproof. It also adds to the overall volume of traffic making it harder for nefarious actors to find the important stuff to try to decrypt.
 
nycfan said:
“… Deltek data indicates VA awarded $9.7 billion in contract obligations to service-disabled, veteran-owned businesses in federal fiscal year 2024, which equates to 14.3% of VA's $67.6 billion in total contract spend.

… Of the $81.1 million in savings claimed by DOGE, cuts to veteran-owned small businesses accounted for 89.2% of the claimed savings.

In looking at the total contract value, the cancellations of contracts held by the veteran-owned small businesses represented 81.7% of the $148.6 million in claimed cuts.

Five of the contracts are held by large businesses. One large business holds two of those contracts. The total awarded value is $19 million and DOGE expects savings of $606,000.

One nonprofit company and one woman-owned small business also saw their contracts cancelled.

In his X posting, Collins said that millions of dollars of contracts have been spent on consultants who are developing PowerPoint and taking meeting minutes.

“Folks, if you don’t know how to run PowerPoint slides learn. It’s a tutorial on your computer,” Collins said on his video.

But after looking at the DOGE database and its connection into the Federal Procurement Data System, it is hard to discern if any of the so-far cancelled contracts are for PowerPoint and notetaking. …”
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I knew it !!! I knew !!!

Just as I suspected, our veterans have been responsible for a large portion of government waste and fraud :mad:
 
politicalwire.com

Musk Wants a Cut of $42 Billion Biden Internet Plan

"When President Joe Biden put $42 billion behind making high-speed internet accessible across the US, he committed to doing it the old-fashioned way – with miles upon miles of fiber-optic lines," Bloomberg reports. "That frustrated
politicalwire.com politicalwire.com

“When President Joe Biden put $42 billion behind making high-speed internet accessible across the US, he committed to doing it the old-fashioned way – with miles upon miles of fiber-optic lines,” Bloomberg reports.

“That frustrated Elon Musk, who said his Starlink satellite-internet business could get rural areas online faster, at lower cost. Biden’s decision helped drive a wedge between the Democratic president and the world’s richest person, who later used his wealth to help return Donald Trump to the White House.”

“Now, some Republicans want to open the floodgates for Starlink to compete with fiber, potentially shifting billions to Musk.”

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Background

spacenews.com

FCC upholds denial of Starlink’s $900 million rural broadband subsidies

The Federal Communications Commission is standing by last year’s decision to deny Starlink nearly $900 million in rural broadband subsidies.
spacenews.com spacenews.com

"
The Federal Communications Commission is standing by last year’s decision to deny Starlink nearly $900 million in rural broadband subsidies.

The regulator issued its final denial Dec. 12, reaffirming that SpaceX’s satellite broadband service failed to meet requirements for participating in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF).

“The FCC followed a careful legal, technical and policy review to determine that this applicant had failed to meet its burden to be entitled to” the funds,” FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in a news release.

SpaceX was provisionally awarded the subsidies in December 2020 after competing in an auction under the first phase of the RDOF process.

The company was in line for $886 million over 10 years to deliver high-speed broadband to nearly 643,000 homes and businesses in 35 states, after winning one of the largest shares of the multi-billion-dollar fund.

However, the 180 auction winners had to show how they would deploy services that meet RDOF conditions, and this is where the FCC says SpaceX fell short. Terrestrial telco LTD Broadband was also denied $1.3 billion in provisionally awarded subsidies.

RDOF requirements include providing 100 megabits per second (Mbps) download speeds and 20 Mbps upload speeds.

According to the latest Ookla speed tests, Starlink median download performance in the United States was 64.54 Mbps in the third quarter of 2023, which the research firm said was a slight decline quarter-on-quarter but up 22% on the 53 Mbps recorded for the period in 2022.

Median upload performance has been rising, Ookla added, hitting 9.72 Mbps over the three months to the end of September. ..."

[Starlink challenged the test used and other procedures and claimed they were targeted.]

____
BTW, Republicans in the House (Jim Comer) investigated the denial of the Starlink contract last fall, after Musk made (what turned out to be mostly false) claims about denial of Starlink in WNC causing people to die in Hurricane Helene and its aftermath. That investigation apparently went nowhere after some splashy headlines.

 

Elon Musk’s business empire is built on $38 billion in government funding​

Government infusions at key moments helped Tesla and SpaceX flourish, boosting Musk’s wealth

GIFT LINK --> https://wapo.st/41uIOJ4
 

Elon Musk’s business empire is built on $38 billion in government funding​

Government infusions at key moments helped Tesla and SpaceX flourish, boosting Musk’s wealth

GIFT LINK --> https://wapo.st/41uIOJ4

"...Over the years, Musk and his businesses have received at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credits, often at critical moments, a Washington Post analysis has found, helping seed the growth that has made him the world’s richest person.

The payments stretch back more than 20 years. Shortly after becoming CEO of a cash-strapped Tesla in 2008, Musk fought hard to secure a low-interest loan from the Energy Department, according to two people directly involved with the process, holding daily briefings with company executives about the paperwork and spending hours with a government loan officer.

When Tesla soon after realized it was missing a crucial Environmental Protection Agency certification it needed to qualify for the loan days before Christmas, Musk went straight to the top, urging then-EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to intervene, according to one of the people. Both people spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. ..."

musk.jpeg
 
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