Trump / Musk (other than DOGE)

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“
Donald Trump won the 2024 election with one of the smallest popular-vote margins in U.S. history, but in news deserts – counties lacking a professional source of local news – it was an avalanche. Trump won 91% percent of these counties over his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, according to an analysis of voting data by Medill Journalism School’s State of Local News project.

While Trump’s national popular-vote margin was just under 1.5%, his margin in news deserts was massive. He won these counties by an average of 54 percentage points. In the few won by Harris, her margin was a comparatively slim 18 points, the analysis shows.

The findings are based on results from 193 of the 206 counties Medill has identified as news deserts, in states where county-level election results are currently available. The third annual State of Local News report, released by Medill’s Local News Initiative in October, documented the continuing decline of local news across the country, as measured by the number of newspapers, circulation, frequency of publication, employment and readership.…”

localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu

In news deserts, Trump won in a landslide

localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu

——

But they aren’t propaganda deserts, they just are professional local news deserts. These places have Fox and OAN and Joe Rogan and the entire “citizen journalist” info-sphere at their fingertips.

The old truism that “All politics is local” is collapsing in the post-truth era.
 


“… The fear is that a flood of Chinese exports would be pushed to Europe by an insurmountable U.S. tariff wall. …

Europe’s concerns are justified … up to a point. EU countries would indeed feel the heat of a trade war with China, which would depress trade and growth at a time when Germany, its largest and most export-driven economy, is expected to suffer its second year of negative growth.

Yet, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Europe would actually be hit less hard than other regions. Gross domestic product would fall by 0.14 percent in the first year of a Trump trade war, and by 0.2 percent in the longer term, the think tank estimates — far less than the decline that the two main antagonists would suffer.
 
The defense against this stupidity is, “Trump isn’t actually going to do it.”
But when campaigning, whenever asked how he would fund his various promises (like his hilarious answer about his plan for childcare), he would claim the tariffs would pay for everything.
Now, maybe Trump was just lying about his plans, which wouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, even his supporters.
But I think it is more likely he just doesn’t know what he is doing, and his acolytes will sane wash whatever happens.
 


“… He isn’t yet sure how to measure academic freedom, but he has looked at how a nonprofit called Foundation for Individual Rights in Education scores universities in its freedom-of-speech rankings, a person familiar with his thinking said.

The nonprofit scores schools based on a survey of students’ perceptions of factors such as whether they feel comfortable expressing ideas. Schools are also penalized if their administrators sanction faculty for opinions or disinvite a speaker from a campus event after a controversy.

Universities that are leading recipients of NIH grants but have poor FIRE rankings include the University of Pennsylvania (“very poor”), Columbia University (“abysmal”) and the University of Southern California (“very poor”). Schools with top scores in FIRE’s most recent rankings are the University of Virginia, Michigan Technological University and Florida State University. …”
 
(Cont’d)

“… “It’s not clear why we’d roadblock the best chances of finding a cure for cystic fibrosis or cancer or Alzheimer’s by adding potentially political, nonresearch factors into medical-research grant decisions,” said Lizbet Boroughs, associate vice president of government relations for the Association of American Universities, which represents 71 research schools.

Ned Sharpless, a former director of the National Cancer Institute, said Bhattacharya is qualified to lead the NIH but might find it difficult to implement broad changes. The agency could tweak the rubric used to assess grant applications to look at academic freedom, but could find it difficult to force grant reviewers to faithfully follow the change.

… Bhattacharya is a professor of medicine and health policy at Stanford. During the pandemic, he criticized the Covid-19 response, helping write the Great Barrington Declaration that called for ending lockdowns and isolating the vulnerable so that young, healthy people could get infected and build up immunity in the general population. …”

For reference, FIRE worst colleges for free speech 2024: 10 Worst Colleges for Free Speech: 2023
 
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nycfan said:


“… He isn’t yet sure how to measure academic freedom, but he has looked at how a nonprofit called Foundation for Individual Rights in Education scores universities in its freedom-of-speech rankings, a person familiar with his thinking said.

The nonprofit scores schools based on a survey of students’ perceptions of factors such as whether they feel comfortable expressing ideas. Schools are also penalized if their administrators sanction faculty for opinions or disinvite a speaker from a campus event after a controversy.

Universities that are leading recipients of NIH grants but have poor FIRE rankings include the University of Pennsylvania (“very poor”), Columbia University (“abysmal”) and the University of Southern California (“very poor”). Schools with top scores in FIRE’s most recent rankings are the University of Virginia, Michigan Technological University and Florida State University. …”
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I continue to believe that Trump 2.0 is simply going to be a shitshow from the beginning, and likely to an even greater extent than his first term. And not just chaos, but I do believe that at a minimum we'll see the federal government used to go after Trump's critics and perceived enemies in the media, government, and politics very directly - much more so than in his first term.
 
ChileG said:
The defense against this stupidity is, “Trump isn’t actually going to do it.”
But when campaigning, whenever asked how he would fund his various promises (like his hilarious answer about his plan for childcare), he would claim the tariffs would pay for everything.
Now, maybe Trump was just lying about his plans, which wouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, even his supporters.
But I think it is more likely he just doesn’t know what he is doing, and his acolytes will sane wash whatever happens.
Click to expand...
It shouldn't surprise me anymore, but it does continue to amaze me that one of the main defenses of many Trump voters or apologists is: he won't actually do what he says he's going to do. The lack of critical thinking involved regarding that statement is mind-boggling. "I love it when he talks (tweets) tough, but I do know it would be really bad if he did all the shit he claims he will, but I don't worry about it because I know he's too smart to actually do it." It's like they view politics as professional wrestling. Um, yeah, whatever helps you sleep at night.
 
ZenMode said:

Musk, Ramaswamy eyeing federal remote work policies to help slash $2T from budget​


abcnews.go.com

Musk, Ramaswamy eyeing federal remote work policies to help slash $2T from budget

Work from home policies came under fire from Elon Musk as he and Vivek Ramaswamy took their plans to reduce government waste to the floors of Congress Thursday.
abcnews.go.com abcnews.go.com
Click to expand...
Translation: Musk and Vivek want to make working for the federal government so miserable and unappealing that employees will quit in droves and no one will want to replace them
 
ZenMode said:
Make it miserable how?
Click to expand...
In this particular example, by eliminating the flexibility and autonomy that comes with full or partial remote work, which almost all employees in white-collar industries are now looking for to some degree. And many federal employees have gotten used to it as part of their jobs. Example: I have a couple law school classmates who work at the USPTO. Currently, after a couple years in DC, trademark examiners are able to work remotely from virtually anywhere in the US. (That policy long predates COVID.) That is a very attractive benefit, because a lot of people don't want to work in DC, and there's no real practical reason why they need to. Telling them they're all going to lose their jobs unless they move back to DC to work in a specific office is going to cause many of them to quit, and make it much harder to attract trademark examiners in the future.

But don't ask me - Vivek himself has been very transparent about the fact that he is hoping that forcing federal employees to work in an office full-time will result in large numbers of them quitting. They know it's very difficult to fire large numbers of government employees (and rightfully so) so they're hoping to just force them to quit instead. They'll basically treat federal workers like Milton in Office Space - just keep degrading them and making their jobs worse by degrees in hope that they'll eventually get the message and just quit.
 
rodoheel said:
In this particular example, by eliminating the flexibility and autonomy that comes with full or partial remote work, which almost all employees in white-collar industries are now looking for to some degree. And many federal employees have gotten used to it as part of their jobs. Example: I have a couple law school classmates who work at the USPTO. Currently, after a couple years in DC, trademark examiners are able to work remotely from virtually anywhere in the US. (That policy long predates COVID.) That is a very attractive benefit, because a lot of people don't want to work in DC, and there's no real practical reason why they need to. Telling them they're all going to lose their jobs unless they move back to DC to work in a specific office is going to cause many of them to quit, and make it much harder to attract trademark examiners in the future.

But don't ask me - Vivek himself has been very transparent about the fact that he is hoping that forcing federal employees to work in an office full-time will result in large numbers of them quitting. They know it's very difficult to fire large numbers of government employees (and rightfully so) so they're hoping to just force them to quit instead. They'll basically treat federal workers like Milton in Office Space - just keep degrading them and making their jobs worse by degrees in hope that they'll eventually get the message and just quit.
Click to expand...
And if all those workers do decide to come back to the office, it’s going to be a serious challenge to fit them into existing space.
 
rodoheel said:
In this particular example, by eliminating the flexibility and autonomy that comes with full or partial remote work, which almost all employees in white-collar industries are now looking for to some degree. And many federal employees have gotten used to it as part of their jobs. Example: I have a couple law school classmates who work at the USPTO. Currently, after a couple years in DC, trademark examiners are able to work remotely from virtually anywhere in the US. (That policy long predates COVID.) That is a very attractive benefit, because a lot of people don't want to work in DC, and there's no real practical reason why they need to. Telling them they're all going to lose their jobs unless they move back to DC to work in a specific office is going to cause many of them to quit, and make it much harder to attract trademark examiners in the future.

But don't ask me - Vivek himself has been very transparent about the fact that he is hoping that forcing federal employees to work in an office full-time will result in large numbers of them quitting. They know it's very difficult to fire large numbers of government employees (and rightfully so) so they're hoping to just force them to quit instead. They'll basically treat federal workers like Milton in Office Space - just keep degrading them and making their jobs worse by degrees in hope that they'll eventually get the message and just quit.
Click to expand...
The company I work for had some difficulty getting people back in the office, but it eventually gets worked out. Many of our clients are bringing people back to the office. We implemented a work from home policy that is performance based. I don't necessarily mind full-time remote work as long as there is accountability. Accountability is often lacking in government jobs.

If they want to go to work from home, then get rid of the buildings or at least drastically scale back the on-site seats. Having a desk for each work from home employee is a waste.
 
ZenMode said:
The company I work for had some difficulty getting people back in the office, but it eventually gets worked out. Many of our clients are bringing people back to the office. We implemented a work from home policy that is performance based. I don't necessarily mind full-time remote work as long as there is accountability. Accountability is often lacking in government jobs.

If they want to go to work from home, then get rid of the buildings or at least drastically scale back the on-site seats. Having a desk for each work from home employee is a waste.
Click to expand...
I have no problem with downsizing federal government office space. What I have a problem with is a blanket policy of forcing every government worker (or the vast majority of them) back into full-time, in-person work, which is expressly intended to make working for the government less attractive.
 
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