Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 455: You should be thanking us for these topics

(+) Yeah! (+)

Forceful_Dragon posted...

Just got a message from my supervisor that my telework will continue until further notice.

Awesome!

I'm back in the office full time starting tomorrow. Less sleep, useless commute, less free time. Yay!

https://www.juneauempire.com/news/tribal-climate-discrimination-hate-speech-among-words-disappearing-in-new-trump-administration/

A link to the full list is also in this Reddit convo near the top: https://www.reddit.com/r/fednews/comments/1j6m1a3/flagged_words_list_for_your_information/

It generally tracks with what I've seen and heard.

Census person showed up at my door asking why I hadn't filled something out (no idea what that was about, don't recall receiving anything since the 2020 census) and I told her to give me the link to the online form to get her to go away.

I'm kinda wondering how anyone not fully on board with MAGA can live with themselves while they do that particular job, collecting people's information that, with the ongoing fascist takeover, can no longer expect to be handled in reasonably good faith?

I guess a job is a job, but...

foolm0r0n posted...

You do understand that your new bosses (Vought, Musk, Trump) want to make your job terrible so you quit right? They don't care at all about process or productivity right now.

Someone in your managerial chain does though, I guess? Do you know who is the highest executive who is still trying to keep things productive? That would be very interesting to know, because they are effectively at the front lines of the resistance.

If your goal is to keep your job during this period of crackdown, as a form of protest, I think it would be prudent to find that executive and tell them you are committed to defending your agency. They probably don't know how many allies they have under them.

Legitimately good idea, I'll set my work computer again tonight and see if I got an email that clarifies anything better.

.

foolm0r0n posted...

That said, fuck the IRS.

All we do is enforce the rules set by Congress, so blame them if the rules are terrible

Edit: also I'm not involved with enforcement. I help people who are getting money back

I know my brother went in (optionally, I think) Friday in preparation for RTW on Monday because he mentioned his entire unit got relocated in the building their physical space was at (presumably as they scramble to fit way too many people into too small a space) because he described the "new" place in a way that made it sound totally dilapidated - desks without electricity, desks not labelled, etc. and he was going in Friday to see what he could do to make it... borderline functional I guess?

Dunno if he got any similar update like you did though, haven't talked to him/gotten an update since then.

AxemRedRanger posted...

Census person showed up at my door asking why I hadn't filled something out (no idea what that was about, don't recall receiving anything since the 2020 census) and I told her to give me the link to the online form to get her to go away.

I'm kinda wondering how anyone not fully on board with MAGA can live with themselves while they do that particular job, collecting people's information that, with the ongoing fascist takeover, can no longer expect to be handled in reasonably good faith?

I guess a job is a job, but...

UltimaterializerX posted...

4th and 5th amendment, they can fuck off.

You do know that Census employs thousands of people, right? And tens of thousands more (mostly part time) who do the very tough job of actually going out and collecting the data, right? And that Census does more than just the census but the very important work of collecting data on behalf of other government agencies for the purposes of 5 year demographic estimates for communities around the country, unemployment data, health data, and many, many, many more things. And that they've been doing this for decades. And that collected data is protected to the fullest extent of the law. And that probably a lot of those people aren't very happy with everything going on at the moment and the bad impacts all this recent shit has done.

You know that, right? Because those people are civil servants, just trying to do their job, the same one they've been doing for years and years.

Seanchan posted...

protected to the fullest extent of the law

so not much anymore

Seanchan posted...

https://www.reddit.com/r/fednews/comments/1j6m1a3/flagged_words_list_for_your_information/

Why the fuck is status a banned word? I'm sure the military and ICE are really gonna like that (along with immigrant being banned in the latter's case)...

Seanchan posted...

You do know that Census employs thousands of people, right? And tens of thousands more (mostly part time) who do the very tough job of actually going out and collecting the data, right? And that Census does more than just the census but the very important work of collecting data on behalf of other government agencies for the purposes of 5 year demographic estimates for communities around the country, unemployment data, health data, and many, many, many more things. And that they've been doing this for decades. And that collected data is protected to the fullest extent of the law. And that probably a lot of those people aren't very happy with everything going on at the moment and the bad impacts all this recent shit has done.

You know that, right? Because those people are civil servants, just trying to do their job, the same and one they've been doing for years and years.

Oh, sure. Basically all of that sounds mostly accurate.

What it misses is that the laws, administrative firewalls, reassurances, and whatever else that used to be there to ensure the data is not misused no longer seem worth much and the ones at the top now are basically fascists. And even if privacy for census-collected data holds I kinda think it might be best if the fascists have less useful information, because you know, they're evil and all, and so in general we probably don't want them making more informed decisions with which to enact their ill will?

I'm sure most of the normal civil servants at the Census Bureau like elsewhere are extremely annoyed about the recent changes.

I'm not sure them feeling angry, annoyed, sad, upset, and everything else that their job seems likely to become (if it's not there already) basically gathering intelligence for the Nazis absolves them if they continue to do it.

if you don't want to give certain info the people from the census, don't. you don't have to and they themselves will tell you this. they're trying to find data that will be used to provide services for your neighborhood and it's up to you to give them that or not. there's no double checking, no anything besides what you say and you can say whatever you want.

Forceful_Dragon posted...

I'll check my work computer again tonight and see if I got an email that clarifies anything better.

E-mail located!

And predictably, it does not make any sense. At 11:30 AM I received:

Notification of Workspace Assignment

Employees are expected to report to their assigned Post of Duty for their full tour of duty beginning March 10. In a limited number of PODs, IRS is actively working to prepare additional space for employees to occupy. In limited circumstances, employees who do not have assigned space or are contact representatives or customer service representatives may be directed to telework temporarily.

You are being notified as an employee that must remain on telework at this time. You will be notified once space has been identified by the agency.

.

So I assume I qualify under the "are contact representative" portion of that because it certainly couldn't be an issue of space. I have been reported to the office one day a week for a few years now and I don't share that desk with anyone else on my shift. Someone else has that desk during the Swing shift, but that's it.

And I've been long saying that they could be 5x'ing the amount of people per desk to reduce the office overhead. They could have 5 different morning shift employees assigned to the same desk, each on their 1 day a week to report to the office and then 5 different swing shift employees. They could be fitting 1,000 employees at 100 work stations! But that would actually be an efficient change so that's automatically not possible.

So RTO is temporarily vanquished!

next up? Avert the government shutdown! Normally I would be all for it, but I actually want to be paid on time right now. I can't afford to not work and wait to be paid or even more likely work (because they would say I'm "essential" during tax season) and still wait to be paid.

After that hope they turn overtime back on. It's never mandatory, but it's usually always available except this upcoming week where they probably only turned it off due to shutdown uncertainty.

After that try to survive the 50% employee purge. ETA unknown but their proposal was supposed to be ready by the end of this coming week. But one thing at a time.

DOGE's contact info leaked: https://bsky.app/profile/2600.com/post/3ljqyhbdnrs2u

As far as I can tell its specifically leftist politics that fell out of favour over the past few years. Definitely explains Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders getting clobbered between 2019 and 2020, as well as the leftist policies of the Biden administration being the least popular outside the Democratic Party. Likely because of increasing anti-Communist sentiment.

LinkMarioSamus posted...

As far as I can tell its specifically leftist politics that fell out of favour over the past few years. Definitely explains Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders getting clobbered between 2019 and 2020, as well as the leftist policies of the Biden administration being the least popular outside the Democratic Party. Likely because of increasing anti-Communist sentiment.

Corbyn got clobbered in 2019 because of divisions on brexit, his terrible response on the Salisbury poisonings, and also the fact that people were just a bit done with him as a public figure. His policies consistently polled well individually or as a group. Bernie didnt really get clobbered at all did he, ultimately could have won with better unity among the progressive candidates. Also Bernie isnt particularly left wing anyway. The left saw a bunch of victories in other countries and defeats in others. Stop looking for patterns that arent there.

lefty politics fell out of favor before 19/20. Hell if anything in that exact time period was the most left we've been since 2015 or so (maybe a tad later in 2021 actually my bad), with that said its pathetically low.

Not much has changed since 2015/2016. Covid was just an exponential ramp up of the continued Casual Double Down Era that is sitll going on now.

None of this will end until people slash the amount of time they spend on the internet to about 20-25% of what they are currently doing.

What changed is that incumbent governments started getting thrown out left and right whatever their political philosophy was. Now the real test is going to be if Canada can buck the trend or if it will continue.

We should not pretend that this extra judicial kidnapping is new for US police agencies, but it is disgustingly blatant and catching a lot of societal support

https://bsky.app/profile/jphillll.bsky.social/post/3ljyp62xtoc2a

LightningStrikes posted...

What changed is that incumbent governments started getting thrown out left and right whatever their political philosophy was. Now the real test is going to be if Canada can buck the trend or if it will continue.

That is true admittedly, but popular policies combined with poor messaging sounds no different than the Biden-era Democratic Party to me. Plus its plainly obviously the leftist policies of the Biden administration were the least popular nationwide, making the Democratic Party seem isolated from what the rest of the country wants.

This is not however to say that right-wing or centrist politics are very popular either mind. The former are too prejudiced and the latter accomplish nothing.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/syria-reaches-deal-integrate-sdf-within-state-institutions-presidency-says-2025-03-10/

Syria and the SDF have signed a deal agreeing to end hostilities and reincorporate north eastern Syria into Syria itself. That is huge and hopefully signals that the civil war is bearing its end. Especially as there has been a lot of violence at the coasts lately.

I think people on the left should be honest with themselves - in the past several years, leftist social policies have done quite well while leftist economic policies (unless you count tariffs as left) have all but been left for dead.

red_sox_777 posted...

I think people on the left should be honest with themselves - in the past several years, leftist social policies have done quite well while leftist economic policies (unless you count tariffs as left) have all but been left for dead.

I mean I dont know about that. Maybe it depends on the country. The UK currently has a government that could well be argued to be economically left wing (not in every sense but overall in terms of tax/spend vs previous governments) but socially conservative. Time will tell how popular that proves, I expect not very.

https://twitter.com/trueanonpod/status/1899196557259345977?s=46&t=v9nzYLLBIiNYrqldFs9NWQ

America first means going against the 1st Amendment for criticizing Israel lol.

first they came for the palestinians

I mean he straight up said he wanted to turn Gaza into a resort. There was never a chance for Palestine once Trump entered office.

Which makes the anti-Kamala Palestinian contingent even more unhinged.

My next door neighbor was one of those. And now he posts every day about how upset he is that there's nothing that we can do to stop Trump and it's so hard for me not to say something.

you should say something

President Elon coming out swinging hard against Ukraine today.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/musk-calls-sen-kelly-traitor-trip-ukraine/story?id=119640282

Falsely accused them of DDOSing Twitter and then called Mark Kelly a traitor for saying that the US should support Ukraine and a peace deal can't just be a land grab by Putin. Comes with Rubio saying that Ukraine has to cede land to Russia today for a partial ceasefire deal.

https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-donald-trump-doge-b21b74f56f30012a6450a629e7232a1a

Also Elon saying that we have to cut $500-$700b from Social Security so I guess that's the next target despite how much the GOP (and even Trump) claim they won't touch that. Continued to claim the lie (that the agency has even denied under Trump) that there are 20 million dead people marked alive and drawing benefits.

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-lgbtq-conversion-therapy-ban-2f7d1648a274dec4f99ea99c7245245f

Oh yeah, and SCOTUS decided to take up a challenge to Colorado's ban on conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ children from someone claiming it infringes on their religious freedom so there's that too.

red_sox_777 posted...

I think people on the left should be honest with themselves - in the past several years, leftist social policies have done quite well while leftist economic policies (unless you count tariffs as left) have all but been left for dead.

If you count keynesianism as left, and I don't see how you wouldn't, then it has been wildly successful.

The only argument for non-left economic success is in communist countries like China increasingly adopting free market zones, which have also been wildly successful. But that indicates more that there is a point between keynesianism and communism that everyone is gravitating towards.

Musk has described it as the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,

It is a Ponzi scheme, but he forgets that the scheme refers to the entire US economy and is what backs the strength of the global reserve currency. This is why the tech bro faction of Trumpism is by far the weakest. They don't understand that everyone has already known what the problems were for decades/centuries, but they go along with it because it's beneficial to them. Tech bro accelerationists want the US to lose its illogical place at the top of the food chain, and I just don't see how they can achieve that.

Life itself is a ponzi scheme, you are going to die one day

In non-US Politics news, Rodrigo Duterte was arrested by the ICC in Hong Kong: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/11/philippines-ex-president-rodrigo-duterte-arrested-on-international-warrant

foolm0r0n posted...

If you count keynesianism as left, and I don't see how you wouldn't, then it has been wildly successful.

The only argument for non-left economic success is in communist countries like China increasingly adopting free market zones, which have also been wildly successful. But that indicates more that there is a point between keynesianism and communism that everyone is gravitating towards.

I guess I'm counting the current way it's practiced as centrist rather than left. Also, I'm not sure that Keynesian is a good way to describe it. Increasing government spending is a policy recommended by Keynes during recessions, but is printing a ton of money and buying risk assets for the purpose of inflating asset prices Keynesian?

"your not even allowed to do that" lmfao

https://bsky.app/profile/josephpolitano.bsky.social/post/3lk34rrqkek2s

I don't know why but I keep hearing it as a line out of Mean Girls ("She doesn't even go here!"?)

On a more serious note - remember all his bitching about this is stuff that Canada is allowed to do under his trade deal (USMCA) so if America is getting "ripped off" it's because he made a shit deal.

Trumps second term is really going to be a slow-motion 2020 isnt it?

LinkMarioSamus posted...

Trumps second term is really going to be a slow-motion 2020 isnt it?

Between COVID and it's consequences, late-stage capitalism going wild, climate control growing out of control, Jan 6, the advent of AI and cryptocurrency, the Russo-Ukrainian War, the War in Gaza, and Trump's reelection and everything he, Elon and the Project 2025 crew have been doing, this is looking to be seen one of the worst decades in history, or at least in the modern era.

Absolutely.

On a side note, I found out that Indian-Americans tend to be political moderates. They seem to overall think much more highly of the Clintons and Obama than Biden and Harris as a result. So that explains the Democratic Party losing support from minorities since Obama, though it would have likely happened anyway because as minority communities grow they get less monolithic. Really we need to stop thinking of Trump in terms of being a white nationalist MAGA leader, since last year he seemed to campaign more against the Democratic Party than against, say, women and minorities the way he did the first time. And that resonated with a plurality of Americans who were sick and tired of Democratic Party dominance - remember the youngest voters were not even teenagers when he was first elected.

LinkMarioSamus posted...

Absolutely.

On a side note, I found out that Indian-Americans tend to be political moderates. They seem to overall think much more highly of the Clintons and Obama than Biden and Harris as a result. So that explains the Democratic Party losing support from minorities since Obama, though it would have likely happened anyway because as minority communities grow they get less monolithic. Really we need to stop thinking of Trump in terms of being a white nationalist MAGA leader, since last year he seemed to campaign more against the Democratic Party than against, say, women and minorities the way he did the first time. And that resonated with a plurality of Americans who were sick and tired of Democratic Party dominance - remember the youngest voters were not even teenagers when he was first elected.

*Looks at all the anti-Trans ads*

And that resonated with a plurality of Americans who were sick and tired of Democratic Party dominance - remember the youngest voters were not even teenagers when he was first elected.

I dunno why you keep saying this. Theres certainly a sizable population that votes on the opposite party of the current President. But I think a very small percentage of Americans keep tally that far back. It also doesnt even feel like 3/4 terms of Democrats - Obama felt like forever ago and most of my memory of then was on the Tea Party.

Also Trump is 100% a white nationalist president. Between his word choice, his most adamant supporters, his inner circle, and his actions, theres no room for doubt.

And Elon Musk criticizes the existence of trans women in the Olympics, but the latest Olympic games had literally a child rapist, and he didn't say a thing about it.

The US has basically been ping-ponging back and forward since Obama was re-elected, and even that was the first time in like seventy years a president had been re-elected with a reduced vote share. Nobody has been dominant at all. What is happening is that voters are more volatile than ever and that is increasingly true around the world.

red_sox_777 posted...

but is printing a ton of money and buying risk assets for the purpose of inflating asset prices Keynesian?

Definitely yes, since it is deeply motivated by Keynes even if the guy himself would not say it was a good idea (because he was actually a good economist and did not want to destroy the world).

No different than calling gay conversion camps Christian or famine rationing Marxist.

Bitto posted...

I dunno why you keep saying this

His reality is very different than ours. Study him as a specimen of the Casual Revolution.

LMS is a cat in a lab coat. He doesn't know what all the scientists are talking about but he's sure going to try to fit in.

HanOfTheNekos posted...

LMS is a cat in a lab coat. He doesn't know what all the scientists are talking about but he's sure going to try to fit in.

Hey now.

A cat in a lab coat would be adorable.

LightningStrikes posted...

The US has basically been ping-ponging back and forward since Obama was re-elected, and even that was the first time in like seventy years a president had been re-elected with a reduced vote share. Nobody has been dominant at all. What is happening is that voters are more volatile than ever and that is increasingly true around the world.

We all know what is causing this chaos.

Trump posted about how the left is illegally boycotting Tesla. Elon must be feeling the pain if daddy Trump had to make a social media post supporting Tesla

lmao free market champions

the right is never going to buy an electric car and the left has been soured by the swasticars

so who is left to buy them?

Tesla stock is down something like 50% since Trump took office, so Elon is feeling a lot of pain financially. I wonder if he's already gone to Trump and asked him to stop with the tariffs.

Social media needs to die.