Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 458: That's On Top Of The 20% Fentanyl Tax

(+) Yeah! (+)

Just remember.

We are Spartacus.

Xeybozn posted...

I'm not surprised that Trump wants to jail and/or murder his political opponents, but involving El Salvador is just baffling. It's not a large enough country to hold many people alive, but sending people there just to kill them would just slow the whole operation down. It's already clear that it won't work as a legal loophole or hide what he's doing. Why go through all the extra work when he could just do all that stuff here?

I would say that it IS clear that it's working, and that permanently disappearing them is his goal, which is significantly harder to accomplish in the US

I don't think there's any deeper reason behind using El Salvador other than it's a political ally that happens to already have an internationally recognized torture prison.

LightningStrikes posted...

However, I have a hard time seeing Millennials ever forgiving the right wing parties that governed through the financial crash until today.

Millennials grew up with Bush declaring the forever wars, promised they would always be anti-war, and then ended up largely supporting Israel escalating its forever war with US involvement. Most didn't even support ending Afghanistan. Memories are fully malleable.

I grew up being told I would "see the light" and turn conservative in my 30s. Ever since I was in my teens.

Yeah no, that shit never happened.

Yesmar_ posted...

I don't think there's any deeper reason behind using El Salvador other than it's a political ally that happens to already have an internationally recognized torture prison.

Nayib Bukele is a populist, authoritarian leader who has a reputation for being tough on crime; he's pretty popular since he was elected basically on the platform of putting gang members in gulags (you could argue it's understandable, given El Salvador's situation, but that's neither here nor there). It makes sense to me that he's the kind of guy Trump would cozy up to.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/0a92f97f.jpg

Efficiency!

Somehow it was working out to 160k~ per employee relocation? Employees who could simply just continue to do their full job working from home.

Sounds like at least in some cases they are pivoting to allow some of those employees to continue working from home indefinitely.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/6/642e9866.jpg

That's some commie woke shit

well here's a new one.

https://bsky.app/profile/jwmueller-pu.bsky.social/post/3lmtrmfyvds2n

Vance is now blaming Europe for failing to stop America from invading Iraq.

real "why did you make me hit you" energy

At a certain point, ones eyes cannot be rolled any further. I finally found that point.

I mean, he might as well just blame the UK because we were like, 95+% of European representation in Iraq, I think

Very Millennial statement from the future 1st Millennial president

Latest RIF Rumors:

(Per FederalNewsNetwork, Bloomberg and Office of Personnel Management)|

IRS had 100,000 employees around the start of the year, and their target is to reduce down to 60,000-70,000

It's being reported that approximately 20,000 employees have taken the deferred resignation as of DRP 2.0. This number could be adjusted either direction as employees over 40 have a longer window if time to accept the offer and/or rescind their acceptance. It is also unclear if the 7.3k~ probationary employees are being included in that figure as there are likely some probationary employees who (foolishly?) didn't take either DRP and will be on their way out regardless.

That could leave an additional 10-20k that would need to be eliminated throughout the RIFs.

Supposedly IRS employees will start receiving notices at the end of this week to let them know if they have been RIF'd, but rather than RIFing the full amount needed to meet their reduction goal they will be sending out notices every 2 weeks moving forward, possibly until September 30th~ when the deferred resignations become official at which point we would be at the 60-70k goal. This part in particular fucking sucks. Just rip off the damn band aid so I know if I have a job or not. Having a possible termination notice every two weeks for 5 straight months is actually going to be torturous. I know causing pain is actually the point, but seriously fuck this administration sideways for going out of their way to make even KEEPING a job as miserable as it could possibly be.

The overall numbers themselves are encouraging in terms of chances to keep my job, but there is this information from a leaked memo which indicates which departments are being affected at which levels:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/5/58f165fa.png

But we don't know what "Low, Moderate and High" even mean. I fall into Taxpayer Services so at least initially we're slated to be impacted less than most other areas, but then who knows how High the phase 2 impact will be.

And it's difficult to even scrape this information together as next to nothing is being communicated through official channels.

Seems like if your odds of keeping your job are around 40:60 you may just want to take the deferred resignation at this point, dude.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Seems like if your odds of keeping your job are around 40:60 you may just want to take the deferred resignation at this point, dude.

I would say my odds are quite a bit higher than that, but it's hard to know for sure without knowing how much of the job cuts need to come from Taxpayer Services.

But they have already found more than half of the job cuts from the voluntary resignations is what it currently sounds like, and I should have better performance and/or better tenure than a high enough % of others to remain

But there is an off chance that the AI that they get to review our resumes decides it doesn't like mine and none of that shit matters.

But yeah I'd say my odds of KEEPING my job are probably 80/20 if not higher. Not sure where you are gleaning 40/60 from.

Has anyone who resigned actually gotten any of the benefits they were promised?

I'm not in the right position to say from personal experience. Everyone in "Taxpayer Services" who has accepted a DRP has had to keep working longer than other departments. I have a coworker in my unit who was hired less than a year ago so she's a probationary employee and so she took the first DRP and was told she has to keep working until May 15th, then she'll get to go home and be paid until Sep 30th.

But the fine print in DRP 2.0 said that Taxpayer Services employees have to work through June 30th. Not sure if that's *just* for 2.0 and employees who took 1.0 will keep their original deal? I guess we'll find out in 4 weeks if she gets to go home or if they tell her to keep working through June 30th.

But my impression from the rumor mill is that there are other employees in other areas who are already being paid to not work, it's just not first hand information.

We had an employee who took the first fork and their timesheet still needs to be filled out each pay period with Administrative Leave - DRP or something along those lines. So, yes, I do believe they are actually getting paid.

foolm0r0n posted...

Very Millennial statement from the future 1st Millennial president

Hillbilly Nixon!

Not that the US is currently much better at all, but awful news out of the UK. Their Supreme Court just ruled - unanimously - that the law defines "woman" as someone born biologically female so now the TERFs are having their disgusting victory lap.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/uk-supreme-court-ruling-gender-equalities-law-defines-woman-born-biological-female/

Nice to know the world is working on the important issues like what defines a man or woman.

Absolutely terrible, an appalling ruling. It also has the bizarre effect of essentially ruling that the 2010 Equalities Act which was supposed to firm up transgender rights and protections actually made it so transgender people were no longer classed as the acquired sex whereas previously under the 2004 gender recognition act it had been the case. I had heard some progressives previously say that the Equalities Act was well meaning but not fit for purpose and I guess that turned out to be true.

While the full ruling is quite complicated (found here: https://supremecourt.uk/uploads/uksc_2024_0042_judgment_aea6c48cee.pdf) and is not universal in its all cases eg trans people can still have sex discrimination protections based on perception the transphobes and bigots are going to take this as a victory. More than that this is an obvious case of legislating from the bench, five totally unelected (not even indirectly like in the US) have just decided to basically change the law on their own with no oversight. Its the worst part of the US system and now its in the UK as well, with the Supreme Court only being established in 2009. Under the old system this would not have happened. Scrap the whole thing.

Yeah, I kept from commentating on further effects of the ruling because when I started to do that I quickly ran into more complicated (and conflicting!) info - especially re: how the ruling seems to try to claim that protections for trans people still exist in some form but I mean... - so I just decided this was out of my lane and I felt it was better to wait for someone more informed on UK law/politics like you to do so.

Even for me its difficult as it is incredibly complicated and dense, but it basically seems to be saying that as the Gender Recognition Act 2004 did not amend the definition of sex in the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, which was referring to biological sex, then so is the Equality Act 2010. Effectively the short points of the ruling are that a gender recognition certificate (GRC) under the 2004 act does not make you a man/woman for the purposes of the 2010 act, therefore you do not have protections against discrimination on the basis of sex unless perceived as a man/woman. Therefore GRCs are now only useful for changing sex on birth certificate/death certificate and titles in marriages. Other practical changes are yet to be seen.

A couple of fun tidbits:

-Surely under this ruling then a cis man who is perceived as a woman can also successfully sue for discrimination against women.

-Because they adopt a binary view of sex in the Equality Act, they are also effectively inadvertently saying that intersex people have no protections on the basis of being intersex as intersex is not considered a part of sex under this ruling and not explicitly mentioned in the act so it is now in theory legal to discriminate against intersex people. So thats not good.

Overall its a total mess that raises more questions than it answers, even the Equalities and Human Rights Commission is unclear about the implications. The current government has a manifesto commitment to maintain the Equality Act so barring another ruling means that the UK is stuck with this for the remainder of the parliament.

Edit: Oh hey, Lightning got there first. This is probably the big and obvious issue beyond the precedent it sets. From a political angle, I think a lot of it was done to prevent Scotland from having its own separate policy on trans people.

Another thing I will add is that this ruling made gender recognition certificates: the thing which would grant you rights based on the gender you transitioned to, essentially useless. So the only protection you would now get as a fully passing, transitioned person, is protection from specifically transphobic discrimination. From a legal point of view, even trans women who have done the full process of medical and social transition will be legally excluded from women's shelters, women's bathrooms and spaces, and anyone attempting to prevent them from accessing these spaces is legally justified.

Also, the court case itself was fucked. Multiple specifically anti-trans interest groups (such as the "LGB Alliance") were allowed to speak on the matter. The only group who wrote in explicit support of trans people were... Amnesty International, who are very much not a specific organisation dedicated to trans rights.

Sheep007 posted...

Edit: Oh hey, Lightning got there first. This is probably the big and obvious issue beyond the precedent it sets. From a political angle, I think a lot of it was done to prevent Scotland from having its own separate policy on trans people.

Another thing I will add is that this ruling made gender recognition certificates: the thing which would grant you rights based on the gender you transitioned to, essentially useless. So the only protection you would now get as a fully passing, transitioned person, is protection from specifically transphobic discrimination. From a legal point of view, even trans women who have done the full process of medical and social transition will be legally excluded from women's shelters, women's bathrooms and spaces, and anyone attempting to prevent them from accessing these spaces is legally justified.

Also, the court case itself was fucked. Multiple specifically anti-trans interest groups (such as the "LGB Alliance") were allowed to speak on the matter. The only group who wrote in explicit support of trans people were... Amnesty International, who are very much not a specific organisation dedicated to trans rights.

Just to clarify your second paragraph there paragraphs 250-252 of the ruling do state that trans people still have protections against discrimination based on sex due to perception of/association with that sex. Though that wont stop transphobes from saying they do not perceive somebody as a woman of course. Also you need a GRC to change your sex on your birth/death certificate and have the correct title for marriage. But no legal protections under the Equality Act.

Biological sex is real and a lot of old laws used it interchangeably with gender, which is wrong. Those should be fixed since they're waiting to be exploited like this. Not that it's the government's right to define scientific terms, let alone the courts.

LightningStrikes posted...

they adopt a binary view of sex in the Equality Act

And this is ALWAYS the case. Anti-trans people never care about actual biological sex, they always care about the gender binary, and want to enforce it through binary sex. They always exclude intersex or other sex conditions, and they never support actually sex testing babies instead of the genital-based guess that we do now. It's always an anti-science goal.

LightningStrikes posted...

The current government has a manifesto commitment to maintain the Equality Act so barring another ruling means that the UK is stuck with this for the remainder of the parliament.

Can you explain this more? It doesnt sound like something binding, it just sounds like a campaign promise? If its a campaign promise then they could just amend the law and say that their commitment was to maintain the obvious intent of the Equality Act.

Biological sex is definitely not real at least in a binary way, its an imperfect label like all labels we use for everything. Trying to build a philosophy around it was always nonsense but has caused real harm.

redrocket posted...

Can you explain this more? It doesnt sound like something binding, it just sounds like a campaign promise? If its a campaign promise then they could just amend the law and say that their commitment was to maintain the obvious intent of the Equality Act.

The UK has something called the Salisbury Convention which basically means that the House of Lords can block bills that are not manifesto commitments, so effectively a way of ensuring democratic support (as much as that exists in FPTP). Of course I doubt Labour would want to do that anyway given that they are terrified of their right flank and also one of their key players (Wes Streeting for those who are interested) is a big transphobe so I think it would take at least a cabinet reshuffle, probably a leadership change for any forward progress on this.

LightningStrikes posted...

Biological sex is definitely not real at least in a binary way

Which is why anti-trans insists on an sex binary, because they know the real biological sex is non-binary. Reject their anti-scientific BS entirely.

Why are you even accepting their false premise in your mind? Liberals always do this. You grant them all their lies, and then try to win on moral grounds in their false arena. Why? It's useful idiot behavior that should be rejected as harshly as anti-trans themselves.

what does binary mean in this context?

Is a spectrum and binary mutually exclusive? I think it's a little pedantic to say biological sex isn't real. Even in species that exhibit hermaphroditism it's still back and forth between two states. Or having two sexes simultaneously. But there aren't any cases where reproduction requires like...3 distinct sexes to operate.

Anything beyond 2 categories is mutually-exclusive with binary. Admittedly there aren't a lot of people outside of those two, statistically speaking, but that doesn't mean they should have to worry about the political outcomes landing on their heads.

paperwarior posted...

Anything beyond 2 categories is mutually-exclusive with binary. Admittedly there aren't a lot of people outside of those two, statistically speaking, but that doesn't mean they should have to worry about the political outcomes landing on their heads.

Good way of putting it, yeah.

Nothing about sexual identity or orientation should have anything to do with politics.

Binaries have no wiggle room. Even if you ignore spectrums when looking at male & female, there's already 4 obvious outcomes: male, female, neither (sterile), both. Male & female are more like dimensions than exact values, which reminds me of quantum qubits which combine 0 and 1 into a 2-dimensional object (I don't know the details of the actual biology so this might be totally wrong).

Anyways, I don't think there's statistically few in the world, considering how many billions of humans there are. Intersex alone has millions in the world. We don't do enough sex testing to really know how many non-binary complications there are, because society agrees that it doesn't really matter (unlike say, blood type). If we include sterile people as non-binary sex, it's an enormous number. That's a fun one to bring up to any biological sex advocates.

Honestly any movement that gets middle aged sterile people on their side will probably win. See how how Trump had to deal with the IVF controversy after he and P2025 demonized reproductive health.

a quantum quantum bit is normalized to have a length of 1 so exactly the same as a one dimensional spectrum in this context

https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/04/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-ensures-
national-security-and-economic-resilience-through-section-232-actions-on-processed-critical-minerals-and-derivative-products/

• China faces up to a 245% tariff on imports to the United States as a result of its retaliatory actions.
• This includes a 125% reciprocal tariff, a 20% tariff to address the fentanyl crisis, and Section 301 tariffs on specific goods, between 7.5% and 100%.

so trade is basically dead cool cool cool

Clearly, Xi has been just desperate as all heck to ring the White House

it is legitimately so fucking bonkers to see this administration seriously trying to go with the line that "China needs to make a deal with us!" when all the cards are in China's hand as the one who makes the shit we buy.

and the cult can't even comprehend that

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lmwvjih3722m

When they tried to assassinate Trump, the call was "Dems need to cool their rhetoric!"

When they tried to burn down Shapiro's house, the call is "Dems need to cool their rhetoric!"

Weird how that works.

Isnt the fentanyl crisis Americas fault since were apparently smuggling it into other countries??? China just gonna increase tariffs back because theyre not going to cave to old Diaper Don

swordz9 posted...

China just gonna increase tariffs back because theyre not going to cave to old Diaper Don

I actually think China said the last time they raised tariffs in response to all this would be the last because any further increase on their part would be meaningless because they've basically already set them to the level where US goods are completely non-competitive.

So they're probably just good sitting where they are.

Yeah, China said any additional tariffs from the US would be viewed as non serious and mathematically pointless or something.

And it's true. There's really no difference between 100% tariffs and 400% tariffs and 5,000,000% tariffs. At that point you simply don't but those products and find another option.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/16/us-customs-tariffs-revenue-generated-since-april-5.html

U.S. Customs and Border Protection appears to be contradicting President Donald Trumps comments on the daily revenue generated by his latest slate of tariffs.

The agency said in a statement to CNBC, Since April 5, CBP has collected over $500 million under the new reciprocal tariffs, contributing to more than $21 billion in total tariff revenue from 15 presidential trade actions implemented since Jan 20, 2025.

The update comes after a 10-hour glitch in the finance system prevented U.S. importers from inputting a code that would have exempted freight that was already on the water from being subject to the higher duties.

Even during the brief glitch, CBPs average $250 million/day revenue stream remained uninterrupted, CBP said in its statement.
Trump has repeatedly said the United States is taking in $2 billion per day from tariffs.

U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION, CBP, IS OUT OF CONTROL AT LEVELS NEVER SEEN AND WILL BE SUED TO THE FULL EXTENT. THANK YOU!

NFUN posted...

a quantum quantum bit is normalized to have a length of 1 so exactly the same as a one dimensional spectrum in this context

It's at least 2. It should be 4 since there are 2 complex coefficients, but the normalization reduces it to 3. Then I just learned that you can decide to make one of the imaginary coefficients 0, bring it back down to 2 effective dimensions.

foolm0r0n posted...

It's at least 2. It should be 4 since there are 2 complex coefficients, but the normalization reduces it to 3. Then I just learned that you can decide to make one of the imaginary coefficients 0, bring it back down to 2 effective dimensions.

alright, fair enough. I usually only deal with amplitudes so I accidentally pretend the complex components are always zero

foolm0r0n posted...

And this is ALWAYS the case. Anti-trans people never care about actual biological sex, they always care about the gender binary, and want to enforce it through binary sex. They always exclude intersex or other sex conditions, and they never support actually sex testing babies instead of the genital-based guess that we do now. It's always an anti-science goal.

It's 100% vibes based and their arguments are a lot more "consistent" (to use the term generously) once you realize this. Their two genders/sexes are essentially "vibes are fine (woman)" and "vibes are off (man)" and they sort everyone they see according to this.

Forceful_Dragon posted...

Yeah, China said any additional tariffs from the US would be viewed as non serious and mathematically pointless or something.

And it's true. There's really no difference between 100% tariffs and 400% tariffs and 5,000,000% tariffs. At that point you simply don't but those products and find another option.

But by doing it they anger 1 IQ Don into raising tariffs further and hurting the stock market more dont they?

China wants to be well positioned with the rest of the world to make it clear that they are not idiots and can be relied upon to be a stable trade partner. I think taking the logical high road is the right move for them.