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Cog wrote:What's even better is that after 30 days of shutdown Trump can do a RIF of non-essential personnel. Another win. I do not know if Trump will do that but I sure would.

Maybe he can close the IRS.

IRS Operations During the Appropriations Lapse
January 15, 2019 - Due to the lapse in appropriations, most IRS operations are closed during the shutdown. An IRS-wide furlough began on December 22, 2018, that affects many operations. During this period, the IRS reminds taxpayers that the underlying tax laws remain in effect, and all taxpayers should continue to meet their tax obligations as normal.

I'm sure you would love it. Your accountant? Not so much.

The Trump administration is taking thousands more government workers off furlough and making them work without pay

One of the notable recent elements of this partial government shutdown -- the longest in history -- is that the Trump administration keeps designating more and more of the federal government essential, or excepted from the furlough, ordering many thousands of workers back to the office to process tax returns, perform safety inspections and more -- all without pay.

The practical effect is that more government workers will be doing their jobs without their paychecks ......
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/16/politics ... index.html

I'm pretty sure Cog wouldn't show up, despite his adoration of our Commander-in-Chief.

If the federal workers don't like the deal they can quit. More winning.

Cog,

I presume you got that RIF idea from this article:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/20 ... _trap.html

From what I have seen of DC bureaucracy the 80% number is pretty close. Now my experience is limited to observing WMATA, and then just assuming it works all around. I’ve worked for a number of transit agencies, WMATA was the worst, but others were similar. Damn near impossible to get anything done.

Last year elsewhere we were discussing USA weather service forecasts and why they were so bad. So bad in fact that the USAF was subscribing to European based forecasts. Insider information came out that the service is not using advanced algorithms because they might put analyst out of work and the union fought against them. I’ve personally seen this kind of thing over and over.

You have four agencies that are over 90% non-essential. Let's start there. Yep that was the article I was thinking of.

Cog,

To be fair it’s as bad, or nearly so, in big engineering organizatons. Private sector is little better than public.

I know corporations have dead weight. But profit/loss generally extinguishes them over time. There is zero motivation for the federal government to shrink and a lot of motivation not to.

Cog wrote: ......There is zero motivation for the federal government to shrink and a lot of motivation not to.

I'm sure you would be in favor of shrinking the Border Patrol, Customs, and the TSA. Wouldn't affect you much.

I’m in favor of zeroing out TSA. They have found zero terrorists, they have a reputation for thievery, they got my laptop, they routinely let folks through who should not be, etc. Thousands Standing Around. It is Federal work fare.

What REALY pisses me off about them is when they stole my laptop they sent me to an online site for anclaims form. 1 page, front and back, written by some ghetto idiot who wanted to sound like a lawyer, the ghetto dialect came through. Hundreds of typos on the 2 pages. It would have be an F in a fourth grade class. Anyway first page was normal list baggage claim stuff, page 2, part 2 was for injuries sustained at the hands of TSA, page 2 part 3 was for Wringful Death Claims. I have no idea how the TSA imagines it can kill me but it scares me that they can. And if they do kill one of my loved ones sure as shit I ain’t gonna he filling out some stupid online form.

TSA? Zero it out!

Here is the current, cleaned up, copy of the form. It still has a death portion.

https://www.tsa.gov/sites/default/files ... 15-508.pdf

GHung wrote:

Cog wrote: ......There is zero motivation for the federal government to shrink and a lot of motivation not to.

I'm sure you would be in favor of shrinking the Border Patrol, Customs, and the TSA. Wouldn't affect you much.

The TSA should have never been created. Of course they should be disbanded. The BP and Customs do useful work to keep illegals out.

Here’s another bit about TSA to give you an idea of the scope. The guy interviewed stole $800,000 with of passengers stuff.

https://www.rt.com/usa/tsa-stealing-from-travelers-358/

Fear not friends. It's been obvious for years that government is becoming increasingly impotent and inept. At least they aren't even pretending to be functional anymore (at the top, anyway). Methinks our society is going to shed a lot of complexity going forward, and those who think that's necessarily a good thing haven't spent much time in places where that's going down.

Not good, but necessary and inevitable.

GHung wrote:Fear not friends. It's been obvious for years that government is becoming increasingly impotent and inept. At least they aren't even pretending to be functional anymore (at the top, anyway). Methinks our society is going to shed a lot of complexity going forward, and those who think that's necessarily a good thing haven't spent much time in places where that's going down.

There are societies around the planet far less entitled. The USA has the fallest to fall since it has a society believing in the good life. Most societies on the planet have far less entitled populations and they do not suffer the anxiety you currently see rippling through American culture and society.

We don't need no stink'in gov'mint.

KaiserJeep wrote:We don't need no stink'in gov'mint.

We need rules, just not rulers.

Eh, we have rules (laws), we just selectively enforce them. Which is as good as no rules.

I would say we need fewer rules, but to then enforce them fairly.

vtsnowedin wrote:An organized attempt at overturning the election would have had clear goals about what they wanted to accomplish and had plans to put people and even weapons in place with people competent and willing to use them to reach their goal.

True. They weren't competent and the money wasn't given with any specific actions other than storming the Congress and preventing the peaceful transition of power in our republic and knowing who the 'enemy' was, with specific names.

The only specific directions were "I'm bringing guns and the other person is bringing explosives and I can tie up those congress critters of the wrong party and we're going to get them."

Well, that's all, all over social media. Fortunately, one of them got stuck in traffic and couldn't make it on time, evidently.

(I should have just posted this on the new 2021 Insurrection thread I created, but I'll do that when I get all the sources lined up as I'm just responding now.)

Anyway, this just in, as these intermediary companies want nothing to do with insurrection and instigated violence:

Stripe will halt processing Trump campaign donations because of encouraged violence

Have any of you noticed the deep disconnect or dissonance between the message of the Republicans of personal freedom and liberty and the fact that they love authority and following a demagogue? Your average trump supporter is not a self actualized individual pursuing freedom. He or she is the very embodiment of sheepledom hanging on every word of a sociopath and following conspiracy theories like crack addicts and yet their message is all about defending personal liberty?

That just strikes me as deeply ironic !

It's not about the issues so much as the comfort that comes from tribal affiliation and loyalty.

aadbrd wrote:It's not about the issues so much as the comfort that comes from tribal affiliation and loyalty.

The tribal affiliation that has such a desperate edge to it really just means that a lot of people are sad and lonely and have no real meaningful organic community any more.

I really do think the antidote to this is when not only Donald Trumps Twitter feed is cancelled but everyone else's as well along with facebook and all the other digital shit out there. One is then left with no choice but to go back to communing once again with real people.

Organic community has a checks and balances in place that moderates behavior. Digital media empowers everyone to be a big fat asshole.

This is a tadbit off topic to the fallen emperor but it is perhaps more relevant than we might think.