- January 19th, 2025, 9:24 pm
#665751
Thank the Lord, Biden and his cronies are gone.
Habakkuk 2:1-3
Moderators: jcmanson, Sly Fox, BuryYourDuke
SuperJon wrote: I love dc Talk.
Purple Haize wrote: ↑January 20th, 2025, 4:24 pm Melania was on point today.When is she not?
ballcoach15 wrote: ↑January 21st, 2025, 9:29 am The Coast Guard Commandant has been fired. Good move. She was nothing but a DEI hire, as was most of Biden's administration.Her being a DEI hire is something I could possibly live with if she had actually prioritized GUARDING OUR COAST. Nope. Totally focused on skin color, gender and sexual orientation. The new Commandant will need to do a major house cleaning to get rid of all the non merit based hires she has made.
TH Spangler wrote: ↑February 12th, 2025, 8:05 am Reason why some are trying to block DOGE from accessing records.Yeah, I’m all for cleaning up government waste and poor spending, but Musk has got to start operating with more transparency, or he risks just being the other side of the same coin he claims to be fixing.![]()
https://www.azernews.az/region/237543.html
DID SAMANTHA POWER EARN $23 MILLION AS USAID CHIEF?https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurra ... read-on-x/
No. Musk responded to a post on X claiming former USAID chief Samantha Power earned $23 million between 2020 and 2024. Power received a salary of $183,100 while working as administrator of USAID, according to federal records, and there’s no evidence suggesting she benefitted from her position to the tune of millions of dollars. In 2020, Power disclosed royalties and sales from her books—none of which exceeded $1,000—in addition to positions in several exchange-traded funds and mutual funds, including some holdings with Vanguard valued up to $1 million. In 2024, Power disclosed a retirement fund valued at up to $1 million and other assets held in ETFs and mutual funds. Over four years, some of Power’s assets rose in value, but many of them were mutual funds that track broad stock market indexes—and there isn’t any evidence that growth had anything to do with her job at USAID.
jpwood wrote: ↑February 11th, 2025, 9:27 pm I have no problem with DOGE itself, but I’m not a fan of Elon leading the charge. His companies have benefited heavily from government support, so I don’t see why Trump would choose him to run this.Can’t say I know a lot about Elons deals with the government but in the case of space x it’s safe to say that’s been a mutually beneficial relationship. Prior to space x stepping up to the plate we were paying Russia around $86 million per seat to take astronauts to space. Now an American company based in one of the poorest parts of the country is doing it for about $10 million per seat cheaper despite massive inflation over that time.
Trump is Firing Government Employees, but He Learned from the Master: Bill Clinton and the Birth of the Deep State
As President Donald Trump announces plans to restructure the federal government and remove entrenched left-wing activist bureaucrats , the Left has reacted with outrage. Many claimed that such firings are an unprecedented attack on the civil service. However, history tells a different story. The blueprint for mass firings in the federal government was not drafted by Trump—it was authored by President Bill Clinton.
The Creation of Bill Clinton's Deep State
For the record, President Bill Clinton took drastic action upon entering office, firing all federal appointees and those reporting directly to them, reaching three levels deep into the management hierarchy. This included upper-level, middle-level, and lower-level managers. Such sweeping dismissals were unprecedented in modern history.
The stated reason for these actions was to reform government and make it more efficient. Under the guise of the 1993 "Reinventing Government Initiative," Clinton oversaw the termination of 377,000 federal employees. This initiative, led by then-Vice President Al Gore, was marketed as an effort to cut bureaucratic bloat. Clinton publicized that his administration reduced the government payroll from 2.15 million employees to 1.79 million by the end of his term (U.S. Office of Personnel Management). However, while he claimed to be trimming the size of government, he was in reality expanding it dramatically.
Rather than actually reducing the government’s reach, Clinton tripled its size by shifting millions of jobs to government contractors. This maneuver allowed his administration to hide the true expansion of government within the bureaucracy. The federal workforce, under his administration, effectively grew from 2.15 million to a staggering 9.1 million (Project On Government Oversight), all hired by liberal activist managers.
This restructuring was the foundation for what has become the “deep state”—an unelected bureaucratic class that exercises significant influence over government operations, often in opposition to elected leaders who challenge the status quo. The same entity that Trump is now attempting to confront was a product of Clinton’s drastic reshaping of the federal workforce.
Setting the Precedent for Trump’s Actions
The Democrats are framing Trump's efforts to remove government employees as radical and dangerous. Yet, Clinton, a Democrat, set the precedent for such dismissals. The key difference is that while Clinton’s actions were aimed at consolidating power within a left-leaning bureaucracy, Trump’s efforts have been directed at reducing that bureaucracy’s grip on governance and returning government to the people.
Trump’s battle against the entrenched federal workforce is not an attack on democracy—it is an attempt to undo a system that was carefully crafted over decades to resist conservative leadership. The idea that federal employees should be immune from accountability is a modern invention, and Clinton himself showed that mass firings could be justified in the name of reform.
As the debate over federal employment rages on, it is important to remember who first wielded the axe. Trump may be making headlines for firing government employees, but he is merely following in the footsteps of the master—Bill Clinton.
jpwood wrote: ↑February 12th, 2025, 9:21 am There’s no publicly available financial evidence to support the claim that she was worth anywhere near that—just Elon basically saying, “Trust me, bro.” And since it fits a certain narrative, people are eating it up.
TH Spangler wrote: ↑February 12th, 2025, 10:13 amYou’re missing the point. There’s no evidence her net worth has increased as much as he says it did.jpwood wrote: ↑February 12th, 2025, 9:21 am There’s no publicly available financial evidence to support the claim that she was worth anywhere near that—just Elon basically saying, “Trust me, bro.” And since it fits a certain narrative, people are eating it up.Musk isn't mentioned in that article.
And his only comment seems to be on X saying, "Sounds very fishy".
JK37 wrote: ↑February 12th, 2025, 3:09 pmYou're missing that he didn't say it. He read about it just like you and I and comment, "sounds fishy".TH Spangler wrote: ↑February 12th, 2025, 10:13 amYou’re missing the point. There’s no evidence her net worth has increased as much as he says it did.jpwood wrote: ↑February 12th, 2025, 9:21 am There’s no publicly available financial evidence to support the claim that she was worth anywhere near that—just Elon basically saying, “Trust me, bro.” And since it fits a certain narrative, people are eating it up.Musk isn't mentioned in that article.
And his only comment seems to be on X saying, "Sounds very fishy".
TH Spangler wrote: ↑February 12th, 2025, 10:13 amElon’s tweeted about it a bunch, and now articles like the one you shared are treating his posts like the gospel truth.jpwood wrote: ↑February 12th, 2025, 9:21 am There’s no publicly available financial evidence to support the claim that she was worth anywhere near that—just Elon basically saying, “Trust me, bro.” And since it fits a certain narrative, people are eating it up.Musk isn't mentioned in that article.
And his only comment seems to be on X saying, "Sounds very fishy".
flamehunter wrote: ↑February 12th, 2025, 11:46 am Same people who were screaming about how wrong the Covid skeptics were are now screaming about DOGE "lies".The same folks who were loudly skeptical about COVID are now treating every word Elon says as gospel.
jpwood wrote: ↑February 12th, 2025, 7:04 pmWas simply an observation. Let's give it a couple years and see who was right.flamehunter wrote: ↑February 12th, 2025, 11:46 am Same people who were screaming about how wrong the Covid skeptics were are now screaming about DOGE "lies".The same folks who were loudly skeptical about COVID are now treating every word Elon says as gospel.
See? Two can play that game.
Whataboutism isn’t an argument; it’s just a shortcut to avoid having one.