There are no more men
King frumpy's two sex mandate turned everyone into women... seriously.
This will be the biggest crime spree the world has ever seen.
The End.
US federal government contractors are no longer subject to anti-discrimination rules over hiring, training, and employment – after President Trump reached back 60 years to scrap an equal opportunity order signed by former President Lyndon B. Johnson. In an executive order published today, Trump rescinded several prior …
I found it curious how the "there are only two genders" crowd also seem adamant that the Algeria woman boxer during the Olympics should not have been able to compete as a woman. If there are only two genders, which is she? She has a vagina, and no penis, and that's how she was born, she's not trans. Surely that makes her a woman, and thus eligible? I mean, she's quite obviously not a man so by a process of elimination, she's a woman.
They are all for simplicity and "common sense", until suddenly it doesn't suit them and then "it's complicated".
Yes, it is. Life is complicated. Which is what people have been trying to explain to you for many years.
They are all for simplicity and "common sense", until suddenly it doesn't suit them and then "it's complicated".
It is simple, but complicated. XX or XY, female or male. Simple. But then nature and genetics sometimes throws a curveball and we have XX males. Other combinations exist, which result in other characteristics that don't fit neatly into the 'two gender' norm. I have no idea what genetics the Algerian woman has, and there's obviously ethical considerations around forcing disclosure. But there are also fairness and safety considerations as her genetics have obviously given her a competitive advantage.. Which is also the issue around M-F trans people. Insisting on the 'two gender' norm doesn't fit those edge cases, so that's just something sports and society are going to have to deal with.
"Usain Bolt's genetics gave him a clear advantage... should we ban him from running?"
In women's races, yes. If he suddenly declared he was a she and went on to race against biological females, would that be fair? Or if someone who has only ever been a mediocre male swimmer suddenly "becomes" a woman and suddenly all the "women's records" are the same as the mediocre man's records were, is that fair? What about the women whose records now count for nothing?
We have had separate events for men and women for centuries, for a reason. If trans athletes want to compete fairly, let them have their own events where they compete against other trans athletes.
My point was that "it's complicated".
As you say, the reality of gender is that it is far more nuanced that whether you have a cock or a fanny. But that's precisely the point the "two genders" crowd dispute.
And they seem to be the people most vociferously objecting to this particular woman boxer. If they don't think she's a woman, and obviously not a man, then how does that fit with a "two genders" position?
And if they try to square it by saying she's a woman, but with some physiological advantage, then surely the same should be applied to any athlete with freak physiology that benefits them. For example Miguel Indurain and his oversized lungs springs to mind, and Ian Thorpe's massive feet and hands, but I am sure there are many, many others.
I cannot help feeling that a guy with big lungs or big feet doesn't arouse any of their prejudices, but a "butch" woman does.
There's also an XXY variant. Doesn't usually cause physical issues but indivduals can have issues with, emotionally and sexually, figuring whether to behave male or female.
And there's an XYY variant I think which tends toward aggressive behaviour.
But whatever the mix we're all human - tolerance is the key.
But whatever the mix we're all human - tolerance is the key.
Indeed, but then there are sometimes edge cases like the Algerian boxer. Sport encourages 'fairness', sports like boxing do that by splitting fighters into weight categories, so a flyweight doesn't go up agains a heavyweight. Genetics obviously plays a part, so I used to fight in an under 81kg class. There was no real point trying to move up weight classes because of my height, reach and even hand size would put me at a disadvantage. But for full contact sports, there's also the safety angle, and the ethical/moral arguments around men vs women. We used to spar with the women, and some could happily beat me senseless.
I'm curious what the genetics are around that woman, but it's obviously an edge case because boxers like her are a rarity. If the sports bodies have determined she's a woman, that should be good enough,and I suspect she's had more than enough bullying over her physique. But genetic variation is a fascinating subject, so I like the example of XX males because they typically present as male, and that condition is often only diagnosed when there are fertility issues.
You don't box with a vagina. You box with the testoterone-fuelled body after male puberty that give you the height and reach and punch strength, something the female boxer on the end of his glove seems to care about more than you. You have no idea what Khalif has in his pants but he has failed a test that confirmed he was female so don't rush to sex him without facts.
You box with the testoterone-fuelled body after male puberty that give you the height and reach and punch strength,
Yep, so should trans people be allowed to compete when they have that advantage?
something the female boxer on the end of his glove seems to care about more than you.
Obviously I do care, because I keep mentioning the safety issue, and that reality is more complicated than '2 genders', narrow categorisation and that sometimes, there will be edge cases that raise safety or fairness issues, despite what activists might want.
You have no idea what Khalif has in his pants but he has failed a test that confirmed he was female so don't rush to sex him without facts.
Neither do you, yet are content to judge her. She passed various boxing boards tests and was cleared to compete. Do you think all sportspeople should be required to publish their medical records, despite those being rather personal. Or should we just trust the IOC-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imane_Khelif#
Later, the IOC confirmed receiving the letter from the IBA in June 2023, and stated that "from the conception of the test, to how the test was shared with us, to how the tests have become public, is so flawed that it's impossible to engage with it"
Especially when at 1.78m and 66kg, she's not atypical for a woman, and power might just be down to diet and training.
Agreed. That's the *literal point* of these scrapped laws. People are psychologically disposed to prefer things that align with their own world view, including their own biases - whether consciously or unconsciously. I can't even.
It always surprises me that the USA, which claims to hate absolute monarchs, has a system in which the President can apparently rule by dictate. This could not happen in the UK for example as the PM would have to get approval from parliament -- and the King does not have the power to make unilateral orders like this.
A lot of the stuff he's doing is clearly illegal - like his executive order undoing birthright citizenship, which is in the Constitution. Other stuff like this is likely illegal, but not so clearly illegal that it would be instantly struck down by the courts. Whether it has any lasting effect will be based on whether a judge puts a stay on enforcement when a lawsuit is filed, and whether that stay is overturned by a higher court or not.
With our corrupt Supreme Court who knows what they'll do.
A tornado of Grift for the oligarchs (Musk, Bezos and Zuck) with Trump mopping up the offcuts more like.
The MAGA faithful may (may is probably over optimistic) start to see the light and understand that Trump 2.0 is only in it for the $$$$ for him and his pals including those on the supreme court.
Everyone else is ripe to be milked or locked up and deported..
@DS999 "Other stuff like this is likely illegal"
Really, I would have thought rescinding prior executive orders are one EO a President can issue that can't be overturned by the courts.
After 60 years Johnson's Equal Employment Opportunity EO is erased on the whim of one man. There should have been no need for the EO, after 60 years Equal Employment Opportunity should have been laws passed by congress.
7 of the 9 justices on the Supreme Court are Catholic. No problem with the average Catholic per se but that does seem to be a disproportionate representation of one, or at least one branch of religion.. Full disclosure, I was raised as a Lutheran but I got better.
Like how there was no need for Roe vs Wade almost half a century later because Congress should have passed a clarifying ammendment?
Sometimes the system doesn't function justly and it needs a little tweaking to stop the bad guys from undermining the entire system.
Congress can't pass an 'amendment'. That requires 3/4 of the states to go along after congress has had their say. There has never been a time where 3/4 of the states would have supported abortion rights.
So all congress could have done is pass a law making Roe v Wade the law of the land. I don't think for a second that would have stopped our current Supreme Court. They'd rule that life begins at conception, and the guarantees in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence itself invalidate any law permitting any abortion at all meaning there would no longer be ANY exceptions for stuff like rape, incest or the life of the mother. I would not be surprised to see such a ruling come from this court in the next few years, in response to one of the cases against some of the more extreme abortion bans.
My understanding is, especially as things stand right now, that voting it into law would only have been a bump in the road.
All they needed was someone to bring suit saying they are adversely affected by it and some courts that are willing to support that point of view
Just like how Congress should have passed a law legalising abortion federally instead of relying on the very shaky legal grounds that Roe v Wade was based on. But no, by keeping RvW as a threat that could be gone at any moment, the Democrats gained yet another political football, legalising it would take that away from them. It's all absurd politics at the end of the day.
I'm not sure I see how relying on RvW provided the Democrats with any real advantage? I can see why they might not have been keen to press on getting it written into law (given the strong feelings on both sides), but I am genuinely puzzled why having this as a "political football" was to their advantage.
Obama promised to codify RvW if he won in 2008 and even with a majority on both houses he declared that 'now is not the right time' and kicked it down the road.
Politicians don't want to solve anything as it means they will need to find a new way to justify their existence.
>After 60 years Johnson's Equal Employment Opportunity EO is erased on the whim of one man. There should have been no need for the EO, after 60 years Equal Employment Opportunity should have been laws passed by congress.
It was, in 1972. The Equal Employment Opportunity Act.
As I understand it, however, federal prosecutors have just been ordered to pursue no cases related to civil rights legislation. I presume individuals have some sort of standing in respect of potential damages, but it looks like the law has effectively been suspended from a government point of view.
"like his executive order undoing birthright citizenship, which is in the Constitution."
Actually, it's not but through precedence it has become "everybody knows" rather than enshrined in law. If you look into the background material surrounding the 14th amendment, which is what is being referred to, the premise behind it all was to ensure that former slaves (otherwise country-less) would be US citizens.
The really odd off-shoot of there being the born in US = Citizen is there are people around the world that have never been to the US since being born on US soil, are considered citizens. Especially when it comes to taxes. There's a tourist trade that's often people from China that will book a stay in the US to have a baby and then return home having made sure the birth is properly registered. That's to give the child the option to claim US citizenship later. Many coming from the south use having a baby in the US to give themselves an anchor to remain in the US. My mother was a labor & delivery nurse in California and saw that every day. The women would come in bursting so the hospital had to take them, they gave a very "Jane Doe" sort of name and the guy with them was "just a friend" who also spoke no English. The paperwork would list the baby's father's surname since in all likelihood, the mother and father were married, just not admitting anything so no hospital bills would find them.
The US does admit a large number of people as emigrants every year with a large proportion allocated to people from Mexico and Central/South America. Gaining citizenship isn't nearly as difficult as someplace like the UK either. For one thing, there isn't a language requirement. Something needed to be done to prevent the gaming of the system. If this is the right thing is debatable, but it's something and asking for the moon and settling for LEO is a common practice.
"Every Country with Unrestricted Birthright Citizenship (jus soli):
The following countries have unrestricted birthright citizenship: Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chad, Child, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Fiji, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Lesotho, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, the United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela."
From https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-with-birthright-citizenship
"Actually, it's not but through precedence it has become "everybody knows" rather than enshrined in law."
Yes, the sentence "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." is so ambiguous. Let's defer to something else to see what it means. Surely it wasn't meant to apply after the 1860s. I'm sure they just forgot to write the "unless it is not a former slave, in which case you can decide on a whim whether they are".
Maybe it's a bad idea, in which case they can remove it. All they have to do is pass another constitutional amendment reading "That being born here makes you a citizen thing, not anymore." which you can campaign for if you desire.
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
Fighting beliefs with facts, never going work - and that handwriting on the original is so hard to read, you've probably just fallen for wokeypedia twisting their transcription or something...
...though if you are right, at least the police over there can start deporting the children of the Sovereign Citizen brigade.
1898 supreme court decision decided that the 14th amendment did mean that. Seems a bit ambiguous over all but "all persons being born or naturalized in the united states" doesn't seem ambiguous. It they intended to have limitations i would think they'd be in there. The "and subject to the jurisdiction..." might be construed to set limits for someone flying in one day and out the other, but if someone is born and stays they are certainly subject to the jurisdiction.. and i think must be considered citizens with the rights and responsibilities of a citizen.taxes, jury duty etc.
He's not 'undoing birthright citizenship'; any one born in the US remains a US citizen. What he is removing is the automatic right of the mother/parents to remain in the US if they are there illegally. They are going to get deported. If they want to abandon their child, that's their call.
I do not live in the US, but I am appalled at the apparent lack of standards in the US Supreme Court.
I'm a purchaser for my company, and as a thank you for an order, a network supplier sent me a a branded orange hi viz jacket, a branded orange ball point and an orange packet of sweets.. Probably about £40 worth of stuff. When I declared this, I was warned I should not have accepted it (I didn't, technically, it was left on my desk by a porter). These guys can apparently get away with recieving millions of dollars of of gifts, seemingly with no consequence, and not even a real emphasis on declaring the gifts..
Most companies in the UK have an 'acceptable gift limit' to try to make it clear what is a genuine gift of appreciation, and what is a bribe.
£40 would not, in my experience, cross this threshold for any of the companies I have worked for, although it would be worth checking what is acceptable in your company.
"Apparently it was codified by Congress in 1972, with the Equal Employment Opportunities Act. Which an EO can't overturn."
No. But Sauron the Orange has the GOP firmly in his revolting sweaty grip, and in turn the GOP have a majority in both houses, and of course StO has stuffed the supreme court with his lackeys. So for now the act stands, but there's precisely nothing to stop him telling the bootlicking arsewipes of his cabinet to revoke or amend the act.
A few months back many would have said such talk was fantasy, but now?
Americans might not have a person with the title King or Queen, but they very much have a two-tiered society. You might not know them as corporate leadeship. Notice the similarities, people giving themselves bullshit three letter acronyms like CEO this and that, hardly any different from the old titles of Lord, Earl. Both love to tell you about founders.
Both types of leadership, have the situation where leaders pay theselves obscene amounts of money, they also love to force and tell you how much everyone loves their leader, im thinking of Fox news and places like LinkedIn or glassdoor where its all about the leadership and how everyone approves of them.
Look at old days and America, lots of hard working ppeople who die and work their hearts out and yet they are poor and can barely afford a roof, and yet corporate leadership or earls and lords lived on massive country homes.
Nothing really changed, only idiots think because someone isnt called King that mean they dont exist.
Americans might not have a person with the title King or Queen ...
while that's true, I'm always surprised that all/most American science fiction stories DO have kings and queens (and emperors), and they always/mostly have very hierarchic societies, with very strong and autocratic leadership : Star-Wars, Dune, Star Trek, Brave new World, Time-Out, the Foundation series ...
Not so minor quibble: get your authors nationalities right in future.
Its quite easy: just look up the author in Wikipedia or any good encylopaedia.
"Brave New World" WAS NOT American science science fiction. As any fule kno it was written by British author Aldous Huxley in 1931 and published in 1932.
Its nearest rival in the dystopian novel stakes, George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four", who was also a British author, was published in 1949.
BTW neither Huxley nor Orwell considered themselves to be SF authors.
BTW neither Huxley nor Orwell considered themselves to be SF authors.
Unfortunately it's other people's views which count. This also deals with schlock sci-fi writers who claim that their Lovecraft fanfic - or whatever - is proper literature.
Did you know that "Cold Comfort Farm" is often counted as sci-fi, because it includes aerial taxis and videophones?
I haven't read 'Cold Comfort Farm' for so long that I can't recall anything about it. So I probably didn't like it.
I've never liked Lovecraft either: I've just never liked anything in the ghosties and goulies wu-wu category, just as I've never much liked Asimov and now won't read much of his stuff apart from "The Gods Themselves" and some of the stand-alones like "Pebble In The Sky" or "The Stars Like Dust": def. not the "Foundation" series or for that matter most of Iain M Banks SF novels, which I thought got very repetitive after the half dozen and Feersumm Endjinn.
My tastes have changed: these days I prefer the likes of Poul Anderson, Harry Harrison, Neal Stephenson, David Brin, Ken Macleod, Sturgeon, Zelazny and Fred Hoyle.
That's because most American sci-fi writers - particularly in the golden age - were authoritarians verging on fascists. You know the sort of thing: "Society had become decadent (entartete Kunst, anyone?) until science took over and ruled with the power of pure reason." Incel fantasies, basically. Asimov's "Foundation" series is an extended hymn of praise to fascism.
You should consider how many of those, not all but quite a few, were either specifically pointing out that these were bad things or were set in worlds that were intentionally flawed. Most of those were not intended to be utopian. True, the hierarchy in Brave New World didn't topple at the end, dismantled for egalitarianism, but that ending wasn't supposed to be a happy one. Star Wars gives you a lot of different stories, most of which I don't know, but the first one was being ruled by an emperor who was kind of an evil guy, what with all the mass murdering, and the heroes intended to remove him, not to make themselves emperor instead, but to put a republic in place. Whether they actually did that is something I don't know because it got a bit boring after a while, but even if they didn't, I don't think that would have been written as a positive.
I think you're making a mistake by assuming that science fiction is intended to be or should be utopian. Just because a futuristic utopia might have similar technology or aesthetic senses as some of it doesn't make that. A lot of it is explicitly dystopian, either totally where everything is terrible or intentionally making a world where technology made things worse. Many more are aiming for a flawed world like ours, where the advances in science didn't miraculously make humans nice and we still have the same kind of challenges we've always had. Hierarchies exist today, and I don't see a reason to assume that they will inevitably decline. Maybe that's a message to us, saying that we have to do the work ourselves to make societal changes we want.
I think you're making a mistake by assuming that science fiction is intended to be or should be utopian
I think you're making the mistake that I assume that science fiction should be anything : I'm simply describing how the Americans (right, brave new world was written by a British) see the "normal" political landscape, with Barons and Dukes, Emperors and Generals, Queens and Princesses, who legitimately rule their people, who obey happily. No democracy, no anarchy, no revolution, always some sort of feudal concept.
Compare Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones : the first is full of Hobbits, Wizards, Ents ... who rule themselves, while the second is full of inherited ruling families; even the Night's Watch – the outcasts – is ruled by the Lord Commander.
Except many of your examples didn't show that at all. When the authortarian leadership is evil, then they're not ruling legitimately and people aren't obeying happily. Several of your examples show people disobeying violently, which is quite a difference, even if at the end the disobedient peasants are killed and the leaders keep leading. There is a major difference between a monarch being universally respected and a monarch acting like dictators do but being successful about it.
And now you're not even talking about science fiction, but fantasy. And there I agree with you, though not on the nationalist stereotype. One of the problems I have that makes me dislike some fantasy is the way unrealistic monarchies exist and the plots that only make sense if authoritarian politics worked in a way it normally doesn't. Not that your example is of that, since as I understand them without having read them, the Game of Thrones monarchs were rather nasty people, not universally revered ones. But Americans didn't invent that, nor do British writers avoid it.
No, they can't, because if they do their own party can rebel. UK Prime Ministers are not elected; they are the leader of the party that formed the government, and leaders can be replaced.
If Starmer's Labour Party are unhappy with what he does they can vote to remove him. Since they are not doing so, one must presume that they are in the main happy with it.
If the PM has the votes needed then that in itself IS parliamentary approval even if undisclosed ‘arrangements’ were made to facilitate the result.
The Churchillian quote on democracy ‘...Worst form of government apart from all those other forms that have been tried...’ will always ring true until we can find a way of selecting honest people capable of rational & critical thinking for the job.
"The Churchillian quote on democracy ‘...Worst form of government apart from all those other forms that have been tried...’ will always ring true until we can find a way of selecting honest people capable of rational & critical thinking for the job."
Having MPs selected in the same was as jurors would be a good start, as would be two terms as MP maximum. At the moment we have an entrenched duopoly who offer 90% identical policies, 10% theatre of difference, and whose joint purpose is simply to perpetuate the duopoly whilst milking as much as possible.
It's irrelevant how MP's are selected. While their vote on any issue in parliament is public, they will always be bullied, coerced, or bribed (think whips) their vote will match the wish of their party leader.
We need to replace voting by passing publically through a door with private ballots.
The Parliament Act* is there to ensure that bills passed by the elected Commons cannot be blocked or radically changed by the unelected Lords. It's there to guarantee that elected members have the final say.
Blair's fox hunting law was passed with a large majority by the Commons, the Lords sent it back with amendments designed to gut most of the provisions, after it became clear that the Lords did not want to play ball he invoked the Parliament Act.
*invoked only about a dozen times since 1911
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Like most non Americans you fail to understand our system.
Any Executive Order can be rescinded by a future President. This is not dictatorial in any way!
Any law passed by Congress can be repealed by any future Congress (harder)
Any clause in the Constitution or any Constitutional amendment can be over turned by passing a new amendment (very hard)
If you want something to last, pass a bill in Congress. If you want it to last along time, pass an amendment!
Executive orders are to inform and direct the "executive branch" on how to implement and administer the government, they are not LAWS! This was an EO directed by a past president that a future President revoked! Nothing more, nothing less.
The EO that Johnson signed was unnecessary! The Civil Rights act of 1963 already makes discrimination illegal!
Sort of. Most of them may well be hand picked Trump supporters, but once installed, they are no longer beholden to him. They have to resign, retire or die. They can't be fired on a whim, but can be impeached. And as we've seen in recent years, impeachment is hard. Only one has been impeached and that was 225 years ago. And was then acquitted by Congress. On the other hand, I can see Trump spitting his dummy if the Supremes go against him and having a damned good try at "firing" one or more. Or just claiming one or more are "enemies of the state" and making another "will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" speeches such as at the end of his previous tenancy in the Whitehouse.
You are correct, but it requires congress to agree, and does only require a "simple majority". But it's a contentious enough action that it would require almost every single Republican Representative and Senator to agree and that is still fairly unlikely. While the Reps have a majority in both houses, it's a fairly slim majority in both case. Not all are MAGA supporters and some will be leaving after their current stints so have little to lose if they choose to vote against such a Bill. And currently, Trump has no real need to even contemplate such a move. Yet :-/
Parliament can be closed without it being asked because we simply don't want them voting extensions to their term of office. Cromwell for that very reason* shut it down to become a dictator in 1653.
Since the restoration, (in a very British compromise), Parliament is sovereign apart from the ability to decide when there has to be an election, that decision resides with the monarch who has for the last few hundred years acted on the advice of the PM.
*Cromwells actions are a really clear warning about power & corruption.
"Cromwells actions are a really clear warning about power & corruption."
In fairness, he *had* just conquered the country and Conquerors are not noted for their obedience to existing laws or conventions.
1066 is often regarded as the last successful invasion of England and Wales, but I can think of 5 subsequent changes of regime that involved pointy sticks and fireworks. For the most part, however, it was local lads waving the sticks.
Blaming "woke" when they can't get the job they think they deserve. So now they are going to enable discrimination that allows white men to hire white men even if they aren't the most qualified. Because this isn't banning affirmative action/DEI, this is ALLOWING discrimination.
It figures he'd be the one to do it. If it wasn't for being born into a rich family, Trump would be one of those guys hawking fake Rolexes in Times Square. He was a nepo baby that failed repeatedly at business (he would be far wealthier if he put the $400 million+ he inherited from his dad in an S&P 500 index fund, even accounting for regular withdrawals to support gold toilets and a private jet) and now a DEI hire to be president by angry incel white men.
I've been on the interview team a few times.
It's really telling when you get a few candidates for IT positions, *NONE OF WHOM ARE WHITE*. Funny, I thought it was supposed to be _majority_ white men that held the field, but *not a single candidate* was a white male? The whole thing reeked of "Gotta meet the color-quota," job requirements: dark skin.
The recent rumblings about merit-based team pruning, from Facebook for example, echo this: they've been forced to hire a quota's worth of unqualified candidates to meet dictator-imposed quotas. Government-enforced active discrimination -- just don't talk about it. Google was sued for it, and settled to make the attention go away.
Honestly, the half of Donald's EO's that I hear about that are directed to rescinding all of this (and it's all rescinding Presidential decrees, not Congressional law) really make me happy. Finally - back to something merit-based. Back to making groups *efficient* instead of forcing members together who will clash with each other. As a society, the spread-out diversity is surely a good thing; as a team of 10 people, it causes a lot of consternation on every side. Glad to see the illegal discrimination go.
The other half of the EO's are highly unfortunate. Unfortunately, every election is the same: for the few benefits, you always get *even more* terribleness. It doesn't matter the party.
Hopefully this round will be like last round. 30 days of presidentin', and 'Murrica is great! Now just take 3.9 years of government-sponsored vacation. Hopefully there's no illness this time to cause a politically-divided shit-show.
During my "career" ive sseen and been to many buildings where entire floors are all indians, and then you goto another floor and its mixed, people from all over the place and different backgrounds. But goto a indian floor and 9/10 people are indians, but nobody is racist of course.
Let me correct you: he's not going back to merit-based, he's going back to "merit-based".
Trump talks in euphemisms.
He wants business leaders to be as unfettered by business as possible and it that means letting the businesses hire whomever they want, then so be it.
He's not actually promoting the idea of merit, he's promoting the power of senior executives to do whatever the hell they want.
Businesses like to make money. Hiring based on ability lets them make more money. Are there going to be abuses? Sure. They existed under the old rules. Being forced to choose candidates on any criteria other than ability is discrimination.
Universities being forced to favor applicants based on physical characteristics is discrimination.
The unspoken bigotry is the notion that some people are incapable of success without government intervention is evil.
I want to see how this plays out.
The unspoken bigotry is the notion that some people are incapable of success without government intervention is evil.I want to see how this plays out.
Same. We live in interesting times, even though I'm not particularly affected by the moves, I think there's a method to the madness, and could be a good thing.
Something I think is often overlooked is equality of opportunity, which starts with the education system, and Trump has pushed a lot of that responsibility back to the states. States can then align education based on their needs. Maybe they want to spend more on tech & trade education and training. Maybe they want to spend on agriculture or land management. It seems like this gives states the ability to do this, rather than a one-size fits all education policy. It's a slow process, but give kids a good education and that should feed into growing the economy.
> Same. We live in interesting times, even though I'm not particularly affected by the moves, I think there's a method to the madness, and could be a good thing.
No. There's no method here. There's only madness.
However, I feel like this is one of those cases of, "A broken clock is right twice a day."
"The unspoken bigotry is the notion that some people are incapable of success without government intervention is evil."
This also overturns the whole notion of equality. For decades, centuries even, women have fought for 'equality'. Unhappy with having to reach the same standards for certain categories we've had to reduce requirements to suit, which is not equality.
> he's not going back to merit-based, he's going back to "merit-based". Trump talks in euphemisms.
This is not a Donald quote. Donald does not make hiring decisions. Donald has no say in what candidates will be selected, other than this over-arching say: you don't need to meet quotas.
The businesses, and the managers, will choose the most appropriate candidates.
"other than this over-arching say: you don't need to meet quotas."
True. Quotas are a bad thing. It was unfortunate that they were invented in the first place, but "something" was being done because the laws on equality were being flouted and a stick was needed. In this case a poor choice of stick and I'm not sure what a better alternative could look like even while decrying the one chosen. But Trumps EOs go much further than abolishing the bad quota system. They are pretty much ordering Govt. Depts. to ignore all discriminatory hiring practices. Equal Opportunities is specifically about merit-based hiring. Hire the best person for the job. But the EO's as presented basically absolve the hiring org of any mis-deeds so they can hire people who fit the world view of the hirer irrespective of ability. Luckily, the law still stands, bit only those with the financial resources and plenty of time on their hands will be able to challenge the new order.
The businesses, and the managers, will choose the most appropriate candidates.
A lot of white men will choose only white men. It was always that way, so laws were made banning discrimination in hiring. That still didn't address a lot of the more subtle racism, so they tried stuff like quotas and DEI to insure that non white non male candidates were considered. That upset white men who didn't get the job and a woman or minority did, and they assumed that a less qualified person was hired. They can't conceive of the fact that sometimes a white man is not the most qualified, especially when they are that white man.
The majority of US citizens who voted agree. Merit > positive discrimination.
I think you'll find this lost of the loony left who will be out in force posting their complaints all over forums like this.
Morgan Freeman feels this way too BTW, we need to stop putting people into pots and adopt the Martin Luther King approach. But the hard of thinking here won't get it, or accept it.
Probably because he's a member of the otherwise-beneficiaries of such discrimination.
When anyone other than members of the beneficiary group are cited, they're dismissed as being racist.
When anyone who is a member of the beneficiary group is cited, the person who's doing the citing is a racist.
Unless the racism is supported, the detractor is a racist.
The mind boggles.
To be fair, he could be right. Not everyone who voted agrees 100% with all the policies of the person they voted for. And positive discrimination in the form of quotas is a bad stick to use to enforce an existing law. But as I said above, the EOs are not just removing the quota system (good), but are also attempting to hollow out the laws on employment discrimination of all types (bad) such that "merit" becomes not the best qualified for the job, but the person most like the existing drones.
Dear Tilda Rice customer services,
As a longstanding customer and fan of your rice and rice-based products, it pains me to see your good name associated with cretinism.
Therefore, I think you should know that some asshole is signing your name to stupid posts.
Yours sincerely,
Phil York-Hunt, esq.
Dear Mr. York-Hunt,
Thank you for your letter dated 23 January.
I regret to inform you that we've had some trouble with a former employee who worked in our social media department. This person had been repeatedly warned about his misuse of our accounts.
Unfortunately, while we finally had to let him go as a result of an unpleasant incident involving a llama, some [redacted] and an industrial-sized tin of alphabetti spaghetti, we have been unable to recover the passwords access to the social media accounts he still controls.
If you happen upon a somewhat unhinged looking gentleman smelling faintly of tomato sauce and accompanied by a llama, please let us know.
Yours sincerely,
Matilda Rice-Krispies,
Tilda Rice customer services
It's really telling that that is what you notice. I thought you were supposed to be only looking at the qualifications. You don't say that any of the candidates were unsuitable. Well, apart from the fact NONE OF THEM WERE WHITE.
You're not a racist but you are available to help out if they're busy.
Ya know what I also noticed?
None of them were female. None of them had grandparents in the computer industry. None of them had Kubernetes knowledge. None of them had server administration experience. One of them drove a Tesla. One of them had parents in the local city government. All but one of them would just stop talking when you would ask a question that they didn't know the answer to.
Would you like the complete run-down of interview notes?
The topic of this thread is: racism. I saw racism.
Although he didn't make it clear, it's most likely that being on an interview board is in no way related to the choice of candidates presented to the board. That list is created by HR. If you advertise a post, you expect to see a variety of candidates based on the "usual" demographic for that industry/job type (and possibly locale, depending on how far the job advertising net is flung) The list of applicants was most likely more diverse, but HR selected the candidates for interview.
"So now they are going to enable discrimination that allows white men to hire white men even if they aren't the most qualified. Because this isn't banning affirmative action/DEI, this is ALLOWING discrimination."
I'm not sure this has been written up very well. To eliminate laws against discrimination by fiat doesn't ring as possible. I'd be more likely to agree with the correctness of the story if it eliminated preferential hiring or requiring that government contractors have certain percentages of employees that fit certain classes. More of a removal of "Affirmative Action" is more likely. Throwing out the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by one person would/should cause unrest. The President of the US is in the Executive branch of government, not the Judicial or Legislative so an EO used to negate a law should be a breech of the "Separation of Powers".
The walls around "The Rule of Law" have been crumbling. Joe Biden chose Kamala Harris as his running mate on a pre-determined goal of finding a woman of color to be his running mate rather than the best fit that he knew for the post. By stating that goal out loud, it should have fallen afoul of anti-discrimination laws, but you know, money and who is going to put themselves against somebody with a good chance of becoming President. Would it be possible now to make the claim against him or will the ruling that he's not fit to stand trial still be in effect.
'Joe Biden chose Kamala Harris as his running mate on a pre-determined goal of finding a woman of color to be his running mate rather than the best fit that he knew for the post. By stating that goal out loud, it should have fallen afoul of anti-discrimination laws'
I'm a little troubled by this statement but don't know enough about American politics to challenge it. Perhaps you can clarify?
As I understand it, the President doesn't employ the Vice President, they select a candidate for the voters to elect. The President/Vice President are then presumably employed by the Senate etc ( whatever is the rough equivalent of the UK 'State') when they are elected to that position.
If that is actually the case, why then would it fall foul of the laws?
Politicians not only need to have a base set of skills over and above that they need to appeal to a specific demographic, this would appear to fly in the face of any anti discrimination laws in place.
In short, wouldn't they be specifically exempt due to this specific and pragmatic requirement?
It is obvious that when you choose a running mate you are not choosing the most qualified person. You choose based on what state they're in or whether they are male or female or whether they are more or less moderate or hard line than you are. Because you're wanting to help win votes, or maybe more like "not lose voters from skeptical voters". He wanted to shore up the black voters especially black females so he picked a black female. She's HIGHLY qualified - way more qualified than JD Vance that's for sure. Is she the most qualified VP that Biden could have chosen? Of course not.
You don't really think Trump chose Pence last time because out of all 300+ million Americans he was the most qualified to be VP, do you? No, he chose him because he needed a religious conservative to help win over the (at the time) skeptical religious right who didn't like a twice divorced constant cheater, liar, etc. etc. Somehow they love him now of course, so this time around he had different criteria. But again, you surely aren't stupid enough to believe that JD Vance was the most qualified VP.
I mean hell just look at the parade of incompetent morons Trump is putting up for his cabinet. His qualification is "you will be loyal to me and believe the stupidest stuff I claim like that the election was stolen even though there's been no evidence of that produced in FOUR YEARS" not anything about competence. Because if you believe Hegseth or Gabbard are qualfied to hold the positions Trump nominated them for, let alone the most qualified to hold those positions, you have already sold your soul to the orange satan.
Biden/Harris got lots of votes, so you'll have a hard time showing that she wasn't qualified.
Nope, a very easy time-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Harris#2020_presidential_election
In the immediate aftermath of the debate, Harris fell in the polls. Over the next few months her poll numbers fell to the low single digits.
There were very early signs that she was unelectable. But for 2024, the DNC left the decision to eliminate Biden too late to get any other name on the ticket, so Harris it was. But dear'ol Willy Brown obviously thought she was qualified for.. something.
"If it wasn't for being born into a rich family, Trump would be one of those guys hawking fake Rolexes in Times Square."
Given some of the cheap and nasty tat (watch included) he's happy to flog, at anything but cheap and cheerful pricing of course, to his faithful, he's skirting dangerously close to actually being one of those guys already...
I've decided I love that he's doing that. Because now you can easily identify someone you want to have nothing to do with, if you see them wearing Trump shoes or a Trump watch.
Plus he's scamming the willing. They know he's scamming them and they still give him their hard earned money to make him richer. I hope they give him every penny they have and he bankrupts them. They deserve it.
On the one hand, this is a transparent attempt to get all jobs run by heterosexual white men, and anyone who thinks otherwise is kidding themselves.
On the other than, the fact that this was apparently only enforced previously by other EOs is appalling. Is Congress *incapable* of passing laws????
The US constitution is designed to make it really hard to pass laws - or, indeed, budgets. The 'checks and balances' are supposed to ensure everyone's interests are represented. In practice it's given every vested interest a veto except when the political Zeitgeist is unusually powerful.
But apparently it's the most perfect form of government on earth.
It was designed to make it really hard to pass CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS. It wasn't designed to be hard to pass laws, or to budget. And it wasn't, until Newt Gingrich ushered in the age of republicans being obstructionists. At first that was a good thing, his influence lead to the US having a surplus the last couple years Clinton was president.
The problem was, all the republican desire for balanced budgets is thrown out the window when a republican president is in office. They happily went along with Bush's tax cuts knowing it would blow up the deficit.
When Obama was elected they put their obstructionist strategy into overdrive. They couldn't do much his first couple years because he had too big of a majority, but the 2010 election turned that around and then they made it their job to block everything Obama wanted to do, even things that they agreed with when Bush was in office. It has only gotten worse since.
The problem is that democrats aren't playing the same game, they were willing to bail out the republicans from their own stupidity by passing stopgap funding in December. There's another budget fight coming up in March. Hopefully they will vote against whatever republicans propose and not hand Trump an easy victory by unchaining him from the debt ceiling for very long. Republicans have used that as a leash on democrat presidents for 20+ years. Time for democrats to leash Trump.
Maybe republicans need a taste of their own medicine to force them to back off from these games, or congress needs to become so unable to accomplish the bare minimum that people quit electing extremists and go back to choosing more moderate candidates willing to cut deals instead of grandstand and see their job as being a roadblock.
Time for democrats to leash Trump.
The Democrats mistake is they spent much of the last decade trying to do little else.
Maybe republicans need a taste of their own medicine to force them to back off from these games, or congress needs to become so unable to accomplish the bare minimum that people quit electing extremists and go back to choosing more moderate candidates willing to cut deals instead of grandstand and see their job as being a roadblock.
Voters elect the candidates they want to represent them. This is how democracy works. Just because you disagree with whoever wins, it doesn't follow that they're 'extremists', this is just what the Democrats have been telling you for the last decade. The Democrats were very much a roadblock to some spending plans during the last Trump presidency, with prime example being blocking funding to strengthen border security. Elected representatives and officials are sworn to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the land, so why, then were they so obstructive when it came to illegal immigration?
But such is politics. The Democrats only have themselves to blame for the Republican's increased majority. The US public weren't buying the Democrat's version of extremism, so voted against that.
Voters elect the candidates they want to represent them. This is how democracy works. Just because you disagree with whoever wins, it doesn't follow that they're 'extremists'
You're living in a dreamland if you don't think elected republicans have become far more extreme over the past 20 years. The same is true of democrats (i.e. AOC) though they don't have an entire cable network dedicated toward pushing voters towards the most extreme candidates by uplifting nutjobs like MTG.
A lot of that is how effective gerrymandering is these days when they do it via computer. If you have a guaranteed safe red or blue district, then primary voters don't have any worry that someone who is "too extreme" will lose the general election. That's why the House is so much more extreme than the Senate, where you may have some reliably red or blue states like California or Oklahoma, but there are plenty of states where running a crazy train candidate will cost you a seat, and has cost republicans several in the past few elections (c.f. Mitch McConnell's comments on "candidate quality" after republicans lost the senate majority in 2020)
You're living in a dreamland if you don't think elected republicans have become far more extreme over the past 20 years. The same is true of democrats (i.e. AOC) though they don't have an entire cable network dedicated toward pushing voters towards the most extreme candidates by uplifting nutjobs like MTG.
I think it's you that's living in the dreamland. I assume you're referring to Fox, but the far-left has CNN, MSNBC and of course ABC with the harridans on 'The View', or political 'experts' like Rachel Maddow. She claims to be liberal, but is anything but. All of them happily pumped Biden, ignored stuff like the Hunter Biden laptop, and Joe's obvious cognitive decline.. Which seemed to track the left-stream media's decline in ratings. But the left has it's fair share of nutjobs like AOC and the 'squad'. Problem is much of the US (and European) media failed to read the room and the mood in the US, so are suffering for it. US views aren't buying what the far-left is selling, so viewing's falling off a cliff, along with advertising revenues.
Plus some on the far-left are falling into the trap Trump has set-
The usual suspects including House Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries and Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar held a press conference to voice their outrage over the fast-paced elimination of DEI.
DEI poliicies are a tad unpopular, so why pick that hill to DIE on? But politics in general has become so deeply divided and divisive that those on the far-left will always regard anyone to their right as 'extreme'. Pappa Joe of course helped hammer that home with his constant rants about 'extreme MAGA Republicans'. As if making America greater, or great again is such a terrible idea.
I guess you never watched "mainstream media" if you think they ignored Biden's decline. They talked about it constantly, even the cases where Fox News was creating something out of nothing using edited video making it look like he was looking at nothing when in fact a reporter off screen was asking him a question. They made it such an issue that after his debate performance he had no choice but to quit the race! If Trump had a similarly bad performance Fox News would be making up bullshit ranging from "he was so ill it would have killed Biden but like the superhuman he is Trump stepped up anyway" to "Biden had CIA operatives secretly drug him right before the debate to impair his performance".
Fox News doesn't like to talk about the obviously mental decline of Donald Trump. He's not remotely the same man he was in 2015, but his decline is solely mental without the physical symptoms Biden had. If he had a stroke and lost the ability to speak or walk properly and we stopped seeing him in public Fox News anchors would be lying about how "I just spoke to him in person yesterday for a few minutes, he told me to apologize to his fans but he's been so busy working for America that he hasn't had time to waste with PR stunts making public appearances".
I get the feeling you ONLY watch fox news. CNN, NBC, MSNPC, PBS etc. were all covering for Biden until the debate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFp_AtGx5Os
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0bmzE2f2-U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pb6xXuU5wM
Trump on the other hand is still sharp. He's been all over the place. Not taking 40% of his time on hols.
Maybe you need your eyes checked. Biden was the scrawny old one with bad hair always sniffing kids without consent.
"Is Congress *incapable* of passing laws????"
It seems like it or they should be able to put severe limits back on Executive Orders. EO's were brought about due the difficulty in getting a quorum of Congress together quickly enough in case of war or another immediate emergency. It wasn't put in place so one person could toss out diktats and run the country as their own. In present times, enough of Congress could be gathered within hours, not days or weeks and as time passes and remote/virtual appearances become valid for emergency items, Congress could be present in full very quickly. The Legislative branch of government in the US is the body responsible for passing/modifying/repealing laws. The President is in the Executive branch which enforces the laws (not making them) and the Judicial branch interprets laws and judges the validity of what's been passed so that new laws are fair and just, but cannot make or enforce them, but can strike laws down that aren't equal and balanced (theoretically).
Executive Order 11246 is / was an implementation of The Civil Rights Act of 1964, as it applied to government contractors.
In the American system as conceived, Congress sets the policy, the President does the implementation..
Amongst other things, in the current form (just nuked), EO 11246 required Affirmative Action, and heavy reporting requirements. Trump hasn't changed the Civil Rights Act, and it still applies to private industry, government contractors, and the government. He's changed the reporting rules for Government Contractors, and he's vacated the field to allow the courts and private regulators to interpret the law for government contractors.
This is a disaster if you believe that government regulation is the only way to achieve moral justice, and that EO 11246 has been effective in achieving moral justice. Or if you are a political opponent.
Is to write longer more expansive laws. You have to either write the language into the law, or leave some gray areas up to the executive branch to determine (the agencies issuing regulations, under the direction of the president) That's just not practical - and would make things worse because lobbyists writing 100,000 page laws no one reads before passing is a recipe for corruption that makes the current amount of corruption look quaint by comparison.
What I think is that we need to revisit our "three branches" system. We need a fourth branch for some of the agencies that need to act independently of the president, like the DOJ/FBI/CIA and IRS. Maybe have some sort of board overseeing them, with some appointed by the president, some appointed by the congress, maybe some seats filled by a few governors chosen by random draw. It shouldn't be possible for a president to tell the DOJ who to prosecute or not prosecute, who to audit or not to audit. We thought the informal walls put up after Nixon would be good enough, but Trump has shown how inadequate that was.
Obviously such changes would require a constitutional amendment, and the only time a party is for limiting presidential power is when the other party is in the White House. Maybe they could be convinced to pass it by making it take effect in 2033, far enough away that neither side knows for sure who will be in power at the time.
What I think is that we need to revisit our "three branches" system. We need a fourth branch for some of the agencies that need to act independently of the president, like the DOJ/FBI/CIA and IRS.
There should be no need given most of those agencies should already be apolitical. All it should probably need are a few well publicised prosecutions under the Hatch Act to remind Federal employees that they shouldn't be engaging in political activity, and perhaps widening the scope to cover more agencies under that Act.
We thought the informal walls put up after Nixon would be good enough, but Trump has shown how inadequate that was.
Quite so. So despite the best efforts of Biden, the Democrats and the DoJ, Trump remained stubbornley out of jail. More than 1,000 'extreme MAGA Republicans' weren't quite so lucky and were jailed for a variety of relatively minor crimes, but not the 'insurrection' the Democrats repeatedly accused them of. Perhaps the Democrats really did 'weaponise' the DoJ in an attempt to stop their political rivals, and that's something that deserves a thorough investigation.
Have you not heard of The Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was signed into U.S federal law on July 2nd of 1964, it prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.
Yep, and there's also this long running saga-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment#State_equal_rights_amendments
Twenty-five states have adopted constitutions or constitutional amendments providing that equal rights under the law shall not be denied because of sex. Most of these provisions mirror the broad language of the ERA, while the wording in others resembles the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
With the Supreme Court having previously ruled that the 14th Amendment also means equal rights. But the legislative body could still maybe amend the 14th Amendment to make equal rights constitutionally clearer. Federal primary legislation by EO seems the wrong way to go about things, but then Federal vs State stuff often confuse the heck out of me. So per that link, if you're a Californian federal employee-
California: A person may not be disqualified from entering or pursuing a business, profession, vocation, or employment because of sex, race, creed, color, or national or ethnic origin. California Constitution, Article I, § 8 (1879)
Unless Federal trumps State, and you're no longer considered Californian for whatever discrimination the USG might want to apply. Which is also the problem with DEI & affirmative action policies because they can be fundamentally discriminatory. Sorry, you can't have the job because we've already filled the quota for your sex, race, creed, color etc. Plus a purely meritocratic policy means the best candidate gets the job, and doesn't end up being discriminated for being a 'diversity hire', even though they may still be the best candidate on merit.
The US is weird sometimes.
"This is more grandstanding bullshit from Donald the Dull."
You, sir are so wrong!
Dull is not a word you can associate with this man. From his bright orange hue, his shiney artificial teeth, or the top dollar suits that adorn his porky frame, the man positively glows. And then there's the endless excitement and theatre of his crass opinions, often spewed directly to social media, dull? Never. For those who follow politics as the art of influence, they can follow his random angry flare ups and fall outs with all of those stupid enough to nail their colours to the orange mast. Students of economics can oggle in excitement as Trump's non-existent grasp of trade and finance brings ruin on the US, those following international relations wait with bated breath to see which staunch international ally will be offended and shat upon next.
"On the one hand, this is a transparent attempt to get all jobs run by heterosexual white men, and anyone who thinks otherwise is kidding themselves."
What a load of shit. Notwithstanding plenty of bad practice (evident across all ethnic groups), most businesses are run to make money. If I'm making hiring decisions and I choose employees based on packaging rather than content, I'll have worse performing staff and lower profitability.
Whilst in theory this could change things. It doesn't have to. Most large government contractors will still adhere to previous guidance on the basis that the next administration may change the rules.
There is also a reasonable chance that this might motivate Congress and the senate to actually create laws to cover this which may prevent future presidents stopping things by dictat.
I am totally bemused by the fact that Americans can elect a king for a few years that can issue pardons to anyone they want for any thing ahead of time. It also depressed me that their courts are filled with political appointees. I've know some senior judges in the UK that hold very different personal views to judgements they have made. However, to them they have to apply the law. Not the party opinion. It's insane but interesting viewing watching from a distance.
Always struck me as telling that if the world went crazy and the US asked to join the European Union they could not. You can't have a politicised judiciary in the EU. It's so obviously wrong. Every time I read <Judge's name> D or <Judge's name> R it makes my skin crawl.
I know that everyone has their own biases. However, in the UK at least they attempt to promote those that have the best understanding of the law and that apply it correctly. Not those that advocate for one party and tend to extreme interpretations to suit themselves.
...and generally, it is a bad idea to have a Supreme Court that is albove all standards with regards to, for example corruption.
The fact that the most promising way to get rid of Clarence Thomas is by applying even more bribes (https://youtu.be/GE-VJrdHMug?si=vosq_xBAqLFEAY8R&t=1574), demonstrates that the US has no checks and balances. It had some gentlemans agrements, but clearly, Trump is no gentleman.
To be fair, I think the UK system is just as vulnerable to dictatorship as the US.
In the UK, there is no written constitution, and no supermajority in Parliament required for anything. So if you can get 50% + 1 of the seats, you can do virtually anything. Apart from abolish the monarchy, which legally there is nothing to hold to account.
Like the US, the only thing that has preserved democracy has been a general deeply held respect for it, if not by those at the top, at least in enough of those below to make it impossible to overturn. Trump's attempted coup last time was only thwarted by Pence and a couple of Republican state governors being unwilling to go along with his attempt. But anyone who will do the right thing has been purged from the party now.
A UK government could, for example, change the electoral system (even to a profoundly biased one), change the terms of parliament from 5 years to 100 years, if it could get more than half the MPs to vote for it. And first past the post makes a single party having a large majority very common. With Musk now assaulting European democracy and pledging millions to the hard right, this is a real prospect.
Which is why Labour and any centrist politicians really need to consider changes to the electoral system such as proportional representation. It doesn't solve the problem but it makes it much harder to get a massive parliamentary majority with just a third of the votes, as Labour achieved last time out. What benefited them last time, could easily benefit extremists in the future.
So if you can get 50% + 1 of the seats, you can do virtually anything
And the monarch still has the ultimate power of refusing to sign stuff into law and/or dissolving Parliament.
Which would, of course, create a constitutional crisis so, absent of dementia, no sane monarch is going to use the power lightly.
Drumpf pretty clearly hates anyone who isn't white as snow. Just look at what he's doing to the immigrants despite the lofty words written on the Statue of Liberty.
He'd probably send them to the gas chambers if the rest of the world wouldn't nuke the US into oblivion for trying to do that...
The rest of the world would likely do fuck all, the same way it ignores ethnic cleansing and genocides the world over. Maybe we'd impose some token sanctions. As for nuking the US, aside from the fact that we'd all end up dead, the rest of the world could also not win a nuclear war with the US anyway, certainly not without the Russians.
>Drumpf pretty clearly hates anyone who isn't white as snow.
And thats clearly a juvenile take.
You know DT went on vacation to Disney world with Hershel Walkers family?
And that DT used to drop off his kids at Walkers house for the weekend?
Fairly certain if you hated non whites, thats not something you'd do. Bluesky awaits you, and more of your genius thoughts.
Yeah, there's no evidence he's a racist, other than his hanging around with white supremacists, calling them "very fine people", being convicted of discrimination and constantly banging on about how immigrants are destroying the USA and repeating nazi phrases like "poisoning our blood".
If you ignore all the racist things he says and does them there's no evidence at all that he's a foaming, frothing, swivel eyed racist fuck knuckle.
So just the documented convictions for race discrimination and the Nazi quotes he uses in his speeches then, should be a lot easier to ignore that evidence, sorry to have troubled you.
S'ok. Problem with those dang Nazis is they're everywhere, from Illinois to NYC! Hear's another high falootin, salutin Nazi-
https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1881918548660084859?mx=2
Given that many people didn't seem to learn anything from 2016-2020, I would not count on them to learn anything this time either. Many people in the US will vote against their own self-interest seemingly just because some charismatic (or at least loud) politician tells them to...
You don't elect an alligator and expect the swamp to be cleared.
At a basic level the FOCF is not a functioning human being. The fans who voted for him don't know this or don't care about this but they are going to find out that this has consequences.
And BTW since your handle is SundogUK are you even a US citizen?
Shouldn't you be talking about Keir Starmer? His very substantial majority will indeed not prevent him from carrying out any policy his government decides to enact.
He's another of those UK right-wingers who bought into the imported culture war- a product of US society and defined in terms of *their* politics- and its propaganda, talking points and obsessions so comprensively that they all but define themselves in those foreign terms.
>"We" (referring to US electorate)
>"SundogUK" (Please say you're a University of Kentucky graduate because that will be even funnier)
So a liar then. Enjoy the shock therapy. As you hysterically bleated in 2020: "You will own nothing and you will enjoy it."
the swamp/bureaucracy
Will someone not call the fire department?! There's a poor dog who's fallen down a dank rabbit hole and needs rescuing !!!
Hang in there, Fido. Help is coming!
(Can someone stop blowing that dog whistle, it's making him too excited!)
>"Hardworking Americans who deserve a shot at the American Dream should not be stigmatized, demeaned, or shut out of opportunities because of their race or sex."
Which is why I'm canceling an EO which, abbreviating, "prohibited any federal contractor from discriminating on the basis of race or sex."
I guess it makes sense, in a 1984 doublethink war-is-peace kind of way. Then again, this is the same faction that thinks you can raise more taxes by lowering taxes, so...
Now it has been shown that you can raise taxes by lowering taxes...
I believe the theory is that although the take from any individual person/corporation may be lower, having that lower rate means that other individuals/corporations, who would otherwise reside elsewhere for tax purposes, may choose instead to reside in your country, thus meaning the number of individuals paying the taxes increases, thus increasing take.
Similarly, lowering corporation tax rates reduces the take you get from those, but you get more through income taxes on workers who are now paid more, or are more numerous, as corporations can afford pay rises or to take on additional staff, and sales tax from increased consumer spending, and increased corporate profits meaning an increase in total corporation tax take... In practice, usually you probably just get a bigger shareholder dividend, but those are also taxable (eventually).
All of this is theoretical, and used to sell tax cuts to the wealthy through trickle down economics. I am not a economist. I do not contend that these results have ever happened in reality. But these are the arguments I have seen. Ultimately, it ends up to the rich getting richer, whichever way you look at it. The question is, whether it benefits society or just the Broligarchs.
"All of this is theoretical"
Sounds like you are talking about the Laffer curve which is not theoretical and currently hammering the idiots in charge of the UK-
https://order-order.com/2025/01/23/reeves-tax-raid-costs-treasury-more-than-half-a-million-taxpayers/
And on a slight tangent is the overstaffing of wasteful government-
https://order-order.com/2025/01/23/education-department-has-three-times-more-comms-staff-than-those-responsible-for-helping-failing-schools/
Of course both UK examples
Thank you for the reading, always like to be better informed on this stuff. I knew there was a name i could not remember, Laffer Curve. I do find this deep analytical stuff fascinating...
There was a guy who used to write about this economics stuff here on The Reg. he was a Brexiteer, and I did not agree with a lot of his politics, but his analysis and insight into Economics was both interesting and enlightening. Can anyone remember his name?
"I knew there was a name i could not remember, Laffer Curve."
Whenever I see it mentioned, my immediate mental image is this bloke. :-)
For those with an electrical background this is basically a "Load line." That's a design tool where you plot voltage against current and look what happens at 0 V and 0 A and draw a straight line between them.
So at 0 tax rate the govt gets $0 but it claims at 100% tax the govt also gets $0 as the degree of tax evasion rises.
So somewhere in between there is an optimal tax rate where maximum tax is collected.
IRL the Laffer Curve is one of those pseudo-scientific ideas that is simple enough for a politician to grasp whose looking for an excuse to cut taxes to the rich. And it's never shown with any numbers, although it's always shown being symmetrical, suggesting somewhere in the middle is "about right."
The practical argument is that US tax take did nearly double its tax take following the tax cuts of the Regan era.
IMHO it's little better than a memory aid. You can't run a govt (local, regional, national) with no revenue and if you try to collect 100% of people and companies earnings they will fight you. Somewhere between is where people perceive you are not taking "too much" off them for the services (and the quality of those services) you are delivering so they will pay up without trying too hard to avoid it.
Big f**king surprise.
As a predictive tool to tell governments what that level is it's basically useless. And AFAIK No govt anywhere runs itself on a single tax levied at a single rate.
A kid who took a HS economics class could have figured that much out themselves. It's not just simple, it's simplistic.
As a predictive tool to tell governments what that level is it's basically useless. And AFAIK No govt anywhere runs itself on a single tax levied at a single rate
Like a lot of economic theories then. But it's a simple way to present a complex problem. Raise taxes too high, and more people try to avoid paying them, increasing the cost of collection as well. Well, unless you're a Biden and then you don't have to pay any taxes owed for the last decade.
As for too much tax, I take a simple view. Anything over 49% and I'm effectively working for the government, and they're earning more than me. See also 'wealth taxes' favored by the far-left, who think taxing unrealised assets is a good thing. It isn't. What is a good thing is simplifying taxation, perhaps implementing a single rate and closing tax loopholes created by the mess of tax rules. See IR35 for more info. But that would also mean job losses because then there'd be less need for tax specialists to prosecute or defend possible evaders.
And yet, to use one of your whataboutism style arguments, Biden paid about 3 orders of magnitude more than Trump did over the last 10 years.
And yet Hunter didn't pay taxes due, because Pappa Joe gave him a very generous pardon. And then Pappa Joe pardoned the rest of his family, despite potential evidence that Hunter was the bag man who handled the family finances and channelled money to them. And then there's the small matter of whether Pappa Joe paid all the taxes he should have. Trump's finances have been investigated repeateldy, Pappa Joe's haven't. Yet. And Pappa Joe can't pardon himself, although he could claim to be unfit to stand trial. Plus Congress can still investigate the chosen ones, even if they might not be able to prosecute any crimes that might be uncovered.
I am based in the UK.
At a previous employer we hired based on merit and had a workforce that roughly represented the racial diversity of the UK - 83% White (76% British), 8.6% Asian, 3.71% Black [2021 census] -over a workforce of nearly 400, ethnic groups were over-represented due to the granularity.
Then we were taken over by a US company (mid 2010's) that had US government contracts and we were told that we had to become more ethnically diverse.
I did object when in two rounds of interviews for a job (there were no suitable candidates in either round) there were only Black candidates shortlisted by HR through to the interview stage.
In the end the UK legal team took up the fight against the US masters and got it changed back to meritocracy hiring in the UK.
Anon as I still work with some of the previous company's US staff through my present employer.
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such a pity he couldn't have remembered that (regardless of their chosen gender) your children are still your children.
Such a pity the Bidens didn't remember that when he denied his daughter by Lunden Roberts, and denied her the right to the Biden name.. Along with trying to deny child support.
Biden might have ignored his daughter but Elon has bought a ton of grief down on her own child with her twitter bollocks.
And straight back with more whataboutery. Biden did ignore his daughter, and that's a simple matter of fact. Or perhaps more genetics with 2 deadbeat dads.
"And all US government staff with DEI roles were put on administrative leave on Wednesday, their offices and programs shut down."
Savings already starting then, plus removing a hindrance to getting things done.
"President Trump indicated he hopes his orders will return Uncle Sam to "merit-based" hiring."
The US saw the effects of DEI when they got a useless VP but had the right looks based on race and gender not merit.
You are talking about Pence, right?
Pence, although I despise his evil brand of evangelical 'christianity' [1] at least respected the US Constitution and was prepared to certify the results of the election. I can quite easily see Vance attempting to not do so at the behest of Trump and his puppet masters.
[1] It has nothing to do with biblical Christianity other than using some of the same words.
Easy enough to do.
Here's the list. Tell us which ones are on merit:
Marco Rubio: Secretary of State
Scott Bessent: Secretary of the Treasury
Pete Hegseth: Secretary of Defense
Pam Bondi: Attorney General
Doug Burgum: Secretary of the Interior
Brooke Rollins: Secretary of Agriculture
Howard Lutnick: Secretary of Commerce
Lori Chavez-DeRemer: Secretary of Labor
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: Secretary of Health and Human Services
Scott Turner: Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Sean Duffy: Secretary of Transportation
Chris Wright: Secretary of Energy
Linda McMahon: Secretary of Education
Doug Collins: Secretary of Veterans Affairs
Kristi Noem: Secretary of Homeland Security
Elise Stefanik: Ambassador to the United Nations
Lee Zeldin: Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
Tulsi Gabbard: Director of National Intelligence
John Ratcliffe: Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
Jamieson Greer: United States Trade Representative
Kelly Loeffler: Administrator of the Small Business Administration
Russell Vought: Director of the Office of Management and Budget
@ChodeMonkey
Which ones do you think wernt chosen on merit and why? As I am not Trump and its his choices how would I know what merit he is choosing people on but I havnt seen any particular problems bar what I already mentioned.
I am not quite sure what you are trying to get at. If at all
"The US saw the effects of DEI when they got a useless VP but had the right looks based on race and gender not merit."
"That is an odd conclusion for you to reach. Almost like it is detached from the conversation"
Your posts speak for themselves:
Choices you assume based on sex or race: bad!
Choices based on favor or how well they prostrate themselves to President Trump: good!
N'est pas?
@ChodeMonkey
"Choices you assume based on sex or race: bad!"
I think I see your mistake, it isnt an assumption. Biden literally stated why he chose Harris and it wasnt qualifications. Stated on TV, I even posted the link so you can go listen yourself, not an assumption.
"Choices based on favor or how well they prostrate themselves to President Trump: good!"
You seem to have made that up very well in your head but has nothing to do with my comments.
"Your posts speak for themselves:"
So read them. Understand them. And then if you feel you have something to contribute you respond to them. Skip the first 2 steps and your response has nothing to do with my comments. Its elementary->
Thanks for the pointers. Could you provide a source/quote for the Biden "DEI choice" comment?
Sorry for laboring this, but it still stands that a refusal to speak out against President Trump's non-merit based appointments flies in the face of supposedly being against said type of appointments.
Thanks AC Person.
The clip doesn't seem to mentioned DEI. So from that we must assume it was a made up quote.
I recently was hiring for the team. Narrowed the candidates down to a final 3. All of whom were women. At that point I too would have made a commitment to be hiring a women. Easy win!
Um, do your ears not work? He specifically says he will appoint a black woman to the courts (you can assume he means SCOTUS as there are many black women in the lower courts)
"its required they have representation"
DEI in action.
"I will pick a woman to be VP"
If he'd said "I will pick a man to be VP" you'd lose your shit.
@ChodeMonkey
"Thanks for the pointers. Could you provide a source/quote for the Biden "DEI choice" comment?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXQnco178oI
He is very clear that his criteria for VP is a woman (sexism) and a court appointee would be chosen based on race.
"Sorry for laboring this, but it still stands that a refusal to speak out against President Trump's non-merit based appointments flies in the face of supposedly being against said type of appointments."
Your trolling is getting less intelligent as you labor your own mind. You are now claiming non-merit based appointments but previously provided no such examples when asked.
Again. I have listed above appointments President Trump made. Please could you select the ones you feel were based on merit.
Also please suggest which of the appointments he previously gave to family members were based on merit and not family ties?
Your reluctance to answer this simple request is a clear admission that none were based on merit.
@Jamie Jones
"Prior to being VP she was an attorny general and a senator."
Ok. And she was rejected by voters as a Presidential candidate. Got the VP job due to DEI and was unpopular throughout for her incapability. And then was rejected as Presidential candidate again.
"You really are a hateful bigot, and have lunatic alt-right biases bordering on derangement - your polite way of replyng to people doesn't hide that fact."
And your hateful comment now meets the wall of reality- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXQnco178oI
Glad you noticed I am polite. Now you can also notice I was right. And so you can re-evaluate your obvious disconnect with reality to call me that? I am guessing not though as you need me to be your fictional bad man because I am right and you dont like it. But dont take my word for it, listen to the words out of the mouth of 'lets go Brandon'
@hittitezombie
"She was elected a VP. Any problems with that?"
I dont care at all (I am in the UK). They elected Joe Biden, it isnt a shock. However your comment has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Joe explicitly stated (see video) what his hiring requirements were, DEI.
>"And all US government staff with DEI roles were put on administrative leave on Wednesday, their offices and programs shut down."
>Savings already starting then, plus removing a hindrance to getting things done.
Included in the people affected are veterans who were disabled in combat. Why do you hate them so much?
@AC
"Included in the people affected are veterans who were disabled in combat. Why do you hate them so much?"
Were they the staffers of the DEI offices? Are you saying disabled veterans get shoved into DEI offices? Why is it hate to not think disabled veterans are so useless the government has to force them into jobs?
The Nazis Musk directed his salute at knew exactly what it was. Only Musk and Nazis are denying what it was.
And the ADL who are shamefully too scared to call it out for what it was. Which is the MO of fascism - Do as we say or face the consequences.
All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to stand by and do nothing.
don't really understand why hiring an unqualified black under DEI is not racist but hiring an unqualified white is racist. if person X applies for a job and they can't apply because they have skin colour X then surely it's racist regardless of the skin colour? what have I missed?
"Along the way, through miscommunication and misguided implementations, diversity became a controversy, and so here we are."
Except all the talk about Diversity and DEI is a very wispy smokescreen for what they really want, which is unabashed white supremacy and a return to the good old days when racism was fine and people most definitely were not equal under the law. America has just elected its first ever fascist government.
America has just elected its first ever fascist government.
No, those existed before. Y'know, when Southern Democrats kept slaves to work their fields, created the KKK to keep their chattels in line, passed the Jim Crow laws and fought agains ending segregation. Biden's generation, and Biden's fathers generation. And they were still doing it. They can't have slaves any more, but can still bring in illegal immigrants as indentured servants to work the plantations and factories.
I think if you read back on the history, those "Southern Democrats" you are lambasting are todays Republicans and vice versa.
A good start is to type:
when did the republicans and democrats switch
into your search engine of choice and learn something about recent political history. By "recent", I mean post-civil war.
This is incorrect history. The switch never actually happened. Only a slack handful of Southern Democrats switched sides. Strom Thurmond was the only one of note to switch sides. The south voted republican in protest at the democrats but when an old southern democrat was on the ballot standing as a third party were happy to vote for them instead.
There was more support for the 1964 civil rights act from the republicans in the house and senate than democrats. About 80% of the republicans voted yes vs about 60% of dems.
The Democrat party is still the party of the KKK no matter how much you pretend it isn't.
Tell me why 2 former and 1 current Democrat presidents were at the funeral of a known Southern Democrat and KKK member and the current Dem president eulogised him?
Robert Byrd was a klan member and Democrat prior to the whole 'but they switched sides' thing that never happened and still a Democrat afterwards.
He filibustered the 1964 civil rights act.
Yep, you're entirely right.
The USA got to where it was by exploiting black people. They decimated the extant population and kidnapped and tortured black people from various other places and used them. They used them as slaves. We all know this of course but it's worth repeating. They broke apart families, villages, and populations and used them to make money.
And when they'd finished with that, they made sure that they kept the black man (and woman) down. They let them live in the worst parts of town, they denied them education, and they treated them as second-class citizens in a way that would make any modern observer wince. They deliberately got them hooked on drugs and made them think poverty was too good for them.
And now, the American establishment looks at the black people and wonders why they can't get themselves out of the hole that they keep telling them they put themselves in.
It's all deliberate. The inclusivity and diversity laws, however badly they were mismanaged and misused, were there to protect an oppressed set of people. Now the protections had gone. I would not want to be a black man in America right now.
It may not be Nazi Germany, but it's closer to Nazi Germany than it ever was. The real racists are now emboldened and empowered. And they're getting ever closer to being a fascistic state.
This is a sad day for freedom.
I
"They deliberately got them hooked on drugs and made them think poverty was too good for them."
Now here is a difference between the Dems and GOP, the Dems celebrate getting people on to food stamps, the GOP celebrate getting people OFF food stamps.
What we have seen in California, PNW, NY/NYC, Baltimore etc. is an industrial scale system to get as many people on government benefits as possible. Billions 'spent' and homelessness and drug problems keep going up.
...it really pisses me off that people who don't know me often look at me with the assumption that I'm a DEI hire. DEI is racist and it tends to make non-white males look pathetic. I got my job because I am very good at what I do, and I get promotions/raises because I continue to prove it daily.
If that were the case there would not be a problem. What we saw with the president of a major US university was the least published and cited academic to hold that position and it turned out that some of those publications were quite heavily plagiarised from others.
It is well documented that standards have been lowered for professions such as fire fighters and police.
By launching a divisive and outrageous move like this, he brings the opposition boiling out of the woodwork.
Even if this is blocked - or possible especially - if this is blocked, he has scapegoats to blame when the rest of his stupid policies fail to deliver.
No way is he going to own his own failures..
Correct.
I've worked with people who were smart and people who were cunning.
Smart people didn't usually think themselves cunning. Cunning people always think they are smart.
I don't think I ever met one that really was.
He was elected to a)Deport 12 million undocumented people b)Bring down the price of groceries.
The White House press corp (in fact all media) should keep asking him how he is succeeding at carrying out the goals he told his voters were the root causes of America's problems and what he is doing about them. Because he's going fix America. At least his version of America. All this BS about Canada, Greenland and the "Gulf of America" is just rubbish to draw attention off what he claimed he was going to "fix" but which (surprise, surprise) he doesn't look like he is doing.
...is just rubbish to draw attention off what he claimed he was going to "fix" but which (surprise, surprise) he doesn't look like he is doing.
Errm.. He's had 4 days. Trump might be good, but he's not that good. Some of his proclamations may have dropped the price of oil and gas, and his energy policy announcements might make US energy costs fall further (or just not increase as fast), which should have an impact on energy costs and inflation. Now if only the UK and EU would do the same thing..
@anonymous boring coward
"Did you sleep through his disastrous last term?"
If his last term was such a disaster maybe Biden should learn to fail in such a positive way. Hell even Obama was so impressed with Trumps economy he was desperate to try and take credit for it.
@John Smith 19
"He was elected to a)Deport 12 million undocumented people b)Bring down the price of groceries."
He is doing pretty good so far. 460 arrests within 2 days of taking office with instruction to be notified on the release of a further 420. Border encounters have dropped as well as the CBPOne app being shut down. Trump has also signed into law the Laken Riley act to remove serious criminals illegally in the country.
Add the EO's to remove some of the harms to the US economy and he will have a lot to say already.
"The White House press corp (in fact all media) should keep asking him how he is succeeding at carrying out the goals he told his voters were the root causes of America's problems and what he is doing about them."
I doubt they will be asking his favourite flavour ice-cream
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
I find it extremely disturbing how ignorant the majority of USA voters appear to be. From what I've read, the 50 and older crowd turned the tide, despite Trump's claim to the contrary. I am definitely in the 50 and over crowd, by more than 30 years. I can't possibly express my true feelings about our new president, because my choice of words does not meet with their approval. This age group has the most to lose. Trump being somewhat less intelligent than a stump, thinks that Social Security and Medicare are entitlements and wants to destroy them. I don't know about the other members of the over-50 crowd, but I depend on both. I find it hard to believe that they're not or won't be in 15 years or so. What were they thinking? Perhaps they foolishly believed his absurd campaign promises to lower the price of necessities. He's already backing away from those. Did they want him to pardon 211 convicted criminals who attacked police trying to protect the congressmen with 2x4s and Tasers? I don't suppose there's any way that I can disassociate myself from the over-50 crowd, but I hope that I'm more intelligent than the Trump voters in this group. I at least try to keep myself informed. At least I'm not a lying, racist, misogynist.
"I can't possibly express my true feelings about our new president"
I'd guess that you are the type that would get very upset and start throwing ad-homs around if someone who disliked Biden expressed their views. FJB!
"Did they want him to pardon 211 convicted criminals"
YES! Oh heck yes we wanted Trump to do this! If you look at the details most 'convicted' of assault have already served their sentences. The vast majority of the cases were jumped up charges based on misdemeanour trespass. If these people had been members of Antifa they would never have stood trial for assaulting police.
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for the Hispanics
And I did not speak out
Because I was not Hispanic
Then they came for the Gays
And I did not speak out
Because I was not Gay
Then they came for the Muslims
And I did not speak out
Because I was not Muslim
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
..opining on stuff they haven't a clue about.
Only lived in the place five decades. Only saw first hand how all this works. Only saw up close the profoundly divisive and cynical race baiting political games the Democratic Party play. Little change in tactics since founded in the 1820's. Yes. Its still that party. The party of the Old South, Segregation and Jim Crow race-bating politics. Just now the "captured race" voter is different. Once rural poor. Now urban poor. Thats all.
Seen my beloved home state turned from one of the greatest economies in the world with the most fantastic infrastructure and an epic true diversity of peoples into a shambling ruin in the last 30 years by a totally corrupts Democratic Party kept in power by Tammy Hall style election fraud. Not for the first time. Not for the last.
Saw so many times what passes for "journalism" in the UK about the US ranging from the occasional gets it correct in The Times, Telegraph and even Daily Mail to the malicious often out-right fabrications in the Guardian, BBC, and Channel 4. The rather louche Spectator sometime inadvertently gets it right whereas the self-righteous New Statesman always gets in wrong.
Lincoln saved the Republic. TDR saved the Republic. FDR saved the Republic. Reagan saved the Republic. And much to my surprise ( and everyone else who is not blinded by pure partisan hatred ) Trump has saved the Republic. If you dont understand why its either because you are a Brit or just a Blue Bubble person who just never learns.
You know all those dystopian fantasies you are projecting onto the US - dont exists. Not going to happen. Now the immediate future of the UK - now that is going to be a really dark place. For real. I've have seen your future. Its called Sarcelles. You know all the stuff the British media wont report about the UK, the French media has been reporting about in the banlieue. Nasty.
So I'll let you get back to your pub-bore arguments. Have fun chaps until the landlord calls Time Gentlemen Please.