It’s about damn time. This guy is one of the least compelling Democratic senators and has been way too comfortable with his incumbency. It’s a good sign that he finally sees the writing on the wall. I hope more of the geriatric ruling class is able to recognize reality like this, and step aside before being primaried by younger more competent candidates who are actually willing to fight.
That’s great, really. But I still find it a bit ironic for federal prosecutors to take a stand on refusing to admit something they don’t want to admit, when that’s what they force most of the people they prosecute to do. Plea or rot in jail is their go-to strategy…
Still the right decision, but these are not heroes…just people who made the right call for a change.
I watched this a couple months ago and the song still randomly pops into my head every so often. Really cool show, with an exceptional intro.
The umbrella is such an underrated skill. My manager is the best buffer between me and the C-suite, and I appreciate it immensely. She doesn’t involve me in any of the company’s internal political crap unless it directly impacts me. She filters out all the bullshit and protects me from our bosses getting in the way of the work.
Some of her other excellent managerial qualities: she doesn’t cold call me (we’re remote), she doesn’t schedule unnecessary meetings, she has zero contact after COB, and she trusts me to get my shit done during the day, on my own, with absolutely no micro-managing. Some weeks I don’t need to interact with her at all, even though she’s a fun person I never mind chatting with. She’s the best manager.
It all boils down to mutual respect. Respect leads to trust, trust leads to teamwork and a healthy work environment.
To clarify, this is because the arbitrary deadline for feds to accept the “offer” is Thursday, and there are a lot of frightened people out there who think this might be their best option. I’ve spoken to a number of federal employees about this, and none of them are convinced there’s any reason OPM will actually honor the severance pay promised in the email, so they’re just going to wait to be fired and potentially lose out on a ton of severance pay. I think that’s the right call though, at least for those who can afford it.
There was no legal foundation for this “fork,” but agencies can’t reject it since it came from their HR overlords. All the communications about this “offer” have been extremely vague with no specific instructions, guidance, or guarantees. I’m willing to bet they’ll renege on the deal (why wouldn’t they?) and everyone will have to wait and see what the Supreme Court ultimately says about it months after the damage has already been done and careers and livelihoods have been ruined.
I was responding to the comment above (and lots of other chatter like this), which said “people voted for Musk” which is just not true. And like you said, the people don’t vote for the cabinet, they vote for the person who nominates cabinet members. It’s useful to point out because these distinctions have real-world consequences. Musk is a what’s called a “Special Government Employee,” which is an unelected position.
I don’t want to be pedantic, but okay I will. Musk wasn’t on any ballot. Not a single person voted for an individual named Elon Musk. It wasn’t an option. Enough people voted for Trump and Vance for them to win, but they were the only two on the ballot. It may seem like a distinction without a difference, because Musk functionally has an insane amount of power and influence, but that power was delegated to him by the person that people actually voted for, which is how our government works. People might have voted for Trump hoping he would use Musk in this way, but they still only voted for Trump.
I feel silly writing all that out, but these kinds of distinctions matter imo.
My entire team and I work remotely (since before Covid), and it has never been an issue. Nobody puts any extra effort into their appearance, everybody wears sweats and loungewear and women don’t wear makeup. Most of us blur our backgrounds so nobody can see our spaces, but this does not imply anything about our homes other than the fact that we all like our privacy. I can even hear my manager’s breast pump going during meetings (it’s out of frame, obviously), and nobody cares, she’s got a baby to feed after all.
We’re all people with different lives, different homes, and different bodies. As long as we all get our work done, nobody cares what we look like, sound like, or how our homes are decorated. If you’re feeling undue pressure from your employer about what your personal appearance or spaces are like, I don’t think that company is a good fit. If there are genuine mental health issues at play, then a good company will make a reasonable accommodation to ensure your work doesn’t cause any undue harm.
This is a pretty big disappointment imo, and shows that the party didn’t really listen to its voters or learn from the election in any meaningful way. He was the least interesting and compelling candidate. I wish they had gone for someone with an actual ideology and values that they’ve lived and acted on for years—like Faiz Shakir. This role is very important, and it would have been a great way to show us that Dems actually care about us, and not just the money. But nope, they’ve taken yet another opportunity to give power to a bland vanilla fundraiser who almost nobody has heard of.
The race hinged more on the candidates’ organizing and fundraising resumes than on their postures regarding the ideological soul of the party, as it did in 2017, after President Donald Trump’s previous election win.
Approval ratings are meaningless. He left office after his first term with the lowest average approval rating in history, and was still reelected. The media hasn’t learned anything, they’re falling into all the same traps. We’re fucked.
Huh, so it turns out providing effective legal counsel prevents people from being taken advantage of, how about that.
But the article points out that the program is expiring, right after they’ve figured out how beneficial it has been, because of course.
Fourth. It puts into words things I had long accepted as normal. Knowing this kind of behavior is atypical, unhealthy, and not your fault makes a huge difference. Definitely read this book, it’s a really short and easy read, though I personally had to put it down for a few days between each chapter to process everything.
I’ll elaborate. Clearly the part of the story that matters is that an important resource providing information on reproductive health was taken down for what seems like absurd and petty partisanship. Nonchalantly discarding resources that were built with our taxpayer dollars bugs the shit out of me, especially when it’s such critical information for a government to provide.
I was just pointing out that a huge chunk of government work like designing, building, and maintaining websites for all the agencies, programs, departments, etc. is done by federal contractors, whose contracts are funded with our taxpayer dollars. And by taking down the website like it’s nothing, the administration is just tossing our money down the drain.
These things are also expensive as all hell, way way too expensive, but that’s a different problem.
While this isn’t really the part of it that matters, in all likelihood that site was designed and created by a federal contractor, who probably billed tens of thousands of dollars (probably more) to build it, and most likely continued billing to keep it maintained. He’s just throwing our tax dollars in the trash.
I think rescheduling was pretty clearly a political football from the start. I never believed there would be the will to actually follow through on it properly. Such cowardice.
Any time I’ve brought it up everybody glazes over the first time I say the words “instance” or “federated.” I’ve tried the email analogy, but they lose interest immediately.
I’m aware of them. I’ve never been comfortable with sleep tracking apps or wearables. I refuse to rely on technology for something that my body is perfectly capable of doing on its own. After decades of life, I’ve figured out what works best for me. I don’t oversleep, because I get up the moment my alarm goes off.
Snoozing my alarm clock. Went cold turkey about 10 years ago, 0 tolerance. Now my alarm goes off, I turn my lamp on immediately at full brightness, and get up and out of bed within seconds. Used to be really challenging, but now I do it without thinking.
Yup! I use Mobius on iOS to sync everything I want, including random one off file transfers, but mostly to keep my Keepass database and Obsidian vault in sync across devices. It works really well, despite apple making it super difficult to run consistently in the background. As long as you open the app every so often, it’s seamless and reliable.
Yeah, I wouldn’t say he’s a pressing problem, but he’s also not part of any active solutions or any meaningful movements so it’s time for him to go.
I totally agree that term limits would solve many of these issues.