Now I get it. Trump thinks there's "Shutdown money" by not paying federal workers their wages. Just like he's spent decades stiffing vendors who made the mistake of working for him, this thief thinks the government doesn't have to pay employees their wages. This on Christmas eve. https://t.co/iSxvKSNLxZ
— Steven Beschloss (@StevenBeschloss) December 24, 2018
Trump, after railing on Comey, says: "It’s a disgrace what’s happening in this country. But other than that, I wish everybody a merry Christmas." pic.twitter.com/9OdrmHU5Es
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) December 25, 2018
We've had dullard Presidents, corrupt Presidents, oversexed Presidents, etc. But I'm honestly not sure we've had someone as emotionally arrested and profoundly incapable of normatively adult behavior as Trump step into the role.
— Timothy Burke (@swarthmoreburke) December 25, 2018
I think if you spend a lot of time online, you're aware that the rest of the people with that level of solipsism are either living in their parents' basements or are running major Silicon Valley companies, so it's pretty rarified no matter how you slice it.
— Timothy Burke (@swarthmoreburke) December 25, 2018
This is good, though…
1) ‘Twas the night before Christmas
When all through the White House
Not a creature was stirring
Aside from a Louse.
The shutdown was hung on the Democrats with care,
In hopes that a border wall soon would be there—— Rosa Brooks (@brooks_rosa) December 25, 2018
3)
Yet the Fed raises rates and the Dema won’t play ball
Sometimes I feel it’s not Christmas at all!
Santa is marginal,but Mueller is real
There was nothing like this in The Art of the Deal!— Rosa Brooks (@brooks_rosa) December 25, 2018
5)
And now you can fill in the rest for yourselves
I’m going to bed and I’m all out of elves.
— Rosa Brooks (@brooks_rosa) December 25, 2018
NotMax
Gonna pretend never saw that as am still enjoying a Trump-free holiday.
Jerzy Russian
Shutdown money? Christ, what an asshole!
NotMax
@NotMax
Also too, am just sitting down to din-din and don’t need my appetite squelched.
Yarrow
Aftermath of today is dealing with longtime family friend who has developed a serious drinking problem, to the point of stumbling around, being almost incapable of normal conversation and generally not being very functional. Trying to help the sibling deal with this. It’s really difficult and kind of shocking because I’ve known this family since I was an infant and have grown up with the kids. The alcoholic one has never shown any signs of problems with alcohol until very recently.
NotMax
@Yarrow
Is it possible this person is taking some other medication(s) which interact detrimentally with alcohol?
Ruckus
Why are people astounded by the moronic, selfish, infantile, racist, cheap things that individual 1 does and says? This is who he is, it’s who he’s been his entire adult life. The only thing that’s changed is how many people were stupid and gullible enough to vote for him and who he sold ass to. Everything has a price and his is our country, which of course he undervalued.
Ruckus
@NotMax:
A valid point.
If it’s a medication issue alcohol may not actually be the base problem either. Every time the docs want to give me a new med the first thing they ask is how much I drink. I don’t and when I tell them that the look of relief on their faces is telling.
NotMax
Some idiot in the immediate neighborhood setting off loud (as in rattle the windows loud) fireworks.
Gravenstone
YouTube is fucking with me. It followed a Sisters of Mercy video with – Saxon! No idea how the algorithm connected those particular acts. But Saxon is usually good for a chuckle wi th h their nigh Spinal Tap earnestness.
Brachiator
@Yarrow:
So sorry to hear this. As others have noted, you might try to see whether some medication might be related. Also, some recent emotionally charged event.
Take care.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
I’m somewhat astounded that the GOP leadership at least publicly pretend that there is no problem.
Same with the Sunday pundit shows. It’s just politics as usual.
BTW, Beltway wags say that Trump is talking smack about keeping the shutdown going until he gets his wall, while in the background, the GOP and the Democrats are going to give him $2 billion and change and get the government going again.
PsiFighter37
@Brachiator: If they want to waste $2 billion on extra security measures, fine. Schumer had better make sure a big fucking fat zero is going towards any construction of any kind.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
See I don’t get this either. This is who they are, the republican leadership. They don’t hate what he’s doing, only the way he goes about it, open and stupidly. For the last 50 (and actually many, many more) yrs they have been all about the same things they are now. Racism, no government, low to no taxes for the wealthy. They are getting exactly what they’ve wanted. What makes this bad is he’s saying and doing the screwing of the country up front and loudly. He’s ruining their game. And he’s not actually doing it all for anyone but himself, which is why he’s losing support from the wealthy morons that have supported him, as well as from his actual owner, Vlad. And he’s actually worse at this than he’s been as a phony wealthy asshole.
J R in WV
What’s funny, my neighbor works for the Feds. He had scheduled use it or lose it vacation the last 2 weeks of the year. His next paycheck was cut before the furloughs began. When the furloughs began, policy was to cancel his vacation days and put him on furlough.
After the furlough those vacation days will remain on his personal file for him to take as normal, they won’t be use or lose again until some point way out in the future. He will be paid for all the time he is off work, when he resumes work, and will have that vacation to take with pay once he returns to work.
His wife works. Their monthly expenses are relatively low as he built their home himself on property we sold to them for $10, so they could build with the neighbors they already knew well, us and the folks just east of us. So the whole furlough policy, for him, is set up to make him whole, and actually cost the government a little more than just keeping him at work would have cost.
I don’t know if everyone else’s agencies have established such a powerfully positive policy, and of course if they were spending all his income every month they would be hurting. But so far he looks like he will be golden unless he never gets called back to work.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@J R in WV: I noticed your question about combining several shots the other day, but saw it late. I to my pano combining either in Lightroom(for small panos) or PTGui for large ones. I know that you mentioned that you’ve used GIMP(and are running Linux), there’s a plug-in for GIMP that does pano stitching. I’ve not used it, so I don’t know how good it is.
Barbara
@J R in WV: If you are an actual federal employee, you usually end up getting paid and not being worse off. If, however, you are employed by a contractor that provides services like janitorial services, then the contractor will not get paid and you as an employee will not end up getting paid. Those are the people, and businesses, that lose money. Not to mention the food trucks and sandwich shops that don’t get business. In some ways, the week between Christmas and New Year’s is less painful for the shutdown because so many people are out anyway, and even contractor employees are more likely to be taking leave. Net net, in the past, the consensus is that shutdowns cost the government more money because of so much lost productivity.
trnc
@J R in WV: Adding to what Barbara said about contractors – I suspect many federal employees have much higher home expenses than your neighbor, so they’re operating on tighter margins. If that fed employee is a single parent or the only working parent in the household, they could be hurting if a paycheck is delayed for a couple of weeks.
StringOnAStick
Don’t let the Mango Moron know that the furloughed federal employees will get paid for this “time off”, he’ll push the house and the senate to eliminate that policy, along with a bunch of FOX-promoted rants about “see those lazy federal employees getting paid when THEY. DID. NOT. WORK!” The base will eat that shit up and demand more.
TomatoQueen
Erm. No. It appears that furloughing/pay/use/lose policies vary by agency and union contract, if any. Some agencies are excepted service and some not, I’ve worked in both kinds, and there is a lot of leeway.
Uncle Omar
You can bet your ass that “the base” believes that “shutdown money” will pay for Wall. Of course, it, “the base,” believed that Mexico would pay for it, so there is that.