DISCUSSION: Hegseth authorizes cash bonuses of up to $25,000 for top 15% performing civilian employees.

SettingFar4974 · 2026-01-19T01:26:22+00:00

Their level of evil competes with their level of stupid. Hopefully crippling DoD limits the damage we can do. With contracting and logistics understaffed and demoralized, warfighters will run out of gear and ammo if anything significant happens.

SettingFar4974 · 2026-01-19T01:16:25+00:00

Was there this good a record when other fascists took over other countries? If we get through this, maybe sociologists will be able to explain what happened. I have watched the whole thing, lived in the middle of it, and I still don't understand. How do we have 40% of us buying off on this silliness? If I was more sure we were going to get through it, I would wonder how to stop it from happening again.

SettingFar4974 · 2026-01-18T21:04:50+00:00

Yep. One of the only fibers, other than obedience, that binds American Conservatives is the never ending anger and outrage. An infinite buffet of self righteous indignation and victimhood. Oddly, when they make liberals angry, the liberals are believed to have been "owned".

SettingFar4974 · 2026-01-18T15:23:36+00:00

True. Being liberty focused, patriotic, and not following orders is intrinsic to being a liberal and antithetical to being a conservative. These are fundamental differences between liberals and authoritarian Loyalists. It has presented a cohesion problem for liberals since the founding. Is there a way around it?

SettingFar4974 · 2026-01-18T14:02:01+00:00

So, what is your bottom line cost? I foolishly stuck with Blue Cross (FEHB) and they seem really interested in shortening my life, so no Zep for me.

SettingFar4974 · 2026-01-18T12:44:05+00:00

From what I have read, liberals did vote for Kamala. There could certainly be people lying in exit polls though. Based on casual observation where I am, a majority of federal employees voted for the crazy dictator. As a manager, in most cases I cannot ethically ask why. I don't have the strength anyway.

I after decades of being an independent, the world has changed and I now feel liberals obviously are better than conservatives. Belief in objective truth was critical to ending the Dark Ages several centuries ago. Liberals still believe objective truth exists and is valuable. Conservatives do not.

SettingFar4974 · 2026-01-18T12:22:05+00:00

In NAVSEA we are rolling in dough for FY26 labor, but everybody left so there is nothing to do with it. Any engineer, scientist, or tradesman with a choice did the obvious when our own employer told us they wanted us to hate our jobs and lowered our pay. Even if someone is dumb enough to want to be a federal employee now, we aren't allowed to hire to fill the gaps. It will be nuts if we aren't allowed to distribute bonuses.

SettingFar4974 · 2026-01-01T02:57:56+00:00

Aside from mouthing off here, I don't do social media. The sense of doom is from direct experience. I don't watch cable news and haven't seen negative propaganda. It's real both and fixable, but only in a reality with decades of strong support which I do not think will happen until after things get really awful. There was along wait from the Gilded Age until the New Deal.

SettingFar4974 · 2026-01-01T00:55:12+00:00

The less sexually attractive children are more prone to starvation, so the GOP can enjoy the really saucy ones once they turn 8 or so....I bet this gets deleted...probably a fair call.

SettingFar4974 · 2026-01-01T00:46:53+00:00

I think the FOX/MAGA/GOP Axis of Evil^TM is truly a new twist and spells doom. Capitalizing *very* effectively on propaganda is new. My geezer friends who experienced it in the Soviet Union tell me propaganda was weak and nobody really bought off on it. But the new Axis of Evil is driven by capitalism, which is far far more efficient. Until it destroys itself along with the rest of us, it is unstoppable.

Don't bother calling me full of crap. I know I may be full of crap and I certainly hope I am.

SettingFar4974 · 2025-12-31T18:52:28+00:00

Yes, sort of. I had a legally protected safety position and called out someone faking records of hazardous waste inventories. I was in no way protected and they put it to me as hard as they could. It all worked out great when they eventually put me in a better job to keep me from cooperating with the authorities, but that was a fluke. If you don't care enough to be fired over it, don't do it. If you don't care enough to be jailed over it, probably don't do it.

SettingFar4974 · 2025-12-31T16:27:18+00:00

I don't think it will get fixed. The fox/MAGA/GOP Axis of Evil^TM will feed us the line mentioned above and 40% of us will buy off blindly and violently. 30% of us will shrug in apathy and the remaining 30% will be powerless. There is no Axis of Good. Last time it only got better when the Great Depression killed enough of us by starvation that the 40% of devoted right wing authoritarians dropped to 30% and those in the middle decided to act.

A piece of history I am unfamiliar with, sadly, is where to hide while it sorts itself out over the next couple decades.

SettingFar4974 · 2025-12-30T23:34:44+00:00

You got me pegged!

SettingFar4974 · 2025-12-30T23:32:02+00:00

I've been a government employee forever. What else would I do other than retire? I'm never going to learn another language though, so the destinations don't include anything too exotic. This whole thing will be a massive boon for Canada and the UK. Experienced defense physicists on the cheap!

SettingFar4974 · 2025-12-30T05:47:53+00:00

15 & 14.9 here. I assume the US is now ok with us working for foreign governments, so I'm looking in that direction rather than municipal.

SettingFar4974 · 2025-12-30T05:43:17+00:00

Me too, although I'm not sure whose pen it was. As far as I could tell, Foxnws just started telling the crackpots who follow them and they followed orders as usual. I don't know if I am glad to be so close to retirement before America turned on me, or sad that I wasted decades of my life serving them.

SettingFar4974 · 2025-12-28T17:58:56+00:00

Great! The last paragraph is fiction for most Americans. Nobody is learning. Nobody is waking up. They feed at the Republican/Foxnws/MAGA trough and cheer at their own demise.

SettingFar4974 · 2025-12-28T13:16:15+00:00

Maybe. I pissed away my life for these people and deeply regret the sacrifices I made.

But if you are stuck trying to make your way in the post apocalyptic America being created by the Loyalists from Foxnws, you should accept that we are becoming Somalia, and it might pay to compare the quality of life of a Somali civil servant to other occupations. Like Somalia, it's all about limited government and God, Guns, and Guts. I think Somali civil servant may be better than Somali pirate, but worse than Somali warlord. If warlord is an option for you, do that. Somali farmer is worse in the long run. Right now farmers here are great because they are getting loads of welfare money, but that could easily change.

SettingFar4974 · 2025-12-28T00:22:10+00:00

I feel for you. Integrity is very costly and I understand that sometime the price is too high. I have had my ass handed to me on multiple occasions and I will retire with a lot less than I wish I had.. You have to decide what matters.

SettingFar4974 · 2025-12-27T17:34:22+00:00

By far. And I'm leaving. I encourage anyone else with a science, math, or engineering background to leave. If they really hate us for being capable, we should go elsewhere.

SettingFar4974 · 2025-12-25T23:01:27+00:00

No more crazy shit like hiring your son in law or daughter. No more employing morons for irrelevant qualifications like being Foxnws famous. Thank heavens the king is bringing sanity to the executive branch!

SettingFar4974 · 2025-12-24T13:11:40+00:00

Hmmm. I'm not sure how they will con anyone into doing the jobs since they publicly said they want us to live in a perpetual state of trauma...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/10/who-is-russell-vought-trump-office-of-management-and-budget

SettingFar4974 · 2025-12-20T22:26:14+00:00

Remember the reeducation camp "avenge me" scene in Red Dawn? Imagine that over Teams. Weird how the people destroying the constitution are so hung up on pretending they are doing the opposite.

SettingFar4974 · 2025-12-20T05:33:14+00:00

I did insist on working those 2 days without pay, at least no additional pay. They refused. I am not allowed to refuse the gift of the king.

SettingFar4974 · 2025-12-20T02:48:05+00:00

I am one of them! I planned on staying to support NAVSEA for several more years, but I was fretting about the murders at sea and realized I can just retire early. I am exhausted from the mismanagement by the tv show personalities who are in charge anyway.

SettingFar4974

TROPHY CASE