McGurk resigned

06hawkalum wrote:Futures are down close to 3% due to shutdown and reports that Trump wants to fire Powell.

He really is killing it this week!

Will we be retesting the 2009 lows (DOW 7000) by Election Day 2020?

Feels like a distinct possibility at the moment.

666 on the S&P that day.

Fwiw, it seems increasingly clear Rojava is going to be destroyed because of our withdrawal. For this reason alone Congress should draft legislation to keep whatever the minimum amount of troops is needed to stay there to essentially shield them from a potential bombing campaign. Turkey and Russia will not bomb us.

Leave everything else.

Do I think Congress will do this? They can in January. We need to call our legislators in this regard. I will be calling Houlahan.

Trump's justification is specious but that didn't mean I wanted to remain.

I don't think we should be in Afghanistan at this point. I see little point in remaining in Syria beyond protecting the Kurds. However we got there, we do have a duty to them and the society they've created. So I was initially wrong, I think.

https://nypost.com/2018/12/22/how-arres ... tion-plot/

Arrest of a Chinese Princess

This is NOT a scene from the Man in the High Castle.

And that book, the Man in the High Castle was before my time. No science fiction alternate world traveling in it.

Just a suggestion of an alternate reality.

Government shutdowns are rare when one party controls White House, Congress. President Trump is on his third.

Even the coloring book of papers is piling on.

momadance wrote:Really love the Republican talking point that they're not #$!&@ over workers before Christmas because we're still getting paid on 1/4. Lol. Eat #$!&@.

I know...so stupid...I work for the IRS...people don't realize that taxpayers with hardships are waiting for refunds on things like amended returns or examinations that are now being held up...my unit is already behind...we have lost employees through retirement, death, moving on to other positions, ect. and they never back-fill those jobs, but our work remains the same with little or no overtime..

I'm not expecting to be back until January 2nd at earliest..

hey 3c, I've heard conflicting takes on this- including a friend who holds an upper management IRS position...

if you are deemed 'non-essential' and don't work next week, will you get back pay for the time you didn't work? This NYT article says no...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/21/us/p ... tdown.html

But about 380,000 workers at nine of 15 cabinet-level departments would be sent home and would not be paid for the time off. Another 420,000 deemed too essential to be furloughed would be forced, like the Border Patrol officers, to work without pay. After past shutdowns, such workers have been reimbursed later.

Bucky wrote:hey 3c, I've heard conflicting takes on this- including a friend who holds an upper management IRS position...

if you are deemed 'non-essential' and don't work next week, will you get back pay for the time you didn't work? This NYT article says no...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/21/us/p ... tdown.html

But about 380,000 workers at nine of 15 cabinet-level departments would be sent home and would not be paid for the time off. Another 420,000 deemed too essential to be furloughed would be forced, like the Border Patrol officers, to work without pay. After past shutdowns, such workers have been reimbursed later.

I don't believe that to be the case..I have been through many shutdowns in my career there and we have ALWAYS gotten paid, two to four weeks after returning...the longest was the 17-day Health Care shutdown a few years ago and we did get paid for that...this time of year, they are few "essential" workers at IRS, so I know most of everyone in my building last night was furloughed, which is about 3,500 people

Thanks! Yeah, my buddy said he got a call like 4:15 Thursday afternoon and he had to make a gazillion calls to tell folks not to report to work on Wednesday, which was made much more challenging with more than half the workforce being out of office with "use-it-or-lose-it" time...

Bucky wrote:Thanks! Yeah, my buddy said he got a call like 4:15 Thursday afternoon and he had to make a gazillion calls to tell folks not to report to work on Wednesday, which was made much more challenging with more than half the workforce being out of office with "use-it-or-lose-it" time...

Right...last night my unit would normally have 13 people, but we had three in, including myself...most of this was because the people usually off on Mondays, had their "holiday" yesterday since before the shutdown, all employees were given Christmas Eve off anyway...

Our manager had to call the other employees letting them know, just don't pay attention to news, we will be notified by phone exactly when to return.

I worked 101 days on the state level without being paid and we eventually got paid.

Isil launches fierce counterattack in Deir Ezzor after Trump's withdrawal announcement

So much winning... so tired of winning.

Mattis out as of Jan 1. Deputy to replace him. So now we have several key positions (AG, CoS, SecDef) held by interim people. I guess even Fox News talking heads don't want to work for this President anymore.

This looks really bad, and I would not be surprised if the chaos in the administration is even worse than it looks. Despite a friendly Senate, he hasn't appointed anyone to go through a confirmation process. I suppose he might be waiting for a slightly friendlier Senate to do so, but the fact that identifying and vetting nominees would be a key responsibility of the CoS, and it isn't happening strikes me as a sign that things are in fact worse than they were even a few weeks ago.

Chris Matthews is a total dope, and I saw a headline where he said Trump would resign within a month. A few hours ago, I totally dismissed it as click bait (which I didn't click!) but now I wonder if Matthews doesn't in fact have some morsel of some crumb of gossip upon which he based his prediction.

jesus christ, he's working with Erdogan on the withdrawal from Syria

The Kurds are going to be murdered

Yup, that was obvious.

It's time to stop thinking about Trump as a bumbling idiot who may or may not be in league with the russians. He's a fucking monster and history will see him that way unless his kind wins. He's not done yet.

tl;dr TV Mattis tossed early, no transition. FFS.

this is how a terrorist attack slips through the cracks; no one to lead anyone

Toomey still ok with trump because you know tax cuts

pacino wrote:this is how a terrorist attack slips through the cracks; no one to lead anyone

The sec of defense is not personally stopping a terrorist attack. Longer term, good policy should reduce the probability of one occurring, of course, but the weeks of transition only matter here because Trump is a lunatic.

Werthless wrote:

pacino wrote:this is how a terrorist attack slips through the cracks; no one to lead anyone

The sec of defense is not personally stopping a terrorist attack. Longer term, good policy should reduce the probability of one occurring, of course, but the weeks of transition only matter here because Trump is a lunatic.

i mean the chaos of an administration constantly in transition and having no real leadership to outline priorities, to bring issues to the President, etc.