Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

He is mentally ill. Something is wrong with his medulla oblongata.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

The "groceries is an old-fashioned word" thing is telling to me. He's just a series of catch phrases with zero substance behind them.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

People don't believe things they don't want to believe.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

If you believe the view that he is transactional and self-interested, the tariffs make no sense. They actually harm his own businesses and piss off the donor class.

The consensus on him for most of those ten years has been that he is self-interested and driven by desire for personal wealth.

It appears that was wrong, or he has changed. It appears now that he really thinks one can materially revive manufacturing here. This may be senility.

Trump has an ideological core of a sort. It seems to be a mix of McKinley, Hoover, and Teddy Roosevelt. It's Trump's Early 1900s, and we're just living in it.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Necessarily, this also means people believe what they want to believe. On both points, this is well done: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/o...g-tariffs.html

You might think a large swath of the world has critical thinking skills. If you're smart enough to acquire a graduate degree, you're exposed to people with them most of the time. But even among the "smart," one must notice, this skill is becoming less ubiquitous. It's been declining for years, for a number of reasons.

Imagine the deficit among the hoi polloi. It's horrifying.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Does anyone know anything about the law of contempt? Is there any reason that a federal judge could not impose a fine on a government official who is in contempt, and structure the fine so that it increases over time with noncompliance?

eta: ChatGPT thinks this possible, but I'm not sure whether to trust it with this kind of question.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I think we're going to find out very soon.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

The Executive can ignore a court order to, e.g., admit a reporter to a press pool, but if a court orders monetary sanctions, I wonder if those become self-executing in a way that causes problems for the individuals involved. E.g., a court hits an administration official with a $25K fine. The administration surely will not devote resources to collecting on that obligation, but if the court creates a financial obligation that is cognizable in the way that judgment or lien would be, it's not clear to me that the administration can do anything to make it go away, leaving to officials to worry about future governments that would collect the debts.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

So your point is that his behavior is normal given his abnormalities?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Yes. Completely normal.

Call me on my burner and we can discuss further.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Does anybody know what type $$ he is freezing for the schools? Is it competitive research programs? I’m just surprised at the huge imbalance in what schools have been getting. My memory is that when I was hired at Commerce I was told the Gov can’t weigh school ranking in hiring, at least for Civil Service- I mean obviously the SCOTUS has to be from Harvard, or Yale, but otherwise.

It seems contrary to throw so much to elite school relative to “lesser.” And for Harvard to accept so much more seems the opposite of DEI.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I thought it was money for competitive research grants, mostly in the sciences. I'm not sure what imbalances you are seeing, but would assume that non-elite research universities are getting much more money than elite liberal arts colleges. For example, I'm sure the University of Alabama gets much more money than Wesleyan does. (But I also understand that GOP legislators are working behind the scenes to keep money flowing to state schools in red states, like the University of Alabama.)

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Wesleyan?

It’s hard to tell how much each school gets but Alabama, for all that GOP pushing, doesn’t seem near 1 Billion.

And all the press? How do we think the poor voters who were reliably D votes, but bailed in 2024, or worse voted for Trump, how do you think they feel when hearing the Government gives Harvard $2,000,000,000? Harvard gets 2 B?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

You are correct based on what I've read. Trump's withholding is, like his blunt DOGE job cuts, a chainsaw where a scalpel is needed.

Cutting hard science research grants is punishing the people at Harvard who are likely the least political, if political at all. It harms all of us who benefit from medical and scientific research to spite a small cadre of politically bizarre people.

A better approach would be to assess all the research that is being funded and pull the dollars for all the programs tied to politically problematic professors and student organizations. (I personally think that is also a bad policy, and probably unconstitutional, but for purposes of this thought exercise, I'm simply trying to find a compromise position that protects hard science research.) But this would take thinking, and analysis, and those don't comport with a "break things, make a mess, then try to get a 'good deal' navigating the carnage" approach Trump seems to be taking toward everything.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

So to cut gov spending, set up a department to evaluate research to determine what to cut?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

What are we doing here, Hank? Do you have a concern with Harvard getting research grants, or are just worried that some voters won’t like it? There are a lot of voters, and some of them think all sorts of things. Are you saying that Harvard should surrender its First Amendment rights and let Trumpy MAGA wingnuts decide what they teach because fighting the feds might hurt Dems in elections late next year?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

How about we do what the Constitution says, which is for Congress decide how to appropriate money for stuff? What do you have against the Constitution? It works pretty well, and is much more popular than letting a ketamine-addled South African billionaire and a bunch 4chan teenagers go wild.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

1) I was asking if it isn’t problematic that a few elite schools get a shit ton more money than other schools. In my post before I’d asked if such a distribution wasn’t the opposite of encouraging DEI.

Then;

2) My second thought was that a ton of voters have got to be seeing how much money is going to universities that wouldn’t let their families take a shit on campus, and thinking “thank you President Trump!”


The second was just an observation that in Trump’s seemingly crazed attacks he may actually be building his block.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I guess it’s problematic if you think that the point of grants for scientific research, is to spread money around the country like butter on warm toast, as opposed to supporting scientific research. I suspect that there has been plenty of data available about those grants for a long time, and no one has been troubled.

Harvard Yard is open to the public every day of the year except one, commencement day. I bet there are a ton more people who know someone who has had cancer and don’t understand why Republicans are cutting funds for medical research.

His approval scores are below any other President’s at this point, but sure, he’s a sneaky political genius. Do you believe that, or are you just trying to play Devil’s Advocate to the prevailing view that he’s nuts?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Congress studies and approves research grants?

EDIT

And now the admin is saying the Harvard letter was a mistake? It takes several days to get that?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

You said, "So to cut gov spending, set up a department to evaluate research to determine what to cut?"

If the problem is that Congress spends too much, or on the wrong stuff, then let's fix that the way the Constitution says, which is for Congress to spend less, or on the right stuff. What the Trump Administration is doing is -- blatantly -- unconstitutional. It's a matter of time before Congress decides that it likes to spend money, and takes its power back, but in the meantime the MAGA crowd is doing a lot of damage because Republicans in Congress are too scared of Trump and Musk to stand up to them. They are gutless cowards.

It's a clown show, and it would be funny if they weren't hurting so many people.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I know none of you have stayed in a Trump hotel in the last 10 but have any of you ever? Are they nice?

Where I stay in Chicago is across the street from the Trump hotel and watching people walk in I’m sort of sickened by them. I get poor people thinking he’ll help them financially, or at least get the trans off their daughter’s b-ball team. But wealthy people staying there are making a pretty clear greedy statement. Or is there a reason to hold one’s nose and check in?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

He's just licensing the name, isn't he?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I had never heard that, but it seems lots are owned by others who license the name. What is the value of the name, at least 10 years ago when he hadn't been President.

At least some he does at least co-own.

Whatever way they are owned, staying there now is making a statement. There was a time when I asked myself if I'd walk in Jean Georges. If that raises a question, staying in the hotel is right out.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I was under the impression that the Trump Organization is not actually operating any hotels, and that various others are, so that one's experience at one such property would not necessarily correlate to that at another.

Which is separate from the question of whether one wants make that statement. I was in Chicago and when I saw the large Trump name on the property over the river, I felt a little ill. Though that could have been the norovirus at work.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I was staying in Chicago last week across State from that hotel. I could see events outside and knowing anyone who books that has a belief I um, disagree with.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I think it's the cheapest of the 5 star hotels in Chicago. I'm guessing that's due to the name on then building.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

We already have it, and they're volunteers - DOGE.

It's not a difficult task to look at a list of grants and sift the necessary from the frivolous. Simply strip out everything with a political bent or trafficking in pseudoscience (like most anthropological and gender studies) and leave the hard science and medical research.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

The one in DC that the Trump Org sold, and which I believe it operated, was supposed to be really nice. Rooftop bar, particularly.

Picking your hotel or car by politics is IMO silly. I think JB Pritzker is a buffoon presiding over a state which is the poster child for mismanagement. Should that factor in my selection of a Hyatt? I think Musk is an unhinged child-man. Should that stop me from buying a Tesla?

If people like to engage in performative behaviors, okay. Have at it. In regard to Tesla, the boycotts actually appear to be having some effect. But usually, it's mindless "feels" for one's own sense of self-righteousness. Or something a whiffle intellect can post on IG.

A better response is perhaps donating money or time to Fire.org, or the ACLU, which appear to be the only people waging an organized campaign against Trump's war on free speech.

Or maybe also ask your asshole right wing friends who railed about cancel culture while Biden was in office but aren't saying anything now what's got their tongues? Whole lotta Trumpers seem to understand free speech as free for me, not for thee. Cancelation by deportation is no different in effect from cancelation by social and legacy media manipulation. You're just driving Orwell's car to the nadir instead of Huxley's.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

This highlights one of the biggest problems with social equity mindsets. Research grants are an investment. If you're trying to cure cancer, you don't send a hundred million to Ball State to pretend there's a semblance of parity with Harvard. Harvard is superior for variety of reasons, so instead of DEI, focus on ROI. Anything else is just malinvestment.

Crab Theory seems pervasive these days.

Again, it comes down to precision, which is missing in this admin. You can't punish the cancer research scientist at Harvard for the sins of the wingnuts in the Gender Studies, Anthropology, and Political Science departments who think Hamas had an argument but just went a little too far on October 7, or we're a culture of closeted Bull Connors operating a Handmaid's tale patriarchy out of one of Andrea Dworkin's fever dreams. We can walk and chew gum. We can cut off funds to the frivolous while continuing them to the important.

But it takes work, and nimble thinking. None of which a performance artist like Trump, or his misfit band of merry players, has any interest in undertaking. They're all about the clickbait, owning the libs. It's so beyond stupid and childish I'm totally out of denigrating superlatives.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Well the bulk of Tesla owners were liberals weren't they? That makes for an easy boycott. All my Maga FB friends had been dogging electric cars for years.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Musk has had a positive impact on electric car use in that regard. Trump fans are now buying electric to own the libs. And I suspect because that truck (which is actually a really comfortable and pretty sweet vehicle) comes in a "Beast" package which includes giant gnarly tires that make it look like something out of Mad Max.

Alternatively, one can view this as I do - further proof most humans are emotionally driven idiots comprised of equal parts pettiness and irrationality. Trump is a perfect pied piper for a perfectly imbecilic public.

And I don't merely mean the right, or the poors. The Big Dumb Cloud permeating everywhere in the country touches everything. If you doubt this, ask a "Resistance" person what they would do in lieu of DOGE to curb govt overexpansion and debt. Four out of five times they'll say "Tax billionaires." At which point, all one can do is exit the conversation.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I have a friend who will ask to change rooms in Vegas if his has a view of the TRUMP building.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I have a friend who will stay at a Trump hotel and steal the towels!

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

It would be a difficult task, because the question of what is necessary and what is frivolous does not have objective answer. Different people have different priorities, which is why Congress appropriates money for things that seem frivolous to some people.

What is frivolous is the idea that what DOGE is doing is constitutional. The Executive Branch is trying to grab the power to block spending approved by the Legislative Branch, a core enumerated power in the Constitution.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

What makes you think they are volunteers? The DOGE staff are getting paid.

LOL

ETA: Also, this is not what they are doing.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

They'd tell you 1) those things are not significant concerns (and even if they were, DOGE ain't going shit about it) and 2) to the extent they are, start at the Defense Department.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I wish. As one who'd love to see the Pentagon budget cut in half, I'd join that resistance myself. But that never happens. And I rarely hear support for defense cuts from anyone. Seems Rand Paul is the sole voice on it.

Instead, we get dumb bromides from AOC followers about taxing billionaires to right the fiscal ship.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Huh. Originally, Musk said it was long hours for pittance pay, basically volunteer work. How's DOGE being funded?

I know it's not what they're doing. It's what they should be doing.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

DOGE strikes me as problematic and probably unlawful for a number of reasons. But I'm just assuming it continues for purposes of the conversation. If it does, it ought to act more judiciously and surgically. Yes, I fully realize that statement is naive as all fuck, as its probable real mandate is Bannon's "destruction of the administrative state."

As to your first point, there are objectively important things and frivolous things. Vaccine research (safe vaccine research) is an example of the urgently needed and important. Research into gender dysphoria is an example of a niche issue that is simply not important.

The anthropological seems to be the hotbed of a lot of frivolous funding. That department, along with history and political science, seem to be the fount of niche issues and dubious research. I'd also cut off funding for econ departments - another soft science. These areas aren't saving anyone from a deadly virus or bacteria or planning to avert consequences of climate change. They don't need or arguably deserve funding.