Friday 28 February 2025 04:04:17 PM CST


The millions of federal employees - increasing every year - has long been living at the expense of everybody else. The fact that they pay taxes is more than balanced by the massive benefits if they make it a career. The excessive salary compared to the private sector with pensions and gold-plated medical insurance and the complete lack of accountability for performance makes it an easy choice. Note that I do not include military personnel - their compensation is disgraceful as are the retirement and health care benefits.

Thus the rage at being ordered back to work from most of them - not just because they resented no longer being able sit home and engage in their favorite from of goofing off but because many of them were working at other jobs while collecting their government pay for doing nothing.

From the taxpayer viewpoint the phantoms are more egregious - non-existent people on the payroll. Where is that money going? I suspect that some, maybe most of it is going to the same place - an organized theft ring. Phantoms occur regularly in business when management is sufficiently incompetent or sloppy and the government is at once both the most corrupt and incompetent organization of all.

The money could be going to the same place as the money to the dead Social Security recipients or there might be different schemes operated by different people. Neither will be surprising. People with more technical knowldege than I do - and I have a lot more than average - believe that DOGE is in 'God Mode' and has tentacles in every crack and crevice. Certainly Elon has the ability and if that is the case nothing will escape exposure.

Except the Epstein files. Whatever happened or didn't happen it certainly doesn't look good. The Attorney General alleges that the stash of good stuff is being held by the FBI and despite an order to deliver it by 0800 to day - about six or seven hours ago - no word the status of said goodies. Certainly the AG should have had physical control before announcing it. There also should have a SWAT raid several hours ago but a threat of it being acquired may prompt whoever has it to either destroy it or move it. I would suggest dragging the SDNY folks in for interrogation and keep them there until someone talks. Word is that an insider alerted the AG's office so they should get something.

Speaking of Epstein Lindsey Graham just came close to throwing Zelensky under the bus. Before I get to that let me say that I suspect Graham of being one of those compromised by Epstein - he is clearly being controlled by someone. Or maybe two someones.

Zelensky came to attempt to convince the Trump administration to continue pumping money into Ukraine. How he didn't expect what happened is hard to see. Does he not know how thoroughly he is despised? I realize that he is a witless tool and puppets are rarely intelligent. Even Biden - before his brain rotted - wasn't very smart. Obama was a good actor but a midwit on a good day - without a script the fell apart and lapsed into Al Sharpton mode. Graham admittedly prepped Zelensky in an effort to keep him from doing what he did and Donald Trump is about the last person you want to do that to.

I worked in banking - in small community banks - back in the day. People who got behind on their loans would come in and see the collections officer and work out some kind of deal. A lot of them working-class or lower and were behind on car payments and some would offer excuses and plead to not have their vehicle repossessed and some would become belligerent. Zelensky reminded me of those folks.

MiniLindy@MyndCryme
Donald Trump seems a fundamentally decent and generous sort of person. He gave Zelensky a lot of rope but as he said he did it because he wanted the public to see Zelensky making an ass of himself. As usual the Democrats came to his defense but the damage is done. It appears that someone will be taking a Sharpie to the map and fixing the borders the way Putin wants them. As for Zelensky he will have to face the voters as elections will follow whatever arrangement is made. And what is left of Ukraine will not be part of NATO and that was the main reason for the war.

Not the only one - the biolabs and drug trafficking and arms trafficking and human trafficking - were a factor. That last one disgusted Putin and any other human being that isn't totally depraved. It didn't bother Democrats here though.












































After unthinking adherence to custom, the driving force of the majority is unthinking adherence to authority; and their general response to anti-authoritarians is one of bafflement, contempt, or a combination of both. Thus, the natural brutality, smugness, and obstinacy of authority is both exacerbated and reinforced.
The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everybody else. Frederic Bastiat