What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Valmy]

I remember they were gonna ruin the army, but when were gays ever going to ruin sports? I know it's still a taboo topic to come out because of the machismo thing, but not ruinous. Hell without lesbians there wouldn't be any women's sports

Being openly gay was suicide for men in sports. You were going to ruin it somehow.

Sorry, I meant not ruinous to the sport, not the individual athlete.

Actually there were lesbian scandals in women's sports to, yes yes I get the jokes.

Could very well be true, and I'll take your word for it, I just remember there were (are) a lot of lesbian jokes. We're they scandals because "oh my god gays" or because they'd derail sporting like the trans issues?

I guess I don't get the distinction. If being outted as gay was going to get you removed from being able to play, how is that different from being outted as trans getting you removed from being able to play?

The lesbian jokes were used to ruin woman coaches careers. They weren't just jokes.

[HVC]

I remember they were gonna ruin the army, but when were gays ever going to ruin sports? I know it's still a taboo topic to come out because of the machismo thing, but not ruinous. Hell without lesbians there wouldn't be any women's sports

Being openly gay was suicide for men in sports. You were going to ruin it somehow.

Sorry, I meant not ruinous to the sport, not the individual athlete.

Actually there were lesbian scandals in women's sports to, yes yes I get the jokes.

Could very well be true, and I'll take your word for it, I just remember there were (are) a lot of lesbian jokes. We're they scandals because "oh my god gays" or because they'd derail sporting like the trans issues?

I guess I don't get the distinction. If being outted as gay was going to get you removed from being able to play, how is that different from being outted as trans getting you removed from being able to play?

The lesbian jokes were used to ruin woman coaches careers. They weren't just jokes.

But being gay didn't ruin the sport, it ruined your career. How the trans thing is perceived, as I understand it, is that trans athletes are actively ruining the sport by removing women from women's sports

[crazy canuck]

No, he identifies as a "postliberal" Catholic.  It really is different than Evangelicalism Christianity.  I mean, Martin Luther King Jr. was an Evangelical.

I am aware of that Raz. How in the weeds do we need to go here?

I am aware the modern Christian Nationalist Evangelical Christianity has only superficial resemblance to historical Evangelical Christianity. 

Unless you have a substantial point, make it. Being coy is very annoying. What important point about Vance's Catholicism are you making? It is different in what way do we need to be aware of? Be specific.

Yeah, and I think that is the point.  How exactly does this new brand of Catholicism differ from the Trumpist protestant Evangelicals? About as meaningful as disputing the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin at this point.

[Razgovory]

No, he identifies as a "postliberal" Catholic.  It really is different than Evangelicalism Christianity.  I mean, Martin Luther King Jr. was an Evangelical.

I am aware of that Raz. How in the weeds do we need to go here?

I am aware the modern Christian Nationalist Evangelical Christianity has only superficial resemblance to historical Evangelical Christianity. 

Unless you have a substantial point, make it. Being coy is very annoying. What important point about Vance's Catholicism are you making? It is different in what way do we need to be aware of? Be specific.

My point is that religion is not the driving force here,  Catholic tradition, even weird, right wing Catholic tradition is not about destroying government and starving the poor.  CC is letting his biases get the best of him, to the point where he can't even correctly identify what religion that is supposedly guiding his beliefs.

[mongers]

Much of the reason for Vance doing what he did, is as a response to the growing influence of Musk.

He's seen Musk hold forth on several occasions, dominating the room as a passive Trump nods along, so perhaps Vance thought he'd do likewise and attempt to establish a clearer influence on Trumps ailing mind/personality?

[crazy canuck]

CC is letting his biases get the best of him, to the point where he can't even correctly identify what religion that is supposedly guiding his beliefs.

Or, it may just be that you are using a frame of reference for what your co-religionists are doing that is outdated.

[Razgovory]

CC is letting his biases get the best of him, to the point where he can't even correctly identify what religion that is supposedly guiding his beliefs.

Or, it may just be that you are using a frame of reference for what your co-religionists are doing that is outdated.

I'm agnostic.  Just because you dislike like several groups of people doesn't mean all those people are the same.  You see Evangelical Christianity as the motivation because that's what you don't like.  I suspect you don't like any religion but Christianity is an acceptable target, targeting other religions would result in accusations of bigotry.

[Valmy]

But being gay didn't ruin the sport, it ruined your career. How the trans thing is perceived, as I understand it, is that trans athletes are actively ruining the sport by removing women from women's sports

Well it is 100% functionally the same from the athletes perspective. Either way, once you were outted your career was over.

The trans athletes only ever theoretically ruined any sports. I was actually rather concerned waaaay back about 20 years ago when we first started discussing this issue that athletes are just so insanely competitive and so desperate to win that they would transition just to do that. But despite athletes being so crazy that they will take drugs that put their very lives at risk just to win some event, as well as lie cheat and steal in a million other ways, this is one line even they won't cross. So just never saw tons of trans women coming in to dominate sports. It was only ever a tiny handful and only a few made any impact.

None-the-less it seemed like sporting bodies were treating this fairly. Some women's sports trans women cannot compete in at the highest levels if they went through puberty as a male. This was being considered on scientific basis with a focus actually on competition and not on panic. But not every sport does this make sense. Going through puberty as a male will not make you a more graceful figure skater, better at balancing in gymnastics, or better at shooting or archery or whatever. Plenty of sports you can compete at, even at an Olympic level, as a transwoman. They won't be ruined.

Granted lots of sports are segregated by gender for no fucking good reason at all. The only island of sanity in this respect is equestrian sports, where fortunately nobody thinks you having some testosterone makes you better at handling horses.

But it bugs me when the male gold medal winner performs worse than the female gold medal winner at those kinds of sports sports. like dude, what did you really win? You aren't a champ, you only won because the best athlete was irrationally not allowed to compete with you. But really that is a different issue. As a sports fan it is so stupid and sexist, it drives me nuts.

Anyway, outside of the top levels of the sport where big prizes and glory and scholarships or whatever are on the line, then why can't transwomen compete just for recreation?

But no. All transwomen must be banned from ALL sports. Because people are fucking evil while pretending to clutch their pearls about the children. As usual.

Like we let parents decide all kinds of things for kids. Like if a kid is intersex the parents get to decide what sex the kid gets to be. The parents in this country can literally lock their kid in a cult compound and brainwash them to become a lifetime cult member. That's perfectly acceptable, with some limits that are rarely enforced anyway. And that is just scratching the surface.

But if you are parents and decide that your kid is transgendered and decide, with the coordination of medical professionals, that transgendered care is appropriate. That is going too far. Now maybe put out some guard rails. Maybe they need a few second opinions and a psychological evaluation. Maybe there are some kinds of trans care you can do but not others. But no, IT ALL MUST BE BANNED. BECAUSE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!11 But it wasn't actually about the children. Trans care is going to be banned in states all across the country soon, even for adults who are paying cash.

[Syt]

Well, duh.

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/28/politics/us-intel-russia-china-attempt-recruit-disgruntled-federal-employees?cid=ios_app

Exclusive: US intel shows Russia and China are attempting to recruit disgruntled federal employees, sources say

Foreign adversaries including Russia and China have recently directed their intelligence services to ramp up recruiting of US federal employees working in national security, targeting those who have been fired or feel they could be soon, according to four people familiar with recent US intelligence on the issue and a document reviewed by CNN.

The intelligence indicates that foreign adversaries are eager to exploit the Trump administration's efforts to conduct mass layoffs across the federal workforce – a plan laid out by the Office of Personnel Management earlier this week.

Russia and China are focusing their efforts on recently fired employees with security clearances and probationary employees at risk of being terminated, who may have valuable information about US critical infrastructure and vital government bureaucracy, two of the sources said. At least two countries have already set up recruitment websites and begun aggressively targeting federal employees on LinkedIn, two of the sources said.

A document produced by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service said the intelligence community assessed with "high confidence" that foreign adversaries were trying to recruit federal employees and "capitalize" on the Trump administration's plans for mass layoffs, according to a partly redacted copy reviewed by CNN.

It added that foreign intelligence officers were being directed to look for potential sources on LinkedIn, TikTok, RedNote and Reddit.

At least one foreign intelligence officer directed an asset to create a company profile on Linkedin and post a job advertisement, and to actively pursue federal employees who indicate they are "open to work," the NCIS document says.

The adversaries think the employees "are at their most vulnerable right now," another of the sources said. "Out of a job, bitter about being fired, etc."

"It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see that these cast aside federal workers with a wealth of institutional knowledge represent staggeringly attractive targets to the intelligence services of our competitors and adversaries," a third source familiar with the recent US assessments told CNN.

CNN has reached out to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as well as the embassies of China and Russia in Washington for comment.

The intelligence seems to confirm what was previously a hypothetical fear for current and US officials: that the mass firings could offer a rich recruitment opportunity for foreign intelligence services that might seek to exploit financially vulnerable or resentful former employees. The Justice Department has charged multiple former military and intelligence officials for providing US intelligence to China in recent years.

Officials have been discussing the risk
Career officials at the CIA have been quietly discussing that risk and how to mitigate it in the recent weeks, current and former intelligence officials previously told CNN. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard earlier this week suggested that those discussions represented a "threat" made by disloyal government employees — rather than a clinical warning of the potential risks posed by President Donald Trump's aggressive cost-cutting strategy — and that those involved should be penalized.

"I am curious about how they think this is a good tactic to keep their job," Gabbard told Fox News' Jesse Watters on Tuesday. "They're exposing themselves essentially by making this indirect threat using their propaganda arm through CNN that they've used over and over and over again to reveal their hand, that their loyalty is not at all to America. It is not to the American people or the Constitution. It is to themselves.

"And these are exactly the kind of people that we need to root out, get rid of so that the patriots who do work in this area, who are committed to our core mission can actually focus on that," she said.

Multiple current officials across national security agencies who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity expressed frustration at the administration's response to what they see as very real warnings — not partisan swiping.

"Employees that feel they have been mistreated by an employer have historically been much more likely to disclose sensitive information," said Holden Triplett, who served as director of counterintelligence at the National Security Council in the first Trump administration and is a former FBI attaché at the US embassies in Moscow and Beijing. "We may be creating, albeit somewhat unintentionally, the perfect recruitment environment."

'This isn't reality TV'
"This isn't reality TV," said another former intelligence official. "There are consequences."

The CIA and Defense Department are weighing significant staff cuts. The Pentagon said in a memo last week that over 5,000 probationary employees, who in most cases have been in their job a year or less, could be fired in the short term. And the CIA has already fired more than 20 officers for their work on diversity issues, many of whom are now challenging their dismissal in court.

The CIA also aggressively seeks to recruit disaffected government employees in adversarial countries "all the time," noted a former intelligence official — using similar tactics. The agency has released a series of public recruitment videos aimed at persuading disgruntled Russian government employees to spy for the United States, videos that detailed ways to securely contact the agency.

"'Domestic political turbulence in your country? Sign up with us to help us help your country!'" the former official paraphrased the US efforts, adding that those efforts deeply aggravate foreign governments.

The CIA may have already inadvertently put some American secrets within the grasp of foreign spies and hackers. In an effort to comply with the executive order to downsize the federal workforce, the CIA earlier this month sent the White House an extraordinarily unusual email listing all new hires that have been with the agency for two years or less — a list that included CIA officers who were preparing to operate under cover — over an unclassified email server.

Some of those officers, who have had access to classified information about the agency's operations and tradecraft, may now be terminated as part of the layoffs.

[grumbler]

I'm not sure it's that everyone hates LGBT people, but "T" part does seem to be giving some people problems.  My brother, who is gay, is not particularly fond of Trans, but otherwise supports LGBT.  I think that most people can tolerate trans people.  Sort of a "you can do what you want, so long as you don't hurt anyone", but they become unhappy when they feel that trans people or their allies are perceived to harm others, such gender-affirming care for children, trans in women's sports, etc

Children don't get gender-affirming care and the number of transwomen in sports is miniscule and insignificant.  The Big Lie is alive and well.

[Grey Fox]

Those like 3 student athletes did so much damage to the cause and the world.

[Valmy]

Those like 3 student athletes did so much damage to the cause and the world.

3 student athletes:



Witch hunts rarely need any actual witches.

[Sophie Scholl]

"If you go through male puberty, you can't partake in sports. Also, we're making puberty blockers and usage of hormones illegal for anyone who hasn't gone through male puberty." That is a de facto ban on trans women playing in sports.

[Legbiter]

"If you go through male puberty, you can't partake in sports. Also, we're making puberty blockers and usage of hormones illegal for anyone who hasn't gone through male puberty." That is a de facto ban on trans women playing in sports.

[Valmy]

"If you go through male puberty, you can't partake in sports. Also, we're making puberty blockers and usage of hormones illegal for anyone who hasn't gone through male puberty." That is a de facto ban on trans women playing in sports.

No, only in sports where it is scientifically proven to give you an advantage and only on the highest levels where winning actually matters. Plenty of sports would be open and all rec sports and most school sports should. It should be done on a case by case basis in the service of fairness and rationality, not panic. And you have to prove it.

And frankly a lot of sports shouldn't be segregated by gender anyway.

I think it is only that way because men are too chicken shit to risk losing to women 

But that might not be true