Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

White supremacy is terrorism.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

In my day, never was longer.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Military / Open Thread: Trading SPACE FARCE! for Paid Parental Leave

Open Thread: Trading SPACE FARCE! for Paid Parental Leave

by | 84 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

But seriously… I doubt it will happen, because the Repubs don’t want a bunch of ‘low-level bureaucrats’ (federal employees) to get ‘freebies paid from our taxes’, especially right before Christmas (because they can’t enjoy their holiday unless they know other people are suffering). But I would happily trade an expansion of paid family leave in return for, let’s be honest, years of scheduling Very Serious Hearings about a sixth branch of the military. The Washington Post is a good guide here, IMO, because they’re reporting on what they consider a local pocketbook issue:

… The deal is part of a defense authorization bill that is slated to pass this month. If consummated, the agreement could mark one of the biggest deals President Trump has cut with Congress. It would secure a massive expansion of benefits for federal workers, something Democrats have long sought, in exchange for a realignment of the U.S. military that Trump has sought to secure as part of his legacy…

One Democratic congressional aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the parties are “nearing agreement on a final deal.” The package could be voted on as early as next week, the aide said.

If it is approved, the extension of paid family leave to federal workers would represent a major benefit to more than 2 million federal civilian workers, who are only eligible for unpaid leave under federal law.

It would mark a reversal of sorts for the White House, which has sought to strip pay and benefits from federal workers since Trump took office in 2017. Instead, it would mark one of the biggest extensions of a new work benefit for the federal workforce in recent history…

Trump has become increasingly fixated on Space Force as his administration faces the House impeachment inquiry, according to one senior administration official. But it has not been clear if House Democrats would approve of his request.

The Pentagon has already reestablished a Space Command that will be headed by a four-star general. But the Space Force, if approved, would stand up an organization to train and equip specialized forces whose mission would be to accelerate the country’s response to the militarization of space…

A senior defense official with knowledge of Space Force discussions said Thursday that the Air Force convened a planning task force months ago and is weighing “myriad” issues, including how service members would be transferred from the Air Force to the Space Force, what Space Force uniforms would look like, and what rank structure would be used…

Still, there are a variety of more complicated issues that will take the Pentagon time to hammer out, the official said. They include logistical issues, such as where Space Force headquarters will be housed in the Pentagon, and practical ones, such as whether the Space Force will have its own security forces on the ground or rely on other branches of service.

For federal employees, the deal represents not just a rare new benefit, but a victory in a three-year war with the Trump administration that from the start was suspicious of the career bureaucracy of 2.1 million employees.

The White House has gone to war with unions that represent federal workers and won. In recent months it has gotten reprieves from the courts over a union challenge to a series of White House executive orders designed to weaken labor’s hand in collective bargaining.

The administration has slashed long-established benefits such as telework in many agencies and taken steps to more aggressively fire workers it deems poor performers. And while Trump has proposed a raise for the workforce for next year, he did not want an increase this year until Congress intervened, demanding it under the terms of a budget agreement that ended the partial government shutdown…

Reader Interactions

84Comments

  2. 2.

    WaterGirl

    My first thought is that any deal that Trump makes is worth less than a turd from the kitty litter box.  Whatever he promises won’t come to reality, and we would be stuck with a stupid 6th branch of the military.  If anyone wants to talk me down from that particular ledge, let me know.

  3. 3.

    Anne Laurie

    @debbie:

    Doesn’t actually need to be officially “cancelled”, IMO — the army bureaucracy is more than competent to slow-walk Trump’s nitwitted proposal well into the next century, if necessary.

    But the paid parental leave can be used now (well, when the next budget cycle starts), and it’s always a lot more difficult to claw back benefits than to resist new ones.  And the article quotes Princess Ivanka praising the idea, so that makes it (incrementally) more likely to happen, if the budget is passed.

  5. 5.

    JGabriel

    WaPo via Anne Laurie @ Top:

    A senior defense official … said Thursday that the Air Force convened a planning task force months ago and is weighing “myriad” issues, including how service members would be transferred from the Air Force to the Space Force, what Space Force uniforms would look like …

    You know Trump was fixated on those uniforms. Probably wants them designed by Ivanka.

     

    Fascists <em>LOVE</em> their uniforms and authoritarian costumes. I really think fascism, in addition to being a toxic ideology, should also be categorized as a fetish.

  6. 6.

    hells littlest angel

    @WaterGirl: If anyone wants to talk me down from that particular ledge, let me know.

     

    I wish I could, but you’re probably right. On the bright side, SpaceForce! is also unlikely to come into being, and will end up in the same dustbin as Infrastructure Week and The Wall.

  7. 7.

    HinTN

    I’m all for this for the youth that will, FSM willing, choose to serve our country as Civil Servants long after this fossil is gone.

     

    The Pentagon bureaucracy hasn’t been hollowed out enough yet to forget how to resist THE STUPID.

  8. 8.

    debbie

    @Anne Laurie:
    I’m vindictive enough to want to have everything he did canceled and erased, just as he did to those of his predecessor. And then let it all eat at him.

  9. 9.

    CliosFanBoy

    @JGabriel: You know Trump was fixated on those uniforms. Probably wants them designed by Ivanka.

     

    so they’ll be copied from another designer??

  11. 11.

    NotMax

    Isn’t this just putting a new coat of paint on the space command from 1985?

    Troubling to me is that it gives Dolt 45 a de jure excuse (contrived as it may be) for pulling out of the Outer Space Treaty, so against it for that reason alone unless doing so is specifically proscribed in the legislation.

  12. 12.

    hells littlest angel

    @JGabriel:You know Trump was fixated on those uniforms. Probably wants them designed by Ivanka.

    That would make sense. A contract for 10 million uniforms, a couple thousand of which actually get produced, which then sit in a warehouse while Trump “strongly looks at” implementing his Space Force.

  14. 14.

    lumpkin

    Further militarization of space is a bad idea. Trading a benefit for federal workers by putting the entire world at greater risk in  the future is not worth it.

  15. 15.

    Mike in NC

    Fat Bastard wants to think about his legacy? Hell, we all know what that’s going to be. No to wasting billions on Space Farce and its Field Marshal Jared Kushner.

  16. 16.

    chris

    I see this in the shitgibbon’s tiny brain, probably backed by some cheesy ’70s cartoon theme music. In reality it will take 17 years of committees, memos and powerpoints to decide on a uniform. What sort of camouflage does one wear in space?

  19. 19.

    Procopius

    @debbie: No, the institution will have too many defenders. It would be like trying to put the Coast Guard back under Treasury, where it logically belongs. I’m surprised the Air Force isn’t fighting harder to prevent this. Are they satiated with the graft they’re getting from the F-35 program? Seems impossible. Grifters are never satiated. There must be ambitious people who see a better chance for themselves in a separate branch. More flag officer positions (i.e., generals and/or admirals). Why isn’t the Navy trying to grab this? Many science fiction stories have space navies.

  21. 21.

    David ??Booooooo?? Koch

    Dump got his space force notion from watching Mel Brooks’s “Space Balls” on late night tee vee.

  27. 27.

    David ??Booooooo?? Koch

    Going cruisin’ in a spaceship, we’re so good at being bad
    We’ll destroy your little planet if you ever get us mad
    We’re mothers of the galaxy
    You better scatter when you see
    We’re the masters of space
    We’re the Spaceballs!
    Watch out!

  31. 31.

    Ken

    such as whether the Space Force will have its own security forces on the ground or rely on other branches of service.

    To roughly quote Charles Stross, “Say you’re the US and you want to invade a small country.  For ground forces, do you use the Army, or the Navy’s Army (the Marines)?  And for air support, do you use the Air Force, the Army’s Air Force, the Navy’s Air Force, or the Marines’ Air Force?”

  32. 32.

    PsiFighter37

    OT: Mayor Pete ain’t qualified to be preznit, but the focus on his McKinsey career is ridiculous. At the age he was there, he was simply taking orders and doing whatever his managing director told him to do. I will give a nod to folks who say that private sector experience had some semblance of mattering – because it sure seems like some folks (ahem Uncle Joe) who have never made a true living not being in the public sector may not be able to grasp this.

  33. 33.

    Ken

    where Space Force headquarters will be housed in the Pentagon

    Clearly they are not reading the same comic books as Trump.  They will obviously be housed in the orbiting Space Force(TM) Command Satellite(TM).

    (Meanwhile, the Chinese will be on the Moon, and building the infrastructure to stage the bombardment scenes from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.)

  34. 34.

    Sloane Ranger

    @zhena gogolia: I may be mis-remembering but I’m almost certain that my Biology teacher taught us that the human gestation period was 9 months and subsequent life experience seems to support this, give or take.

     

    Or, in other words, what the hell!!!

  36. 36.

    jl

    @Baud: “In the Baud! administration, we’re taking the fight to the underworld with … Hell Force!”

     

    Baud 2020! A bigger better dumpster fire! For a brighter future!

     

    Hobos can put dumpster fires to good use.

  38. 38.

    jl

    I am surprised this deal, which since it involves Trump probably won’t come to anything, is considered a topic for a front post.

     

    Some random person, probably some lobbyist with a $ agenda, walked into Trump’s office, and informed him of the great toilet flushing crisis, which is wasting mass quantities of water. I myself, have had to flush 15, 20 times, but was in despair since I know the Deep State would ignore my concerns. I think some GOP Congress critter complained about Deep State environmentalist tyranny preventing his huge turgid manly dumps from getting properly flushed. Was that Issa, or King, or the felon Hunter or someone else.

     

    Also I think the new GOP/Issa push for prison reform for white collar crime committed by Duncan Hunter is very important. Deserves deeper analysis than can be done in that one post from yesterday.

  39. 39.

    jl

    @zhena gogolia: Huh? Is there going to be a GOP mandate to re-implant premature babies back into the… you know… the… lady baby place, whatever and wherever that is?

     

    Edit: since a GOP state leg has made a great scientific breakthrough by demanding ectopic pregnancy fetuses be implanted in the lady baby place, whatever and wherever that is, making everything all better, demanding that all babies br 9 month babies is the next frontier.

  42. 42.

    chopper

    as a fed, i hope trump doesn’t use this as an excuse to spike our january raise. “what, i gave you people family leave”

  44. 44.

    Sloane Ranger

    Some random person, probably some lobbyist with a $ agenda, walked into Trump’s office, and informed him of the great toilet flushing crisis, which is wasting mass quantities of water. I myself, have had to flush 15, 20 times, but was in despair since I know the Deep State would ignore my concern

    Possibly a problem with your diet. Those floaters are notoriously difficult to flush away.

  48. 48.

    Martin

    @debbie: Yes.

     

    Somewhere out there is a bunch of Vulcans monitoring our broadcast communications laughing their fucking asses off.

  53. 53.

    The Dangerman

    I guarantee you that, on the Space Force ships, you’ll only have to flush once thanks to Trump.

  54. 54.

    jl

    @Baud: In a Baud 2020! administration, federal workers will be reimbursed for spilled beer and pork rinds. It’s long past time that the federal government got its priorities right.

  63. 63.

    NotMax

    @jl

    It came from a random comment/anecdote overheard from someone dining at Mar-a-lago. Can’t prove it, but Trump’s Razor.

  64. 64.

    WaterGirl

    Can someone please explain this 9-month pregnancy issue to me?  I don’t get what they are talking about at all.

  65. 65.

    mrmoshpotato

    So we’re fighting the Russkis in space again?  Doesn’t Dump know he’s Putin’s bitch, or is his orange brain that far gone?

  68. 68.

    zhena gogolia

    @WaterGirl:

     

    Trump just said (again) that it’s horrible that in some states babies are being born from their mother’s womb in the ninth month. He apparently means “torn” but doesn’t say it.

  69. 69.

    Misterpuff

    @Ken:

    Clearly they are not reading the same comic books as Trump. They will obviously be housed in the orbiting Space Force(TM) ,Satellite(TM).

    @Ken: Space Cops.

     

    You Will Respect My Space AUTHORITAH!

  70. 70.

    sdhays

    The Space Farce thing is really weird. It’s not like there was a big lobbying effort to establish it, and it wasn’t something Republicans knew they wanted until Grandpa Brainworms declared it super important. I always assumed that it would never go anywhere because Republicans in Congress would never be willing to trade anything good to the Democrats for it. The cultification of the Republican Party just gets deeper and deeper.

     

    Where the hell did this come from? One this is for sure: someone is planning to profit considerably from this, and they’ve convinced Dump that he’s going to profit too.

  71. 71.

    Misterpuff

    @jl: Also I think the new GOP/Issa push for prison reform for white collar crime committed by Duncan Hunter is very important. Deserves deeper analysis than can be done in that one post from yesterday.

     
    Are you implying Trumpers think its time to press for “lenience” for Dear Leader’s upcoming myriad convictions?

    Ain’t gonna work this time, MAGAts.

  74. 74.

    jl

    @sdhays:

    ” The Space Farce thing is really weird…. Where the hell did this come from? One this is for sure: someone is planning to profit considerably from this, and they’ve convinced Dump that he’s going to profit too. ”

     

    Well, Trump somehow got convinced that there is a toilet flushing crisis in the US, and long suffering citizens are flushing 15 or 20 times due to Deep State oppression and malfeasance. And I can’t figure out who is profiting from it.

     

    When the president is an ignorant, not very bright corrupt swindler who believes any penny ante dipshit insane conspiracy theory, lots of strange things happen.

  77. 77.

    JaySinWA

    @zhena gogolia: It looks to me to be the same speech shot from a different angle and trimmed to make it less understandable as a miss-reading. I think the same people appear in the background but the cropping is such that it is hard to tell. I don’t really trust the source and there is no indication of when or where it was taken.

  78. 78.

    Bill Arnold

    @PsiFighter37:

    the focus on his McKinsey career is ridiculous.

    This is part of the methodical chipping away at Democratic presidential candidates, IMO.
    E.g. Nathan Robinson has done a few of these; one recently on Elizabeth Warren – “her campaign seems suspiciously designed to stave off revolution”.
    and here’s his on Buttiegieg: McKinsey and Company Is an Elitist Cult. Why Is Buttigieg Defending It? . (Linking just for completeness.)
    It seems rather Underpants Gnomes-y:
    (1) Help elect Fascists
    (2) …
    (3) Socialist(?) utopia!!!
    I agree with your take, that it is possible to exit an early low-level career in management consulting before losing one’s soul.

  79. 79.

    Bill Arnold

    @sdhays:

    The Space Farce thing is really weird. It’s not like there was a big lobbying effort to establish it, and it wasn’t something Republicans knew they wanted until Grandpa Brainworms declared it super important.

    Grandpa Brainworms is worried about aliens. :-)

    Alas, these were cancelled and killed by the partial test ban treaty in 1963. Imagine 56 years of tech advances applied to the problem!
    USAF 4000 Ton Orion
    morphed into this:
    Orion Battleship

    They thought the 4,000 ton version of the Orion would be rightsized for an interplanetary warship, armed to the teeth.
    And when they said armed, they meant ARMED. It had enough nuclear bombs to devastate an entire continent (500 twenty-megaton city-killer warheads), 5-inch Naval cannon turrets, six hypersonic landing boats, and several hundred of the dreaded Casaba Howitzer weapons — which are basically ray guns that shoot nuclear flame (the technical term is “nuclear shaped charge”).
    This basically a 4,000 ton Orion with the entire payload shell jam-packed with as many weapons as they could possibly stuff inside.
    Keep in mind that this is a realistic design. It could actually be built.

  80. 80.

    oatler.

    “Then, as Kinnison kissed his wife, half a million Lensed members were thrust upward in silent salute.”

  81. 81.

    Bill Arnold

    @oatler.:
    OMG, I have not read that in a while. The chapter in question:
    https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/smithee-secondstagelensmen/smithee-secondstagelensmen-00-h.html#tocchapter23
    For others, it continues:

    Through a double lane of glowing Lenses the wedding party made its way up to the locked and guarded gate of the space-field where lay the Dauntless–the super-dreadnought “yacht” in which the Kinnisons were to take a honeymoon voyage to distant Tellus.

  82. 82.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Ken: (Meanwhile, the Chinese will be on the Moon, and building the infrastructure to stage the bombardment scenes from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.)

    The Chinese can do math and have a decent grasp of physics so no they won’t build that sort of infrastructure. Rocks From Spaaaace!!!  tend to explode in the upper atmosphere and don’t actually deliver much in the Earth-shattering Kaboom! department when they do get to the ground. Really big rocks are another matter (the Meteor Crater impactor, Chicxulub etc.) but it takes a lot of energy over a long time to get them on target, the 100-tonne rocks in Heinlein’s book wouldn’t have made much of an impact, so to speak.

Comments are closed.