During a Senate hearing to review the FBI’s FY2026 budget request, Director Kash Patel was forced to admit that, despite the law requiring it, he had no such request ready to review.
This surprising development came during an awkward back-and-forth with Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), the ranking Democrat and Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which oversees and approves budget requests.
Senator Murray reminded the FBI Director that the budget request was legally required “last week,” and after the director responded, she surprisedly added, “And your answer is you just understand you’re not going to follow the law?”
Hold him contempt or stop clutching your pearls.
I’m sure Schumer will move quickly to form a search committee to form a task force with plans to complete a strongly worded letter by late 2027.
The fucking clownshow continues.
This is you going in to your Professor’s office hours to ostensibly turn in your final paper for a course, it is half your grade in the class, and you actually just sit down and explain you are ‘still working on it’ and ‘can i get it to you maybe by the end of next academic quarter?’
I am honestly so, so relieved by this high level public idiocy.
I really am not kidding.
I’ve struggled with impostor syndrome much of my life.
All gone. Done. No more.
I am legitimately more competent than almost everyone in this administration at their own jobs, despite the fact that I hardly have any relevant credentials to most of their positions.
The “education” system is almost entirely based on privilege and indoctrination. Politicians are the cream of the crop.
I’m saving your comment because this was my exact experience, too, and I’m glad to see this silver lining occurred for others.
These people truly are mentally children, running around playing grown-up. Meanwhile, when I was an actual child, I was expected to be held to the same standards as grown-ups by Boomer parents (and as you likely know, autism + adults not explaining their social expectations = very difficult childhood.)
It’s been a trip to see high-level government absolutely sucking at skills that I struggled with for ages, skills that I have been made to feel bad about for lacking. I work harder any day that I go out into public, even if it’s my day off, than any of these privileged losers ever seem to. I have to be extremely mindful of myself - my posture, my tone of voice, my volume, my face (can’t have resting bitch face), on top of whatever other tasks I have to do, every second of every minute that I’m around other people. I’m also expected to be aware of and mindful of the feelings of those around me, so I have to also accurately rate their posture, tone, etc. Fail any of these things, and anything I say or do has a chance of being misinterpreted poorly. It’s fucking exhausting, and I wish there were more understanding and acceptance that allowed us to relax.
These are part of a whole set of skills - situational awareness, social awareness, self awareness - that the modern GOP appears to completely lack. They were raised without needing to apply them, and we can see evidence of their privileged backgrounds whenever they pull some tone-deaf stunt and still expect approval. Whenever I’m feeling down, I can remind myself that I may not be perfect, but at least I’m not as out-of-touch as they are.
Don’t assume that what you are observing government do has any connection with the developmental stages of the people involved. You’re not seeing their actual interactions, plans, or lines of authority. You’re seeing what they choose to show, which may or may not be real.
For all we know, it may all be a kabuki show to keep us underestimating them or to provide distraction from the crimes they’re committing.
Focus on actions, not words, and base accountability on that.
You’re right, there are definitely individuals who do it all as performance, like how Boris Johnson purposely made himself look shabby as part of his image.
I don’t believe that’s the case for every politician. I do, however, believe there are more “men behind the curtain,” so to speak, who we don’t see but who know exactly what they’re doing. Even if those on camera are fools, the people making up “the face” of the organization aren’t necessarily the same people making up “the brain.” Which brings us back to your point - it’s important to pay attention to more than the façade these people express. The oligarchs pulling the strings are well-practiced in this game.
… And I am saving this comment, as you have well voiced the madness of all of this experienced in particular by high-functioning / highly-intelligent Autistic children.
A short summary of how Ive felt much of my life would be: constantly being mocked and belittled by hypocritical idiots who are too stupid to realize they are hypocritical and have totally logically inconsistent worldviews, and inconsistent applications of them… as well as just that they are idiots in the sense of just being objectively wrong about most things.
…
Yeah, it is quite cathartic to realize that masses of the general public are themselves, and voted into power officials who… are just literally schoolyard bullies, absurd, malignant, anti-social narcissists who literally cannot concieve that they could ever have any flaws or ever be in error, who are actually incapable of empathy, of mirroring emotions of others experiencing or describing something that did not happen to them personally.
…
I no longer mask.
There is no point, and it is too exhausting to be expected to be some kind of mind reader.
If people can’t actually succinctly verbalize their thoughts, or express them in writing, that’s their problem, not mine.
Just say what you actually mean.
Use your words, and know what those words actually mean.
I am done learning how to be an interpreter for every different person I meet.
Idiots and the uninformed love bullies, they assume they must be bullying people that deserve it, instead of just whoever makes them feel stronger.
I think we might have a Anacyclosis situation going on here. It is an hypothesis that posits that civilizations are like animals - they are born, mature, age, die, and replaced by their children. Hopefully, you, I, and others who suffer from the Regime, will recreate the United States into something worthy of pride.
It is an hypothesis that posits that civilizations are like animals - they are born, mature, age, die, and replaced by their children.
It’s an obvious metaphor with no predictive power, even if it were well-founded, which it’s not. To the extent they can be said to have lifecyces, civilizations have more states than what are listed, “mature” is ill-defined, and “children” makes no sense at all. And what constitutes a “civilization”? Are some forms of human organization civilizations while others are not? Because when I read scholarly works regarding civilizations, they’re almost always empires or imperially-structured religions. And there are countless people in world history who were fortunate enough not to have lived under the heel of such macroparasites.
Children, in this context, would mean new institutions that arise after the prior generation has fallen. Such as the American government after British rule had been destroyed in the colonies, the assorted dynasties in China, or the conquest of Constantinople by a caliphate. In any case, the scale isn’t particular important. The gist is that institutions become increasingly corrupt and ineffective over time, until fresh blood topples the power structure and replaces it with something that has vitality. Over time, the new becomes old and is replaced in turn. It could be decades or centuries, but eventually stratification simply weighs down a society too much for establishment leadership to continue. The loss of failing leadership is rejuvenating to the people, even if culture is lost in the process.
Obviously not everything would track cleanly, but that is fundamentally the case for anything that involves human action. Be it cults, empires, or households, deterioration tends to be a thing. It is just that the biggest of these have the most research and records, because they are too big and obvious to miss.
Don’t sell yourself short. I bet you’re more competent than everyone in this administration.
I am only hesitant to agree because:
1: I have terrible social anxiety (yay autism and trauma)
2: I assume, at least, some of them are competent people… at… at least something.
That being said, I also cannot think of a single one who falls into category 2.
Hrmm.
Peter Thiel might be the most competent of the bunch. He built the Palantir surveillance network, and seems content being in the distant background while the other oligarchs act in the open. Hopefully, he isn’t forgotten if we have a French Revolution.
Not only are you personally more competant than anyone in this administration, but you’re also not a Nazi (I’d imagine), which alone already makes you better than any Republican politician.
The fact that you think you might not be competant at the job is one of the things that makes you more competant (because you actually think before you act/speak).
Its the age old problem of government:
Anyone who strongly desires to be in a position of power likely is not the kind of person you would want in a position of power.
I appreciate you saying that though. =D
Impostor syndrome is basically the inverse of the Dunning Kruger effect, as it is known in popular culture.
If you actually read the actual studies by Dunning and Kruger, and subsequent work based off of it:
Idiots consistently wildly overestimate their correctness.
… But people who actually are quite correct, quite competent… well they actually tend to self evaluate themselves as somewhat less competent than they actually are.
Because humility and a fundamental idea of ‘i could be wrong’ are foundational to a rigourous system of critical thinking that can actually allow for that true, detailed knowledge to be gained.
So, ironically, Dunning Kruger effect also describes more or less impostor syndrome, its just that that isn’t the aspect of those kinds of studies that pop culture focuses on…
So we now have a situation where understanding of the ‘Dunning Kruger effect’ itself is subject to the ‘Dunning Kruger effect.’
There are a couple evil yet competent people in the administration. Russell Vought is one, a hire direct from the Heritage Foundation. Another is Stephen Miller. Heritage seems to be full of actually competent yet completely evil men. But I guess that what happens when a majority of your funding comes from oil, gas, and now tech barons.
Why would any of Trump’s administration care? None of them have been held accountable for anything, except to Trump.
yeah, Trump was accountable af, given that he ia now thw president again
I meant his henchmen are accountable only to Trump, not that Trump was the only one held accountable.
The only people held to account in the US are the poor, disabled and non white.
They aren’t even held to account, they’re mostly abused for trying to survive the abuse.
Hey us poor whites get screwed over too! It’s not a race war (only) - it’s a class war.
Nice shout-out, bro. But one of the most powerful manifestations of the class war as it exists in the US is racism, so it’s hard (maybe futile) to try disentangling them. (Which I think you implied in your post-- I’m writing this more as clarification for other readers than as a reply to you).
Yes agreed, non whites suffer from racism and structural inequality no doubt and have it harder. I had actually read the other person’s post wrong - they had meant that poor was covering all poor of any color. I had thought they were adding up the descriptors to describe one subset (poor and disabled and non white)
I’m so tired of the theatrical outrage and shock and surprise. Of fucking course they’re working in bad faith. But no - let’s give all the fucking fascists the benefit of the doubt. You’re not allowed to be fucking surprised by this. It was all in the playbook. The playbook has been published openly on the internet since early 2020.
Its not tin-foil hat, it’s Putin. Its always Putin, using Skum and HitlerPig as his muscle.
When will people truly internalize that the two biggest foreign Sociopathic Oligarchs, have partnered up with the most prolific traitor in American history? None of them have any loyalty or patriotism toward America, and only see us as a big, rich, fat, lazy target to be ruthlessly exploited and looted, and it’s happening in real time before our eyes.
All they care about is money, and either Putin is paying them directly out of the Russian Treasury (HitlerPig would rape and murder his own mother for far less than a billion bucks, and Putin could order a lot more than that), or they’ve cut a deal to split the booty like the pirates they are.
When it’s not working, it’s working.
I feel like, if this were true, wtf are literally all the other countries’ intelligence and agencies doing to prevent such a thing?
I’d like to think China, while mostly on Russia’s side, would not want Putin having control over the U.S.
ofc most of NATO wouldn’t want that either.
Is every other country incompetent, complicit, or is the U.S. just becoming its own oligarchy?
The US was warned about Russian influence before Trump’s 2016 election by intelligence agencies in Great Britain, Germany, Canada, France, Estonia, Poland, and Australia- and those are just the ones that spoke out publicly.
They were called “fake news” and “DNC operatives.”
Don’t pretend the rest of the world was surprised by this.
Well, I’m glad they spoke out publicly. Maybe they (World Governments) can put in a bit more elbow grease next time to prevent one of the world’s largest militaries from being bought by an authoritarian country at discount prices.
The CIA can destabilize governments across the world.
Russia can take over U.S. “Democracy” right in front of the world.
I guess nobody has inside men anymore. Does Germany, France, Britian not have a CIA of their own?
My point is that these World Governments have kinda gotten soft if this is where we’re at. Hell, the fact that Ukraine is still at war and not being physically backed is proof enough (though stepping in w/ Russia holding U.S. means that ship has sailed).
So… the fault lies with rest of the world who should have worked harder to save the US from itself while Americans plugged their ears and gave them the finger?
Just typical American exceptionalism.
Oh they’re exceptional, all right
Are you proposing more election interference…?
I mean…if it prevents a fascist takeover…
I think respecting another country’s sovereignty is better.
Lib qanon.
That’s the weakest, laziest both-sides-ism. F for effort.
Except that its all documented history. Just because its a conspiracy doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Plenty of conspiracies have been true, and Russia’s long-term targeting of America has long been documented. It’s not like it’s a secret.
Trump has had an ongoing relationship with Russia going back to the Soviet days. He’s a filthy traitor, and the Putin and Skum aren’t even American. The only people who are denying it are idiotic MAGA Nazi traitors.
It’s not Putin. Plenty of home grown idiocy in the US. At the most, the Trump admin is a loosely bribed bunch of useful idiots.
It’s Putin using the US’s home-grown idiots, and traitorous oligarchs.
Of course it’s Putin, and denying it marks you as an unserious person.
America (amd the Democratic world) has been at war with Russia since 1918, whether you want to admit it or not. This was an unarguable fact by EVERYONE ON THE PLANET for the entire 20th century. It was only when HitlerPig came along with his close ties to Putin that it became a controversial opinion.
Grow up and get some Critical Thinking Skills.
I doubt a single one of our Democratic party elected officials actually sat down and read all of Project 2025.
That’s not what Israel is paying them to do
It’s not just AIPAC that’s the main problem (although it absolutely is a problem); the Democrats and Republicans both get massive amounts of “donations” from large PACs (including AIPAC), corporations, billionaires, etc. that they choose to represent them by any means necessary, since that’s who they get their paycheck from.
The only way to fix corruption for good is to permenantly make it so that corruption can never happen to begin with. Few individuals/stock traders shouldn’t be allowed to own/influence these massive corporations; they need to all be forcibly converted to worker-owned coops (which will also abolish the stock market), and we also need a hard wealth cap (something like $50 million tied to inflation in both liquid and non-liquid assets). Imagine if you got to both vote for who your manager is and also vote to fire them if they do a bad job.
Any system that is still capitalist by nature (like social democracy) will still have an elite few who are able to buy influence. Capitalism actively encourages this to occur by its very nature (as pro-capitalists would say: “greed is good”)
AIPAC is more of a symptom of a larger problem.
So all we have to do is boil the ocean. Thanks for your helpful advice.
Don’t you remember all the stuff that Biden did to prevent this? \s
I think some of the young progressives probably did, but I still think the count is probably in the single digits.
Why would he follow the law? He can get insta pardoned if the mean lawmakers act like adults.
