lollol
1d ago
Hmmmm, I think your argument differs from @Botond173 in that so far they seem to imply a normie-women-demand-driven-policing of cultural output, while you are saying that ideologically-driven-supply-policing is going on. Sure I can buy that, but can you go into a little more detail on why this is a travesty? Seems to me like it's more an irritation than some kind of societal harm. I suppose in contrast, arguments can be made that OnlyFans leads to financial exploitation of lonely men, and Andrew Tate is....also financial exploitation of lonely men.
And there is a charitable take where many of these games (TLOU, Horizon Zero Dawn, etc.) have a particular aesthetic (more photorealistic, more gritty, etc.) that benefits more from NOT having supernatural-level of beauty. When there are games that benefit from having characters that are supposed to be pretty look pretty they still look quite top 5% pretty (Dispatch, Tomb Raider, Clair Obscur, Witcher, etc.)
lollol
1d ago
Your points about me not knowing enough about Burgum and Pirro to able to judge someone is both correct and not correct. Yes, it's true that the best way to judge and form an opinion of a political figure is to take the grand totality of what they do. But just like every other political figure, the way they are judged are usually by a few thing that defines them. Could be Biden and not stepping down from running, could be Harris and her no regrets defending Biden on national TV, could be Hillary and her non-secure email servers, could be Obama and his arrogance (Iran, dealing with Republican congress), could be Tim Walz and the Somali fraud cases.
Notice how I used Democratic figures to satisfy your complaint how I don't give examples of incompetence to your "other side"?
For me, Burgum and Pirro are defined by the events of the Reflecting Pool and the National Mall. I'll be perfectly happy to read what you have to say about their records elsewhere. Like I said:
You have to win, and win so decisively (like let's say gay people in present America) so that you can't be persecuted on whatever it is you're fighting for.
Thank you for going through the arguments. I find that your reading of them differ from mine quite a bit. I will endeavor to go through your arguments as well
I think Trump is incompetent at enlarging his group of supporters
Trump was the first Republican to win the popular vote in a generation. You almost surely mean something more specific by this, maybe that Trump doesn't attract more high-quality people to his movement. But I'm sure that no matter who Trump attracted, you would come up with a definition for why they were a priori incompetent.
If there were more MAGA-aligned attorneys, he would have a better pick of the litter instead of Jeanine Pirro.
Again, Pirro was not Trump's first pick because the Senate constrained him.
If there were more MAGA-aligned attorneys, maybe they can convict vandals even when the city sides 95-5 with the vandals (remember John Adams defending the murderers?)
Yeah, Trump just needs super lawyers with super law who are so good they can convince even Democrats who hate them to support them. > Why hasn't Trump done this?
Maybe it's easier to point to examples of competence as a contrast. The reason why FDR is competent is because he's able to get people to keep voting for him and his party so that FDR can keep doing things he wanted and drive his enemies into political footnotes, one could say FDR got and maintained a large group of supporters.
Another example is Reagan, who went up in vote percentage from 50.7% in 1980 to 58.8% in 1984. Reagan is a good example of enlarging his group of supporters (with the standout example being the quips made between him and the Democrat surgeon for his assassination).
Trump definitely has an upward trajectory, from 46.1% in 2016, to 46.8% in 2020, to 49.8% in 2024. And yes, Obama has a downward trajectory, from 52.9% in 2008 down to 51.1% in 2012. But if we pit Obama vs Trump, is Trump likely to win? I think not.
And yes, I do think Trump isn't attracting the higher quality people to his movement. And I disagree with your argument that I am so uncharitable to not recognize competence in Trump picks. I never said it before on this forum but I do think and know that Tom Homan is more competent at his job of deporting people without controversy than Greg Bovino.
Your argument about the Senate, don't you feel the counter argument lurking right behind the corner: "If there was a large bench of good lawyers for MAGA, then even if Thom Tillis blocked Ed Martin due to Jan 6th ties then another Ed-Martin-esque person can be found."
And also importantly, I see you didn't respond to: "If there were more MAGA-aligned people, maybe there won't be any vandals even."
Which I want to also mention that just as much as you think I haven't proved "there are no vandals of the reflecting pool", you haven't proved "there are vandals of the reflecting pool". Incompetence of the contractor is definitely proven based on the dismissal though. In fact, it's probably better to focus on the National Mall because that's obviously vandalism.
You can say all you want about Trump being a good builder and he makes good buildings, but that's not the same as being a good president. No, the point is that in your rush to declare that Trump is "incompetent" you've hastily elided obvious domains in which Trump is very capably competent. Instead of constraining your broad strokes at all, by e.g. saying that Trump is good at building but bad at [something else], you've locked yourself into the very silly argument that Trump isn't good at anything. Now you're doubling down on that strange premise.
I can certainly think of places where Trump is competent, but if you do ask me in general then I do think his presidency is more incompetent (Greg Bovino style) than competent (Tom Homan style). Yes, it is a reflection of my value judgment as a member of the public. Now I didn't count your "Trump is competent at building stuff" because that wasn't about the reflecting pool.
To showcase something I did find that shows Trump's competence somewhere in this reflecting pool thing, I was going to leave this for a future thread reflecting on the pool (pun intended) but I think Trump's "pool guy" is probably a good pick. Initial reporting has Trump saying this:
"I said, I have an idea. I'm going to send my contractor over and take a look. He looked at it ... he said it's really decaying and it's a terrible condition, but if you would, I'd like to work two weeks on cleaning it up ... and he said 'it'd take me two weeks,'" he said.
"Our job will take one week. It will cost about a million and a half dollars."
Now the article didn't know who this pool guy is but it sounds to me like the later reported John Cafaro and Greenwater Services who got a $1.7 million contract to install “nano bubble” device that clean the pool. And look, the problem with the algae arrived because they turned off and moved those devices for Trump's UFC/birthday activities as the devices are large and eyesores.
Did it take a week? probably. Did it cost about a million and a half? 1.7 is pretty close to me. Did most media conflate Greenwater Services and Atlantic Industrial Coatings (who does a different job and got a much bigger contract)? Yeah, looks like it to me. So in fact, there were actually two "pool guys" (multiple guys I'm sure), though I don't think Trump knew Atlantic Industrial Coatings so he is another layer removed from that incompetence (and yet more on Burgum/DOI and how did that come about)(but then again Trump did pick Burgum).
There, I gave you a pretty valuable piece of information, I think you can stop drawing me as a Trump-hating-obsessive person who is just jumping to conclusions seeing that I do my research and cite my sources and go into detail on things and am careful with my words.
If the homeless numbers are down, where are they going? I don't see much news about low cost housing being built in DC.
Your argument now is that Trump is incompetent because he didn't fix everything everywhere all at once. Trump can't actually solve low cost housing in DC, at least, not without Congress or DC authorizing more housing within DC.
Maybe those homeless people you see "congregating on the bridges just within the Virginia boundaries" are exactly the former-DC-homeless. That's certainly one way to fudge the numbers.
Yeah that was my point. Trump can do everything in his power clean the city up, but he can't do everything in libs' power. One half of the political spectrum wants to kick the homeless out of parks, one half doesn't, the half that doesn't will shelter the homeless and say, "see, you can't kick the homeless out of parks, you must be incompetent!"
But there are criticism, and yeah, it's nothing to do with the incompetency regarding the Reflecting Pool.
Yeah, right, my argument (my observation really) is that there are a lot of people emotionally attached to Trump being wrong, therefore they will invent a reason why what he is doing is wrong, no matter what he actually does. It's in fact what you're doing in this very argument.
Why did you gloss over me saying this: "In fact, I honestly think Trump would be doing a good job of making DC beautiful (though I haven't been there recently)." I literally says that I expect Trump to be doing a good job doing the things you praised him for (cleaning up DC). Ok, let me state in even more detail then: it can be both and many things, competent at making things beautiful or beautiful things, incompetence at picking people who should be making beautiful things, competence at directing military force to cleanup homeless encampment, incompetence at actually reducing number of homeless people by passing legislation, reduce red tape, increase funding, whatever. Maybe you should recognize that my frustration is the reflecting pool incompetence and how that indicates to me on where and what domain Trump is good or bad at and whether that makes him a good Federal executive. You can point out the other things that Trump does well, and I might as well and did concede on that, but that doesn't take away the incompetence with regards to the pool.
I'm going to skip your next few paragraphs, I read it though and thought I don't think anything I say here is going to change anything because I don't know when "you" means me or "you" means the greater rhetorical you that you're rebutting to.
You believe, a priori, that Donald Trump is incompetent. You would find any flaw Trump makes and use that to justify your criticism. It doesn't matter what the flaw is. If the pool breaks, it can't be from sabotage or vandalism, no matter how many people are cheering for that exact outcome. If the pool doesn't break, it must be too expensive. Or the contract was corrupt. Or it was a bad use of money. But you would never extend this criticism to your own group: I don't see any forthcoming mea culpa about how Obama was also incompetent, or how all presidents are incompetent and Trump is just the latest, or how many leftists criticizing the pool explicitly want to destroy it. No, you want to claim the neutrality of just calling balls and strikes as you see it, but that neutrality will never reach any conclusion that isn't what you wanted.
"The Buck Stops Here"? Trump is already having the pool fixed. But I don't think you're really interested in having the pool fixed. I think you're interested in being right.
I already said this: "I do hope that this time the pool is fixed for good so that there is no need for multi-million dollar renovations in the future."
Yes, I reserve my right to criticize Trump and his administration. Yes, I can make criticisms of other presidents, just because I didn't do it in this thread doesn't mean I don't have any. Yes I reserve my right to praise Trump and his administration. Yes, I can make praises of other presidents, just because I didn't do it in this thread doesn't mean I don't have any. I don't believe that "arguments as soldiers" is good for society. I believe that there are things that are "both sides", and also there are things that are not "both sides". You can confuse me with the sometimes my remarks are aimed at "you" and sometimes at the imaginary rhetorical "you," but I know do my best that I don't and didn't do that to you.
Also besides, maybe you should turn around and do that then, you should think about where Trump has failed as a president, and not in the "he failed because he didn't do enough kinda thing", more of the "he failed because he went too far/overlooked/made a terrible decision". And maybe you did, and I don't know that, but in this thread you seem like a pure glazer to me.
lollol
1d ago
I think this is only true in the most vapid of ways, where we can say that someone being selected to feature in a major media product at all is almost definitely in the top 50% of attractiveness (probably top 20%), male or female. But this doesn't really touch on the phenomenon, where stars who headlined major works would often be in the top 5% of attractiveness, and this has expanded to something closer to top 20%, if not top 50%, and the gap between 95th and 80th - to say nothing of 50th - is absolutely ginormous.
I think @Botond173 is going beyond that, I think they're arguing that "feminist-adjacent normie women" is policing US/Western media output so that the top 5% in attractiveness can't headline major works in fear of triggering "antics of the church ladies of the old days". I posit this is untrue because sex sells. Or maybe all the top 5% are having a great time being OnlyFans and influencers and don't need to slave themselves to the media industry.
Your argument of expansion of attractiveness representation is fair and I understand that, though I don't see that really being a problem that normie woman exercise their preferences. With enough economic cycles, an equilibrium will be found and like you summed it, I'm sure "someone being selected to feature in a major media product" will still land north of the median attractive person for the rest of time.
And there's the phenomenon in video games, where, technologically, there's no technological reason why every female character can't have attractiveness that matches that of Eve from Stellar Blade or 2B from Nier: Automata, and yet devs insist on modeling many major ones after real-life actresses and capturing their looks in a rugged, gritty, realistic way like in recent God of War or Halo games, instead of sexifying them like with Eve and her (IIRC) 3 human models in Stellar Blade. Or just overtly choosing norm-defying types of characters like many of the woman characters from Sony's $100MM+ failure (as you write, sex sells; and some devs sometimes seem to have decided that not selling is worth the not sex) Concord or one of the protagonists of The Last of Us 2.
I will concede on this one. I do think that economic pressures (maybe it's cheaper to just take the real life mocap actresses and don't touch them up? idk) or economic demands (female audience don't get jealous, female audience sees more representation of their level of attractiveness, etc. means more people buy the game or at least don't disparage it) leads to video games having an expansion in allowable female character attractiveness.
But then is it really that bad? it's not "man walking into traffic while distracted by woman" level of beauty but only "man would be down to bed her no alcohol required" level of beauty. Is this some danger to society?
lollol
1d ago
The sign "The Buck Stops Here" that was on President Truman's desk in his White House office was made in the Federal Reformatory at El Reno, Oklahoma. Fred A. Canfil, then United States Marshal for the Western District of Missouri and a friend of Mr. Truman, saw a similar sign while visiting the Reformatory and asked the Warden if a sign like it could be made for President Truman. The sign was made and mailed to the President on October 2, 1945.
...
On more than one occasion President Truman referred to the desk sign in public statements. For example, in an address at the National War College on December 19, 1952 Mr. Truman said, "You know, it's easy for the Monday morning quarterback to say what the coach should have done, after the game is over. But when the decision is up before you -- and on my desk I have a motto which says The Buck Stops Here' -- the decision has to be made." In his farewell address to the American people given in January 1953, President Truman referred to this concept very specifically in asserting that, "The President--whoever he is--has to decide. He can't pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That's his job.
"The Buck Stops Here" Desk sign - Harry S. Truman Library & Museum
I personally think your argument can be summed down to:
- "Have you looked at the other things he did?"
- "Trump tried, you can't blame him for the results of others"
- "They are terrible people who would have persecuted him anyway"
I think those are fair points and can be discussed at length, but I think you didn't address the incompetence of this Reflecting Pool debacle which was my main point. I noticed I didn't detail Trump's incompetence in my thread starter so I'll do here so you can have a chance to respond.
I think Trump picked an incompetent Secretary of the Interior in Doug Burgum
Earlier you said:
Trump will hire contractors to fix the Pool again. If the first contractors are found to be at fault, the Federal Government will win back money, and liberals will say this proves Trump is incompetent.
Your flow chart is very incomplete, the same contractors (Atlantic Industrial Coatings) that was hired for the initial renovation was hired to repair it. I find it unlikely that the Federal Government will get any money back.
The renovation project was rushed, as stated from the dismissal:
An employee with Brown Construction Services, Inc., a contractor responsible for monitoring AIC’s progress, noted in a May 7, 2026, email that “it appears AIC is significantly behind schedule.” This email was sent to several DOI employees, and revealed a sense of urgency and rushing.
The handling of evidence of supposed vandals was bungled. No videos, no pictures, only witness testimony by the NPS which we have no evidence whether they are reasonable and truthful people or raging liars. (Body cams would be great here).
Claims about other kinds of vandalism like knife cuts or dumping of phosphate with again no evidence.
The National Mall with the emblazoned 8647, there's no chasing that?
Now all the above can be argued is Burgum's fault, but then I would point to the quote up top. I've mentioned before but I find it very strange that Burgum can keep bungling and there's nothing to be done.
I think Trump picked an incompetent District Attorney in Jeanine Pirro
Let's work backwards from the possible futures that are already lost to us.
- Hearn went to trial and lost his case. Pirro is an idiot for dismissal now.
- Hearn went to trial and won his case. Pirro is an idiot in prosecuting in the first place. Possibly leading to more discovery that could embarrass the administration.
- Pirro office waited to get more information and evidence from DOI before deciding to get grand jury indictment (maybe under a different charge?). ding ding ding, we have a winner.
I don't even know why Pirro has to be DA for DC, what makes her more special than the other MAGA-aligned attorneys out there that Trump picked her. (I can also wax on about how Trump is incompetent at enlarging his circle so that he has more MAGA-aligned attorneys out there to pick from).
I think Trump was incompetent and set a deadline in retrospect couldn't be achieved
Once the pool is fixed, if it stays fixed, we will all basically move on forever. Liberals will never give credit for fixing the Pool, because the first time he fixed it it didn’t work.
Yes, that's how it works. Just like how people can still point to the 2012 renovations that Obama did and failed. I do hope that this time the pool is fixed for good so that there is no need for multi-million dollar renovations in the future. But did it have to be done before? Can't it be done after? Just need some marketing "Today is the 250th anniversary of this great nation, look around enjoy this, because tomorrow we will start the renovations of special landmarks in this great city that has been left unfunded by all the previous guys".
Yes, I know, at this point it's veering into Monday morning quarterback, but agian, I point to the quote above.
I think Trump is incompetent at enlarging his group of supporters
If there were more MAGA-aligned attorneys, he would have a better pick of the litter instead of Jeanine Pirro.
If the pool is fixed and gets broken again, this is double proof that Trump is incompetent. In no way would this ever possibly suggest that anybody is trying to break it. If that were possibly true, Trump should be able to indict the vandals in a city that sides 95-5 with the vandals.
If there were more MAGA-aligned attorneys, maybe they can convict vandals even when the city sides 95-5 with the vandals (remember John Adams defending the murderers?)
If there were more MAGA-aligned people, maybe there won't be any vandals even.
This is veering into non-Reflecting-Pool reasons on how Trump is not enlarging his group of supporters so I'll stop here.
Now one thing that really irked me about your comment.
I am now receiving a lecture in incompetence from those people.
...
You probably see that as a failure because you’re not used to setbacks because you’ve never built anything.
You just made a bunch of assumptions about me then attacked that. You didn't even address my arguments, just attacked this imaginary me you have in your head. You've already lumped me into all the people that you detest and assumed the worst.
Ok, let's go back to your arguments
1. "Have you looked at the other things he did?"
Yeah, at this point after over a decade of Trump in the spotlight, I do have a general understanding of the things that Trump did. You can say all you want about Trump being a good builder and he makes good buildings, but that's not the same as being a good president. I put more worth on your arguments about how Trump drives down homelessness in DC. But that can be criticized too.
If the homeless numbers are down, where are they going? I don't see much news about low cost housing being built in DC. Maybe those homeless people you see "congregating on the bridges just within the Virginia boundaries" are exactly the former-DC-homeless. That's certainly one way to fudge the numbers.
I found this article from 2025 July that shows how the homeless numbers dropped and has its own critiques:
“It does not count people who are in Rapid Rehousing, which is really a tactic that we feel the administration is using to kind of shuffle people out of the shelter into Rapid Rehousing and then not have to count those people as homeless,” ... “In our meals program, we’re still serving lots of meals, more than we have in previous years, and on outreach, we’re still seeing a lot of people and serving a lot of people,” ... Additionally, increasing encampment closures can both force people out of the city and between different jurisdictions and make it more difficult to find people living outside, which could also lead to an undercount.
And maybe we shouldn't celebrate too early seeing as in 2026 the homelessness numbers increased slightly.
In fact, I honestly think Trump would be doing a good job of making DC beautiful (though I haven't been there recently). But there are criticism, and yeah, it's nothing to do with the incompetency regarding the Reflecting Pool.
2. "Trump tried, you can't blame him for the results of others"
I do agree with the general sentiment of applauding someone for trying, it's very much in the spirit of one of the best quotes from Teddy Roosevelt. But just as much we can praise someone for trying, it is not mutually exclusive of how we can't criticize the incompetence with which it was carried out.
And as pointed out way way above, "the buck stops here". Fairly or not, Trump will be judged in the court of opinions and history for his AND his administration actions.
3. "They are terrible people who would have persecuted him anyway"
Yes, they would, that's just competition. That's the eternal game of politics and culture warring. You have to win, and win so decisively (like let's say gay people in present America) so that you can't be persecuted on whatever it is you're fighting for. Trump could have been "he's a fascist but at least he keeps the pool clean" Mussolini-style (even if in fact Mussolini never did get trains to run on time really), but he didn't, and so therefore the narrative was made and he will be podunked on it. So yes. Incompetence.
lollol
1d ago
There is not a lot of shoplifting prevention motive at other stores either.
You are lucky I suppose. And I don't know how good is Whole Foods but Target is known to be good at preventing shoplifting: https://slate.com/life/2026/07/shoplifting-walmart-target-amazon-retail-florida.html
lollol
1d ago
I would like to point out that maybe the only aspect of female representation in Western/US male-oriented products that went down in numbers would be the "non-girlboss" part. Most female representation in Western/US male-oriented products are still "conventionally attractive" and "sexually alluring". Sex sells after all.
Which kinda begs the question as what is "non-girlboss" in your eyes?
lollol
2d ago
Younger Woman
- Love Island demographic as of May 2026 is 77% female, age distribution is that 54% are 16-19 and 23% are 20-29 (so 67% between 16-29).
- Too Hot To Handle demographic as of May 2026 is 55% female, age distribution is that 31% are 16-19 and 19% are 20-29 (so 50% between 16-29).
- Love is Blind demographic as of May 2026 is 55% female, age distribution is that 33% are 16-19 and 19% are 20-29 (so 52% between 16-29).
- The Bachelor demographic as of May 2026 is 76% female, age distribution is that 29% are 16-19 and 23% are 20-29 (so 52% between 16-29).
Take these numbers with grain of salt though, the median numbers don't make sense with the age distribution as presented.
Anyway, I only hear about these shows because the normie and liberal women I know (30 and below) talk about them and so I can assure you these are not consumed just by Boomer/GenX women.
products that are mainly male-oriented
I'm not really sure what you're saying, are you saying that recent Western/US male-oriented products are made with less "conventionally attractive, sexually alluring, non-girlboss female characters"? I think this is going to depend on your definition of "non-girlboss" and "male-oriented products". Maybe can you present an example that you can think of? I can, on the top of my head, think of Penelope (Anne Hathaway) in The Odyssey, Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) in the Spiderman movies, Nikki (Inde Navarrette) in Obsession from the movies just this year.
lollol
3d ago
unironic* depictions of conventionally attractive, sexually alluring, non-girlboss female characters have become taboo in the eyes of normie women**
I'm just scrolling through the recent female contestants on female-coded shows like Love Island, The Bachelor, Too Hot To Handle, Love is Blind, etc. and I'm not sure what kind of normie women TV you are watching.
lollol
3d ago
You mean "whether David Hearn is a vandal guilty of damages more than a $1000, that's a question for the jury". Just as much as the worst possible case against Hearn can be waged, the best most charitable interpretation of Hearn's actions can be offered. And if we follow that broken window analogy, to me it was the Trump administration that led to the broken window in the first place, seems like that is more worthy of investigation and prosecution.
Anyway, Pirro made the mistake of backing down and admitting defeat. Trump would never.
In the Small-Scale Sunday of June 21, 2026, there was this thread talking about the possibility of vandals being the cause of the debacle with the Reflecting Pool and its 2026 renovations. To summarize the various positions of mottizens:
- Some think there was vandalism by people who are against the Trump administration.
- Some thinks this isn’t vandalism but just the typical problem that would already typically plagues the Reflecting Pool
- I assume the implication is that public media is just having TDS
- Some thinks this is incompetence at preventing vandalism
- I personally thought it was incompetence driven by corruption though concede there are other clear cut case of vandalism (“8647” on the National Mall).
The only person that was ever indicted is former olympian David Hearn, with the grand jury indictment announced by Jeanine Pirro on July 2:
Today, a grand jury has returned a felony indictment against a defendant, David Hearn, for felony destruction of property for which he faces 10 years in prison. The indictment is in response to an incident that occurred on June 19th of 2026 in which the defendant Hearn ripped a piece of recently installed sealant on the bottom of the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial. The evidence shows will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Hearn willfully destroyed property at the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool. This was a deliberate act to damage the reflecting pool at the National Mall that members of the National Park Service actually have worked hard to restore and have witnessed. By Hearn's own admission on June 19th, he reached down into the pool. Our evidence further shows that the National Park Service employees observed Hearn actually forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the bottom liner with both hands. According to witnesses, Hearn damaged approximately two square feet of sealant from the bottom of the pool. A parks employee actually told Hearn to stop to stop his behavior and stop what he was doing. Hearn reacted by shouting at that park's employee, saying that she cared too much about the reflecting pool. And why did she even care since it wasn't her pool? Now, Mr. Hearn's behavior was characterized by witnesses as belligerent, rude, and disrespectful according to National Park Service employees that witnessed the event.
In the same press conference Pirro had this to say when pressed:
Question: Was this part of the pool, you know, there has been some damage. Was this part of the pool specifically if some of the was the uhsealant already partially removed? Can you [garbled] it back and just describe in detail? Because he [garbled] that it looks the same as it did before he arrived. That's his position.
Pirro: You know, I'm not going to get into the evidence, but what I told you is what our witnesses saw and experienced. There was an effort, a violent effort to rip up the sealant from the bottom of the pool. And irrespective of whether or not you know we think that you know there there is some situation needed it we can state and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he caused damage and that damage is over $1,000.
Well, on Friday, DOJ has moved to dismissed the indictment:
Based upon the initial reports provided by the Department of the Interior (“DOI”) and the USS. Park Police (“USPP”), the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia (“USAO-DC’) presented the grand jury with evidence that damage to the Reflecting Pool was caused by vandals, including the defendant in this case, David Hearn. However, it was not until after the return of the indictment, that the DOI provided additional documents to the USAO-DC indicating that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings (“AIC”), and the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026. It was not until after these documents were produced that USAO-DC first became aware of information showing that the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism as initially represented by DOI. Indeed, USAO-DC could only rely (on the information provided by DOI that the damage was entirely caused by vandals, including the defendant in this case, David Hearn. Because these recently-produced materials significantly undermine the evidentiary basis for the indictment initially supplied by the DOI and U.S. Park Police, the USAO-DC respectfully moves to dismiss the indictment without prejudice.
I highly recommend reading the motion to dismiss, it’s hilarious to see how Pirro’s office is trying to cover their ass by repeatedly pointing fingers at Doug Burgum’s DOI for giving them incomplete information.
My takeaway from this is that my position is correct regarding incompetence. Incompetence at planning the renovations. Incompetence by the contractor and overspraying. Incompetence by DOI officials and personnel in protecting the Reflecting Pool (or at the very least chase down the vandals if they exist). Incompetence by DOI officials in not giving Pirro’s attorney office complete evidentiary information. In fact, I give points to Pirro and her office for approving this dismissal, she must have known that Trump wouldn’t like it:
I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool. I don’t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM, that included the grass, which had a big 86 47 emblazoned in giant letters on it, and other elements of the surrounding area. There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS! President DJT
[attached image of the 8647 on the national mall]
As for corruption, well I think it’s very likely but it’s also unlikely that Trump’s government or the Republicans would investigate themselves.
I also had the following few thoughts:
- Pirro is another female member of the Trump administration that is floating into his crosshairs. Burgum doesn’t when it should be said both the Reflecting Pool and the National Mall are on his watch.
- My personal theory is that all the corruption (the government-doled contracts) would be under Burgum so why attack your personal money-maker.
- I was researching on no-bid contracts under Obama and Democrats are the one who investigated him. This is reinforcing my thoughts that even if “there is corruption on both side”, the magnitude is different.
- Current republicans in Congress are spineless.
- Republican voters don’t mind corruption as long as their cultural objectives are satisfied.
- Regarding the above, I personally think they’re willing chumps.
- Regarding above, I suppose Republicans would call it acceptable tradeoffs.
- I still have yet to see video and images of the cuts in the reflecting pool. I’m sure Trump would have loved to “truth” it out.
- If there is Trump Derangement Syndrome, there is growing evidence of Reverse Trump Derangement Syndrome where genuinely bad things done by Trump and his administration is downplayed and excused by his supporters.
- Which I suppose is what we do for our tribe.
Edit 1: Looks like Trump got some more words today about how much Pirro "folded like an umbrella" and "choked" on this case.
Edit 2: David Hearn was the only one indicted, there were at least 3 others also charged and publicly named but their cases were also dropped. Earlier I said David Hearn was the only one charged.
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7d ago
work less, live longer and have higher median wealth.
Sounds pretty good to me actually.
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15d ago
The older I am, the more I realize everyone is not normal in their own way. It's like how "the world's most typical person is male, Han Chinese, speaks Mandarin, is right handed and is 28 years old". But how many of us are like that really (the article says only 9 million people are like that). I suppose yes there is some kind of overton window of behavior, but how big does this overton window cover? If we pick the "middle 50%" there are still 50% of the people outside of this overton window. "I am large, I contain multitudes", many anime fans are "normal" people, you might not even realize they are anime fans, I personally was surprised at how many guys on the sales team watch anime (the dev team I wasn't surprised, I would be surprised if a dev isn't into anime).
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16d ago
I think an equilibrium will be found (effort, human attention, bug fixes, value delivered, etc.). At my workplace, I did an analysis (after the VP of Ops blew up at the number of bugs since Claude adoption on my team) and I discovered the number of bugs introduced per release (bugs found after and due to release) has remained the same if not less, but because devs are so much more productive, we are releasing faster (+ delivering more features) and so the total number of bugs increase.
AI bears are too bearish, AI bulls are too bullish. And delivering immense value does not mean immense (or any) profit either. Buffet famously wrote "if a far-sighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down" because of how airlines famously destroy investor money.
Personally, AI means I can split up my time and participate in this forum instead.
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16d ago
Might interest you and others that 3 weeks there was the Freakonomics Radio 679. "Why Does Vanderbilt Keep Winning?" where Diermeier sat down for a long interview about this.
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24d ago
sounds similar to the transition from senior software engineer to staff engineer, and at a lesser level from SWE to senior SWE. I highly recommend https://staffeng.com/guides/staff-archetypes/ to anyone to see what kind of staff they would be, if your company support you being even better at problem solving and there's a career path for that, "The Solver" archetype is not necessarily bad.
As for the distinction between "problem solving" vs "problem setting", I think it's just opening your mind up to the kinds of problems that can be solved and that one would have agency on, problems are problems no matter whether they are technical, social, or political. https://www.noidea.dog/glue (Being Glue) might give you some insight on the direction of this.
Personal anecdote, I think one moment in which my boss noticed that I am senior SWE and not just SWE was once in a meeting when my boss boss (so my skip) was essentially harshly criticizing someone else, I stepped in and pointed out that the person was ill-equipped to handle the situation, and seeing as there is lack of time and resources to get them up to speed, the problem should be handled by someone else, namely a different senior SWE or me and that we can work on the post-problem docs afterwards. The temperature dropped almost immediately. My boss did a 1-1 with me afterwards and was especially thankful of how I was able to gracefully handle that. This is obviously not a staff-level contribution (it was more just matching the right technical person to the right problem and the comfortableness to speak up), but that's the kind of direction in which I am growing.
Ehhh, I'm ok with asking a bit more of public figures in terms of a "clean image". I suspect it's true that politicians are more "consensually clumsy" than the average person, and I also suspect that different tiers of politicians have different tiers of "consent clumsiness" (like what, 7 of the last 10 presidents have had some kind of sexual assault allegations?), but the mass majority of active politicians aren't getting accused of sexual assault. Maybe yeah what we need is a national conversation about how to attract better people into politics. But politics being what it is and what it's for, we're always going to get more dark triad personalities, so it's a cultural thing of how much a society tolerates vs the objectives it wants to achieve. It's like how Americans do not like adultery but the French are very tolerable of it.
PS: consent clumsiness is a spectrum, the other end is active consent disregard.
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28d ago
Well, it's more important to understand what Platner thinks of himself. You are absolutely correct that a certain group of Democratic operatives/consultants went and find Platner specifically to be anti-Democratic-establishment and appeal to blue collar workers. But I believe that individuals can take responsibilities for their own actions. Platner decided to enter the race, Platner decided to drop out of it, all the consulting was at best just influence. I do believe Platner believes in himself as anti-establishment, I do believe Platner thinks he is the kind of anti-establishment that is not like Trump, I do believe that Platner feels a modicum of guiltiness or "for the cause" or shame or whatever that led him to drop out. It's the fact that he drops out led me to believe he is not non-guilty/shameless. I don't want to conflate being anti-establishment with non-guilty/shameless, they're two different things.
And by extension, yeah, you are also correct that Trump is an anti-establishment figure (with, to me, establishment being the old Republican side that was phased out between 2018 and 2022). That is only related, but not foundational, to whether he is guilty of anything (which I think he does) and also of whether Trump himself feels guilty of anything (which I certainly think he doesn't). To me, they are all related together. Trump is shameless, thinks himself non-guilty, and therefore never back down from establishment attacks. To me, Trump is has been unethical on many things, and where is the line between unethical and illegal I don't know but I would suspect he crossed it before on some of those many things. But being anti-establishment and then won, Trump also has high amount of political power (like you said about how Republican establishments are afraid of impeaching him), so maybe figuring out whether he stepped over the line or not becomes unclear. It's like "Mao was 70% correct and 30% incorrect", the 30% incorrect was pretty bad, but for now he's still revered for the 70%. And maybe in the long river of history the public opinion on these two figures might change, but for now it is what it is.
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29d ago
My belief is that theoretically, Platner could have survived this, he just needed to be convinced of his own non-guiltiness (or shameless enough) like Trump to keep saying the same thing "the establishment is pulling all the tricks in the book to stop me"/"these are all lies by the same people already lying to you"/etc.
Dropping out of the race is not an admission of guilt in a court of law, but it's certainly an admission of guilt in the court of opinions.
I do like to comment on your use of the word "democratic establishment". Like all big groupings of people, there are always intra-group divisions. Which each new scandal, the amount of people within the "democratic establishment" willing to actively and vocally support Platner becomes only nominally silent support (for solidarity, out of group loyalty, etc.), and a certain amount of nominally silent support became actively and vocally opposed to Platner. The process in reverse is just called momentum. Like Obama, like Trump, like Mamdani, successful politicians are able to get those "in the base" that actively and vocally oppose them to become nominally silent support, and those that used to nominally silent support becomes actively and vocally support.
So anyway, when you're surrounded by people who tell you how bad you are, at some point, somebody breaks. Or maybe someone close to you break, or whatever. If he was wrongly accused, or believed he is completely correct in what he did, it still certainly does take a certain amount of self-conviction to stay on your path.
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1mo ago
I mean, it has a net -4 rating, which is hardly mass downvoting.
Relative to other AAQC, anything below 5 is surprising.
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1mo ago
Ehhh, I really don't think Howard meant aliens the way we now understand aliens. And this is assuming he meant aliens as a separate category rather than as explanatory of what he meant by "families of ambassadors or foreign ministers".
I did some research on this and this is a good summary: https://old.reddit.com/r/asianamerican/comments/1i6pbh1/from_1866_when_the_senate_was_debating_the_14th/
I read the debates itself as well: https://www.congress.gov/congressional-globe/congress-39-session-1-part-4.pdf
Really wished someone transcribed the whole thing for easy search and copy paste but Howard had no objection to the comment by Conness:
The proposition before us, I will say, Mr. President, relates simply in that respect to the children begotten of Chinese parents in California, and it is proposed to declare that they shall be citizens. We have declared that by law; now it is proposed to incorporate the same provision in the fundamental instrument of the nation. I am in favor of doing so. I voted for the proposition to declare that the children of all parentage whatever, born in California, should be regarded and treated as citizens of the United States, entitled to equal civil rights with other citizens of the United States.
And Howard had plenty of objections when others say things he didn't agree with during that debate (such as on the matter of Indians untaxed or not taxed, etc.)
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1mo ago
agreed. I personally don't think this is Dredd Scott level of bad, I don't think people will secede. I also haven't read the thing yet but Kavanaugh left it open for Congress to make some laws.
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1mo ago
Someone here earlier this week or last week said that this decision will be our generation's Dred Scott regardless of how it is decided, and that it will tear the union apart in similar fashion. Demographic changes in the West generally are leading to ever increasing tension and dysfunction, and I fear this decision will ensure that a breaking point is reached soooner, rather than later.
Sounds to me like the there will be increasing tension and dysfunction regardless of whether your stated position was affirmed or struck down. The decision is just another signal/marker of the continuing trend that you're describing. Dredd Scott can be viewed as a bad decision that made things worse, but one can also see that even if Dredd Scott ruling was reversed (that Dredd Scott became a free man by staying in the free Missouri territory), there would still have been a Secession. Congress (and by extension the People) punt on something long enough then yeah it will come crashing down on them. This is exactly what the People deserve.
lollol
1mo ago
To add more information gleaned from scotusblog live chat:
- West Virginia v. B. P. J decides that states may segregate sports by biological gender. And already working through the lower circuits are lawsuits asking that states must segregate sports by biological gender.
- National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission. I will be interested in the first and second order effects of this.
- Trump v. Barbara. Kavanaugh concurred on the ruling but dissented on the opinion, so it's more like 5.5-4.5 . And Thomas has a 91 page dissent.
The author answered some questions to journalists here: https://www.timesofisrael.com/italy-publishes-first-critical-edition-of-mein-kampf/
This reminds me of Stephen Kotkin's answer to someone's question about what they will find if the archives of the Chinese Communist Party ever becomes open to historians, he said (I paraphrased): "The same thing we found when the Russian archives were opened, they all thought they were Communists".
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