OP’s neighbor is one of the minority of federal workers who are probationary employees, because that’s the only group Elon has been able to really fire right now

This part isn’t true. At this point, probably over half of the fired workers were permanent, from agencies that are closing or are implementing RIFs. Most are still drawing paychecks, but budgeting does (and should) change once someone is informed that they’ll be out of a job in the next month or two.

For many agencies, these satellite offices often have monopsony power over workers of certain job skills. NOAA and the National Weather Service employ a lot of people who have job functions not really available from another employer, especially without moving. The same is true of NIH and CDC. HHS just announced the closure of several lawyer offices, and those specialists are going to have a bit of a rough time finding replacement jobs. USDA is a big organization, and have a ton of economists and scientists who would basically have to take a big pay cut if they’re laid off in this environment.

You’re downplaying just how devastating some of these job losses are, by ignoring that many of these people moved to these cities in reliance on the job stability they expected, and downplaying the number of people affected and the length of tenure these people have.

I don’t have a strong view of whether this story is literally true of this specific account’s neighbor. But I can tell you that versions of this story have happened to thousands already, and will happen to tens of thousands more.

A not-insignificant portion of Trump’s base will be in this boat, if they aren’t already. We should be ready with messaging to pull them out of the cult, so that they don’t fall back in.

Actually for federal sentencing, property destruction is punished under the same table as theft. It’s mostly measured from the amount of loss to the victims, whether the person actually profited from it or not.

“Up to 10 years” is the maximum possible for that type of crime. Actual sentencing guidelines for a $500k loss for a first time offender will probably come out to about 2, maybe 3 years.

In order for the recommended sentence to hit 10 years, we’d have to be talking about damage of over $550 million, or something like a long criminal history.

Substantial disruption of critical infrastructure would get someone to around 5 years, as a reference.

This is a misleading stat, because veterans skew heavily male and old (since Boomers were drafted for Vietnam).

In 2023, Pew published a profile of veteran demographics.

• 72% of veterans were over the age of 50.
• 37% were over the age of 70.
• 74% were white.
• 89% were men.

Polls that have broken up veterans by generation show a clear generational divide as well. This poll from 2020 showed that veterans under the age of 54, and veterans who joined the military after 2001, backed Biden over Trump.

Among veterans young enough to still be working, we’d need more detailed cross tabs to understand whether a majority of employed veterans, much less government employee veterans, voted Trump.

So for the individuals who did vote Trump, yes, this post fits. But for the group as a whole, of veterans who work in the government, I’m skeptical that they voted Trump over Harris.