r/moderatepolitics

The article says DOE’s Environmental Management office lost around one-third of its staff in fiscal 2025, with most leaving through the “deferred resignation program,” a Trump administration policy where employees sat on paid administrative leave for months and months before being officially terminated.

DOGE wasn’t just outright firings. There were also deferred resignation programs and buyouts, which were basically pressure campaigns that pushed federal workers out under threat of being fucking fired later if they didn't accept. The piece also says those departures left nearly half the office vacant and hit mission-critical safety and engineering roles hard:

>Nearly half of the positions in the federal government’s office responsible for handling and cleaning up nuclear waste are currently vacant, according to a new audit, after the Trump administration incentivized a wave of departures at the agency. 

>GAO found Environmental Management faced challenges in cleaning up nuclear waste due to understaffing, as it forced schedule delays, cost overruns and workplace accidents. At its 15 clean up sites, the Energy office is tasked with deactivating contaminated buildings, remediating contaminated soil and operating facilities that treat millions of gallons of liquid radioactive waste.  At its location in the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the office has a vacancy rate of 62%. 

If DOGE was around during Oppenheimer's days, they would have ruled the Manhattan project was a "waste" and he would have been fucking fired and cut off before the work was finished. Engineers are likely serving coffee at starbucks instead of safeguarding our nation's nuclear waste because they were DOGE'd.

The mass firings were not normal management. They were ideologically driven, illegal and destructive. That should have demanded a stronger response, but why have Democrats done nothing about it? I am a single issue voter about these illegal terminations. If Dems want my vote in the midterms there should be:

• hearings,
• investigations,
• and some kind of restoration/reinstatement effort

This WSJ article explores the challenges occurring in jury rooms across the US as increasing societal polarization is pulled into deliberations.

> Trial lawyers and jury consultants say an erosion of trust in the justice system, more rigid viewpoints and starker political divides have made pitched juror battles more common

> “Whatever you see in society at large you see in the jury deliberation room,” said jury consultant Laurie Kuslansky. “The isolation of Covid and the political divide are making us more and more disabled as a society to disagree and then reach consensus and compromise.”

As someone who watches a fair amount of trial coverage I found this article interesting because it is something I’ve been thinking a lot about over the past few years, especially when noticing more mistrials and wondering if a)there is an increase and b) if it is tied to this dynamics.

I particularly found this section of the article interesting around how jury consultants are beginning to categorize potential jurors:

>”We tend to think of jurors in a binary way: either they come in proprosecution or prodefense,” she said. “Each side tries to weed out the other. The distinction we were seeing more of was either general trust or general skepticism.”

The implication is that lawyers need to evaluate how either trusting or skeptical jurors might view the issues in their case, Brickman added.”

For anyone who has been on a recent jury trial, what was your experience? Was this a trend you noticed during deliberations? How did it impact your experience and trust in the justice system?

The article says Trump called rising gas prices "peanuts" on Tuesday, reiterating that preventing a nuclear-armed Iran is his sole policy focus. The national average for regular gasoline hit $4.533 a gallon on May 19, up from $2.94 in February. Reuters reported Americans are changing daily routines in response, switching to buses, cutting trips, and lining up for gas giveaways in cities like LA and Chicago.

>"This is peanuts. I appreciate everybody putting up with it for a little while. But I don't even think about. What I think about is you can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon," Trump said, according to Newsweek and video of the exchange circulated by journalist Aaron Rupar.

The remark doubles down on an earlier May 13 C-SPAN clip where Trump said Americans' financial situation motivates him to reach a deal "not even a little bit." Together, the two statements are evidence that Trump is dismissing the economic burden he's asking voters to bear for his foreign policy.

The economic carnage is worsening. April CPI rose 3.8% year-over-year, with energy up 17.9% and gasoline up 28.4%. Higher fuel costs are tearing into transportation, delivery, and food distribution. His approval ratings on inflation and the economy are at 29% and 35% respectively.

Is the white house correct that voters will tolerate short-term pain for national security, or are they cooked in the midterms?

If we’re supposedly “winning” and Iran is supposedly “desperate” to end this war, why are consumers continuing to be asked to absorb higher and higher economic costs through higher oil, gas, and shipping prices?

Kentucky Rep Thomas Massie lost his Republican primary to Trump endorsed Ed Gallrein. This race has had a spotlight on it as Massie has been seen in a thorn in the side of Trump for a while. He did not support the Big Beautiful Bill and has been very vocal about the Epstein files.

Maddie’s loss comes after several Indiana Republican state senators lost their primaries after refusing to redistrict the state and Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana losing his primary.

If the polls are correct, it seems that Trump’s approval is tanking yet these primary wins indicate that hasn’t lost any influence over the Republican Party. Could this be a case of anybody who hasn’t jumped ship yet is still ride or die Trump or is there something more to this?

This is a post about jury nullification. Also if you’re an OG CGP Gray viewer, the video title “Watching this could disqualify you from jury duty” (https://youtu.be/uqH\_Y1TupoQ?si=\_jEeyhnJ\_a9bzyBd) is probably not going to work anymore as “65% of people were willing to take the law into their own hands as opposed to following the judge’s instructions, up from 52%.
In the criminal justice system, jurors are entitled to acquit defendants by deliberately rejecting evidence or refusing to apply the law, often by substituting their own sense of fairness—a concept known as jury nullification.” Just as an example from the article, the judge explicitly told the jury not to sentence, yet the jury disobeyed and triggered a mistrial.

Though jurors who reveal this intent are dismissed or never selected in the first place, pre-determined voting is increasingly the reality of America’s jury. Because political affiliation is becoming the deciding factor in many trials instead of deliberation, I fear not just that time is wasted from mistrial but the judicial system with juries has completely malfunctioned and will have dire consequences, including precedence as younger generations are a lot more inclined to nullify, if the political climate doesn’t calm down.

Though this last comment of mine feels tangential, I can’t help but find that this situation reflects America’s politics extremely well too: the inability, post-COVID, for understanding of other political opinions produces America’s political divide, so much so that elections aren’t won by swing voters or independents but by supercharging your party voter base to turn out for elections via fear mongering.

Recent financial disclosures reveal that President Trump's portfolio executed over 3,700 stock trades, worth up to $750 million, in the first quarter of 2026. There are about 60 trading days in the first quarter, and about 6.5 hours (390 minutes) of official trading hours per day. This averages to more than 60 trades per day, and about one trade every 6.5 minutes.

His investments heavily targeted the technology and defense sectors. Breaking from the tradition of utilizing a blind trust and divesting from individual stocks, the portfolio notably purchased shares in companies like Nvidia, Palantir, and Axon just days before those companies benefited from favorable government regulatory decisions or lucrative federal contracts. Ethics watchdogs argue that the unprecedented volume and highly advantageous timing of these trades present massive conflicts of interest.

This approach marks a sharp contrast to President Biden, who followed modern presidential precedent by completely divesting from individual equities and holding his assets in diversified mutual funds and index funds, a strategy designed to eliminate the risk of profiting from specific administration policies or government contract decisions.

The scale of this naked corruption makes it very much not a both-sides issue, and it is clear that Trump’s supporters are unwilling to hold him accountable for this corruption. It is frustrating to watch Republicans cry about “the Biden crime family” and the Pelosis while supporting the office of POTUS being used for open corruption and self-enrichment.

Should Congress pass the oft-debated legislation that would ban all sitting presidents, cabinet members, and members of Congress from trading individual stocks entirely?

Should presidents be legally required to liquidate individual stock holdings and invest solely in broad-market index funds or U.S. Treasuries?

Honestly, I feel like the Sub-Reddit needs some less news right now and something else we can talk about for a little while. So, let's explore some ideas and personal preferences.

The question here is pretty simple:

Starting with Bush Jr's first term, because let's all be honest with ourselves, for the majority of users on this Sub-reddit, that's going to be the first president of our lives or the first one we have any memories of. Assume that you, via some magical time traveling ability, have full control of Election outcomes (Senate/House/Presidency and their Primaries). Who do you have running in each of the races. Who replaces who where, and who wins. And most of all...how does this change the trajectory of the United States and Geopolitics in your eyes?

And for those of you reading, how do you counter-act these ideas, or see the responder's choices either working out or backfiring?

Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) has introduced the "Americans Insist on Political Agent Clarity" Act to close a loophole in the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) of 1938 that currently allows organizations to evade registration by exploiting their status as legally U.S.-based entities, even when their primary lobbying activities principally advance the interests of a foreign nation.

The legislation mandates that U.S.-based entities lobbying on behalf of foreign interests must register as foreign agents. To ensure transparency without restricting free speech or advocacy, the bill establishes clear, objective indicators of foreign political alignment, such as direct coordination with foreign officials or repeatedly pushing foreign diplomatic objectives.

Additionally, it empowers American citizens with a private right of action to file formal complaints with the Department of Justice to trigger investigations into potential FARA violations, ultimately seeking to guarantee the public knows when groups are advancing foreign agendas in Congress.

Do you think this will pass the House and Senate?

Do foreign interest group wield disproportionate influence in Congress, as critics allege? How might such legislation help curtail their influence? What other legislation would be required to further limit the influence of foreign actors on Congress?

Does closing this loophole in FARA enhance transparency regarding the lobbying and motivations behind major policy initiatives in Washington?

Starter:

Oklahoma has become the 17th U.S. state to completely ban child marriage with no exceptions after Senate Bill 504 automatically became law on May 13, 2026. Taking effect on November 1, 2026, the legislation sets the absolute minimum marriage age at 18, closing previous loopholes that allowed minors to marry with parental or court consent. While the bill passed the State Senate unanimously to protect minors from abuse, human trafficking, and legal vulnerabilities, it faced fierce conservative opposition in the House, passing by a narrow 51-36 margin, with every vote against the measure cast by Republicans.

1. Is it consistent for the law to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to marry (in states where it is legal) when they are not yet legally old enough to vote, sign a lease, enlist in the military without consent, or file for divorce independently?

2. Should the federal government set a uniform minimum marriage age of 18, or should this remain strictly a state-by-state decision?

3. Given that the GOP frequently campaigns on platforms of "protecting children" and combating human trafficking, how do opposing Republicans justify voting against a bill explicitly designed to prevent the legal grooming and exploitation of minors? Should *family values* trump protections for minors?

The article says CFPB leadership now plans to recall staff to the office more than a year after the Trump administration shut down the agency’s D.C. headquarters and tried to mass-fire the workforce. A judge blocked the policy after finding the administration had planned to gut the agency before courts could rule, but the workforce is already down by about 30% because of resignations, attrition, and the chaos.

One of the candiates for Lt. Governor in my state approached me in a barber shop and asked if I was registered to vote. I told him I am registered, but that I am not planning to vote this year, especially for Democrats. He asked why. I said that after I lost my job in these federal mass firings, I messaged my Democratic representative and asked what the hell she was going to do to stop the administration’s illegal policies against federal workers and get them their jobs back. It was a simple question, how are you gonna get us back to work? I never heard back. A year later I haven't even got a form email from a caseworker on staff.

I told him that traumatic experience really altered my view of the party. I used to think people who sat out elections were lazy, but the truth is they are people who were burned and have lost trust. I said I wasn't going to vote for them again until I see some RESULTS and they stop taking their voters for granted. Federal workers who were DOGE'd should get their jobs back and the Democratic party isn't doing enough to make them whole. The burden of proof is on the party at this point, because their track record is not good. He seemed like a nice guy, so I wished him best of luck.

I salute the CFPB workers all the way, especially those who have somehow kept their jobs and continued working through this chaos. I hope they return to their positions and are made whole, one fired federal worker to another.