Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
You beat me to it!
Dept. of Gov. Efficiency
- Thread starter Mr. G
- Start date
So, seems that CNN asked for details of the security clearances for Musk and his DOGE employees such that they could gain access to the social security payment systems etc. CNN were surprised to find out that the workers in the dept responsible for privacy, and for responding to the FOIA, have been sacked.
Responding to FOIA requests is a legal requirement, but I'm not sure what punishment for non-compliance is. Still, if you don't want people to find out that you don't legally have access to something then you could do worse than firing the people who have the job of answering the question.
Responding to FOIA requests is a legal requirement, but I'm not sure what punishment for non-compliance is. Still, if you don't want people to find out that you don't legally have access to something then you could do worse than firing the people who have the job of answering the question.
You'd think they would have learnt their lesson after sacking workers related to Nuclear security...
www.bbc.co.uk
Trump administration trying to rehire USDA bird flu officials it fired
The cuts come as the virus is wreaking havoc on poultry farms and raising egg prices in the US.
www.bbc.co.uk
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
You'd think they would have learnt their lesson after sacking workers related to Nuclear security...
Trump administration trying to rehire USDA bird flu officials it fired
The cuts come as the virus is wreaking havoc on poultry farms and raising egg prices in the US.
Ken Fabian
Registered Senior Member
I would put funding of crewed Mars missions, especially as some kind of rushed, priority project high on the list of "unnecessary and wasteful expenditure" - but I don't think that "promise" of President Trump's to go to Mars within his term has had funding allocated yet. Hard to imagine any DOGE under Musk would see anything wasteful about it. Conflict of interest is the term coming to mind. Even if wealthy corporations have never had problems influencing policy and securing contracts whilst getting around conflict of interest provisions the loss of that figleaf is not a good look.
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foghorn
Valued Senior Member
Musk and his chainsaw work on the FBI: “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
www.independent.co.uk
Patel tells FBI staff to ignore Musk’s email as signs of power struggle emerges
Elon Musk’s DOGE email ultimatum to federal workers may have revealed internal tensions in Trump administration
www.independent.co.uk
Did you see the literal chainsaw he was given by Milei, and that he was brandishing on stage?
I'm sure that any federal agency run by an ass-licker will be spared many of the cuts, as long as there are promises to replace current non-ass-lickers in the employ of the agency with suitably ass-licking alternatives. I can see that the FBI will be forced to show some alignment with Musk, like firing the odd few thousand (e.g. those who worked on the Jan 6 prosecutions), only to then replace them (absent media focus) with loyalists.... on the FBI: “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
Patel tells FBI staff to ignore Musk’s email as signs of power struggle emerges
Elon Musk’s DOGE email ultimatum to federal workers may have revealed internal tensions in Trump administration
foghorn
Valued Senior Member
The funny thing about all this “Drain the swamp”, is that once it’s drained, you’re left with the bottom feeders (‘ass-lickers’) and scum.
I waiting for when Trump gets to work on playing the ‘Twenty-second Amendment’ to the Constitution.
Near the end of his second term(2 years in) could Trump, because of ‘convenient’ illness, wangle in JD Vance, and hence leaving Vance to run for 10 years. That’s the last two years of Trump's term and Vance winning the following two elections. See below.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Not sure Trump would do that. He is not an ideologist. He is a solipsist. There is a mutually convenient symbiosis between him and Project 2025ers like Vance and Vought and the tech bros like Muskie. But Trump wants to be an emperor. He won’t give up the reins until he has to.The funny thing about all this “Drain the swamp”, is that once it’s drained, you’re left with the bottom feeders (‘ass-lickers’) and scum.
I waiting for when Trump gets to work on playing the ‘Twenty-second Amendment’ to the Constitution.
Near the end of his second term(2 years in) could Trump, because of ‘convenient’ illness, wangle in JD Vance, and hence leaving Vance to run for 10 years. That’s the last two years of Trump's term and Vance winning the following two elections. See below.
Yeah, there's no way Trump would voluntarily give up the throne. If anything he'll look to go the other way, and if he has SCOTUS, and Congress, in his pocket then maybe he'll sincerely try for the 3rd term. That could of course be scuppered by the results of the mid-terms, when he will hopefully lose control of both houses, but who knows what he'll try. He also hasn't endorsed Vance as his successor. He hasn't ruled him out, but didn't endorse him when asked.
TheVat
Valued Senior Member
Well, if Trump could find a cooperative running mate, then he could use the existing loophole of running for VP with that person in 2028. If the ticket wins, then that person promptly resigns their office and Trump is sworn in. (the 22nd only forbids someone being elected for a third term) Trump, as acting POTUS then nominates a VP who, if approved by a cooperative Congress, will then agree to run in 2032 with Trump again as VP....and so on (though at this point he would be 86 yo...)
Yep. And the Supreme Court will look at that and determine that Trump is Constitutionally eligible, since he was born in the US and is over the age of 40.
Ken Fabian
Registered Senior Member
As a not-American, watching what Trump and gang do (in much the way a train crash is hard to look away from), I had the impression the most workable workaround to such limits would be some kind of State of Emergency.
Given that competence does not seem to be a requirement for Trump's Federal appointees the likelihood of US facing a genuine existential emergency does seem to go up. And the ability to address it will be diminished.
Given that competence does not seem to be a requirement for Trump's Federal appointees the likelihood of US facing a genuine existential emergency does seem to go up. And the ability to address it will be diminished.
foghorn
Valued Senior Member
"State of Emergency."
Zelensky is staying in power because of the Russian invasion (State of Emergency), that, according to Trump, makes Zelensky a ‘dictator’.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
That's one scenario I've been arguing for a while. It's what Indira Gandhi did for instance.
The Trumpies could even engineer a "state of emergency", by doing something outrageous enough to spark mass demonstrations and then get some MAGA agitators to turn these into riots, which they could then disperse with maximum ballyhoo: bullets, teargas etc. They would tip off the Fox reporters beforehand of course, while denying access to disfavoured media channels who might find evidence the chaos was engineered.
We've seen all this before in other countries - and at other times, ahem. Once you've got a bunch of malevolent, antidemocratic actors in all the positions of power, they can do all manner of things to stay in office.
I assume everyone here has seen Idiocracy.
Attachments
Диктатура дураков?
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
I've taken to referring to Musk as Deputy Doge, after the 1960s cartoon series.
I came across the opening sequence of the cartoon today and found it so appropriate to the chaos Doge is causing within government departments that I burst out laughing. There is a even a bonus reference to Muskie and Vance van Gopher.....
Gotta love it when you make all those savings and get to boast about job well done...
Top 5 savings on DOGE's website (once upon a time, at least):
1. $8bn ICE contract
2 - 4. Three $655m contracts at USAID
5. $232m contract at Social Security Administration
Total of these top 5: $10.2 bn
Well done, DOGE.
So what's the problem? They're clearly doing a great job!
1 was due to a typo in the original system, which had been corrected, and should have been $8 million. Musk's little helpers should have picked this up despite that, as ICE only has a budget of c.$8bn
2 to 4 were all the same contract, just triple counted. But that's not all: the $655m was the ceiling value, and the actual saving is likely closer to $18m.
5 was the full value of an IT contract, but all they actually cancelled was a $560k portion of development - to allow people to put "X" as their gender (okay, how on earth can it cost $560k to make such a small change???)
Total actual savings: $0.02-$0.03bn
Well done, indeed, DOGE!
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...e-biggest-cuts-wall-of-receipts-b2704779.html (and others)
Top 5 savings on DOGE's website (once upon a time, at least):
1. $8bn ICE contract
2 - 4. Three $655m contracts at USAID
5. $232m contract at Social Security Administration
Total of these top 5: $10.2 bn
Well done, DOGE.
So what's the problem? They're clearly doing a great job!
1 was due to a typo in the original system, which had been corrected, and should have been $8 million. Musk's little helpers should have picked this up despite that, as ICE only has a budget of c.$8bn
2 to 4 were all the same contract, just triple counted. But that's not all: the $655m was the ceiling value, and the actual saving is likely closer to $18m.
5 was the full value of an IT contract, but all they actually cancelled was a $560k portion of development - to allow people to put "X" as their gender (okay, how on earth can it cost $560k to make such a small change???)
Total actual savings: $0.02-$0.03bn
Well done, indeed, DOGE!
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...e-biggest-cuts-wall-of-receipts-b2704779.html (and others)