Trump's DERP State

toomuchbaloney · Feb 17

https://apnews.com/article/doge-faa-air-traffic-firings-safety-67981aec33b6ee72cbad8dcee31f3437

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has begun firing several hundred Federal Aviation Administration employees, upending staff on a busy air travel weekend and just weeks after a January fatal midair collision at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Probationary workers were targeted in late-night emails Friday notifying them they had been fired, David Spero, president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists union, said in a statement.

The impacted workers include personnel hired for FAA radar, landing and navigational aid maintenance, one air traffic controller told The Associated Press. The air traffic controller was not authorized to talk to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity.

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A Transportation Department official told the AP late Monday that no air traffic controllers were affected by the cuts, and that the agency has "retained employees who perform critical safety functions.” In a follow-up query the agency said they would have to look into whether the radar, landing and navigational aid workers affected were considered to handle critical safety functions.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association said in a brief statement Monday it was "analyzing the effect of the reported federal employee terminations on aviation safety, the national airspace system and our members.”

Radar and landing aren't critical safety functions? Did one of the DOGE bruhs decide that?

toomuchbaloney · Feb 18

Beerman said:

Nope. In this case the patient was not given needles and failed to get them. Didn't call their diabetes educator, didn't go buy a $10 box for them, didn't get some sent in the mail, etc.

Nursej22 didn't say that the patient didn't understand.

Like I said, you are welcome to assume as you prefer.

Crusades said:

No. The member refused to believe that I have not been treated differently because I am a female. She was right so I shared.

What?

Beerman said:

Patient was working a job. Must not be so sick that can't get to a pharmacy. Needles needs to be a high priority. And if has a RX they're free.

But no. They're a victim because no one else took care of the problem and the provider called them non-compliant. Boo hoo.

Feel free to assume and imagine as you prefer.

toomuchbaloney · Feb 18

Crusades said:

And you can arbitrarily suggest that it's based on gender and race. It happens all the time. Especially when people are emboldened by DEI. Which has been mismanaged and abused from what it initially was for.... Hence Trump ending it.

Yikes.

What in the heck are you trying to communicate here besides your completely politicized and propagandized understanding of DEI?

nursej22, MSN, RN · Feb 18

Not everyone has health insurance. In my area, low income people live in areas miles from pharmacies and Dr offices. Field workers have to weigh losing a day of work against taking their medication. TB patients with poor glucose control can develop med resistance. But sure, let's all assume this is all on the patient.

Crusades · Feb 18

nursej22 said:

Not everyone has health insurance. In my area, low income people live in areas miles from pharmacies and Dr offices. Field workers have to weigh losing a day of work against taking their medication. TB patients with poor glucose control can develop med resistance. But sure, let's all assume this is all on the patient.

Or assume it's because of their race and gender. This is what you initially implied. However is void from this comment.. ...

toomuchbaloney · Feb 18

Crusades said:

Or assume it's because of their race and gender. This is what you initially implied. However is void from this comment.. ...

You already established that women are occasionally treated badly in the health care system and you've personallyexperienced it. Previous discussions have included research and data which demonstrates a difference in health outcomes for women of color.

What is the point of your remark? Snark? Antagonism?

toomuchbaloney · Feb 18

https://fortune.com/2025/02/18/doge-fired-fda-employees-overseeing-elon-musk-neuralink/

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The Department of Government Efficiency fired the FDA employees who were responsible for overseeing the clinical trial applications of neurological and physical medical devices, including those made by Elon Musk's Neuralink, Reuters reported. Experts worry the firings could hinder the safety and speed of technologies' approval.

What an interesting coincidence.

toomuchbaloney · Feb 19

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/doge/usda-accidentally-fired-officials-bird-flu-rehire-rcna192716

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Tuesday that, over the weekend, it accidentally fired "several" agency employees who are working on the federal government's response to the H5N1 avian flu outbreak.

The agency said it is now trying to quickly reverse the firings.

"Although several positions supporting [bird flu efforts] were notified of their terminations over the weekend, we are working to swiftly rectify the situation and rescind those letters," a USDA spokesperson said in a statement. "USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service frontline positions are considered public safety positions, and we are continuing to hire the workforce necessary to ensure the safety and adequate supply of food to fulfill our statutory mission."

https://www.northernag.net/thousands-of-usda-employees-fired-as-part-of-federal-workforce-reduction/

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Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that 3,400 employees for the U.S. Forest Service, were let go, according to Andy Vanderheuel, who represents the workers for the National Federation of Federal Employees. While firefighters at the Forest Service were spared, many staff responsible for maintenance and conservation work lost their jobs.

Looks like DOGE is indiscriminate in its cuts as a habit. That suggests that they don't value the work of these agencies and institutions at all. They very likely don't even understand or agree with the missions of the agencies, their purpose is cuts. The cuts are determined by key word searches by young tech bruhs. They seem to be looking for things other than fraud and waste. They've decided that a probationary status means that the individual is nonessential to the mission. So, they send the employees termination letters which tell them they are being terminated because of poor performance. Across the board, that is the message and it is a lie.

It's pretty clear that serving and protecting the American public is not the priority of the Musk agenda. How are they going to rake the forests the way Trump wants if they fire the fire service staff? How does disrupting work on the new avian flu save us money or create an exceptional response on behalf of the people?

Buckle up.

Tweety, BSN, RN · Feb 19

Musk and DOGE are getting all the attention now but there's another one in power, Russ Vought. He's a Christian nationalist without much soul if you ask me.

Liberal press alert.

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"We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” Vought said in a video revealed by ProPublica and the research group Documented in October. "When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work, because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down ... We want to put them in trauma.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/10/who-is-russell-vought-trump-office-of-management-and-budget

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Vought believes that executive agencies have, with Congress and the courts' blessing, usurped so much power that the Constitution is no longer in effect. He believes that presidents have a duty to try and enforce the true constitution, using whatever novel arguments they can dream up, even ifthe rest of the government might reject them. And he believes that threatening to ignore the Supreme Court isn't a lawless abuse of power, but rather the very means by which the separation of powers is defended.

Russell Vought can call this whatever he wants, but it's fairly clear what it amounts to: a recipe for a constitutional crisis. And it's one the president currently appears to be following to a tee.

https://www.vox.com/on-the-right-newsletter/399940/trump-musk-russell-vought-radical-constitutionalism

toomuchbaloney · Feb 19

Tweety said:

Musk and DOGE are getting all the attention now but there's another one in power, Russ Vought. He's a Christian nationalist without much soul if you ask me.

Liberal press alert.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/10/who-is-russell-vought-trump-office-of-management-and-budget

https://www.vox.com/on-the-right-newsletter/399940/trump-musk-russell-vought-radical-constitutionalism

Yep. The architect of Project 2025. He's in a key position to fully implement that policy plan that Trump told everyone that he definitely didn't support.

We are in the soup.

Buckle up.

toomuchbaloney · Feb 20

https://www.propublica.org/article/doge-trump-musk-funding-foia-congress-transparency

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The Trump administration began funding DOGE soon after it took office. It started by tapping $750,000 from a White House fund for information technology initiatives in late January.

Since then, the funding has ballooned; the most recent apportionment came on Feb. 8 and included a $14 million chunk described as part of a "software modernization initiative.” In all, ProPublica found, more than $39 million has been earmarked to DOGE in the Trump administration's first month.

For perspective, in recent years Congress had allocated around $50 million a year for the IT modernization initiative that DOGE supplanted, budget records show.

The Trump administration has not yet released enough details to trace the exact source of the funding flowing into DOGE or said who is being paid. The money could be coming from agency budgets that have money set aside for IT upgrades or other services. It's also not yet clear what timeframe the allocation covers or whether it has funded salaries.

Funding one agency from another's budget is not unusual, experts say. But money cannot be moved around for whatever purpose the White House wants — it is restricted by something called the "purpose statute,” which requires funds to pay for items Congress has specifically prescribed.

More than $39 million in the first month.

That's almost funny.

toomuchbaloney · Feb 22

https://www.siouxlandproud.com/news/national-news/dhs-secretary-kristi-noem-announces-new-ad-campaign/

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While the Trump Administration and Department of Government Efficiency proclaim the goal is to reduce government overspending and waste, the Department of Homeland Security is announcing an international, multi-million dollar ad campaign.

Photo ops and ad campaigns featuring her face. Hahahaha

Rolling Stone reports that Noem said that Trump wanted this ad campaign thanking him for closing the borders. This is more important than cancer research?