Trump's DERP State

toomuchbaloney · Mar 24

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/CDC-nih-hhs-layoffs-doge-rfk-jr-restructuring/

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Officials at agencies throughout the Department of Health and Human Services say they are bracing for steep layoffs, as Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his aides are nearing their final decisions on a sweeping restructuring of the department.

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The expected cuts at the department under the reorganization and "reduction-in-force" plans ordered by the White House come after many workers have already been fired or let go throughout the nation's health agencies through other moves, like earlier attempts to purge thousands of probationary workers, end fellowship programs and terminate contractor agreements.

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Workforce cuts laid out by the HHS and DOGE officials for some senior leaders have been unprecedented. In one agency within HHS, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, DOGE officials told leaders on March 11 to expect up to 90% of their staff to be cut.

The agency has around 300 employees, many tasked with collecting and analyzing some of the federal government's most widely cited metrics on health care, including decades-old datasets tracking hospitalizations and emergency room visits nationwide that economists and health policy researchers rely on.

We don't need expert analysis when we have billionaire narcissists making emotional and reckless decisions based on flawed ideological thinking. It's only national health of the masses that will suffer. The wealthy will be sufficiently insulated from the destruction of federal public health institutions.

How do we measure winning when Trump is POTUS?

toomuchbaloney · Mar 24

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/24/journalist-trump-yemen-war-chat

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Senior members of Donald Trump's cabinet have been involved in a serious security breach while discussing secret military plans for recent US attacks on the Houthi armed group in Yemen.

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In an extraordinary blunder, key figures in the Trump administration – including vice-president JD Vance, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard – used the commercial chat app Signal to convene and discuss plans – while also including a prominent journalist in the group.

Signal is not approved by the US government for sharing sensitive information.

Others in the chat included the Trump adviser Stephen Miller; Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles; and key Trump envoy Steve Witkoff.

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The incident is likely to further raise concerns over the Trump administration's trustworthiness with intelligence shared by erstwhile allies – not least as Hegseth boasts at one stage of guaranteeing "100 percent OPSEC – operations security" while a celebrated journalist is reading his message.

The Trump administration is not trustworthy because Trump and the people in his orbit are not trustworthy.

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One striking exchange involved Vance and Hegseth making disparaging remarks about Europe.

"The account identified as 'JD Vance' addressed a message at 8:45 to @Pete Hegseth: 'if you think we should do it let's go. I just hate bailing Europe out again,’” Goldberg wrote. (The administration has argued that America's European allies benefit economically from the US navy's protection of international shipping lanes.)

Goldberg continues: "The user identified as Hegseth responded three minutes later: "VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It's PATHETIC. But Mike is correct, we are the only ones on the planet (on our side of the ledger) who can do this.

"Nobody else even close. Question is timing. I feel like now is as good a time as any, given POTUS directive to reopen shipping lanes. I think we should go; but POTUS still retains 24 hours of decision space.”

This is a pretty embarrassing. The USA is very weak and vulnerable right now. I'm sure Trump's response to this crazy situation will reflect that weak vulnerability. .

toomuchbaloney · Mar 24

The guy is in the country legally but gets put in an overcrowded detention facility and dies. He's the 3rd death at this facility.

https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/theres-a-pattern-ukrainian-man-is-3rd-to-die-in-ice-custody-at-krome-detention-center/3556811/

nursej22, MSN, RN · Mar 24

toomuchbaloney said:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/24/journalist-trump-yemen-war-chat

The Trump administration is not trustworthy because Trump and the people in his orbit are not trustworthy.

This is a pretty embarrassing. The USA is very weak and vulnerable right now. I'm sure Trump's response to this crazy situation will reflect that weak vulnerability. .

This question was posed about 2 hours after the initial report. He doesn't know anything about it and the the Atlantic is going out of business.

But her emails...

In other news, the new fighter plane is going to be designated the F-47?

This makes me laugh, because I've been thinking the same thing.

Tweety, BSN, RN · Mar 24

toomuchbaloney said:

This is a pretty embarrassing. The USA is very weak and vulnerable right now. I'm sure Trump's response to this crazy situation will reflect that weak vulnerability.

Just saw this story on the national news, after I picked my jaw up off the floor, I was like "WTH!". The comments about Europe being freeloaders is embarrassing considered America with our bases all over Europe and the world created their dependence. That aside I'm still shaking my head saying WTH!...(the H really was an F bomb but I can't say it here.)(I too thought of "but her emails" and almost laughed if it wasn't such a serious breech of protocol to invite this reporter of all people)

toomuchbaloney · Mar 24

toomuchbaloney · Mar 25

What a bunch of baloney. I guess this is what we should expect from a drunk.

Tweety, BSN, RN · Mar 25

toomuchbaloney said:

What a bunch of baloney. I guess this is what we should expect from a drunk.

Love how he discredited the man and deflected to another topic and the usual prior administration slam. Good on the reporter for letting him finish but then try to refocus him.

I don't know much about the reporter and his past reporting. I have seen his show "Washington Week" on PBS a time or two. Looking at his bio it does tend to be left leaning sources that the right doesn't like.

A friend texted me the article but I'm not a prescriber so won't go into the semantics of whether the text was "war plans" or not.

Biden and the UK attacked Yemen and were apparently ineffective so will give him that one. We'll see if the bravado is effective this time.

https://apnews.com/article/biden-houthis-yemen-shipping-attacks-fc5c1ed40f4e370bed81670bfdda0899

On a side note there's clips of him ranting about Clinton's emails. They haven't aged well.

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Jeffrey Goldberg joined The Atlantic in 2007 as a national correspondent and in 2016 was named the magazine's 15th editor in chief. During his editorship, The Atlantic has set new audience and subscription records, and won its first-ever Pulitzer Prizes in each of the past three years. In 2022 and in 2023, The Atlantic received the National Magazine Award for General Excellence; this is the highest honor bestowed by the magazine industry. In 2020, Goldberg was named editor of the year by Adweek, which also named The Atlantic magazine of the year. The Atlantic's journalism in this time has helped its readers make sense of the world's most complicated issues and shined a light on injustices the world over.

Goldberg is a regular guest on NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, and NPR programs, including Face the Nation, Morning Joe, and The Lead with Jake Tapper. Before joining The Atlantic, Goldberg served as the Middle East correspondent and then the Washington correspondent for The New Yorker. Earlier in his career, he was a writer for The New York Times Magazine and New York magazine. He began his career as a police reporter for The Washington Post. Goldberg is the author of Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror. A former fellow of the American Academy in Berlin, he also served as a public-policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and as the distinguished visiting fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Goldberg is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Magazine Award for reporting, the Daniel Pearl Award for reporting, the Overseas Press Club Award for human-rights reporting, and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists Prize for best investigative reporting.

NutmeggeRN, BSN · Mar 25

Hegseth is a deplorable -yes I said it! A huge (YUGE!!) issue is that they used a platform that is not subject to Freedom of Information requests. Was that intentional, or are they just not that smart? But her emails....

Russia, are you listening?? Just hop on Signals....

toomuchbaloney · Mar 25

NutmeggeRN said:

Hegseth is a deplorable -yes I said it! A huge (YUGE!!) issue is that they used a platform that is not subject to Freedom of Information requests. Was that intentional, or are they just not that smart? But her emails....

Russia, are you listening? Just hop on Signals....

That's right. They are intentionally concealing their communications from the American people. It sounds like this is common procedure for them.

toomuchbaloney · Mar 25

Very interesting.

Did you know that the Director of Homeland Security believes that Trump gets to decide who will have top level security clearance and not her or her agency?

NutmeggeRN, BSN · Mar 26

toomuchbaloney said:

Very interesting.

Did you know that the Director of Homeland Security believes that Trump gets to decide who will have top level security clearance and not her or her agency?

She is not qualified either...