Nothing screams “respect for our military” like sidelining generals across the various branches of the armed forces because the leader of the country has the mentality of a pissed off 12-year old.
Going to make the discussions about how the military plans to respond to Trump orders that tread over the legal line that much more pressing and important.
Is this not constructive dismissal for us non-military workers?
I think we have to hope that the broadness of trumps coalition will keep him from following his worst instincts.
Maybe not as well as it did the first time, but with some effectiveness.
I’m actually a big fan of the idea of cutting government waste. I just don’t think Musk and Ramaswamy are remotely the people to do it. And calling the initiative DOGE bc Musk like Dogecoin does not instill confidence.
From what I recall, Clinton had a group try to do this in 1993; they spent months trying to cull costs, decided there really wasn’t that much waste.
Of course, that was 31 years ago and involved people who knew what was needed for government to properly function. In 2024, the sole criteria is “it prevents me from looting the public to line my pockets.”
This makes my list of “Milestones Toward an Authoritarian Government”.
So, a secret project?
What a jackass.
They are in for a rough ride. They will be trapped until they graduate.
The US is likely to lose international students to Canada and the UK now.
Have you ever thought to yourself that someone who spent the last 10 years working at Fox News is qualified to be Secretary of Defense? And if no, why not? But at least he dislikes woke things like :checks notes: including women in combat roles and punishing service members for war crimes.
Could have been worse: Hannity or Ingraham. But they wouldn’t have accepted the pay cut.
I am all for reducing government waste. Put some ideas on the table.
Actual government employment has been going down for a long time.
Spending of course is on a long term trend upward, but most of that is SS, Medicare, and the military rather than imagined increases in bloated bureaucracy.
That’s OK, the bloat, in the form of government efficiency, will come in and… hmm, add to the deficit and find critial things to cut, like what happened at tweezer.
I don’t think you can compare the number of employees over such a long time period. Computers made a huge difference in headcount, as paper-pushers weren’t needed anymore. Technology automates things that used to require manual work. The waste in government isn’t just about headcount.
Some of the decline also came out of Gore’s Reinventing the Government initiative, which found 250k or so jobs that could be axed.
EPA: gone. FDA? Let PeoPLe dO ThIEr oWn ResEaRCh. No more fluoride in the water? Probably saves at least a couple FTEs. IRS? Just make the billionaires check a box attesting that their taxes are fine, get rid of the auditors. This is pretty easy. You’re all cut.
If we’re slashing government jobs, start with TSA. It’s been 20 years of a mirage of security inside airports, with repeated examples of how agents failed to detect all kinds of prohibited items. If terrorists really wanted to attack an airport they could waltz right through the front doors like they did at Rome and Vienna in 1985. Or, they could pull a vehicle into any parking garage, dropoff lane or pickup lane at any airport and detonate a bomb inside.
All of that is at best minimally secured areas where TSA isn’t present, and it would be fairly easy for terrorists to inflict mass damage before anyone could respond.
They will not play with security/defence. It will be suicide.
TIL this exists:
