[garygreen]

Sure, I'm willing to sacrifice hypothetical lives who are saved from a hypothetical working future drug to get fraud out of government. Some of them may die, but it is a sacrifice I am willing to make.

right, but my question was -- why? even if there truly is a forced choice between the two, why is it better to sacrifice people's lives than it is to sacrifice some fraction of a public grant to waste/fraud/abuse?

[Action80]

The reason? - "The government engaged in the wasting of money is engaged in the practice of wasting lives."

[Lord Dave]

Know what's a waste?
The money Trump got from the Secret Service budget during his term.
Also Superbowl visit.

[Action80]

Yeah, politicians should not be wasting their time on sporting events, I agree.

That is just awful.

[Lord Dave]

https://www.newsweek.com/surprise-electric-bill-alabama-trump-executive-order-2030874

Waste!  Giving money to low income people in Alabama.

[Tom Bishop]

Sure, I'm willing to sacrifice hypothetical lives who are saved from a hypothetical working future drug to get fraud out of government. Some of them may die, but it is a sacrifice I am willing to make.

right, but my question was -- why? even if there truly is a forced choice between the two, why is it better to sacrifice people's lives than it is to sacrifice some fraction of a public grant to waste/fraud/abuse?

Fraud begets fraud and is connected to morality. If they are willing to steal money from the public then then there is a higher likelihood to cut corners on research and push out dangerous and questionable therapies. There is a greater danger in allowing fraud. The billions lost to government waste and fraud could be used to save lives elsewhere, such the homeless situation.

[Dr Van Nostrand]

Fraud begets fraud and is connected to morality. If they are willing to steal money from the public then then there is a higher likelihood to cut corners on research and push out dangerous and questionable therapies. There is a greater danger in allowing fraud. The billions lost to government waste and fraud could be used to save lives elsewhere, such the homeless situation.

People lost around 40 - 50 billion dollars on meme coins in the last month. Just the money lost on meme coins from the Donald, Melania and their charlatan preacher would have fed a lot of homeless people. The good news is that being an incompetent buffoon, Trump couldn't execute a successful rug pull and the price collapsed before he sold. Only the devs that talked Trump into this stupid scam made money. We need to redefine fraud.

But it's all good, DOGE is spending millions of dollars a week rooting around in our personal data looking for fraud.

[Action80]

How much did the NSA invest in looking at all of our personal data?

[Dr Van Nostrand]

How much did the NSA invest in looking at all of our personal data?

Yep, the NSA, the Chinese, the Russians and now Lex Luthor. These people digging around should be forced to buy our data from legitimate data brokers like everybody else does.

[honk]

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/14/climate/nuclear-nnsa-firings-trump/index.html

Even if we take it for granted that the federal budget is in urgent need of cutting, and even if we take it for granted that this cutting needs to take the form of mass firings (despite the salaries of federal employees making up only a tiny part of the federal budget), this is ample evidence that Elon Musk and his team of broccoli-headed kids aren't the ones who should be doing it. They're morons.

[Tom Bishop]

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/14/climate/nuclear-nnsa-firings-trump/index.html

Even if we take it for granted that the federal budget is in urgent need of cutting, and even if we take it for granted that this cutting needs to take the form of mass firings (despite the salaries of federal employees making up only a tiny part of the federal budget), this is ample evidence that Elon Musk and his team of broccoli-headed kids aren't the ones who should be doing it. They're morons.

I don't see "DOGE" or "Elon" mentioned anywhere in that article. It says "Congress is freaking out because it appears DOE didn’t really realize NNSA oversees the nuclear stockpile". Why wouldn't the Department of Energy know that the National Nuclear Security Administration maintains the nuclear stockpile? This article cites anonymous sources "with knowledge on the matter". That is code that they interviewed random nitwits.

Read the article, DOGE or Elon are not mentioned. It is accusing the Department of Energy of not knowing that the NNSA is, which is questionable. The article is also trying really hard to conflate Department of Energy officials with "Trump administration officials":

Trump administration officials fired more than 300 staffers Thursday night at the National Nuclear Security Administration — the agency tasked with managing the nation’s nuclear stockpile — as part of broader Energy Department layoffs, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.

Sources told CNN the officials did not seem to know this agency oversees America’s nuclear weapons.

An Energy Department spokesperson disputed the number of personnel affected, telling CNN that “less than 50 people” were “dismissed” from NNSA, and that the dismissed staffers “held primarily administrative and clerical roles.”

The DOE spokesperson says that it is false alarmism. If you keep reading it turns out that the DOE had terminated new probationary employees, and then brought them back. If they fired them and brought them back it could be for a number of reasons, such as budget or priority revision, and it is a stretch to imply that there was ever a direct danger of nuclear accident without these people. The article heavily suggests that everyone in the NNSA is an incredibly important and critical part of nuclear safety, and that job losses undoubtedly put us all in grave danger, which is blatantly false. This is just fear mongering and yellow journalism.

[Lord Dave]

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/14/climate/nuclear-nnsa-firings-trump/index.html

Even if we take it for granted that the federal budget is in urgent need of cutting, and even if we take it for granted that this cutting needs to take the form of mass firings (despite the salaries of federal employees making up only a tiny part of the federal budget), this is ample evidence that Elon Musk and his team of broccoli-headed kids aren't the ones who should be doing it. They're morons.

I don't see "DOGE" or "Elon" mentioned anywhere in that article. It says "Congress is freaking out because it appears DOE didn’t really realize NNSA oversees the nuclear stockpile". Why wouldn't the Department of Energy know that the National Nuclear Security Administration maintains the nuclear stockpile? This article cites anonymous sources "with knowledge on the matter". That is code that they interviewed random liberal nitwits.

Read the article, DOGE or Elon are not mentioned. It accusing the Department of Energy of not knowing that the NNSA is, which is questionable. The article is also trying really hard to conflate Department of Energy officials with "Trump administration officials":

Trump administration officials fired more than 300 staffers Thursday night at the National Nuclear Security Administration — the agency tasked with managing the nation’s nuclear stockpile — as part of broader Energy Department layoffs, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.

Sources told CNN the officials did not seem to know this agency oversees America’s nuclear weapons.

An Energy Department spokesperson disputed the number of personnel affected, telling CNN that “less than 50 people” were “dismissed” from NNSA, and that the dismissed staffers “held primarily administrative and clerical roles.”

The DOE spokesperson says that it is false alarmism. If you keep reading it turns out that the DOE only terminated new probationary employees, and then brought them back. If they fired them and brought them back it could be for a number of reasons, such as budget or priority revision, and it is a stretch to imply that there was ever a direct danger of nuclear accident without these people. The article heavily suggests that everyone in the NNSA is an incredibly important and critical part of nuclear safety, and that job losses undoubtedly put us all in grave danger, which is blatantly false. This is just fear mongering and yellow journalism.

Trump didn't do this in his first term but Elon did this shit when he took over Twitter.
So it fits Elon's pattern. 
Elon is Trump's biggest political doner and very important advisor.

It's not a stretch to say that Elon suggested this to Trump.

[honk]

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/14/climate/nuclear-nnsa-firings-trump/index.html

Even if we take it for granted that the federal budget is in urgent need of cutting, and even if we take it for granted that this cutting needs to take the form of mass firings (despite the salaries of federal employees making up only a tiny part of the federal budget), this is ample evidence that Elon Musk and his team of broccoli-headed kids aren't the ones who should be doing it. They're morons.

I don't see "DOGE" or "Elon" mentioned anywhere in that article. It says "Congress is freaking out because it appears DOE didn’t really realize NNSA oversees the nuclear stockpile". Why wouldn't the Department of Energy know that the National Nuclear Security Administration maintains the nuclear stockpile? This article cites anonymous sources "with knowledge on the matter". That is code that they interviewed random nitwits.

Read the article, DOGE or Elon are not mentioned. It accusing the Department of Energy of not knowing that the NNSA is, which is questionable. The article is also trying really hard to conflate Department of Energy officials with "Trump administration officials":

Trump administration officials fired more than 300 staffers Thursday night at the National Nuclear Security Administration — the agency tasked with managing the nation’s nuclear stockpile — as part of broader Energy Department layoffs, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.

Sources told CNN the officials did not seem to know this agency oversees America’s nuclear weapons.

An Energy Department spokesperson disputed the number of personnel affected, telling CNN that “less than 50 people” were “dismissed” from NNSA, and that the dismissed staffers “held primarily administrative and clerical roles.”

The DOE spokesperson says that it is false alarmism. If you keep reading it turns out that the DOE had terminated new probationary employees, and then brought them back. If they fired them and brought them back it could be for a number of reasons, such as budget or priority revision, and it is a stretch to imply that there was ever a direct danger of nuclear accident without these people. The article heavily suggests that everyone in the NNSA is an incredibly important and critical part of nuclear safety, and that job losses undoubtedly put us all in grave danger, which is blatantly false. This is just fear mongering and yellow journalism.

Of course it wasn't really the Department of Energy that suddenly, independently decided to fire a large number of employees at the exact same time that Musk and Trump have begun their promised purge of the federal workforce. That's obviously just how they're dressing it up. They gave the orders, and everyone fired is told "(insert agency/department name here) has determined that your position is now redundant," blah blah blah. That's obvious. And of course career officials at the Department of Energy would know that nuclear weapons would fall under their own purview. They wouldn't make that mistake. The two famously arrogant and not particularly bright businessmen now running this country, both of whom have spent their whole lives thinking they know better than everyone else? They would.

[Tom Bishop]

Of course it wasn't really the Department of Energy that suddenly, independently decided to fire a large number of employees at the exact same time that Musk and Trump have begun their promised purge of the federal workforce. That's obviously just how they're dressing it up. They gave the orders, and everyone fired is told "(insert agency/department name here) has determined that your position is now redundant," blah blah blah. That's obvious. And of course career officials at the Department of Energy would know that nuclear weapons would fall under their own purview. They wouldn't make that mistake. The two famously arrogant and not particularly bright businessmen now running this country, both of whom have spent their whole lives thinking they know better than everyone else? They would.

Correct. There are many justly layoffs occurring in the federal government right now. The DOE gave the orders, and they likely know what the NNSA is, so they should know if they are actually putting the nuclear stockpile at risk with the layoffs.

NBC says that the NNSA does more than manage American nuclear stockpiles, and seems to suggest that a recent international incident might have had something to do with the reversal in layoffs:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-administration-wants-un-fire-nuclear-safety-workers-cant-figure-rcna192345

"The termination notices, which read “effective today,” came within hours of a Russian drone striking the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine. NNSA tracks nuclear risks in Ukraine, including through sensor systems."

Okay, so if this incident coincidentally involves them, the NNSA appears to be doing a lot more in the world than managing America's nuclear stockpiles. It is lunacy to conclude that the DOE firing 50 newhires actually put the nuclear stockpile in danger.

[AATW]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g3nrx1dq5o

And now they’re trying to re-hire them but struggling to.
Almost like Trump and and Musk don’t know what they’re doing

[Lord Dave]

Of course it wasn't really the Department of Energy that suddenly, independently decided to fire a large number of employees at the exact same time that Musk and Trump have begun their promised purge of the federal workforce. That's obviously just how they're dressing it up. They gave the orders, and everyone fired is told "(insert agency/department name here) has determined that your position is now redundant," blah blah blah. That's obvious. And of course career officials at the Department of Energy would know that nuclear weapons would fall under their own purview. They wouldn't make that mistake. The two famously arrogant and not particularly bright businessmen now running this country, both of whom have spent their whole lives thinking they know better than everyone else? They would.

Correct. There are many justly layoffs occurring in the federal government right now. The DOE gave the orders, and they likely know what the NNSA is, so they should know if they are actually putting the nuclear stockpile at risk with the layoffs.

NBC says that the NNSA does more than manage American nuclear stockpiles, and seems to suggest that a recent international incident might have had something to do with the reversal in layoffs:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-administration-wants-un-fire-nuclear-safety-workers-cant-figure-rcna192345

"The termination notices, which read “effective today,” came within hours of a Russian drone striking the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine. NNSA tracks nuclear risks in Ukraine, including through sensor systems."

Okay, so if this incident coincidentally involves them, the NNSA appears to be doing a lot more in the world than managing America's nuclear stockpiles. It is lunacy to conclude that the DOE firing 50 newhires actually put the nuclear stockpile in danger.

Do you know what a disgruntled employee is?  Because I don't think ya do.

[honk]

Correct. There are many justly layoffs occurring in the federal government right now. The DOE gave the orders, and they likely know what the NNSA is, so they should know if they are actually putting the nuclear stockpile at risk with the layoffs.

You're very gullible if you believe that, which I seriously doubt you do. The Department of Energy knows what it's doing when it comes to properly managing nuclear weapons. Trump and Musk don't. The obvious conclusion is that it was Trump and Musk who ordered these firings without realizing what they meant, not that the DOE coincidentally just happened to fire a bunch of employees at the same time that Trump and Musk have been pursuing mass firings of federal employees. In other news:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/doj-files-motion-dismiss-charges-mayor-eric-adams/story?id=118847473

This is transparently corrupt. Adams is a crook who should have been drummed out of office a long time ago. Instead, Trump has thrown out the charges against him in a blatant quid pro quo for his own political benefit. It's not draining the swamp, it's not telling it like it is, it's two crooks making a deal.

[Tom Bishop]

From the NBC article I posted:

"NBC News reviewed the termination notification, which included the subject line: 'Notification of Termination During Probationary/Trial Period.'"

"In an email sent to employees at NNSA and obtained by NBC News, officials wrote, 'The termination letters for some NNSA probationary employees are being rescinded, but we do not have a good way to get in touch with those personnel.'"

They were probationary employees, give it a rest. You guys are going to have to put a lot more effort into your bawwing to explain why firing probationary employees is so super dangerous. If "some" of them were rehired because of priority shifting due to a separate international incident, or whatever other reason, it is irrelevant until demonstrated otherwise.

Also, Trump isn't doing this independently. Trump has been telling us that he would clean house for years, and that was his mandate when entering office. The people voted for it. It's called democracy.

[AATW]

They were probationary employees, give it a rest.

You understand what that means, yes?
Unless it means something different in the States, over here most jobs have a probationary period which protects the company more than the employee.
So if they hire someone and find out they're hopeless then they have a right to get rid of them quickly. Just because someone is new it doesn't mean they're no good.
What this amounts to is effectively saying they'll get rid of anyone who joined in the last year. I guess it's the easy thing to do because the probation period by definition is one in which someone can be sacked without much process. But it's also pretty arbitrary and could leave some teams very understaffed if they've hired a lot of people in the last year.

If this isn't an issue then why would they be trying to re-hire them at all?

I'm not even arguing that there aren't too many federal employees (I honestly have no opinion, I don't know enough about your system).
But if you want to reduce the numbers you do so in a strategic way, not just bowling in and use some arbitrary date of employment to get rid of people.
Trump said he wanted a meritocracy. Well OK, I can get on board with that. But then you find people with merit and retain those, not just arbitrarily decide that anyone who joined in the last year needs to go.

[Lord Dave]

From the NBC article I posted:

"NBC News reviewed the termination notification, which included the subject line: 'Notification of Termination During Probationary/Trial Period.'"

"In an email sent to employees at NNSA and obtained by NBC News, officials wrote, 'The termination letters for some NNSA probationary employees are being rescinded, but we do not have a good way to get in touch with those personnel.'"

They were probationary employees, give it a rest. You guys are going to have to put a lot more effort into your bawwing to explain why firing probationary employees is so super dangerous. If "some" of them were rehired because of priority shifting due to a separate international incident, or whatever other reason, it is irrelevant until demonstrated otherwise.

Also, Trump isn't doing this independently. Trump has been telling us that he would clean house for years, and that was his mandate when entering office. The people voted for it. It's called democracy.

https://www.npr.org/2025/02/13/nx-s1-5296928/layoffs-trump-doge-education-energy

Probationary periods vary by federal agency but typically last one or two years.

Imagine being on the job for 23 months then getting fired for no reason.  Not sure they'd be a recent hire that didn't have much work or responsibilities.