Trump 2.0: MAGAA

[UNI88]

No I didn't. I agree that out-of-control spending needs to end. We will all benefit in the long run and the time is up. I differ from you in that I don't trust musk and trump to do it. I don't think they give 2 shits about the future of this country beyond their lifespans. They're making up bullshit - inflating numbers, double counting, counting cancelled/completed contracts, calling frivolous spending approved by Congress waste/fraud, etc. Their goal is to further their ideological agenda and amass more power and wealth for themselves.

To paraphrase you: The White House lmao any news coming out of the White House is suspect and I'm sorry, but you are just the simpleton messenger.

This is what you missed, you assume I trust them, I don’t necessarily. They could see cutting spending as a win for them and a win for us and that’s fine.

But to claim Elon, the richest man in the world is doing this only to enrich himself is just dumb

Spending cuts will help us all no matter your political views

Kalms taxing us to death method will crush us

Assuming that elon is satisfied with the wealth he has and doesn't want more is just dumb.

And it isn't just about wealth, it's also about power and furthering his partisan agenda. The firings/cuts to date seem to be aimed at programs he and trump don't like rather than focused on rooting out waste.

We do have a spending problem and should look for ways to cut spending across the federal system. If SS and Medicaid are on the block then so should MAQA yahoo sacred cows like the military and border patrol. Fiscal conservatives would hold off on continuing tax cuts that contribute to the national debt as well. Spending cuts and revenue will help us all no matter your political views.

[kalm]

Which programs get cuts and by what amount is a philosophical debate. And yes, I disagree with MuskTrump’s philosophy and actions on this. EG: The Seattle VA is literally cancelling surgeries scheduled for tomorrow and VA funeral services are on the chopping block as well. You’ll hear the phrase “mission critical” often in the reporting as those are people and programs being cut.

US Forest service has lost funding and experienced, key personnel for wild land fire fighting operations. In the last 4 years alone I’ve had two large fires nearby. I literally called in one that started a mile from my house and destroyed homes and property. The other was the grey fire which wiped out 1/3 of the city of nearby Medical Lake and had us under level 3 evacuation (prepare to leave immediately and leave your belongings behind) for two days.

I had a friend who lost her home in that one. Ever been under a level 3 evac wondering if you’re going to lose everything?

Trumpmusk are simply transferring wealth from key government services into their own pockets via tax cuts. They don’t care about the debt.

I’m sorry but you’re a simpleton to think otherwise.

Gray Fire:



Andrus Road Fire (taken by our neighbor):

Seattle lmao any news coming out of Seattle is suspect and I'm sorry, but you are just the simpleton messenger

You can claim they are just trying to enrich themselves all day if you want, the truth is the out-of-control spending needs to end. We will all benefit in the long run and time is up

Here ya go Simpie. This is circulating among VA staff and explains the strain on doctors, admins, and patients. Let me know if you need more “non-Seattle” based guidance. (BTW, “mission critical” means it’s important.)

The Office of Personnel Management’s procurement unit said it’s no longer able to process contracting opportunities and that all related operations have been halted after a “complete reduction in force” in the agency’s Office of Procurement Operations, according to an internal email viewed by Nextgov/FCW.

The terminations in the agency’s procurement office mean that “all new procurement actions, contract modifications, and ongoing solicitations are effectively stalled until alternative solutions are identified,” said the email sent Tuesday morning by Shreena Morris, who leads the office.

“The implications of this are significant, including potential delays in mission-critical acquisitions, contract lapses, and increased operational risk for OPM. OPO’s limited team will be prioritizing the processing of critical contract expirations and funding actions,” the notice added.

Story Continues Below Sponsor Message


“We are actively assessing mitigation strategies, including potential transition support from external agencies or emergency procurement measures. However, I urge all teams to immediately assess their procurement dependencies and identify any urgent needs so we can prioritize potential workarounds,” it also said.

[UNI88]

How Clinton's "reinventing government" compares to DOGE's approach: "We cut fat and they cut muscle"

The "reinventing government" program cut nearly half a million federal jobs and dispensed with a massive number of regulations. But according to the woman who ran the program under the Clinton administration, any similarities between that program and DOGE end there.

"We cut fat and they cut muscle. It's as simple as that," Elaine Kamarck, now a senior fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings, told CBS News. "We didn't have any meltdowns of agencies, we didn't have any dysfunction going on, and we obeyed the law. When we thought something was wrong, we sent it to Congress and asked them to change it."
...
Kamarck was hired by Gore to direct the program, and the two put together a team of about 400 civil servants who worked across a number of teams. They conducted reviews of Cabinet-level agencies with a partner team within the agency and returned recommendations for review. Six months later, the project had yielded hundreds of recommendations bound in a report titled "Creating a Government that Works Better & Costs Less."

The effort, which would ultimately trim the federal workforce by around 426,000 in less than eight years while cutting thousands of pages of regulations, was focused on saving the government money. But Kamarck said it also focused on "making the government work better," with attention toward performance and customer service standards that remain today.

"Basically, we worked with people in the government to identify where we could make it work better, and where we could make it cost less," Kamarck said.

The program went on well beyond the six-month review period to focus on implementation, acting upon around two-thirds of the recommendations, and yielding an estimated $136 billion in savings for taxpayers.

[Caribbean Hen]

How Clinton's "reinventing government" compares to DOGE's approach: "We cut fat and they cut muscle"

The "reinventing government" program cut nearly half a million federal jobs and dispensed with a massive number of regulations. But according to the woman who ran the program under the Clinton administration, any similarities between that program and DOGE end there.

"We cut fat and they cut muscle. It's as simple as that," Elaine Kamarck, now a senior fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings, told CBS News. "We didn't have any meltdowns of agencies, we didn't have any dysfunction going on, and we obeyed the law. When we thought something was wrong, we sent it to Congress and asked them to change it."
...
Kamarck was hired by Gore to direct the program, and the two put together a team of about 400 civil servants who worked across a number of teams. They conducted reviews of Cabinet-level agencies with a partner team within the agency and returned recommendations for review. Six months later, the project had yielded hundreds of recommendations bound in a report titled "Creating a Government that Works Better & Costs Less."

The effort, which would ultimately trim the federal workforce by around 426,000 in less than eight years while cutting thousands of pages of regulations, was focused on saving the government money. But Kamarck said it also focused on "making the government work better," with attention toward performance and customer service standards that remain today.

"Basically, we worked with people in the government to identify where we could make it work better, and where we could make it cost less," Kamarck said.

The program went on well beyond the six-month review period to focus on implementation, acting upon around two-thirds of the recommendations, and yielding an estimated $136 billion in savings for taxpayers.

You said “The Seattle VA is literally cancelling surgeries scheduled for tomorrow”

You posted nothing but typical Fed blathering and nothing about surgeries getting canceled

[kalm]

How Clinton's "reinventing government" compares to DOGE's approach: "We cut fat and they cut muscle"

You said “The Seattle VA is literally cancelling surgeries scheduled for tomorrow”

You posted nothing but typical Fed blathering and nothing about surgeries getting canceled

Was this intended for ‘88 or me?

[UNI88]

You said “The Seattle VA is literally cancelling surgeries scheduled for tomorrow”

You posted nothing but typical Fed blathering and nothing about surgeries getting canceled

Was this intended for ‘88 or me?

Studies show that worshiping trump causes lose of cognitive function.

The HHS has demanded that the authors of the studies retract them or lose future funding. Unfortunately for the HHS, funding approval had already been rescinded. Authors universally told the new head of HHS to fvck off.

[BDKJMU]

[BDKJMU]

[BDKJMU]

[BDKJMU]

[BDKJMU]

[BDKJMU]

[BDKJMU]

[Caribbean Hen]

You said “The Seattle VA is literally cancelling surgeries scheduled for tomorrow”

You posted nothing but typical Fed blathering and nothing about surgeries getting canceled

Was this intended for ‘88 or me?

Both Chang and Eng

[kalm]

Was this intended for ‘88 or me?

Both Chang and Eng

Well then, then the linked information I provided explains how the VA cuts are having rapid and dire effects. Have you tried reading it a second time?

Honesty is hard for you, isn’t it?

[kalm]

Here’s another article explaining the cuts and how the VA has suspended them now that they realize DOGE is full of shit and causing potential harm.

I

n an internal VA email sent Tuesday and seen by the AP, a VA contracting official said DOGE targeted contracts broadly categorized as “consulting” but they included ones that if terminated would halt chemotherapy and imaging services.

Contracts to calibrate radiation detection equipment, to support cancer care and veterans cemetery management, among others were also targeted. Another would directly affect the ability to assess toxic exposure because it supports more than 24,000 research requests to look through the National Archives and Records Administration and other government sources to validate service and toxic exposure events.

https://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/ ... 190380.php

[Caribbean Hen]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Medicaid is for single mothers with small children who are just trying to make it.<br><br>It&#39;s not for 29-year-old males sitting on their couch playing video games. <br><br>We&#39;re going to find those guys, and we will SEND them back to work! <a href="https://t.co/3n0egvEkxO">pic.twitter.co ... </p>&mdash; Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) <a href=" 27, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[kalm]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Medicaid is for single mothers with small children who are just trying to make it.<br><br>It&#39;s not for 29-year-old males sitting on their couch playing video games. <br><br>We&#39;re going to find those guys, and we will SEND them back to work! <a href="https://t.co/3n0egvEkxO">pic.twitter.co ... </p>&mdash; Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) <a href=" 27, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Trust us! We know exactly what we’re doing! There’s “dignity in our work!”

The zombie ghost of Reagan is still searching for that Cadillac driving welfare queen. ‘She exists. I’ll find her someday!’

[UNI88]

Musk and DOGE underwater with some voters in recent polling

In a Feb. 13-18 Washington Post-Ipsos poll, a net 34% of respondents said they approved of how Musk was handling his job, compared to 49% disapproving and 14% not sure.
...
Over half of respondents (55%) in a Quinnipiac University poll conducted Feb. 13 to 17 said Musk has too much power in making decisions affecting the U.S., while 36% think he has about the right amount of power.

A Pew survey of U.S. adults taken Jan. 27 to Feb. 2 showed that Americans had more negative (54%) than positive (42%) views of Musk (DOGE's dissection of the federal government has dramatically escalated since the poll was conducted).

And a Feb. 15 to Feb. 17 Emerson College Poll showed 45% of respondents disapproved of the job Musk was doing, while 41% approved and 14% were neutral.
...
Per the Washington Post-Ipsos poll, 27% strongly approve of how Trump is handling his job — 39% strongly disapprove.
...
But even as Trump's approval ratings dip, multiple surveys showed Musk's ratings are even lower.

But trump and musk's approval ratings are great, the greatest ever! Positive numbers never seen in the history of polling! Is it delusional don or dementia don? Which is more accurate?

Will trump being a lame duck who doesn't have to worry about reelection override his need for affirmation and approval?

[SeattleGriz]

You sure didn't care about all the amazing workers that got fired over not getting the Covid shot. Remember all the people that could prove they had much better immunity from catching Covid, but got fired.

Klan. Biggest hypocrite on the board.

Yep. Like Little Red Lying Hood suggested about the several thousand blue collar working in the pipeline & construction industry, you know those red state MAGA roughneck rubes that were laid off as a result of the Biden EO killing Keystone XL, they can go get ‘Green’ jobs to address the ‘Climate Crises’..

This is damning. 88 sucks off the gubmint teat.

[SeattleGriz]

Ooof. This feels like the conversations on this board.

[Caribbean Hen]

“The zombie ghost of Reagan is still searching for that Cadillac driving welfare queen. ‘She exists. I’ll find her someday!’

Klam, I saw them every day in San Juan

[kalm]

Ooof. This feels like the conversations on this board.

So does this…

[kalm]

This isn’t about MAGA or efficiency. This is about power and control. If you don’t see that, you are blind deserve every accusation of cult membership thrown at you.

[SeattleGriz]

This isn’t about MAGA or efficiency. This is about power and control. If you don’t see that, you are blind deserve every accusation of cult membership thrown at you.

Dude. Your thinking got voted out decisively this last election. Your old thinking doesn't apply anymore.