This whole thing seems like such a farce... The conservative side of politics in Australia likes to do a much smaller version of this to "save money" whenever they've been in opposition and then get back in to Government - and all it leads to every time is paying far more to have the same work done by the big consulting companies.

You hear stories like people being fired from their public service jobs, then being hired by the consulting firm and being back the next week, now with the consulting firm charging more than double what they were paid before for their time - and they're doing the exact same job they were doing...

The taxpayers lose out, the rent seekers that own the middle man consulting companies now get a good chunk of the increased charge to taxpayers .. this is why they suppport the conservative side of politics that makes this possible.

And the consulting companies provide lucratively paid, post-politics jobs to those who cut the public service payroll.

This looks like stories of some public services, like bus services. The government sold 'unprofitable' public services to companies. companies raised the price, but somehow it's still 'unprofitable', so the government has to provide subsidies to companies, or buy it back at a higher price than they sold it for

A great example is the city of Chicago selling its parking meters for 1.15 billion dollars. Now considered one of the biggest financial mistakes the city ever made

Conservatives of the US seem to be positively evil when compared to conservatives most elsewhere in the developed world, who at least seem to have some notion of social contract.

"Conservatives of the US seem to be positively evil" ...

This is because the U.S. has become so excessively politically polarized in recent years. The typical "conservative" here is more like the "extreme right" elsewhere around the world. They're literal "extremists", taking those political views to the furthest extremes they can think of, and actively hating anyone and anything that's not totally in line with that extremist viewpoint. (The political "left" has become much the same in the other direction here these days as well, thus exacerbating the issue from the "other side".) It's really not a "winning combination" for humanity in general. When (some) folks say "both sides are the same", I suspect that's what they're referring to. They're both becoming increasingly "extremist" in their respective viewpoints, and unwilling to move toward "the middle" even a tiny bit to allow for any productive discussion or compromise that could benefit everyone involved.

"both sides" when it blatantly only one side is the reason you're in this mess.

This exact comment is part of the issue, you see? You're saying what Trump said, too, when asked about the divide in the country: "Oh, you know, we are only divided because of THEM". Very ironic.

"The root problem is both sides blaming the other side for extremism" seems to me a problematic argument because it becomes rhetorically unfalsifiable. Any counter-example that's offered can immediately be pounced on as evidence for the argument being made.

"Anyone who offers evidence that disagrees with me is just more proof that I'm right!"

this might show that it's not about us vs them, and instead we should find things we have in common and find compromises and work on political and social problems like adults

There is no comparison between left radicalizsrion (rather small) and right radicalization (massive).

Especially at the part level where radical right rules Republicans and have their support while democrats are centrists and

"There is no comparison between left radicalization (rather small) and right radicalization (massive)."

Oh no, you're totally right on that one there. The numbers of people going to those extremes are definitely far far higher on "the right" for sure. I just find it a bit "scary" that radicalization and extremism on either side is becoming so normal instead of a massive push-back against it. It's absolutely dangerous that society is coming to accept and support the sorts of extremism that they have in recent years / decades. This is not gonna play out well for humanity. :(

My problem is that there is massive pushback - but only against left. Right keeps getting excused, euphemized away, explained and "they do not mean it".

And what double annoys me that any centrist or leftist who correctly described what right wants and plans ended up labeled extreme left and dismissed. Except they were all right it turned out. I mean, I used to dismiss them too, but eventually figured the situation few years ago.

From what I saw, a "massive" amount of the left had no problem with FBI agents repeatedly lying to the FISA court to get warrants to spy on the opposing parties presidential campaign. Everyone on both sides knows the other side is full of criminals so anything against them is OK. There is no good ending to this situation.

The difference is the alleged left extremists always turn out to be "some stoner on twitter/bluesky with a hammer and sickle emoji username, doing communist shitposting with no real power at all", while the right extremists have actual money, guns, and power.

Then some centrist turns up to say that maybe annoying shitposters are the real threat, while the US sells out its European allies and dismantles its nuclear safety and pandemic infrastructure.

The difference is the alleged left extremists always turn out to be "some stoner on twitter/bluesky with a hammer and sickle emoji username, doing communist shitposting with no real power at all", while the right extremists have actual money, guns, and power.

As I think you've noted previously, there's a lot of guns in the USA.

Luigi was one of four recent, last 12 months, people in the news whom I would count as… well, I'm not sure "left" is the right word, but more generically not-the-Right Americans with guns who I would categorise as an "extremist".

(The other three being Matthew Alan Livelsberger (even if he only shot himself, given he also blew up the car he was in), Ryan Routh (golf course), and Thomas Matthew Crooks (ear)).

Like you, I find it remarkable how the US has managed to combine the 2nd amendment and lots of school shootings with relatively little political violence. Like, why are their politicians more sacrosanct than their own kids? Why is the 2nd amendment sacrosanct even to politicians who get the dangerous end pointed at them?

School shootings are usually committed by children… children have little access to politicians and little interest in politics.

Why is the 2nd amendment sacrosanct even to politicians who get the dangerous end pointed at them?

Sounds like a zinger, but isn’t really.

Hold on.

Livelsberger's uncle said "He loved Trump, and he was always a very, very patriotic soldier, a patriotic American." He was also very dissatisfied with the government but I don't see strong indications that he was criticizing from the left.

Crooks donated once to ActBlue. He was also a registered Republican and the FBI deputy director described his social media activity as anti-semitic and anti-immigration. Again, case seems open.

Routh is certainly reasonable to classify as a leftist.

They're both becoming increasingly "extremist" in their respective viewpoints, and unwilling to move toward "the middle" even a tiny bit to allow for any productive discussion or compromise that could benefit everyone involved.

I don't see any other outcome when one side is usually supported by evidence and the other side is usually driven by hatred and hysteria generated by rage-bait media. How do you find a middle ground with a nazi?

It's wild how common the viewpoint by "centrists" is that the problem isn't the nazis, it's people being unreasonable about the nazis.

It's wild how common the viewpoint by "centrists" is that the problem isn't the nazis, it's people being unreasonable about nazis.

What's wilder is that the left clearly still thinks that continually framing their opposition as modern day nazis is a winning electoral strategy.

He’s been rallying them in Germany…

The DOGE logo literally has a Nazi wheel for an O: https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/1irkzry/wel...

The political "left" has become much the same in the other direction here these days as well

There are some rather unhinged people on the left, sure, but they're basically just nutters on the internet, maybe a few activist groups, and things like that. They're certainly not the ones running the show: by and large the people elected to office on a Democratic ticket are ... just normal sane people.[1] People you can disagree with, dislike, or even hate: that's all fine. I intently dislike Ronald Reagan, but he was also a relatively normal sane person so that's okay, and part of the normal democratic process.

What we've seen in the Republican party is completely different. Not just over the last few months, over the last few decades. Remember Mitch McConnell just outright obstructed anything for years simply as a power game to make the Democrats look bad? Or Republican actors cooking up crazy conspiracies about the Clintons and then banging on and on and on about it for years and years?

And of course the Democratic party isn't perfect. But there are degrees of things, and it's just not comparable. This is "murder, rape, and shoplifting" – all are illegal and should be prosecuted, but they're also not hte same.

People saying that "both sides are the same" are deeply and profoundly misinformed, suffering from pseudo-intellectual delusions of "being above it all", or just outright arguing in bad faith.

[1]: I'm sure there are the occasional exceptions – there are thousands of people if we count federal, state, and local level and any group of thousands has a few nutjobs no matter how you qualify them. It's not above the baseline nutjob factor.

There are some rather unhinged people on the left, sure, but they're basically just nutters on the internet, maybe a few activist groups, and things like that. They're certainly not the ones running the show

Just the other day, Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) was quoted as saying, regarding his own Democratic Party, that “I think the majority of the party realizes that the ideological purity of some of the groups is a recipe for disaster and that candidly the attack on over-the-top wokeism was a valid attack” - https://www.politico.eu/article/us-senator-mark-warner-democ...

So, (if I’m interpreting you correctly) you are saying extreme views isn’t a major problem in the Democratic Party, while Senator Warner is arguing it was a significant contributor to their loss in the 2024 election, and hence Trump being back in the White House. Who is right here?

If you want to know why voters voted the way they did you'd probably try to find a good poll of voters not instead search for the most exciting quote you can find from a politician.

Maybe Warner’s diagnosis of the 2024 election is wrong-but that’s not my point.

My point: it would be rather strange for leading Democrats to come to believe their party is being harmed by its own extreme element if that element was non-existent or completely lacking in any relevance.

He said "over the top" not "extreme". Those two terms are not synonyms. If you don't believe me ask your favorite LLM.

Maybe you think he meant "extreme" and was using a euphemism. But then we have a second problem: politicians aren't necessarily reliable for analysis because they can't necessarily say what they believe.

it would be rather strange for leading Democrats to come to believe their party is being harmed by its own extreme element if that element was non-existent or completely lacking in any relevance.

I'm not surprised. It's a neoliberal congress ignoring a platform demanding increasingly socialistic ideals. We're not aligned at all.

the attack on over-the-top wokeism was a valid attack

It was making Mt. Everest out of a molehill. No matter the "validity", sending a missle at said molehill is overkill.

So, (if I’m interpreting you correctly) you are saying extreme views isn’t a major problem in the Democratic Party

It is not in my eyes. Very few disagree with DEI programs and LGBT issues. If those are "woke" I suppose Women's suffrage 120 years ago was also "woke". I just want people to have equal rights in life, no matter their origin.

Very few disagree with DEI programs and LGBT issues.

Americans as a whole are close to evenly divided on DEI programs. A recent YouGov/Economist poll found 45% support abolishing DEI programs in education and government, 40% opposed; a Reuters/Ipsos poll found 44% supported “closing all federal government DEI offices and firing federal employees working on the issue” with 51% opposed. [0] Unfortunately I don’t have detailed crosstabs (which tend not to be very reliable anyway), but I expect they’d show that there is a decent minority of Democrats and Biden/Harris voters who are opposed to DEI programs

“LGBT issues” are a whole bunch of different issues, and attitudes vary depending on which of them we are talking about. A Gallup poll from May last year [1] found 69% of Americans support same-sex marriage, a slight decline from 2022-2023 but still close to an all-time high. Yet, the same survey also had 51% of respondents labelling gender transition as “morally wrong” [2]. And in 2023 the same survey found 69% of Americans opposed transgender athletes being able to compete as the gender they identify with [3]. So it seems like the average American supports some “LGBT issues” but opposes others

If those are "woke" I suppose Women's suffrage 120 years ago was also "woke".

It all depends on how you define “woke”. The African-American anti-woke Marxist Adolph L Reed Jr defines “woke” [4] as a form of progressivism that rejects the traditional Marxist analysis that class oppression is the root cause of non-class-based oppression. He wouldn’t call women’s suffrage “woke” because most Marxists historically supported women’s suffrage as a means of empowering working class women, and saw it as fundamentally compatible with their class-first analysis of society’s problems; but he does criticise a lot of contemporary “wokeness” as being in fundamental contradiction to that analysis

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bowmanmarsico/2025/02/03/how-po... - I think the difference in results may be partially due to the question asked - I expect some respondents would have said “Yes” to the first question but “No” to the second, because while they support shutting down government DEI programs, they’d prefer to see the government workers involved reassigned to other tasks rather than simply fired. Asking a question “Do you support A and B?” is problematic because you don’t know if people answering “No” oppose both A and B or only one of them

[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/646202/sex-relations-marriage-s...

[2] https://news.gallup.com/poll/645704/slim-majority-adults-say...

[3] https://news.gallup.com/poll/507023/say-birth-gender-dictate... - I can’t find 2024 figures but I assume they haven’t substantially changed

[4] https://newrepublic.com/article/160305/beyond-great-awokenin...

The context here is "democrats", so you'll see a much more skewed result if you filter for those people.

It all depends on how you define “woke”.

I'd defer to modern discussion to try and define that. It's pretty clear that if they think women hires are DEI, than women's issues has some degree of "woke".

every time is paying far more to have the same work done

Some predictions:

- The 2025 US budget will increase compared to 2024. - The 2025 US budget deficit will increase compared to 2024. - At the end of 2025 the US national debt will have increased compared to 1/1/25.

What a clown show. After they made the same fuck up firing the inspectors of our nuclear weapons.

The layoffs concerned a number of Republican lawmakers, who privately warned the Trump administration that such cuts could hamper the government’s bird flu response and asked them to reconsider, according to two Republican sources with direct knowledge of the situation.

This is so infuriating - "privately". You know a good chunk of Republicans in Congress are educated people aware these many of these cuts are a mix of illegal, unconstitutional or dangerous to national security. But for the sake of their reelection campaign two years from now they're rolling over and ceding any oversight authority they have.

Show a spine, if you're going to give all your Branch's power to a dictator you might as well let DOGE dissolve congress and save us the salaries.

You know a good chunk of Republicans in Congress knows these many of these cuts are a mix of illegal, unconstitutional or dangerous to national security

When the dust settles on the buckshot of related cases and they make their way to the SCOTUS, it will be confirmed that the executive branch has unilateral power to fire people working in the executive branch. If it’s constitutional, it’s de facto legal. And I think it will be at least 7-2 as well.

If "legal" just means "whatever the supreme court says it is" without regard to corruption or logic then the word legal has more or less lost any useful meaning.

That’s always what the word legal has meant, at least in the US.

Not always. Since around the time of Reagan, the word legal has meant to be whatever the conservative elites want. They have gone to great lengths to corrupt the highest courts in the country.

The "original sin" there was Roe v. Wade. A right to privacy gives you a right to an abortion? That was highly motivated reasoning, and everybody knew it. (7-2 decision, on a court with 7 liberals and 2 conservatives... what a surprise.)

So conservatives said, all right, if that's the way the game is played, then we need to own the Supreme Court. And here we are.

Don't act like the game started with Reagan. It didn't. It's just that the other side was thoroughly winning before then.

it will be confirmed that the executive branch has unilateral power to fire people working in the executive branch.

Do you hold the opinion that the Civil Service Reform Act is unconstitutional? What about the Reorganization Act of 1939? If the President can unilaterally fire any employee of the Executive Branch, why bother with Senate confirmation at all?

Do you hold the opinion that the Civil Service Reform Act is unconstitutional? What about the Reorganization Act of 1939?

Of course it's unconstitutional. It's clearly outlined in Article 2 that the President has the power to appoint:

> He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

Only judicial appointments are life terms and that's the only one outlined in Article 3. All other appointments are at the pleasure of the President. There's no mention of "Ambassador for Life" or "Minister until replacement is Senate confirmed" in the Constitution. For non-judicial appointments, the power to appoint includes the power to remove.

If the President can unilaterally fire any employee of the Executive Branch, why bother with Senate confirmation at all?

To allow for autonomy of that individual at that agency. Otherwise the actions would need to roll up to the President directly requesting the said action via executive order. I see it as guardrails for when the Article 2 powers are being scaled out via long term delegation.

Since "at the pleasure of the president" is not found in the constitution quoting the constitution does not advance your argument.

On the contrary, of all the appointments that are to be made under Article 2 power by the executive branch, only the judicial ones are explicitly listed as being for life. Those appointments are the explicit exception to the rule that POTUS can fire people that he hires.

it will be confirmed that the executive branch has unilateral power to fire people working in the executive branch

I could see it playing out like this, except that you can't fire so many that the departmental mission enacted by congress is substantially or totally hindered.

Fire any one particular person? Maybe. Fire everyone in a department? What power does congress have if that were allowed?

The power of the purse, like always.

Right, but if Congress allocates the money, and the executive won't spend it, then what?

Then we have rules against impoundment. That has yet to work its way through the courts; we'll see if those rules survive and have any teeth.

...and the executive won't spend it, then what?

Strict reading of the Constitution, nothing. Our government was not set up to be efficient, more the opposite. The Founders were distrustful of government, especially a federal government over their states, so they set up a government that wasn't good at doing things.

Whether you and I still want that is a different question, but the ultimate legality of the congress not being able to compel the executive to take action seems pretty clear.

rules against impoundment

this is congress making rules that the executive must do something, which again is not clear they have the authority to do

... which again is not clear they have the authority to do

Those rules were passed in the 1970s. Has there been a Supreme Court decision on their validity? (Real question; I don't know.)

But if the president can decide to not spend the money, how does Congress have the power of the purse?

It only makes sense in the context of the government being designed to not do things. Congress has the power to not spend. It would appear it doesn't have the power to spend.

You can thank Biden, actually.

On the merits, this Court previously held that no provision of § 8468 prevented the plaintiffs' removal. See Mem. Op. at 7. First, the Court noted that “the power of removal from office is incident to the power of appointment” “absent a specific provision to the contrary.” Id. at 6 (quoting Carlucci v. Doe, 488 U.S. 93, 95 (1988) (citation omitted)). Second, the Court held that the plain text of § 8468(b), which provides only that Board members “serve for three years each” on staggered terms, does not meet that standard. Id. at 7. Third, the Court read Parsons v. United States, 167 U.S. 324 (1897), and Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52 (1926), to hold that term-of-office provisions, standing alone, do not confer removal protection.

https://casetext.com/case/spicer-v-biden-1

This happened multiple times over the course of a few days, and it makes me think, what's the pattern behind it?

My guess is, departments don't want layoffs, but they don't want to contradict the higher-ups either, so they fire and rehire.

this can work because DOGE only has administrative power and cannot decide the budget, only those who can decide on departmental budgets truly have the power to influence the size of the department

btw, i just found this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zfzCjHCTmo

My guess is, departments don't want layoffs, but they don't want to contradict the higher-ups either, so they fire and rehire.

Your guess is very wrong.

Everybody is hired and fired by OMB (run by loyalist Russell Vought). They are now firing people directly without going through any sort of triage of who is actually somebody that needs to be let go - they are running pulls on internal HR data and firing every person who fits the criteria of "can be fired".

Shockingly, this sort of insane scattershot firing of the federal workforce is stupid! and catches a lot of people who need to be doing their jobs for us to do things like keep track of nuclear waste and track the spread of bird flu.

it reminds how about 20 years ago at Sun Microsystems they laid off several hundreds in one org with intention to rehire back pick-and-choosing ~100 best. Fail. Pretty much everybody took the package and went onto better pastures, especially the best ones.

Yeah, humans are funny with their feelings and such. Maybe Musk is an autist afterall and not a sociopath.

I am so happy it was a drink driver that hit me, I was afraid they did this on purpose.

Why does it matter what musk is, when he is actively trying to make your life worse. No matter the motives.

Similar story is how my dad got early retirement. Offered to everyone, management very upset that he, with a decade or so of experience on that specific project, actually took it.

The smugness of silicon valley meets the inefficiency of big government

What could go wrong

It's becoming clear much of that "inefficiency" is hidden complexity which non-experts fail to grasp, redundancy and safety (e.g. nuclear safety) and areas that lobbyists just don't want to exist, like every regulator acting in the public interest.

You'd think from all Elon Musk's press with DOGE that this is his only job. But he's actually simultaneously CEO of 4 major companies, which explains how he's spread a bit too thin to correctly supervise the "Big Balls" layoff machine.

Yet all of his employees, at all of his companies, had better damn well be in the office.

Not a good comparison, anyone's higher ups have the authority to call for an RTO with a consequence of being fired. Trump can do that to Musk, Tesla's board/shareholders can do that. SpaceX investors can potentially gang together and do that depending on Musk's voting share control. Same with XAi, Boring Company etc.

It's a perfectly cromulent comparison. I'm a firm believer in leading by example. If he's going to swing his "muh RTO" dick around in public the way that he has, while also expecting his employees to put in the hours and effort that he has historically expected of them, while he's off LARP'ing as president and America's savior, he can fuck right off.

The suggestion that, "It's not a good comparison because he's a boss and he can make the rules," might be technically true, fine, but it doesn't make it any less hypocritical.

I'm a firm believer in leading by example.

Then do that wherever you have authority to do for subordinates, and for companies you found or are CEO of. Maybe you already did, do tell us about your accomplishments. Telling others how to run their own company feels strange, especially given how Musk led two companies to great success.

he can fuck right off

With what authority or credentials do you say that? That is just your opinion that a lot of others don't seem to share, and they actually put their money where their mouth is, by being shareholders, investors and employees. Or hiring him like Trump did.

You are free to short Tesla stock if you truly believe that. Or quit if you're a Tesla employee or in one of his other companies. You're free to vote and campaign against his boss in the govt.

A lot of people work multiple jobs and are hired while being transparent about them. I don't see a problem with that if their superiors are okay with it.

He lead SpaceX and Tesla to great success, so a lot of people think he has proven that he can multitask successfully. If you or your subordinates(if you have any) have not proven to be capable of doing then don't automatically assume absolutely no one in the world can do that.

It's a great example of rules apply to thee but not to me. He expects his employees to be in the office and work 100 hours weeks. But at the same time he's now working what, 0 hours at Tesla? A giant hypocrite.

He was the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla during their incredible growth and innovation and success(at least when compared to other companies in the space).

So he has both the authority to do that and also has shareholders and employees believing that can multitask. That's not true of others. It's not like he's hiding it or lying about it like many people who secretly work multiple remote jobs do.

The majority shareholders are desperately trying to throw money at him, despite the objections of a minority.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/delaware-judge-rejects-request...

Apparently Musk thinks his "cut everything and then see what we really need" approach was successful at Twitter, despite revenue being down, usage down, and numerous competitors appearing which are decimating its user base.

But hey, the site is still running. So, success.

Don't forget the company being so weak it has resorted to suing its former customers because they decided to stop buying the company's product. I wonder what the government equivalent will be.

He did remove the censors in a way that makes the site unappealing to a lot of people, but at the same time 1,000x’d the amount of discussion on previously censored topics.

Like the discussions on there look like something out of 4chan these days.

A generous interpretation might be that Elon thought that re-enabling public discussion in certain verboten topics is important enough to light a big wad of cash on fire.

It’s not hard to predict that letting people talk about those things openly will scare off a lot of people. I would be surprised if he is surprised.

Yeah, it was his plan all along to drive people away from the thing he paid I don't remember how many billions for.

if you aren't re-adding, then you're not deleting enough

If you read the wording of this article carefully it says that the employees were fired in error. By referring to several different firings and by juxtaposing statements, the article tries to give the impression that Trump's rules demanded that they be fired and that Trump then had to change his mind, but it doesn't say that. Don't believe it when articles insinuate more than they actually say.