One federal lab has lost janitorial services, hazardous waste support, IT, and building maintenance.
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NOAA scientists scrub toilets, rethink experiments after service contracts end
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For Trump admin, this isn't a bad news. Just let disease spread and nature will do its thing, right?
It's been working wonder for chicken eggs.
It's been working wonder for chicken eggs.
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Meanwhile, Administration officials have also suggested that laid-off federal employees should be put to work in the new factories that the President's tariffs will definitely create. We're trying to speedrun the Cultural Revolution, with none of the dubious planning (Mao created an entire state apparatus to send intellectuals to work on farms).
On the bright side, should we be expecting our own Deng in a decade or so? (/jk? reality is so farcical that I'm not sure if this tag is serious)
On the bright side, should we be expecting our own Deng in a decade or so? (/jk? reality is so farcical that I'm not sure if this tag is serious)
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I can't help thinking that the juxtaposition of this over the article on "Google created a new AI model for talking to dolphins" is sadly telling.
Sure, we'll axe the actually beneficial work for some overblown political stunt driven by a self-centered bigot. And will private money take over and fill the gap? No, of course not - it's busy chasing AI dreams down all kinds of bizarre rabbit holes.
(Not that non-human communication isn't fascinating. But... <gestures at everything else>)
Sure, we'll axe the actually beneficial work for some overblown political stunt driven by a self-centered bigot. And will private money take over and fill the gap? No, of course not - it's busy chasing AI dreams down all kinds of bizarre rabbit holes.
(Not that non-human communication isn't fascinating. But... <gestures at everything else>)
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The USA is now under the control of a venture capitalist intent on scraping out every ounce of value that can be carried away and the rest of us will be left with what remains.
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This is Fascism at work.
The goal is to create a society of Billionaires and peasants.
The goal is to create a society of Billionaires and peasants.
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It's impressive when your executives aren't even capable of rubber-stamping contracts sent their way (or getting their secretary to stamp them in their place). Is Howard Lutnick a revolutionary new kind of boss - cutting out the pretend responsibility and just making spending all day at the links his official job?
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What a waste, pun intended.
I don't live in the USA... But I feel sorry for most of you who do.
I don't live in the USA... But I feel sorry for most of you who do.
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Washington State probably has the most stringent dangerous waste regulations in the country. This could get expensive fast if they don't have their waste picked up within the required time windows after generation.
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Eventually these poor people are going to get pushed to their breaking point and we'll have a new wave of workers going postal. I suppose I'm updating to modern times they'll instead be referred to as "going DOGE".
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So Washington State learned lessons from Hanford, but Republicans didn't? Gee, what a surprise.
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I worked for a while at JHU at a research building (IT) and I have previously volunteered for a organization that works for environmental justice and did some field and in house lab work. I never met a single person that wasn't personally, emotionally, intellectually invested in what they were doing. No one was getting rich there either. They didn't make anywhere near the money their educations would make them in the business world.
This is awful.
This is awful.
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I knew they’d be awful to the federal workforce. But even I failed to imagine they’d stop paying the bills to store data and take out the trash.
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It amuses me how some downvote the obvious because the obvious suggests violence. It's like those people don't understand how human beings work.
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That's too optimistic - that posits that every ounce of value will actually be saved (for profit). It's clear that the current course of action is to actively destroy anything of value, and only opportunistically loot convenient bits along the way. The administration have gotten the loot <--> pillage order reversed because of course they did.
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Only until they start clear-cutting the national forests, drilling for oil in the national parks, and abolish all of the anti-pollution regulations.
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It was never about efficiency. It was always about creating a oligo-kleptocraocy.
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Hey, Trump and MAGAs, we already know how abysmally stupid you are, no need to prove it over and over and over again.
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Can we get all of the participants in DOGE, very much including Elon Musk, to spend the next twenty or so years scrubbing toilets full time? I'll even be generous and offer to pay them minimum wage.
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Only it is not a venture capitalist, but a weak-brained narcissist who scrapes to save some small wage checks and destroys the actual value. The lowly paid people are removed, but the people working there for real money will slowly be prevented from doing any useful work while still being paid their full wages.
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RickRoyLeonPrisZhoraRacha
Ars Praetorian
Where is the war? How is it Mr 47 can get away with claiming emergency powers (to grift) and creates loss of allies, loss of jobs, but wasteful spending on golf and some billionaire teen hackers that are accessing your financials and tax records so they can get a free $500million building? That is a $500,000,000 loss to tax payers. And cutting federal workers of parks, of social security, of medicare/medicaid under the name "abuse and wasteful spending"???
I truly think the justice system is corrupt and its BECAUSE of Mr 47,. aka the swamp king.
Say hello to privatized postal mail(Dejoy going to be CEO of that company), privatized weather forecasting (Accuweather LLC), privatized tax collecting (TurboTax gets its cut), NASA folding to SPACEX, and soon, induction of high school graduates into mandatory military service.
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With my Trumpian glasses on I don‘t see anything worth keeping here, certainly not something for the federal government. Maybe the market will step in?
(With my own glasses on I certainly think safety and continuity is a core responsibility of the state, but then again I’m from Europe)
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The worst part, it isn't even profitable.
Working for a company that doesn't hire enough cleaning staff, it makes no financial or efficiency sense to have scientists (making $30-40/hr) to be the ones performing (routine) cleaning tasks. You're saving $18/hr to lose that immediately by paying a scientist to do it instead of science.
God, I can't wait until DOGE suggests laying off all of the accounts payable people "since it can be automated" and laugh when the White House has no power. At least the schadenfreude will be sustenance.
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This is precisely how how Russia and China want to see our institutions.
Also makes you think one of their agents is in charge of our government.
Also makes you think one of their agents is in charge of our government.
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The contractors are lucky that the contracts expired. I expected the standard Trump/Musk practice of just refusing to pay the bills.
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I am not even sure if Trump is /jk or not
The so called reciprocal tariff was penalty on trade imbalance rather than anything to do with tariffs charged to the US. So the goal is clearly not to punish unfairness, but to transfer wealth from lower class to upper class by having a tax on cheap imports that poor people spend marginally a high % of their income on.
Cambodia was tariffed 49% for exporting Nike and cheap clothes. The trade imbalance was not Cambodia exploiting the US, but they are simply too poor to buy anything made in the US. Such tariff will result in some dealth of those factory workers.
So the adminstration is trying to bring back sweat shop manufacturing in the US where nobody wants to work below minimum wage for menial job.
Not understanding the US abuses its own reserve corrency status and by design encourage trade deficit (exorbitant privilege), and trying to penalize trade imbalance is gross imcompetence at best and stealth tax on the poor at worst.
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Wait, wait, isn't the primary goal of DOGE to get rid of waste?
Isn't this right up their ally? Put some gloves on those kids, grab some garbage bags, and put those guys to work doing what they claim they're supposed to be doing.
They might actually do something positive if they started cleaning up ACTUAL waste.
Isn't this right up their ally? Put some gloves on those kids, grab some garbage bags, and put those guys to work doing what they claim they're supposed to be doing.
They might actually do something positive if they started cleaning up ACTUAL waste.
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Beyond the outright failure to understand how complex organizations work; I assume that there's a lot of attempted constructive dismissal here.
Sure; it's monumentally inefficient to have PhDs not doing science for want of a few junior IT minions and janitors; but if the objective is to get rid of the PhDs every one that quits because they are doing dumpster runs rather than science is a win.
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That will be underway shortly. Trump green-lighted clear-cutting all of Washington state a few days ago.*
* According to the family member reading headlines out loud.
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The current federal regime is nothing if not respectful to states and the law, after all.
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What modern conservatives say is not necessarily truthful. It's like the ridiculous law-name acronyms they use. Something like the "Support Lasting Active Voter Emancipation Act" could limit the voting rights of people and means people can be owned by corporations, but modern conservatives would say it's for liberating people and making them richer.
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