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US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

• sour-taste 2y ago
  This is LITERALLY the twitter layoffs playing out again. They fired people who had credentials and other things they needed so had to hire them back. Everything else aside why repeat the same mistakes? Just go a little slower and give agencies time to compile accurate lists of necessary employees
  • vkou 2y ago
    > Everything else aside why repeat the same mistakes? Because good governance is not the goal.
  • fiftyacorn 2y ago
    It's the tech bro way
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • kjrfghslkdjfl 2y ago
    [dead]
  • PaulRobinson 2y ago
    Problem is, it’s not backfired - the example you cited “worked”, because it rapidly identified key personnel without weeks or months of subjective analysis and political posturing by workers and their supervisors. I think in federal government the risks are much higher, and Musk is being an idiot by exposing the America public to those risks, but the feedback loop for him on these previous experiments has been positive, not negative.
    • d--b 2y ago
      Move fast and break the nuclear weapon arsenal.
      • PakG1 2y ago
        Move fast and break the nuclear weapons arsenal. edit: OK, so parent edited to match what I wrote and now I'm being downvoted because I look like I copied parent?
        • d--b 2y ago
          I am being downvoted too if that’s any consolation
          • PakG1 2y ago
            Well, now I upvoted you because now I feel sorry for you for some reason!
    • boricj 2y ago
      It only "worked" because the key personnel decided to come back. Had they decided to move on to greener pastures, the end result would've been very different.
      • vasco 2y ago
        That isn't much of a point because federal employees are much more likely to return than Twitter technical staff. Interesting approach, specially because it's not my country.
        • itronitron 2y ago
          >> federal employees are much more likely to return Not necessarily. It's generally understood that federal employees accept a lower salary in exchange for career stability. If a career as a federal employee now has higher risk then at least some people will be expecting a higher salary.
          • deleted 2y ago
            [deleted]
          • glimshe 2y ago
            The advocates of Musk's firings will say that if these people could command a higher salary, they should be in the private industry producing goods and services for the population rather than the inherently wasteful government positions.
            • throw0101d 2y ago
              > […] they should be in the private industry producing goods and services for the population rather than the inherently wasteful government positions. In this particular case, the government positions were maintaining the US's nuclear arsenal. Not sure how "wasteful" having a nuclear deterrent is.
              • 2y ago
    • adra 2y ago
      I'm still waiting for file upload API v2. V1 was only made EOL like what, 9 months ago.. Its totally fine to gut your company when all you need is maintenance mode.
      • andy_ppp 2y ago
        America won’t even have maintenance mode when these guys are done. Except for the billionaires.
    • cgcrob 2y ago
      This is horribly naive. It’s not twitter. There are safety outcomes which need to be considered in safety critical agencies. I mean can you even claim to make the assumption that the actual key staff were rehired? Can you make the assumption that they are working safely with the resources they need? Can you make an assumption that they have covered the entire scope of the organisation? Probably not. Chess is played one piece at a time, not smashing all the pieces off the board.
      • jimnotgym 2y ago
        Unless you are playing against a selfish child who can't bear to lose.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • tossandthrow 2y ago
      It only works because you allow yourself to sorely disrespect human beings, their livelihood and their feeling of safety. A strategy that seems to be hot in the US, but is an utter ethical abomination and shameful.
      • ThinkBeat 2y ago
        That is sadly life in private sector for a majority of all workers.
      • xg15 2y ago
        Yeah, I mean that's pretty much at the core of Musk's (and Trump's) philosophy.
      • m_fayer 2y ago
        I thought that a reasonably free, vital, innovative, and prosperous society was compatible with a fundamental respect for human dignity. That's why I moved to Europe. Now it seems I was overoptimistic, but that doesn't mean we should wholly embrace backsliding right into the 19th century version of "progress".
        • surgical_fire 2y ago
          It is the same reason I moved to Europe. I don't think I was overoptimistic. It was literally the best decision I ever made, in every aspect I can think of.
          • throw0101d 2y ago
            > I don't think I was overoptimistic. It was literally the best decision I ever made, in every aspect I can think of. A lot of folks mention the lower salaries in Europe (generally, and especially for tech): has mattered much in your (personal) experience for quality of life and happiness?
            • holowoodman 2y ago
    • BLKNSLVR 2y ago
      Did the twitter employees come back at the same pay or did they ask for much more expensive packages since they'd been identified as crucial to operations? Sounds like the kind of thing that could end up increasing costs rather than reducing them.
      • setr 2y ago
        If it ends up being something like 80% non-crucial and stays fired, the other 20% return with double-pay, you’re probably still running a net-positive with better resource allocation
        • joshstrange 2y ago
          Except in reality the 20% coming back are probably not the best. Some will be but at least some of your best employees are going to be smart enough (or have enough self-respect) to go elsewhere. And/or those are the people skilled enough to find a new job quickly (or know they can find one quickly) and aren’t willing to come back.
      • jeltz 2y ago
        I don't know about Twitter but for the companies I know of that have done this people generally can't vack for 1.5x to 2x their old pay.
    • nobunaga 2y ago
      [flagged]
      • motoxpro 2y ago
        They are not supporting the decision in this comment, they are just pointing out that Elon had a positive experience with the twitter layoffs which led him to want to run that playbook again. I would even venture the guess that they DONT support Elon's decision here.
        • watwut 2y ago
          It takes pretty advance level of self deception to frame "loosing money" as "positive experience".
      • somenameforme 2y ago
        A difference with government is that you and I pay the salaries of these people. With Twitter a lot of it was just schadenfreude. Many of the employees were acting in a way perceived to be partisan and vindictive, which left a rather sizable number of people somewhat less than upset when the tide turned. It's one reason we should all endeavor to treat each other, perhaps especially those we disagree with, with some degree of respect - even if your sole and only motivation is your own interests.
        • nobunaga 2y ago
          If a company gets too big, its not the employees fault, why should they be the first on the chopping block? If a government is too big, is it again the employees fault? Or is it someone elses? The concept that some dude with more money than another can make screwups, then happily go off and impact thousands of lives thinking this is the way forward with no impact on them is utterly mind boggling. Similarly, we, the people who pay the salaries of government employees, are the ones who are at fault for voting in people who keep making mistakes. So why should the employees be suffering for this? Do people not realise all of this is a smoke screen to push attention away from the conversation that existed to tax billionaires? To make them pay their fair share? This has all been nothing but an act to divert attention away. And its working. We are arguing about nothing when the solution is so obvious. The people that should suffer are the ones in control. Not the ones who just want to live day to day.
    • ThinkBeat 2y ago
      Getting bureaucrats to fire each other is met with every delay tactic possible. Might be able to put it off for two years which is all they need. Going in crazy like they are doing now, may serve the administration if they start having department do their own layoffs in a hurry, because they know otherwise it will be done for then.
      • bloomingkales 2y ago
        [flagged]
        • derangedHorse 2y ago
          > When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
          • deleted 2y ago
            [deleted]
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    • jimnotgym 2y ago
      Did it work? Is Twitter profitable now?
      • dralley 2y ago
        No.
      • johnnyanmac 2y ago
        Maybe? They went private so that's not a good sign usually. There's more of a surge on wall street, but similar to tesla a lot of this is upheld by an undeserved hype. If Elon Musk died, I suspect these valuations would plummet harder than '29. TSLA is informally called a meme stock for a reason.
    • TeMPOraL 2y ago
      Makes sense. And isn't this the ol' military trick, that in software dev / project management parlance is now called a "scream test"? I.e. if your unit feels like it's doing nothing but endlessly filling out all kinds of reports, and no one knows which ones are important, the solution is to stop submitting any reports at all - and wait until calls and angry letters from higher-ups begin. That will quickly reveal which reports you need to keep filing, and which you can ignore.
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      • TheJoeMan 2y ago
        The Scream test is very valuable for time efficiency, in general. In this application though, I think they’re realizing sometimes it’s difficult to reverse, such as firing the new blood who just moved to DC and have been there only a year… like I would feel so abused, why go back?
        • cloverich 2y ago
          If they tell you it was a scream test, and it turns out your team was actually pretty important and also gives you a raise, you might. Especially if you have nothing else lined up.
          • TeMPOraL 2y ago
            And especially if you're not a tech worker, so you can't exactly chill out and wait for a better gig to fall on your lap. (Though recently, even in tech changing jobs is much more precarious than it ever was.)
          • johnnyanmac 2y ago
            Yeah that's the thing, the government can't unilaterally give raises like that. reason #20 this was a horrible move. >Especially if you have nothing else lined up. Sadly, yes. I do find the irony here that the FEDS said the economy was recovering and Trump promised to fix inflation and make jobs. Then he's taking advantsge of the bad market to force people he abused back.
    • msie 2y ago
      Yes, using this tactic in the govt is much riskier than a private company. And we won't know in this case if it "works" until after many months. And then deciding whether it "works" is very subjective depending on whether the collateral damage on human lives is acceptable or not.
    • mesk 2y ago
      Yes, and the personnel rapidly identified that their new boss is a jerk that has no respect to their work and their life, so why should they work for him, when any boss in random fastfood is probably more capable to their job better that this one idiot, plus private sector pays more...
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • samus 2y ago
      That's like popping your tires to figure out that you need them for driving, and then discovering there is only one spare in the trunk.
    • riffraff 2y ago
      Valid point, but Twitter's development post acquisition stalled and the company was massively devalued, so I'm not sure that can be considered a positive case.
      • bigbaguette 2y ago
        The point was never to turn it into a profitable venture, but to acquire a widely adopted and established communication channel, turn it into an echo chamber and make it run with the least cost possible. It became what was expected of it.
    • ok123456 2y ago
      There's a big difference between a website that shows you posts, and the federal government. Degrade the service of a website, and maybe it loads a little funny; degrade the services of a government and people die.
    • vharuck 2y ago
      >Rapidly identified key personnel without weeks or months of subjective analysis and political posturing by workers and their supervisors. This doesn't make sense to me. The federal government isn't a company making Widget X, where you can gut, tweak, and repair it until you minimize the cost per widget and maximize the number of widgets sold. The government does a lot of things, often in the hopes of results in one or more decades, and there's rarely an easy and immediate way to measure success. For example, the Surgeon General announced tobacco's link with cancer in 1964. It wasn't until the 1990s that smoking rates really started to fall in any significant way. The federal and state governments have spent decades and billions of dollars to reduce smoking rates, and they've been wildly successful. The tax revenue generated by any person-years alive which were won through that effort will never make up for the billions spent. But those people will contribute more to the economic and social life of the US, and the tobacco settlement deterred other companies from causing so much harm.
    • johnnyanmac 2y ago
      "works" implies that they are able to a) find those personnel and b) win them back over. It seems like they shokingly cannot do either. It's also still weird because a lot of the firings focused on probationary workers.Very few would prove themselves in a year, so they did have to defer to key personell in he end to figure out "hey, he needed those people". Except he may not get those worers back. > but the feedback loop for him on these previous experiments has been positive, not negative. Sure, positve for his ego. He didn't care about recovering the supercharger conractors, he didn't care about repairing his adverts' relationships on Twitter and even threatened to sue as if they are obligated to advertise on his plaform. Call me treachorous but I don't think he really cares about making an efficient government. He's just funding his tax cuts.
  • adtac 2y ago
    People should read Elon Musk by Walter Issacson. Here's an excerpt from the chapter on his "algorithm": > [Step 2] Delete any part or process you can. You may have to add them back later. In fact, if you do not end up adding back at least 10% of them, then you didn't delete enough. He thinks this is a feature, not a bug. Is he wrong? I don't think so.
    • ackbar03 2y ago
      I was going to mention this as well. This is pretty standard musk, delete large swaiths of stuff, see what breaks, and put the essential pieces back. It's supposed to be much faster than meticulous planning.
      • nobunaga 2y ago
        Yes all with no regard for the impact on people, families and their needs. Lets just make sure to focus on the need of a billionaire to create more wealth. The only reason you think like this is because you think it wont happen to you. Oh boy, I hope it does, then I hope you remember this comment. I so hope the people in here defending this bs end up on the street and impacted like the many innocent people are today. I love hearing the stories of regret from MAGA people, only more to come.
      • jimnotgym 2y ago
        Web company world 1) Delete a system 2) 404 error 3) add the system back with a simple git command Nuclear world 1) Delete a system 2) Nuclear meltdown causes the abandonment of the Atlantic coast 3) Add the system back over the next 20 years
    • TZubiri 2y ago
      Move fast, break things. Didn't facebook end up changing that? There's some things you can't undo once they break.
      • bryanrasmussen 2y ago
        surely a nuclear arsenal isn't one of those things.
  • silisili 2y ago
    No agency is going to admit to fraud, which is not totally different than paying employees they didn't need. I'm also not a fan of the fire and rehire method, either. It does feel like more time should have been spent, from an outside agency, watching and deciding. What they're doing now is an old trick, and I'm surprised more people don't tell them to screw off.
    • watwut 2y ago
      Yeah, baseless accusations of fraud just to hide own incompetence ...
      • Quarrelsome 2y ago
        the accusations of fraud are probably mirror politics. Given the lack of respect for process its plausible that in 10 or 20 years or whenever we'll find out this government was the most corrupt out of any in the past century.
        • prox 2y ago
          And the lack of respect for process breaks trust. Some people might not care about this, but you can’t magically summon trust. It takes years for trust to rebuild. I don’t care which party you are from, you have take into account the other side, if only for that trust reason. Inform them of what you are doing, and your process. This is a public institution build upon the foundation of the Constitution.
    • vkou 2y ago
      > No agency is going to admit to fraud Which is why Congress employs an army of auditors, who audit and report their findings to them. The difference is, they are largely non-partisan appointments, who are expected to actually do their job, instead of rubber-stamping propaganda pieces. Their work can be verified, and there are consequences to them engaging in fraud, and there's a chain of custody for the evidence they find. Which is more than can be said for giving a bunch of politically-appointed teenagers read/write access to every single system in the government... Paired with a blanket immunity from prosecution.
  • ZeroGravitas 2y ago
    Very similar to the story about the Supercharger network. Apparently the boss of the team was told to make layoffs, she did some but not enough to please Musk, so Musk in a face to face meeting demanded she make more. She said they couldn't without affecting delivery. Musk fired her. Then fired the team. Then hired the team back because she was correct. But not before lots of ongoing projects got stalled because contacts just disappeared and stopped answering phones. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/inside-story-elon-musks-mass-firings-tesla-supercharger-staff-2024-05-15/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/inside... > The meeting could not have gone worse. Musk, the employees said, was not pleased with Tinucci’s presentation and wanted more layoffs. When she balked, saying deeper cuts would undermine charging-business fundamentals, he responded by firing her and her entire 500-member team. and > The contractor said he had expected Supercharger projects to provide about 20% of his 2024 revenue but now plans to diversify to avoid relying on Tesla.
    • anon7000 2y ago
      Why people think it’s a good idea to put this wealthy dickwad in charge of one of the most (allegedly) important projects in the current admin is beyond me. Move fast and break things is a stupid policy to apply to public policy.
      • scarab92 2y ago
        [flagged]
        • CogitoCogito 2y ago
          What do you mean when you say "it's an effective strategy"? It's hard to say for certain since Twitter is now private, but it certainly seems to have lost value since Musk took over. What would "work in the public sector" entail for you?
          • ty6853 2y ago
            The value wasn't lost, it was consumed. You're looking at what it was consumed to achieve, in the election results.
  • timewizard 2y ago
    > fired people who had credentials I agree. Federal credential management and safekeeping is not particularly well crafted.
  • NicoJuicy 2y ago
    It's to let people fear that they could lose their job, so they won't speak up.
  • belter 2y ago
    Expect this story to be flagged soon... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43061481 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43061481
  • 2-3-7-43-1807 2y ago
    i don't see how this is (technically) related to the twitter layoffs - and even less how it could be "literally" given that the twitter layoffs where about LAYOFFS and this news item is about reHIRING ... or are you maybe a little challenged with language and what you actually want to say is that in both cases Elon Musk is involved?
    • krapp 2y ago
      https://blogs.illinois.edu/view/25/96439 https://blogs.illinois.edu/view/25/96439
  • throw0101d 2y ago
    > Everything else aside why repeat the same mistakes? "Move fast and break things." /s Then try to move fast to fix the things you just broke. (Perhaps government tend to moves slowly for a reason: when a company breaks things customers can go to a competitor, when government breaks where can you go?)
  • thisisnotauser 2y ago
    Almost all government employees are necessary.
  • rsanek 2y ago
    > Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized. more guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    • gdhkgdhkvff 2y ago
      Why is that a guideline?
      • theli0nheart 2y ago
        My bet is that using using all-caps looks like you're yelling, and yelling isn't exactly conducive to effective conversation.
  • mschuster91 2y ago
    > Just go a little slower and give agencies time to compile accurate lists of necessary employees It's not about achieving results primarily, it's a public perception game. Trump and Musk are going for the perception of "they do what they say from day 1" - it doesn't matter if what they plan succeeds at all (and if it's struck down by judges, it's just additional fodder for "un-American judges!!!" propaganda), or if what they do actually has the outcome they promised. The GQP voter base no longer cares about anything but the appearance of "winning", and it's aided by completely off-the-rockers media and influencers.
  • cynicalpeace 2y ago
    It worked with twitter though. The site did not implode like all the naysayers predicted, it's at least as good, if not better than it was, just going off of usage statistics. This is basically 0 based budgeting, where you get rid of everything and then only add back what you deem to be absolutely necessary. I expect good results.
• _Microft 2y ago
  The headline shown here is: “US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago”
  • clort 2y ago
    Also, I don't really understand how they delivered letters letting people know that they had been fired but were struggling to rescind the letters because "we do not have a good way to get in touch with those personnel" Did they just hand them a note saying "your fired" and escort them out of the building?
    • Hamuko 2y ago
      Well, obviously you can't have them hanging around in an office that manages the nuclear stockpile. It's a far too critical of a role to have a bunch of fired people around it.
    • b112 2y ago
      From what I read elsewhere, resignation letters were sent via corporate email. Once "escorted out" of the building, naturally their corporate accounts were cancelled. This article says: Attempting to reach the workers, the email, which was sent to current employees, said: "Please work with your supervisors to send this information (once you get it) to people's personal contact emails." (FYI, your != you are. use you're for this)
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    • blooalien 2y ago
      > Did they just hand them a note saying "your fired" and escort them out of the building? My understanding (from reading this and other articles on the topic) is that they blasted out mass emails to those who were fired and promptly disabled all their access and accounts (thereby preventing many of them from even getting the notice that they were fired).
  • 2y ago
• NewJazz 2y ago
  Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you're a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it's true! — but when you're a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that's why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we're a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it's not as important as these lives are — nuclear is so powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it's four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven't figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it's gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us, this is horrible." https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/donald-trump-sentence/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/donald-trump-sentence/
  • franczesko 2y ago
    Cringe. How on earth this guy was elected again?
    • NewJazz 2y ago
      I don't know I got distracted. He did the weave!
    • mckn1ght 2y ago
      I saw this comment earlier in another posted article that I think will explain it pretty well. We simply have a lot of these kinds of folks running around. Don’t forget to check out the YouTube comments for more examples! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43065052 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43065052
• slicktux 2y ago
  Nuclear workers go where the work is…they are not going to wait around when there’s plenty of jobs out there needing their skills.
  • usui 2y ago
    Can you explain? I must have the wrong impression, but isn't nuclear-related work specifically in the USA a declining or dying industry? Are there really plenty of jobs when Americans keep posturing away from nuclear? I knew no one from university interested in doing nuclear-related engineering for industry.
    • throwaway_95283 2y ago
      That's why there is work, no supply of fresh grads.
    • b112 2y ago
      There's a lot more to such skills than bombs and power plants: https://natural-resources.canada.ca/climate-change/medical-isotopes https://natural-resources.canada.ca/climate-change/medical-i...
    • lithos 2y ago
      Data centers will pretty much absorb any person with military nuclear power experience, even cases of people who completely washed out of the program. As for nuclear missile programs in this case, I'm pretty positive that field will still have similar desirable high points. Reliability, understanding procedures, actually understanding procedures to know when/how/why scripts are broken in some cases, and having such socially toxic work environment that even an Amazon job feels like fresh air.
      • infthi 2y ago
        > Data centers will pretty much absorb any person with military nuclear power experience Could you elaborate why is that? They seem to be unrelated areas.
• Febra33 2y ago
  Funny. Who would've thought that a shitshow of an administration will bring instability?
• TZubiri 2y ago
  What's the biggest difference between a startup and a country? Aside from the obvious distinction, Musk has no experience running existing corporations with lots on the line to lose, he comes from move fast break things, great for a social media app, who gives a shit, great for literal moonshots, go big or go home. However when you manage something big, any upside from improving is weighed against its risk of degradation. What I find confusing is that this is not typical of conservatism, it's like a progressive right of political outsiders whose express goal is to destroy the government, I don't think that's a controversial statement. And I truly believe that's what (at least half of) the people voted. My best estimation is that they are conservatives in that they want to conserve power that they hold, and they see the government not as a foundation for their corps, but as an enemy, not state as a literal creator of money, but as its dilluter or robber (through taxes), not the state as the basis for the fiction that is a corporation, but as a taxer of them. And their emnity is mostly due to the redistributive role of their state. And I believe that people vote out of aspirational belonging to a rich class, they think they are rich, or they want to aspire to become rich, or they buy into the establishes morals that entitles the rich to power. So that's how I wrap my heads around the conservative right overthrowing and destroying the government, they see it as a threat to their established power, or their chances to rise to power. But I'm just some idiot on hn who hopefully will come back to delete this later
  • michaelscott 2y ago
    The American right has (always?) been anti-government overreach traditionally. I don't actually think Trump or Musk are particularly conservative or right wing (they'll say and do what gets them the support) but on this topic they are actually very much in line with political tradition. I think they're overshooting here and will need to correct, but I get the impression as an outsider that the American people who voted Trump in are sick and tired of a social structure that isn't benefiting them and seems to give them no "out" or way forward. They will take the wild and crazy antics/experiments because hey, it wasn't exactly working before anyway, was it?
    • lelandfe 2y ago
      Grover Norquist, 2001: > I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.
• itronitron 2y ago
  related discussion from yesterday >> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43061481 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43061481
• ChrisArchitect 2y ago
  [dupe] Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43055119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43055119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43063512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43063512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43061481 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43061481
  • drawkward 2y ago
    It is as though the community wants to discuss this, but bad actors keep shutting down the conversation.
    • mimd 2y ago
      Of course they are. Any rational person not blinded by partisanship would be infuriated by this development and immediately demand that DOGE be restrained. Even most partisans would blanch and demand accountability. DOGE advocates know this. Their only recourse is to try to hide it or distract everyone with tangential arguments like they are doing in this thread.
    • ChrisArchitect 2y ago
      The community is and has discussed this days old news. Lots of comments, upvotes and eyeballs. Over there. Not all of those stories is flagged. This is a dupe.
      • drawkward 2y ago
        I think the marketplace of ideas is showing that the HN community has not had enough of the discussion, because when these get reposted after being flagged, there is yet more discussion! You are free to not participate if you prefer. Let those of us who wish to, continue. Free speech absolutism, right? Right? ?
        • ChrisArchitect 2y ago
          Just a dupe. There's an ongoing, open, unflagged discussion.
• refurb 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • alimw 2y ago
    You must be talking about this one claim? Your comment reads as if you are dismissing the whole article. > That included staff who are stationed at facilities where the weapons are built, according to CNN.
    • refurb 2y ago
      No, that’s the claim of the source on who was fired. Which may be true, but being true doesn’t make the headline true (I.e. the people fired at the facility could be secretaries and other support staff).
      • alimw 2y ago
        What?
        • refurb 2y ago
          > That included staff who are stationed at facilities where the weapons are built, according to CNN. This sentence in the article is referring to who was fired, not who the source was.
          • alimw 2y ago
            I am perfectly capable of making sense of the article. It's you that I struggle with. At the time this exchange began, that was the only reference to CNN in the article. As I recall most of the rest was attributed to NBC.
            • refurb 2y ago
              The actual source was CNN. Which is the focus of this discussion.
• watwut 2y ago
  > The nuclear security officials who were laid off on Thursday helped oversee the nation's stockpile of nuclear weapons. That included staff who are stationed at facilities where the weapons are built, according to CNN. So now, the question is which country will benefit from this the most. Russia or Saudi Arabia? Maybe Iran?
  • lawn 2y ago
    Russia and China are the big winners of course.
• nobunaga 2y ago
  Its hilarious. Americans dont realise they are being played. All this BS from the MAGA people and trump are just shift attention away from the conversation to tax billionaires. You guys had been going in the right direction when it came to having the rich pay their fair share. Now look at what you are all talking about? Your fighting each other. What a shitshow. I really dont think America will recover from this and while the world will suffer as a result, I think in the long term, things will work out. There will be some major suffering but thats the way the world works. WW2 happened, a lot of suffering then peace. We had peace for too long, people forgot about suffering and now look at the world. Thanks America, you played yourself and are now bringing the rest of the world down with you. Rather than focusing on the right things, you are being played to argue with each other.
  • chakspak 2y ago
    Trump got a plurality of the popular vote, not a majority. There are lots of people who didn't vote for this. Many people are now doing whatever they can to limit the damage, but it's an uphill battle and plenty damage will be done in the meantime. It's been very hard to watch this unfold.
    • krior 2y ago
      Not excercising the right to vote is a form of voting.
      • enraged_camel 2y ago
        Not necessarily. Disenfranchisement is very common.
  • tim333 2y ago
    I don't really see that re the tax on billionaires. It wasn't tightened up especially during the Biden admin and it would be surprising if the Trump lot went all lefty and cracked down. It seems much more of a culture war thing.
    • 2y ago
• dannersy 2y ago
  Here we go again, let's watch HN users bend over backwards to tell everyone how this is a good thing, or clever, or a master stroke of finding inefficiencies.
  • lgdiva 2y ago
    I mean, yeah, this place invented Elon Musk and Sam Altman and every last Silicon Valley grifter. It's not all JavaScript and cute GitHub projects. I really do hope HN is at least a footnote in the history books that talk about the collapse of the United States.
    • drawkward 2y ago
      SV produces tacit fascists.
• snailmailstare 2y ago
  I find it sad that the US is confused about what a work contract is. If you can tell someone to take unpaid leave whenever you feel like it then they don't really need to call you back or explain why they won't be in next week.
• anshumankmr 2y ago
  how the turn tables
• someothherguyy 2y ago
  If anything this whole DOGE scenario has illuminated is how confused and overconfident many in this country are. We are stumbling fools without systems and rules (organizations, institutions, laws, regulations, ...) to rely on. I wonder how much behavior like this stems from weak regulation in the US to begin with. It seems like it would reinforce the rise of agents that assume they can ask for forgiveness after acting wantonly.
  • baq 2y ago
    Uppers have this effect on people.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • onemoresoop 2y ago
      You think Musk is on uppers all the time? This would indeed explain a bunch of things related to his behavior
      • Aromasin 2y ago
        Use your own judgement, but he looked like he was rolling during the inauguration... https://x.com/Dreamshockcom/status/1881383073495048599 https://x.com/Dreamshockcom/status/1881383073495048599 Some might say he was just stretching his neck, but personally I love an electronic music gigs, and I've seen that behaviour enough times before. He's not quiet about his ketamine usage either (not an upper per-se, but close to an alcohol-like hallucinogenic from my experience).
        • scarab92 2y ago
          [flagged]
        • someothherguyy 2y ago
          Something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nystagmus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nystagmus would be more of a call out than neck stretching, and both are pointless supposition.
• yeyeyeyeyeyeyee 2y ago
  The US is busy making the biggest own-goal one could imagine. From a position of world-wide dominance and respect, it is being destroyed at a rate that is too quick for most to even start to comprehend what the outcome of these actions will be. I suspect the consequences of these actions will be carried for the rest of our lives, as they are not so easy to turn back. Lots of other countries are standing by watching while the USA has seemingly found enough rope to hang itself.
  • gambiting 2y ago
    Well, Brexit took the spot previously. Not sure if US can top it, but they sure as hell trying.
    • grandempire 2y ago
      All the catastrophic things that were predicted form Brexit didn’t really happen though
      • enraged_camel 2y ago
        Yes they did? Is this a joke? Or have you not been following the UK’s descent into poverty and irrelevance?
        • grandempire 2y ago
          Here a few that were seriously threatened - all the major corporations would leave and there would be no jobs - collapse of the pound - start of wars within the UK and potentially with EU
        • rayiner 2y ago
          The UK’s GDP per capita trajectory diverged around the end of the Great Recession. That was before the Brexit vote (2016) and long before the actual Brexit (2020). France and Italy have been stuck in more or less the same doldrums since the same time: https://datacommons.org/place/country/FRA?utm_medium=explore&mprop=amount&popt=EconomicActivity&cpv=activitySource,GrossDomesticProduction&hl=en https://datacommons.org/place/country/FRA?utm_medium=explore...
• r4make 2y ago
  Musk himself has received billions in social security in the form of subsidies, government contracts and stock market rallies fueled by nepotism. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/20/business/elon-musk-wealth-government-help/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/20/business/elon-musk-wealth... Where will the money he purportedly saves in the bureaucracies go? Will houses be built for the Appalachian voters that were oh so important before the election? Will it be use to subsidize another telemedicine scam for all-in podcast members, who are also on Megyn Kelly's show now?
  • tim333 2y ago
    "social security" isn't really true. If the government offers subsidies for electric vehicles and you then set up a company making those that isn't really social security.
• black_13 2y ago
  [dead]
• yesthis 2y ago
  Now that they've been fired, the gov't has lost the goodwill/loyalty from the staff. In other words, the gov't is competing with private industry rates. Unfortunately for taxpayers, rehiring is always more expensive.
• James_K 2y ago
  In saner times this headline would be from the Onion, not the BBC.
• 1970-01-01 2y ago
  They certainly can name their new price due to urgency but struggles is a bit of an overstretch. They certainly know where they live. A knock at the door with flowers and a big bonus check will do.
  • halJordan 2y ago
    Can you just please read the article? The bbc writes to about a sixth grade standard. They literally do not have contact information after they deleted the .gov email addresses Edit: and they cant "name their price" because unlike the private sector there is legally mandated pay scale. Which is just another reason why firing g-men to save money makes no sense
    • 1970-01-01 2y ago
      Did you not read my entire comment? The gov will certainly know where they live and breathe. A non-creative approach is easier. Paychecks and bonus checks are separately accounted.
      • bobsmooth 2y ago
        How will they know if they fired the guy who's responsible for knowing?
        • DangitBobby 2y ago
          It is unbelievable that they would be unable to figure out where these people live. I literally do not believe it.
          • steve_adams_86 2y ago
            Can we all agree it’s absolutely absurd that it’s a chore at all to find out, let alone to have this need in the first place? This is insane.
• wat10000 2y ago
  In the first Trump admin, Rick Perry was picked to head the Department of Energy with the goal of shutting it down. These cockwombles thought the DoE was about pushing green energy and recycling and stuff like that. Once on the job, Perry discovered that he was in charge of the nation’s nuclear arsenal. To his credit, he course corrected and seems to have done a decent job once he found out what it was. It’s the same story again, except with even less competence and knowledge. It’s incredible that half the voters in this country thought this guy was a good choice for our leader.
  • b_davis_ 2y ago
    Ask a resident of Texas, we knew Rick Perry. He was not known for his high IQ. However, he bucled down and did an acceptable job running the DOE. One could hope that at least some of the current cabinet will rise to the occasion. With our supreme leader, many in 2016 thought he would rise to the occasion; perhaps behave like a statesman in foreign affairs, and to respect the office of the presidency. It did not happen then and will not happen now.
    • e40 2y ago
      The current cabinet were chosen precisely because they will not stand up to the dear leader and will pull whatever levers they are asked. It’s an absolute shit show and we will all suffer. The worst part: the people who voted for him will never connect the dots with their own actions.
• deadeye 2y ago
  "US media reported" That's not a source. This is how the media just makes things up. After admitting that 8% of the BBC media action budget came from US taxpayers which has now been cencelled, I wonder if they might have an ax to grid.
  • sigmar 2y ago
    For anyone who has no idea what the "BBC Media Action" is (like me, before googling). It's a small international charity- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Media_Action https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Media_Action
• Balgair 2y ago
  So, my SO had a fellowship with the NNSA here. As in, the NNSA paid for their grad school. I'll speak to my own experiences here though as the spouse. The NNSA is, like, bonkers important. I'll just copy-paste wikipedia here: "The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is ... responsible for safeguarding national security through the military application of nuclear science. NNSA maintains and enhances the safety, security, and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile; works to reduce the global danger from weapons of mass destruction; provides the United States Navy with safe and effective nuclear propulsion; and responds to nuclear and radiological emergencies in the United States and abroad." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Nuclear_Security_Administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Nuclear_Security_Admi... The reason it took until 2000 to make them is tied up with the silver tsunami and congress. But suffice to say, we really really need them. A lot of their stuff is very classified, but the presentation that I was allowed to attend were quite eye opening. Most of the presentations are on things like blast resistance in microsceonds of a door or some z-pinch magnetic experiment. But there were are lot on the national security picture at the time too. The main concern is that the nukes are aging. Stuffing 1950's breadboards next to that much radiation for 50 years wasn't the plan, we were thinking of using them a bit more quickly than that. But now we have them and can't be sure if they'll work. There are a lot of other issues too, big ones, but I'll let the interested people here discover more on their own. Here's a list of conferences that can get you going on where to find more: https://nssc.berkeley.edu/events-and-programs/nssc-conferences/ https://nssc.berkeley.edu/events-and-programs/nssc-conferenc... Youtube also has a lot of them online too: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nnsa+conference https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nnsa+conference The general side I saw was in my spouse trying to be recruited by the NNSA to work for them after graduation. The silver tsunami is a big deal in DoD government. And the issue for us at the time was the very much lowered pay. One of the main sites was the square mile that is Livermore National Labs. But with a PhD in the right fields and the NNSA fellowship, my spouse could easily just go across the Dumbarton bridge for about 4x the pay and mostly just as good benefits (the retirement plans aren't quite as stellar, but only a little). So, this is where HN/tech and the NNSA merge: employee competition. Now, I'm not surprised that they're reporting that a lot of the fired employees are not coming back. The big thing that they had going for them, personally, was 'the mission' and the quiet respect and admiration that the government and therefore the people of the US had for them and their sacrifices (classified work has a lot of sacrifice that is not seen, especially in nuclear work, much more so than beyond just pay). That they were fired, likely by some random 20 something from DOGE (read: not a flag rank military officer (Admiral+) or an elected official of national office (Senator+)), without notice, last Thursday. Man, that hurt the ego a lot, and fundamentally altered the bargain that they had with the government and the US people in general (from what very little I knew of those people). It is going to be very hard to get them all back to begin with, let alone for that same payscale and benefits schedule. That gap for 'fired with cause' is going to mess up the retirement in a way that is currently hard to fix (AFAIK). Many of the NNSA are just going to go get a better job, really. And the US is going to be left behind in the nuclear arms race that is still very much going on. Summary: Pardon my french, but, this is a big fuck up.
• jonstewart 2y ago
  Since we are now being governed by the enthusiastic ignorant raised in the wake of Reaganism (or for the unfortunate Brits, Thatcherism), it would be a really good idea for us to rename the Department of Energy to the Department of Scary Nukes We Must Keep Secure. Then maybe GOP presidents would stop nominating oilmen to be Secretary of Energy.
  • lgdiva 2y ago
    Department of Immigrants are Bad
  • DangitBobby 2y ago
    This is a solution I can get behind.
• jakeogh 2y ago
  With regard to nuclear security, this is a sourceless article, and the comment pointing this out got flagged into oblivion so the outrage machine could ignore it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43066633 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43066633
• mimd 2y ago
  https://www.npr.org/2025/02/14/nx-s1-5298190/nuclear-agency-trump-firings-nnsa https://www.npr.org/2025/02/14/nx-s1-5298190/nuclear-agency-... If even half of NPR's report is true, the way in which it was conducted was grossly cruel and with complete ignorance. DOGE and it's supporters are quiet literally playing like a child with the levers that decide if you wake up tomorrow.
  • philipwhiuk 2y ago
    Yeah, they're firing all the probation employees and NNSA got caught in the net. Probation employees btw include some recently promoted senior employees. And probation is just the first status. This is a plan designed to progressively cull employees by status - there'll be another round after this.
  • johnnyanmac 2y ago
    Not shocked at all. The US Gov right now is crazy, and I wouldn't go back with a crazy ex without a huge overhaul first. And yup, it's about as disrespectful a dismissal as you'd expect from a Musk "plan". I'm not surprised they are having trouble >"Please work with your supervisors to send this information (once you get it) to people's personal contact emails," the memo added. Wait, they don't keep personal emails on record? I have to fill that out for every single job I apply to. Pretty sure USAJobs and my State job board required it to. I guess they either aren't answering or these were more senior personell than I thought. >Despite having the words "National" and "Security" in its title, it was not getting an exemption for national security This just gave me a chuckle and I had to share.
  • rkuykendall-com 2y ago
    There's an old expression from the first Trump presidency, "the cruelty is the point."
• based2 2y ago
  https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2025/02/doge-as-a-national.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2025/02/doge-as-a-nat... > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43035977 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43035977
• BeFlatXIII 2y ago
  As today's kids say, "whomp whomp." a.k.a. play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
• iamleppert 2y ago
  They should just pass a law saying these people are essential workers and cannot say no to not coming back, and will be paid and must accept whatever pay they are told to accept. Done!
  • drawkward 2y ago
    Poe's law
• lgdiva 2y ago
  If only there were something we could have done to prevent this, every day, for the last ten goddamn years. Oh well. Enjoy your extra neutrons.
• insane_dreamer 2y ago
  To those of you who have pushed back on the arguments that the US is heading towards authoritarianism, I hereby present Exhibit A:[0] > “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” Mr. Trump wrote, first on his social media platform Truth Social, and then on the website X. > By late afternoon, Mr. Trump had pinned the statement to the top of his Truth Social feed, making it clear it was not a passing thought but one he wanted people to absorb. The official White House account on X posted his message in the evening. > The quote is a variation of one sometimes attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, although its origin is unclear. The hallmark of authoritarianism is to be above the law. (Which is why the SCOTUS ruling was so damaging and directly contributing to this.). If you’re not familiar with China, the way things work there is “rule by law” rather than “rule of law”. The difference being that “rule by law” means that those in power can do whatever they want since they make up the laws as they go (like a monarch ruling by decree). Trump’s statement is exactly that. And make no mistake this is not a one-off quip like buying Greenland. His actions so far have made it clear he believes that there should be no restraints on the power of the executive branch. In other words , authoritarianism. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/15/us/politics/trump-saves-country-quote.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/15/us/politics/trump-saves-c... Be careful, America, what you wished for.
  • cmurf 2y ago
    It's a variation on every despotic announcement ever. * I am the country. I am the law. * When the president does it, that means it's not illegal. * Anyone who opposes me is an enemy of the state. * People loyal to me, prepare for violence. Trump could pardon Eric Adams. But he won't do it, clearly, to dangle a future criminal charge against him. It's coercion. Instead, via Bondi and Bove, they have ordered career prosecutors to dismiss the case, and nearly a dozen of those attorney's have resigned instead of following orders. Many of these people clerked with Republican federal judges. One is Noah Schactman, 38-years old, US attorney, SDNY, three combat tours in Iraq, two bronze stars, Harvard graduate, clerked with Roberts and Kavanaugh. This is his letter resigning and explaining why the order from DOJ superiors was inappropriate and not considered. https://bsky.app/profile/noahshachtman.bsky.social/post/3li5k2qsvec2m https://bsky.app/profile/noahshachtman.bsky.social/post/3li5... Hundreds of thousands of people in civil service and armed forces have taken an oath to the Constitution of the United States. 5 USC 3331. This isn't an oath to a country, political party, president, or a superior. It's an oath to a contract.
• wakawaka28 2y ago
  I'm sure the market for nuclear safety people is small enough that they will tolerate a few days of turmoil as the government cuts expenses.
• dkkergoog 2y ago
  [dead]
• wakawaka28 2y ago
  Considering that this criminally deranged nutjob was a high-ranking Biden nuclear safety officer, I think they are doing the right thing by looking into whether the remaining staff are qualified: https://cbsaustin.com/news/nation-world/non-binary-ex-biden-nuclear-official-who-stole-luggage-was-traveling-on-taxpayer-dime-report-says-department-of-energy-official-sam-brinton https://cbsaustin.com/news/nation-world/non-binary-ex-biden-...
• bdangubic 2y ago
  If I was the one fired I would ask for $10,000,000/week salary to come back and then would donate 98% of that
  • danjl 2y ago
    Or, slightly more realistically, $1M/yr, which is probably 10x what they were getting before, and seems realistic given the events.
• davidmurdoch 2y ago
  "The Trump administration has since tried to reverse their terminations, according to media outlets" Why would they cite anonymous "media outlets" and not at least find some modicum of an official source to reference?
  • drawkward 2y ago
    Because the WH no longer deals with legacy media.
• danpalmer 2y ago
  Musk will see this as working as intended. There’s a segment in one of his many Starship interviews with Tim Dodd the Everyday Astronaut, where he talks about simplifying the machine. He says you’ve got to cut and cut and cut some more until it’s radically simple. His rule of thumb is that if you’re not adding back 10% of the stuff you got rid of, you didn’t get rid of enough in the first place. This might be fine for greenfield engineering projects, where there are no “Chesterton’s fences”, where there are not yet any other people or things depending on success, but it’s wholly inadequate for people problems or brownfield systems and processes. The fact Musk doesn’t understand this just suggests ignorance, and suggests that it’s not an idea he really understands at its core. To understand an idea truly, means to understand when it applies and when it doesn’t, and why.
  • dnjdkdldh 2y ago
    I don't think you can claim Elon's ignorance or stupidity is the source of his actions. He knows what he's doing and has a plan. He's a very smart person.
    • danpalmer 2y ago
      To be clear, I think he's ignorant of why this approach doesn't get the same cost/benefit in this use-case. I don't think he's ignorant of the harm being caused (or he's at least wilfully ignorant), but as I said I think he'll see it as working as intended.
  • kamaal 2y ago
    >>His rule of thumb is that if you’re not adding back 10% of the stuff you got rid of, you didn’t get rid of enough in the first place. Mao moved farm labor into factories using this logic, and then a apocalyptic famine followed. He tried to add back the people from factory back to the farms, and then discovered labor wasn't as elastic as he had thought. Be careful before making big scary changes, especially before taking down carefully erected fences. You don't know why they were put up at the first place.
    • 2y ago
• yapyap 2y ago
  The simpsons
• eksx 2y ago
  The last few weeks of government action has shown me one thing. When the democrats take over next there will be no reason they can’t make the health care insurance sector government controlled. I think the vast majority of people would support them.
  • droopyEyelids 2y ago
    Except for their donors
• pylua 2y ago
  I have at least one persons information: Homer jay simpson 742 Evergreen terrace, Springfield. The only problem is I don’t know the state.
• 83457 2y ago
  "He who saves his Country does not violate any Law" https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1890831570535055759 https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1890831570535055759
• addicted 2y ago
  Even if they could rehire everyone instantly, these people are now ripe for being turned by a foreign adversary like Russia or China. And I bet the Russian and Chinese intelligence agencies have increased their espionage efforts exponentially over the past few weeks. And that’s even before we consider that the current administration has shown a tremendous affinity for enemies and dictators while putting the hammer down on allies and friends. And I nearly forgot the appointment of individuals to the highest positions in charge of state secrets and intelligence, who are either already compromised or highly sympathetic to those enemy regimes.
  • e40 2y ago
    This is so insane it’s like a fever dream.
• rajnathani 2y ago
  The earlier post (140 points) got flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43061481 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43061481
• vfclists 2y ago
  I guess they've not included those working for the agencies responsible for certifying nuclear power stations. That would be rich in irony. But who knows?
• insane_dreamer 2y ago
  OK, not related to the DoE, but in the same vein: has anyone noticed the irony of firing a large number of agents at the IRS, whose literal job it is to find fraud (by auding tax returns) while claiming that some DOGE engineers need access to all of our tax data in order to "root out fraud". (Not) coincidentally, Trump has repeatedly criticized the IRS for being too aggressive with its tax audits and is trying to overturn recent efforts to make the IRS more effective ;)
• iteratethis 2y ago
  This is the Musk algorithm in action. He cuts, removes and simplifies until it starts to hurt, and then slightly dials it back. He does this with rocket engines and staff. Now he's doing it with government services and the US as a whole is doing it with its allies. The problem with the latter is that you can't dial it back. Countries don't really like it when you threaten to annex them, disrupt their economies on a whim and negotiate about them behinds their backs. Not only is the US no longer an ally of said countries, it's a hostile nation. 80 years of cooperation and trillions of dollars were wiped out in a single speech.
  • cindylmcindy 2y ago
    [flagged]
• insane_dreamer 2y ago
  Here's another example of the type of thoughtlessness that is going into these firings. 600 people were fired at the BPA, which handles power transmission for the Pacific Northwest, and 20% total are expected to lose their jobs.[0] Keeping a grid running 24/7 is no small feat, there is no way that you're telling me that some DOGE engineers did a deep dive investigation in the past 2 weeks and decided that you can cut 20% of the staff responsible for power transmission / power lines without degrading either the service or safety. But here's the kicker: the firings __won't reduce Federal spending__. Why? Because it's paid for by PNW users (in their energy bills). So if no money is saved, why the firings? Are BPA workers siphoning off power or money for their own uses (corruption, fraud)? Maybe they're a bunch of "unqualified DEI hires"? Or taken over by "Marxists" who are doing what--making sure the power that comes to my home has a "leftist" frequency? Obviously none of the above. So why? stupidity? Maybe. But I don't think it's stupidity. It's a calculated move to make it look like Trump/Elon are "doing something", appealing to their "burn it down" MAGA base, and also their own egos "we cut K employees! Look how great we are!" Elon thinks he's some sort of Alexander the Great cutting the Gordion Knot -- except in this case, the knot is actually holding up important stuff. [0] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/mass-layoffs-at-bonneville-power-administration-raise-concerns-about-reliability-of-power-grid/ar-AA1z5Abd?ocid=BingNewsSerp https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/mass-layoffs-at-bonneville... (more detailed info at oregonlive.com but paywalled)
• up2isomorphism 2y ago
  The article does not give a clear reason why they can not be rehired. I don’t believe these people can not be reached.
• Mikho 2y ago
  I start thinking that Trump and Elon are Russian assets whose task is to destroy the US from the inside. Both were heavily involved with Russians before, travelled to Russia as private citizens, and they both could be compromised long ago. If Russia and China tried to think about ways to ruin the US, they couldn't come up with a better plan than what Trump and Musk do to the US as to both home and foreign policies.
• fennecfoxy 2y ago
  You voted for this. Yes, you did. Of course they don't headline their campaign with the stuff they're _really_ going to do. All democracies need to switch to policy based voting and hide political parties behind them until after election results, humans are too tribal for anything else.