There’s other stuff, but this is what I wanted you guys to see.
The idea that federal employees should be immune from accountability is a modern invention, and Clinton himself showed that mass firings could be justified in the name of reform.
As the debate over federal employment rages on, it is important to remember who first wielded the axe. Trump may be making headlines for firing government employees, but he is merely following in the footsteps of the master—Bill Clinton. Rn S*z Reality Is Truth January 29, 2025
Trump is Firing Government Employees, but He Learned from the Master: Bill Clinton and the Birth of the Deep State
As President Donald Trump announces plans to restructure the federal government and remove entrenched left-wing activist bureaucrats , the Left has reacted with outrage. Many claimed that such firings are an unprecedented attack on the civil service. However, history tells a different story. The blueprint for mass firings in the federal government was not drafted by Trump—it was authored by President Bill Clinton.
The Creation of Bill Clinton’s Deep State
For the record, President Bill Clinton took drastic action upon entering office, firing all federal appointees and those reporting directly to them, reaching three levels deep into the management hierarchy. This included upper-level, middle-level, and lower-level managers. Such sweeping dismissals were unprecedented in modern history.
The stated reason for these actions was to reform government and make it more efficient. Under the guise of the 1993 “Reinventing Government Initiative,” Clinton oversaw the termination of 377,000 federal employees. This initiative, led by then-Vice President Al Gore, was marketed as an effort to cut bureaucratic bloat. Clinton publicized that his administration reduced the government payroll from 2.15 million employees to 1.79 million by the end of his term (U.S. Office of Personnel Management). However, while he claimed to be trimming the size of government, he was in reality expanding it dramatically.
Rather than actually reducing the government’s reach, Clinton tripled its size by shifting millions of jobs to government contractors. This maneuver allowed his administration to hide the true expansion of government within the bureaucracy. The federal workforce, under his administration, effectively grew from 2.15 million to a staggering 9.1 million (Project On Government Oversight), all hired by liberal activist managers.
This restructuring was the foundation for what has become the “deep state”—an unelected bureaucratic class that exercises significant influence over government operations, often in opposition to elected leaders who challenge the status quo. The same entity that Trump is now attempting to confront was a product of Clinton’s drastic reshaping of the federal workforce.
Setting the Precedent for Trump’s Actions
The Democrats are framing Trump’s efforts to remove government employees as radical and dangerous. Yet, Clinton, a Democrat, set the precedent for such dismissals. The key difference is that while Clinton’s actions were aimed at consolidating power within a left-leaning bureaucracy, Trump’s efforts have been directed at reducing that bureaucracy’s grip on governance and returning government to the people.
Trump’s battle against the entrenched federal workforce is not an attack on democracy—it is an attempt to undo a system that was carefully crafted over decades to resist conservative leadership. The idea that federal employees should be immune from accountability is a modern invention, and Clinton himself showed that mass firings could be justified in the name of reform.
As the debate over federal employment rages on, it is important to remember who first wielded the axe. Trump may be making headlines for firing government employees, but he is merely following in the footsteps of the master—Bill Clinton.
I didn’t know this. If you didn’t and think many people DO NOT know ….FEEL FREE TO COPY AND POST IT FOR EVERYONE TO SEE AND BE MADE AWARE!!!! Back to top IP Logged Eegore Serious Thumper
Online
SuzukiSavage.com Rocks!
Posts: 8893
Re: I wasn’t paying attention Reply #1 – 02/06/25 at 18:19:02 So this here is where some definitions need to be made.
The federal workforce, under his administration, effectively grew from 2.15 million to a staggering 9.1 million (Project On Government Oversight), all hired by liberal activist managers.
If you consider any human that works for the Government by any means, to be “Federal Workforce” then this is true. If humans that are not Federal Employees, as in work for the US Government, get Fed healthcare, pension, TSP, VA etc. then this is definitely not true.
Bottom line is contractors typically are paid more, but cost less since they have zero benefits or long term cost – like pensions and healthcare. Contractors are not part of the “not held accountable” so to speak as their jobs are not protected, like Union backed Federal employees are.
I just saw some further detail about the strategic significance of Trump changing the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America. It’s great insight and well worth the quick read, IMO. I just added an article to support…link at the bottom.
“In the interest of pointing out misinformation… In December 2023, there was a decision by the World Court that gave water above land shelves to their respective countries and ruled they were not international waters. The renaming of the Gulf of America isn’t renaming the whole Gulf. It is renaming the area above our land shelves as our territory. You can’t exactly put signs or border walls in the middle of the ocean. So for legal reasons, we need to identify these new changes on the map, so that new borders are made clear to maritime traffic. Those new maps will set the latitude and longitudes of where our border begins…or the Gulf of America…so all maritime traffic knows when they are leaving international waters. This is where knowing what is happening in the world, will help you filter out drama…and help you understand the legalities in your own country.
This had nothing to do with Trump’s ego; rather, he is strengthening our borders and making sure all maritime traffic understands the changes that happened in 2023. Putting legal protections in place to help us enforce any military actions or incursion in the future. Betting most of you never realized the US grew by thousands of miles because of this renaming.
Likewise some of this radical idea of buying Greenland and possibly Canada has nothing to do with his ego. That has to do with the race for minerals in the Arctic Ocean, protecting our borders, and getting us the legal right to help Europe protect their borders from the Russian and Chinese fleets that have been doing damage to infrastructure. If Greenland is the territory of the US, but still their own country…like Puerto Rico, then we have the legal right to have a base there and the legal right to protect the waters around Greenland. The whole premise right now, if we were to go help Europe, it would trigger an act of war. We would have to wait for NATO action to do anything. If we have the legal right to be there and legal right to protect Greenland, then any response to defend our territory is not considered an act of war. It makes it easier to help our Allies. Also, like it or not, Russia and China have been making plans to invade Greenland. I have been hearing they are trying to buy up land around harbors in several countries or eyeing what they can take by force.
So Trump is not crazy. Not being an egotistical dictator. He is trying to strengthen the U.S. and working to provide some checks and balances that strengthen our ability to help Allies and prevent another world war. A lot of countries are coming to the understanding, we are the lesser of the two evils. Media not so much…they have grown allergic to fact-checking, and understanding any complex issue and just become about stirring drama rather than reporting facts, all of the facts.”
Two high profile DOGE staffers, including one-time co-leader Vivek Ramaswamy, have already left the group.
President Donald Trump has started to announce who will staff the Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting commission initially helmed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, and now led solely by Musk. In addition to significantly paring back the federal budget, DOGE initially said it would aim to roll back regulations and reform government agencies. In an executive order establishing the committee and bringing it inside the government, Trump narrowed its mission to modernizing federal technology systems, but DOGE’s scope in practice remains unclear.
In December, Musk and Ramaswamy shared some specifics on how DOGE will work, promising to staff the advisory board with “a lean team of small-government crusaders.” DOGE’s account on X has said it is hiring for a small number of full-time, salaried roles in engineering, HR, IT, and finance, though Musk previously said that employees will be unpaid. In addition to everyday Americans, titans of Silicon Valley are reportedly involved in the effort
Though DOGE’s precise structure remains unclear, details of staffing are trickling out.
Staffing details were also sprinkled throughout Trump’s executive order, which said an “Agency Head” would lead the group and each federal department must create a four-person DOGE team. Musk hasn’t announced whether he’ll serve as DOGE’s official leader, nor who will staff the agency teams.
Here are the names to know so far of those who might be involved.
Representatives for Musk and Trump did not respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
Trump established the Department of Government Efficiency to cut federal spending and root out waste.
Under Elon Musk, DOGE has already targeted a number of federal agencies, including USAID and the CFPB.
Here’s a list of the government programs and agencies DOGE has gone after so far.
Since returning to the White House, President Donald Trump has wasted little time sending his newly created Department of Government Efficiency after federal agencies.
On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order officially creating DOGE. With billionaire SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk at the helm as a “special government employee,” the group has taken swift action toward its stated goal of rooting out government fraud, waste, and abuse of taxpayer dollars.
Here’s a list of the agencies and initiatives DOGE has targeted so far.National Aeronautics and Space
Administration
NASA appears to be next in line on DOGE’s hit list.While at the Commerce Space Conference in Washington DC on February 12, the space agency’s acting administrator said that NASA was expecting a visit from DOGE.
“So we are a federal agency. We are going to have DOGE come. They are going to look — similarly t what they’ve done at other agencies — at our payments,” said Janet Petro, in comments reported by Bloomberg.
On February 14, the space agency confirmed to Flying, an aviation-focused magazine, that DOGE staff were on-site to review its payments.
NASA has done quite a lot of business with Musk’s own space company, SpaceX, amounting to around $14.5 billion in contracts between the two.
Department of Education
Trump has repeatedly said he wants to shut down the Department of Education. On February 12, he told reporters that he wants the department closed “immediately,” adding that it “is a big con job.”
Along with some GOP lawmakers, Trump has said that education should be handled at the state and local level, and that a federal agency isn’t necessary.
On February 12, DOGE said that it had cancelled a number of DOE contracts — including a “$4.6M contract to coordinate zoom and in-person meetings,” a “$3.0M contract to write a report that showed that prior reports were not utilized by schools,” and a “$1.4M contract to physically observe mailing and clerical operations.The cost-cutting group has also said that it has terminated 89 contracts at the DOE, totaling $881 million.
What’s next for the department is still unclear, but Trump has said that he wants his pick for education secretary, Linda McMahon, to put herself out of a job.
DEI Initiatives
On January 31, just 11 days into its existence, DOGE announced it had terminated 104 government contracts related to DEIA (diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility) programs and initiatives.
DOGE said the cuts — spanning 30 agencies including the Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Personnel Management, Environmental Protection Agency, and many more — created over $1 billion in savings.
US Agency for International Development
Musk has been working to shut down the US Agency for International Development, which funds humanitarian efforts around the world. As the world’s largest provider of humanitarian aid, the US channeled nearly $32.5 billion through the agency in 2024, providing aid to countries like Ukraine, Jordan, and Ethiopia.
In a post on X on February 3, Musk accused the agency of being a “criminal organization” and said he “spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.” Hours later, USAID workers were told to stay home from work, and within days, the agency announced that all direct hire personnel would be placed on leave globally, with a few exceptions — a move that would have reduced its workforce from over 10,000 employees to less than 300.
Following a lawsuit from federal employee labor unions, a federal judge partially blocked Musk and Trump’s attempted shutdown of USAID — which legal experts argue is illegal without approval from Congress. The judge’s order temporarily blocked the Trump administration from placing USAID workers on leave, first until February 14, and in another extension, until at least February 21.
On February 13, another federal judge issued an order temporarily lifting a three-week funding freeze the Trump administration had placed on foreign aid, the Associated Press reported.
As part of Musk and Trump’s efforts to trim government spending and reduce the federal workforce, the Trump administration emailed a buyout offer to around 2 million government employees. The deferred resignation, sent by the Office of Personnel Management at the end of January, offered to pay employees their full salary and benefits through September, without the need to work during that time, in exchange for their resignation.
After federal labor unions filed a lawsuit arguing that the offer is illegal, a federal judge twice extended the deadline for employees to accept the buyout, but ultimately ruled that it can proceed.
The offer finally closed on February 12, with 75,000 workers accepting the buyout, according to the Office of Personnel Management.
In addition to the buyout offer, the Trump administration has fired thousands of probationary federal workers — typically, employees who have been in their roles for less than two years — across federal agencies.
Days after the crash, Musk wrote on X that the FAA’s “primary aircraft safety notification system failed for several hours,” adding that, as a result, Trump gave the DOGE team his approval to “make rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system.”
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed Musk’s role, saying the DOGE team was “going to plug in to help upgrade our aviation system.”
Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas — who chairs the committee that oversees the FAA — said he’s confident in Musk’s ability to upgrade the FAA, adding that the American people should take “real comfort in his ability to navigate complicated technologies.”
Not everyone has so much faith in Musk.
Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington argued in a letter to Duffy that, as the CEO of SpaceX, Musk has a clear conflict of interest that should prohibit his involvement with the FAA.
Last year, the FAA proposed fining SpaceX more than $600,000 for two occasions where the rocket company is said to have violated its launch licenses.
Treasury Department
Trump said he granted Musk and his DOGE team access to the Treasury department’s digital payments system, which controls trillions of dollars in payments to Americans — everything from Social Security benefits to tax refunds.
The Treasury Department said Musk’s team was only granted “read-only” access to the system, but the move still sparked criticism, particularly from Democratic lawmakers and federal workers’ unions. The unions sued the Treasury Department, arguing that the agency had illegally granted Musk access to sensitive personal and financial information.
Trump defended Musk’s access to the platform, telling reporters it was only so that DOGE could find additional areas to cut government waste.
“Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval, and we will give him the approval where appropriate,” Trump said.
On February 14, the Treasury Department’s acting inspector general said in a letter obtained by the AP that he was launching an audit of the payment system’s security controls and would be looking into whether any “fraudulent payments” had been made, as Musk has alleged. The Government Accountability Office also said it would be opening a probe into DOGE’s access to the payment system, according to a letter sent to lawmakers that was obtained by Politico.
Federal Emergency Management Agency
Trump has threatened to overhaul, or entirely scrap, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which provides aid to Americans following natural disasters like Hurricane Milton and the LA wildfires.
The president has called the agency, which employs more than 20,000 staff around the US, a “very big disappointment” that is “very bureaucratic,” “very slow,” and costs “a tremendous amount of money.”
On February 10, Musk wrote on X that “FEMA betrayed the American people by diverting funds meant for natural disasters to pay for luxury hotels for illegal migrants.”
But New York City officials said that FEMA had correctly allocated the funds, which were never part of a disaster relief grant and were not used on luxury hotels, as Musk had said, The New York Times reported.
Hours after Musk’s post, FEMA’s acting director, Cameron Hamilton, posted on X that the payments had been suspended and that the responsible personnel will be held accountable.
On February 11, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security announced that four FEMA officials had been fired in connection to the payments, including the agency’s Chief Financial Officer, two program analysts, and a grant specialist.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
On February 6, a group of Democratic lawmakers accused “unelected and unvetted associates of Elon Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency” of targeting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The NOAA is in charge of forecasting the weather, analyzing climate data, and tracking extreme weather events.
Senator Chris Van Hollen and Congressman Jamie Raskin, along with other Maryland Democrats, penned a letter alleging that DOGE bureaucrats had been visiting NOAA headquarters, housed within the Department of Commerce, with the intent to break up the agency and merge it with the Department of the Interior.
In their letter, the lawmakers urged the leaders of the US Department of Commerce, Howard Lutnick and Jeremy Pelter, to maintain the independence and integrity of the NOAA, as Lutnick had promised to do in his confirmation hearing.
The lawmakers argue that DOGE is illegally attacking NOAA without congressional approval, in an attempt to dismantle and privatize the agency which they say would rob American farmers, businesses, and citizens of crucial, life-saving services.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Musk has repeatedly called for the elimination of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was established in 2011 after the Great Recession to oversee financial products and services offered to Americans. It seeks to protect Americans from financial scams and abusive practices, like excessive overdraft fees.
“CFPB RIP,” Musk wrote on X on February 7 next to a tombstone emoji.
Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent ordered the CFPB to halt most of its work and told the consumer watchdog agency to stop issuing “public communications of any type.”
The CFPB has told staffers to “not perform any work tasks” while it shuts down its DC headquarters amid an uncertain future.
The agency followed up by sending termination notices to dozens of employees, some of whom had already accepted the buyout offer, sources familiar with the situation told CNBC.
The agency’s first director, Richard Cordray, has warned that shuttering the CFPB would turn the consumer finance world into the “wild, wild west,” adding that Musk’s attempted shutdown is unethical and, with his plans to offer financial services through X, could be considered a conflict of interest.
Business Insider
The Trump Organization’s foreign deals pledge leaves some wiggle room.
Folks in CA need to think long and hard about their next governor and if they want to recover from their Gavin/Democrat days. Why not draft Mel Gibson for GOVERNOR?
U.S. PRESIDENT
99% reporting
Source: NBC News Decision Desk
Donald Trump49.8%77,303,568
Kamala Harris48.3%75,019,230
AI, According to Kamala: “It’s Two Letters!”
Picture this: Kamala Harris is given the mic to talk about artificial intelligence. Now, you’d expect the sitting Vice President of the United States—who, by the way, was once a presidential candidate—to at least have a basic grasp of the subject. But nope. Instead, we get:
“AI is kind of a fancy thing. It’s first of all, it’s two letters.”
Well, it looks like the disaster that was Kamala Harris’ political career might not be over just yet.
Despite crashing and burning in the 2024 presidential race, a new poll suggests that Harris would be the frontrunner for California governor in 2026—because apparently, Californians haven’t suffered enough.
According to an Emerson College Polling/Inside California Politics/The Hill survey, nearly six in ten Democratic primary voters—a whopping 57 percent—would back Harris if she jumped into the race to replace Gavin Newsom. That’s right, the same Kamala Harris who couldn’t even make it to the Iowa caucuses in 2020 before being laughed out of the race. The same Kamala Harris who was so unpopular as vice president that her approval ratings made Biden look good by comparison
(Surely, CA has a more responsible person than the WORD SALAD LADY?)
Yet, here we are.
Her nearest competition in this hypothetical race? Former Rep. Katie Porter, who managed to scrape together nine percent after flopping in her Senate bid. Also in the mix are former California State Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa and Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, both sitting at a thrilling four percent. That leaves 17 percent of voters undecided, probably because they’re wondering how California managed to find this uninspiring of a field.
Of course, Harris is playing coy when asked about her plans. “I have been home for two weeks and three days,” she told reporters, as if she were some weary warrior returning from battle instead of a failed candidate limping back to friendly territory. She went on to say she just wants to “be in touch with my community” and “figure out what I can do to support them.” Translation? She’s testing the waters for a comeback.
And according to Emerson College Polling’s Spencer Kimball, if Harris jumps in, she’s the clear favorite. Without her, the race is “wide open”—which is a polite way of saying that no one else has enough name recognition for anyone to care.
Now, let’s be real. If Harris does run, she’ll almost certainly win. This is California we’re talking about—the same state that keeps electing Newsom, rewarding incompetence, and doubling down on failed policies. If they’re willing to embrace four more years of Kamala Harris-level leadership, maybe they deserve what’s coming.
But for the rest of us? The thought of Governor Kamala Harris is just another reminder of how far California has fallen.
: 
Business Insider
kommonsentsjane 