The Apprentice Season 2 - The Second Presidency of Donald Trump

[msduncan]

I do think the incredible amount of government waste that occurs in these departments should be cleaned up. I do NOT support how Elon Trump or Donald Musk is doing it, the methods they are using, the crash teams with no clearance being involved -- basically the entire business. So my position that it should be cleaned up hasn't changed, but I certainly would just keep it status quo rather than have someone do what they are doing.

Excellent news on updating the selection protocol, and I can agree with that. In a battle of normal candidates, policy is a useful discriminator. In a battle of a normie against a clusterF like this, we go normie, in a battle of two clusterF’s, that’s probably game over anyway.

But I want to ask about this policy example, since I know more about this than the other.

Talk to me about this “incredible amount of government waste”. How are we defining waste? How do we quantify what amount qualifies as “incredible”?

Is there government waste? Absolutely. I see it every day. But I also know that a large percentage of people have had anti-government spending propaganda fire-hosed into their faces for decades, and ultimately believe a lot of wrong things about government spending.

I know people talk about $1200 hammers (which are generally an exaggeration, and ignore the context of WHY government procurement “seems” so crazy).

I know people think that federal employees don’t do anything (some don’t, most do).

I also know that most government spending falls into one of three buckets:
1) Money to old people in the form of Social Security.
2) Money to people that take care of old people (or people who need help) via Medicare/Medicaid.
3) Money to blow shit up via the DoD.

The rest is effectively noise.

So when I hear someone that believes there is an incredible amount of waste in the government, I have a lot of questions. I think it’s important to make sure it is clear that virtually everyone is against government waste and fraud.

What I’ve found is that waste is usually defined as “things I don’t think the government should spend money on”. But that’s not “waste”, that’s just a policy difference.

And when we get to the end of figuring out what you mean by waste and fraud, then we can talk about the impact of cleaning it up, and how damaging that can be (especially if you are right about the scale!).

We won’t waste time on how these idiots are going about it since we already agree that it’s stupid. I’m just curious to explore your belief about this policy if you are into it.

Ancient books influenced my view on government bureaucratic waste. They were written by Martin Gross and were called "Government Waste from A to Z". I believe they were published in the 1990s. They went over things like this (forgive me, but for time's sake I asked Copilot to pull some examples from the books):

- Expensive Research Projects: Funding for projects like the National Swine Research Center, which Gross critiques for its questionable necessity.
- Costly Infrastructure: Spending millions on projects like a third golf course at Andrews Air Force Base.
- Duplicative Programs: Multiple government programs addressing the same issue, spread across different agencies, leading to inefficiency.
- Outdated Initiatives: Programs that were relevant decades ago but no longer serve a purpose, yet continue to consume taxpayer dollars.

So, I'm not talking about core mission stuff (making sure old people get their money or taking care of them). I'm not talking about making sure people get fair education (DoE). I'm talking about stuff like was outlined in his book decades ago, which I presume (maybe incorrectly, but I don't think any action has been taken to clean it up) is still a problem.

As for the DoD? That's a complicated question. We went through decades where I think defense spending could have been drawn down a lot and some of the wars or involvement avoided. However, China is busy ramping up their military spending at an alarming rate. I'm unsure if it would be wise for us to draw down while they are ramping up. I'm not suggesting we ramp up, but we also don't want to drop our defenses.

[Isgrimnur]

Ancient books influenced my view on government bureaucratic waste. They were written by Martin Gross and were called "Government Waste from A to Z".

I can't find any ebook versions available from the original or updated versions to review, so I'll take Copilot at your word.

Expensive Research Projects: Funding for projects like the National Swine Research Center, which Gross critiques for its questionable necessity.

Not like swine catch the flu or anything.

National Swine Resource and Research Center Publications, a selection

Fetal bone engraftment reconstitutes the immune system in pigs with severe combined immunodeficiency.
Impaired Skeletal Development by Disruption of Presenilin-1 in Pigs and Generation of Novel Pig Models for Alzheimer’s Disease.
Prolonged xenokidney graft survival in sensitized NHP recipients by expression of multiple human transgenes in a triple knockout pig.
Disruption of anthrax toxin receptor 1 in pigs leads to a rare disease phenotype and protection from senecavirus A infection.
A porcine model system of BRCA1 driven breast cancer.
Young Ossabaw Pigs Fed a Western Diet Exhibit Early Signs of Diabetic Retinopathy.

I'm no scientist, but these papers seem like they might have some value in furthering research that would benefit humans.

[Isgrimnur]

Amazon, editorial review

Gross estimates that the federal government fritters away at least $375 billion annually on questionable programs and projects, such as the National Swine Research Center ($13 million) ... Though Gross sometimes expects readers to be outraged without fully explaining why (he never reveals, for instance, what the National Swine Research Center actually does),

[Isgrimnur]

One more, and I'll stop.

S. Rept. 115-150 - DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR ... BILL, 2018

Mr. Blunt, from the Committee on Appropriations, submitted the following REPORT

[To accompany S. 1771]
...
Cystic Fibrosis [CF].--The Committee applauds the work of NIH to support translational research tools that spur the development of new therapies for rare diseases like cystic fibrosis. Animal models are critical tools for understanding disease progression and identifying potential new treatments. The National Swine Resource and Research Center [NSRRC], funded by the NIH and hosted at the University of Missouri, provides services to develop swine models of many genetic conditions, like cystic fibrosis, to facilitate research and drug development for these diseases. The Committee encourages the continuation of jointly funded clinical research programs occurring at CF care centers in Missouri and across the country. One such project, the OPTIMIZE study, has brought together hospital systems in nearly 30 States to compare treatments for lung infections in those with CF to determine if a commonly used combination of antibiotics is safe and effective. Real world clinical trials such as this one are often only supported by NIH and non-profit organizations, and they may significantly improve care and treatment for people with serious, life-threatening diseases such as cystic fibrosis.

I believe that Senator Roy Blunt (R) of Missouri.

[RunningMn9]

So, out of curiosity, what qualifies Michael Gross to determine what is wasteful? So he doesn’t think we should spend $13M on whatever the Swine Institute is researching…why is that compelling?

There’s certainly going to be some redundancy, and at least superficially that feels like money can be saved there through efficiency improvements. My experience has been that you never see the savings you think you are going to see from that.

I have a personal tale that I’m going to try to obfuscate enough that I don’t get in trouble.

The project I worked on was around for about 10 years by the time I got to it. Weapon system deployed on ancient 2003 hardware. About 10 years ago, and attempt was made to port that solution to a new platform. That effort was a complete disaster. It took 6 years, with a team that ranged from 12 to 20 developers at various times.

The disaster existed for one reason - they tried to save money by reusing code from the legacy project. About half way through when the shit was hitting the fan, I wrote a proposal to start from scratch.

I was told no, there was no money for that. A couple of years later there was no choice. We had to start over. I took one other dev and we spent 13 months developing a new SW architecture and implementing it. That project cost about 1/10th as its predecessor, and had about a 90% increase in software quality by applying modern SW engineering techniques and getting rid of 15 years of technical debt.

It’s been a wild success story. Tomorrow I have to go to a meeting where I’m going to be told to throw it in the trash, because the powers that be want a common SW backbone for all applications of this type (even though the different products are not really the same - they just use similar terminology).

The moral of this story is that commonality always sound more efficient. Always. But many times the cheapest answer is to create simple solutions tailored to the specific capability needed.

Sharing is caring! But it can also dramatically increase complexity when multiple stakeholders are driving requirements of a single shared component. There’s increased complexity in the design to accommodate many masters. There’s new and difficult to resolve schedule issues between mostly unrelated programs.

No one thinks of that when the sweet marking slide deck talks about the mad efficiency gains you get going from four seemingly similar things to one shared “common” thing.

In other words, government spending can be incredibly complex, and seemingly simple “solutions” to “problems” that may not actually exist, can have widespread second order effects that make it impossible to realize those gains.

Or maybe I’m just really salty about having the thing I’ve worked so hard on for 7 years is about to be thrown in the trash.

[RunningMn9]

Also, was that book written when pork barrel spending was still a thing? Getting rid of that might be more efficient based on business principles but man has it been an unmitigated disaster when it comes to a functional Congress.

Many times you cannot use “common sense” of normal private industry metrics to measure government efficiency because the government isn’t always optimizing for cost the way that Walmart would.

I have to make cost trade offs all the time to save lives. Sometimes other outcomes are more important than cost.

[Unagi]

Donald Trump signs executive order pushing proof of citizenship to vote

Well, here we go.


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... 0c4c&ei=34

[Smoove_B]

I have a personal tale that I’m going to try to obfuscate enough that I don’t get in trouble.

Let's just move this over to Signal and I'll tell you everything you didn't hear about COVID-19.

[RunningMn9]

Donald Trump signs executive order pushing proof of citizenship to vote

Well, here we go.


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... 0c4c&ei=34

That’s a fairly useless EO even as EO goes. I did see a good analogy today for folks to keep in mind when he signs these dumb things. They are basically just memos to employees. It doesn’t grant them the power to break laws. So if he does dumb stuff like this, the only real practical outcome is lawsuits.

[Holman]

Donald Trump signs executive order pushing proof of citizenship to vote

Well, here we go.


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... 0c4c&ei=34

That’s a fairly useless EO even as EO goes. I did see a good analogy today for folks to keep in mind when he signs these dumb things. They are basically just memos to employees. It doesn’t grant them the power to break laws. So if he does dumb stuff like this, the only real practical outcome is lawsuits.

But it also pushes the Overton Window and gives marching orders to state legislatures and even the US Congress.

[RunningMn9]

It doesn’t do anything more than him saying it, which he’s done a million times. If today is the day you found out that this dumb motherfucker wants you to have to prove citizenship to register to vote, I don’t know what to say.

[Smoove_B]

Right. The issue is that it directs DOGE and the Department of Homeland Security to start auditing shit - which they're going to do, regardless of whether or not they can (SEE: The last 63 days). At some point (definitely not immediately) there will be a lawsuit and they might be ordered to cease. Will the damage have been done by then? Will DOGE have a list of "questionable" voters they've now handed off to DHS for them to follow up on and disappear to Guatemala or wherever they're sending them next month?

As long as he stinks up that Oval Office, he's going to keep signing this nonsense, overwhelming anyone's ability to reasonably respond quickly. It's malicious whack-a-mole, nonstop trying to use the right legal methods to constantly respond to this. The only time he's not dispensing nonsense is when he's golfing all weekend (every weekend for the last 2 months) and even that I'm not sure about as Stephen Miller is likely auto-penning all kinds of horrific shit on the weekends as well.

[$iljanus]

Right. The issue is that it directs DOGE and the Department of Homeland Security to start auditing shit - which they're going to do, regardless of whether or not they can (SEE: The last 63 days). At some point (definitely not immediately) there will be a lawsuit and they might be ordered to cease. Will the damage have been done by then? Will DOGE have a list of "questionable" voters they've now handed off to DHS for them to follow up on and disappear to Guatemala or wherever they're sending them next month?

As long as he stinks up that Oval Office, he's going to keep signing this nonsense, overwhelming anyone's ability to reasonably respond quickly. It's malicious whack-a-mole, nonstop trying to use the right legal methods to constantly respond to this. The only time he's not dispensing nonsense is when he's golfing all weekend (every weekend for the last 2 months) and even that I'm not sure about as Stephen Miller is likely auto-penning all kinds of horrific shit on the weekends as well.

And in their multi pronged attack on our democracy, various law firms are threatened with cancellation of their government contracts and security clearances so they are less likely to take up cases that run afoul of the administration.

When legal remedies become prohibitive or judges get sanctioned or reined in through some Congressional action what will be left for the people...

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

-written by some disgruntled folks around 250 years ago.

[RunningMn9]

DOGE cannot audit stat election policies.

[LordMortis]

And in their multi pronged attack on our democracy, various law firms are threatened with cancellation of their government contracts and security clearances so they are less likely to take up cases that run afoul of the administration.

Imagine you are part of the legal system dying to get funded by the government to test dozens of laws a week by EO fiat. Now imagine you are part of the legal system having your funds drained by the government to defend against the destruction of law from dozens of EOs a week.

[Zarathud]

It’s not just a shakedown of law firms, but expressly their clients too. Over the speech and representation, which is a clear violation of the First Amendment rights.

Any charity or law firm that fights back gets targeted in their pocketbook. Its tyranny.

[Smoove_B]

DOGE cannot audit stat election policies.

A dog can't play basketball!

I guarantee you there's a state voting authority that is moist right now at the idea of DOGE and DHS coming in and auditing their records. Moist.

[msduncan]

DOGE cannot audit stat election policies.

Moreover, aren't there SCOTUS decisions (recently over the past 5 years or so) that say how a State conducts it's elections is up to the State? Seems like I remember at least one decision that said that.

[Smoove_B]

Oh yeah, this Administration is also very big on state's rights - as long as they're the right ones.

[ImLawBoy]

The project I worked on was around for about 10 years by the time I got to it. Weapon system deployed on ancient 2003 hardware. About 10 years ago, and attempt was made to port that solution to a new platform. That effort was a complete disaster. It took 6 years, with a team that ranged from 12 to 20 developers at various times.

The disaster existed for one reason - they tried to save money by reusing code from the legacy project. About half way through when the shit was hitting the fan, I wrote a proposal to start from scratch.

I was told no, there was no money for that. A couple of years later there was no choice. We had to start over. I took one other dev and we spent 13 months developing a new SW architecture and implementing it. That project cost about 1/10th as its predecessor, and had about a 90% increase in software quality by applying modern SW engineering techniques and getting rid of 15 years of technical debt.

It’s been a wild success story. Tomorrow I have to go to a meeting where I’m going to be told to throw it in the trash, because the powers that be want a common SW backbone for all applications of this type (even though the different products are not really the same - they just use similar terminology).

The moral of this story is that commonality always sound more efficient. Always. But many times the cheapest answer is to create simple solutions tailored to the specific capability needed.

Sharing is caring! But it can also dramatically increase complexity when multiple stakeholders are driving requirements of a single shared component. There’s increased complexity in the design to accommodate many masters. There’s new and difficult to resolve schedule issues between mostly unrelated programs.

No one thinks of that when the sweet marking slide deck talks about the mad efficiency gains you get going from four seemingly similar things to one shared “common” thing.

In other words, government spending can be incredibly complex, and seemingly simple “solutions” to “problems” that may not actually exist, can have widespread second order effects that make it impossible to realize those gains.

FWIW, that sounds like the kind of waste and inefficiency that goes on in private companies all the time. In other words, making the government operate more like a private business is not necessarily a recipe for efficiency.

[El Guapo]

DOGE cannot audit stat election policies.

A dog can't play basketball!

I guarantee you there's a state voting authority that is moist right now at the idea of DOGE and DHS coming in and auditing their records. Moist.

Yeah, there are at least two GOP-gerrymandered purple states (NC, WI) where the GOP legislatures would be more than happy to use this order as a pretext to set DOGE / MAGA friendly people loose in their blue cities.

RM9's right that this memo has little legal authority. But we're already effectively post-law where Trump is concerned. And you'd better believe that there will be MAGA paramilitary groups flashing this order around at blue city polling stations in 2026.

[Unagi]

[Skinypupy]

as long as they're the right ones.

I see what you did there.

[LordMortis]

Josh Johnson is rapidly becoming my favorite comedian. To step away from the Signal violations that the GOP Administration doesn't know anything about, I thought this last bit poignant.

[Smoove_B]

I see what you did there.

I know this keeps getting mentioned, but I really want to point out that the use of services like Signal is explicitly mentioned in Project 2025 as a way to avoid detection and FOIA requirements.

[LordMortis]

The GOP administration keeps insisting they are not cutting food or medicine or social security and yet... again and again and again their actions show a different outcome

https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids ... -bank.html

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — About 32 truckloads of food for Feeding America West Michigan have been delayed or canceled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Ken Estelle, the food bank’s president and CEO, said the truckloads equated to about 600,000 pounds of food and would have arrived between April and July. The food is worth about $1.1 million and was to be provided through the USDA’s Emergency Food Assistance Program, he said.

https://www.livenowfox.com/news/seattle ... rity-error

WASHINGTON - A Seattle man was mistakenly declared dead by the Social Security Administration (SSA), leading to the sudden loss of his benefits, Medicare coverage, and even access to his bank funds, according to The Seattle Times.

Leonard "Ned" Johnson, 82, first learned of the error when his wife received a condolence letter from their bank in February. The letter informed her that Social Security had reported Johnson as deceased — and as a result, his December and January benefits had been clawed back, totaling $5,201, The Seattle Times reported.

The error also cut off his February and March payments, canceled his Medicare coverage, and flagged his credit score as belonging to a deceased person, making it impossible to obtain new credit.

[Zarathud]

These situations will be used by the Republicans to show government “incompetence” rather than their own.

Complaints are treason, citizen. Please report to the nearest deportation booth.

[Blackhawk]

Yes, Computer.

[Zaxxon]

Disgusting.

[Smoove_B]

Disgusting.

If this was related to military combat, I'm pretty sure it would be a war crime. But I guess here it's just for a campaign sizzle reel.

[LordMortis]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congre ... rcna197986

WASHINGTON — Facing pressure from his right flank to take on judges who have ruled against President Donald Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Tuesday floated the possibility of Congress eliminating some federal courts.

It’s the latest attack from Republicans on the federal judiciary, as courts have blocked a series of actions taken by the Trump administration. In addition to funding threats, Trump and his conservative allies have called for the impeachment of certain federal judges who have ruled against him, most notably U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who attempted to halt Trump from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants.
Mike Johnson.
Mike Johnson at the U.S. Capitol on March 11, 2025.Kayla Bartkowski / Getty Images file

“We do have the authority over the federal courts, as you know. We can eliminate an entire district court. We have power of funding over the courts and all these other things,” Johnson told reporters on Tuesday. “But desperate times call for desperate measures, and Congress is going to act.”

....words...

[msduncan]

I see what you did there.

I know this keeps getting mentioned, but I really want to point out that the use of services like Signal is explicitly mentioned in Project 2025 as a way to avoid detection and FOIA requirements.

I know it would take a nation-state about 5 mins to hack into something like Signal, but you can damn well believe our adversaries like China had that already in the hopper, figured out, and monitored by the time they used it (along with every other similar app).

[msduncan]

PS - part of my job in real life is to guide potential solutions through technology security vetting. I don't do the vetting myself, but I gather all the info, work with the vendor, etc.

I wonder if they at least implemented Single Sign On with it?

[stessier]

I thought Signal was actually supposed to be secure. You can hack the phones it is on and read the screens, but intercepting and decoding the messages was supposed to be beyond hard.

[msduncan]

I thought Signal was actually supposed to be secure. You can hack the phones it is on and read the screens, but intercepting and decoding the messages was supposed to be beyond hard.

I'll admit I don't know anything about Signal. If it is secure, then I suppose not adding random people to the chat is key.

Also, in my experience if it's online it's not safe from state-level hacking. It might take them longer, but it's usually not safe.

[pr0ner]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congre ... rcna197986

WASHINGTON — Facing pressure from his right flank to take on judges who have ruled against President Donald Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Tuesday floated the possibility of Congress eliminating some federal courts.

It’s the latest attack from Republicans on the federal judiciary, as courts have blocked a series of actions taken by the Trump administration. In addition to funding threats, Trump and his conservative allies have called for the impeachment of certain federal judges who have ruled against him, most notably U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who attempted to halt Trump from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants.
Mike Johnson.
Mike Johnson at the U.S. Capitol on March 11, 2025.Kayla Bartkowski / Getty Images file

“We do have the authority over the federal courts, as you know. We can eliminate an entire district court. We have power of funding over the courts and all these other things,” Johnson told reporters on Tuesday. “But desperate times call for desperate measures, and Congress is going to act.”

....words...

FYI, this is part of why a prolonged federal government shutdown would give Trump et al. even more unchecked power. Once the extra funding for the judiciary dried up, the courts would shut down, and then....

[IceBear]

I probably should put this in the Canada thread, but that one is more about the upcoming election now, so I'll put it here:

March 26th, 2025 PT IV - White House spokeswoman, Anna Kelly, when asked about Canadians' fears of traveling to the US due to threat of detention says:
"Canadians will no longer have to worry about the inconveniences of international travel when they become American citizens as residents of our cherished 51st state"

So, Americans and Canadians don't travel to any other countries? What will Americans pin to their backpacks to avoid unwanted attention if the Canadian flag is no more. This 51st State bullshit needs to stop.

[Rumpy]

I thought Signal was actually supposed to be secure. You can hack the phones it is on and read the screens, but intercepting and decoding the messages was supposed to be beyond hard.

I would assume there would be different levels of how secure something can be; Can Signal be good enough for the average company/indvidual, probably yes. Is it good enough to be using it within a government handling military ops, especially when the appmaker themselves tell us it shouldn't be used that way, then probably not.

At the end of the day, they chose to use it, nobody put a gun to their head and so they only have themselves to blame for this huge mess.

I probably should put this in the Canada thread, but that one is more about the upcoming election now, so I'll put it here:

I like how she conveniently avoids the question and the concern altogether to serve up the standard line, meanwhile it's part of the reason why we're so concerned in the first place. She is really tone deaf.

[Skinypupy]

They’re totally going to restore those Confederate monuments, aren’t they?

Restoring Trust and Sanity to American History” executive order..

Otherwise known as The “Frail, insecure, white manbabies have to be told they’re the bestest, strongest, bigliest ‘Muricans to ever ‘Murica or else they’ll throw yet another whiny-ass tantrum” Act.

[msduncan]

Is there a limit to the number of pages a thread can be? We are at page 49 and we have 46 months left of this.

At the current rate, we'll have approximately 1176 pages when it's all said and done.