In a Last-Minute Decision, White House Decides Not To Terminate NASA Employees (arstechnica.com) 348
Late Tuesday afternoon, the White House confirmed that it would not proceed with laying off more than 1,000 probationary employees at NASA. "NASA had sought exemptions for all of these employees, who comprise about 6 percent of NASA's workforce," notes Ars Technica. "The Trump administration has sought to fire federal employees at several federal agencies who are in the 'probationary' period of their employment. This includes new hires within the last one or two years or long-time employees who have moved into or been promoted into a new position." From the report: It was not immediately clear why. A NASA spokesperson in Washington, DC, offered no comment on the updated guidance. Two sources indicated that it was plausible that private astronaut Jared Isaacman, whom President Trump has nominated to lead the space agency, asked for the cuts to be put on hold.
Although this could not be confirmed, it seems reasonable that Isaacman would want to retain some control over where cuts at the agency are made. Firing all probationary employees -- which is the most expedient way to reduce the size of government -- is a blunt instrument. It whacks new hires that the agency may have recruited for key positions, as well as high performers who earned promotions.
The reprieve in these terminations does not necessarily signal that NASA will escape significant budget or employment cuts in the coming months. The administration could still seek to terminate probationary employees. In addition, Ars reported earlier that directors at the agency's field centers have been told to prepare options for a "significant" reduction in force in the coming months. The scope of these cuts has not been defined, and it's likely they would need to be negotiated with Congress.
Although this could not be confirmed, it seems reasonable that Isaacman would want to retain some control over where cuts at the agency are made. Firing all probationary employees -- which is the most expedient way to reduce the size of government -- is a blunt instrument. It whacks new hires that the agency may have recruited for key positions, as well as high performers who earned promotions.
The reprieve in these terminations does not necessarily signal that NASA will escape significant budget or employment cuts in the coming months. The administration could still seek to terminate probationary employees. In addition, Ars reported earlier that directors at the agency's field centers have been told to prepare options for a "significant" reduction in force in the coming months. The scope of these cuts has not been defined, and it's likely they would need to be negotiated with Congress.
Conflict of interest? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Conflict of interest? (Score:3)
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You misunderstand the goal of those cuts, they are to make government not work. That way la Presidenta can make all programs subservient to la Presidenta. He needs to see the petitioners come before him and kneel:
You are my shepherd,
I shall not think.
We only beg for your favor,
to your depths we may sink.
Re:Conflict of interest? (Score:5, Insightful)
Definitely not, they don't care about that at all. Everything they are doing is visibly illegal. More likely they figured out it would impede SpaceX somehow.
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Or they would rather those companies supporting the SLS petition la Presidenta to contribute directly to his bank account.
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No, there isn't a conflict of interest: SpaceX requires that NASA be a working part of the government otherwise it won't get any contracts. There's not going to be an all-expenses-paid-by-the-government mission to either Mars or the Moon without NASA.
Nobody in the Trump administration cares about "conflicts of interest", Musk has been quite openly firing those who regulate his companies. The thing is the FDA, for example, doesn't have to exist for Neuralink to exist. The government isn't the group buying Ne
Re: Conflict of interest? (Score:3)
Re: Conflict of interest? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Conflict of interest? (Score:5, Informative)
Ukraine suffered a Russian invasion about 100 years ago. Roughly six million died, mostly of starvation, as Stalin's Marxist Russia took the cropland from the "1%", gave it to the farmworkers, the crops failed, and the Russians stole what they could to feed their own starving millions. It was called the Holodomor, and it's critical to understanding why Ukraine so desperately resists Communism and Russia's attempt to force them into it.
Re: Conflict of interest? (Score:5, Insightful)
It was actually worse than you describe. Much of the wheat was exported for sale to make it look like the Russian economy was doing well to the outside world and to fund the government.
Production was crap because they put non-farmers in charge of the farms, but they still produced enough to feed the Ukrainians. They just chose not to.
Re: Holodomar (Score:5, Interesting)
My understanding, is that Ukraine farmers were small operations before Stalin decided to collectivise them under control of the
Meet the new boss. His was the old story of a ruthless visionary leveraging the chaos of upheaval in order to become dictator. Not sure Who said it, but we won't be fooled again. Not if we don't allow the details to be airbrushed out.
Here's the rest of the story:
The genocide wasn't the result of crop failure, but Stalin's forcibly seizing the harvest and selling it abroad as a fundraiser. The money was spent to hire foreign engineers in order to rapidly modernize the Soviet Union. His profligate spending left the farmers with nothing and resulted in the starvation of millions.
In a few short years, Stalin transformed Russia from feudalist empire to a modern industrial power. He even hired American engineers to travel to the Urals and build a replica of his favourite city in the whole.world, Gary Indiana, which he called Magnetograd. It is undetermined if it ever produced a Soviet Michael Jackson, but far from German bomber range it did provide the steel necessary to defeat Hitler.
The cost inflicted on Ukraine to repress rebellion was kept under wraps. No one really knows how many millions died because journalists were seductively kept focused on the luxurious urban spoils with no access to the countryside.
Additionally, passports were required for travel within the Soviet Union and denied to farmers who were essentially kept prisoners in their villages surrounded by armed guards.
The film Mr. Jones does a good job of illustrating the horror based on the true story of Gareth Jones, a Welsh journalist who travelled to Moscow as part of a press junket of foreign journos tightly controlled in the usual ways: fancy hotels, booze, hookers, friendly secret police as hosts and guides.
Jones finagled an official invite to Ukraine for the necessary travel papers. En route he managed to be separated from his handlers to end up in the middle of the horror.
He witnessed the wheat forcibly taken by soldiers and founds ghost towns of children left to their own; their parents executed. A dinner provided by the brother of one of his hosts is particularly memoral. The risks he took to break the story are quite heroic.
It's a great film for an introduction to the events. Below is a link to a more academic account.
https://cla.umn.edu/chgs/holoc... [umn.edu]
Re: Conflict of interest? (Score:3)
Re: Conflict of interest? (Score:5, Informative)
Seem to remember a couple million dying under Mr How bout We Try Bleach last reign.
The actual number of total American deaths attributed directly to COVID is more like 1.1 million; not "a couple million," and additional excess deaths (deaths in excess of what statistics from previous years would support) are estimated to be in the 100,000 to 200,000 range. The real question, however, is not how many died, but how many deaths it is reasonable to ascribe to Trump's handling of the pandemic, which could charitably be called criminally negligent. It's hard to say, but there is no denying that his decisions -- despite the best efforts of domestic and international experts to inform him of the realities of the issues involved -- caused many, many unnecessary deaths. From his initial refusal to have his administration meet with the Obama administration transition team for the handover of data on existing pandemic response plans to his disbanding of the NSC pandemic response unit to his withdrawal from WHO cooperation that set back vaccine development to his continued denials about the virulence of the disease or the extent of its impact on the US to his innumerable public statements that encouraged unsafe behaviors and encouraged dangerous behaviors to his explicit role in propagating the disease by holding at least one superspreader event while he knew he was personally infected and communicable and while those attending the event were unaware, his willful actions that flew in the face of all advice he was given and all established medical knowledge clearly had a significant worsening impact, accelerating the progress of the disease and impeding the attempts to control it.
So how many people died as a direct result of Trump's extensive and astounding mismanagement of the crisis? Obviously we can never know the clear answer, but estimates put it the several hundred thousand range. If this is accurate, that means that hundreds of thousands of Americans were effectively killed as a direct result of Trump's willful actions that were taken in direct contradiction of the advice of the relevant experts.
Normally, it would be reasonable to accept that decisions made in good faith to address an unprecedented crisis which turned out in hindsight to be the wrong decisions are excusable due to the whole unprecedented and unknowable part -- but Trump's decisions were not made in good faith, and here I refer back to the whole "direct contradiction of the advice of the relevant experts" part. This negligence on his part is not criminally actionable, but it certainly seems criminal.
Re: Conflict of interest? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, if A isn't 100% perfect then we should absolutely choose the obviously much worse option B! Because we are smart! So smart!
Re: Conflict of interest? (Score:2)
Re: Conflict of interest? (Score:5, Informative)
can you remind me of the difference between their Covid plans?
Here's an honest answer to your snarky rhetorical question:
The Covid plans themselves were pretty similar, because they were the same plan, as developed by the professionals at the CDC, which was composed of largely the same people under both administrations, who were following best practices.
The difference, to the extent that there was a difference, was that Biden took the CDC's recommendations seriously and encouraged people to follow them, whereas Trump only cared about policy to the extent that it made him personally look good or bad (hence Trump wanting to avoid testing because more testing means more cases being reported means bad headlines for him, Trump not really caring about the problem until it started to hit Red States, Trump playing amateur-scientist at press conferences and talking up folk remedies like horse medicines and bleach, Trump refusing to wear a mask and publicly vacillating about whether vaccines and masks are effective or not, depending on his audience, etc)
In short, Biden showed leadership, while Trump, as always, showed only self-interest.
Re: Conflict of interest? (Score:5, Informative)
Trump tried to 1 up himself by firing the bird flu responders and putting an anti-vaxxer in charge of health.
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink.
Re: Conflict of interest? (Score:5, Funny)
But if they do end up drinking foul water and getting parasites, that's what ivermectin is for!
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The ability to believe el Bunko (TDS), Elmo (MDS), and that the other fool (RDS) seems to be a right wingnut thing.
Re: Conflict of interest? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Conflict of interest? (Score:5, Interesting)
Hitler also won an election, what's your point?
And no, Trump being a Nazi is not an "old narrative". And him being senile was something everyone was pointing out during the 2024 elections, so that's not new either. And neither actually contradict one another. These are both valid criticisms of a senile Nazi who's surrounded himself by fellow believers including a billionaire neo-nazi who appears to have taken advantage of Trump's legal, financial, and mental issues to take control.
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The moderation on this site is wild.
An AC posts nothing but literal historical fact and gets modded down to troll.
WTF? Lmao
Historical fact skewed by misunderstanding the German parliamentary system. Hitler won the 1932 election [dw.com] by getting more votes than any other candidate, thus putting more of his supporters into Parliament. That's why he was appointed Chancellor. So I would argue that the GP post is disingenuous pedantry, at best.
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Because we all know how fond Hitler was of communists.
Dude, your best move now is just to STFU.
That is a false equivalency, and are you seriously denying that Trump's rhetoric and actions are ripped directly from Hitler's playbook?
Re: Conflict of interest? (Score:5, Informative)
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Yes, because VPs famously direct policy. *eyeroll*
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If the Biden family did illegal shit they should get in trouble because no one is above the law, but we're talking about NASA and the current administration so try to keep up.
Re: Conflict of interest? (Score:2)
Re: Conflict of interest? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmm, the SLS is a set of designs that is provided by private companies, (Aerojet Rocketdyne, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and ULA), and based on their existing designs. In a way it is overpriced BECAUSE it's contracted to the private sector. If anything it's not designed by NASA, it's designed by a bunch of congressmen and senators to keep happy the companies that reside in the states they represent.
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Re: Conflict of interest? (Score:2)
Tell me where would "the private sector" be without the NASA R&D spending and development and the government grants. Don't, actually, I know, the "private sector" would simply not exist.
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Tell me where would "the private sector" be without the NASA R&D spending and development and the government grants. Don't, actually, I know, the "private sector" would simply not exist.
You're quite right, but I think the operating consideration here isn't "the private sector" so much as "Elon Musk's customer base for future SpaceX contracts".
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Slashing parts (especially the headcount) at NASA will not reap savings in the SLS program. If anything, it'll make SLS more expensive, because it'll either 1) cause delays, or 2) reduce oversight of the companies actually building the hardware.
You're barkin' up the wrong tree. Take your ire to Congress, who insists that we keep shoveling money into this poorly-conceived program. Not
Re: Conflict of interest? (Score:5, Insightful)
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That may be what he said. But we don't actually know if that's true in practice, do we? All we've been told is that Musk will be self-policing. (Because we all know how restrained, non-impulsive, and letter-of-the-law Musk is.) But Musk's disclosures haven't been publicly released. Trump (illegally) fired all the inspectors general. Musk and his team have been (illegally) granted access to his and his co
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Let's try that again:
What is 'visible' here is there a large part of our society that does not care at all what Trump or Elon say or do, only that they said or did it and therefore it is to be praised. Even inactions are to be praised. It is naked its transparent and to borrow some language "sad."
Re: Conflict of interest? (Score:3, Insightful)
Trumpers (Score:4, Insightful)
The more details we here the stupider Musk and Trump seem to be.
First they had to rehire all the nuclear safety experts
Then they had to rehire the experts working on containing the bird flu outbreak.
Now they were going to just fire 1,000 NASA people without even knowing what they do.
Utter incompetence.
Trump pwned by Putin? (Score:5, Interesting)
Given the latest news about the "negotiations" in Saudi Arabia between the US and Russia, and Trump blaming Ukraine [theguardian.com] for the war in Ukraine, it really looks as though Putin owns Trump.
How's that Trumpers, your president is owned by a former member of the KGB.
Re:Trump pwned by Putin? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no such thing as a former member of the KGB. The name might have changed, but the KGB is the same and so are its agents.
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Similar is true for the CIA, which has produced US presidents like George H. W. Bush. It's not that unusual around the world.
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Ukraine could have stopped the war: all they had to do is roll over completely and let Russia take over and there would have been no war at all. So really, it's Ukraine's fault. In other, unrelated news "Land of the free" is to be replaced by executive order with "Land of Putin's subjects". The really annoying thing is it'll take a while to execute in practice because that blasted Ukraine has destroyed a vast amount of Russia's resources so it will take them a while to get going again given they have about
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No surprise, while Putin is not more evil than Trump (i.e. plenty evil), he is a lot more educated, intelligent and capable.
Re:Trump pwned by Putin? (Score:5, Informative)
How's that Trumpers, your president is owned by a former member of the KGB.
They honestly don't care and like Putin because he rules with an iron fist.
Re:Trump pwned by Putin? (Score:5, Informative)
Was he always a sociopath
Yes.
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You do not "become" a sociopath. You are born one. You can still become a decent person by actively compensating intellectually, i.e. by making a conscious decision to not do evil. But Musk does not have what it takes for that.
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Always. https://www.news24.com/fin24/e... [news24.com]
He says Elon once made a hurtful comment to a schoolmate about his father's suicide, and that the boy pushed his son down a staircase at school, injuring him so badly he had to be hospitalised.
Re:Trump pwned by Putin? (Score:5, Insightful)
At no point did Trump say in the video that was linked that he blames Ukraine for for the war. He blames them for not having made a deal in three years
I don't watch videos, but here's the quote, and I'll bold the relevant part for the anal pedants.
“Today I heard, ‘oh, well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years ... You should have never started it. You could have made a deal,” he said.
"It" here being the resistance to the russian aggression, that is, the war. It is not the first time trump makes this point - that any "weak" country should not rely on international law, but "cut a deal" when facing a predatory aggressive attacks by a "strong" one. He's also lying - repeating putin's lies - that it is somehow Ukraine's fault, just like Nazi Germany lied that it was Poland's fault not giving up territory.
It is basically the complete rejection of the US ideological position on "international law and order" for the past history and a full embrace of putinism and all other Nazisms that subscribe to that point. Even Kissinger wasn't so blunt, although he meant the same thing.
But it is good that there are still apologists who claim "a pedantic streak for precision" when they explain how outright lies are "technically true".
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Indeed. Trump is a real psycho these days, with no respect or understanding of anything.
Yes, you can react to getting attacked by just rolling over and giving the attacker everything they want. But should you? Most definitely not.
Re: Trump pwned by Putin? (Score:3)
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You've linked to a news outlet. In 2025 ALL news outlets are suspect and this is a prime example why: At no point did Trump say in the video that was linked that he blames Ukraine for for the war. He blames them for not having made a deal in three years, insinuating that they were left out of peace talks because they are incapable of it.
This is the most stupid argument I have ever heard in my life. Are you claiming that Poland was responsible for WWII? Putin invaded Ukraine twice. Twice. Please explain to the unenlightened ones what deal could Ukraine make?
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Russia is not on its last leg. It is moving forward, albeit very slowly. Russia throughout history has always been best when the wars it's fighting last over years. They gave a lot of ground at every invasion (Napoleon, Hitler), but then came back with a vengeance and always prevailed in the end.
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They have some deep economic and political problems. Paying for Ukraine's invasion has been _much_ more expensive than Russia anticipated, they thought they'd be looting a farmland of Europe before now. And so far, approximately 18,000 Russian troops have deserted. That many desertions is a *very* bad sign for an invading army.
Re:Trump pwned by Putin? (Score:5, Informative)
They gave a lot of ground at every invasion (Napoleon, Hitler)
Those were invasions of Russia and they used the vast scale of their land and their cold winters to defeat those invading armies. This time Russia is doing the invading.
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Re: Trump pwned by Putin? (Score:2)
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Old news.
Anyone who trusts a politician is stupid.
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Musk has very publicly demonstrated competence in a wide range of fields.
Evidence is showing that the existing non-elected bureaucrats have demonstrated wide ranging incompetence.
Dispute it all you want...you're pissing in the wind.
Re: Trumpers (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Trumpers (Score:2)
The only field elona has shown competence is selling bullshit.
Re: Trumpers (Score:2)
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So when the President appoints someone to lead a government agency, they're not an unelected bureaucrat. When that agency head hires employees, they are not unelected bureaucrats either. It's all an extension of the President. So there is no such thing as an unelected bureaucrat. They are just executing the directives of Congress, as elected by the people.
Thanks, Musk! (Score:2)
Gotta keep all the NASA people bowing down and licking your boots.
Cut whole programmes instead (Score:3)
Maybe they have noticed something? (Score:2)
Maybe that "move fast and destroy things" is pretty stupid? Naaa, unlikely.
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...who's bringing the astronauts back?
Boeing/ULA/SLS?
Re: Maybe they have noticed something? (Score:2)
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It might be ok for companies. They're easy to replace. It's a disaster for governments.
Indeed. Governments need to function, even inefficiently, or things go completely to hell.
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Musk was able to take Twitter completely into dumpster fire status and still keep it alive (to an extent). I think he's misunderstanding a bit about the scale and complexity of the entire federal government. There is no recovering from this in just a few years' time.
Re: Maybe they have noticed something? (Score:5, Insightful)
People who voted for him are losing their jobs (Score:5, Insightful)
That is the most likely reason for this delay. It's suddenly dawning on them that all their sycophantic groveling hasn't gone the way they expected. They thought those people would suffer the consequences of opposing the dear leader when the reality is they are just as likely to get caught in the carpet bombing. It's getting so bad they are now desperately pleading with President Musk [thehill.com] to take a second look at what he's doing and not be so hasty.
To which I say, have it. Cut all you want. When things go off the rails people will get what they wanted and can stammer even more at how they're sticking it to the libs.
Re:People who voted for him are losing their jobs (Score:5, Insightful)
To add on in agreement, key to the 'Trump followers pleading with Musk to take a second look' is not that damage is being done to the government, it's (to quote thehill article):
"There are good people, people that voted for Donald Trump, who are losing their job," Levi said."
Unfortunately it's not 'things are off the rails', it's back to 'wait, I didn't think this would also affect our side too'.
SpaceX needs NASA personnel to sign contracts (Score:3)
Expect NASA to focus all business away from competing agencies to SpaceX in the name of "efficiency". Not that Boeing has been a competent competitor, having a single vendor for geo-synchronous capable spacecraft is risky. And letting the Russians continue in their bulk launch role has its own risks.
Not cut to Musk's interests (Score:2)
You can be sure that people working on CLPS and SpaceX will be spared and those departments increased. Total putinization of USA.
Why? (Score:3)
This is probably what's going on (Score:4, Interesting)
Trump always has a plan. Many people that dislike him think he doesn't but this is quite wrong. The plan may have only been thought of yesterday and/or it may be terrible, but there is always a reason for what he does. In my opinion, NASA has been run really well at least since the first Trump administration if not longer. The last couple of heads of NASA were terrific and Isaacman may end up being excellent too. Trump does actually care about space and his own legacy. We were already supposed to be back to the moon under Biden, but as always happens, there are always some kind of delays that push stuff out and Biden just shrugged them off. I think Trump is going to force NASA to get its crap together and get people back to the moon. There are plans for a permanent moon base. It would be a huge accomplishment for Trump to actually get this stuff done, so my guess is Isaacman pointed out that NASA isn't a problem and hasn't been a problem and keeping its employees around is a better way to get us back to the moon than randomly laying off people who work there. We need to get back to the moon and if Trump and his buddy Musk can accomplish that goal soon instead of the usual "Gee, maybe in 10+ years we can think about doing it" stuff that we've been getting, then more power to them.
Re: This is probably what's going on (Score:3)
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Re:Trans. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not a Trump or Musk fan, but get back to us when they start dragging trans people off to gas chambers ok?
It's way past too late at that point. It's also pretty bad that you find anything up to that point to be not worth bothering you with.
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Re: Trans. (Score:2)
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Re: Trans. (Score:2)
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Re:Trans. (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody has to go anywhere to experience fascism and dictatorship, because it's happening right here. Trump is ignoring judges right now. The system failed to protect us from treason and the constitutional crisis is not coming any more, it is here and we are failing.
Seriously, you and people like you need a dictionary.
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I think that's the most encouraging thing I'll read all day!
OK, Putin. Don't you have a war to lose?
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Just wait a bit, we won't have to travel the world to see what real dictatorships, fascism, and oppression look like.
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My neighbor grew up in Haiti and has lived in the USA for decades. He said he's witnessed this happening before and it isn't good.
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Seriously, dude? By then it will be way too late. Hitler hasn't started being oppressive with the introduction of gas chambers in 1939, you know. He started in 1933 with discriminating laws that removed rights from the kinds of citizens he hated - like forbidding jews to practice law and medicine, working in education or for the government. Two years later the jews had their citizenship revoked and were forbidden to marry or even just fuck germans. Another two years later children of jews couldn't inherit a
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Trump may be a fool but he's no hitler
True. Hitler had a dog.
Re:Trans. (Score:4, Informative)
First you insist that people should try to live in a dictatorship before understanding this. Now, when someone who was born and raised in one finds flaws in your logic, you suddenly insist I should try to understand history. I am German, you dumbass. I know the history.
Re: Trans. (Score:2)
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If someone beats the shit out of you are you okay with is because you didn't die? I just want you to reflect on your personal experience here, because this is precisely how you are treating others.
And yes moderators please moderate accordingly take into account the following statement, I don't care:
Viol8 I think you are one of the worst pieces of shit of a human being here.
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Yeah, Gitmo is full of non-violent immigrants. It's not full of serial killers and rapists. It's full of that guy next door who mows lawns. That's certainly the place to put random dudes.
You sound like a Nazi sympathizer. That's what they said, too. They will only take the criminal Jews, they said. They will only take the criminal gays, they said. They will only take the criminal schoolteachers, they said.
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You realize we still have state and local government, right? And that OUR states, are the size of YOUR countries?
We're cheering power and funds going back to where they belong.
Trump's budget has a $4.5B tax cut for the rich SO FAR.
That money has to come from somewhere.
You think it's going to come from cuts, but if they actually cut that much from the federal government then it will be literally years before even the states which care can bring up their own agencies to fulfill the same functions only not as well because they will not have nationwide funding and influence.
The red states which run a deficit (hint: almost all of them) will not be able to do it, of course. They were b
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