Pete Hegseth’s DOD Says It Is Too Fragile to Make 16 New Badges
The government has filed a request that Judge William Alsup stay his order requiring six agencies to reinstate fired employees pending their appeal to the Ninth Circuit. In support, the six agencies submitted declarations — most of which appear to be based off the same template, making the same claims — talking about what a hardship it would be to have to reinstate those people.
A declaration from Timothy Dill, “performing the duties of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Reserve Affairs,” confesses to a truly shocking level of ineptitude at Pete Hegseth’s DOD. Though only 16 people were fired, Dill says it would cause great hardship — potentially even whiplash!!!! — to reinstate those 16 people.
8. Department records indicate that it fired 16 total probationary employees on or about February 13 and 14, 2025.
9. The Court’s order, requiring the Department to reinstate all probationary employees terminated on or about February 13 and 14, 2025, will impose substantial burdens on the Department, cause significant confusion, and potentially subject terminated employees to extreme whiplash.
10. Offers of reinstatement will impose significant administrative burdens on the Department. Among other things, all reinstated employees will require onboarding, including certain training, filling out human resources paperwork, obtaining new security badges, and re-enrolling in benefits programs.
Worse still, an agency that employs 950,000 people would have to make 16 new badges.
I absolutely expected DOD to degrade quickly under the leadership vacuum appointment of such an unqualified man as Pete Hegseth would create.
But holy hell!?!?!?
The Department of Defense would face significant hardship because they had to make 16 new badges?
How does Pete Hegseth expect to take on China if his department can’t manage making 16 new badges?
Sixteen badges and their associated entries into appropriate databases? The DoD would have to do more work than that to document a visiting delegation from Congress or a defense contractor. Sixteen is just over the size of an army squad, the second smallest tactical unit, after a team. The hardest part about the DoD making sixteen new badges would be scheduling the work for a number that small.
Geez, I’l be the Navy Yard makes at least that many on Mondays for those who have lost their badges after a weekend bender.
Earl, Army squad is 9 soldiers unless assigned something like an m60 machine gun, then it’s possible to have more.
Hope this helps
Forcing these 16 folks to repeat all their onboarding training is designed to piss them off so much that they decide not to return to their jobs.
DoD clearly has serious problems if they can’t do even that much work. Obviously we need to change their leadership. How about some generals running the place?
How about some black men and women, generals, officers, people with know how, how about bringing them in to do the work the worthless managers you currently have are so loathe to do
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This whole process is to get rid of all Blacks and minorities in government and the private sector, even dead ones.
“Arlington Cemetery website drops links for Black, Hispanic, and women veterans
The website for Arlington National Cemetery “unpublished” links to lists of notable graves, walking tours and educational material pertaining to Black, Hispanic and women veterans, as well as some Medal of Honor recipients.”
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/arlington-cemetery-scrubs-website-dei/
Asian and Pacific Islanders, too.
My friends in Hawaii are incandescently angry at scrubbing the 442d — most decorated unit in the Army — from the Arlington website.
I, on the other hand, am of two minds about this. It is shameful and disgusting, but if it comes to a showdown, I want the military on my side. I think,– hope, anyway — that if the MAGAts keep impugning the honor of the serving soldiers, when that last order comes, they will either disobey or turn their guns on the people who despise them.
Calling Milley corpulent suggests, however, that Hegseth and his Drugstore Cowboys have a different understanding of honor, camraderie and mutual support than I do.
Women are actually a majority, so how does that impact this plan?
Paragraph 11 is oh-so-lovely, too:
Note the passive voice in that last sentence. Who, I wonder, might be responsible for such back-and-forth, up-and-down, in-and-out changes in those poor employees’ employment status?
Short Dill: “We have to keep these folks fired, for their own good. Their lives will be even more miserable because we will keep looking for ways to get rid of them, so it’s only in their best interests to remain fired.”
And note, the first sentence notwithstanding, there is nothing here about confusion for the agency. They are damned sure they are going to get rid of these folks one way or another. The only thing confusing is figuring out how they are going to accomplish that.
And that paragraph is one that appears to be in a template–it shows up in a bunch of these.
Kind of like the identical emails everyone got about being fired for poor performance, including folks who’d only been doing their onboarding and folks who’d gotten promoted for great performance.
These folks can’t even lie creatively.
Use people as ping pong balls, putting federal workers “in trauma”.
If Yoo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl6Tgi0WIxQ) could do it with foreigners, Vought can do it with Americans.
“emails everyone got about being fired for poor performance”
I’m partway through Katie Conger and Ryan Mac’s book`Character Limit’ about
Musk’s disastrous takeover of Twitter, and much of what’s been done to the Federal government in the last 7 weeks is straight out of what Musk and his goons did to Twitter. That includes firing people `for cause’ when the only cause was that they had stock options that would vest the next day. Mix in fire, ready, aim when it comes to making cuts, and a terminal case of Dunning-Kruger and we have a real problem..
Templates=Efficiency! It’s a big money saver! Billions!
All this pretextual boilerplate (especially since according to EW it seems like it’s serving as template) makes me wonder, who is writing this crap? It almost sounds like AI, except that the tone of sullen defensiveness smacks too much of human intervention.
Some of it also reminds me–in the flat mediocrity of the prose, with its evasive resorting to passive constructions (thanks, Peterr, for pointing this out)–of Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation product with input from contracted outside “experts.” Russell Vought did not write the whole thing; there’s a pool of ideologues who have adopted a singular (not in the good way) writing style. I would assume they were dumbing themselves down, but I fear that’s not the case.
These probably include the people who are also scrambling to revise recent history, to retcon our national memory in order to align it with MAGA lies. Ed Martin, Emil Bove–the Trump Borg. Those defying them, exemplified by Danielle Sassoon, write so remarkably better that there’s no comparison. There should be no argument, but the bad writers hold the (rigged) institutional power.
Let’s keep trying to catch them out with their words, and pray that their manifest stupidity trips them up…soon.
Thanks for this conversation, ALL!
The “flat mediocrity of the prose” and
“tone of sullen defensiveness” describe it perfectly, Ginevra!
This is really resonating with me. Challenge accepted!
Some lawyer had to put their name on that. I get that it’s a statement from someone else, but damn that must be depressing knowing you have to stand in front of any judge and risk getting asked pretty much any questions about that absurdity.
No.
Some lawyer *chose* to put their name on that: Timothy Dill. He is a political appointee who has been on the job since Jan 22, 2025. Dill’s previous position, per the DOD, was Ted Cruz’s National Security Advisor. Dill *chose* to work for Trump, and he can own putting his name on this.
Do NOT give him or anyone else who signs crap like this a pass.
Point well taken. Thank you for the sobering reminder of how far down the chain rejection of ethics and decency goes.
According to a Google search, Timothy Dill’s wife, Andrea Dill, is a lawyer for the Center for Christian Ministries at Alliance Defending Freedom. So likely Timothy Dill will always have status, community and a job, a ‘Christian warrior’ safety net, no matter how foolish everybody else thinks he looks.
In addition to the badges “hurdle” exactly what “training” has changed in the past 72 hours?
If “training” has changed in the past week, wouldn’t that imply ALL employees who were not fired are currently going through re-education camp as we speak?
Why couldn’t 16 more people join?
Perhaps the judge should add that because the government’s firings were a sham, any onboarding for new hires is unnecessary as the employees never actually left their jobs.
This made me smile.
The entirety of this is just whambulence crying. So, so sad Pete.
You’re not BMOC with insane ideas of “warrior culture”, plus the rest.
This crap will continue until a contempt ruling is handed down. It’s long past time.
A CAC card takes a few minutes. It’s no big deal, or wasn’t–until now.
I am confused as Judge Alsup kept telling government lawyer over and over he’s lying and no contempt?
“”It is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that is a lie,” Judge William Alsup…said.”
And also he, I think, ordered OPM official to discovery and government said no?
The intensive onboarding sounds like a more difficult process for already trained employees, than what Elon’s programmers and hackers went through before taking access to our private social security, IRS, and banking data.
Who says Elon’s goons had any preparation for what they’re doing to the USG?
Agree completely. These tech bro babies are pretty much less qualified than anyone being fired.
Who says they weren’t snooping around in those systems from the day they were hired last summer?
Last summer they weren’t in government.
Because they were working for Elon last summer. He didn’t have access to those systems then, which is why he wants it now.
Two other points. Every reference to DOGE, a false but convenient shorthand, should really be a reference to Donald Trump. Avoiding that is one reason why his people invented DOGE.
The press seems stuck on the idea that what DOGE is doing will make it hard for govt agencies to function. FFS. That’s the point. This administration doesn’t want much of govt to function. But it does want access to its systems and data, and, at least regarding the SSA, control over its war chest. Stopping that, btw, is one reason SSA holds participants’ money in a trust fund.
Petey “Blue Label” Hegseth is lucky the judge’s patience ran out. I’d have ordered SecDef to attend a hearing the next day to personally explain the operational difficulties. Under oath, in public, subject to cross-examination.
Can we just use “Blue Falcon” here?
No.
More that taking questions from non-sycophantic media in Europe made him drink 3 scotches over the course of 6 questions. Can you imagine what would happen under hostile cross-examination when he’s lying/BS’ing? He, more than RFKJR, is the Cabinet official I expect to crack first.
Badges? We ain’t got no badges! We don’t need no badges! I don’t have to show you any stinking badges!
Or, “I don’t have to show you any sixteen badges!”
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It’s all very humorous but I’ve yet to see any writing on what is going on in the military from the top on down. Did the firing of black generals perhaps effect black soldiers and others up and down the ranks? Are some Commands and units from Division on down being MAGAfied in some sense. How is that affecting cohesiveness and moral? Has a command gone out to start to prepare for taking Canada? Come to think about it does anyone in the military have an opinion on this?
I don’t doubt for a moment many noncoms are full MAGA as and surely many in the lower ranks. How could this not effect moral, discipline and motivation? Is there not a reporter of observer of the military hanging out in bars and talking up military people? Or the millions of their family members are not talking about these things to anyone? Amazing. Have perhaps a few soldiers had thoughts about being deployed among and against citizens? And on and on. What do we hear? Crickets.
I’ve read that Arlington is hiding the information on minorities and women buried there. I know I have a cousin and her husband buried there, and they’re not in the military’s “find a grave” app – though they’re findable elseweb, such as here: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8771478/vernon-r_q-fernandes
(He was one of two Army Corps officers who started as enlisted. Portuguese ancestry, though he’s from Illinois and wrote several books about Morgan County, IL, and Jacksonville, its county seat.)
And female Coast Guard commandant.
Administration provided her inabilities and failures including
While
https://www.stripes.com/branches/coast_guard/2025-01-21/coast-guard-commandant-fagan-fired-16555947.html
Yeah, but for the people firing her sexual misconduct is not a bug, but a feature.
I believe the sexual misconduct was under her predecessor. She was working to clean up the Service.
Yes. I understand that. The people firing her like being able to engage in sexual misconduct.
The honorable Dill misrepresents the case. The DoD does not have a monolithic on boarding process. Each Service or Agency has their own (for now) HR departments who do this, probably every two weeks, scheduling (en-mass) groups to attend all the “Howdy, this is our organization” briefs and necessary paperwork drills. Same goes for reading-in for classified access. Same goes for getting an appointment to get ones Common Access Card (CAC). Most of the time you are given a “check-in” sheet and go visiting on your own for a week or so. Some sillier ones that I’ve had… visit each denomination of Air Force chaplains, the base library, the SharePoint administrator, an NSA presentation on printer etiquette, and, of course… urinalysis.
I’m really not an insider but I’m pretty sure the necessary onboarding is a newly implemented iteration of trump’s EO demanding that everyone in gov’t must support trumpian values or be punished appropriately. That’s pretty much fascism in a nutshell & I’m sure no one is or will be permitted to utter one word about it. But of course we need to wait for proof…
The re-education camps are not quite ready to go.
I recall the sense of awe I had when reading the short notice filings of Jack Smith’s team. Sure, they knew generally what was coming, and could prepare a lot of it ahead of time, but still. Facts in hand, citations, powerful arguments — those briefs had it all.
These employment cases have been percolating for a good month now. And, as Democracy Docket notes, “In more than 30 lawsuits filed against the new administration — including involving Musk’s activities — the government has not won one on the merits.”
Have all the competent lawyers been fired, or quit?
To summarize further: political appointee contemptuously gaslights federal judge about effort required to follow court order.
A lot of battle ready warriors in there , right?
Whiny titty baby as the “I’ve had it” girls say on you tube
[Moderator’s note: see your comment at 9:31 pm ET. /~Rayne]
I’ve read that New York has a message for federal financial agency employees who have been let go by the Trump administration: She’s hiring. The head of the New York State Department of Financial Services said so during a talk at the Brookings Institute, saying she is ramping up her agency’s staffing to bolster its examination and technology capabilities.
So, a tiny light at the end of the federal civil service tunnel. But, I wouldn’t put it past Trump to publicly shame the employees who move, saying they were useless and no good and now they are working for a State trying to take your money — waste and fraud and abuse, oh my!
Of course, that’s only a tiny percentage of the affected, and not helpful to the vast remainder.
My hope is that Ukraine recruits anyone the U.S. Military is dumping, including the transgender folk. Or maybe all those people can form a militia!
Leavitt: “You cannot have a low-level district court judge filing an injunction to usurp the executive authority of the President of the United States.”
Hmmm, not wanting to rake over old ashes, but where have we heard this sort of proposition before?
https://www.mediaite.com/news/trump-spox-lashes-out-over-judges-blocking-trump-in-white-house-driveway-rant/amp
Leavitt must have skipped government and civics in grade school.
The President Is Not Above The Law.
The Supreme Court recently averred that the President is indeed above the law, and can freely commit crimes if they are part of his “official duties”.
Yes.
The difficulty comes for those (many and growing) state functionaries who “are just following orders” of the now-safely-immune Chief Felon, and are thereby themselves turned into legally-liable felons and civil rights violators. I don’t think Roberts and his little cabal of blinkered ideologists thought that through.
As long as there remains The Rule of Law, that is. Absent that, who needs the Supremes anyway?
Leavitt is cribbing Alito’s language (about district judges) in his recent dissent. So he skipped it too.
Leavitt actually has me missing Sarah Sanders. She’s even a 1/2 step down from Kayleigh Maganinny.
I cannot tell if they are trying to bait Judge Alsup, or if this reflects the belief that they are entitled to be contemptuous.
It’s along the lines of “yeah, you caught us lying about the firing rationale, but we can play this game as long as necessary.”
Judge Alsup does not suffer fools. But he doesn’t have to act out with contempt or disciplinary rulings. If any judge were willing to appoint a special master to ensure compliance with his orders, it’s him.
Judge Alsup is a really awesome judge. In the Oracle America, Inc. v. Google, Inc. case he actually learned the programming language that was involved so he’d understand all the arguments which were presented.
I believe the real reason is that reinstating these employees would throw a monkey-wrench in the gears of the machinery being installed to disable the agencies/departments. Already commissars have been put in place to provide those functions. These substitutes probably have very good communication links back to their bosses.
I’m really not an insider but I’m pretty sure the necessary onboarding is a newly implemented iteration of trump’s EO demanding that everyone in gov’t must support trumpian values or be punished appropriately. That’s pretty much trumpism in a nutshell & I’m sure no one is or will be permitted to utter one word about it. But of course we need to wait for proof…
If they can’t make 16 badges then they ought not to be running the American military. Replacement required. Get rid of Heggie and just have the Generals take care of things until they find a Republican who can do the job or use a Democrat.
My father worked at a secure location (fences with barbed wire on top, armed guards, badges that had to be visible).
They hated it when he’d grow a beard (for him, it was a nicely-trimmed goatee), and also when he shaved it off. New photo and badge every time. That was in the 50s and 60s.
They could do it then, they can do it now.
(I had a badge break. They didn’t fuss about making a new one.)
I was confused to see a DoD recruiting commercial recently (in the last couple of days), while watching a national NBA broadcast. It celebrated women in the military and was all ‘squishy’ about interpersonal relationships and how valued women are in the ranks. I thought it was crucial for national security for DoD to get rid of all that DEI crap. What gives? /s
Re: The FRAGILE EGOS of HEGSETH’s DOD:
https://bsky.app/profile/brandonfriedman.bsky.social/post/3lkhllhr2kk2c
March 15, 2025 at 10:25 PM [emphasis added]
More:
https://bsky.app/profile/cmcknichols.bsky.social/post/3lkhnzwd5vc23
March 15, 2025 at 11:09 PM
Links to:
Congressional Medal of Honor Society – Stories of Sacrifice
Charles Calvin Rogers
https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/charles-c-rogers
Fck these bigots. Sideways. With dry cholla.
From Don Moynihan, Policy Professor, Ford School, U Mich
https://bsky.app/profile/donmoyn.bsky.social/post/3lkgpu5iyos2c
March 15, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Links to:
Whitewashing American history The Trump Presidency as a project of erasure
Don Moynihan Mar 15, 2025
I was just gonna post that!
The more I see, the more I’m convinced that 1/3rd of this country completely lost their minds when a black man became POTUS. They went absolutely apeshit off the deep end. They’re nuts. The rest are useful idiots & a few single issue voters.
16 Badges
Such a bad play, such a bad play, snaky
We have far to go
Sixteen badges make discovery tight
Yes, on the right are the lies we fight
(are the lies we fight) (Oh)
Disparaged badges
Not a smidge is true
Dill pickles pitching
hand-in-glove doo-doo
(hand-in-glove doo-doo)
It’s only sixteen (sixteen)
But if you read between
what is obscene
It’s the pettiest
ugliest hurl we’ve ever seen
(We’ve ever seen) (Oh)
Sixteen badges, state of art will show
Forever and ever,
who screwed this up so
(who screwed this up so)
Who screwed this up so
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNyWaAvPGCo
“16 Candles”
SL, once again you evoke the response “Why didn’t I think of that?”
But I didn’t think of it, you did. Which is why I always keep scrolling until I hit Leave A Reply. Consider this that.
It’s the humiliation. The dished it out; and now they’re gonna wear it.
Would it be possible for the terminated employees with better than inadequate performance records to sue the signer of their termination notice for defamation of character? It would appear that the damages to the employees over their lifetime would be substantial.