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.
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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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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Badges? We ain’t got no badges! We don’t need no badges! I don’t have to show you any stinking badges!
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.)
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 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
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