Summary

DOGE staffers Tyler Hassen and Bryton Shang tried pressuring the Bureau of Reclamation to open a California water pump to aid Los Angeles during January’s wildfires, though the system couldn’t reach the city.

When denied, they flew there to do it themselves but failed due to maintenance and access restrictions.

Critics called DOGE a “slapstick operation of 20-somethings they’re seeing as whiz kids but have zero knowledge.”

Trump later ordered dam releases, flooding farmland. Critics called DOGE’s actions reckless and uninformed.

  • Yoga@lemmy.ca
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    12 hours ago

    First, the power was off due to planned maintenance. Second, Shang wasn’t an official federal employee yet, meaning he couldn’t access the pump. Hassen couldn’t do it either, CNN reports, because he had to fly back before the power would be restored.

    “They didn’t get their photo op,” an unnamed source with knowledge of the incident told CNN, adding it represented “what DOGE has been this entire time — this slapstick operation of 20-somethings they’re seeing as whiz kids but have zero knowledge.”

    lol that’s amazing levels of incompetence.

    • IamAnonymous@lemmy.world
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      17 minutes ago

      Who paid for the flights? American tax dollars or Elon, because it was poorly planned and inefficient which goes against the ideology of DOGE

  • xye@lemm.ee
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    14 hours ago

    Yelling at various department managers and threatening to call Musk might work for the agencies they’ve gutted, but yeah fucking with any fire department during an active wildfire…I don’t care who you are, you’re gonna have a bad time. Possibly shovel related.

    • DavesNotHere@lemm.ee
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      8 hours ago

      They weren’t fucking with the fire department. They were trying to open massive water pumps (incapable of delivering water anywhere near the fires mind you) that have the capacity to flood entire towns. If you or I did that we’d be facing terrorism charges.

      • xye@lemm.ee
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        3 hours ago

        Got it, thank you for bringing context. The image of a shit shovel to the face was just too satisfying to ignore.

      • ehxor@lemmy.ca
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        16 hours ago

        I like your approach. It certainly makes me think of how all the people involved are like way too young.

        I’m going to keep going with “doggy” because it reinforces to me how the decision making is on par with toddler logic

    • Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca
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      14 hours ago

      Or just DGE like it would be if it were an actual bureau, DOGE is what they want because it minimizes legitimacy of government itself.

  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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    19 hours ago

    Ya know when you’re a teenager and you have these delusions of grandure, and think the world would work just fine if you were allowed to run it, because these “Stupid Adults don’t know ANYTHING!”

    That’s DOGE

  • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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    23 hours ago

    These idiots actually thought the only reason the fires were still burning is because someone hasn’t opened up a faucet yet, and that no one else but them have thought of it.

  • pyre@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    this whole organization runs exactly like a Seth Rogen / Michael Cera / Jonah Hill movie, except no one is likeable.

    • Saleh@feddit.org
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      8 hours ago

      Remember how Musk talked about some absurd submarine design to safe the schoolkids that got trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand, like 7 years ago?

      Should have been warning sign for everyone who supported any of his businesses and political positions after that.