If they cut social security and medicare

[Tybee]

Here's a post from Reddit yesterday from someone inside SSA:

PREFACE: I am not speaking to the veracity of the information in the instagram post, but am providing the following description for those who don't have an instagram account.
The post consists of screenshot of text. It appears to be an original post from somewhere, and then a comment on that post.
The caption of the post says the following:
"SOS! a whistleblower who works in the federal government just got this info to mne. You guys they are dismantling Social Security. It's happening right now. Like, NOW. We are looking at an interruption in services in 2-3 months. can't say who this person is but trust me they are in a position to know. SPREAD THE WORD! Call script tomorrow.x
The screenshots of the post say the following:
"l am posting this anonymously because I am a fed but wanted to make sure others know about what is going on at SSA. As this not only affects thousands of federal employees but also millions of disabled and/or elderly SSA beneficiaries that rely on social security for their livelihood.
As someone with first hand knowledge, I am witnessing SSA being actively dismantle over the past two weeks. These recent, illegal actions of the new acting commissioner are certain to collapse the system.
Please ring the alarm bells, call your senators and representatives, get your friends and family to do the same, if you have media contacts please use them. Do whatever you can to bring public awareness to this issue.
Social security is highly popular across the aisle and there is very little, if any, public support for it to end. Doge/ Trump know that public opinion is not on their side so they are quietly dismantling piece by piece with the hopes that media coverage will be light, the public will be in the dark, and there won't be any pushback while they destroy America's social safety net.”
The screenshots comment then say the following:
"If you are reaching out to your congressional offices or amplifying in your own circles, here is a list of the various things you can notify them of:

1. probationary attorney-level decision writers who are responsible for assisting Administrative Law Judges were terminated and at a time when the agency has massive backlogs in cases at the hearing level.
   
2. The new acting commissioner gloated about firing 14 employees as an "accomplishment" in his commissioner broadcast to the agency.
   
3. The entire Office of Transformation, and its 60+ employees were dissolved. Their whole purpose was to promote agency-wide efficiencies and faster processing times through oversight over SSA systems and use of information technology.
   
4. The entire Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity and its 190 employees were dissolved, including the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner of Civil Rights. OCREO conducts statutorily mandated requirements for employees and members of the public including the reasonable accommodation request process, the public facing discrimination complaint process, and the EEOC employment discrimination complaint process. The National RA Coordinator at OCREO whose position was court ordered was also terminated.
   
5. component heads and executives were told to draft plans to slash administrative SSA staff by 50% and to reduce the total SSA workforce by seven to eight thousand
   
6. SSA staff were sent an email threatening massive reorganization of SSA followed with significant workforce reduction. The email pressured seasoned employees, even front-line employees, with monetary incentives to resign or take early retirement and threatened to fire employees for cause should they not retire or resign.
   
7. Executive staff responsible for overseeing regional field office operations were terminated, I know that one region had all but 3 out 72 staff members terminated and it is very likely that the other ten regions had similar terminations. These regional executive offices oversee hundreds of field offices.
   
8. The Acting Commissioner sent out a memo to SSA staff indicating significant restructuring of the agency due a bloated workforce and organization structure,' even though staffing at SSA has been the lowest it's been in 50 years. The reorganization includes taking the 10 regions that SSA's serves and consolidating into 4 regions; and combining multiple independent SSA components togetherin an effort to "downsize" or "streamline". This could potentially lead to massive closures in field offices, a reduction of services, and a significant number of terminations of agency employees.
   
9. Terminations are happening swiftly and often late in the day to avoid bringing attention to any media or congressional attention to them
   
10. The trauma they are creating for SSA staff is unreal. I am aware of at least three terminated SSA employees who have committed suicide, one of which personally knew"

Then there is a screenshot that appears to be another comment or a message:
" Our previous commissioner predicted that it would take about 2-3 interruption of benefits but by that point it might be too Trump/Musk steal the money out of the trust fund (after using it pay employees the $25k they are dangling in front of us to trying to get us to resign) and then privatize it."

[iris lilies]

I would like to point out that there could hardly be a story of lax Federal Employees more scandalous than this one of the NSA chat rooms.

Here it has all of the elements of dirty laundry to capture our attention:

* shows what spooks do behind closed doors and we always wondered about that
* taxpayer resources providing the means to mess around, waste time, and insult taxpayers with salacious chat
* subjects covered are SEX and TRANS stuff
*employees going against explicit instructions on appropriate use of digital communication systems

Now, I know ya’ll will tell me this is a distraction. “Iris” you’ll say, “ya focus on this tiny thing when the world is burning.”

And maybe so. But from my point of view The President is attempting a shakeup of the Federal Employee system and this incident has risen to the top as symbolic of what goes on in the Government ranks. I am not terribly concerned that federal workers use email occasionally for personal use. I am mad that these so called intelligence officers show so little frickn intelligence in their extensive misuse of government resources, They are supposed to be the Creme de la Creme.

[Tybee]

It really sounds like you are defending the wholesale firings, which I find really hard to understand. The firings are just the first step, as the theft comes next.

[iris lilies]

It really sounds like you are defending the wholesale firings, which I find really hard to understand. The firings are just the first step, as the theft comes next.

I defend wholesale firings of 100 so called intelligence officers. If that isn’t what you mean by “wholesale” firing, be more specific.

oh, and due to the executive order that dismantled DEI and etc in the federal government, the “LGBTQ Affinity Groups” at the National Security agency were dismantled.*. To this I say, why ever did they exist? I mean, WTF?

* reported in the NYT article I linked above

[Tybee]

Wow, I am astounded. Good luck to you.

[iris lilies]

Wow, I am astounded. Good luck to you.

do you think these 100 intelligence officers shouldn’t be fired? If so, why?

[early morning]

Well, I'm freaked about SS, because that's our largest income source. But I today I got my "pending" lump sum from SS for the WEP abolishment. Not really huge but I'm glad to (almost) have it!

[iris lilies]

Well, I'm freaked about SS, because that's our largest income source. But I today I got my "pending" lump sum from SS for the WEP abolishment. Not really huge but I'm glad to (almost) have it!

Tell me about the. WEP program and why it was abolished. I have always been confused by it.

[bae]

I tried to submit my application online to begin receiving benefits this last week. The web site was bugged and would not let me complete the application. Attempts to resolve the problem via phone wasted much time, and yielded nothing. I’m not sure I’ll ever get my SS benefits at this point.

Updated:

After 8 million hours on the phone, I finally got their system unwedged, and my application to begin receiving benefits at the age of 62 submitted.

We'll see if the checks start arriving in a few months...

[flowerseverywhere]

I am sorry Federal employees are being intimidated. Showing up on time appropriately dressed and getting right to work seems…ok to me. Is that really burdensome for them? .

You are seeing what you want to see as you are making assumptions. What I was saying they are trying to do everything to stay under the radar. At every job people have casual conversations, might run a few minutes late and so on. It is not an imposition however in their case enduring the greatest witch hunt they must be extremely careful.


I had a job where an employee was setting up candle parties. Another was caught selling beanie babies online. In non government jobs. Almost everyone I know can tell stories of coworkers who took great advantage of everything they could. Like smoke breaks multiple times a day. Personal phone calls of non emergency situations. However, they are far and few between.

and this slash and burn approach has let go of many good honest employees in the haste to show their power and intimidate.

bae, good to hear you persisted and managed to take the first step.