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DOGE cuts agency funding to fight pests as bed bugs, now has bed bugs.

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Say it aint so

Say it aint so

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A federal pest-control agency that suffered budget and staff cuts under Trump is now stuck with a bed bug infestation, according to reports. ​
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which protects agriculture from pests, is dealing with a bed bug takeover at the Agriculture Department building, according to reporting by NOTUS.​
One USDA employee told NOTUS that the irony of the situation "was lost on no one." Headquarters News noted on X that DOGE slashed the APHIS budget and fired its employees. ​
The George Washington Carver Center in Beltsville, Maryland, which houses a few USDA agencies, reportedly told employees about the bed bug problems in May, five employees told NOTUS, which also looked at a town hall meeting transcript. --HERE​
​
You just can't make this up
 
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zippy2006

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The horror! :eek:

This is a ridiculously desperate argument. Overcutting is part and parcel of budget cuts. Complaining about bed bugs after tens of billions of dollars of budget cuts is like someone complaining about the incision marks after an organ transplant. It's true: you really can't make this stuff up. :rolleyes:

Besides, if a pest control agency can't avoid bed bugs then they're obviously in the wrong line of work. The average American avoids bed bugs without special funding from the government.
 
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jacks

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Maybe they just want to telecommute? :)

A USDA spokesperson also attributed the bed bugs’ reemergence to employee negligence. The spokesperson declined to explain why employees have not been offered another chance to work remotely.

“Not allowing employees to telework while the office is infested with bed bugs is an unnecessary significant risk to U.S. cattle health, with experts dealing with the NWS situation forced to go home if they don’t want to get bed bugs,” one employee said."

From Notus Article.
 
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ThatRobGuy

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zippy2006 said:
The horror! :eek:

This is a ridiculously desperate argument. Overcutting is part and parcel of budget cuts. Complaining about bed bugs after tens of billions of dollars of budget cuts is like someone complaining about the incision marks after an organ transplant. It's true: you really can't make this stuff up. :rolleyes:

Besides, if a pest control agency can't avoid bed bugs then they're obviously in the wrong line of work. The average American avoids bed bugs without special funding from the government.
Click to expand...

The reality is, there's plenty of "hoisted by your own petard" to go around in government. (the back and forth about the filibuster and recess appointments would be good examples)

This bed bugs thing is small potatoes compared to things like major city governments doing things like cutting police funding, and then having crime waves shortly thereafter.


If the point of putting a spotlight on this story was to somehow convince people that "and this is why every federal agency's budget is sacred, and we just have to keep funding everything we've been funding from now till eternity without question", then it's not a very compelling sales pitch.

I'll sleep on pile of bed bugs for the next month if it meant not funding some of the things we were funding via the slush fund known as USAID.
 
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rambot

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ThatRobGuy said:
I'll sleep on pile of bed bugs for the next month if it meant not funding some of the things we were funding via the slush fund known as USAID.
Click to expand...
I imagine you're skeptical of the "number of deaths attributed by the cuts in funding to USAID" as well right?
 
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ThatRobGuy

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rambot said:
I imagine you're skeptical of the "number of deaths attributed by the cuts in funding to USAID" as well right?
Click to expand...
No, I'm not skeptical of the numbers, I have no reason to believe the numbers are false.

What I would object to is the notion that we should allow agencies to bundle in a bunch of nonsense, and attach it to something noble as a manipulation tool, and expect nobody to call their bluff.

The blood is on the hands of whoever decided to bundle the silly stuff in with the worthwhile stuff as a means of holding it hostage.

Bundling in DEI Cultural Initiatives in Serbia and Columbia with Disaster Relief Funding in Africa is a problem, and that linking of unrelated initiatives was a feature, not a bug. They did it specifically so they could continue to guilt people into paying for nonsense.

"I don't want millions of US tax dollars going toward building a DEI cultural center halfway across the globe, we need to scrap that"
"Why do you want African people to die of disease and catastrophic climate events?!??! You monster!!!"
 
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rambot said:
But you'd be in favour of cutting programs that keep African women out of lives of poverty and prostitution right?
Click to expand...
I would have no problem with that kind of foreign aid, as long as it doesn't mean I have to accept funding Egyptian tourism, subsidizing poppy irrigation in Afghanistan, and funding DEI initiatives in Serbia as an all-or-nothing "package deal"
 
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rambot

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ThatRobGuy said:
I would have no problem with that kind of foreign aid, as long as it doesn't mean I have to accept funding Egyptian tourism, subsidizing poppy irrigation in Afghanistan, and funding DEI initiatives in Serbia as an all-or-nothing "package deal"
Click to expand...
Ok but I'm hear to tell you that Republicans will package that kind of movement like this:

"Cloud Seeding Program for Rain in Rwanda". 2 million.


You won't hear how it HELPS people or saves lives.

You hear a shocking headline that can't logically be connected to helping people.
 
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