DOGE Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

DOGE, AI And Tariffs

labor force is shrinking

An article in Forbes from mid-August notes that in 2025, Job Cuts Have Already Surpassed All Of 2024—DOGE, AI, And Tariffs Are the Biggest Causes.

According to a career services firm, Challenger, Gray & Christmas, “private and public employers cut 62,000 jobs in July, an almost 30% increase from the previous month and a 140% spike over the same month last year.

“More than 806,000 jobs have been cut to date in 2025, already above the 761,358 eliminated in all of 2024.

“The Challenger report says so-called ‘DOGE impact’ is the leading reason for job cut announcements so far in 2025… ” Check out layoffs. FYI, which notes that nearly a quarter of the jobs are in health and Human Services.

“In addition to the direct cuts to the federal workforce, DOGE cuts to grant funding have also led to 17,826 cuts in the non-profit sector this year, up 413% from this time in 2024, Challenger said. Non-profit organizations have cited mounting challenges from reductions in federal funding, rising operational costs, and persistent economic uncertainty.”

Tech

“Technology is the leading private sector in job cuts, with 89,251 eliminated in 2025 so far. Challenger says the advancement of artificial intelligence and ongoing uncertainty surrounding work visas have contributed to workforce reductions, which are up 36% in the sector over the same time period last year.

“The retail and automotive sectors have seen an increase in layoffs as the result of global tariffs implemented… Retail announced 80,487 job cuts in July, up 249% through this time in 2024, citing tariffs, inflation, and ongoing economic uncertainty. “

This video touches on some of these numbers, including the regional impact variations.

An example from Daily Kos and Common Dreams: John Deere has axed more than 200 employees to cut higher costs caused by tariffs. “As stated on our most recent earnings call, the struggling ag economy continues to impact orders for John Deere equipment,” the company said in a statement obtained by Illinois Public Media.

But what does it mean?

Callie Cox, the chief market strategist at Ritholtz Wealth Management, worries in Business Insider about an under-the-radar number that raises a huge red flag for America’s job market.

“Wall Street bigwigs, major investors, stock analysts, and economists [all] agree on… the fundamental importance of the job market….

“This is why many economists and analysts focus on the unemployment rate… The headline jobless rate is 4.2%, up from record lows set in 2023, but hardly at a catastrophic level…

“Still, there is one number… that represents a serious cause for concern. The official US labor force, which measures the number of working-age Americans actively working or looking for work, is shrinking at a rate normally seen during the depths of economic crises. The pool of available workers has stalled for three straight months, the first such streak since 2011…

“The reasons for this shrinkage point to worrying shifts in America’s job market, and the consequences could be perilous. Over time, a smaller labor force presents pernicious challenges: lower growth, tax revenue, and productivity…

“The immigration crackdown and a rough hiring environment are only part of the story. Other long-term trends could be depressing the number of people willing to jump into the workforce. Labor force participation among women has yet to recover from pre-COVID levels, given steep childcare costs, return-to-office mandates, and the cost of childcare. The participation rate among teenagers 16 to 19 years old has also plummeted over the past few months, likely a product of fewer entry-level opportunities.”

Data

Vincent Geloso, senior fellow at AIER, is an assistant professor of economics at George Mason University, who obtained a PhD in Economic History from the London School of Economics. He shows the bogus suggestion that the BLS produced “low-quality” data or displayed “partisanship.” He adds, “Bureaucracies are usually too self-serving to get partisan. The consequences of bad data are high, and error rates are pretty low – no matter who is president.”

Also: Impact of Immigrants on Labor History

The Role of Undocumented Workers in High-Growth Occupations and Industries Across the United States

April rambling: Beat the Broligarchs

Rod Serling documentary

Catbird: “When I viewed it again, it looked like a heart that had been run over by a tire, which reflected my yet-unrealized reaction to what DOGE had just started. My conscious mind didn’t know yet, but my hand did. What a revelation!”

Patriotic Millionaires challenge oligarch power with sweeping economic plan: How to Beat the Broligarchs

EFF’s lawsuit against DOGE will go forward. ”Sweeping and uncontrolled access by DOGE agents who were not properly vetted or trained.”

Did you hear Canadians are wearing MAGA hats? There, they mean Make
America Go Away

Working to Preserve .Gov Websites. “Web archiving is more than just preserving history—it’s about ensuring access to information for future generations. “

Tuberculosis Is Back in the Spotlight. Does the U.S. Even Care?

Buster Keaton made a silent film AND a talkie … in 1965

Lucille Ball – ‘America Alive!’ 1978 [Interview]. from that, a viral clip: When Lucy said, “Take your hands off her, David.”

Val Kilmer, An Unclassifiable Heartthrob Who Always Had an Edge

Jay North, Child Star of ‘Dennis the Menace,’ Dies at 73. He was best known for playing the towheaded Dennis Mitchell on a sitcom that ran on CBS from 1959 to 1963, which I watched.

Goodbye Park City: Sundance Film Festival Heading to Colorado

Does ginger ale really taste better on a plane?

When You’re Better Off Skipping a Court Date and The Cat That Inherited Millions and The Man Who Takes Apostrophes Very Seriously

Until then…

Appeals Court Orders Thousands of Voters to Verify Information in Contested N.C. Election. The ruling was a win for the Republican who narrowly lost a State Supreme Court race in November. The case has tested the boundaries of post-election litigation.

His order on voter policy could disenfranchise millions, but multiple lawsuits have already sprung up to challenge it.

DOGE Is Not Cutting Government Spending

Judd Legum on Popular Information: “Musk has set a goal to cut $1 trillion annually from federal spending through DOGE. But his efforts have largely ignored the DoD, according to data compiled by the Musk Watch DOGE Tracker.”

HHS Job Cuts: Entire CDC Team Focused On Infertility And IVF Is ‘Gone’

Not to mention…

States Challenge Trump’s Effort to Dismantle Library Agency. In a lawsuit, 21 state attorneys general argued that the steep cuts to the Institute of Museum and Library Services violate the Constitution and other federal laws related to spending. Call on Congress to Protect Federal Library Funding

Smithsonian’s Chief in the Hot Seat. The executive order demanding change at the institution presents a perilous test for Lonnie G. Bunch III, its secretary, whom the White House calls a partisan Democrat.

‘It’s a shambles’: DOGE cuts bring chaos, long waits at Social Security for seniors. “Elderly and disabled people — and those who care for them — are encountering a knot of bureaucratic hurdles and service disruptions… ‘The system, it’s broken down,’ Veronica Sanchez, a 52-year-old medical practice manager in Canoga Park, said, after calling a Social Security hotline and waiting on hold for six hours.”

FOTUS Is Trying to Axe Collective Bargaining for 1 Million Federal Employees

LA Times: Regime “has issued an order demanding that all national parks remain open amid severe staffing shortages — an action that one conservation group called ‘reckless and out of touch’ as park personnel brace for millions of visitors this summer.

‘I was a British tourist trying to leave the US. Then I was detained, shackled and sent to an immigration detention centre’

Trans Athletes and Tasers & Excited Delirium: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Another rupture: Keystone pipeline shutdown threatens fuel prices and exposes pattern of failure

Critic’s Notebook: ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and Trump, Reunited

How Actually Crazy is This Mess?

An Experiment in Recklessness: The global trading system is only one example of the administration tearing something apart, only to reveal that it has no plan for how to replace it.

Tariffs: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

What to Learn (and not Learn) from Trump’s Tariff Blunders

Jon Stewart on The Botched Tariff Rollout & The Stock Market’s Meltdown | The Daily Show, especially from 15:35 to the end

He’s not very bright; Inside his dumb lifelong obsession with tariffs and trade deficits

Why Lutnick Displaced Musk As ‘Most Loathed’ Adviser. Lutnick: “The army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little screws to make iPhones — that kind of thing is going to come to America.”

I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.– Will Rogers

**Former President Harry S Truman appeared on Jack Benny’s television show in 1959, when the show was filmed from the Truman Presidential Library in Independence, MO.**

Was Binghamton unavailable?

Rhode Island plays a starring role in the forthcoming Rod Serling documentary:

“The state’s Film & Television Office… touted how the Ocean State is playing a starring role in a forthcoming documentary on the life of Rod Serling, the legendary mastermind and iconic narrator behind the pioneering, 1950s and ‘60s science-fiction television series, ‘The Twilight Zone.’

“The film, authorized by Serling’s two daughters, Jodi Serling and Anne Serling, is being produced by Verdi Productions, an East Greenwich, R.I.-based production company. State officials announced… that Leonardo DiCaprio’s company, Appian Way Productions, has also joined the production…

“Although Serling, who died in 1975 at the age of 50, hailed from upstate New York, the documentarians used locations in East Greenwich, Providence, and Wakefield — the village in South Kingstown, R.I. — to help recreate moments in Serling’s life, ‘mirroring the same cinematic black and white style’ of his signature show, officials said.”

MUSIC

My Spine Is The Bassline: Dave Allen (1955-2025)

Fees, Fees, Fees – A Randy Rainbow Song Parody

Everybody Plays The Fool – The Main Ingredient

Lonely -Justin Bieber & benny blanco

Locust Laced – Sleigh Bells

Manic Monday – Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day feat. Susanna Hoffs of The Bangles

The Lady of Shallot – Loreena McKennitt

Coverville 1528: The AC/DC Cover Story IV and 1529: The Pixies Cover Story III

Girl – Beck

The Parables by Bohuslav Martinů

We Got The Beat – The Go-Go’s

Chuck Mangione’s Land Of Make Believe

Fool In The Rain – Led Zeppelin

Sergei Rachmaninoff Vocalise

The Bank of Harmony with a medley of three Hanna-Barbera theme songs

All Day and All of the Night – The Kinks

One More Night – Phil Collins

What A Fool Believes – The Doobie Brothers

William Tell Overture – Rossini

March rambling: Dismantling

The Strange, Post-Partisan Popularity of the Unabomber

**Used by permission of Clay Bennett, Editorial Cartoonist, Chattanooga Times Free Press**

“We Are Watching the Deliberate Dismantling of American Democracy” – Heather Cox Richardson with Katie Couric

Mark Evanier has posted nearly daily a series of Fact Checks over the last month that suggest members of the regime LIE regularly, especially FOTUS.

The regime seeks to starve libraries and museums of funding. Fight back with ALA.

The executive order targeting the Smithsonian Institution will “eliminate improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology” from the institute’s museums, centers, and the National Zoo in Washington.

Pete Hegseth Sent Secret War Plans to Journalist by Accident. Here Are the Texted War Plans That He Said ‘Nobody Was Texting’ on Signal. “A reminder that various administration officials lied under oath in the Senate.”

Millions face delays as administration ends Social Security phone verification. A new policy eliminating phone verification for Social Security benefits threatens to overwhelm field offices, cut off vulnerable recipients, and accelerate efforts to privatize the system.

Executive Order on Voting Denounced as ‘Authoritarian Power Grab’

Pentagon restores some webpages honoring minority service members but defends DEI purge.

Rights, Privileges, and Mahmoud Khalil

Decades ago, Columbia refused to pay him $400 million. The university was looking to expand. It considered and rejected property owned by djt. He did not forget it.

People named in JFK assassination documents are not happy their personal information was released.

FOTUS has big dreams for the Kennedy Center but doesn’t seem to know what it does. His hostile takeover of the Washington, D.C., cultural institution will probably chase away the very people who like to attend shows there

Here’s What RFK Jr. Got Wrong About H5N1 Bird Flu— “This is Hollywood science, not real science,” one expert said

EPA Teases Evisceration of Scientific Research Office

FCC Chair Brendan Carr, FOTUS’ Media Pit Bull Is “Off the Leash”

Cory Doctorow: Twinkump Linkdump (22 Mar 2025)

How DOGE is making government almost comically inefficient

Musk tells his biggest lie yet: ‘I’ve never done anything harmful’

How Elon Musk’s DOGE Cuts Leave a Vacuum That China Can Fill: The Department of Government Efficiency is shuttering organizations that Beijing worried about most or actively sought to subvert.

IRS braces for $500bn drop in revenue as taxpayers skip filings in wake of DOGE cuts at the agency

From Catherine Rampell – WaPo:

At the IRS, employees spend Mondays queued up at shared computers to submit their DOGE-mandated “five things I did last week” emails. Meanwhile, taxpayer customer service calls go unanswered.

At the Bureau of Land Management, federal surveyors are no longer permitted to buy replacement equipment. So, when a shovel breaks at a field site, they can’t just drive to the nearest town or hardware store. Instead, work stops as employees track down one of the few managers nationwide authorized to file an official procurement form and order new parts.

At the Food and Drug Administration, leadership canceled the agency’s subscription to LexisNexis, an online reference tool that employees need to conduct regulatory research. However, some workers might not have noticed this loss yet because the agency’s incompetently planned return-to-office order this week left them too busy hunting for insufficient parking and toilet paper. (Multiple bathrooms have run out of bath tissue, employees report.)

The Strange, Post-Partisan Popularity of the Unabomber: When Ted Kaczynski’s manifesto appeared 30 years ago, the internet was brand-new. Now, his dark vision is finding fans who don’t remember life before the iPhone. Paragraph 173: “If the machines are permitted to make all their own decisions, we can’t make any conjectures as to the results, because it is impossible to guess how such machines might behave.”

Researchers find thriving, never-before-seen ecosystem under Antarctic ice shelf: “This is unprecedented”

Author John Green on why he wrote “Everything is Tuberculosis.”

Do Adults Need a Measles Booster? A single-dose inactivated measles vaccine used from 1963 to 1967 was later found to not be as effective or long-lasting as the currently used live-attenuated vaccine, experts said.

George Foreman, Boxing Champion and Grill Spokesperson, Dies at 76

Richard Chamberlain, King of the Melodramatic Miniseries, Dies at 90. One of my sisters had a massive crush when he played ‘Dr. Kildare’

Goodbye Park City: Sundance Film Festival Heading to Colorado

My Quest to Find the Owner of a Mysterious WWII Japanese Sword. “When I was a kid, I was fascinated by a traditional katana my grandfather had brought home from Japan in 1945. Years later, I decided it was time to find the heirloom’s rightful owner.”

Rita Braver will retire from ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ after 50 years at the network

The 51 Best Canadian Films of All Time

How Charles Dickens Shaped Our Vocabulary

Magnet fishing is supposed to be a wholesome hobby. Why all the beef?

In 2012, when NBC had the Super Bowl, they shot a little video to precede it and promote all their shows and stars.

In 1969, Jim Henson produced several commercials for a new potato crisp called Munchos.

Now I Know: The Supreme Court Told Me I Was Wrong and Forcing Beer into Star Wars and A Miner Revolt

MUSIC

Jesse Colin Young, Youngbloods’ Frontman, Dies at 83. Get Together was one of the very few singles I ever purchased.

Herb Alpert turns 90 today. He’s still performing. I had half of his early albums, including his first, The Lonely Bull. Here’s Herb and the Tijuana Brass on that title track.

Signal Leak – Jesse Welles

You Were Not Supposed to Message It Through – Marsh Family Parody of the Bee Gees on #Signalgate

I Put Up Tariffs – Marsh Family adaptation of Bob Marley and the Wailers’ I Shot the Sheriff

Vivaldi’s Summer/Mozart’s Semplice/Mack The Knife

Get Away and three other songs – Jimi Somewhere

Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique

Please Please Please – Sabrina Carpenter, feat. Dolly Parton

On A Clear Day, You Can See Forever – Voctave

The Song (Love Is All) – Sadie Sink from the movie O’DESSA

Two of Hearts – Stacey Q

Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) – Marvin Gaye

Scissors Cut – Art Garfunkel