‘I Didn’t Vote for This’: A Revolt Against DOGE Cuts, Deep in Trump Country – Politico

Letter From Montana

Trump administration policies slashing staffing and funding for public lands are waking a sleeping political giant in Montana. Will either party notice?

Photos by Aaron Agosto for POLITICO

By Cassidy Randall, 12/15/2025 05:55 AM EST – Cassidy Randall is a freelance writer based in Montana.

The road to the tiny hamlet of Marion in northwest Montana is lined with the thick trees of the Flathead National Forest, with modern homesteads of trailers and modest homes dotting clearings here and there. Outside a timber frame café called the Hilltop Hitching Post, one of the only gathering spots for Marion’s population of less than 1,200, hunter Terry Zink pulled up in a dusty, well-used F-150 pickup and got out wearing a camo jacket against the early September chill, and a ball cap atop wire-rimmed glasses.

Zink, 57, is a third-generation houndsman who hunts big game, including mountain lions and bears. He also owns an archery target business. He’s a rural Montanan whose way of life and livelihood depend on public lands.

He led me into the Hilltop, where half the people inside knew his name, to a corner where we sat drinking diner coffee. “You won’t meet anyone more conservative than me, and I didn’t vote for this,” Zink said.

Terry Zink, 57, is a third-generation houndsman in Montana. An advocate for wildlife conservation in the West, his livelihood depends on public lands.

“This” is the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) deep cuts earlier this year to federal public lands agencies’ funding and to the staff at those agencies who administer that funding and steward public lands and wildlife.

Zink voted for Trump but said he doesn’t agree with everything the president does. Zink clarifies he calls himself a “conservative” over calling himself a “Republican.” He doesn’t like Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric. “I prefer common sense in the middle,” he said.

He believes wolves need to be hunted to manage their numbers; abortion should only be legal in cases of rape, incest and to protect the mother’s life; and he’s an ardent Second Amendment supporter. He’s also a passionate advocate for public lands and wildlife. And the cuts have, frankly, ticked him off.

He is vocal not just about protecting public lands but also about protecting the staff at those agencies. “We have to listen to our wildlife biologists. We have to be strong advocates for those people,” Zink said.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: ‘I Didn’t Vote for This’: A Revolt Against DOGE Cuts, Deep in Trump Country – POLITICO

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DOGE Is Dead, But Its Impact on Veterans Will Last Decades – Rolling Stone

Elon Musk and Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House on May 30, 2025 in Washington, D.C. Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images

The Greatest Victims of Trump’s Greatest Grift Are America’s Greatest Heroes

The Department of Government Efficiency has been eliminated, but its legacy of shafting our veterans will live for decades

November 29, 2025

Donald Trump’s administration promised that the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) would save America trillions by slashing federal contracts, eliminating “waste,” and shrinking the federal workforce. In reality, we got hack squads of political enforcers who rummaged through government systems, torched veteran-owned business contracts, fired thousands of veterans from federal service, and dismantled Department of Veteran Affairs programs designed to protect both veterans and taxpayers. So it’s fitting, if tragic, that DOGE has itself been dissolved eight months before its chartered end.

Named after Elon Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency, DOGE was never about efficiency. It was the shotgun marriage of Project 2025 and “We need something for Elon to do.” America’s veterans paid the heaviest price for this Frankenstein’s monster, which spent months clumsily strip-mining the federal government in order to make the rich richer.

Three stories illustrate how DOGE damaged our veterans most of all. First, the early warning signs: firing veteran federal employees en masse, pushing GI Bill mortgages toward default, and threatening to further destroy the VA workforce. Then came the VA budget fight, in which the administration requested a record $435 billion while simultaneously planning to eliminate thousands of positions — including 2,000 staff from the Veterans Benefits Administration, the people who process disability claims and help veterans navigate the system. Then came the mass exodus of doctors, nurses and other professionals at VA. The math never added up.

In fact, it’s estimated that DOGE’s “savings” were exaggerated by more than 95 percent. Of the more than $50 billion DOGE claimed to have saved, only $1.4 billion could be verified — and not a single dollar went back to the Treasury to reduce the deficit. At the same time, Trump was working with Republicans on his so-called Big Beautiful Bill, which is expected to increase the federal deficit by $4 trillion. Not a cent of that money will be seen in any tangible way by most  Americans. It’s the largest investment in nothing this nation has ever seen.

Veterans across the federal government — who make up roughly one-third of the civilian workforce — were disproportionately targeted by DOGE. These weren’t just “government employees.” These were disabled veterans using federal employment as a lifeline; parents relying on a stable VA, Defense Department, State Department, and other institutions to support their families; and retirees from Iraq and Afghanistan who depend on VA health care while rebuilding their civilian lives. DOGE tore through these jobs while Elon joked on social media and quoted Office Space.

My hat goes off to Elon and Trump. When all is said and done, this may be the greatest scam ever pulled on the American taxpayers. They had people cheering this absolute massacre of our veteran workforce and veteran benefit programs, while actually paying extra to hurt veterans and watch their own government become dysfunctional. Bravo, gentlemen.  

The damage was particularly bad at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Trump gloated earlier this month, on Veterans Day, that his administration fired “thousands” of the “sick people” and “thieves” who he claimed were not properly taking care of our veterans. The administration initially planned to lay off 80,000 VA workers, before scaling the number back to 30,000. Hundreds of physicians and nearly 2,000 nurses have been let go since Trump took office, with 82 percent of facilities reporting critical clinical shortages. Instead of stabilizing the federal workforce, the administration pushed a hiring freeze and a “one-in, four-out” formula that guarantees the system will fail by design. Now, the VA is headed toward privatization by attrition — and DOGE is the propaganda arm that made it possible.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: DOGE Is Dead, But Its Impact on Veterans Will Last Decades

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Trump Cuts Veteran Employees, Benefits Under False Claims of Fraud – Rolling Stone

Donald Trump at a Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, on Nov. 11 BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI /AFP / Getty Images

Trump Is Turning the Screws on Vets So the Rich Can Get Richer

The president claims his administration’s cuts to the VA and care for veterans is due to fraud — despite a lack of real evidence

November 14, 2025

Donald Trump has long insisted that no one cares about America’s veterans more than him. He continued to do so while delivering a Veterans Day address from Arlington National Cemetery on Tuesday, claiming his first administration fired “thousands” of government employees — “sick people” and “thieves” — who didn’t take care of veterans, only to see them rehired by Joe Biden.

“We got rid of them,” the president said of his new administration. Trump also praised Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, the Project 2025 architect who is overseeing the administration’s cost-cutting spree. “What a good job he’s doing, cutting, cutting, cutting,” Trump said.

The speech came as the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) was struggling through the longest government shutdown in modern history — during which the Republican Party has wasted no time advancing Project 2025 and stripping veterans of their earned disability payments. Trump’s VA is also cutting 30,000 employees — many of them service-disabled veterans — after initially planning to cut 80,000 of the “sick people,” as Trump calls them, who are somehow defrauding the system. The cuts come as the department is already hemorrhaging medical professionals, and as the Trump administration has imposed strict hiring limits that prevent replacing those who leave.

Along with gutting federal agencies like the VA, Project 2025 calls for narrowing the list of medical conditions eligible for disability compensation, automating claims decisions, and tying future payments to “work incentives.” Its authors frame these proposals as modernization, but the effect would be to de-rate veterans — to downgrade or deny legitimate claims under the guise of efficiency. Veterans with pending applications could lose eligibility altogether, while those already receiving compensation could see their ratings reduced by algorithm. 

This is all by design, and Trump and his administration are building a case against our veterans with lies. Fraud within the system is exceedingly rare. According to the VA inspector general, few VA fraud cases involve veterans themselves, and most of those are isolated, small-dollar offenses.

So, what is this really about? It’s simple. It’s the same thing the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was about, the same thing Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill was about. It’s about dismantling the U.S. government and diverting trillions of dollars away from veterans, the poor, the uninsured, and other less fortunate Americans — all to enrich a handful of well-connected, Trump-aligned billionaires.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Trump Cuts Veteran Employees, Benefits Under False Claims of Fraud

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Judge strikes down DOGE takeover of the U.S. Institute of Peace – NBC News

Read more: Judge strikes down DOGE takeover of the U.S. Institute of Peace – NBC News

A federal judge ruled that the actions of “illegitimately-installed leaders” — including the purported transfer of the institute’s building — were “null and void.”

May 19, 2025, 10:04 AM PDT / Updated May 19, 2025, 12:24 PM PDT By Ryan J. Reilly

WASHINGTON — A federal district judge on Monday tossed out the takeover of the U.S. Institute of Peace by the Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency, declaring that actions by “illegitimately-installed leaders” were “unlawful” and had to be declared “null and void.”

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled that “the removal of USIP’s president, his replacement by officials affiliated with DOGE, the termination of nearly all of USIP’s staff, and the transfer of USIP property to the General Services Administration” were “effectuated by illegitimately-installed leaders who lacked legal authority to take these actions, which must therefore be declared null and void.”

The decision came two months after a dramatic showdown at the building’s headquarters in Washington, when the acting head of the Institute of Peace issued a statement saying that “DOGE has broken into our building.” After members of the DOGE team took over the building with the help of law enforcement. most institute employees were subsequently laid off.

Source Links: Judge strikes down DOGE takeover of the U.S. Institute of Peace

#DepartmentOfGovernemntEfficiency #DOGE #ElonMusk #Judge #Muskrat #NBC #NBCNews #Trump #USInstituteOfPeace

Musk caused US long-term damage. A citizen should never have this much power. | Your Turn – USA Today

Musk is nearing the end of his time as a special government employee in Trump’s administration. What did he and DOGE accomplish? Here’s what you said.

Source Links: Musk caused US long-term damage. A citizen should never have this much power. | Your Turn

#2025 #America #DepartmentOfGovernemntEfficiency #DOGE #DonaldTrump #History #Libraries #Musk #Opinion #Politics #Resistance #Trump #UnitedStates