Bullshit

This headline is abomination, but even worse is this money grab. New York Times was never “independent journalism” and they’ve shown that over and over again the last few years.

Honestly the best possible Democratic response is to bring Joe Pesci out to deliver this line and then walk away.

This will not go over well. Still no statement or message to VA staff.

It hasn’t gone unnoticed that VA leadership hasn’t made any sort of statement about what happened this morning. Obviously the VA is massive org, and only a small percentage knew Alex, but he was a part of the team, and the silence is deafening.

Exactly.

I promise, we are trying to do the best we can. This is not the VA we want either.

Employees trying to send in their weekly 5 bullets email are getting automatic replies back: “The recipient’s mailbox is full and can’t accept messages right now. Please try resending your message later, or contact the recipient directly.”

We spend our days alternating between answering whatever the latest data call is and trying to proactively anticipate the next one to get ahead of it. Actual work that directly benefits Veterans? 📉

Senior leaders at the VA are irate about the RIF memo getting out. Wants the leaker identified and fired.

No. Just busy.

General feeling is that SES’s already have their next job lined up and one foot out the door, so they are unaffected and it’s easy for them to tell everyone not to panic. Not playing well downstream.

The standard line of “don’t panic, wait for more clarification” is not sitting well with most. No one is really “blaming” senior leaders, since all of this is coming from a black box email server, but the amount of detachment between senior officials and mid/low level employees is staggering.

When you get rid of DEI so you can hire the “best people,” emails from the acting Secretary look like this on mobile devices.

Going to try this out. #VA #Veterans