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bassettdg.bsky.social
Retired Army LTG. Acquisition professional. Senior Counselor.
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Every senior leader considers loyalty, competence, and commitment in hiring decisions. Competence has to come first. Loyalty and commitment are to the mission and the team. If you confuse personal loyalty with competence you’re a fool and a narcissist.

submitted 9 hours ago • 0 comments

From a 2024 IG report, “About $186 billion (79%) of such errors were concentrated in five program areas: Medicare, Medicaid, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and Paycheck Protection Program Loan forgiveness.” Why don’t they start there? And resource the fixes?

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

If senior flag and general officers get fired as is being reported in the press, ALL of them received at least one star during the Trump administration. I got my 1st and 2nd stars during the Obama administration and my 3rd star during the first Trump administration. Because it’s apolitical.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

I cannot think of anything more profoundly un-American than a president declaring himself a “king”

submitted 3 days ago • 140 comments

Couple of things to look for when contracts get cancelled. The ceiling price is not a good measure of “savings”. You need to know how much of that ceiling was used and how much the buyer intends to use or was in the budget. You also need to account for termination liability.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Am I happy after an 18 point loss against Duke? Happy enough. Anthony Robinson is special.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

No better way to celebrate black history month than to understand the lived experience of American hero’s like Robert Smalls. He was no criminal but the Criminal podcast did a great job telling his story. thisiscriminal.com/episode-142-...

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

Supporting and defending the Constitution means following the Constitution even when it doesn’t change things as fast as you’d like. You follow it even if money is spent in ways you don’t like or is not as efficient as you’d hope. You can’t support the Constitution and put yourself above the law

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

Absent a beligerent Russia, there is no reason for Eastern Europe to be unstable or at risk of conflict.

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

There seems to be a narrative emerging that government employees are takers instead of public servants. I've led thousands of dedicated civilian employees that were focused on our mission and supporting our Warfighters. Blanket characterizations like this are disrespectful of their service.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. Federalist #48

submitted 12 days ago • 1 comment

if you offered VERA/VSIP to all government employees you'd get a lot more than 20k people to take it. 20k is easily in the noise of typical retirements and separations. But it would be such a completely untargeted reduction that you'd spend years cleaning up the mess you made.

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

If spending bills can be ignored by the executive branch should they be called something else? Spending ceilings? Spending guidance? Seems like a majority shift in power from the legislature to the executive.

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

If you see a list of payments made by the federal government and you're concerned about them, there is an easy way to verify. 1. The payment system includes a reference to the authorizing contract or agreement. 2. It also includes a funding source and appropriation. 3. Trace it.

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

Check in your friends and family that have dedicated their lives to public service.

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

That was a disgrace.

submitted 23 days ago • 1 comment

In my time leading an organization with an aviation safety function, the most basic rule was that after a mishap, you let the investigation proceed without undue influence or pressure to draw a certain conclusion. You don't publicly try to assign blame or interfere with the investigation.

submitted 23 days ago • 0 comments

Can someone explain to me how a 100% tariff on chips from Taiwan is good policy? Only country that could benefit is South Korea. Onshore chip production is still years away from delivering to US market. What can this possibly accomplish except raising prices for consumers?

submitted 25 days ago • 30 comments

25% tariff on goods coming from Columbia? That's going to be a kick in the beans for coffee drinkers.

submitted 27 days ago • 0 comments

Tonight the London Philharmonic played a program that included "On the Transmigration of Souls by composer John Adams. This piece was written as a 9/11 memorial. Incredibly moving and great to see our allies in the UK remembering 9/11 and those lost.

submitted 34 days ago • 0 comments

Not everything is about politics. That's it. That's the whole message.

submitted 42 days ago • 0 comments

Mike Luckovich is incredible as always.

submitted 54 days ago • 372 comments

www.msn.com/en-us/news/p... Interesting to see the politics around the debt ceiling. Arguing and positioning over which party is to blame and the timing of the raise is counterproductive. I would hope that the dialog would focus instead on what to do about it, both revenue and spending.

submitted 54 days ago • 0 comments

If I was conducting some sort of covert operation with drones, I’m pretty sure I would run them in blackout mode rather than turning on the lights for people to see.

submitted 67 days ago • 0 comments