Summary

Kash Patel has been removed as acting ATF director after reportedly not appearing at ATF facilities for weeks, while maintaining his FBI Director role.

Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll will now serve in both his current position and as ATF acting director.

ATF staff were “shocked and confused” by the sudden change, which officials tried to claim was due to Patel’s full workload at the FBI rather than performance issues.

The leadership shuffle comes as DOJ officials consider merging the ATF with the DEA to reduce costs.

  • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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    5 days ago

    I’ll predict that some crisis is going to happen soon. This government is completely incompetent and the only way to hide their failings is for something else to happen to distract everyone from how stupid they are.

    • N0body@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 days ago

      A terrorist attack might be coming. It doesn’t even take a conspiracy, just confusion and ineffectiveness. 9/11 happened in the early days of the Bush administration, while confusion caused threats to be ignored.

      The federal workers everyone takes for granted and the administration is actively trying to get rid of are the people who protect everyone from systemic failures, especially catastrophic ones.

          • Monument@lemmy.sdf.org
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            5 days ago

            I hate voicing my dark thoughts sometimes because it feels like breathing life into them, but the nationwide protests are set to occur again on April 19th. On April 20th, there’s all that hoopla about hitting the 90 day point for the Trump admin releasing a determination if they can use the enemies and insurrection act.
            Ostensibly the original executive order was about the southern border, but really, all that needs to happen is violence at 1 or two rallies, for the police to either over-react, or for them to pull back and let die-hard Trump supporters who already think we’re in a civil war to commit a terror attack against the protestors, and enough random footage that the news channels can skew the interpretation and put it on a loop.

            And it’s sort of self-perpetuating from there. If he invokes the insurrection act, then arrests someone beloved (or at least widely liked), I can’t imagine it wouldn’t trigger more protests, which get targeted more, and in much the same way the anti-genocide protests were. Except instead of playing the protests as a way to portray national support for Trump as divided (as republicans did under Biden), they’ll portray protestors as anti-American revolutionaries plotting to take away guns and replace them with strap ones and forced gender transitions or some nonsense.

            • masterofn001@lemmy.ca
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              4 days ago

              April 20. Hitler’s birthday.
              420. A favourite number of musk.
              Protests planned to perfectly coordinate an “attack”.

              Marshall law?

    • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Well so far we have

      -bird flu

      -measles

      -80% of the bees that pollinate our crops dying

      -no workers to plant/harvest crops

      -many nations divesting trade from us

      I think at least one of those is bound to get pretty bad :3

      • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        -Multiple airline accidents and crashes while reducing the number of air traffic controllers at a time when they were already severely short staffed

    • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      They aren’t really trying to hide their failings with anything more than words. They don’t really care what anyone thinks of their performance. And most believe any mistakes are the cost of progress. Besides, if they could orchestrate a crisis that doesn’t obviously come from their own actions, they wouldn’t be failing as much.

    • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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      5 days ago

      thats how putin does it, blame your incompetent suborndinates that you hired to take the fall, except in his case they also fall out the window, explode on a plane, or have a heart attack on a boat.

  • SarcasticMan@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    It gets better and better every day. Holy shit I couldn’t write this comedy. If it weren’t real life I would be rolling.

    Patel is in charge of the ATF and the FBI. Can’t hack both jobs, ghosts the ATF.

    These chucklefucks remove Patel and instead of finding someone from the 4-mile long list of law enforcement officials qualified to run the ATF, they pick the Secretary of the Army. Who also has a full fucking time job as Secretary of the Army.

    I am sure this will work out great, what does the Secretary of the Army do anyway? They both deal with Explosives and firearms. That’s 2 out of 4 yeah?

    Jesus Christ.

    • theneverfox@pawb.social
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      5 days ago

      Well this is just temporary… Once they merge the ATF with the DEA they can shoot your dog, burst turn your door, shove a gun in your face, ransack your house, only then realize they have the wrong address, and threaten you to stay quiet

      Think of the efficiencies! Think of the savings!

      • SarcasticMan@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        If they train with local police they can skip all the threats because they will have shot you just before they shoot your dog.

  • WhatsHerBucket@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    ATF staff were “shocked and confused” by the sudden change

    Not as surprised as they were when he got the job in the first place lol

  • Hobbes_Dent@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    Elon probably faked him out with massive government systems access and AI to convict Patel that DOGE had fired so many and installed so many XYouth (oh shit I hate it) that he didn’t need to show.

    Wish I was being satirical or funny.