Comments

  1. StevoR says

    One more youtube video for the night for yáll here – Meidas Touch – Australian Leader sends Brutal Message to Trump in Floor Speech (10 mins long.) Yeah, the Aussie angle got my intrest here – and, no, hadn’t heard about this before until now here.

    Dutton – reminder – is our local Aussie Trump wanna be & the deplorable racist LNP sad excuse for a “leader.”

    Barbara Pocock’s wikipage here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Pocock & yes I’m proud to call her a local tho’ I don’t think I’ve actually met her in person.

    No ,this isn’t entirely parochial other nations incl people from them are featured speaking out here too.

  2. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show

    Trump to put Postal Service on the chopping block: report
    Video is 4:34 minutes.

    Legislators blasted by constituents at town halls over Musk’s wanton federal destruction
    Video is 5:36 minutes.

    Sidelined Trump mostly ‘decorative’ as Musk remains busy wrecking the government, reaping rewards
    Video is 10:11 minutes.

    Videos listed above are from February 21 Rachel Maddow Show.

  3. says

    Here are a few links back to the previous set of 500 comments on The Infinite Thread.

    https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-5/#comment-2255418
    Texas measles outbreak reaches 90 cases

    https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-5/#comment-2255376
    Latin Times – Over 40% of all migrants arrested in the first weeks of February didn’t have criminal charges

    https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-5/#comment-2255368
    LATimes – Trump administration reinstates funds for lawyers representing 26,000 children in immigration court

    https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-5/#comment-2255353
    DOGE staffer “Big Balls” Coristine is grandson of turncoat KGB spy

  4. says

    More links back to the previous set of 500 comments on The Infinite Thread.

    https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-5/#comment-2255321
    New York Times caught passing off GOP flack as average Black voter

    https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-5/#comment-2255320
    Republicans silent after Trump reportedly slashes funds for Alzheimer’s center, by Rachel Maddow.

    https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-5/#comment-2255314
    “Nazi Salutes! Custom Chainsaw! Caesar Trump! Guy Who Likes To Punch Other Dudes In The Junk!”

  5. says

    Trump fires chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by Associated Press

    […] Trump abruptly fired Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Friday, sidelining a history-making fighter pilot and respected officer as part of a campaign to rid the military of leaders who support diversity and equity in the ranks.

    The ouster of Brown, only the second Black general to serve as chairman, is sure to send shock waves through the Pentagon. His 16 months in the job had been consumed with the war in Ukraine and the expanded conflict in the Middle East.

    […] Trump says he is nominating Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine to be the next chairman. Caine is a career F-16 pilot who served on active duty and in the National Guard, and had most recently served as the associate director for military affairs at the CIA, according to his official military biography.

    […] Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a statement praising both Caine and Brown, announced the firings of two additional senior officers: Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti and Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. Jim Slife.

    […] Trump acted despite support for Brown among key members of Congress and a seemingly friendly meeting with him in mid-December, when the two were seated next to each other for a time at the Army-Navy football game. Brown had been meeting regularly with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who took over the top Pentagon job just four weeks ago.

    […] Hegseth has embraced Trump’s effort to end programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion in the ranks and fire those who reflect those values.

    Hegseth had previously taken aim at Brown. “First of all, you gotta fire, you know, you gotta fire the chairman of Joint Chiefs,” he said flatly in a podcast in November. And in one of his books, he questioned whether Brown got the job because he was Black.

    “Was it because of his skin color? Or his skill? We’ll never know, but always doubt — which on its face seems unfair to CQ. But since he has made the race card one of his biggest calling cards, it doesn’t really much matter,” Hegseth wrote.

    As he walked into the Pentagon on his first day as defense chief on Jan. 27, however, Hegseth was asked directly if he planned to fire Brown.

    “I’m standing with him right now,” said Hegseth, patting Brown on the back as they headed into the building. “Look forward to working with him.”

    […] Prior to leading the Air Force, Brown had served as the top air power leader in the Indo-Pacific. He had repeatedly warned that U.S. warplanes had to change the way they would fight, by moving them from large, vulnerable bases and shifting to a format where drone swarms and small dispersed units would be able to independently counter threats from the thousands of islands throughout the Pacific.

    […] It had been 30 years since Colin Powell became the first Black chairman, serving from 1989 to 1993. But while African Americans made up 17.2% of the 1.3 million active-duty service members, only 9% of officers were Black, according to a 2021 Defense Department report.

    Brown’s service as chairman made history in that this was the first time that both the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, and the Joint Chiefs chairman were Black.

  6. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/georgia-congressman-helped-gop-fk

    Rich McCormick is a smug dipshit of a Republican congressman representing Georgia’s 7th congressional district. His short stretch in Congress has mostly been distinguished by a minor scandal last year when it was discovered he was putting his penis inside a woman who was not the woman he was married to at the time. Whoops!

    But McCormick did not grab our attention on Friday because of his adulterous peccadilloes. No, he came to our attention because he held a town hall in his district Thursday night, and his constituents absolutely roasted him harder than his ex-wife’s divorce lawyer over Elon Musk, Donald Trump, DOGE, and his supine cowardice in the face of all three. […]

    It was a nice touch for McCormick to say that people yelling at him at a town hall, quite angrily and loudly, are just like the January 6 rioters who stormed the Capitol and forced him to run for his life along with all his fellow representatives. If his constituents on Thursday night were just as bad, he should have fled the room much earlier in the video. More likely, he’s selectively edited his memory and was telling his constituents the January 6 mob was, like them, simply a group of concerned voters who wanted to address their representatives. With stun guns and collapsible batons.

    At another point, a constituent asked McCormick why a “supposedly conservative party” is taking such a “radical” and destructive course to make governmental cuts. Now, McCormick is a trained doctor so we suppose we can’t expect him to use all words good like we does, but this was a bit much: [video at the link]

    “They have about … 13,000 employees at the CDC. In the last couple of years, those probationary people, which is about 10% of their employee base … a lot of the work they do is duplicitous with AI.”

    Duplicative, buddy. The word you want is duplicative. And the question wasn’t about whether any of these employees are redundant because AI can do their jobs. The question was why in the hell a conservative administration was firing people en masse without actually ascertaining what their goddamn jobs were in the first place.

    The thing is, McCormick’s constituents aren’t idiots. When he said that Republicans are “not in a cult,” they laughed, because like the rest of us, they know there is not a word besides “cultish” that explains the raft of sycophants introducing bills to make Trump’s birthday a federal holiday, carve his face on Mt. Rushmore, or let him run for a third term. When he said that “the president has great purview over where a lot of this money goes,” the crowd jeered because they know that is not true, that the president does not have the authority to use money appropriated by Congress for one purpose for something entirely different based on his own whims. [video at the link]

    […] Republicans here and there are starting to understand that what is happening is bad for them. This week the Trump administration reversed its decision to eliminate over 7,000 seasonal jobs in national parks. And Politico reported that GOP members of Congress have been privately but frantically calling the White House to tell the administration to stop taking the “meat-ax approach” to cutting. [It’s a chainsaw approach according to Musk.]

    And new polling shows Americans are very much not happy with Trump after his first month back in office. His support is slipping, and majorities are opposed to all the job cuts his tariffs, and Elon Musk playing a prominent role in the administration.

    In short, if we were Rich McCormick, we would get used to being yelled at during town halls.

  7. says

    Washington Post link

    “Musk’s DOGE says it has saved $55 billion. Not so fast.”

    A Washington Post analysis found that hundreds of the canceled contracts DOGE listed represent savings of $0 each.

    Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service claimed this week to have saved an estimated $55 billion through a combination of layoffs, canceled contracts, lease renegotiations and other actions. But a list that it posted of contracts and leases suggests that number is inflated.

    […] On its website, DOGE — which stands for Department of Government Efficiency — lists a select group of 1,125 contracts it has canceled, along with a purported $7.2 billion in savings it has reaped. These contract savings account for just 20 percent of total savings from the past month, the office says.

    Yet a Washington Post analysis of the contract data found that many of the canceled contracts were already complete, meaning canceling them didn’t yield any money back because they had been fully paid out — and indeed, 417 of the deals on DOGE’s list indicate that they saved $0. Another 51 added up to savings of just under $1 million.

    The DOGE website has made several modifications to the data since it went live earlier this week, wiping nearly $9.3 billion from its originally listed savings.

    The largest one addressed the cost of a terminated service-disabled veteran-owned management consultant contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Earlier versions of the contract in the FPDS database listed $8 billion, but the most recent version of the contract listed $8 million, which was earlier reported by the New York Times. The DOGE site listed initially the higher, older version of the number. DOGE said in a post on X that it has “always used the correct $8M in its calculations.”

    In more than 80 other instances, the DOGE site lists and links to older, modified versions of contracts on the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS), according to a Post analysis. Experts said this could make the overall savings estimate inaccurate.

    And at least $1.35 billion worth of listed savings on the site come from a type of contract that lists a maximum payout to enable easier purchases, even though the government often doesn’t wind up paying that full amount. The contracts are known as indefinite delivery vehicles, or IDVs.

    In about 50 of those contracts, DOGE counted the full amount as a savings. Some of those contracts also involved money that had already been paid and won’t be recovered even though the contract has been canceled. [I snipped examples.]

    [I also snipped examples of DOGE exaggerating claims of saving money by canceling or renegotiating leases.]

  8. says

    New York Times link

    “The legal onslaught on Moscow’s second-largest airport has been seen as part of the Kremlin’s wartime drive to seize control of key assets still in private hands.”

    After the fall of Communism, Russia ushered in capitalism by selling off billions of dollars in state assets. [“Selling” to oligarchs is one version of capitalism, I guess.]

    Now, 30 years later, the Russian government is stepping up a wartime campaign to do the opposite: seizing private businesses, this time in the name of national security.

    In the last month, courts have ordered Russia’s largest warehouse owner to be taken over by the state and also directed the nationalization of a major grain exporter. And in the most stunning case, prosecutors filed a lawsuit in January to seize Moscow’s second-largest airport.

    The new spate of expropriation expands on the seizures of Western-owned businesses in Russia after President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began three years ago. But in these latest cases, the owners are Russian, a sign of how the Kremlin’s push to seize control of the economy amid the war in Ukraine is reaching into ever more industries.

    Critics say the asset seizures are also undermining the last vestiges of Russia’s rule of law. They have become “chaotic” and “out of control,” said Alexandra Prokopenko, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin.

    By seizing lucrative private enterprises, the Kremlin can put large sections of the economy either in state hands or under indirect control of Mr. Putin’s associates, allowing the government to tailor industrial output to the needs of the war effort and also be in a position to introduce price controls. It also aligns with the Russian leader’s goal of tightening his grip on domestic policy.

    Researchers at the London School of Economics have identified more than 200 Russian court rulings to nationalize private companies since the start of the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The courts, they said, mostly used claims that the companies violated 1990s privatization laws to seize them from businesses deemed “unfriendly to the Kremlin regime.”

    Taken together, those seizures amount to “the largest redistribution of property in Russia since the privatization drive” in the 1990s, said Alexander Kolyandr, a fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis.

    In Tuesday’s talks with a U.S. delegation in Saudi Arabia, Russian officials appealed to the Trump administration’s desire to find economic opportunities, arguing that American companies stand to make billions if they re-enter Russia. The Russian official at the talks in charge of the business ties, however, made no mention of court rulings that have eroded property rights in Russia. […]

    More at the link.

  9. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/polls-trump-musk-must-eat-worms-as

    On her MSNBC program Thursday, Rachel Maddow was both surprised and enjoying herself a little as she shared a bunch of recent poll results about Subpresident Donald Trump and his boss, Overpresident Elon Musk. Long story short, Americans for the most part can’t stand either of ‘em.

    In fact, she noted, Donald Trump set a record, even for himself as compared to his first term: First time a US president, ever, had a negative approval rating in the Gallup poll on the day he took office. That was new, even if it was only a one-point gap, with 47 percent of respondents choosing “approve” and 48 percent “disapprove.” [video at the link]

    Trump’s Numbers Gallup Downward

    And now, in its most recent poll, Gallup finds that Trump’s current approval is headed underwater […] From that 47 percent approval rating in January, he’s now down to 45 percent “approve” and 51 percent “disapprove,” or a six-point deficit, poor thing.

    On issue after issue, even the ones that presumably got him elected, Trump’s policies — insofar as he has any — simply aren’t winning with voters. Even his most popular issue, immigration, gets him just 46 percent approval, with 51 percent of those polled saying “No sir, I don’t like it!” People also seem to have noticed that prices didn’t go down on Day One, so Trump’s rating on the economy is only 42 percent “approve,” 54 percent “disapprove,” […] [Graph at the link]

    […] Trump is also underwater — 47 percent approve, 52 percent disapprove — in a new CNN poll, which also found that

    A broad majority feel the president isn’t doing enough to address the high prices of everyday goods. And 52% say he’s gone too far in using his presidential power, with similar majorities wary of his push to shutter federal agencies and elevate Elon Musk to a prominent role in his efforts to reshape the government.

    A great big 62 percent in the poll said Trump hasn’t done enough to “reduce the price of everyday goods,” a view that actually crosses party lines. […]

    big majorities of Democrats (87 percent) and independents (57 percent) agree that Trump has gone too far in using the power of his office (or let’s be clear, using more power than he legally has), a depressing 75 percent of Republicans “say his use of presidential power has been about right, 11% think he’s gone too far and 13% that he hasn’t gone far enough.”

    […] genocide by forcing all Palestinians out of Gaza and then build an all-American amusement park there, and Trump resorts too. That was the least popular Trump policy/whim on which CNN has polled at this point in the reign of the Mad King:

    Overall, 58% call that a bad idea, including 86% of Democrats, 60% of independents and 27% of Republicans. A plurality of Republicans take a neutral position on it (47% call it neither good nor bad), and just 26% call it a good thing.

    […] Sizable shares are skeptical about his efforts to trim government programs and shut down federal agencies. […]

    Oh yes, do hold onto that bit about Musk, because as we’ll see, when polls ask specifically at the slumming DOGE billionaire, the numbers only go lower. […]

    Finally, a new Washington Post-Ipsos poll on Trump’s first month in office looks at Trump’s overall approval rating and at what respondents think of particular policies and actions so far. […]

    Once more, there’s a big partisan split, and you should factor that into every discussion of Trumpian poll numbers every time.

    Almost 9 in 10 Republicans support his actions, while 9 in 10 Democrats oppose them. Among independents, about 1 in 3 support what he’s done, and half oppose. The remainder are unsure whether they support or oppose what is taking place.

    […] On the whole, 57 percent of Americans say Trump has exceeded his authority as president, with strong majorities of both Democrats (92 percent) and Independents (61 percent) seeing things clearly, but that total is skewed by Republicans, of whom 79 percent appear to like the idea of having a dictator.

    As for Ovepresident Musk, he’s definitely disliked more than Subpresident Trump. Overall, only 34 percent approve of “the job that Elon Musk is doing within the federal government,” […]

    Americans disapprove by a 2-to-1 margin of Musk shutting down federal agencies that he decides are unnecessary, and most (63 percent) are concerned that his team is gaining access to sensitive personal data of individuals.

    […] There’s a lot more, but it’s a nice day out […]

  10. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up to Lynna @5.

    Josh Marshall (TPM):

    the President has abruptly fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Charles Q. Brown Jr., and is replacing him with a retired three star general, Dan Caine. […] Caine has never had a combatant command or been a service chief or even been a service commander of a combatant command. So he’s significantly out of the norm […] I don’t know enough about the internal workings of the joint staff to know quite how critical that is as a general matter. But given Trump’s goals and aspirations the fact that he’d reach pretty far down in the pecking order to bring someone out of retirement for this position raises all sort of alarm bells

    Adam Weinstein (MSNBC):

    So they removed the black chairman of the Joint Chiefs in the middle of his 4-year tour, without cause, and they’re seeking to replace him with a white **retired** Air Force three-star general who lacks the requisite experience […] Huh, how about that

    Rando: “More meritless white people getting jobs. But sure… DEI is bad.”
    Josh Marshall:

    Side note. There are eight members of the joint chiefs. the chair is black. the CNO (navy) is a woman. the other six are white guys. chair and the cno got fired tonight.

    Josh Marshall:

    the President not only fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He also fired the top JAGs at the Army, Navy and Air Force. Those are the lead people who determine what is a legal order and what is not. So if you’re planning to do things that are illegal they’re the most obvious obstacle.

    NYT

    Trump said [at CPAC 2024] that General Caine put on a Make America Great Again hat while meeting with him in Iraq. (General Caine has told aides he has never put on a MAGA hat.) […] Trump’s recounting of the time he met General Caine has changed over time. [Contra CPAC 2019] This time, Mr. Trump said General Caine promised that the Islamic State could be defeated in four weeks, not one. The president also added a new detail, claiming that General Caine donned a MAGA hat, despite military guidelines that active-duty troops should not wear political paraphernalia.

    “‘I love you, sir. I think you’re great, sir. I’ll kill for you, sir,'” Mr. Trump said General Caine said. “Then he puts on a Make America Great Again hat,” Mr. Trump said, laughing. “You’re not allowed to do that, but they did it.”

  11. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up to Lynna’s #2, #6.

    TPM – Another town hall(s) goes off the rails—Oregon 2nd district edition:

    Rep. Cliff Bentz (R) got a rude awakening in four town halls he held in this past week. […] he chided the audience, saying a lot of representatives had refused to even hold town halls. So they should be grateful he decided to show up.
    Note that this is an R+15 district […]

    Residents […] filled nearly all 435 seats […] Even more people packed themselves into the side aisles and stood right outside the theater doors to listen in.
    A vocal majority of the audience expressed frustration and anger […] booing and jeering the congressman. […] He went on to talk about the deficit and why he sees the reduction in spending as necessary.

    The crowd again started shouting “tax Elon,” “tax the wealthy,” “tax the rich” and “tax the billionaires.”

    […]
    the next night […] Bentz was heckled, argued with constituents and at one point told a recently fired forest management worker that she was welcome to join a class action lawsuit.
    […]
    To his credit, Bentz held four town halls during the break. Here’s a write-up of [a third one] in a county that went 73% for Trump. It seems to have gone about as well as the other two. Today he went on CNN saying he was willing to offer up some of his own staff on the DOGE altar. [Video]

    * Rep Bentz on CNN: “[The firing] could be done less aggressively, but OTOH at least it’s getting done. […] [Cutting congressional staff] hasn’t been suggested yet by leadership. But […] I will support it.”

  12. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR) on Feb 20:

    Senate Republicans just started an all-night voting marathon that will allow them to gut Medicaid and increase child hunger while giving handouts to billionaires like Elon Musk.

    The process basically boils down to Dems offering as many amendments as we can to try and strike down the worst spending cuts. So far Republicans have blocked every single one. […] Just offered an amendment that would block all cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and the ACA. Not a single one of you will be surprised to hear that Republicans blocked it.

    RollCall – Senate plows through overnight budget ‘vote-a-rama’

    Republicans were virtually guaranteed to steamroll past Democratic opposition because only a simple majority is needed to adopt the fiscal 2025 blueprint […] But Democrats hoped to make the process as long and as painful as possible. They filed hundreds of amendments designed to express their opposition […] The so-called vote-a-rama, which was stretching into the wee hours of Friday morning, could also provide election campaign talking points
    […]
    While Democrats prepared hundreds of amendments […] many were unlikely to be offered on the floor. While budget rules set no limit on the number of amendments that can be offered, senators usually cut their losses and end the vote-a-rama when their stamina runs out

  13. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up to #433 in the last set of 500 comments.

    WaPo – New Social Security chief was being investigated when tapped

    The agency’s leadership team became aware in recent weeks that Leland Dudek, a data analyst working in a small anti-fraud office who had been unknown to many of them, was sharing unauthorized access to information with representatives of Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service
    […]
    It’s not clear what data Dudek shared, but his actions raised enough alarm that he may have violated privacy and tax laws that senior officials placed him on paid leave as they launched their investigation. The officials, including attorneys in the general counsel’s office, also were notified late last week that Dudek had sent harassing emails to employees in the agency’s personnel and security divisions to rush them to let several engineers hired by DOGE start work and gain access to agency computer systems. The officials pushed back, saying that they had not completed background investigations into the new hires.
    […]
    When the team learned last week that Dudek would be investigated, the chief information officer [Michael Russo, a DOGE-aligned political appointee,] called acting commissioner Michelle King to demand answers. Then, on the Sunday […] King received an email announcing that Trump had appointed Dudek to replace her. After being effectively forced out, King abruptly retired after three decades of service
    […]
    In his first days on the job, Dudek has made bold moves that are highly unusual for someone in an acting role. He has slashed the agency’s research program, restructured numerous departments, announced the hires of new political staff, and made personnel changes that include the demotion of the career senior executive who was involved in placing him on paid leave
    […]
    The agency is facing multiple challenges. Dozens of probationary employees were notified Thursday that they would be fired unless they transferred to lower-paying front-line roles. Officials have struggled since the coronavirus pandemic to provide timely customer service, particularly to those seeking disability benefits […] Meanwhile, legislation passed in December giving full retirement benefits to public sector employees has thrown the agency a new and complex task of implementing the changes, which affect the benefits for more than 3 million people.
    […]
    On Wednesday, he held two lengthy meetings with program managers, inviting congressional aides as well as White House budget staff and Social Security experts at the Government Accountability Office. He […] gave department heads 15 minutes to explain what they do and justify why their roles are essential to Social Security operations. The chief information officer […] also was present.
    […]
    Dudek proposed some big changes […] including […] outsourcing “lower risk transactions” now staffed by employees, raising concerns […] that personally identifiable information would land in the hands of outside companies.
    […]
    On Friday, a press release said that almost all agreements with outside researchers, who study ideas to keep retirement benefits solvent, monitor disability benefit trends and analyze program data, would be canceled. The release said $15 million would be saved.

    Ooh, show trials. And who knew Social security was only $15m away from being solvent? No further need for research. /s

    No doubt these ‘savings’ were also grossly exaggerated and ignored long-term costs.

  15. says

    Elon Sends Wild Saturday Harassment Email to All Federal Employees

    A short time ago Elon Musk posted this to Twitter. [Screengrab at the link. “Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week. Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”]

    I have now seen three separate copies of this email sent to federal employees in three separate federal agencies/departments. […] In one of those cases it is to an agency where all but a literal handful of employees have been under a stop work order for more than a week. The emails have the subject line “What did you do last week?” followed by an urgent response red emoji exclamation point.

    They then ask the employee to send an email “with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week…”

    That is followed somewhat offhandedly by a reminder not to send “any classified information.”

    It then references a deadline of Monday at 11:59 PM.

    Contrary to Musk’s post it makes no reference to a failure to respond equating to resignation. It should go without saying that that claim is bogus. Musk has already fired most probationary employees across the federal government, often falsely claiming the terminations were for poor performance when the employees’ records show only strong performance reviews.

    The email comes from HR at OPM dot gov, the workaround/homebrewish email system DOGE stood up on day one to have a way to email all federal employees over the heads of supervisors, managers, agency heads and department secretaries.

  16. Reginald Selkirk says

    Ford CEO Jim Farley Is Gloves Off With Trump

    Ford CEO Jim Farley is not backing down or sitting on his hands while President Donald Trump orders tariffs on all goods coming from Canada and Mexico, and separate but potentially overlapping tariffs on steel and aluminum coming from the two countries.

    During a Wolfe Research investment conference, Farley explained Tuesday that “President Trump has talked a lot about making our U.S. auto industry stronger, bringing more production here, more innovation to the U.S., and if this administration can achieve that, it would be one of his most signature accomplishments.”

    So far, however, “what we’re seeing is a lot of cost and a lot of chaos,” Farley says. Ford is looking for ways to build up inventory in the U.S. to deflect the blow of Trump’s tariffs at least in the short term.

    Farley is clearly trying to get the attention of policymakers and the media. During the automaker’s year-end earnings call, Farley said, “There’s no question that tariffs at a 25% level from Canada and Mexico, if they’re protracted, would have a huge impact on our industry, with billions of dollars of industry profits wiped out and an adverse effect on the U.S. jobs.

    “Let’s be real honest: Long term, a 25% tariff across the Mexico and Canada borders would blow a hole in the U.S. industry that we’ve never seen,” Farley said. “Frankly, it gives free rein to South Korean, Japanese and European companies that are bringing 1.5 million to 2 million vehicles into the U.S. that wouldn’t be subject to those Mexican and Canadian tariffs. It would be one of the biggest windfalls for those companies ever.”

    Farley made the comments the day before he was scheduled to go to Washington to jawbone lawmakers and policymakers about the threatened tariffs…

  17. says

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/live-blog/trump-polish-andrzej-duda-russia-ukraine-cpac-live-updates-rcna193292

    Trump spoke at CPAC today:

    […] During his speech, Trump noted several of the agencies that his administration and the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency have slashed, claiming they were left leaning.

    “We’ve also effectively ended the left-wing scam known as USAID,” Trump told the crowd gathered at CPAC, referring to the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is a primary U.S. civilian foreign aid agency.

    Later, Trump mentioned cuts at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, another independent agency, which he called “ultra-left.”

    “So many people have been hurt by that,” he added about the CFPB, whose mission is to protect consumers from fraud and abuse in the financial sector.

    “We’ve escorted the radical left bureaucrats out of the building and locked the doors behind them,” Trump added later in his speech. “We’ve gotten rid of thousands.”

    […] Trump made the comments while touting his attempts to reshape the executive branch during his first month in office.

    “We’re removing all of the unnecessary and competent and corrupt bureaucrats from the federal workforce,” Trump said. “That’s what we’re doing. And under the buyouts we offered federal employees, more than 75,000 federal bureaucrats, think of that, have voluntarily agreed to surrender their taxpayer-funded jobs.

    […] During his speech at CPAC, Trump shouted out several members of his Cabinet, including his most controversial nominees, like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, FBI Director Kash Patel, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

    “We confirmed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to end the woke insanity and rebuild our military,” Trump said, before adding that “this week, we swore in a new director of the FBI, somebody that everybody wanted,” referring to Patel.

    “It was great to end the politicalization of our intelligence agencies,” Trump said, before praising Gabbard and calling her, “very respected, highly respected.”

    “And to make America healthy again, we confirmed Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr,” Trump continued, calling Kennedy a “great guy.”

  18. Reginald Selkirk says

    Republican lawmakers no show as western Wisconsin farmers complain of Trump chaos, disruption

    Seven western Wisconsin Republican lawmakers did not appear at an event hosted by the Wisconsin Farmers Union in Chippewa Falls Friday as farmers from the area said they were concerned about the effect that President Donald Trump’s first month in office is having on their livelihoods.

    Madison-area U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Black Earth), state Sen. Jeff Smith (D-Eau Claire) and state Reps. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire) and Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) were in attendance.

    U.S. Reps. Tom Tiffany and Derrick Van Orden, state Reps. Rob Sommerfeld (R-Bloomer), Treig Pronschinske (R-Mondovi) and Clint Moses (R-Mondovi) and state Sens. Jesse James (R-Thorp) and Rob Stafsholt (R-New Richmond) were all invited but did not attend or send a staff member…

  19. Reginald Selkirk says

    Police officer killed, 5 others wounded after gunman holds Pennsylvania hospital staff hostage and opens fire, officials say

    A police officer was killed and five other people were wounded when a man took medical staff hostage and opened fire at a York, Pennsylvania, hospital on Saturday morning, officials said.

    The gunman, identified by authorities as Diogenes Archangel Ortiz, 49, was also killed, authorities said. UPMC Memorial confirmed his death in a statement on Facebook.

    Two other law enforcement officers were shot by the gunman and are in stable condition, York County District Attorney Tim Barker said at an afternoon news conference.

    Ortiz was holding an ICU employee hostage at gunpoint when officers engaged the suspect, Barker said.

    An intensive care unit doctor, nurse and a custodian suffered gunshot wounds and a fourth employee was injured in a fall, Barker said.

    “No patients have been injured. The hospital is now secure,” Susan Manko, spokesperson for UPMC Memorial in York, told CNN.

    The threat has “been neutralized and an investigation is underway,” Ted Czech, a public information officer at York County’s Office of Emergency Management, told CNN.

    The officer who died was Andrew Duarte, his department confirmed on Facebook…

  20. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    ProPublica – Anxiety mounts among Social Security recipients

    the elimination of 41 jobs and the closing of at least 10 local offices, so far—was largely lost in the rush of headlines. […] the shuttering of offices […] could be hugely consequential. […] for some of the most vulnerable people in this country—including not just retirees but also individuals with severe physical and intellectual disabilities, as well as children whose parents have died and who’ve been left in poverty. […] Many of them do not have high levels of computer and internet literacy and need someone to help them through all the legalese […] This is also where elderly people can apply for Medicare, which doesn’t have physical outposts of its own.
    […]
    That nightmare is now on its way to becoming a reality in White Plains, New York, the site […] on DOGE’s list of closures […] [It] serves beneficiaries across seven counties, currently has more than 2,000 cases pending. Starting in May, elderly and disabled people across the region will have to travel up to 135 miles to the next-closest office, which for some of them will be in another state.
    […]
    Offices could be closed at the same time that remote staff are ordered to return to an office, creating a situation in which some SSA employees will face multiple-hour commutes each way every day, all but forcing them to leave their jobs and thus stop serving beneficiaries. “We think that’s the plan, so that they don’t have to explicitly do as many layoffs” […] said Jessica LaPointe, a council president for the American Federation of Government Employees.
    […]
    the agency is already the most overworked and demoralized of nearly any across the federal government
    […]
    Frank Bisignano, Trump’s nominee to become the permanent agency commissioner, who will replace Dudek once confirmed […] during his time as CEO of Fiserv, the payment-processing giant, his company generated savings by closing about a hundred locations and terminating thousands of employees

  22. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    ProPublica’s article narration is excellent. Been appreciating that lately; dunno when it started. Intros say it’s a partnership with “News Over Audio” using an AI voice and QA from human editors. However, NOA’s about page says “our team of celebrated narrators then read these articles word-for-word”.

    I’ve only encountered one voice so far. I wonder if they’re doing something like disguising their voices: have humans read aloud but only to provide inflection cues to an automated text-to-speech. Cueing by hand would be tedious.

  23. Reginald Selkirk says

    Exclusive-US FDA asks fired scientists to return, including some reviewing Musk’s Neuralink

    (Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is asking some of its recently fired scientists if they will come back to their jobs, including some employees reviewing Elon Musk’s brain implant company, Neuralink, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

    The FDA plans to rehire around 300 people in total, according to four sources with secondhand knowledge of the situation, following President Donald Trump’s rush last week to fire employees at the agency responsible for reviewing drugs, food safety, medical devices and tobacco. Reuters could not verify the figure…

  25. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Assorted commentary on the Musk email @15.

    Dave Levitan (Science Journalist):

    Sent from an “HR” OPM address. The spam-ass subject line is “What did you do last week?” I am hearing from gov employees who got the OPM email but won’t open it because it seems so shady. Things are going great.

    Division leadership in a few places have already told their staff to wait until Monday before opening it so they can figure out what to do

    Marisa Kabas (The Handbasket):

    The National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 282 just emailed its ~8,000 employee members strongly advising them NOT to reply to the “What did you do last week?” email from OPM/Musk. [Screenshots]

    [Notably: “We work for HHS/FDA, not OPM.”]

    Marissa Kabas:

    on top of this being unenforceable bullshit, many federal employees cannot even access their email on the weekend without a work VPN. others can, but (unlike in musk’s world) it’s actually frowned upon to access off duty.

    Brad Moss (National security attorney):

    I don’t know how many different ways to say that agency personnel don’t work for Elon. They don’t have to report to Elon. They report to their agency leadership, which reports to the President.

    Dave Levitan:

    Also which part of government efficiency involves someone actually reading hundreds of thousands of emails from everyone from a wildland firefighter to some accountant at the IRS. I mean not that they’re going to read them, if this even happens, but you get the idea.

    Dave Levitan:

    From a FOIA perspective, “the entire federal workforce should write down and email what they did last week” is extremely funny

    Dave Levitan: “Can confirm […] the dumb five-bullet-points email went out to federal judiciary staff.”

    Brandon Friedman (MSNBC): “I’m no scholar of history, but I paid attention in college and can tell you this man will be fortunate to die in a prison cell”

    Rando 1: “Guy who doesn’t even respond to the mothers of his children: reply to my email or you’re fired”

    Rando 2: “Grimes should send Elon this same email about their baby.”

  26. Bekenstein Bound says

    They don’t have to report to Elon. They report to their agency leadership, which reports to the President.

    That was how things worked, before the reign of Musk I …

  27. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    On the Romanian election that we last heard was cancelled in December.

    Mary Weld – How it will be done in Europe

    Paraphrased
    JD Vance has been decrying Europe’s betrayal of “shared values” of democracy because Romania voided its election. Vance omitted that the reason it was voided was because declassified intelligence revealed Russian meddling.

    The anti-[NATO/EU/Ukraine] far-right candidate Calin Georgescu—claiming to have spent nothing on campaigning, as an independent with no party to do it for him—went from 1% of the vote to 22.9% in the final month. 25,000 TikToks, dormant since 2016, awoke to promote him, some impersonating government institutions. Influencers were bought. Election website access credentials turned up on Russian cybercrime sites. 85,000 cyberattacks.

    So the election was annulled on Dec 6, just before a run-off would’ve happened due to his low-percentage win. Thousands of Georgescu fans attended protests and rallies. Police detained a dozen who’d brought guns and blades.

    President Klaus Iohannis resigned Feb 12 amid pressure to “calm the country”.

    This is how it’s done. And as J.D. Vance said to the Munich Security Conference, “the very same thing could happen in Germany, too.” When it does, J.D. Vance has left us with no doubts about which side the US administration will be on.

     
    AP – Thousands rally in Romania’s capital to support far-right Georgescu on Feb 22

    New dates have been set to rerun the vote with the first round scheduled for May 4. If no candidate obtains more than 50% of the ballot, a runoff would be held two weeks later on May 18. It wasn’t yet clear whether Georgescu will be able to participate in the new election.

  28. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Brendan Nyhan (PoliSci):

    Donald Trump has told Kristi Noem to spend $200 million of public funds on ads thanking him for “securing the border,” North Korea-style
    [Semafor]

    Vendor contracts for the project were awarded to People Who Think LLC [(which did Trump’s 2016 campaign ads) and] Safe America Media LLC […] A DHS spokesperson said “multiple career government officials” oversaw the “competitive procurement process,” […] It is unclear what percentage of the total $200 million budget over two years will be distributed to vendors

    [RollingStone]

    Trump’s DHS secretary entertained the CPAC high-roller audience with her account of how Trump orchestrated the whole thing.

    Noem said that Trump instructed that he didn’t want to be in the ads himself, telling her: “I want you in the ads, and I want your face in the ads … but I want the first ad, I want you to thank me. I want you to thank me for closing the border.”
    […]
    The Homeland Security Department announced this week that it was launching ads “on radio, broadcast, and digital, in multiple countries and regions in various dialects.”

    Someone has to find out where these are running—did the Trump admin just give Fox $200 million? Where is the $ being spent? And PS it’s blatant propaganda paid for with taxpayer dollars

    EmptyWheel:

    One reason Trump is doing this is bc Trump has failed to come close to meeting his deportation promises. If that were to become a bigger narrative—if the mob learned that he was diverting NatSec resources yet is falling behind Sleepy Joe Biden’s deportation numbers—Trump’d be in trouble.

     
    EmptyWheel:

    On the bright side, Homan hasn’t looked for undocumented workers where the biggest numbers of undocumented workers are. So food won’t spike too much.

    border czar Tom Homan: “I’m coming to Boston and I’m bringing hell with me.” [Video at CPAC]

    * Unrelated chyron in the video: “Pope continues to be alert” =)

  29. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    More on the “What did you do last week?” email.

    Marisa Kabas (The Handbasket):

    All Department of Justice office leaders just received an email saying they should be “prepared to follow the instructions” in the OPM/Musk bullet email

    DOJ leadership contradicts—and, it would appear, supersedes—the guidance sent out by FBI director Kash Patel a little while ago saying *not* to respond to the OPM email.

    Marisa Kabas:

    State Department employees have been instructed *not* to reply to OPM’s 5 bullet email, per an email I reviewed, saying leadership “will respond on behalf of the Department.”

     
    When DOGE set up that spam server, they were forced to define a privacy policy.

    OPM – Government-Wide Email System privacy impact assessment

    The Employee Response Data is explicitly voluntary. Individual federal employees can opt out simply by not responding to the email.

    There is a risk that individuals will not realize their response is voluntary. The risk is mitigated by ensuring that any email sent using GWES is clear, explicitly stating that the response is voluntary, and by including specific instructions for a response.

    * The document has a preamble about how such assessments shouldn’t be required cuz they’re just collecting info about federal employees not the public, nevertheless OPM chose to write one… After they were sued for not having one.
     
    Marisa Kabas:

    I am inundated with messages from federal workers who are feeling frantic, furious and fed up after receiving Musk’s email and reading his threatening X post. The psychological warfare is the point.

  30. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Reuters – Trump is firing federal workers who are not funded by taxpayers

    [Regulators like FDA, CFPB, FDIC]: jobs paid for by fees from banks, medical device companies and other forms of funding rather than taxpayer dollars […] the federal government will not save money […] does nothing to reduce the federal budget
    […]
    Nine other former employees for the U.S. departments of Health and Human Services, the Interior, and Agriculture […] said they were also fired despite their roles being funded by user fees, non-governmental grants and other forms of private funding.

  31. Reginald Selkirk says

    Download your Kindle books right now – Amazon is killing this option in a few days

    Another day. Another cloud service changing the rules on stuff we already bought and paid for.

    This time, Amazon is removing a feature that’s been part of the Kindle experience for more than a decade: downloading files to your computer.

    I’m not going to bury the lede: You have until Feb. 26, 2025, to download copies of your Kindle books to your computer. After that, Amazon will remove the ability to download books to files you can control yourself…

  34. says

    I’m a former U.S. intelligence officer. Trump’s Ukraine betrayal will have terrible consequences., By Marc Polymeropoulos, former CIA senior intelligence service officer

    Related video featuring Nichole Wallace is available at the link.

    The United States is doing it again: walking away from allies. It is almost as if each U.S. presidency needs to practice betrayal as a form of statecraft. The examples of men and women who counted on our support are many. George H.W. Bush with the Kurds. Barack Obama with the Syrians. Donald Trump and Joe Biden with the Afghans. And now, Trump with the Ukrainians. America, the dependable ally, we are not.

    I served as a U.S. intelligence officer in the field, often in dangerous conflict zones from Iraq to Syria to Afghanistan. I retired before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but as the Trump administration abandons this former American ally, PTSD is setting in for many of my ilk: […] We were “on the ground,” far from Congress and the Situation Room, far from think tanks and academic institutions. We were the first ones in, parachuted into conflicts with the implication that the proverbial cavalry would be on the way shortly.

    […] often there is no fairy-tale ending, as time and time again politicians decided that the going had gotten too tough or that political expediency outweighed morality.

    […] years after the hasty U.S. withdrawal from their country, many of those who helped fight the Taliban are still on the run. Tens of thousands of interpreters, engineers and other noncombatant allies have been left behind to face starvation, poverty and retribution.

    Many of us, however, thought Ukraine would really be different. This was a classic story of right versus wrong, of “David vs. Goliath,” and the U.S. did come to Ukraine’s aid once Russian forces were on the move. Since then, Ukraine has exacted hundreds of thousands of casualties on the Russian invaders. Behind the scenes, the U.S. has reportedly provided critical military and intelligence assistance — without a drop of U.S. blood shed. [video featuring Ukrainian envoy Keith Kellogg, who breaks with Trump, calls Zelenskyy a ‘courageous leader’]

    Did the U.S. do enough? No. Biden’s fear of possible escalation with Russia squandered too many opportunities, to the immense frustration of Ukraine, its soldiers and its supporters. But $60 billion in aid is not small potatoes. The Ukrainians fight valiantly and bravely, proving time and again that they would never be defeated. With the backing of the world’s greatest superpower, anything was possible.

    Yet now, the Trump administration appears eager to walk away from Ukraine. Details of exactly how remain murky. The president and those around him are not talking with one voice. Trump says one thing one day, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth another, Vice President JD Vance and special envoy Keith Kellogg something else the next. Yet one thing appears abundantly clear: The U.S. is not an ally of Ukraine any longer. At best, America is now a neutral party, and at worst complicit in its demise.

    […] for Ukrainians, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in particular, there is no doubt about the United States’ intentions. At the Munich Security Conference last week, Zelenskyy repeatedly pleaded that Ukraine needs the U.S. to support it against Russia, not to mediate between the two. Not only was Trump unpersuaded, he blamed Ukraine for starting the war — an allegation that is of course patently false. [Trump later made a half-assed attempt to walk that back by claiming that Biden and Zelensky could have stopped Russia from invading, but they didn’t, so the whole war is their fault.]

    Trust is so hard to gain, and yet so easily lost. And though some of the Trump team’s errors — such as Hegseth’s statement that Ukraine would never join NATO — were walked back, the damage is already done. Each concession to Russia gives Russian President Vladimir Putin a victory even before negotiations begin. [!] One former U.S. senior intelligence officer told me that Ukraine, even in the best-case scenario, will look now at the U.S. from the vantage of a spouse scorned by infidelity.

    I have spoken with numerous retired U.S. national security practitioners who have worked globally countering Russian aggression, including those who spent the last decade in and out of Ukraine, asking them what the recent U.S. policy change personally meant to them. Often there is a long silence. Then a sigh. A former intelligence officer said his thoughts immediately went to the scores of Ukrainians with whom he worked — their incredible sense of resolve and will to fight. Some have recently visited Ukraine to make contact with old friends. It was difficult for them to look old Ukrainian partners in the eye as the U.S. shifts from ally to neutral player, or maybe worse.

    My former colleagues’ thoughts shifted to the future as well. Many stated that this betrayal was the big one [!]: epic in its scope, with far-reaching consequences for the next fight, likely with China. […] It will now be impossible for anyone to trust the U.S. as an ally. Our adversaries even now must be celebrating; there are surely open vodka bottles in the Kremlin.

    Is this what Trump wants as his legacy? Does “America First” really mean “America the Betrayer”? Or will this White House come to its senses, stop pushing for an unjust peace deal and actually allow Ukrainians agency in their future?

  35. says

    Medicaid in danger

    Ask Donald Trump his position on Medicaid and he’ll swear up and down that Republicans won’t lay a finger on the program, which covers over 66 million Americans. Legacy media outlets have largely given Trump the benefit of the doubt—an odd choice given the president’s tendency to just make shit up.

    Despite his pledge to “love and cherish” Medicaid dominating the headlines, Trump this week backed a House GOP spending plan that would enact sweeping cuts to the health insurance program. Daily Kos dug into what those cuts mean for elderly and low-income Americans, including benefit cuts so extreme that many states will have no choice but to force currently insured seniors out of the program. Meanwhile, the top 1% of American earners would reap the benefits, in the form of a tax cut.

    Trump must be breathing a sigh of relief over all the soft headlines he and Speaker Mike Johnson are getting, because a new Associated Press-NORC poll found that cutting Medicaid remains one of the most unpopular ideas in America. Roughly 70% of respondents said the government should either preserve or expand Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, while majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and independents all said protecting those programs should be a priority. […]

    Trump’s embrace of hardline Medicaid cuts may make things harder for him in the Senate, after Trump ally and Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley openly broke with the president to condemn the idea of gutting the program. […]

    Link

  36. says

    Ukraine fumble

    Speaking of squishy headlines, the institutional surrender of the American media continued this week with a flood of headlines intended to put a normalizing spin on Trump’s most legally outrageous actions. That was especially true of Trump’s stunning decision to align the United States with Russia in its ongoing war in Ukraine, a baffling and sudden strategic realignment without parallel in American history.

    Even international media outlets got in on the minimization. The BBC described Trump as “very frustrated” that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky declined a deal that would award half of his nation’s lithium and titanium to American companies. In fact, this was no “deal”—it was an attempt by Trump to use Ukraine’s war weariness to rob the country blind.

    What did Republican leaders have to say about Trump’s outrageous and potentially criminal quid pro quo offer? Who knows! Outlets like The New York Times treated the silence of GOP lawmakers as standard operating procedure instead of a shameful dereliction of duty.

    As it turns out, it wasn’t that hard to find Republicans who were frustrated and even furious at Trump’s decision to betray one of the GOP’s core foreign policy principles. Daily Kos found examples from lawmakers including Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska ,and Rep. Mike Lawler of New York, among plenty of others. The criticism was there the entire time—the legacy media just didn’t bother trying to find it.

    Same link as in comment 35.

  37. says

    The New York Times is the problem. Look at this dumb shit in this dumb paper. (Peter Baker, of course)

    https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2orsuabrdskjpuglpru77po2/post/3lih7sxl6bk2y

    Screen grab of NYT headline and subhead is available at the link.

    Canada as the 51st State? In Electoral Terms, Trump’s Idea Favors Democrats. Bringing Canada into the United States, however farcical the prospect may seem, would alter the political map in a way likely to cost Republicans.

    Posted by a reader of the NYT article:

    What is the point of this piece? He’s talking about taking over an independent nation, and instead of writing about how absurd and dangerous that threat alone is, he’s writing about possible benefits in a hypothetical election. It’s not even certain we will have fair elections in the future.

  39. says

    New York Post:

    Canadians are cancelling their American vacations en masse — as the next front in the US-Canada trade war is being fought at airports, gas stations and gift shops, The Post Has learned.

    Both air and land travel have been impacted, as the US northern neighbors protest the impact of tariffs on their country’s economy — an offensive that could cost the American economy $2.1 billion and 14,000 jobs, the US Travel Association has estimated.

    Carlo Tarini from Montreal traded his family’s April vacation to New York City for the Bahamas instead.

    “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore,” Tarini told The Post, adding that the US is wiped off the map for the next four years as far as his family’s travels are concerned. […]

    For others, it’s the sheer insult of the jokes around Canada being the 51st American state.

    “With each passing day of more annexation threats, our family decided we have to cancel our March break Florida trip,” wrote a self-described “angry Canuck” and mother of four in a Reddit group where Canadians trade tales of US boycott.

    Florida is one state that’s sure to feel the pain – it’s a darling of Canadian travelers, with many retirees – “snowbirds” as they’re known, spending the winters in the Sunshine State. The Fort Lauderdale area especially is flush with Canadians, with many returning to the same spots winter after winter. This year the area had been expecting between 1.3 and 1.5 million Canadian visitors, spending $950-975 million dollars. […]

    North of the 49th parallel, the owner of Maple Leaf Tours, who sells packaged group travel, told The Post an “alarming” number of vacationers cancelled US tours this year.

    “It’s taken a turn for the worse across the industry,” said Kristine Geary.

    She estimates US cancellations at 40%, and her losses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

    “I’ve never seen this,” said Geary, whose family has owned the business for more than 30 years.

    Link

  40. KG says

    Exit poll from the German election:
    CDU/CSU 29%
    AfD 19.5%
    SPD 16%
    Greens 13.5%
    The Left 8.5%
    FDP 4.9%
    BSW 4.7%
    The AfD are the fascists, the BSW the red-browns, CDU/CSU the Christian Democrats (centre-right), SPD the social democrats, FDP neoliberals. The surprise are The Left (“Der Linke”), lineal descendants of the old “Socialist Unity” ruling party of East Germany. When last I looked, they were still basically Putin shills, whether his alliance with Trump will have disillusioned them, I don’t know. It’s unlikely the CDU/CSU will actually go into coalition with the AfD, but it can’t be altogether ruled out. Whether a two party coalition (CDU/CSU + SPD) would have a majority or near neough to work may depend on whether the FDP andor BSW get the 5% party vote or three constituency victories (voters have two votes – one for a first-past-the-post constituency representative, the other for a party) necessary to enter the Bundestag.

  41. KG says

    I forgot, there’s one more wrinkle to the German electoral system. Parties representing recognised minorities that contest the federal election are exempt from the electoral threshold – i.e they will get their constituency wins and any more representatives needed to take them to their national vote share without needing to get 5% or 3 constituencies. Currrently there’s only one such party, the South Schleswig Voters’ Association (SSW), representing the Danish and Frisian minorities in South Schleswig; it had one seat in the outgoing Bundestag.

  42. KG says

    One to watch: smaller parties – Jakub Krupa:

    I earlier talked about how the number of parties in the next Bundestag could turn to be critical for who gets to form the next government.

    If both the FDP and the BSW fail to get into the Bundestag, the Union will be able to rule in a two-party coalition with the SPD, with projected 327 votes (316 needed for majority.)

    But if both smaller parties get in, they would need to draft the Greens in to secure the majority. They would have just 293 votes with the SPD, but 379 in a three-way coalition, according to ARD figures.

    Those figures suggest to me that if even one of the FDP and BSW got in, a two-party CDU/CSU-SPD coalition would not have a majority.

  43. KG says

    Gender divide in the German exit poll:

    Looking at the ARD projections, you can see some notable differences in how men and women voted in the German election: with women showing more support for left-leaning parties.

    Among men, CDU/CSU came first at 30%, AfD second at 23%, and SDP third at 15%, closely followed by Greens at 12% and Die Linke at 7%.

    But among women, CDU/CSU got only 27%, and SDP was tied up with the AFD in second, both at 17%. Greens came fourth at 14%, with Die Linke at very high 10% in fifth.

  44. KG says

    Age differences in German exit poll:

    There are also some interesting variations in how different age groups voted, according to the ARD projection:

    Die Linke won the vote among the youngest voters 18-24 with 25% of the vote, ahead of AfD at 20% and CDU/CSU at 13%.

    But in the 25-34 age bracket, it’s the far-right AfD that came top at 22%, ahead of CDU/CSU at 18%, and the Greens and Die Linke at 16% each.

    Among 35-44, the AfD and the CDU/CSU were tied at 25%, followed by the Greens at 15%.

    But the CDU/CSU has won big in the older age groups: winning both 45-59 and 60-69 with 33% of the vote, well ahead of the AfD and the SPD respectively (both at 21%).

    The SPD also performed better with older votes, coming second in two of the oldest brackets, 60-69 and 70-79.

    Complicated, but the simplistic narrative “The Youf in Europe are going far right!” I’ve been hearing is not borne out.

  45. KG says

    I apologise to the leadership and members of Die Linke – scroll down to “2022-present: infighting and party split” – the tankies have gone with Wagenknecht, who it is to be hoped will fail to remain in the Bundestag.

    The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine highlighted fault lines within the party. The leadership and majority took a strongly pro-Ukrainian stance, while the faction around Sahra Wagenknecht opposed sanctions against Russia.[47] At the party congress in June, incumbent Janine Wissler was re-elected as leader, while co-chair of The Left in the European Parliament (GUE/NGL) group Martin Schirdewan was elected as Hennig-Wellsow’s successor. They both faced challenges from candidates aligned with Wagenknecht’s faction, winning majorities of 57% and 61% of votes respectively.

    If I was a German voter, I’d have backed Die Linke.

  46. says

    Republicans are eyeing cuts to Medicaid. What’s Medicaid, again?

    In January, during a congressional hearing […] Robert F. Kennedy Jr. got basic details wrong about Medicaid — a program he now oversees.

    He said that Medicaid is fully funded by the federal government (it’s not) and that many enrollees are unsatisfied with high out-of-pocket costs (enrollees pay limited, if any, out-of-pocket costs).

    […] The $880 billion-a-year state-federal program offers health coverage to millions of disabled and low-income Americans. The program covers different services for different people in different parts of the country — and enrollees may interact with private insurance companies without “Medicaid” in their names, leaving some unaware that they’re on the program at all.

    […] Trump promised to “love and cherish” Medicaid, Republicans in Congress last week announced federal budget proposals that could dramatically curtail the program. […]

    What is Medicaid, and how is it different from Medicare?

    Medicaid and Medicare were created by the same legislation — an addition to the Social Security Act — that was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965.

    Medicaid is a government health insurance program for people with low incomes and adults and children with disabilities.

    Medicare, by contrast, generally covers those 65 or older.

    For older Americans with low incomes, Medicaid covers out-of-pocket costs for Medicare. Such people are commonly called “dual eligibles,” because they qualify for both programs.

    Who is on Medicaid?

    More than 79 million people receive services from Medicaid or the closely related Children’s Health Insurance Program. That represents about 20% of the total population of the United States. Most enrollees qualify because of low incomes.

    About 40% of all children in the country are covered by Medicaid or CHIP, created in 1997. Both pay for services such as routine checkups, vaccinations, and hospital stays. Medicaid also covers pregnant people before and after they give birth and pays for more than 40% of all births.

    Medicaid also covers people with disabilities or complex medical needs and helps them afford services that allow them to live independently in community settings, outside of institutions such as nursing homes and state-run hospitals.

    […] About 40% of people under 65 who use Medicaid are white, 30% are Hispanic, 19% are Black, and 1% are Indigenous people.

    Federal Medicaid dollars cannot be used to cover immigrants who are in the U.S. without legal permission, though some states, as well as Washington, D.C., have used their own funds to extend Medicaid coverage to such individuals. California was the first state to do so.

    What are the income qualifications?

    Eligibility generally depends on whether a person is low income, and states have different ways of defining that. For a four-adult household without dependent children, the current national median coverage level is $44,367.

    The Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare, which passed in 2010, allowed more people to qualify for Medicaid on the basis of income. This is what is known as “Medicaid expansion.”

    The law offered states a sizable incentive to add more people to their programs: The federal government would pitch in more money per enrollee to help cover them.

    […] In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court said the decision of whether to expand the program would be left up to individual states. Today, 40 states and the District of Columbia […] have opted in. […]

    Where does the money to pay for it come from?

    The federal government pays most of the cost of Medicaid by matching a portion of what states spend.Currently, the federal government matches at least 50% of state spending and offers states more money for some services and enrollees — for instance, for children and pregnant women.

    Less wealthy states — determined by considering residents’ per capita incomes — receive a higher match, translating to a higher percentage of federal dollars. In Mississippi, for instance, the federal government picks up 77% of the cost of Medicaid. […] hundreds of billions of federal dollars flow into states each year. In 2023, states spent about 15% of their own budgets on Medicaid.

    What does that money pay for?

    Federal law requires all state Medicaid programs to cover certain services, including emergency medical transportation, X-rays and lab work, family planning, and medication-assisted treatment for people with opioid use disorder. The program also covers many nursing and home health services, though federal law allows those benefits to be clawed back after an enrollee’s death.

    Beyond that, states have the flexibility to choose the services their Medicaid programs cover. All states cover prescription drugs, and most cover eyeglasses, some dental care, and physical therapy.

    Medicaid covers more mental health and long-term care services than any other type of insurance, public or private.

    What is Medicaid called in my state?

    Medicaid programs can go by many different names, even within the same state, in part because most states use private insurance companies to run them. This can be confusing for consumers who may not realize they are actually enrolled in Medicaid. [snipped examples]

    How does Medicaid affect hospitals and doctors in my state?

    Medicaid generally pays health care providers such as doctors and hospitals less money for services than Medicare or private insurance does. But it can be more money than they’d get caring for people who are uninsured — and without Medicaid, many more Americans would be uninsured.

    Like states, providers and hospitals have come to rely on this money […]

    What’s going to happen to Medicaid?

    It’s not clear. Republicans in Washington are again pushing for major changes, which could take the form of cuts to federal funding. That could reduce the number of people who qualify, the services available, or both.[…]

    Perhaps one of the biggest obstacles to changing Medicaid is its popularity: 77% of Americans […] view the program favorably. […]

  47. says

    EU leaders to hold special meeting on defense and Ukraine on March 6

    “We are living a defining moment for Ukraine and European security,” António Costa said.

    European Council President António Costa on Sunday announced a special meeting of European leaders on March 6.

    “We are living a defining moment for Ukraine and European security,” Costa said in a social media post announcing his decision to convene the special European Council.

    “In my consultations with European leaders, I’ve heard a shared commitment to meet those challenges at EU level: strengthening European Defence and contributing decisively to peace on our continent and long-term security of Ukraine,” he added.

    Costa’s announcement comes at a critical time in the Russia-Ukraine war, as recent high-level meetings between officials from Russia and the United States have raised concerns about potential agreements being made without Ukrainian involvement.

    Over the past week, U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, claiming he is a “dictator without elections” and falsely claiming Zelenskyy had a 4 percent approval rating.

    Meanwhile, both Washington and Moscow have announced that preparations are underway for an in-person meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month.

  48. says

    As Trump turns on Ukraine, Trudeau tells Zelenskyy: ‘Your fight is our fight’

    “The outgoing Canadian leader has maintained strong support for Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion, but the relationship his successor will have with the country remains to be seen.”

    When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy first met in 2019, they had to exchange jokes through a translator.

    On Thursday afternoon, as they have done since the start of the war, they got on the phone and spoke directly — no simultaneous interpretation required.

    Trudeau has been one of Zelenskyy’s most vocal defenders on the world stage since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Now, the three-term prime minister is weeks away from the end of his political life. And his staunch advocacy for Ukraine on the world stage — even when it puts him at odds with U.S. President Donald Trump — will also come to an abrupt end.

    Trudeau, the longest-serving leader in the G7, will leave office when his successor as Liberal leader is elected by party supporters next month […]

    Trudeau joined European leaders in carving out a new diplomatic framework to deal with the White House’s apparent alignment with Moscow on the conflict.

    “Canada will always stand up for Ukraine,” Trudeau said after the meeting […]

    Canadian Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who is favored to become the next prime minister following an election expected this year, has expressed similar steadfast support for Ukraine. But he has kept relatively quiet as the Trump administration turns on Zelenskyy.

    […] Whoever replaces Trudeau would have a long way to go to establish the kind of friendship he has with Ukraine’s leader. He and Zelenskyy forged a bond in 2019 during the Ukrainian president’s first official visit to Canada. Even then, Trudeau promised “to stand with Ukraine against Russian interference and aggression.”

    […] These days, Zelenskky and Trudeau speak every few weeks. They refer to each other on a first-name basis during press conferences and on social media, sometimes as a “dear friend.” They’ve delivered speeches at each other’s parliaments, and last year Zelenskyy awarded Trudeau the Order of Freedom, which the PM accepted on behalf of Canadians.

    […] Under former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, Canada was the first Western country to recognize Ukraine’s independence in 1991. Canada boasts one of the largest Ukrainian diaspora communities in the world.

    […] Grod said Europeans have taken note of Trudeau’s full-throated support for Ukraine, a relationship Zelenskky appears to appreciate deeply.

    […] On Monday, world leaders will rally around Zelenskyy on the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion.

    “Your fight is our fight,” Trudeau told the Ukrainian president again this week.

    During Thursday’s call between the leaders, Trudeau and Zelenskyy agreed on one more thing — that they will remain in close and regular contact.

  49. Reginald Selkirk says

    A Single-Dose Breakthrough: PfSPZ-LARC Vaccines Offer Transformative Protection Against Malaria

    Scientists at Sanaria and Seattle Children’s Research Institute’s Center for Global Infectious Disease Research (CGIDR) have unveiled a groundbreaking malaria vaccine, Sanaria® PfSPZ-LARC2 Vaccine, designed to provide high-level protection with just one dose. This innovative approach leverages decades of research and cutting-edge genetic engineering to combat one of the world’s deadliest diseases…

  50. Reginald Selkirk says

    Newly discovered ancient apex predator had knife-sharp teeth and bone-crushing jaws

    What had the body of a dog, the face of a cat and jaws powerful enough to potentially crush the bones of an elephant?

    Meet the Bastetodon, a newly discovered species of apex predator, roughly the size of a leopard or a hyena, that roamed the lush forests of ancient Egypt some 30 million years ago.

    “It is really the king of the ancient forests,” Shorouq Al-Ashqar, a palaeontologist at Mansoura University and the American University in Cairo, told As It Happens guest host Helen Mann.

    Al-Ashqar is the lead author of a new study identifying the species based on an analysis of a remarkably intact skull discovered in the Egyptian desert. The findings were published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology…

  51. Reginald Selkirk says

    Joy Reid and Alex Wagner Axed From MSNBC Lineup in Major Network Shakeup

    MSNBC’s evening line-up may soon look quite different from what die-hard viewers have come to expect.

    The NBCUniversal-backed cable network is expected to move the trio of Symone Sanders-Townsend, Alicia Menendez and Michael Steele to its 7 p.m. weekday slot Tuesday through Friday, according to two people familiar with the matter. The group on Mondays will lead two hours, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. The move will have direct implications for Joy Reid, the anchor who currently fills 7 p.m. She is expected to host her last show on MSNBC this week.

    What’s more, Alex Wagner, who has hosted weeknights at 9 p.m. save for a Monday night led by Rachel Maddow, is expected to be named a contributor, according to three people with knowledge of current talks. Wagner, who has been working as a correspondent across the U.S. during the first 100 days of the new Trump presidency while Rachel Maddow anchors each day at 9, is unlikely to return to her weeknight slot, these people indicated. Jen Psaki is expected to take over at least one of the hours, according to one of these people. MSNBC is also in talks with Eugene Daniels of Politico and Melissa Murray, a law professor at New York University who specializes in the regulation of sex, marriage, caregiving and reproductive rights that would have them join the network in unspecified capacities, according to one of these people…

  52. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    ProPublica – Georgia touts its Medicaid experiment as a success. The numbers tell a different story.

    The federally subsidized health insurance program is supposed to cover nearly a quarter-million low-income Georgians who can prove they are working, studying or volunteering.
    […]
    A mere 6,500 participants have enrolled 18 months into the program, approximately 75% fewer than the state had estimated for Pathways’ first year. Thousands of others never finished applying […] as reports of technical glitches mounted. The state also never hired enough people to help residents sign up or to verify that participants are actually working, as Georgia required […] Rather than verifying that people are working every month, Georgia is confirming that participants meet these requirements only at the time of enrollment and upon their annual renewal [Recipients still have to submit reports monthly.]
    […]
    Georgia’s experience offers a warning for the nation […] Congressional Republicans are pushing for deep cuts to Medicaid along with requiring recipients to work. Right now, Georgia is the only state that imposes a work requirement for Medicaid coverage. But nearly a dozen largely Republican-led states are considering work requirements for Medicaid enrollees.

    Federal and state officials who have worked on Pathways say a litany of bad decisions, some technical and some political, doomed the program from meeting Kemp’s original goals. Even some lawmakers in Kemp’s own party want to pull the plug on Pathways.

    The quarter-million people eligible for Pathways would have had an easier road to coverage had the state simply chosen to expand Medicaid […] Kemp […] refused federal government subsidies to expand Medicaid under the belief that entitlement programs encourage freeloaders […] Sixteen percent of working-age residents in Georgia lack health insurance, one of the highest uninsured rates in the nation.
    […]
    The state requires Pathways participants to work at least 80 hours a month or be enrolled in school, job training or volunteering—activities the governor’s office says it believes contribute to eventual “financial independence.” Health policy research shows that requiring low-income people to work for health insurance does not increase coverage or boost their economic circumstances because most of them already have jobs.
    […]
    “The one thing that Pathways seems to do well is waste taxpayer money on consultants and administrative costs.”
    […]
    As of January, […] the program had a backlog of 16,000 applications awaiting processing, and in some months, upwards of 40% of people who started applications for Pathways gave up. […] another fundamental flaw in the program: Getting people enrolled would ultimately hinge on an understaffed department already struggling to keep up with processing applications for other safety net benefits. [In 2023, as Pathways launched, they had a] backlog of 157,000 food stamp applications

     
    /That was the second ProPublica narrator voice I’ve encountered. Same intro script saying it’s an AI voice. A good one.

  54. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    TheVerge – Alt USDS launches a new site to share inside information about DOGE

    Around a dozen current and former federal workers are behind a new website […] “We the Builders” aims to be a secure outlet for government workers to share how their workplaces are being impacted by DOGE, and a place to explain the real world impact […] created by people who “made government websites easier to use while protecting the integrity of your personal information,”
    […]
    While social media forums like Reddit and Instagram have already become gathering places for federal workers to commiserate […] The team says they are working with a security consultant to ensure that submissions remain secure and anonymous to the public. They also plan to vet submissions for accuracy and use their networks to confirm that they are coming from real federal workers.

     
    Drew Harwell (WaPo):

    Elon Musk tweeted 222 times yesterday.
    [Screenshot of 6 tweets with the r-slur]
    Government workers could never be this productive.

  56. Bekenstein Bound says

    Joy Reid and Alex Wagner Axed From MSNBC Lineup in Major Network Shakeup

    Let me guess: shifting the network rightward?

  57. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    [Idaho] Town hall chaos: Woman who was dragged out speaks, police chief condemns security

    A legislative town hall organized by the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee devolved into chaos Saturday when unidentified, plainclothes security personnel dragged a Post Falls woman from the […] auditorium for heckling legislators.
    […]
    organizers and Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris have claimed no knowledge of the security personnel or who hired them. Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White confirmed Sunday that the men […] worked for the private security firm LEAR Asset Management.
    […]
    [The woman] Borrenpohl said the turning point came when Rep. Ron Mendive, R-Coeur d’Alene, spoke about how he helps to take care of Idaho’s public lands as co-chair of the Resources and Conservation Committee.

    “I screamed—out of turn, admittedly—’Phil Hart stole timber from public land,'” […] In 2010, The Press reported that Sen. Phil Hart, R-Kellogg, issued a $2,450 check to the state for […] logs he took from state school endowment land to build his home.

    Borrenpohl said she didn’t recognize Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris at first […] dressed in jeans and a baseball cap. “I was really dumbfounded because he said, ‘Do you want me to pepper spray you?'” she recalled. “That was the first thing he said to me that I remember.”

    Footage from the event showed Norris take Borrenpohl’s arm with both hands and make multiple attempts to pull her from her seat. […], Norris turned to the unidentified men and said, “Guys, get her.”

    On video, Borrenpohl can be seen repeatedly asking the men to identify themselves. They did not. She asked Norris if the men were his deputies, and he gave no answer.
    […]
    [Chief] White said it’s not appropriate for law enforcement to forcefully remove a person from a town hall for speaking out of turn or shouting. “I don’t care what your message is, especially in an open town hall like this,” White said. “We have to respect everybody’s First Amendment rights[“]
    […]
    White confirmed that Borrenpohl was cited and released for misdemeanor battery because of the bite, though he noted that the officers [loitering outside] didn’t have access to the numerous video recordings [“The battery citation] will be under review by our prosecutor’s office,” he said. White said his officers declined the sheriff’s request that Borrenpohl be arrested for trespassing.
    […]
    city code requires security agents to wear uniforms “clearly marked” […] White said. “As far as I know, (LEAR Asset Management has) a license, but not a license to perform activity such as this.” […] the city can suspend or revoke the firm’s license and the city prosecutor may take action.

    Video at the next link.
     
    Newsweek – Protesters at Republican event told ‘Your voice is meaningless’

    While the scene quickly escalated, Ed Bejarana, the event’s emcee who is a voiceover talent […] continued speaking over the commotion, commenting on the protester. “Look at this little girl over here, everyone. Look at her,” […] “Your voice is meaningless right now… I can talk over all of you.”
    […]
    KCRCC has since posted a statement to Facebook explaining that Borrenpohl, who allegedly belongs to Save NIC, a social welfare nonprofit organization, “alongside at least five other recognized activists from local progressive circles—including two fellow ‘Save NIC’ members—shouted down legislators with insults like ‘bigots’ and ‘liars’ throughout the meeting, drowning out attempts at dialogue.”

    The committee added: “The group vocally cheered any mention of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, erupting in applause and chants, while loudly booing every reference to the Bible or President Donald Trump, drawing sharp rebukes from attendees.”
    […]
    Norris said CDAPD cited Borrenpohl for trespassing and battery.

    Video here is more disturbing than the text lets on—particularly the emcee deriding her at length—as the men wrestled and dragged her.
     
    A right-wing spin site—not worth linking—claimed this exchange occurred.

    Outbursts from the audience started almost immediately when a woman [different one] shouted “felon” at Pastor John Padula of The Altar Church as he walked to the podium to give the invocation.
    “Yes, I am a felon,” Padula acknowledged […] before telling the audience that he has been “redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ”

    * Expelled from 7th grade for drug-dealing; did meth from age 13, 6 years of prison, out in 2006, then incarcerated some more; physically abusive and kidnapping in 2007, recovered from 17 years of meth addiction in 2009 and joined the church. Dunno the specific charges. Church is literal KJV, anti-gay/trans, and preaches submission of women.

  58. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Politico – Germany’s Merz vows ‘independence’ from Trump’s America, warning NATO may soon be dead

    “My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA,” Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting said. […] Later this year, a NATO summit will be held—but he suggested Europe may need to devise a new defense structure to replace it.
    […]
    “Just look at the recent interventions in the German election campaign by Mr. Elon Musk […] interventions from Washington were no less dramatic and drastic and ultimately outrageous than the interventions we have seen from Moscow. […] my absolute priority now really is to create unity in Europe.”
    […]
    [Trump] congratulated the election winners, without naming Merz, and also claimed the conservative victory was part of his own success, somehow.

  60. says

    Washington Post link

    “We led the Army, Navy, Coast Guard and Air Force. Trump’s purge is dangerous.”

    […] As former secretaries of the military departments and retired four-star uniformed officers, we are deeply alarmed by the decision to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the chief of naval operations and the top military lawyers for the Army, Navy and Air Force without due cause. These actions by President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth jeopardize the strength, stability and integrity of our armed forces.

    For 236 years, the U.S. military has upheld the principle of civilian control — a cornerstone of our democracy and an essential guarantee of sound national security decision-making. Civilian control means military leaders are mindful that it is the president and his appointed civilian defense leaders who set policy, which the military executes by implementing the president’s lawful orders. But this principle does not compel military leaders to demonstrate partisan loyalty to the president or to execute unlawful orders. Their oath is to support and defend the Constitution, not of loyalty to any individual.

    […] Firing officers for implementing the policies of previous civilian leaders undermines these principles, creating an untenable environment where military leaders risk retribution for following lawful orders at the time those orders were given. If the defense secretary seeks change, he should adjust policy, not purge personnel.

    Abruptly removing general and flag officers without adequate justification disrupts the chain of command, weakens morale and exacerbates challenges in an already turbulent global security environment. Open and honest communication between civilian and military leaders is vital to effective defense policy. These firings risk politicizing the military. They send a chilling message that will discourage senior officers from providing the candid military advice necessary for sound strategic decisions.

    Our military’s effectiveness depends on stable, nonpartisan leadership dedicated singularly to defending the nation. Changes in military leadership should be guided solely by national security needs, not political motivations. The men and women who serve our country — and all Americans — deserve nothing less.
    —Steve Abbot, Arlington, The writer, a retired Navy admiral, was deputy homeland security adviser.

    List of other writers:
    Thad Allen, Vienna, The writer, a retired Coast Guard admiral, was the 23rd commandant of the Coast Guard.
    Louis Caldera, Bethesda, The writer was the 17th secretary of the Army.
    George Casey, Arlington, The writer, a retired Army general, was the 36th chief of staff of the Army.
    Debbie Lee James, Lighthouse Point, Florida, The writer was the 23rd secretary of the Air Force.
    Sean O’Keefe, Skaneateles, New York, The writer was the 69th secretary of the Navy.

    […] The value of diversity

    As a former public affairs officer at Robert E. Bush Naval Hospital, I can attest that our diversity, equity and inclusion programs were well-designed, interesting and truly created inclusivity.

    During my decade at the hospital, enlisted associations put on a steady flow of heritage-month celebrations that were informative, inventive and sometimes spectacular. And there was always good food — none of it provided at cost to taxpayers. The events, in deference to the public we served, were always conducted during the lunch hour.

    During the Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month celebration a few years ago, a Marine Corps major told stories of growing up in the Philippines and how his enlistment changed his life. Enlisted service members and their families performed Thai and Philippine dances. A video of New Zealand’s haka dance was presented with informative commentary. Attendees dined on lumpia, roast suckling pig and many side dishes.

    These activities were not only celebratory and commemorative; they also directly built unit cohesion and strength. Forty percent of our U.S. citizenry is non-White. The Defense Department has made long strides in promoting diversity and reaping the rewards of a fighting and support force second to none in the world. Let’s not retreat and sacrifice the meaningful ground we’ve gained.

    […] What diversity taught me

    I applaud Theodore R. Johnson’s Feb. 13 Thursday Opinion column, “DEI made our military strong. I know.”

    I, too, am a retired military officer. During my service, which lasted from 1967 to 1993, I, too, benefited from my racial identity: White. But I gained even more because the Defense Department learned — only after a long internal struggle — that a diverse, equitable and inclusive military is a stronger force than one that is ethnically limited, unfair and exclusive.

    I attended my first race relations class in 1970. They continued throughout my career. And I benefited from serving alongside all sorts of men and women.

    As a young commander in the mid-1970s, my Latino first sergeant, Chief Gonzalez, saved my career by helping me avoid bad decisions; in the early 1980s, Chief Master Sgt. Winters, who was Black, played a similar role.

    In the late 1970s, I flew with one of the first female pilots in the Air Force. She flew the same as I did. No difference. Then, when I commanded a flying squadron in the early 1980s, one of my executive officers was Eileen Collins, who later was the first woman to command a space shuttle.

    Then, in the late 1980s while assigned to the State Department, I worked with a civilian GS-9 who happened to be a woman and Black. She taught me the tremendous value of a dedicated civil servant. I gave her more and more responsibility and am glad to say I was instrumental in getting her promoted to GS-15. She earned it.

    The problem with DEI is not the requirement to treat people equitably or inclusively. The problem is the catchall name and the fact that DEI became, in some people’s eyes, almost as important as warfighting. The new administration is right to get rid of the name, as well as the program offices, with all their misguided measures of success.

    But let’s not ever get rid of the fact that this country was and still is founded on the principle that all men — and women — are created equal. […]

    More at the link.

  61. KG says

    So, it looks like Germany will have a centrist coalition, led by Friedrich Merz of the CDU/CSU, supported by the SPD. Together these two parties will have 328 seats out of 630. The fascists will be the second largest party with 20.8% of the vote – very close to what was predicted, but Merz has ruled out allying with them, and has started by slagging off Trump. The red-browns of Sarah Wagenknecht just failed to make it into the Bundestag with 4.972% of the party list vote, while the Left (Die Linke) from whom she split got a surprise 8.8%. The neoliberal FDP, who precipitated the early election by breaking up the 3-way coalition with the SPD and Greens, failed to get back into the Bundestag. Obviously a bad result in that the fascists did so well, doubling their vote, but could have been worse.

  62. birgerjohansson says

    I have a question for those who can follow politics without puking: is there any secretary of any department who is black?

  63. birgerjohansson says

    Trump makes Panicked Move after Brazilian Ally ARRESTED OVERSEAS 
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=9f_QOxHFj-M

    I like the idea of Trump losing sleep over foreign courts being less corrupt than the US ones.
    Imagine if -after his presidency- he takes a plane that has to make an emergency landing in a country that does not suck up to him?

  64. KG says

    Wagenknecht intends to challenge the result, claiming her party could have missed out on reaching the magic 5% because of some overses voters not getting their postal ballots in time (this does seem to have happened but it’s not clear who it benefitted), and also whinging without actual evidence that “research institutes and polling agencies deliberately put out polls saying the party could struggle to get into the parliament to discourage voters from supporting her party.” A dubiously effective tactic, which could equally encourage people to vote for the party to try to ensure it was represented in the Bundestag. And of course it could be that adopting half the fascists’ policy positions and rhetoric put anti-fascists off, while fascists decided to vote fascist.

  66. JM says

    Air and Space Forces: Irked By Boeing, Trump Eyes ‘Alternatives’ for New Air Force One

    “I’m not happy with Boeing,” Trump said. “It takes them a long time to do Air Force One. We gave that contract out a long time ago as a fixed-price contract, and I’m not happy with the fact that it’s taking so long, and we may do something else. We may go and buy a plane or get a plane or something.”
    Boeing has been working on a replacement for the current VC-25A “Air Force One” jets since 2015. During Trump’s first term, he took a keen interest in the program, first expressing displeasure with the price, then announcing a new deal worth $3.9 billion for two aircraft in 2018 and revealing plans for a new paint scheme in 2019.
    The program continues to suffer delays, however. The Air Force settled on two Boeing 747-8 airframes and hired Boeing to be the systems integrator for the many extensive modifications needed to transform a basis commercial jetliner into a “mobile West Wing.”

    Trump is upset by the situation. He signed the contract to get new planes with a paint scheme he approved during his first term in office. The way the contract is going now they may not be ready during his second term in office. It’s a fixed cost project, so Boeing is paying for the cost overages but there is not much useful that Trump can do to speed it up.

    Airbus is the only other manufacturer that makes such large aircraft, but Trump dismissed the idea of turning to Boeing’s European rival, saying he “would not consider Airbus.”
    “But I could buy one that was used and convert it,” he said. “I could buy one from another country, perhaps, or get one from another country. So we’re looking at other alternatives, because it’s taking Boeing too long.”

    Trump really has no idea what is involved. Taking an existing plane and converting it to spec would take longer then building one from the ground up. The best he could do is buy a plane and throw his color scheme on it and call it good. There would be huge problems with doing this since you shouldn’t talk about anything classified on a plane like that and the communications would not be up to spec but I can see Trump doing it.

    Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg said in media interviews in recent weeks that Elon Musk—the billionaire owner of SpaceX and a close adviser to Trump—is working with the company to help deliver the VC-25B faster.

    That is scary but it shows how Trump is using Musk. Rather then deal with problems himself he throws Musk at the problems. He gives Musk the right to do whatever he wants as long as he makes the problem go away. One version of this story has Musk lowering the security clearance requirements to get more workers on the planes.

  67. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: birgerjohansson @62:

    is there any secretary of any department who is black?

    *Steps through wikipedia’s list of departments’ articles to their execs.*
    Shockingly yes.
    HUD has Scott Turner, who used to be a TeaParty Texas legislator.
    Education has Denise L. Carter (acting sec), there’s little background on her.
    Not-Black Linda McMahon was nomintated to replace her: she made it through committee on Feb 20, awaiting a full floor vote.

  69. says

    Trump’s Medicaid flip-flop should worry any American on Social Security

    “The president and his allies are already laying the groundwork to renege on promises not to cut Medicare or Social Security.”

    Donald Trump has always had trouble keeping a story straight. But even by his own standards, the president’s flip-flop last week on Medicaid cuts was executed with dizzying speed. That pirouette should worry not only the millions of Americans on Medicaid, but those drawing Medicare and even Social Security benefits as well.

    On Tuesday, Trump and unofficial co-president Elon Musk sat for an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity. “Social Security won’t be touched, other than this fraud or something we’re going to find,” Trump said. “It’s going to be strengthened but won’t be touched. Medicare, Medicaid, none of that stuff is going to be touched.”

    The president’s words seemed unambiguous and reflected three facts: The health care programs insure nearly 40% of Americans, more than 70 million Americans receive Social Security benefits, and all three programs are remarkably popular.

    On his Truth Social platform the next morning, however, Trump posted an endorsement of the House GOP’s budget plan. “The House Resolution implements my FULL America First Agenda,” Trump wrote with his trademark restraint. “It will, without question, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

    That endorsement created a contradiction that, according to Politico, “sent aides scrambling to figure out what Trump meant.” Despite the president’s promise the night before on Fox, the House GOP budget leaves Medicaid anything but “untouched.”

    The “full America First agenda” that Trump is so jazzed about will cost around $4.8 trillion, a combination of lower revenue and spending cuts. The vast majority of that — $4.5 trillion — comes as tax cuts, mostly an extension of the 2017 tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefited wealthy Americans. To make that cost more palatable to the far right’s deficit hawks, the budget asks approximately half a dozen House committees to find $2 trillion in spending cuts.

    […] as a group of House GOP moderates warned Speaker Mike Johnson in a letter last week, “For many families across the country, Medicaid is their only access to healthcare. Slashing Medicaid would have serious consequences.”

    […] If Trump only needed 12 hours to go all-in on slashing Medicaid to fund giveaways to the wealthy, why should anyone expect other entitlements to be off the table?

    There are already indications that Medicare could be vulnerable. Medicare’s pandemic-era expansion of telehealth services is set to expire in April […]

    A day later, Senate Republicans dispelled any doubts that Congress would support Medicare cuts should Trump request them. As the Senate GOP moved forward with a vote on its own budget resolution, Democratic Sen. Jack Reed offered an amendment barring Medicare and Medicaid cuts. Every Democrat voted for the amendment; all but two Republicans voted against it.

    That leaves Social Security, traditionally the most protected program in American politics. But in the Fox News interview, it was Social Security, not Medicare or Medicaid, that Trump noted may be probed for “fraud or something we’re going to find.” Trump, Musk and the latter’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency have already pushed claims of rampant fraud that have fallen apart under the slightest scrutiny. Both men have claimed, for example, that “millions and millions” of dead people receive Social Security — a claim that Trump’s new commissioner of the Social Security Administration has debunked.

    The president may persist with this fraud about “fraud” because, as with the GOP budget, the math isn’t kind to Trump. [snipped details]

    The easy solution here would be to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, either by ending their portion of the 2017 tax cuts or lifting the cap on payroll taxes. […] when Trump promises that Social Security will not be cut, remember that he and his allies are already laying the groundwork to turn “no cuts” into “big cuts” overnight.

  70. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Kate Starbird (Disinfo researcher, former WNBA):

    I’m giving a talk today that covers 10+ years of my team’s research and ends in the same place—the right wing media machine.

    [Livestream: A spotlight on rumors, Illuminating how influence and improvisation shape online conversations (5:30pm to 6:30 PST, 1:30am UTC)]

    8 and a half hours from now.

  73. birgerjohansson says

    CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @ 67
    Thank you!
    I am a bit surprised there were any st sll, there were many Black Republicans that sucked up to Trump but none of the well-known ones were picked.
    (Of course now that the four-star general in charge of joint chiefs of staff is purged, he is replaced by a white guy with less qualifications).

  74. says

    Putting on a show, and using taxpayer’s money to do so:

    At face value, Donald Trump and his team are overseeing the executive branch of the federal government. Dig a little deeper, however, and it appears the president and his operation are simultaneously doing something qualitatively different: They’re putting on a show.

    CNN reported about a month ago, for example, that the administration’s deportation sweeps were designed to be “camera-ready” and featured a “made-for-TV look.” Soon after, Axios published a related report that Team Trump’s immigration crackdown includes an emphasis on “choreography, photo ops, wardrobe changes and tough talk.” A White House official said the focus on “the visuals” was deliberate.

    The New York Times added that as president’s second term gets underway, “there is already a pronounced trend in how he and his allies are using imagery with an almost imperial aesthetic to project an air of ubiquity, authority and invincibility.” Not only are the administration’s immigration enforcement raids packaged “like mini reality-TV shows — complete with perp walks and even guest stars,” but Trump’s signing ceremonies are also “playlets of theatrical conquest.”

    That report was published nearly a week before the White House released what it referred to as an “ASMR” video mocking immigrants being deported.

    With this in mind, perhaps it’s not too surprising that the Department of Homeland Security is airing taxpayer-financed ads that celebrate Trump — and the commercials were apparently Trump’s idea. Rolling Stone reported:

    The Department of Homeland Security has budgeted up to $200 million to run anti-immigrant ads in the United States and overseas that repeatedly thank President Donald Trump for leading an immigration crackdown. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Friday night that these ads were Trump’s idea, and during the administration’s transition to power, the president asked her to star in ads thanking him “for closing the border.”

    […] other recent administrations have taken similar steps, engaging in public information campaigns in the hopes of discouraging those planning to enter the United States illegally.

    The problem with this specific ad campaign is what Noem’s DHS included in the message.

    According to the version of events that the South Dakota Republican shared at the Conservative Political Action Conference’s Ronald Reagan Dinner on Friday night, Trump told Noem, in reference to the anti-immigration messaging, “We’re not going to let the media tell this story, because the media will never tell the truth. We’re going to run a marketing campaign to make sure the American people know the truth of what you’re doing.”

    Noem added that the president told her, “I want you in the ads, and I want your face in the ads … but I want the first ad, I want you to thank me. I want you to thank me for closing the border.”

    The DHS secretary, as part of the same story, claims she told Trump, “I said, ‘Yes, sir, I will thank you for closing the border.’ So if you notice, in that ad, we thanked him for closing the border.”

    A few glaring problems stand out.

    For one thing, Trump didn’t close the border. For another, the idea that American taxpayers are funding what appear to be propaganda ads celebrating Trump is tough to defend.

    But in case that weren’t quite enough, let’s also not forget that the Department of Homeland Security is reportedly in the process of firing hundreds of high-level employees, which will come on top of hundreds of more general cuts, which targeted the Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

    It’s hard not to wonder how those ousted DHS workers feel about the apparent fact that the department doesn’t have the resources to keep them employed, but it does have the resources to air pro-Trump television ads. [!]

    Link

  75. says

    […] it was just seven days ago when a White House lawyer argued, in writing, that Musk is little more than a “senior adviser to the president” — a role in which the GOP megadonor has “no actual or formal authority.” What’s more, according to that same court filing, Musk isn’t leading the Department of Government Efficiency at all.

    The claims were at odds with effectively everything the president and his team have said about the DOGE initiative […]

    Two days later, Trump boasted at a public event that he put Musk “in charge” of DOGE, which was largely the opposite of the assertions in the White House’s court filing. Three days after that, the president urged his ostensibly powerless adviser to “get more aggressive,” at which point a Musk-driven email reached millions of federal employees, threatening their careers.

    So, which is it? Was the White House’s court filing true, or not? […]

    Link

  76. says

    Hegseth defends JAG firings in the most unpersuasive way possible

    Donald Trump’s latest “Friday Night Massacre” is likely to do lasting harm to the integrity of U.S. armed forces.

    [Trump] fired Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman CQ Brown Jr., the country’s highest-ranking military officer. As dramatic as this was, the general’s ouster was part of a broader purge: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he was also firing Adm. Lisa Franchetti, chief of naval operations, and Gen. James Slife, Air Force vice chief of staff.

    In case these dubious terminations weren’t enough, the Trump administration also announced around the same time that it’s firing the top lawyers for the Army, Navy and Air Force. In fact, Steve Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University, wrote via Bluesky that firing these judge advocates general (JAGs) “is just as bad as, if not worse” than Trump’s other Friday night firings.

    In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee and a former Army paratrooper, helped explain why:

    [F]iring the military’s most senior legal advisers is an unprecedented and explicit move to install officers who will yield to the president’s interpretation of the law, with the expectation they will be little more than yes men on the most consequential questions of military law.

    It was against this backdrop that Hegseth appeared on “Fox News Sunday” and was asked to explain the move. His answer was far from reassuring. [video at the link]

    “Ultimately, we want lawyers who give sound constitutional advice and don’t exist to attempt to be roadblocks to anything that happens,” the Pentagon chief said.

    Hmm. In other words, the secretary of defense believes there might be things that “happen,” and he’s concerned that the top lawyers for the Army, Navy and Air Force might get in the way.

    For those keeping a “saying the quiet part loud” list, it’s probably worth filing this quote away for future reference.

    As for the larger context, it’s also worth emphasizing the apparent fact that Team Trump appears to be taking steps to eliminate watchdogs from the federal government. Indeed, the president’s first “Friday Night Massacre” targeted inspectors general, and his second targeted, among others, judge advocates general.

    A few weeks ago, The New York Times published an editorial that argued the Republican White House “is moving to eliminate the tools of accountability in government in quick order.”

    That war on accountability is far worse now.

  77. says

    […] Trump tapped an inexperienced and prolific conspiracy theorist [far-right podcaster and former Fox News host] Dan Bongino] to serve as the director of the FBI, at which point he tapped another inexperienced and prolific conspiracy theorist to serve as the deputy director of the FBI. Both men, of course, are also election deniers.

    As the aforementioned Times report added, “The combination of Mr. Patel and Mr. Bongino will represent the least experienced leadership pair in the bureau’s history. It is also all but certain to prompt concerns about how the men, who have freely peddled misinformation and embraced partisan politics, will run an agency typically insulated from White House interference.”

    NBC News’ reporting also noted that Bongino has spent many hours specifically spouting “baseless falsehoods” about the bureau itself, leading current and former FBI feeling “appalled — and extremely concerned for the national security of the country.”

    I don’t doubt that there will still be an institution called the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but with Patel and Bongino at the helm, it will not be the FBI.

    Before 51 Senate Republicans voted to confirm Patel last week, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said on the chamber’s floor, “If your plan is to destroy the rule of law and turn the Department of Justice into a political weapon that rewards loyalty and punishes dissent, then Kash Patel is the perfect person to lead the FBI.”

    Bongino makes the same problem vastly worse

    Link

  78. says

    US threatens to shut off Starlink if Ukraine won’t sign minerals deal, sources tell Reuters

    The United States has threatened to cut off Ukraine’s access to Starlink satellite internet terminals if Kyiv does not reach a deal with the U.S. regarding critical mineral resources, Reuters reported on Feb. 21, citing three sources familiar with the negotiations.

    On Feb. 22, Tesla, SpaceX and X CEO Elon Musk denied reports that the United States threatened to shut off Starlink in Ukraine unless Kyiv agreed to a minerals deal.

    U.S. and Ukrainian officials are currently negotiating the terms of a revised minerals deal after President Volodymyr Zelensky refused to sign an initial proposal. U.S. President Donald Trump said earlier on Feb. 21 that the parties are “pretty close” to an agreement.

    U.S. negotiators have warned that Ukraine would lose access to Starlink terminals, owned by billionaire Elon Musk’s company SpaceX, if Kyiv did not sign the deal, sources told Reuters.

    Starlink internet terminals have played a crucial role in securing communications in the war in Ukraine. Last year, Ukraine said that approximately 42,000 terminals were in operation across the military, hospitals, businesses, and aid organizations.

    Washington first raised the prospect of shutting off Starlink service after Zelensky rejected the deal presented by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Feb. 12, sources said. The deal reportedly sought a 50% stake in Ukraine’s natural resources, including critical minerals, oil, and gas, without offering Ukraine any concrete security guarantees.

    The Starlink threat came up again in talks with U.S. Special Envoy Keith Kellogg, who met with Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials in Kyiv on Feb. 20.

    A source told Reuters that the loss of Starlink access would be devastating for Ukraine.

    “Ukraine runs on Starlink. They consider it their North Star,” the source said.

    “Losing Starlink … would be a massive blow.” […]

    More at the link.

  79. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: birgerjohansson @73:

    Of course now that the four-star general in charge of joint chiefs of staff is purged, he is replaced by a white guy with less qualifications

     
    Josh Marshall (TPM):

    Lost in some of the outrage over [replacing the Joint Chiefs chairman] is that Trump’s pick is LITERALLY unqualified. The law says a Chairman has to have been a vice chair, a service chief or held a combatant command. Caine hasn’t done any of those and I don’t think he was even the senior service general at a combatant command.

    This isn’t tradition or a norm. It’s literally the legal qualification. The law, however, to provide flexibility for extraordinary situations allows the President to make a finding that waiving the requirement is in the interests of national security. So that’s what he’s doing.

  82. says

    Followup to comment 77.

    Trump’s newest FBI hire is a disaster of a far-right podcaster

    On Sunday,[…] Trump announced that failed congressional candidate, conspiracy theorist, and right-wing influencer Dan Bongino was his selection to serve as deputy director of the FBI. The decision followed the recent installation of fellow conspiracy theorist and Trump fanboy Kash Patel as FBI director—who received no Democratic votes for his nomination and near-unanimous Republican support.

    The appointments will weaponize America’s most powerful law enforcement organization to pursue an extremist agenda as Trump continues to use his position to attack his political enemies.

    Bongino is a former Secret Service agent who pivoted to right-wing media after a series of failed congressional campaigns. He ran for a Senate seat in Maryland in 2012 and a congressional seat in 2014 and lost, then he tried the same thing in 2016 in Florida and lost that race too.

    The failed candidate demonstrated his habit of public meltdowns after he called a Politico reporter in 2016 to complain about their coverage of his race. “Go fuck yourself, you piece of shit!” he screamed at the journalist. [video at the link]

    Bongino was a frequent guest on infamous right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ show, Infowars. […]

    His promotion of conspiracies led to stints at the now-defunct NRA TV and a weekend hosting job on Fox News. The new appointment will make Bongino the twentieth Fox News figure that Trump has hired to run the U.S. government.

    […] Bongino also wrote a conspiratorial pro-Trump book called “Follow the Money: The Shocking Deep State Connections of the Anti-Trump Cabal.” Patel, his new boss, wrote pro-Trump children’s books before getting his FBI nod.

    […] Bongino is more affiliated with pushing unhinged rants, like his post from last May where he complained about “scumbag commie libs” supposedly pushing for a “cold civil war.”

    [Snipped more of Bongino’s insults aimed at “libs.”]

    That is the mindset of the person Trump has put at the highest level of law enforcement, entrusted with protecting millions of Americans from crime and terrorism. Trump is enabling crime and replacing effective law enforcement with unhinged fanboys.

  84. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    CHIPS Act dies because employees are fired—NIST CHIPS people are probationary

    The vast majority of those to be terminated at NIST are associated with the CHIPS Act as they are the most recently hired with most of them being hired in the last year as Biden ramped up the CHIPS Act on his way out […] there is no one left to certify that companies have met their requirements let alone write the checks.
    […]
    NIST people have confirmed that they expect firings soon, likely this week and it sounds like CHIPS Act will be the primary target. Also targeted are a lot of computer security and anti-hacking programs. AI safety programs at NIST appear to be impacted as well.
    […]
    Obviously chip manufacturing companies will slow spending on programs they previously thought they were getting CHIPS Act funding for if not cancel those projects outright.

    It just clicked for me that the 1-2 year probation excuse can be used to erase the previous admin’s recent actions, like Trump I’s Congress did via Congressional Review Act to Obama’s regulations.

  85. says

    US votes against UN resolution condemning Russia for Ukraine war

    The U.S. voted against a resolution condemning Russia as the aggressor in the war in Ukraine that passed the United Nations General Assembly on Monday, marking three years since Russia’s launched its full-scale invasion of the country.

    Among the 17 countries that joined the U.S. in opposition to the non-binding measure were Russia, Belarus, North Korea, Israel and Hungary, whose Prime Minister Viktor Orban is a close ally to President Trump. China abstained along with 64 other countries.

    Ukraine’s European allies were unanimously in support. The resolution is an expression of the body, and not a binding action, but signals weakening U.S. political support for Ukraine under the Trump administration, in favor of improved relations with Russia.

    […] The text of the resolution calls for de-escalation, early cessation of hostilities and peaceful resolution of the war against Ukraine.

    The U.S. is proposing a competing resolution.

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. resolution is “consistent with President Trump’s view” that the U.N. must return to its “founding purpose… to maintain international peace and security, including through the peaceful settlement of disputes.” [Meaningless blather.]

    Ambassador Dorothy Shea, acting head of the U.S. mission to the UN, said in remarks before the vote that the language included in Ukraine’s resolution mirrors previous resolutions, which “have failed to stop the war.” […]

  86. says

    Sky Captain @84, I liked the CHIPS Act. I thought it was a good idea. It even supported some Republican legislators’ calls for centering manufacturing in the USA, and for competing well against China. Many “red” states would have benefited from that funding. I wonder if Musk and Trump even realize the scope of what they are destroying.

    In other news: Judge blocks immigration raids at religious groups suing Trump administration

    A federal judge Monday blocked the Trump administration from conducting immigration raids at Quaker, Baptist and Sikh places of worship that are suing over its new enforcement policy.

    Policy guidance long instructed federal immigration authorities to avoid enforcement operations in certain “protected areas,” such as schools and places of worship, but the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rescinded that guidance after […] Trump retook the White House.

    U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang, an appointee of former President Obama overseeing the religious groups’ lawsuit challenging the rescission, said his ruling doesn’t conclusively resolve whether the move complies with the First Amendment and the groups’ religious protections provided under federal law.

    “The Court finds only that at this early stage of the case, on the sensitive and fraught issue of when and under what circumstances law enforcement may intrude into places of worship to conduct warrantless operations, the 2025 Policy’s lack of any meaningful limitations or safeguards on such activity likely does not satisfy these constitutional and statutory requirements as to Plaintiffs, and that a return to the status quo is therefore warranted until the exact contours of what is necessary to avoid unlawful infringement on religious exercise are determined later in this case,” Chuang wrote in his ruling.

    The judge’s injunction does not apply nationwide. It only prevents the administration from conducting immigration enforcement at the religious institutions that sued: various Quaker groups, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) and Sikh Temple Sacramento. […]

    […] The change in DHS guidance is part of a broader flurry of actions the new administration has taken on immigration and the border since taking office last month. Many of those efforts have also come under legal challenges, including moves restricting birthright citizenship, suspending refugee admissions and expediting certain migrants’ removal from the country.

    Other lawsuits are also proceeding over the change in guidance on “protected areas.” Denver Public Schools has sued to stop the administration from conducting immigration enforcement operations in its district, and a similar case has been filed by roughly two dozen religious groups connected to the Jewish or Christian faiths.

    Both groups of plaintiffs have sought emergency relief to swiftly block the new policy, but judges in those cases have not yet resolved the motions.

  87. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    TPM – Why PRAMS Got Shuttered

    the CDC has indefinitely shuttered the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS), a comprehensive federal data collection program “designed to identify groups of women and infants at high risk for health problems […]” which has been in operation since 1988.
    […]
    the gist is that the current survey and research protocol include questions about race, sexual orientation and identity and class status. And those all have to go because of the President’s executive order on “DEI”.
    […]
    the origins of the PRAMS program in the 1980s were in efforts to find out why Black (and to a lesser extent Native American) moms and their children had consistently worse health outcomes than white mothers and their children.
    […]
    CDC employees who work on PRAMS have been told that the program will eventually continue absent those questions. But that itself is a lengthy process, re-writing the research protocol, getting it reviewed […] there is a colossal backlog of government programs […] which the White House insists must be cleansed of “DEI” […] And they—or I take it OMB—is insisting on being the judge of what passes muster […] that may not actually happen for quite some time.

  88. says

    Followup to comments 77 and 82.

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/presenting-your-new-fbi-second-in

    “Presenting Your New FBI Second-In-Command: Wingnut Meathead Dan Bongino!”

    Dan Bongino, one of the meatier meatheads in all of MAGA-land, is set to be the Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Clyde Tolson to Kash Patel’s J. Edgar Hoover.

    […] We never thought we would write words like this in this particular order, but: this appointment is so incredibly disrespectful to the FBI, which does very serious work and needs and deserves better leaders than a grifting try-hard clown and a sentient muscle shirt […]

    It is also disrespectful to the entire concept of good government, though we suppose that horse is out of the barn for the foreseeable future at this point.

    Donald Trump made the announcement himself Sunday night with a post on his dumb social media site: [available at the link]

    In case you are wondering, no, this is not a Senate-confirmed position, so we will all be deprived of the joy of seeing Bongino try to explain to the Senate Judiciary Committee why he thinks “libs are the biggest [P-word, plural]” he has ever seen.

    What is your favorite part of Trump’s announcement? Ours is definitely the bit about the incredible sacrifice Bongino is making in giving up his podcasting career. In Trump’s mind there is no higher skill than the ability to yammer incessantly about made-up conspiracy theories so long as lots of people are listening to you.

    […] Fox News dumped Bongino’s ass after nearly a decade of polluting their airwaves. When you suck too much for Fox News, you must really suck.

    [snipped details of other failures … long list]

    Such a record definitively qualifies a person to be the second-in-command of America’s largest law enforcement agency […]

    His most notable accomplishment during his decade in the Secret Service was reportedly exaggerating his role and importance in order to sell his memoir.

    This is important, too. Traditionally, the deputy director has been a career FBI agent, someone who knows the ins and outs of an organization with 38,000 employees. Someone who has come up through the ranks and commands the respect of coworkers. Some nameless bureaucrat who puts his head down and does the work while the director deals with a lot of political bullshit. Someone who cares more about the Constitution than the person who appointed him.

    […] An experienced deputy director seems particularly important when the new FBI director is a neophyte with zero ties to the Bureau and a conspiracy theorist’s [ideas] about how the place works. But as Josh Marshall said after the news broke on Sunday night, the best thing you can say about Bongino is that he makes Patel look “moderately well qualified.”

    Bongino is such a bad choice for this job that wags on social media spent Sunday night wondering if we have reached the “Caligula appoints his horse as a consul” stages of the Trump presidency yet […]

    In short, Dan Bongino is an extraordinary bullshit artist who has now bullshitted his way into a job requiring actual responsibility and management skills […] Even in an administration that is basically affirmative action for mediocre-at-best buttwads like Patel and Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem, this one really stands out.

    Here you have a guy who has encouraged potential witnesses in FBI investigations to not cooperate with the FBI. (Specifically there, the one about the secret Russian payments to MAGA podcasters to get their Russian message out there.) Here you have a right-wing nut whose biggest qualification is sucking up to Donald Trump, parroting his positions: hatred of vaccine and mask mandates, the Russia investigation, the Deep State. A guy who has bought into election denialism, decried all of the president’s felony indictments and convictions, and agreed with Trump on literally every other controversy of the past decade.

    The perfect Trumpist, in other words: an unqualified sycophant who, whatever he lacks in brains, makes up for in bombast.

    On the plus side for criminals, there has never been a better time to commit crimes that the FBI might be tasked with solving. [video at the link]

  89. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/lets-make-up-fake-ukraine-history

    “Let’s Make Up Fake Ukraine History On The Sunday Shows!”

    […] We begin with the Republican senator from Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin. [video at the link]

    On NBC’s “Meet The Press,” host Kristen Welker tried to get Mullin to thread the needle between old GOP anti-communism/Russia rhetoric and Donald Trump’s new GOP strategy of being Vladimir Putin’s lapdog. So did he succeed?

    WELKER: Senator Mullin, do you acknowledge that Vladimir Putin is responsible for starting the war in Ukraine?

    MULLIN: You know, I think what President Trump was meaning – not think, I know what he was meaning – is we gave [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy multiple warnings that there needed to be a negotiations before the war even started. And President Trump is absolutely correct.

    Not even close!

    […] Was Trump giving those warnings when he was extorting Ukraine to force them to help him steal the 2020 election? We are just curious.

    […] Trump advocated arming Ukraine with US weapons after Russia failed to take Kyiv in March 2022. That very month, at a rally, Trump said this about Ukraine:

    “All of those [Ukrainian] people are dead. Putin’s heinous attack on a proud and sovereign nation shocks the conscience of every person of goodwill.”

    Doesn’t sound like Trump believed Ukraine was the aggressor or “ignored warnings.” […]

    Welker, after playing clips of other GOP senators calling out Putin, gave Mullin a chance to respond toTrump’s lack of criticism of Putin. Mullin’s answer was as cowardly as ever.

    MULLIN: I think the president’s been very critical of Putin. And I’m not sitting here defending Putin. Putin’s not a good guy. At the same time, that’s up to the Russian people.

    That’s up to the Russian people? Is there nobody in this moron’s office to brief the senator on how that’s up to the Russian people is not a statement that applies to the kinds of dictatorships Donald Trump loves?

    Welker moved on to a topic closer to Mullin’s home like the effects of Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts on his constituents. If you are an Oklahoma voter, especially one who lost their career because an unelected tech bro just decided to fire you for shits and giggles, Markwayne Mullin’s attitude here should be disqualifying.

    WELKER: Senator, very quickly before I let you go, the national debt is $36 trillion. DOGE is only dealing right now with the federal workers, which is only 8% of federal spending, a small fraction of the federal budget. So how do DOGE’s layoffs actually deal with the debt problem?

    MULLIN: Take care of your pennies, and the dollars will take care of themselves. Every business owner knows that.

    I’m sure Oklahoma FAA employees (who needs those?) and federal workers at the Bureau of Indian Affairs office are so glad to be seen as expendable “pennies.”

    Mullin is the type of boss who would cut the office supply budget before actually dealing with his overpaid management salary, while preaching about “shared sacrifices.”

    […] Trump sent one of his billionaire donor-turned-administration officials (so many of them!), “Special Envoy” Steve Witkoff, to talk about Ukraine on CNN’s “State Of The Union” and CBS’s “Face The Nation.”

    On CNN, Witkoff tried some of that revisionism that we already got on Mullin about. [video at the link]

    WITKOFF: The war didn’t need to happen. It was provoked. It doesn’t necessarily mean it was provoked by the Russians. There were all kinds of conversations back then about Ukraine joining NATO. The president has spoken about this. That didn’t need to happen. It basically became a threat to the Russians.

    Cool victim-blaming there.

    Jake Tapper, after Witkoff spoke of very specific concessions like mineral rights that Ukraine would have to make as part of a peace agreement — AKA Donald Trump’s latest criminal extortion of Ukraine in exchange for helping them not die — asked what concessions Russia would have to make. You know, because that’s usually how fair and equitable deals go. Witkoff’s answer was not very reassuring.

    WITKOFF: Well, I think, in any peace deal, each side is going to make concessions, whether it’s territorial concessions, whether it’s economic concessions. I think there’s a whole array of things that happen in a deal. And you will see concessions from both sides. […] And I think you’re going to see a very successful result here.

    Trump has been using the bold gambit of unilaterally giving Russia everything they want and using that as the starting point for negotiations. Art of the deal, we are sure! [All too true!]

    On CBS, Witkoff was practically bragging about having multi-hour meetings with Putin without any intelligence officers. But toward the end, he accidentally revealed what the true motive of these “peace talks” is. [video at the link]

    WITKOFF: But, I think that- that obviously there would be an expectation that if we get to a peace deal, that you would be able to have American companies come back and do business there. And I think that everybody would believe that that would be a positive good thing to happen.

    It’s all a grift to enrich every one of these assclowns at the expense of the safety, security, and happiness of the Ukrainian (and American!) people.

    Have a week.

  90. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/its-the-worst-flu-season-in-15-years

    “It’s The Worst Flu Season In Years. Guess What The Trump CDC Is Gonna Do?”

    “If you guessed “Stop advertising the flu shot,” you’re either psychic, a good observer, or a straight up sociopath.”

    Earlier this month, the CDC announced that this flu season is “a high severity season overall and for all age groups (children, adults, older adults) and is the first high severity season since 2017-2018” — not to mention the worst in 28 years.

    The agency also announced that, so far, the flu has infected over 24 million and killed over 19,000 people, a number of whom were children.

    Unfortunately, according to two sources who spoke to STAT News, the Health and Human Services division has ordered them to stop their successful “Wild to Mild” advertising campaign aimed at convincing people to get their flu shots, in hopes of preventing infection or, at least, making an infection far less severe and dangerous than it might be otherwise. Why? Because the lunatic in charge of the HHS has a real freaky kink about people dying from preventable illnesses, we guess.

    Instead, RFK Jr. wants an advertising campaign promoting the idea of “informed consent” with regard to vaccines. […]

    Of course, the flu shot doesn’t actually cause any side-effects that are not also caused by the flu (only more severely when it’s the actual flu). […]

    The thing is, people are already told what the side effects of the shot are when they get it [!]. Advertisements are required to include a list of them as well, as is the case with every other medication sold in the United States.

    […] Not only do flu shots protect the vaccine receiver, they protect us all by reducing the spread.

    The flu, regardless of what very stupid people say, cannot be cured by Ivermectin, colloidal silver, a magical miracle bleach beverage, fairy dust, rhinoceros horn, crystals, faith healing, homeopathy or anything similarly ridiculous.

    People are going to get sick and they are going to die because of what RFK Jr. is doing with HHS […]

  91. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Marisa Kabas (The Handbasket):

    This morning at Dept of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) HQ in DC as mandatory return to office began, this video played on loop for ~5 mins on screens throughout the building [] Building staff couldn’t figure out how to turn it off so sent people to every floor to unplug TVs.
    [Video of Trump vigorously kissing a reclining Musk’s bare toes]

    Rando: “They said they were going to use AI to improve the government. They just didn’t say HOW”

  92. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Politico – Judge blocks OPM, Education Department from sharing personal info with DOGE (a TRO)

    the most wide-ranging block on DOGE’s activities to date and bars OPM, the government’s HR department, from sharing federal employees’ personal information with DOGE, as well as information related to student borrowers. It came in response to a lawsuit brought by federal employee unions, student loan recipients and veterans who receive government benefits. The judge’s order formally applies only to them, but in practice it appears likely to serve as an across-the-board ban on DOGE’s access to data OPM or the Education Department hold about individuals.
    […]
    the government had fallen short of showing why DOGE officials needed access to that information, but will have additional opportunities to prove it

  95. says

    https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/02/24/us/trump-musk-news#trump-macron-ukraine

    “The French president is visiting as the U.S. sidelines Europe in Ukraine peace talks.”

    President Trump and President Emmanuel Macron of France diverged on the Ukraine war on Monday as the visiting European leader contradicted the American president over who was responsible for the Russian invasion and how much the allies are doing to help Ukraine.

    While trading compliments and friendly gestures during a convivial White House meeting, Mr. Trump and Mr. Macron’s polite exchange exposed the deepening divide between the United States and Europe as the newly restored American president seeks to broker a peace deal with Russia.

    Meeting on the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Mr. Trump refused to call President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia a dictator and falsely stated that the United States had spent three times more on the war than Europe has. Mr. Macron treaded gently, but he made clear that Russia was to blame for the war, not Ukraine, and corrected Mr. Trump’s assertions about European aid.

    Mr. Trump also said he might go to Moscow if a peace deal is reached, which he predicted could happen within weeks. That would make him the first American president to visit Russia in more than a decade and would be seen as a boon for Mr. Putin, who faces an international arrest warrant for war crimes.

    […] Mr. Macron has rallied European leaders to formulate a strategy as the United States appears to be shifting favor from Europe to Russia, then he rushed to Washington to meet personally with Mr. Trump.

    […] Mr. Macron […] gave voice to the consensus view in Europe and, until now, in the United States that Moscow is to blame for the war. “This is a responsibility of Russia because the aggressor is Russia,” the French president said.

    At one point, Mr. Trump repeated the false claim that the United States had spent $350 billion to aid Ukraine and “we had nothing to show for it,” while Europe has spent only $100 billion. In fact, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Europe has allocated $138 billion compared with $119 billion from the United States.

    Mr. Trump also mischaracterized the nature of European aid. “Europe is loaning the money to Ukraine,” he said. “They get their money back.”

    Mr. Macron, who earlier in the meeting had been speaking in French through an interpreter, quickly interjected in English and put his hand on Mr. Trump’s arm to correct him.

    “No, in fact, to be frank, we paid,” Mr. Macron said. Like the United States, he said, there has been a mix of grants, loans and loan guarantees. “We provided real money, to be clear,” he said.

    Mr. Trump, smiling, made a skeptical face and waved his hand as if to say that he did not buy it.

    [Trump] emphasized his demand that Ukraine sign over hundreds of billions of dollars in mineral rights to repay U.S. military aid, which Mr. Zelensky has resisted. […]

    Mr. Macron has organized two meetings of European leaders to formulate a plan for dealing with an America that can no longer be depended on as an ally […]

    Mr. Trump and Mr. Macron have a long and complicated history. As the president greeted Mr. Macron at the entrance to the West Wing on Monday, the two engaged in a vigorous handshake in which both seemed in a lighthearted but pointed way trying to assert masculine dominance, reminiscent of similar encounters during Mr. Trump’s first term. During their later session in the Oval, they flashed smiles, flattered each other and jocularly shook hands again.

  96. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/surprise-doges-savings-are-all-made

    “Surprise, DOGE’s ‘Savings’ Are All Made Up”

    “The point is trauma! And a leg up for Elon, of course.” [AI generated image of Trump kissing Elon Musk’s toes.]

    Every day, new tales of the hinky bullshit Presidential Best Buddy Elon Musk’s DOGE squad has been pulling!

    Over the weekend Musk sent out a not-legal-in-all-kinds-of-ways email demanding all federal employees send in an email by midnight tonight with five bullet points of what they accomplished in the past week, because he is either in charge of everything or in charge of nothing, depending on if you believe his Twitter feed or the legal filings from the Justice Department:

    Consistent with President realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week.

    Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.

    Then he mocked them with a Spongebob meme. [Screen grab at the link]

    He is the world’s oldest edgelord. The FBI, the office coordinating America’s intelligence agencies, Departments of Defense, State, Energy, Health and Human Services departments, Homeland Security and the judiciary all sent their employees messages to ignore the “Dogefather,” who has no actual authority to do anything but whisper in Trump’s ear.

    “For now, please pause any response to the OPM email titled ‘what did you do last week?’” Darin Selnick at the Department of Defense instructed his employees. Bitter divorced dad of 13 [Elon Musk] did not like that! “Anyone with the attitude of that Pentagon official needs to look for a new job,” he foot-stomped on Sunday night, followed up with a huff-Xit Monday morning: “Those who do not take this email seriously will soon be furthering their career elsewhere.”

    Show some respect to the ketamine-snorting gamer who shitposts at least 100 times a day, he is saving the government so much money! LOL, it turns out Elon’s squad of little pukes have actually been fudging their “savings” numbers, and sometimes just making things up.

    Politico’s Jessie Blaeser dove into the “wall of receipts” that DOGE has posted online, and distilled its fudgery into five bullet points:

    – Contracts that had not yet been awarded
    – Instances where a single pot of money is listed multiple times — tripling or quadrupling the amount of savings claimed
    – Purchase agreements that have no record of being canceled, but were instead stripped of language related to diversity, equity and inclusion
    – Contract savings identified by DOGE that do not match with records they refer to in the Federal Procurement Data System
    – Contracts where the underlying document is for an entirely different contract

    If Musk wanted to make this farce convincing, maybe he should have brought in accountants? Or at least guys in visors and glasses holding calculators who are older than 22?

    So what are Big Balls and company actually doing?

    “We heard from our colleagues that they’re camped out in the basement,” a purged CFPB lawyer told 60 Minutes’ Lesley Stahl. “They’ve got papers up on the windows to keep people from looking in. And they’ve been accessing data, certainly.” How transparent! “DON’T COME DOWN HERE, MOM, I’M ACCESSING DATA!”

    Whatever it is, they’re doing it without security clearances, or ethics training, or anything else you’d hope somebody would have before they start poking around in classified data, and they reportedly only leave to pick up lunch, before scurrying back to their subterranean hidey-hole.

    CBS also got some of the only known footage of the “college dropout” squad walking into the Consumer Fraud Protection Bureau with their little backpacks, “along with what appeared to be a bodyguard.” Three hours later, Musk Xitted “CFPB RIP 🪦 ”.

    Who is paying them? Who is paying the bodyguard? Are they doing it all just for the glory of love? Nobody knows!

    Anyway, how are those dozen-something lawsuits going? Mixed bag!

    Wins for sanity: a temporary restraining order was granted Friday to stop attempts to cancel “DEI contracts,” and a federal judge reinstated Cathy Harris as leader of the Merit Systems Protection Board. There is still a halt on Trump’s order to freeze all federal spending, and the CDC and HHS were ordered to restore those health webpages that DOGE (or somebody) deleted. A federal judge Monday morning granted a TRO filed by the American Federation of Teachers, former federal employees and federal student aid recipients and six military veterans to block DOGE from accessing their personal and student loan data.

    Losses: USAID putting employees on leave, allowed. Firing Treasury employees, allowed. Some temporary restraining orders denied because they can’t show harm yet, including states wanting a TRO against DOGE poking around the Treasury, California students wanting a TRO from DOGE nosing around in their student loan data, and Department of Labor employees, HHS employees and CFPB wanting a TRO to get DOGE out of their personal data. Guess everybody will just have to wait until some irreparable harm gets done. (Have you frozen your credit yet? Freeze your credit!)

    And what is the actual point of these erratic cuts?

    Trauma is for sure at the top of the list. Remember the now-head of OMB, Russell Voight, getting a raging boner and slobbering at the thought of how traumatized he hopes federal employees will be? [video at the link]

    “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can’t do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so. We want to put them in trauma.”

    [!]

    […] And, there is the “culture war” part, virtue-signaling that they are cutting pretend things like condoms to Gaza, and “woke” words.

    But of course, all of this helps out Elon himself most of all. How nice to have nobody to regulate his exploding rockets, self-immolating cars or the pollution his companies dump, nobody at the CFPB to defend consumers after they inevitably get ripped off on his new digital payment platform “X Money”! PLUS he gets to see whatever documents his competitors have filed with the government as well, down to the last penny of their taxes. That is worth way more than the couch change he spent to buy his way into Trump’s heart!

    In better news, this morning an AI video of Trump giving Elon Musk an epic toe job reportedly played on loop on screens throughout the HUD building. No one could figure out how to turn it off, and security had to go around unplugging individual TVs to make it stop.

    Look, you gotta take your joy where you can these days!

  97. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Laffy:

    “Concerns.” [Eyeroll emiji]

    “Trump admin has halted efforts to place migrants in tent structures built at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, amid concerns that the emerging facilities don’t meet detention standards because they lack air conditioning or electricity.” [CNN]

  98. Reginald Selkirk says

    ResetEra is disabling X embeds in posts.

    “The hope here is that people will start moving away from Twitter as a source of information and go to other sites and platforms,” according to the GM of the gaming-focused forum. Screenshots and X links will still be allowed, though “screenshots will need to feature the name of the account and the date it was posted so that we can all avoid trolls and people misrepresenting others.” …

  101. Reginald Selkirk says

    ibid

    …
    Flack’s most famous song was introduced to a new generation of music fans when Lauryn Hill’s hip-hop group The Fugees recorded a Grammy-winning cover of Killing Me Softly, which they would eventually perform on-stage alongside her.
    It topped the charts around the world in 1996.

    Mmm, that’s a bit touchy. Because while Flack’s rendition of Killing Me Softly is truly excellent, she did not write the song and was not the first to perform it.

    Lori Lieberman and the Story Behind “Killing Me Softly With His Song”

    The soulful ballad “Killing Me Softly with His Song” got Roberta Flack inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and the Fugees certified triple-platinum. But the original version by Lori Lieberman, who wrote the poem that inspired it, is mostly forgotten.

    Lieberman’s contributions to one of the most memorable songs of the 20th century were dismissed and downplayed by her older, male co-writers — a familiar musical tale as old as time…

    So, if the Fugees re-recorded it, why would you give the cdredit for that to Flack and not to the writers or to Lieberman?

  102. Reginald Selkirk says

    MP Mike Amesbury jailed for punching constituent

    Suspended Labour MP Mike Amesbury has been jailed for 10 weeks after he admitted punching a man to the ground in his Cheshire constituency.

    Amesbury, 55, who represents Runcorn and Helsby as an independent MP, pleaded guilty to assaulting 45-year-old Paul Fellows after video footage emerged showing the confrontation.

    He had his Labour whip removed after the incident in Frodsham, Cheshire, which happened in the early hours of 26 October.

    Sitting at Chester Magistrates’ Court, Deputy Chief Magistrate Tan Ikram said a pre-sentence report showed Amesbury’s actions were the result of a “anger and loss of emotional control”…

  103. Reginald Selkirk says

    Giuliani has fully satisfied Georgia election workers’ $148 million judgment

    Rudolph Giuliani has “fully satisfied” a $148 million judgment won by two Georgia election workers who said he defamed them by falsely claiming they helped steal the 2020 U.S. presidential election from Donald Trump, a Monday court filing shows.

    A satisfaction of judgment was filed in Manhattan federal court, after the former New York City mayor and Trump adviser announced a settlement on January 16 to compensate the election workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea’ “Shaye” Moss.

    Terms have not been disclosed, but Giuliani said after the settlement that he would keep his apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, his condominium in Palm Beach, Florida, and his personal belongings. He promised not to defame the plaintiffs again.

    Lawyers for Giuliani and the election workers did not immediately respond to requests for comment…

  104. Reginald Selkirk says

    DeSantis promotes his wife as next Florida governor and takes a shot at Trump’s pick

    As Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis approaches the end of his second term in office, he’s talking up one potential heir to succeed him in 2026: his wife, Casey DeSantis. And he’s taking a shot at President Donald Trump ‘s pick to be the next governor.

    Questioned by reporters in Tampa on Monday, DeSantis touted his wife as a staunch conservative who would build on his legacy and argued that the state’s first lady could pull in even more voters than he did. DeSantis won a dominant reelection victory in 2022 with a nearly 20-point margin.

    “She’s somebody that has, I think, the intestinal fortitude and the dedication to conservative principles,” DeSantis said of his wife. “Anything we’ve accomplished, she’d be able to take to the next level.”

    The comments came days after the president threw his support behind U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, a Florida Republican who has been a prominent surrogate for Trump on the campaign trail and cable news…

  105. Reginald Selkirk says

    Elon Musk Asks for Reason US Can’t Afford Healthcare — Mark Cuban Gives 7 (and a Solution)

    Elon Musk isn’t known for mincing words, and when he recently took to X (formerly Twitter) to ask why the U.S. can’t afford healthcare, he got an answer he may not have expected. Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban didn’t just respond — he laid out a scathing critique of the system and pinpointed seven major reasons why healthcare costs are out of control…

    Without getting into the details, I would posit that the main reason is that our elected government is not supporting the people, it is supporting special interests and not holding them to account.

  106. Reginald Selkirk says

    SCOTUS turns down abortion clinic buffer zone challenge, Thomas slams ‘abdication’ of duty

    The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear a pro-life challenge against protest restrictions around abortion clinics in Illinois, as activists argued the laws infringe on their First Amendment rights, a decision met with a fiery dissent by Justice Clarence Thomas.

    The court rejected appeals from Coalition Life, which describes itself as “America’s Largest Professional Sidewalk Counseling Organization” in New Jersey and Illinois, which had challenged previous lower court rulings that dismissed their lawsuits.

    Pro-life activists in the case argued that “buffer zones” – which were established after a previous Supreme Court decision in Colorado to shield patients from harassment – around abortion clinics violate their First Amendment rights to free speech…

  107. Reginald Selkirk says

    Why there’s an upside-down American flag hanging in Yosemite National Park

    …
    But this year’s visitors witnessed more than firefall on February 22. They also saw an upside-down American flag, which Yosemite employees reportedly hung over the side of El Capitan to protest the recent downsizing that took place as part of the Trump administration’s cost-cutting initiatives.

    Traditionally, hanging the American flag upside down symbolizes a distress call.

    Gavin Carpenter, a maintenance mechanic with Yosemite, spoke to the San Francisco Chronicle on Saturday and said he supplied the flag and helped hang it.

    “We’re bringing attention to what’s happening to the parks, which are every American’s properties. It’s super important we take care of them, and we’re losing people here, and it’s not sustainable if we want to keep the parks open.” …

  108. Reginald Selkirk says

    Dragging dead fish around reveals super power of mucus

    By dragging a bunch of dead fish around, scientists may have uncovered a hidden power of one of biology’s most important substances—mucus. And what they found might even help us understand the very dawn of vertebrate life on land.

    First, it’s important to know that fish are covered in a thin layer of mucus. This slimy coating (it is also called a “slime coat”) is known to keep fish healthy by warding off pathogens. Scientists have also found some evidence that mucus can reduce drag, helping fish swim through the water more easily.

    Noah Bressman, a physiologist at Salisbury University in Maryland, studied fish mucus in hagfish, which are notorious for their mucus. But a lot of his other research focuses on amphibious fish, or fish species that can move both in the water and on land—and he was curious to know if mucus might help those fish get around, too.

    “An amphibious fish that’s moving, that’s basically army crawling around on the ground, and it’s covered in mucus, that mucus likely has an impact on the way it moves around on land,” Bressman told Popular Science. “Does it make it easier? Does it lubricate and help them move easier on land?”

    To try and answer this question, Bressman turned to the northern snakehead, a fish native to Asia that has become an invasive species in scattered freshwater habitats across the US over the past two decades. Northern snakeheads can reach nearly three feet long and grow up to 19 pounds–and because they can breathe air through their mouth, these impressively large fish can both survive and travel over land…

  109. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Anna Bower (Lawfare):

    JUDGE COLLEEN KOLLAR-KOTELLY: Is there an administrator of DOGE at the present time?

    GOVERNMENT COUNSEL: I don’t know the answer to that.

    Judge Kollar-Kotelly grilled counsel for the government on DOGE’s command structure. Counsel repeatedly said he didn’t know the answer to her questions.

    The judge said the questions are relevant bc she has concerns about whether DOGE is operating constitutionally under the Appointments Clause.

  110. says

    Followup to comments 81, 96 and 109.

    Washington Post:

    The Trump administration has told federal agency leaders that they can ignore the public decree from Elon Musk to effectively fire employees who do not send in bullet-point summaries of their work last week, according to three people familiar with the matter, a break with the billionaire who has exerted significant power to slash the 2.3-million-person federal workforce.

  111. says

    Politico:

    The Education Department on Friday launched a probe into Maine’s transgender student sports participation policy after the president threatened the state’s federal funding at a meeting of governors at the White House.

    During the event President Donald Trump touted his executive order that barred transgender students from competing in women’s sports and the effect it has had on the NCAA. Soon after he threatened Maine’s federal funding and singled out Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, and her state’s policies after she refused to say whether she would comply with his order.

    The Trump administration’s response was swift.

    Just hours later, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights launched a self-initiated investigation into the Maine Department of Education for potentially violating Title IX, the federal education law that bars sex-based discrimination. OCR cited “allegations that it continues to allow male athletes to compete in girls’ interscholastic athletics and that it has denied female athletes female-only intimate facilities, thereby violating federal antidiscrimination law.”

    “Let me be clear: If Maine wants to continue to receive federal funds from the Education Department, it has to follow Title IX,” said Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, in a statement. “If it wants to forgo federal funds and continue to trample the rights of its young female athletes, that, too, is its choice.”

    Launching a civil rights investigation is a key step in the process of yanking a school’s federal funding. But the bar for being found guilty of a civil rights violation is high and cutting off federal education funding is a lever of power Washington has not used in decades.

    The letter sent to Maine Education Commissioner Pender Makin notified her that OCR is launching a probe into Maine School Administrative District No. 51 and Greely High School in Cumberland, Maine for allowing a transgender student to compete in girls’ sports categories. The investigation follows a social media post from state Rep. Laurel Libby, a Republican, about a transgender student who won a pole-vaulting state championship.

    This would be the third of in a series of investigations launched in states that have laws or policies that are inclusive of gender identity. Earlier this month, the agency launched directed investigations into the Minnesota State High School League and the California Interscholastic Federation. Maine has a state law, the Human Rights Act, which bars discrimination based on gender identity. But the Education Department on Friday argued that “state laws do not override federal antidiscrimination laws.”

    Mills and Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey have vowed to fight back over any efforts to pull their school’s federal funds. […]

  112. says

    New York Times:

    In recent years, the Food and Drug Administration hired experts in surgical robots and pioneers in artificial intelligence. It scooped up food chemists, lab-safety monitors and diabetes specialists who helped make needle pricks and test strips relics of the past.

    Trying to keep up with breakneck advances in medical technology and the demands of a public troubled by additives like food dyes, the agency enticed scores of midcareer specialists with remote roles and the chance to make a difference in their fields. In one weekend of mass firings across the F.D.A., much of that effort was gone.

  113. says

    Wall Street Journal:

    […] Trump has America’s wind-energy industry at a standstill. Developers are delaying some projects and writing down the value of investments. Plans are hanging in limbo.

  114. says

    Josh Marshall: BIG: DOGE Firings Found Unlawful by Office of Special Counsel

    There was a very important development today, still only little-noted in the national press. Government Executive magazine has a good piece on it. The news turns on a decision by the Office of Special Counsel, the head of which, Hampton Dellinger, Trump had only recently tried to fire before being blocked from doing so by a federal judge. The decision specifically deals with six federal employees, each from a different agency, who were recently fired as probationary employees as part of the DOGE purge. Technically, the decision only applies to those six employees. But in a way that is analogous, though not identical, to the way a court ruling works, the findings would likely apply to many other recent DOGE-terminated employees across the federal government.

    I’ve mentioned a few times that DOGE seemed to have little understanding of the difference between different kinds of probationary employees. Those recently hired by the federal government have few civil service protections. Those who are probationary because they recently took a new job in government but have continuous government service do have those protections. An expert in civil service law tells me that the issue in this case is likely not that one, or not mostly that one, but rather that the administration is dressing up layoffs (for which employees are entitled to certain benefits, i.e., RIFs) as simple terminations and falsely claiming that terminations were made on the basis of poor performance when actual personnel files show nothing of the sort.

    The just-updated version of the Government Executive piece reports that the OSC has now released the following statement: “The special counsel believes other probationary employees are similarly situated to the six workers for whom he currently is seeking relief. Dellinger is considering ways to seek relief for a broader group without the need for individual filings with OSC.” In other words, the list of directly affected employees is likely to grow.

    Everything tied to this finding is part of a complex ecosystem of different government agencies that can appeal or resist the OSC’s decision. I will try to provide more of those details soon. You can find some of them in the Government Executive piece. […] this is not necessarily the final word on the matter. But it’s an important one.

    For now, another executive branch lawyer tells me that under civil service law this finding that the terminations were unlawful can create serious jeopardy for the government employees who executed (i.e., signed) the terminations, including fines, debarment from government employment and other serious civil sanctions. So those people may already have a problem. And if DOGE decides to ignore these findings, DOGE operatives may have a much harder time getting those federal HR officials to keep executing these terminations in the face of this finding.

    More to come.

  115. says

    Farmers Sue Over Deletion of Climate Data From Government Websites

    “The data, which disappeared from Agriculture Department sites in recent weeks, was useful to farmers for business planning, the lawsuit said.” Updated on February 24.

    Organic farmers and environmental groups sued the Agriculture Department on Monday over its scrubbing of references to climate change from its website.

    The department had ordered staff to take down pages focused on climate change on Jan. 30, according to the suit, which was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Within hours, it said, information started disappearing.

    That included websites containing data sets, interactive tools and funding information that farmers and researchers relied on for planning and adaptation projects, according to the lawsuit.

    At the same time, the department also froze funding that had been promised to businesses and nonprofits through conservation and climate programs. The purge then “removed critical information about these programs from the public record, denying farmers access to resources they need to advocate for funds they are owed,” it said.

    […] The suit was filed by lawyers from Earthjustice, based in San Francisco, and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, on behalf of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, based in Binghamton; the Natural Resources Defense Council, based in New York; and the Environmental Working Group, based in Washington. The latter two groups relied on the department website for their research and advocacy, the lawsuit said.

    […] the pages being purged were crucial for farmers facing risks linked to climate change, including heat waves, droughts, floods, extreme weather and wildfires. The websites had contained information about how to mitigate dangers and adopt new agricultural techniques and strategies. Long-term weather data and trends are valuable in the agriculture industry for planning, research and business strategy.

    […] The sites under the department’s umbrella include those of the Forest Service, which is responsible for stewardship of forests and grasslands; the Natural Resources Conservation Service, which helps landowners implement conservation practices; and those of other divisions focused on farms and ranches, disaster recovery and rural development.

    […] The plaintiffs allege the actions violated three federal laws and were “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.” They asked the court to compel the agency to restore the pages and to block it from deleting any others.

    Wes Gillingham, president of the board of Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, said that farmers were just heading into planning for the summer growing season. He said taking information down because of a “political agenda about climate change” was senseless.

    […] “Right now, because of climate change and because of what farmers are facing in terms of extreme weather events, we need every piece of available information we can get,” he said. “We don’t have access to that, we’re not going to make it.”

  116. says

    DOGE will use AI to assess the responses from federal workers who were told to justify their jobs via email
    Related video is available at the link.

    Responses to the Elon Musk-directed email to government employees about what work they’d accomplished over the past week are expected to be fed into an artificial intelligence system to determine whether those jobs are necessary or not […]

    The information will go into an LLM (Large Language Model) […] The AI system will determine whether someone’s work is mission-critical or not.

    The U.S. Office of Personnel Management emails were sent out to federal workers Saturday, shortly after Musk wrote in a post on X that “all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week. Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”

    The OPM email did not mention the resignation threat, but said: “Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager. Please do not send any classified information, links, or attachments. Deadline is this Monday at 11:59pm EST.”

    […] In an email to its workforce on Monday, the Justice Department said that during a meeting with the interagency Chief Human Capital Officers Council, OPM informed agencies that employee responses to the email are voluntary. OPM also clarified that despite what Musk had posted, a non-response to the email does not equate to a resignation, the email said.

    The directive was facing pushback from unions, workers and even some agencies since it was sent, but the effort was praised by President Donald Trump earlier Monday.

    “I thought it was great,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, where he was meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron.

    “We have people that don’t show up to work and nobody even knows if they work for the government so by asking the question ‘tell us what you did this week,’ what he’s doing is saying are you actually working. And then, if you don’t answer, like, you’re sort of semi-fired or you’re fired,” he said, claiming without providing evidence that “a lot of people are not answering because they don’t even exist.” [JFC. What a load of bullshit.]

    “There was a lot of genius in sending it,” Trump said. “If people don’t respond, it’s very possible that there is no such person or they’re not working.”

    A coalition of unions and groups that have been fighting the Trump administration’s mass layoffs of probationary workers charge the effort was unlawful. They amended their lawsuit against the U.S. Office of Personnel Management over the weekend to add a claim involving the OPM email directing workers to justify their workweek.

    The lawsuit charges that the administration didn’t follow proper procedure for such an order and should be voided by a judge.

    […] Some agencies, including ones led by close Trump allies, have told their employees to ignore the directive.

    Justice Department employees were informed earlier Monday that they did not need to respond to the message, according to emails seen by NBC News. “Due to the confidential and sensitive nature of the Department’s work, DOJ employees do not need to respond to the email from OPM. If you have already responded to this email, no further action is needed,” read one email sent by Assistant Attorney General for Administration Jolene Ann Lauria.

    FBI Director Kash Patel instructed employees over the weekend to “pause any responses” to the email, and said his agency would do its own review. Employees of the State Department, the National Institutes of Health, the Defense Department, the National Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence were also told not to respond to the email.

    The Department of Agriculture also sent out an unsigned email to employees informing them that any response to the email “is voluntary and not required.”

    The email was also sent to an unknown amount of judicial branch employees, including judges and court staffers. Spokespeople for federal courts in Manhattan and the Northern District of Illinois confirmed to NBC News that “some” people had gotten the message.

    Julie Hodek, a spokesperson for the Northern District of Illinois, also confirmed the email and said the court’s chief judge and clerk “communicated with the staff that as we are judiciary employees, our policies and procedures are governed by the Judicial Conference of the United States and our local court HR handbooks.”

    A spokesperson for the Southern District of New York said personnel there had been directed not to respond to the email.

    […] Officials at the Health and Human Services Department and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services directed employees to respond by the deadline [that’s Robert Kennedy Jr.’s instruction]

    […] Musk appears to be following the same playbook he used when he bought Twitter, which he renamed X. [Yep. Only one way to be the bully in Musk’s playbook.]

    Musk began his tenure there with massive layoffs, asking employees to commit to “Extremely hardcore” work in an email titled “A Fork in the Road” or be fired. […]

    Twitter employees who stayed were then asked to print out pages of code they’d written from the last month and prepare to present the work to Musk personally. The code reviews reportedly were abandoned, and instead, managers were asked to rank their employees, according to The Verge.

    […] Some of the lawsuits have referenced allegations that DOGE is using artificial intelligence to analyze and process government data. […]

  117. says

    Say what now?

    HHS warns employees that responses to Elon Musk’s request may ‘be read by malign foreign actors’

    […] “On Saturday, you received an email from [the U.S. Office of Personnel Management] entitled ‘What did you do last week,’” the email, which came from HHS.News@HHS.Gov, began. “The directive stated employees were to submit five bullets detailing their accomplishments in the past week. In discussions with OPM Officials yesterday and today OPM has now rescinded that mandatory requirement.”

    “There is no HHS expectation that HHS employees respond to OPM and there is no impact to your employment with the agency if you choose not to respond,” the email continued. “That said, if you choose to respond, here are the guidelines you should follow.”

    The email said employees who wish to respond should keep “a high level of generality and describe your work in a manner to protect sensitive data.”

    “Assume that what you write will be read by malign foreign actors and tailor your response accordingly,” the email read. […]

    It was not immediately clear who HHS was referencing when it cited “malign foreign actors” in its email to agency staffers. […]

    For years, the U.S. has struggled to secure its internal systems from nation-state hackers seeking to spy on its doings. China-linked hackers have proven particularly adept at breaking into sensitive systems, having accessed the email account of the U.S. ambassador to China, while Russian hackers in 2021 breached email accounts belonging to the head of the Department of Homeland Security and various other officials in the first Trump administration.

    Last year, the Library of Congress said hackers broke into its communications systems and were able to read their emails.

    In December, U.S. officials urged all Americans to use encrypted apps after hackers connected to China were found to have breached U.S. telecommunications infrastructure.

  118. says

    A young Venezuelan who was deported back to his country said he was “traumatized” by his time in a U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

    Kevin Rodríguez, 22, is one of the 178 Venezuelan immigrants sent to Guantánamo this month, after […] Trump’s order to use the detention camp to speed up his administration’s goal of mass deportations.

    In an exclusive interview with Noticias Telemundo, NBC’s Spanish-language sister network, Rodríguez detailed the conditions he said he experienced at the military prison during the two weeks he was detained before returning to Venezuela on Thursday. […]

    Rodríguez said the cobwebs and ants inside the approximately 6 by 9 feet cell gave the sense that the place had long been unoccupied. “Those cells were in very bad condition,” he said in one of the first personal accounts from a migrant detained there. “You could really see that no one had been there in a long time. They didn’t even clean them.”

    He said a thin mattress separated him from the concrete bed top he slept on for 14 days, “enduring the cold.”

    According to Rodríguez, detainees were taken out, in handcuffs, to shower every three days. “They searched us before we went into the shower,” he said. “When we came out, they searched us again.”

    “The food was really bad and there was very little food,” Rodríguez said, adding he lost 9 pounds while he was there. “The last meal of the day was at 4 p.m. And then by 7, 8, 9 p.m., we were hungry.”

    […] Kevin Rodríguez said the uncertainty of not knowing how long he was going to be in Guantánamo ate away at him.

    “That was what worried me the most, how long I was going to be there, how long my family was going to be without news of me,” he said.

    All 178 detainees, except one, were put on a deportation flight to Venezuela, with a layover in Honduras, on Thursday. The remaining detainee was relocated to a detention facility in the U.S.

    In a statement, Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Yvan Gil had requested the repatriation of citizens “unjustly” taken to Guantánamo.

    According to Nelson Rodríguez, his son did not belong to Tren de Aragua. Kevin Rodríguez was handed over to immigration authorities after being arrested in El Paso, Texas, following an altercation with his girlfriend last year.

    […] Rodríguez said there were people “who didn’t even have tattoos, people who really weren’t linked to any gang,” Kevin Rodríguez said. “They treated everyone the same.”

    Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello was at the airport outside Caracas when the plane carrying Rodríguez and 176 other deportees landed at around 10 p.m. on Thursday.

    After not knowing his son’s whereabouts, Nelson Rodríguez saw him on TV that night. Venezuelan state media was live at the scene showing the moment Kevin Rodríguez and the other Venezuelans returned from the U.S.

    “I managed to see my son,” Nelson Rodríguez told Noticias Telemundo. “As one would say, my soul returned to my body.”

    […] While at the Caracas airport, Cabello said that all those returning would be subject to health checks and those with pending criminal charges would be placed in the hands of the courts.

    “The United States says that there are people from Tren de Aragua (gang) and criminals. We checked the first group that were said to be from Tren de Aragua and there was no one from Tren de Aragua, not one,” Cabello added. “We are going to check the legal situation of each one of them. Those without a record will go home and we will take them, and we will take them with care.”

    Kevin Rodríguez is now with his family in Barinas, Venezuela, figuring out how to “start from scratch in my country.”

    “I really don’t think I’ll leave my country again,” he said, “because I was really traumatized by everything that happened.

    Link

  119. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Regarding the “What did you do last week?” email @ 15, 25, 29, 81, 117.

    Marisa Kabas (The Handbasket):

    HHS just got another email with guidance stating that they aren’t required to respond to the 5 bullets email, but if they do they should follow specific guidelines including:
    “Assume that what you write will be read by malign foreign actors and tailor your response accordingly.” [Screenshot]

    EmptyWheel: “Probably not thinking of Musk, but they may have just won the lawsuit for the plaintiffs, which argued that that was one of the concerns.”
    EmptyWheel: “And this apparently comes AFTER an all-HR meeting at OPM. Man, discovery is gonna be lit.”
     
    Marisa Kabas:

    HHS employees have received multiple conflicting emails from leadership. DOJ and State said don’t reply. SSA, GSA, Treasury, FDIC, VA were told to respond. Total mess.

    Marisa Kabas:

    Employees at [SSA, NASA, USDA] just received an update saying it’s *optional* to reply […] Department of Commerce employees have been instructed to send their 5 bullet emails to their direct supervisors, and *not* to OPM.
    […]
    SSA employees spent the morning agonizing over what they would put in their emails after Acting Commissioner and Musk loyalist Leland Dudek said they must respond. Now it’s been made optional. They’re beside themselves.

    Marisa Kabas:

    A brief timeline of the 5 bullets email:
    Saturday:
    -Musk tweets about it
    -OPM sends it to all feds
    -Panic/chaos ensue

    Sunday:
    -Agencies scramble to verify, start sending conflicting advice

    Monday:
    -Most agencies told to respond
    -Later guidance is revised—response voluntary, jobs not threatened

    Put plainly, Musk has wasted 48 hours of the federal government’s time to fuck with people’s heads

     
    EmptyWheel – How a (thus far unsuccessful) lawsuit caused Elon Musk’s OPM email to faceplant
    ^ OPM had thrown together a Privacy Impact statement to evade a lawsuit over Elon’s spam server, but that made its stated voluntariness binding policy. That and questions of standing got the suit dismissed.

    Chris Geidner did a post over the weekend explaining the importance of being litigious. He described how just forcing the Administration to defend itself, on the record and in public, can lead to wins down the road.
    […]
    the fact that agencies are only now, ten hours before the purported reply deadline, instructing employees not to respond, as well as the fact that DOJ initially instructed DOJ employees to respond (until it reversed course for confidentiality reasons), may help McClanahan prove standing. Imagine employees who did respond before agencies reversed course? Imagine employees who responded to Trump’s public backing for the email? There’s no reversing their injury
    […]
    In a new filing, McClanahan reveals he’s seeking sanctions.

  120. Bekenstein Bound says

    The Trump administration has told federal agency leaders that they can ignore the public decree from Elon Musk to effectively fire employees who do not send in bullet-point summaries of their work last week, according to three people familiar with the matter, a break with the billionaire who has exerted significant power to slash the 2.3-million-person federal workforce.

    Trump undercuts something Musk did.

    Could this be the beginning of a major rift between them?

    Should I get the popcorn ready?

  121. John Morales says

    “Could this be the beginning of a major rift between them?”.

    Yes. In the sense that it’s not an impossibility.

    “Should I get the popcorn ready?”

    If you haven’t been munching it quite vigorously for at least some time, then probably not.
    Nothing special, par for the course.

    (TYT did it right at the time of his first inauguration, did it for years after.
    There was never any point to it, was there? Hopeful predictions are… well, hopeful)

  122. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    CNN – Recording reveals new details on controversial DOGE employee

    Less than three years before Elon Musk tapped him […] Edward Coristine, then 17, was the subject of a heated dispute between two executives at the Arizona-based cybersecurity firm where he was an intern.

    At issue was whether to allow Coristine to keep his job even though he was suspected of leaking proprietary information to a competitor.

    “You’re willing to risk our entire network to a 17-year-old?” one frustrated executive asked the company’s CEO in 2022. “Are you for real right now?”
    […]
    [The CEO] said he wanted to allow Coristine to continue with his internship, in part, because he didn’t want to make him “an enemy” or have him “running amok” with information he was suspected of taking. Webb allowed him to stay with the proviso that the young employee “not be exposed to anything that’s really sensitive.”
    […]
    DHS and CISA referred CNN’s request for comment to DOGE, which did not respond.
    […]
    The recordings and screenshots revealed a somewhat raucous and undisciplined culture at Path Network.

    In one recorded meeting just before Coristine started his internship, for example, a drunk employee repeatedly threatened to fight his colleagues. Encouraged by coworkers, the staffer—chugging White Claws, bragging about shaving every day and showing off his Prada cologne—punched holes in the wall and later turns on his webcam to show hundred-dollar bills scattered on the floor.
    […]
    “Edward has been terminated for leaking internal information to the competitors. This is unacceptable and there is zero tolerance for this,” an executive wrote in a team chat. […] Less than two months later, Coristine himself […] boasted in an online chatroom that he maintained access to Path Network’s systems after he was terminated.

     
    Marcus Hutchins (MalwareTech):

    Oh man, I have so many stories about the “startup” (Path Network) […] they had been launching DDoS attacks against businesses, then cold calling them to sell DDoS protection services.
    […]
    and while it’s not abnormal for cybersecurity firms to hire reformed hackers, I’ve not seen a single employee who was not directly involved in cybercrime immediately prior to getting hired. Furthermore, multiple of the employees have been caught committing cybercrime while working for the company.
    […]
    [When I originally posted this,] I stopped short of any allegation that Edward himself was involved in cybercrime. Since then BrianKrebs was able to trace his aliases back to a known cybercrime organization and confirm he indeed was directly involved in cybercrime as recently as May 2024.

    * That last bit I think referred to Edward’s last appearance complaining about unprofitability in a Discord frequented by TheCom members.

  123. JM says

    @120 Bekenstein Bound: It’s too early to say. This may be an argument between Musk and the rest of the cabinet over who gets to pick who gets fired from their departments. Musk wants to run things like a bad venture capitalist, just slice out broad chunks for firing and let the department managers shuffle people around to fill the necessary jobs. The rest of the cabinet members want a bit more planning and the ability to keep those willing to suck up the most around.
    It may also be the more organized people in the OPM (Office of Personal Management) and DOJ who are tied up in several lawsuits already trying to head off more suits. Musk’s request is overly broad, was clearly illegal as originally issued and had to be patched up and it isn’t clear what Doge plans to do with the information.
    Even if Trump is involved the whole thing is too complex for Trump to follow. He may just be taking positions based on who talked to him last and he could easily flip flop daily. Various Trump administration officials have given contradictory orders every day for several days now on this one issue.

  124. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    I watched Kate Starbird’s disinformation lecture @70.
    Due to mic problems, I can’t recommend it. For a while, it’s rather quiet. Then painfully loud momentary noise at 33:30, 34:40, 34:44, 34:52, 37:10, 37:36. At which point the mic is removed. Audio’s very quiet after that.

    Her July 2024 lefture is a better presentation (44:08).

    It’s not just the evidence, it’s the frames that we use to interpret the evidence that are how we become misled. And those frames are often strategically shaped by political actors and campaigns. […] During chaotic times, people come together to attempt to make sense of the situation.

     
    Her team uses ‘rumor’ as a neutral term, a product of collective sense-making. Today’s lecture (at 24m) mentioned BLM was heavily Russia-influenced—on both left and right. That was contrasted with ‘participatory disinfo’ of 2020’s Big Lie and 2024’s pet eating—cultivated and crowdsourced. The lecture concluded with this.

    We—all of us—need to start building the social and informational infrastructure to counter this bullshit machinery. Now this infrastructure needs real journalists to keep reporting, but […] we can’t wait for the New York Times or Washington Post to tell the story, or build the graph, or create the meme that helps people understand what’s happening around us. We need to leverage the participatory dynamics of the digital age but compliment that with a commitment to truth
    […]
    While our team and perhaps many of you were afraid to talk about conspiracy theories, the loudest and most vile voices have run the table. We can’t afford to be quiet anymore. We can’t afford to be polite anymore. […] We need to become the opinion leaders and the influencers in our families, on our social feeds, in our classrooms, in our churches, and our sports teams. We need to rage against the bullshit machine.

    Like… some sort of Skeptic movement. /s
    I kid. Stuff like this thread. And social media wonks aggregating expertise.

  125. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    A new document undercuts Trump admin’s denials about $400 million Tesla deal

    Biden’s State Department planned to spend just $483,000 in the 2025 fiscal year on buying electric vehicles and $3 million for supporting equipment, like charging stations. It represented less than 1% of the hundreds of millions of dollars likely destined for Tesla vehicles after the Trump administration quietly revised a State Department procurement document.
    […]
    A former Biden White House official familiar with the State Department’s plans told NPR […] “I don’t think this is a clerical error. It was likely someone who is new in [the] State [Department] who decided, ‘OK, we’re gonna do this with Tesla,'”
    […]
    The person said the State Department and Tesla had agreed during the Biden administration to conduct research about armoring electric vehicles, but no money had been set aside to purchase armored Teslas for the State Department. A total budget of $483,000 had been approved to buy light-duty EVs as possible State Department vehicles. That plan was moving forward as recently as November 2024.
    […]
    The document claims it was originally published in December, at the end of then-President Joe Biden’s term, but it does not appear in the Internet Archive
    […]
    The prospect of such a purchase also puzzled security professionals who work with the State Department. […] “I can’t imagine why the government would ever put dignitaries in a Cybertruck,” […] the gold standard for diplomatic security is vehicles that are manufactured from the ground up with armor, not with armor added on later.

  126. StevoR says

    Good article here on endangered molluscs – this time land or even arboreal ones and the people working to find and save them in Hawaii :

    The exact location of this place and other sites where endangered snails have been sighted are known only to members of the extinction prevention program and the Bishop Museum. “To guard it against any threats, we have to keep it secret,” Bustamente says. These naturally protected areas are one of the snails’ last safe places, not just from invasive predators, such as larger rosy wolf snails and rats, but also from overly curious tourists and grabby collectors.

    Plus earlier actually :

    It’s the best strategy for tracking down any of the 750 species of land snails that once populated the Hawaiian islands, 747 of which are endemic to the chain, according to a 2018 report from malacologists Norine Yeung and Kenneth Hayes of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. (Malacologists are the scientists who study snails, snailers are people who try to spot them in the wild, and shell collectors who acquire live animals are essentially poachers.) “Even as we’re rediscovering snails, species are blinking out as we rediscover them,” Yeung says.

    In addition to :

    Alas, not N. canilicuata, but Laminella venusta, a Hawaiian land snail in the family Amastridae. The family was down to 20 species, from 325. Bustamente’s discovery brought the total to 21 living species. He turned over several other leaves—nine snails in total.

    Unwilling to test the luck of this population, which had managed to survive the twin demons of predation by rats and predatory flatworms—the researchers collected all nine individuals and took them to the safest place in the world for a Hawaiian land snail: a 44-foot trailer run by David Sischo, the coordinator of the Snail Extinction Prevention Program. Sischo is the steward of Hawaiʻi’s most endangered snails, and his trailer teems with small plastic terraria that contain the entire known populations of 30 species of snails that are now thought to be extinct in the wild.

    Source : https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/snail-extinction-prevention-hawaii

    Species name italics original.

  128. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    House Republican tells fired federal workers ‘God has a plan’ in hostile town hall

    The line did not go over well with the crowd. “We don’t want your God!”

    Alford says town hall was ‘hijacked’ after facing barrage of boos

    “You are free in the next election to elect someone that you believe—”
    “We didn’t elect Elon!”

    Reddit randos who claim they’d attended say the event was poorly organized: small venue, no outdoor speakers (words were relayed to the outer crowd), the promised audience rotation didn’t happen, and of course the Rep himself was infuriating.

    Platitudes from KSHB footage: “Not all chaos is bad.” “I think you’re living in the greatest time in American history.” “You are not a victim, you are a victor.”
     
    Josh Marshall (TPM):

    Good lord, this freak got rocked so hard at his townhall over Elon now he’s threatening to call out a SWAT TEAM on his constituents.

    Rep Mark Alford (R-Mo): This is serious business we’re talking about. And that’s why I went in and faced the people who who don’t want me in office and some who want to, I think, to do me harm. That’s why we had a SWAT team and many police there.

    Rando: “Mark Alford cleared 71% of the vote in 2024. If he’s shook they’re all shook.”

  131. StevoR says

    One more Hawaiian endangered snails and other species one here :

    hose snails in Sischo’s lab were once so common on Oahu that Native Hawaiians would use them to make leis, traditional garlands that symbolize love and respect. But by 2012, when Sischo started working for the state, researchers could find just one population in the wild. A couple dozen or so of the snails were glued to the leaves of guava trees in a ravine just uphill from the popular beaches of Honolulu.

    Scientists have documented widespread losses within groups of animals like birds and bumblebees. More than 40 percent of ecosystems in the US are now at risk of “range-wide collapse.” The (Endangered Species – ed) Act is helping a subset of species hang on, while the rest of nature is in decline.

    These declines are especially extreme in Hawaii.

    For millions of years, plants, birds, and other creatures evolved in isolation on the Hawaiian islands, in the absence of certain predators and parasites. There were no mosquitos, no grazers. Plants didn’t need to defend themselves, so they mostly lack thorns or spines; a mint plant in Hawaii produces no mint flavor— a “mintless” mint — because it doesn’t have the chemical that such plants use to repel herbivores.

    Plus :

    The Endangered Species Act has, in a literal sense, given these birds flight. The number of a‘o and ua‘u appears to be stabilizing — albeit at a low number — according to André Raine, a seabird expert and science director at the ecological consulting firm Archipelago Research and Conservation. “Things are looking better for them now, but it is literally only because the funding is available to protect them,” said Raine, who’s also involved in seabird conservation funded in part by the electric utility.

    And to be clear: There are plenty of examples of the Act helping conserve plants and animals in Hawaii and across the country.

    Source : https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/2023/12/14/23990382/extinction-capital-hawaii-endangered-species-act

  134. Reginald Selkirk says

    How North Korea pulled off a $1.5 billion crypto heist—the biggest in history (so far)

    The cryptocurrency industry and those responsible for securing it are still in shock following Friday’s heist, likely by North Korea, that drained $1.5 billion from Dubai-based exchange Bybit, making the theft by far the biggest ever in digital asset history.

    Bybit officials disclosed the theft of more than 400,000 ethereum and staked ethereum coins just hours after it occurred. The notification said the digital loot had been stored in a “Multisig Cold Wallet” when, somehow, it was transferred to one of the exchange’s hot wallets. From there, the cryptocurrency was transferred out of Bybit altogether and into wallets controlled by the unknown attackers.

    Researchers for blockchain analysis firm Elliptic, among others, said over the weekend that the techniques and flow of the subsequent laundering of the funds bear the signature of threat actors working on behalf of North Korea. The revelation comes as little surprise since the isolated nation has long maintained a thriving cryptocurrency theft racket, in large part to pay for its weapons of mass destruction program…

    Defenders soon turned to cold wallets. These accounts aren’t directly accessible to the Internet, so even if a would-be thief manages to obtain the private key securing it, there’s no way to access it and transfer the currency elsewhere. Multisig cold wallets go a step further. In much the same way that nuclear arms systems are designed to require two or more authorized people to successfully authenticate themselves before a missile can be launched, multisig wallets need the digital signatures of two or more authorized people before assets can be accessed…

    Bybit ultimately said that the fraudulent transaction was “manipulated by a sophisticated attack that altered the smart contract logic and masked the signing interface, enabling the attacker to gain control of the ETH Cold Wallet.” …

  136. StevoR says

    A record-breaking asteroid with the potential to wipe out a city in 2032 is officially no longer a hazard, according to the latest NASA data.

    Last week, NASA increased the likelihood of impact from asteroid 2024 YR4 to 1 in 32, or 3.1%, up from 1.2% at the beginning of February. 2024 YR4 is big enough to wipe out a major city, and with a 3.1% chance of impact, this asteroid had the highest impact probability NASA has ever recorded for a space object of 2024 YR4’s size or larger. Humanity understandably took notice, but they needn’t have worried.

    The chances of impact soon fell as the space agency learned more about 2024 YR4’s trajectory. By Friday (Feb. 21), 2024 YR4 had an impact probability of 1 in 360 or 0.28%, and the odds have continued to lengthen over the weekend.

    Source : https://www.livescience.com/space/asteroids/thats-zero-folks-asteroid-2024-yr4-is-no-longer-a-hazard

  139. JM says

    Independent: Judicial branch employees – which Trump does not oversee – got Musk’s email asking for their accomplishments

    Elon Musk’s mandated email demanding federal employees detail what they accomplished last week was sent to some judiciary staff even though the executive branch has no authority over them.

    In a sane environment that would be a huge error itself that would need explaining. In the current one that is just a minor note to the other major mistakes going on.

  140. JM says

    Reuters: Musk renews firing threat after being stymied by federal officials

    Musk went on to say, “Subject to the discretion of the president, they will be given another chance. Failure to respond a second time will result in termination.”
    The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Musk’s remarks.
    It was unclear whether Musk was aware of the guidance the U.S. Office of Personnel Management released earlier on Monday telling human resources officials at federal agencies that employees would not be let go for not replying to Musk’s email – nor were staff required to respond to it.

    The situation in the Trump administration is so confused that it isn’t clear who authorized this or what exactly is being done. That is likely part of the point, this is Musk making his power grab. He wants to setup a general power structure where Doge can issue any order and have it taken over what the actual cabinet members in charge of the departments say.
    No matter what else is true it’s clear at this point that Trump isn’t in control. A competent executive would have at least clamped down on the contradictory orders and made it clear which orders should be followed.

  141. StevoR says

    Les Misérables Epilogue Scene Performed at the White House Governors Ball by the US Army Chorus (2minutes long.) I know theusual; rule of YT is don’t read the comemnst but there’s some good ones on this one :

    thebitingfaery : The best part is the people in the room who don’t understand exactly why they chose this song…

    lindseybennett8310 : This is the most beautiful protest I’ve ever seen. I cried. I’m sure a lot of people in that room did not connect the dots while they were there… but they will. Just brilliant!

    one0nine : Their oaths mean the world to these brave men and women. This is a call to action for us, and a warning to those in that room – and most of them are too self-absorbed to understand the pointed message they were issued last night.

    Plus more there.

  142. JM says

    NBC News: Kremlin disputes Trump’s claim about Ukraine peacekeepers

    President Donald Trump was incorrect when he said that Russia will accept European peacekeeping troops in Ukraine, the Kremlin signaled Tuesday.
    While Trump said Monday during a White House meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron that he had “specifically asked” Russian President Vladimir Putin about peacekeepers and that Putin “has no problem with it,” the Kremlin contradicted those comments early Tuesday.

    The funny thing about this is it isn’t clear who is lying. Did the Russian negotiators lie to Trump? Did Trump lie to the public? Did Trump’s incompetent negotiators lie to him? Is it just incompetence? Who knows? The only assumption that you can make here is that if the Russians told Trump one thing and then made a contradictory statement to the press it wasn’t an accident. The Russians may be bald face liars but they are not that sort of incompetent.

  143. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show

    ‘Rogue president’: Trump removal of senior military leaders, military lawyers raises alarm
    Video is 9:20 minutes

    Anti-Trump activists reach new heights, perform new feats (so to speak)
    Video is 3:39 minutes

    Democrats not immune from voter wrath as pressure to impede Trump mounts
    Video is 7:04 minutes

  144. says

    JM @142, my bet is that Trump just made it up because he thought it sounded good. And, what Trump hoped or assumed was that once he said that in public Putin would go along.

    Trump seems to think that he can make almost anything real by saying it on camera. We may be, in a weird way, lucky that Putin (though he also lies a lot) is not that susceptible to Trump’s lies. We may have a more realistic view from Putin in this case.

  145. says

    JM @140, some of the responses to Musk’s demands have been equally confusing. Apparently, Robert Kennedy Jr. has changed his mind three times.

    Sky Captain @128, I saw that “God has a plan” was the bromide one Republican legislator offered to federal workers who have been fired (or threatened by) Elon Musk. Does God also have a plan to pay for their groceries, to pay their rent or mortgage, and to buy services they need like dental care for their children.

    At this point, we see that “God” is indifferent … and that neither Trump nor Elon are gods … they are not even instruments of any gods.

    “God has a plan” is a phrase that is highly offensive.

  146. Reginald Selkirk says

    Scientists Challenge Long-Held Theory on Why Mars Is Red

    The fourth planet from the Sun is famously a rusty red—but scientists now believe we’ve been wrong about how it got its distinct hue.

    The red coloration comes from iron minerals in Mars’ dust—no surprise there. But a team of ESA and NASA scientists now think that Mars rusted earlier in its ancient past than previously known, when liquid water was widespread on the planet’s surface.

    Iron oxide—which is now dispersed across Mars—can form under different conditions. Scientists previously thought that the iron oxide on Mars’ surface was hematite, which likely formed through interactions with the planet’s atmosphere when Mars’ surface was dry.

    But the new analysis offers a different origin—that Mars’ distinct redness seems to match more with the color of iron oxides that contain water, or ferrihydrite. Ferrihydrite keeps its water signature long after the water present during its formation disappears, and the research team detected its signatures in the reddish dust dispersed across the planet…

  150. JM says

    Slate: An Attack on Pregnant Workers at the 5th Circuit Could Unleash Chaos Across the Country

    On its surface, the state of Texas’ lawsuit challenging the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act might seem like a run-of-the-mill attack on reproductive rights. But the forthcoming ruling in Texas v. McHenry, a case that’s about to be heard by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, could end up unleashing a whole other set of unintended consequences, the possibility of which has alarmed everyone from constitutional scholars to national security experts to Sen. Mitch McConnell.

    As Slate makes clear there are two entirely different things of importance going on here. The first is the attack on women’s rights for the sake of attacking women’s rights. In this case attacking a law that requires businesses to make accommodations to pregnant women. The inanity of this position in general is a whole topic of it’s own.

    In an astonishing jump in legal logic that left constitutional scholars aghast, the district court held that the PWFA had been enacted unconstitutionally because Congress had allowed members to use proxy voting to establish a quorum, violating the U.S. Constitution’s quorum clause. (During the COVID-19 pandemic, the House of Representatives allowed members to vote by proxy, exercising its constitutional right to establish procedural rules that govern the chamber.) With this quorum, Congress had passed the $1.7 trillion spending package, of which the PWFA was one tiny part.

    The other issue is the method the court used to find it unconstitutional. The court held that the looser proxy voting rules that Congress enacted during the Covid lockdown were unconstitutional. Normally proxy voting is allowed only for committee actions, not actual passage of bills. This is the court stepping on Congress’s right to set their own procedure. It also ignores that the rules made sense during the Covid lockdown even if you don’t think proxy voting is a good idea in general.

  151. says

    Trump allies circulate mass deportation plan calling for ‘processing camps’ and a private citizen ‘army’

    “The group, led by Blackwater veteran Erik Prince, has close Trump ties.”

    A group of prominent military contractors, including former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, has pitched the Trump White House on a proposal to carry out mass deportations through a network of “processing camps” on military bases, a private fleet of 100 planes, and a “small army” of private citizens empowered to make arrests.

    The blueprint […] carries an estimated price tag of $25 billion and recommends a range of aggressive tactics to rapidly deport 12 million people before the 2026 midterms, including some that would likely face legal and operational challenges […]

    […] led by Prince, […] the former chief operating officer of Blackwater, the military contractor known for its role in providing security, training and logistical support to U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan during the war on terror.

    […] Deporting 12 million people in two years “would require the government to eject nearly 500,000 illegal aliens per month,” the document says. “To keep pace with the Trump deportations, it would require a 600% increase in activity. It is unlikely that the government could swell its internal ranks to keep pace with this demand …in order to process this enormous number of deportations, the government should enlist outside assistance.”

    […] A White House spokesman, Kush Desai, said the administration “remains aligned on and committed to a whole-of-government approach to securing our borders, mass deporting criminal illegal migrants, and enforcing our immigration laws.”

    […] The founders of the new special entity called 2USV have a long history with the U.S. government. Blackwater was formed by Prince in 1996 to provide training services to law enforcement, military personnel and other government agencies. It gained widespread attention for its work in Iraq and Afghanistan, providing security services for U.S. officials and military personnel, with critics viewing its rise as a result of the U.S. military’s overextension in the Middle East.

    The military contractor came under scrutiny in 2007 following the Nisour Square Massacre, when Blackwater contractors opened fire and killed 17 Iraqi civilians and wounded 20 others — raising questions about oversight and accountability of private contractors. Several contractors were charged with manslaughter, and four were convicted in 2014. Trump pardoned them at the end of his first term in December 2020.

    Trump’s pardon was just one example of the influence of Prince’s family during the first Trump administration. Betsy DeVos, Prince’s sister, served as the president’s Education secretary, while Prince used his Trump connections as he chased business ventures in the U.S. and abroad.

    In 2018, he reportedly helped raise money for an effort to spy on progressives and Democratic organizations opposed to Trump. The former Blackwater CEO played a role in the 2019 MAGA-crew effort alongside Bannon to privately build a wall along the U.S. southern border (Bannon recently pleaded guilty to a fraud charge related to the wall effort and avoided jail time). And in 2020, he pitched a $10 billion plan for buying into Ukraine’s military industrial complex and hiring Ukraine’s combat veterans into a private military company.

    […] the pitch for rapid-fire deportations includes a slew of suggestions that appear to ignore key facets of the nation’s complex immigration laws […] The proposal recommends the formation of a screening team of 2,000 attorneys and paralegals — one of the several elements designed to streamline functions that would normally be in the government’s hands. The team would determine whether individuals are eligible for deportation and refer them to the litigation team, for which the proposals recommend an additional 2,000 attorneys and paralegals to conduct mass hearings.

    […] The authors suggest they can maintain due process by publishing a public database to alert people of their immigration court hearings instead of through a Notice to Appear, a document that instructs an individual to appear before an immigration judge.

    But these plans could face steep legal challenges on a number of fronts, threatening due process and ignoring existing protections established by Congress, including statutes and regulations for maintaining privacy protections for migrants claiming asylum, said John Sandweg, acting director of ICE from 2013-2014.

    The group also proposes forming a “Skip Tracing Team” to use existing records to locate deportees, while sponsoring a “bounty program which provides a cash reward for each illegal alien held by a state or local law enforcement officer.” That, too, could present potential legal hurdles, because local officers in many cities and states do not have agreements to act as immigration officers.

    […] Prince and Mathews use the first several pages of the proposal to address why the White House should consider their bid, echoing Trump’s rhetoric, including unsubstantiated claims that Democrats have used immigration to gain an electoral advantage, that migrants commit more violent crime, and that illegal immigration has placed “unimaginable burdens” on state welfare systems, public education systems and country’s economy. [Conspiracy theorists joining together.]

    “In order to save the U.S. economy, the nation has to eject as many of these illegal aliens as quickly as possible,” they wrote.

    More at the link.

  152. says

    Oh no! Trump’s handouts to the rich are on thin ice. Schadenfreude moment.

    […] Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”—which would cut taxes for the rich while at the same time slash health care and food stamp benefits for the poorest Americans—is on the brink of collapse, with multiple House Republicans saying they will not support the budget bill that’s set for a vote on Tuesday night.

    The budget—which seeks to partly pay for an extension of the 2017 Trump tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the top 1% of earners by cutting hundreds of billions from Medicaid, food stamps, and educational grants—faces opposition from GOP lawmakers on all sides of the political spectrum.

    Hard-liners oppose the budget because they correctly point out that it would add to the federal deficit. Those hard-liners want even more cuts to federal spending to pay for Trump’s regressive tax cuts.

    “If the Republican budget passes, the deficit gets worse, not better,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who plans to vote against the bill, wrote in a post on X.

    Meanwhile, less insane Republicans (because let’s face it, there are no moderate GOP lawmakers) are balking at the massive cuts the budget would make to Medicaid and food stamps.

    The budget calls for the House Energy and Commerce Committee to make $880 billion in cuts, which are largely expected to come from Medicaid, the government health care plan that covers more than 72 million low-income Americans. The budget also calls for the House Agriculture Committee to cut $230 billion, which could come largely from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistant Program, better known as food stamps.

    A group of eight GOP lawmakers sent a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson on Feb. 19, urging him not to use Medicaid and food stamps as the pay for tax cuts.

    “For many families across the country, Medicaid is their only access to healthcare,” Reps. Tony Gonzales, Nicole Malliotakis, Monica De La Cruz, David Valadao, Juan Ciscomani, Rob Bresnahan Jr., James Moylan, and Kimberlyn King-Hinds, wrote in the letter. “Slashing Medicaid would have serious consequences, particularly in rural and predominantly Hispanic communities where hospitals and nursing homes are already struggling to keep their doors open.”

    Ultimately, Johnson can afford to lose just one vote and have the budget pass—assuming every lawmaker is in attendance.

    And according to Politico, as many as seven GOP lawmakers are publicly voting no or leaning no on the bill.

    “I don’t know how you do it without cutting Medicaid seriously,” New Jersey turncoat Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew told Politico. “And so that’s my concern, and that’s why, at this point, I’m a lean no.”

    Democrats, meanwhile, are united in their opposition.

    At a House Rules Committee hearing on Monday night, where Republicans advanced the budget to a vote before the full House, Democrats introduced amendments that would prevent the budget from cutting taxes to the richest taxpayers.

    But Republicans voted each of those amendments down—even though exempting the richest taxpayers from tax cuts would allow Republicans to cut less from Medicaid and food stamps.

    “Every single Republican on the Rules Committee chose more tax giveaways for billionaires over protecting their own constituents on Medicaid,” Massachusetts’ Jim McGovern, the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee, wrote in a post on X. “Don’t listen to what they say. Watch how they vote.”

    The bill is currently set for a vote at 6:30 PM ET on Tuesday. But if it looks like it won’t pass, Republicans could pull the vote—which would be a massive self-own and a terrible sign for the future of Trump’s legislative agenda.

    Ultimately, it looks like Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” is more like one big, beautiful disaster.

  153. says

    Elon Musk Is A Sophon, by Mark Sumner

    On Friday, The Wall Street Journal published a detailed look at what Elon Musk and his DOGE bags have sliced from federal spending. As might be expected from a Rubert Murdoch propaganda outlet, the results were couched under the title “DOGE Claims It Has Saved Billions. See Where.” However, no massaging of the headlines could make the truth of these cuts look good.

    As the article admits, the numbers are nowhere near as large as Musk and Donald Trump have claimed and only a tiny fraction of what has been cut is related to the DEI programs that the right has been railing against.

    In fact, the biggest target for Musk’s cuts can be summed up in a single word: Research.

    Musk and the enhanced scrotum crew have cut funding for research on early childhood development, chronic lung disease, and a drug to treat Alzheimer’s and traumatic brain injury. In some cases, they’ve cut studies that were in their final stages and were only waiting for results to be evaluated.

    While the $6 billion in cuts claimed by Musk is not at all real, what’s very real is the assault on basic science:
    – $109.7 million reduction in spending on biotech research
    – $102.5 million reduction in life sciences
    – $86.8 million cut from social sciences
    – $171.7 million on lab services, consulting, and support.

    On top of all that, the edicts from Musk’s team halted studies that have already been paid for, resulting in no savings. Zero savings—incalculable damage.

    If you haven’t watched the Netflix series Three-Body Problem, or read the excellent and challenging book series by Chinese author Liu Cixin, I’m about to spoil a large portion of the plot for the first book. Consider this your warning.

    In the book, a race of aliens from a nearby star covets Earth for its stable position in the Solar System and launches an invasion fleet. With technology far in advance of anything understood by humans, it seems like a huge mismatch. The aliens will arrive and squash us like the bugs they believe we are.

    Only the aliens have a problem. Their ships will take 400 years to arrive, and human science is advancing much more quickly than their own. By the time their fleet arrives, humans are likely to be so advanced that they will brush aside the attempted invasion—and maybe wipe out the aliens to teach them a lesson about being pests.

    To prevent this, the aliens use their technology to send two tiny particles to Earth. These “sophons” are smaller than atoms, but they contain enormous computing power and surveillance technology. With them, the aliens can watch everything that humans do for a single purpose: Stop us from making the kind of technological breakthroughs that would allow us to defeat their invasion when it arrives.

    A tiny brain, embued with unreasonable amounts of power, aimed at keeping humans mired without progress—that certainly sounds like Elon Musk.

    Why has Musk set his team loose on destroying science? First, just as with Trump, he loves the uneducated and the ignorant. It’s so much easier to sell people on propaganda if they don’t have facts in the way. It’s how fascism has always worked. [Social media post at the link: “Fascists are never seeking to make a stronger fact-based argument than their opponents. They want to *dominate* the public terrain of knowledge and obliterate any shared understanding that people might have about the conditions they live in or what to do about those conditions. They debase facts.”]

    Second, Musk wants to be seen as the only possible source of miracles. As fellow would-be overlord Sam Altman put it two years ago in The New Yorker:

    “Elon desperately wants the world to be saved. But only if he can be the one to save it.”

    Finally, Musk is an accelerationist. He believes that society is going to collapse and that the best thing he can do for himself and others in the ruling class is hasten that fall. It’s a concept that they bolster by cherry-picking from the thick layers of bullshit in Strauss–Howe generational theory as expressed in nonsense tomes like The Fourth Turning.

    When Musk warns that Americans should expect “temporary hardships” on the way to conservative paradise, he doesn’t mean that he, Trump, or the billionaire class will be feeling any pinch. He means that everyone else will experience something from mild discomfort to death by firing squad as the new technofeudalism settles in. His “temporary” is meant in the same way that Karl Marx insisted an temporary authoritative state might be needed before people could be ushered into the communist paradise. They’ll give up absolute power any day now. Just you wait.

    But don’t you worry, folks. Your grandkids will get the exciting opportunity to lead the peasant uprising about fifty years from now.

    In the meantime, Musk is causing damage that will take decades to repair. If it ever is. For now, if anyone is doing science, it has to be approved by Musk. Which means owned by Musk. And if millions die as a result … well, that’s their fault for not being billionaires.

  154. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    AP – Federal technology staffers resign rather than help Musk and DOGE

    mass resignation of engineers, data scientists and product managers […] The staffers who resigned worked for what was once known as the United States Digital Service […] All had previously held senior roles at such tech companies as Google and Amazon
    […]
    Earlier this month, about 40 staffers in the office were laid off […] Those who remained, about 65 staffers, were integrated into DOGE’s government-slashing effort. [Twenty-one] of them quit Tuesday.

    “We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services,”

    WeTheBuilders – We Resign: U.S. Digital Service members take a stand

  155. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Marisa Kabas (The Handbasket) on Feb 24:

    NEW memo from OPM acting director Chuck Ezell saying that fed employees should respond to the 5 bullets email by the 11:59pm deadline tonight unless they had an excused absence today. Absolute madness. [Screenshot]

    Marisa Kabas:

    As far as I know, this is the only interview Chuck Ezell has done since becoming acting director of OPM (the office sending out most of the deranged emails to all federal workers.) It’s… something. [Screenshot]

    Rando: “Religious conviction is not a governance strategy. ‘God put me here’ is not an accountability structure. Fucking yikes.”

  156. says

    From Reclaim Idaho:

    […] It appears that House Bill 138, a bill that would have REPEALED Medicaid Expansion, is now dead. This is a huge win for the 90,000 Idahoans who rely on Medicaid Expansion for their healthcare, and a major victory to all who have joined this fight.

    But let’s be clear: We are not out of the woods yet. Representative Redman’s compromise bill is not a full-blown repeal, but it does include many of the original provisions that would still result in thousands of Idahoans losing healthcare.

    Today’s hearing was only a brief introduction of the bill. We’ll provide updates once a public hearing is scheduled and the details of this bill emerge. Stay tuned. […]

    A temporary victory, but an important one. The temporary saving of Medicaid Expansion in Idaho was accomplished via a coordinated campaign to have Idahoans call and/or email their legislators and the governor. Public pressure works.

  157. says

    Oh, FFS.

    Several Republicans push impeachment bids against judges who’ve stood in Trump’s way

    “Elon Musk called for a “wave of judicial impeachments, not just one.” Evidently, a group of House Republicans agree.” [!!]

    […] Trump’s maximalist tactics and scorched-earth agenda have generated a series of lawsuits, many of which have fared rather well in the lower courts. It’s also sparked a renewed discussion on the right about impeaching jurists who’ve dared to rule in ways that displease the White House.

    For example, Elon Musk, the president’s biggest campaign donor, has already called for a “wave of judicial impeachments, not just one.” (This came after the billionaire demanded the immediate impeachment of a specific district court judge.) Asked recently about the statement, Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters, “That’s not going to happen now.” She quickly added, however, “We’re going to look at everything.”

    Some on Capitol Hill are apparently taking this quite seriously.

    We recently discussed chatter among far-right members of Congress about possible articles of impeachment against judges, as the conservative Washington Times reported, some are following through on the scuttlebutt.

    Rep. Eli Crane is making good on previous threats to try to impeach a federal judge for getting in the way of President Trump and Elon Musk’s cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency. Mr. Crane, Arizona Republican, announced Friday that he has filed articles of impeachment against U.S. District Court Judge Paul Engelmayer. The lawmaker accused Judge Engelmayer of being an “activist judge” for temporarily blocking DOGE from accessing records at the Treasury Department.

    Crane’s resolution was formally filed on Friday, and it quickly picked up five co-sponsors: Republican Reps. Warren Davidson of Ohio, Abraham Hamadeh of Arizona, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, and Lauren Boebert of Colorado.

    What’s more, this is one of two separate impeachment resolutions filed against Judge Engelmayer: Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin filed articles of his own against the same jurist.

    In case this weren’t quite enough, Ogles also introduced articles of impeachment this week against U.S. District Court Judge John Bates — a George W. Bush appointee — who recently ruled that the Trump administration had to restore online health policy content that had been scrubbed to comply with Trump’s executive order targeting “gender ideology.”

    […] If the resolutions were to somehow gain traction, it would be exceedingly difficult for proponents to credibly make the case that issued rulings that Republicans don’t like constitutes high crimes.

    That said, the larger context matters. In the United States, there are three coequal branches of government. The idea built into the Madisonian constitutional system is to create a series of checks and balances between the federal institutions.

    In contemporary politics, the obvious problem is that too many congressional Republicans reject the idea of using the legislative branch to serve as a check on Trump’s executive branch. The less obvious problem is that some of those same GOP lawmakers want to undermine the judicial branch, too.

  158. says

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/breaking-ssa-division-abolished

    Josh Marshall: BREAKING: SSA Division Abolished

    A short time ago, I broke the news that the acting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration has abolishing CREO, the SSA’s statutory civil rights and equal opportunity division. He also put all employees of the division on immediate leave; that’s the standard DOGE approach, the closest you can get to firing those people, which will presumably become formal soon. Acting Commission Leland Dudek was a mid-level SSA staffer until about a week ago, when he was caught making unauthorized leaks of SSA information to DOGE. He was in the process of being fired when he was elevated over at least one hundred more senior agency executives to running the whole agency.

    I am told that other steps of similar gravity and equally questionable legality are also either in process or expected.

    This is a developing story.

  159. says

    Cartoon: That egg-scalated quickly

    Jon Stewart’s DOGE rage draws blood—literally
    Video at the link.

    “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart accidentally sliced his hand during his opening monologue on Monday night. The incident happened as Stewart worked himself up over the horse manure being tossed about by Elon Musk, his Department of Government Efficiency, and the GOP.

    “We’re not paying millions and millions of dead people Social Security money,” Stewart said, after walking through some of the many debunked conservative claims of waste, including the repeated lie that the U.S. is paying out millions of dollars to dead people and people who are 150 years old and older. “And even if there was a 200-year-old man walking around, he wouldn’t need Social Security—he’d still be in Congress.”

    Stewart then filled his desk with a bunch of items he called his “wannabe-an-accountant starter kit,” in order to help DOGE find real waste in our government. He listed how much could be saved by nixing oil and gas subsidies and the carried-interest loophole on hedge funds, which benefits the ultrawealthy.

    “I can’t believe it. I just saved us billions of dollars in 11 seconds,” Stewart said. “Just call me big balls.”

    Stewart called out moderate Democrats for not demanding that pharmaceutical companies—already heavily subsidized by our government—negotiate all of their drug prices with us, not just 10. Furious, Stewart slammed a mug, cutting his hand. He glanced at his hand, then promptly hid below his desk. “I’ll be going to the hospital soon,” he said, with a smirk.

    Undeterred by the injury, Stewart finished the segment by detailing how big businesses rely on government assistance for their workers, thereby avoiding paying them a living wage. He also highlighted how the airline industry used the U.S. government’s bailout to inflate their profits through stock buybacks.

    “We are subsidizing the very system that makes workers’ lives harder in the first place, all in the name of freedom and liberty” Stewart said. “But the greatest restriction of freedom in this country isn’t DEI and pronoun pressure. It’s fucking poverty and struggle.”

    Shortly before the episode aired, Stewart gave a preview of the injury on X, writing, “We’re back! New Daily Show tonight! It’s a bloody good episode…emphasis on bloody…I’m an idiot…”

  160. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Lawfare – Who is running the U.S. DOGE Service?

    In lieu of a verbatim transcript [unavailable], below is an excerpt from the exorbitantly detailed notes I took

    ^ This is Judge Kollar-Kotelly grilling the gov lawyer @109.

    WashingtonExaminer https://archive.is/YPxZp

    White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to name the administrator of the [DOGE] during Tuesday’s press briefing, but told the Washington Examiner afterwards “DOGE Administrator is Amy Gleason,”

    Wired (Feb 18)

    Some people WIRED spoke with at USDS view Amy Gleason, a former USDS official who served in the first Trump administration, as a liaison between legacy USDS, DOGE, and other agencies, but little is known about her official role.

    Wired (Feb 19)

    USDS employees tell WIRED they have no idea who the acting administrator is, despite requesting their identity multiple times. Neither Gleason nor Lindemann disclosed the names of USDS’s administrator or deputy administrator on [Feb 18].

    Rando 1: “Amy Gleason LinkedIn profile. She started in January 2025.” [Screenshot says “USDS Senior Advisor”]
    Rando 2: “They’re really putting the prior USDS head as the administrator huh.”

    Anna Bower (Lawfare):

    While her team guts the federal government, the administrator of DOGE is in Mexico.

    Weijia Jiang (CBS): A White House Official confirms DOGE administrator is Amy Gleason. Earlier today, Gleason told my colleague [Michael Kaplan (CBS)] that she was in Mexico when he reached her by phone.

  161. Reginald Selkirk says

    Paying for every meal in packed Canadian restaurant, U.S. couple apologizes for Trump politics

    Diners in a Windsor, Ont., restaurant were stunned and elated over the weekend when an American couple picked up the bill for the packed establishment — citing U.S. President Donald Trump’s divisive rhetoric and their love of Canada.

    May Hermiz is the co-owner of Toast on Erie Street. She says the day took an unexpected turn during their lunch rush when the couple from Ann Arbor, Mich., told her they wanted to pay for everyone in the restaurant.

    “I was kind of stunned because nobody has ever done that in our nine years of being in business, nobody has ever paid for the whole restaurant,” Hermiz told CBC News…

  162. Reginald Selkirk says

    Musk’s DOGE team hit by resignation of 21 technology staffers

    More than 20 civil service employees resigned Tuesday from billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), saying they were refusing to use their technical expertise to “dismantle critical public services.”

    “We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” the 21 staffers wrote in a joint resignation letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer honour those commitments.”

    The employees also warned that many of those enlisted by Musk to help him slash the size of the federal government under President Donald Trump’s administration were political ideologues who did not have the necessary skills or experience for the task ahead of them…

  163. Reginald Selkirk says

    Southwest jet narrowly avoids colliding with business jet at Chicago airport

    A Southwest Airlines flight was forced to abort a landing at Chicago Midway airport on Tuesday and narrowly avoided a collision with a business jet that entered the runway without authorization, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

    Around 8:50 a.m. CT, Southwest Flight 2504, a Boeing 737-800 arriving from Omaha, Nebraska, abruptly pulled up and flew over a FlexJet Challenger on the runway. The Southwest plane performed a go-around, a maneuver in which it circled and reapproached the landing.

    A dramatic video posted on social media showed the Southwest jet nearing touchdown then ascending sharply. The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating…

  164. says

    Sky Captain @160, sounds like Trump, Musk and DOGE are deliberately obscuring the facts. We still are not sure who is the administrator of DOGE.

    Related: Judge indefinitely blocks Trump’s plan to freeze federal aid

    A federal judge on Tuesday indefinitely blocked the Trump administration’s freeze of federal funding, dealing a stark blow to President Trump’s sweeping efforts to realign government spending with his agenda.

    U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan enjoined the government from “implementing, giving effect to, or reinstating under a different name” the White House budget office’s directive to freeze federal assistance while the court reviews the spending.

    “In the simplest terms, the freeze was ill-conceived from the beginning,” AliKhan wrote. “Defendants either wanted to pause up to $3 trillion in federal spending practically overnight, or they expected each federal agency to review every single one of its grants, loans, and funds for compliance in less than twenty-four hours. The breadth of that command is almost unfathomable.” [True]

    A coalition of nonprofits challenged the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)’s directive last month. Though the memo that spurred the lawsuit was rescinded, the coalition has argued that the administration maintains an interest in carrying out the same policy as part of its broader efforts to dramatically reshape the federal government.

    […] AliKhan previously blocked the administration from keeping disbursements paused while she weighed whether to issue a preliminary injunction.

    On Tuesday, she said the plaintiffs had “more than met their burden” for further relief.

    “Many organizations had to resort to desperate measures just to stay operational,” AliKhan wrote. “The pause placed critical programs for children, the elderly, and everyone in between in serious jeopardy. Because the public’s interest in not having trillions of dollars arbitrarily frozen cannot be overstated, Plaintiffs have more than met their burden here.”

    The challengers argued that more extensive relief is necessary because none of the concerns present when the judge entered a temporary restraining order have gone away, pointing to Trump’s continued interest in realigning government spending with his goals. […]

  165. JM says

    @152 Lynna, OM: I wouldn’t take that too seriously until it fails a vote. This is a game politicians from both parties like to play. Complain about a bill to get press, publicly wonder if a bill can get passed to make themselves look like they oppose it, then fall into line when it comes time for a vote.

    @164 Lynna, OM:

    Sky Captain @160, sounds like Trump, Musk and DOGE are deliberately obscuring the facts. We still are not sure who is the administrator of DOGE.

    They had to pull a big zig-zag on this issue when the lawyers pointed out that somebody with the power of the head of Doge would have be approved by the Senate. There are constitutional rules about major officials and Senate approval. So what I think they are going to do is play a game where somebody else will be the nominal head but Musk will run the show as an advisor. I expect Musk and Trump will be too public about it but it will take some time to be challenged and make it’s way through the courts.
    Both Trump and Musk have played this game before because in business you are largely free to declare your paper organization to be one thing and actually run your company another. US government rules are not that flexible, actual power generally has to follow the org chart.

  166. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/what-do-joy-reid-katie-phang-jonathan

    “What Do Joy Reid, Katie Phang, Jonathan Capehart, Ayman Mohyeldin, José Díaz-Balart and Alex Wagner Have In Common? None of them is white, and MSNBC is canceling or sidelining them all.”

    It’s been mayhem in the media since That Man won, with networks and newspapers obeying in advance all over. Now it sure looks like MSNBC is trying to placate him too. Or gee, maybe it’s just a coincidence!

    Way back last November, MSNBC (and also CNBC) became no longer affiliated with NBC in any way. The channels’ overlord, Comcast, spun them off into a new company called SpinCo, headed by a guy named Mark Lazarus, who said he wanted to make the channel more appealing to Republicans while keeping its appeal to progressives. […] Seems pretty obvious that Joe Buildthewall is not going to start watching MSNBC no matter what, even if the hosts were replaced with topless fire-jugglers.

    Also probably-not-coincidentally, the week of November 18 when the SpinCo spinoff was announced happened to be the very same week Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough crawled down to Mar-a-Lago to try to find “common ground” with the guy they used to freely call fascist, unmoored, mentally unstable, liar, and an insurrectionist, and who had tweet-called them “low I.Q. Crazy Mika” with a “bleeding facelift,” and “Psycho Joe,” respectively. If you were wondering what the backstory was […]

    The appropriately-named Lazarus would also like to attract younger viewers, because the average viewer of MSNBC is 70. SEVENTY! Seven zero! [Younger people may watch MSNBC, especially Rachel Maddow, online through other venues.] Fox’s average viewer is 69, and CNN attracts the youngest average audience, at 67. The kids don’t watch television, they don’t subscribe to newspapers, and none of the media companies really knows what to do about it. […]

    So at MSNBC just last month, the successful Black lady network president who helped the channel beat CNN in ratings, Rashida Jones, stepped down, and was replaced not even two weeks ago by one Rebecca Kutler, who is apparently so eager to carry out the new boss’s business of reshaping MSNBC into a vision that is less offensive to Donald Trump’s eye that the firings and reshuffling went down with almost no warning to the hosts or their staffs, just 10 days after she started work. [Hmmm. Sounds almost Musk-like.]

    And now MSNBC is replacing the only two primetime weekday shows on the network solely hosted by women of color. Joy Reid has left the network entirely, and her staff has been laid off and “invited” to re-apply for other jobs. Jonathan Capehart, Katie Phang, and Ayman Mohyeldin are all losing their weekend shows, and it was reported that Capehart and Mohyeldin will instead be one of multiple hosts of separate editions of “The Weekend.” Phang will have no slot, and appear as a legal correspondent. And Katy Tur’s show has been expanded to two hours.

    Reid’s spot will be filled by Alicia Menendez, Michael Steele, and Symone Sanders Townsend. Rachel Maddow will continue to appear only on Mondays for the duration of Trump’s first 100 days, as was the original plan. [Oh no. I thought having Maddow on every night was a good idea.] At the end of that, the “Alex Wagner Show” was supposed to come back. Instead that 9 p.m. slot will be taken by “Inside with Jen Psaki.”

    In an interview with “Win With Black Women” on Monday, Reid broke down in tears, and said she was “not sorry” for being outspoken on issues including the Black Lives Matter movement and objecting to the war in Gaza. “I am not sorry I stood up for those things, because those things are of God.” [video at the link] [I do wish Joy Reid would leave god out of it, but I get her underlying conviction that she did the right, the ethical think.]

    Of course Trump and the troglodytes are cheering about Reid’s firing, and saying generally gross things.

    Lowlife Chairman of “Concast,” Brian Roberts, the owner of Ratings Challenged NBC and MSDNC, has finally gotten the nerve up to fire one of the least talented people in television, the mentally obnoxious racist, Joy Reid. Based on her ratings, which were virtually non-existent, she should have been “canned” long ago.

    Ugh […]

    He ranted some more the next day, “MSNBC, COMMONLY KNOWN AS MSDNC, IS A THREAT TO OUR DEMOCRACY. SUCH LYING AND MISREPRESENTATION. BAD PEOPLE AT THE TOP!”

    Huh, sounds like the move intended to appease him did not appease him at all!

    Last word to Rachel Maddow, who rebuked her own network not just for the firings, which SURE DO LOOK PRETTY RACIST, but for the shitty way that they did it, not just to the hosts but the staffers on their shows. Very much a “Hi! I am the actual most powerful person on this network, and now I am going to call the new boss out for how she’s treating everyone right here on national TV. Right after the A-block too!” [video at the link]

    “Dozens of producers and staffers, including some who are among the most experienced and most talented and most specialist producers in the building, are facing being laid off, they’re being invited to reapply for new jobs. That has never happened at this scale in this way before when it comes to programming changes, presumably because it’s not the right way to treat people, and it’s inefficient and it’s unnecessary, and it kind of drops the bottom out of whether or not people feel like this is a good place to work, and so we don’t generally do things that way.”

    Yeah, it’s a pretty bad way to do things! It doesn’t just look bad, it is really bad.

  168. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/how-are-republicans-trying-to-steal

    […] Rep. Chip Roy of Texas […] has come up with the most vote-suppressing-est idea yet, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE Act. It passed the House last July, but Joe Biden was like, I am not signing that bag of dogshit. So now it would have to be passed by the House again, then by the Senate, where Mike Lee of Utah is all eager about it. A vote hasn’t been scheduled yet, but could be at any time.

    What does this bullshit do? Well, it has the potential to disenfranchise more than a hundred million voters, first of all. It burdens would-be voters with time-consuming and costly bureaucratic paperwork. And in practice it would get rid of any online or mail-in voter registration, because it requires proof-of-citizenship documents to be presented in person.

    While it doesn’t directly decree that, say, married women who have changed their names can’t vote, it does disproportionately punish them, and trans people, and Native Americans with tribal IDs, and anyone who does not have the time, money, transportation and/or patience to devote to the bureaucratic fuckery of tracking down documents: poor people, disabled people, people with small children, and/or jobs that happen during the time that places like post offices and Social Security offices are open. [And please note that Elon Musk’s DOGE has already closed some outlying Social Security offices. See Sky Captain’s comment 20.]

    To provide documentary proof of citizenship under the SAVE Act, one must have a REAL ID, a passport, or “a valid government-issued photo identification card issued by a Federal, State or Tribal government showing that the applicant’s place of birth was in the United States.” And because tribal IDs tend to not show the location of someone’s birth, only their tribal identity, native Americans need even more stuff.

    While all states are now REAL ID compliant, drivers’ licenses take up to eight years to expire, so only about 56 percent of people currently have one. And only 51 percent of Americans have passports. More people may have those things a year and eight months from now, but that’s still tens of millions of people! […]

    Getting a REAL ID costs money (up to $89), and is also HUGE PAIN and complete circlejerk, even if you are an organized type of person who saves your important documents in color-coded files. [I can confirm this. I have a REAL ID. I had to make three trips to the DMV to get it finally done. They would not accept the first two birth certificates I brought with me. They wanted the original, from the hospital. It took me all day, the payment of fees, and expensive fuel for my vehicle.]

    First, if you’ve changed your name for any reason, you must change your name with Social Security before applying. You have to have a passport, birth certificate, permanent resident card, or Consular Report of Birth Abroad or Certificate of Citizenship. BUT THEN ALSO you will need something else, too! An original Social Security card (no photocopies), or a W-2, 1099, pay stub with your Social Security number on it, or a Social Security benefits statement. (Guess which writer hasn’t seen their original social security card in like 20 years, and more than a decade of getting income from royalties? And had a name change? And had to spend literally days on that nonsense when her license expired?) To get a replacement Social Security card, you need a passport, or medical records … putting the “circle” in circlejerk! And then you must present all of these papers in person at the department of motor vehicles, which happen to almost always only be open during most people’s work hours. Got a job where you can’t take time off? Disabled? No car and don’t even have a DMV in your town? Can’t afford it? Well, fuck you! No ID for you!

    And you’ve lost any of these documents, factor in time and money to replace them.

    If you don’t have a REAL ID or a passport (which costs as much as $165, require an appointment to get, and a headshot), then with the SAVE Act things get even fuckier. You can use a non-REAL ID license, but then you will also need a birth certificate. And you can’t use a copy of a birth certificate any more, you must get a certified copy, which once again takes time and money to order. Need a copy of a Consular Report of Birth Abroad? You’ll need notarized forms, more copies of IDs, and plan to wait at least eight weeks to get it.

    And let’s say the name on your birth certificate does not match the one on your passport or driver’s license, which is the case with 80 percent of married women, most trans people, and people whose parents cursed them names like Raefarty Lipshitz, Sue Cash or Zowie Bowie. The exact documentation they need to show that would be up to individual states, but “subject to any relevant guidance adopted by the Election Assistance Commission.” Mighty vague! So if a state tries to do anything to make it any easier, the EAC reserves the right to step in and say no.

    If voting is a right, and IDs are required, everyone should be able to get an ID for free, right? Democrats thought so too. In 2023 Sean Casten and Cori Bush introduced the IDs for an Inclusive Democracy Act, legislation that would create a federal photo identification card that is free and optional for the American public. But it went nowhere. Just in case you thought that making voting harder was not the entire plan, here.

    Voter suppression, it’s a (the only) winning strategy for Republicans. Journalist Greg Palast did the math, and makes a convincing argument that if all legal voters were allowed to vote and if all legal ballots were counted, Donald Trump would have lost the last election. According to US Elections Assistance Commission data, 4,776,706 voters were purged just for not returning a confirmation notice (page 200, there), and more than two million ballots were disqualified for minor clerical errors.

    Republicans are making passing the SAVE act a priority, so chances are good that it passes before the midterms. Possibly right before, so it can’t be challenged in court in time. (Bookmark this and see if I am right!) So get that Real ID and passport renewed if you hope to participate in democracy! Or if you need to flee the country sooner than that and you have the cash to do that, whichever.

    Voter suppression, it’s a (the only) winning strategy for Republicans. Journalist Greg Palast did the math, and makes a convincing argument that if all legal voters were allowed to vote and if all legal ballots were counted, Donald Trump would have lost the last election. According to US Elections Assistance Commission data, 4,776,706 voters were purged just for not returning a confirmation notice (page 200, there), and more than two million ballots were disqualified for minor clerical errors. [embedded links available at the main link]

    Republicans are making passing the SAVE act a priority, so chances are good that it passes before the midterms. Possibly right before, so it can’t be challenged in court in time. So get that Real ID and passport renewed if you hope to participate in democracy! Or if you need to flee the country sooner than that and you have the cash to do that, whichever.

  169. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/should-dems-help-keep-the-government

    “Should Dems Help Keep The Government Open? Only If The Musk Coup Is Shut Down”

    As seems to always be the case, the US government is hurtling toward yet another fiscal cliff, with current funding for the government set to run out when the digital clock clicks past 11:59:59 p.m. on March 14. […]

    To avoid a government shutdown, Congress will have to authorize another chunk of funding in a “continuing resolution” that keeps funding going. Usually, as is the case with the CR that expires March 14, such resolutions keep funding at existing rates, supposedly giving Congress time to finalize a real budget for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends September 30. But that often doesn’t get done, and it didn’t this time either, so we’re looking at yet another CR while the Republicans, now in charge of both houses, get their shit together. If there’s no CR, the government mostly shuts down, although “essential” workers and supervisors (including nearly everyone in the military) have to keep working without pay.

    Since the GOP took control of the House in the 2022 election, we’ve managed to avoid shutdowns because Democrats, recognizing the harm shutdowns do to the economy, always joined the less-insane (but still plenty insane) Republicans in the House to pass a CR. That’s because even with the majority, the deeply crazy Republicans of the House Freedom Caucus demanded giant spending cuts that wouldn’t pass in the Senate before the bill would reach Joe Biden’s desk. Of course, that’s changed now, a little bit, with Donald Trump in the White House and a GOP majority in the Senate.

    Thing is, even though the majority of House Republicans want a CR that slashes funding and would be terrible, the Freedom Caulkers want even deeper cuts that would be far more terrible-er, and Republicans in swing districts don’t want to go along with those, so once again the Republicans are divided and will likely need Democrats’ help again.

    But this time around, Democrats have a very good reason not to go along unless they get something very basic: an end to all the criming by the Trump administration.

    […] When the Republicans in both houses (the Senate needs seven Democrats to vote with Republicans) come asking Democrats to please please save them from their own extreme wing, Democrats need to make clear that they won’t vote for anything that doesn’t stop Donald Trump and his hench-dipshit Elon Musk from their unconstitutional actions to dismantle the federal government.

    As TPM editor Josh Marshall puts it, it’s a pretty clear call:

    I think the only reasonable position is “no help with your problem unless and until the criminal conduct stops.” And any deal needs to be enforceable.

    That means no more impoundment of funds that Congress has allocated — for foreign aid through USAID, for the Education Department, for clean energy programs in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, for health research at HHS, for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and far more. Trump’s job is to faithfully execute the laws, and that includes spending what Congress passed in the way that Congress intended.

    It also means no more trying to shut down entire agencies established by Congress, and no more arbitrary cuts to the federal workforce that ignore employee protections that are federal law, passed by — you guessed it — Congress.

    It really is time for all of us with Democratic representatives and senators to tell them they have to hold firm: End the criminality, or no deal. The coup has to be stopped before it goes any further.

    Politico reports that House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma) is fretting that

    Democrats’ insistence on adding conditions to stop Trump from withholding funding that Congress already appropriated could foil a final agreement.

    “I think we’ve moved a long way on the numbers. We’re very close. I would say essentially there,” Cole told reporters. “The real question is conditions on presidential action. And look, there’s no way a Republican Senate and Republican House are going to limit what a Republican president can do.”

    [Bitter laughter]

    Well then, Democrats need to make clear to Cole, and to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-One Dakota Or The Other), that if they want to pass any budget bill, they’ll have to find a way to do it without Democrats’ help. And again, even if the House Rs manage, against all tendencies so far, to actually vote together, there’s still the Senate, where seven Democrats would need to vote for any CR.

    […] when Republicans blame Democrats for not helping them out of the jam they created, Democrats can point to Trump’s crimes and say “Not on our watch. Stop the coup, and we’ll work with you. Not until then.”

    Of course, there are still risks to a shutdown, especially if Trump declares Musk and his teenage mutant dingus zeroes to be “essential employees” so they can keep doing their deviltry during a shutdown. But again, at least Democrats would not be accessories, and such a move would only piss off Americans more. Maybe the courts would put the kibosh on it, if we still have courts.

    On a related note: Today, Republicans are planning a House vote, not on a continuing resolution to avoid a shutdown, but instead on their “big beautiful bill” that would use the reconciliation process to extend the 2017 Big Fat Tax Cuts for Rich Fuckwads and slash the budget for everything else except Defense and border security. Whether they’ll actually manage that is entirely open to question, because didn’t we mention that the Freedom Cockups want to slash Medicare and Medicaid, along with a bunch of other draconian cuts? That would likely guarantee the defeat of lots of Republicans in swing districts in 2026, assuming we still have elections then.

    This one’s an entirely GOP jam: since reconciliation is a way to avoid a filibuster in the Senate, Democrats won’t be asked to help anyway. Thanks to the extreme budget cuts, the Washington Post reports, “between eight and 10 House Republicans who could face tight reelection campaigns have signaled they would reject [Speaker Mike] Johnson’s proposal, according to two lawmakers familiar with the talks, because of cuts to Medicaid,” so the reconciliation bill could implode on its own. […]

    Conclusion: Republicans do not know to govern. Trump and Musk are criminals likely to continue down the path they are on.

  170. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Bloomberg – Musk begins testing his starlink terminals in US airspace system

    The effort raises questions about […] the future of a $2 billion contract awarded in 2023 to Verizon Communications Inc. to upgrade the critical infrastructure
    […]
    Musk approved a shipment of 4,000 Starlink terminals to the FAA […] the agency is testing one terminal in Atlantic City and two terminals at non-safety critical sites in Alaska. The FAA has been considering the use of Starlink to fix telecommunication connections and provide more reliable weather information at remote sites […] Verizon’s contract supports the FAA in maintaining and upgrading its critical infrastructure

  172. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/west-virginia-republicans-hope-to

    “West Virginia Republicans Hope To Force Rape And Incest Victims To Give Birth”

    Republicans in the West Virginia House of Representatives are hoping to pass a bill (HB2712) that would eliminate the state’s rape and incest exceptions for abortion, which would outlaw the procedure entirely in a state where a quarter of all children live in poverty. Currently, the law allows for adult victims to have an abortion up to eight weeks into pregnancy and allows minors to have one up to 14 weeks into pregnancy, but that is apparently just not enough of a living nightmare for people like lead sponsor Delegate Lisa White (R-Berkeley). [Her photo, available at the link, shows her wearing necklace featuring a cross.]

    “I think what people are focusing on is that I don’t care about women or little kids or anything like that. That’s the furthest thing from the truth for me,” said White. “I do believe that life begins at conception, and I cannot, in my mind, rationalize that their lives don’t matter … because this baby was conceived under horrible, horrific circumstances, it’s still a life to me.”

    I don’t know, if I were a member of the West Virginia House and I cared a whole lot about whether or not babies live or die, I might try to do something about the fact that the state has the sixth highest infant mortality rate in the nation before zeroing in on ruining the lives of rape victims by forcing them to give birth against their will. Or the fact that the state has the worst health care system (and the highest insurance premiums) in the nation.

    Also last week, state Senator Jay Taylor (R-Taylor — not a typo, he’s Taylor from Taylor — Ed.), who sponsored the state senate version of the bill, asked that it be rescinded entirely due to intense public opposition.

    “I am announcing the withdrawal of Senate Bill 51, which I originally introduced with the intention of protecting the lives of unborn children. I have always believed that life begins at conception, and this belief guided my decision to support this bill for several years. However, I recognize now that reintroducing the bill this year was a mistake, particularly given its unrealistic path forward,” Senator Taylor said in a press release. “I sincerely apologize to my friends and supporters whom I may have offended with this action. It was never my intent to cause distress, and I regret any unintended harm my actions may have caused.”

    So, clearly, even in West Virginia, this bullshit is not welcomed.

    Delegate White said that her bill had also upset some people in the community, reporting that she got around 150 calls demanding that she rescind her bill as well.

    “I just want to stress that I’m not a horrible person,” she said. Sure, because there are lots of non-horrible people out there who want to put a 12-year-old through the trauma of having her rapist’s baby. [She should be called out on that.]

    This is one of eight anti-abortion bills in the House and Senate of a state where, need I remind you, abortion is already entirely illegal for those who have had consensual sex with people to whom they are not related.

    Via West Virginia Watch:

    Senate President Randy Smith, R-Preston, has reintroduced a “Fetal Heartbeat Act” that would prohibit abortions when a fetal heartbeat is detected with some exceptions. Smith that he will let his Republican caucus decide what bills will move forward.

    Another Senate measure, introduced by Sen. Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, would criminalize a health care provider who provides a chemical abortion via telehealth without physically examining the patient or being present at the location of the chemical abortion. It would not penalize the patient.

    Rucker said that she’s not trying to prohibit anything, she just wants to make sure abortion patients are safe, which definitely seems like some bullshit.

    In the House, Del. Adam Burkhammer, R-Lewis, hopes to modify the state’s Unborn Child Protection Act with a bill that would update what information must be shared with pregnant women seeking an abortion, including potential health risks. It would also mandate new requirements on advertisements about abortion access, including a requirement that they share the state’s health website. [“Make sure abortion patients are safe” is always the disingenuous excuse they trot out for their cruelty, and for using state funds to feed disinformation to pregnant women.]

    “I am looking at getting detailed and appropriate information to those that are in a very difficult situation with their pregnancy,” he said. “I believe the out of state advertising that is up throughout the state is very misleading to our citizens. It would be great to bring a better understanding and clarity with that advertising.”

    Yes, it would be very unfortunate if pregnant people were not made aware of whatever it is Delegate Burkhammer believes about abortion — which, by the way, is far, far safer than childbirth.

    Meanwhile, Democrats in the state are still hoping to push through an abortion rights ballot measure in order to allow the people of the state to decide for themselves whether or not they want the procedure to be legal in their state. A similar referendum was held in 2018, with 52 percent voting against enshrining the right to abortion in the state’s constitution — but that was before Dobbs. Having now witnessed what a world with no abortion rights looks like, a lot of people may very well have changed their minds.

  173. says

    https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc/post/3liwv43xjzp2s

    Johnson [House Speaker Mike Johnson]: “Elon’s cracked the code. He’s now inside these agencies. He’s created these algorithms that are constantly crawling through the data & as he told me in his office, data doesn’t lie. We’re gonna be able to get the information. We’re gonna be able to transform the way federal govt works.”

    There’s more in the video, which is available at the link, including Johnson making debunked claims about USAID funding all kind of stuff that Republicans hate.

  174. says

    Washington Post link

    “Ukraine and U.S. agree to framework for minerals deal, Ukrainian official says”

    The potential deal between Trump and Zelensky would grant Washington partial access to Ukraine’s natural resources.

    Ukraine and the United States have agreed to a framework for an expansive minerals deal, according to a Ukrainian official and another person familiar with the matter, potentially easing weeks of bitterness from President Donald Trump directed toward Kyiv.

    The broad outlines of the deal would grant Washington partial access to Ukraine’s minerals, oil and gas, part of an effort by the Trump administration to recoup the cost of U.S. war aid and, advocates of a deal say, offer a form of security to Ukraine by deepening U.S. investments there.

    The idea originated in a plan floated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last year, in which his country’s untapped mineral wealth would be used to help fund its war effort. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent brought a plan to Kyiv this month that shocked Ukrainian officials because it demanded unchecked access to their country’s resources but offered little in return. One person compared it to a 19th-century imperial demand for resource extraction from a colony.

    But after days of negotiations, the Ukrainian government appears ready to agree to a deal. Their openness to an agreement also comes after intense pressure from Trump, who has called the democratically elected Zelensky a “dictator,” blamed Ukraine for starting the war even though Russia invaded it unprovoked, flipped sides at the United Nations to join with Russia and North Korea against Ukraine, and pushed hard for a peace deal that demands few concessions from Russian President Vladimir Putin other than that he stop active hostilities toward Kyiv.

    Both the Ukrainian official and the other person familiar with the matter spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations.

    “I hear that [Zelensky]’s coming on Friday, certainly it’s okay with me if he’d like to, and he would like to sign it together with me. And I understand that’s a big deal, very big deal,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday after being asked about a mineral deal, without confirming the specifics of the agreement.

    […] “It could be a trillion-dollar deal. It could be whatever, but it’s rare earths and other things,” Trump said. “We want to get that money back. We’re helping the country through a very, very big problem, a problem like very few people have had. Shouldn’t have had this problem, because it shouldn’t have happened, but it did happen, so we have to straighten it out, but the American taxpayer now is going to get their money back, plus.”

    […] Trump has demanded that Ukraine repay U.S. war aid with access to its natural resources, highlighting a more transactional approach to how the United States handles issues around the world.

    From now on, “when Americans put up their money, the taxpayer money, and [the] president approves it, we’re getting our money back in some form,” Trump said Tuesday.

    The U.S. leader has claimed that the United States has sent assistance totaling $350 billion to Ukraine, and earlier versions of the deal requested that Kyiv pay Washington up to $500 billion.

    As of January, Washington had sent $66 billion in military aid since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to the State Department, and an additional $54 billion in nonmilitary aid, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, totaling about $120 billion. Europe has sent about $139 billion in that time period, according to the Kiel Institute.

    Zelensky rejected the Trump administration’s initial request for half of Ukraine’s mineral wealth, telling reporters that clear security guarantees were not part of the proposal — something he said was necessary for him to enter any agreement.

    Ukrainian officials began working on a separate counterproposal that would offer the United States more access to Ukraine’s natural resources, but that would have reportedly offered U.S. security guarantees for Kyiv, several people familiar with discussions said at the time.

    [The deal] does not include any mention of $500 billion — the figure that Trump told Fox News he wanted, in equivalent rare earth minerals, to repay U.S. war aid to Ukraine.

    “I’m not signing something that will have to be repaid by generations and generations of Ukrainians,” Zelensky said Sunday.

    Let’s wait to see the actual deal. And, let’s see how Trump treats Zelensky during an in-person visit.

  175. says

    Washington Post:

    The Trump administration has rescinded a Biden-era regulation that sought to ensure American allies don’t use U.S.-made weapons in violation of international humanitarian law, current and former officials said Monday.

  176. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    From Bluesky:

    Legitimately the stupidest man alive
    [Tweet of a US map with a line from San Francisco CA to Houston TX, curving along the southern border.]

    Ryan Peterson: Why is this plane not flying in a straight line?

    Elon Musk: It should be.

    Ryan Peterson: “I asked the pilot when we landed and he said he wanted to avoid turbulence.”
    * The route followed East-blowing lines of a jet stream map.
    * Peterson is CEO of Flexport, a Silicon Valley company to ‘disrupt’ the supply chain. It’s a middle-man between manufacturers and freight movers.

  177. says

    Elizabeth Warren shreds Musk over his cowardly refusal to attend hearing

    Senate Democrats ripped billionaire Elon Musk for not attending a Tuesday hearing about Musk’s efforts to gut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the government’s watchdog agency for the consumer financial industry.

    Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, wasted no time calling out Musk’s cowardice after she invited him to the hearing to both explain why he wants to gut the agency, which protects Americans from getting scammed, and answer questions about his personal financial interest in the agency’s destruction.

    It comes as no surprise that Musk was a no-show.

    “He is too afraid to show up in person and defend his actions,” Warren said in her opening remarks. “He hides behind a gusher of silly tweets. But Elon, in case you’re watching from your bunker or your Oval Office, it isn’t too late. We’re gonna be here for another hour and a half. We have saved a seat for you, and we all have plenty of questions.”

    The CFPB protects consumers from predatory financial and business practices by banks and financial institutions. Warren spearheaded the agency after the Great Recession. Its work has resulted in the return of over $21 billion to families scammed by financial institutions, Warren said at the hearing.

    Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell, a Democrat, spoke as a panelist about her office’s commitment to halt Musk’s efforts to screw over consumers.

    “Make no mistake, attorneys general will work to fill the void if necessary,” said Campbell.

    She also spoke about the danger of compromising the agency with political buzzwords.

    “Some call the CFPB a ‘rogue’ agency when, in fact, the agency is taking on those corporations that have gone rogue, corporations that exploit consumers to build a profit, simultaneously making the playing field unlevel for other businesses,” Campbell said. “Some call the bureau a ‘woke, weaponized’ agency. I tell consumers they better wake up. What these companies know to be true is that the average customer has no weapon to fight back, that customers are either unaware of a scam, or they are unaware and do not have the resources to recoup the money, the house, or the wealth that was taken from them.”

    Gutting protections against sketchy companies and banks is something that Musk, President Donald Trump, and the CFPB’s acting director, Russell Vought, must be rejoicing over. Each has been implicated in their fair share of lawsuits.

    Earlier this month, Vought worked behind the scenes to lay off CFPB employees, telling staff to stop working. In response, Vought and others in the Trump administration are being sued by the CFPB’s union. The union’s suit claims that the Trump administration locked employees out of their offices and planned to dismantle the agency after Vought ordered staff to stop working.

    “The predicate to running a ‘more streamlined and efficient bureau’ is that there will continue to be a CFPB,” Vought said in a filing in response on Monday. He also indicated that the agency will look for a new director.

    However, the CFPB union believes serious harm has already been done.

    “Their actions have caused mass confusion and imposed significant and irreparable harm on consumers across the country,” the union said in a statement.

  178. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    CBS

    Gleason’s promotion to acting administrator came as a surprise to USDS employees who, like Gleason, were folded into DOGE […] Those employees learned of her new position “in the past few hours” even though they had been asking for weeks

    Laura Barrón-López (PBS Newshour):

    First, WH emails that DOGE Administrator is Amy Gleason, per WH official.

    Moments later, they send another email saying: Amy Gleason is *acting* DOGE Administrator, per WH official.

  179. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Wired – Ads popped up on drivers’ screens. There may be more on the way.

    Every time they hit the brakes on their Jeep, they wrote, a promotion for an extended warranty plan popped up in the center console. “Press the ‘call’ button to speak to a specialist,”
    […]
    the issue goes back several years, affecting several models of Jeeps. Stellantis, which owns Jeep, says the repetitive nature of the promotion was a glitch. […] He acknowledged, though, that Stellantis shows other drivers in-vehicle promotions too. Dodge owners, for example, get an infotainment push after 60 days of purchase offering the “Dodge Complete Performance Package,” a comprehensive warranty offering.” Stellantis says that, on average, customers receive about two in-vehicle messages annually

  180. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    C-SPAN livestream in progress: House debate on the 2025 Budget

    Aaron Fritschner (House staffer):

    House Republicans are pulling the vote on the budget resolution. They don’t have the votes!
    –
    WELP. They sent everyone home, and now they’ve just reopened the series and put the bill back on the floor.

    Members had left Capitol Hill for the night, now they are turning around and driving back, I’ve never seen this happen before in 10+ years working here
    –
    Democrats had four absences earlier. BUT, Frederica Wilson returned for the evening series. Then as Rs prepared to put this bill on the floor, Brittany Pettersen (recently gave birth) unexpectedly arrived to vote. AND Kevin Mullin (hospitalized) just unexpectedly showed up. Rs can only lose 1 now.
    –
    It all coming down to the Congresswoman we in the House refer to as ‘the queen of chaos,’ Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana. Earlier today she told [reporter Reese Gorman (NOTUS)] she was a firm no, and said “I don’t change my mind… I’m very strong in my positions.” Rs seem to think she will flip.

  181. whheydt says

    Re: CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @ #176…
    Wait until he sees a (Mercator projection) map with air routes between the US and Japan or Korea on the one hand, or the US and Europe on the other. Or for a real extreme, west coast US to Scandinavia (aka “trans-polar”).

  183. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Aaron Fritschner

    Per CNN’s Manu Raju, Spartz just voted yes. The vote remains open, Democrats have been voting by card to slow down the process and by time for members to return and vote. It stands thusly right now:
    Rs: 215 yea 1 nay
    Ds: 0 yea, 212 nay
    ==: 215 yea, 213 nay

  184. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    It’s over. This was posted 20 minutes ago.

    Aaron Fritschner:

    Democratic Whip Katherine Clark to House Dems: “House Republicans are trying to jam through their Budget Resolution after assuring House Democrats that there would be no further votes this evening.” [Screenshot]

    A lot of people seeing this seem to think all Reps remain near the House Chamber at all times in case a quick sneak vote is called. This is not, in fact, what happens. Both parties rely on and provide each other basic schedule notifications. The Democrats are not the bad guys in this situation.

  185. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Aaron Fritschner:

    It passed; final vote below.

    This is on a budget which may or may not advance in the Senate, but the bill that will fill out the details called for in that budget cannot lose any other Republican votes if the same composition of members are present.
    Rs: 217 yea 1 nay
    Ds: 0 yea, 214 nay
    ==: 217 yea, 215 nay

    Wait, I neglected a column. Ds had 1 NV=did-not-vote !?
     
    Aaron Fritschner:

    Every Democrat who is in DC returned in time to vote against the bill (the lone NV is Rep. Grijalva, who is fighting cancer). The vote shenanigans did not make the difference in the end, Dems made sure they all got to vote.

    Your anger is best direct at the people who actually do the bad things!

  186. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Aaron Fritschner (House staffer):

    It didn’t take down the bill tonight but seems clear to me that Jeffries and Clark held back votes of two members (Pettersen and Mullin) with well publicized absences to sneak them in at the end. A clever, heads-up move that could’ve worked and even in loss will make Johnson think twice next time

  187. says

    New York Times link

    “Trump Plans ‘Gold Card’ Alternative to Green Cards for ‘High Level People’”

    “Trump said the cards would have “a higher level of sophistication” than green cards and cost applicants about $5 million.”

    Trump on Tuesday previewed his plans for a new visa program he was calling the gold card, describing it as “somewhat like a green card, but at a higher level of sophistication.”

    The new program would allow “very high-level people” a new “route to citizenship,” Mr. Trump said. The price tag, he said, would be about $5 million.

    Mr. Trump revealed his gold card plan to reporters in the Oval Office, where he was signing his latest round of executive orders, including one related to tariffs on copper imports. His commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, filled in some of the details.

    Mr. Lutnick explained that “the Trump gold card,” as he called it, would replace the EB-5 visa program, which similarly provides a pathway to citizenship for wealthy foreign investor types but has been an avenue for fraud. Mr. Lutnick implied that the administration would be more discerning as to who might qualify for a gold card, though details were scant at this early stage.

    “We’re going to make sure they’re wonderful world-class global citizens,” Mr. Lutnick said.

    Mr. Trump added, “It will be people with money and people that create jobs.”

    Asked whether a Russian oligarch might be eligible for a gold card, Mr. Trump seemed amused. “Yeah,” he replied. “Possibly.”

    He added, “Hey, I know some Russian oligarchs that are nice people. It’s possible.”

    Mr. Lutnick began to chuckle as Mr. Trump continued, “They’re not as wealthy as they used to be.” Starting to laugh himself, the president added, “I think they can afford five million dollars.”

    He predicted that the gold card program would be a moneymaker for the government, reasoning that many companies would pay the $5 million fee to bring in skilled workers.

    “We’ll be able to sell maybe a million of these cards, maybe more than that,” Mr. Trump said. “If you add up the numbers, they’re pretty good.”

  188. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Bobby Kogan (Center for American Progress):

    House Rs just passed the budget resolution, the first step in their process to enact a bill that’d kick millions off Medicaid & cut SNAP down to just $1.60 per person per meal on avg while cutting taxes for the top 0.1% by $278k—all while increasing the debt.
    [Long thread] on what’s to come and WHERE TO FIGHT

    Details on congressional procdedure. What just passed was an outline of a budget that needs to be made to agree with the Senate’s version, then various committees fill in their specifics. The thread advises ‘attend town halls’ and ‘call every day’.
     
    Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

    This vote was to start the process of the cuts. It WILL come back for a final vote. There are some chances to slow or potentially stop it. Need constant pressure on GOP.

    Focus on GOP swing seats & key committees. Energy & Commerce is where the Medicaid fight will go down. Ways&Means for tax fight.

  189. says

    Russia offered U.S. a deal for minerals in Ukrainian territory it seized

    “Russian officials proposed an agreement for the U.S. to make money off critical minerals and metals under Moscow’s control.”

    Russia has proposed to the Trump administration a potential agreement under which the United States would gain some ownership of rare earth minerals and other valuable metals in parts of Ukraine controlled by the Russian military, according to two U.S. officials familiar with intelligence on the matter and another person briefed on the proposal.

    […] Top aides to Russian President Vladimir Putin floated Russia’s idea with Trump administration officials last week at a meeting in Saudi Arabia, the U.S. officials and the person briefed on the proposal said.

    The options Russia had specifically prepared to discuss with U.S. officials included scenarios that could give the Trump administration access to minerals in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia, both of which Russia declared it had annexed in 2022, the two U.S. officials said.

    The Trump administration has not committed to a U.S.-Russia deal on rare earth minerals but has not ruled it out, the U.S. officials and the person briefed on the proposal said.

    “Trump is transactional, so Putin — understanding that — has come up with this countermove,” a former U.S. diplomat with experience in the region said […].

    Trump suggested an openness Monday to an agreement with Russia.

    “We’re trying to do some economic development deals. They have a lot of things that we want,” Trump told reporters, referring to Russia. “You know, they have massive rare earth. It’s … very large. …

    “If we could do that, I think it would be a very good thing for world peace and lasting peace,” Trump added. “Just as we’re doing with Ukraine, if we could do some economic development in terms of Russia and getting things that we want, something like that would be possible.”

    On Tuesday Trump said an agreement with Russia for minerals on Ukrainian land it now controls “could take place,” but did not say if he’s spoken with Putin about the possibility.

    Putin said in an interview with Russian state television Monday that he is open to offering the United States access to rare minerals in Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine, as well as in Russia.

    […] Zelenskyy had first suggested a possible agreement with “strategic partners” to jointly develop and secure the country’s natural resources as part of a proposed peace plan last year.

    […] Russia proposed a new economic partnership to the U.S. officials that would involve territory that Moscow seized in its 2022 invasion of Ukraine and that would coincide with the end of the war, the U.S. officials and the person briefed on the proposal said.

    It would effectively ensure that Russia would retain swaths of Ukrainian territory that it occupies and hopes to keep as part of a negotiated peace deal. […]

    […] U.S. joint ownership of Ukraine’s mineral wealth could change how Trump views America’s interests in Ukraine and undermine Moscow’s goal of dominating the country, and that may be a motivating factor for Russia, the former diplomat with experience in the region said.

    Many of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals are in areas controlled or threatened by the Russian military, and Russian oligarchs are already exploiting some of them, according to five U.S. officials.

    Accessing rare earth minerals on any Ukrainian territory could be complicated and costly.

    James Cowan, the CEO of HALO Trust, a humanitarian de-mining organization working in Ukraine, warned this month at a security conference that as much as 156,000 square kilometers of Ukraine is contaminated with land mines or other explosives.

    “Any proposals to tap Ukraine’s mineral wealth will need to incorporate a plan for the clearance of the land mines if it is to be remotely viable,” Cowan, a retired British major general, said at the time.

  190. says

    […] Trump retaliated Tuesday against a Washington law firm that provided free legal services to special counsel Jack Smith, the federal prosecutor who brought two criminal cases against Trump that were dropped after he won last November’s election.

    […] Trump signed a memorandum suspending the security clearances of lawyers and other personnel at Covington & Burling involved in representing Smith before he resigned from the Justice Department last month.

    Trump’s directive also calls for ending all contracts Covington has with the federal government, although a federal spending database doesn’t show any government contracts with the firm.

    […] Smith declared in a financial disclosure that he received a gift of $140,000-worth of legal services from the firm while in government service. Government rules allow federal employees to take pro bono legal services related to their work as long as they get approval from their agency and disclose the gift.

    Trump’s directive mentioned by name only one Covington lawyer representing Smith, Peter Koski, but says it applies equally to others at the firm “who assisted former Special Counsel Jack Smith during his time as Special Counsel, pending a review and determination of their roles and responsibilities, if any, in the weaponization of the judicial process.”

    […] In a statement, Covington said the firm “recently agreed” to represent Smith when it “became apparent that he would become the subject of a government investigation” and suggested the relationship began around the time of the 2024 election.

    “For more than 100 years, Covington has represented clients facing government investigations, consistent with the best traditions of the legal profession,” the firm’s statement said. “Covington serves as defense counsel to Jack Smith in his personal, individual capacity. We look forward to defending Mr. Smith’s interests and appreciate the trust he has placed in us to do so.”

    A Covington spokesperson declined to comment on whether Koski or other lawyers there currently have security clearances.

    […] Attorney General Pam Bondi has also launched a “Weaponization Working Group” that is assigned to examine the conduct of Smith’s team, among other things.

    Trump during the Oval appearance Tuesday mocked Smith and tossed the pen used to sign the memo to someone with instructions to deliver it to the former special counsel.

    […] As a reporter began to ask Trump about the wisdom of the directive, Trump interrupted. “Excuse me, I’ve been targeted for four years, longer than that,” the president said. “You don’t tell me about targeting. I was the target of corrupt politicians for four years and then four years after that, so don’t tell me about targeting.”

    Covington counts several prominent Democrats in its ranks including former Attorney General Eric Holder, now a senior counsel at the firm, and former DOJ Criminal Division chief and Clinton White House lawyer Lanny Breuer, who is a partner there. The firm also served as counsel to President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential bid.

    Link

  191. Bekenstein Bound says

    Anyone else thinking that if “democratic” decisionmaking is coming down to procedural shenanigans like those then there’s something broken about the system? Even when it’s “our side” doing some of the shenanigans?

    More fundamentally, why are there even sides? Everyone on Earth has the same basic needs. We are all in the same proverbial boat. Why do we invent artificial distinctions (race, class, etc.) by which to divide ourselves into competing teams in the first place? That might make sense in an environment of severe scarcity, but the scarcity these days is nearly all artificial, at least as to basic necessities. (There’s genuine scarcity of, say, Lear jets, or Mars rockets, but there’s plenty of food, water, and shelter for all 8 billion of us to share if we’d just stop trying to hoard it all for one “side” or another.)

  192. Bekenstein Bound says

    House Rs just passed the budget resolution, the first step in their process to enact a bill that’d kick millions off Medicaid & cut SNAP down to just $1.60 per person per meal on avg while cutting taxes for the top 0.1% by $278k—all while increasing the debt.

    Behold, the party of fiscal responsibility at work!

  193. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Wired – DOGE is working on software that automates firing

    AutoRIF, which stands for Automated Reduction in Force, was first developed by the Department of Defense more than two decades ago. […] DOGE operatives […] appear to be editing its code […] as recently as this weekend.

    So far, federal agency firings have been conducted manually, with HR officials combing through employee registries and lists provided by managers
    […]
    While DOGE could use AutoRIF as the DOD built it, multiple OPM sources speculated that the Musk-affiliated engineers could be building their own software on top of, or using code from, AutoRIF.

    Riccardo Biasini, a former engineer at Tesla and a director at The Boring Company, has seemingly been tasked with pruning AutoRIF on GitHub […] “Remove obsolete versions of autorif,” one file description [says]. Biasini has also been listed as the main point of contact for the government-wide email system […] within OPM to solicit resignation emails
    […]
    In order to conduct RIFs, government HR officials are required to create lists ranking employees who may be subject to firings. AutoRIF does that automatically
    […]
    Before the first round of probationary firings, […] “CDC went through a very, very deliberate effort to characterize our probationary employees as mission critical or not, and that way we could keep those that would have real impacts to the mission should they get terminated,” they say. “None of that was taken into account. They just sent us a list and said, ‘Terminate these employees effective immediately.'”

    * As mentioned a couple weeks ago:

    they’re going to be on shaky legal grounds for what is called a “Reduction in Force” (basically they will have to claim that there is a “lack of work” and they will also have to go through a laborious process for each affected employee)

     

    OPM – Workforce Reshaping Appendeces:

    p29: depending on the timing, size, and complexity of the planned RIF, the agency may find that implementing an automated RIF program may take more time and resources than manually determining employees’ retention rights

    p63: Even when the team uses AutoRIF or a comparable software package to determine employees’ assignment rights, the agency’s burden of proof in a RIF appeal is still the paper documents that serve as the basis for the team’s decisions

    I’m sure the gov lawyers will appreciate the AI-infused liability generator.

  194. JM says

    CNN: Taiwan detains Chinese-crewed ship suspected of cutting undersea cable

    Taiwan’s coast guard detained a cargo ship and its Chinese crew on Tuesday and said it was investigating whether the vessel had deliberately cut an undersea internet cable, in the latest possible damage to the island’s communication lines.
    The Togo-flagged vessel suspected of damaging the cable – which connected Taiwan to its outlying Penghu Islands – was crewed by eight Chinese nationals, Taiwan’s coast guard said in a statement.

    Cable cutting has become a standard political hostility move. It’s easy to do and hard to prove. It does occasionally happen by accident and if the ship can get away from the cut it becomes increasingly hard to prove which ship caused the damage. It’s particularly annoying because it’s just a jerk move, it does little to actual military communication which uses encrypted radio or satellite.

  195. JM says

    Newsweek: Joe Rogan Dethroned by Anti-Trump Podcast in the Charts

    The podcast charts have largely been dominated by shows with a conservative or pro-Trump voice, and the likes of Joe Rogan, Shawn Ryan and Ben Shapiro have frequently appeared in the top 10. Trump himself appeared on a number of these podcasts, eschewing traditional media outlets, as part of his successful bid for reelection in 2024.
    Less than a month into the new administration, the rise of the left-leaning MeidasTouch to become the country’s most popular podcast indicates a potential shift in tone currently resonating with Americans.

    The exact ranking depends on who’s chart you use but the general trend is clear. A lot of people that previous didn’t pay much attention in the middle or the left suddenly want to hear left leaning news and information.
    I think there is also a more subtle point here that plays into the general move by cable news to the right. For the same reason that phone surveys warp heavily to the right everything on cable is beginning to lean right. The younger and left leaning people tend towards being cord cutters and get all of their news off the internet. So all of the cable news is leaning right to chase ratings.

  196. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show

    Trump’s deportation project falls short of its hype; private ‘army’ presents concerning option
    video is 6:04 minutes

    ‘No idea what he’s doing’: Series of bumbles and mistakes makes clear Musk is in over his head
    video is 6:50 minutes

    Busted: DOGE humiliated by brutal fact-checking, walks back bogus savings claims
    video is 7:00 minutes

  197. Reginald Selkirk says

    Apple is fixing a voice dictation bug that substitutes ‘Trump’ for ‘racist’

    Apple has acknowledged a peculiar bug with the iPhone’s dictation feature that briefly displays “Trump” when someone says the word “racist.” The Verge has been unable to reproduce the issue, but it picked up attention on Tuesday after a video demonstrating the strange substitution went viral on TikTok and other social media.

    The company provided a statement to The New York Times and Fox News confirming the bug. “We are aware of an issue with the speech recognition model that powers dictation, and we are rolling out a fix as soon as possible,” an unnamed spokesperson said, according to Fox News.

    Apparently the issue boils down to phonetic overlap between “Trump” and “racist.” The company told Fox News that other words with an “r” consonant are also occasionally affected. But John Burkey, who formerly worked on the Siri team at Apple, told the Times that Trump’s name appearing “smells like a serious prank” that could have been purposefully carried out by someone internally…

  200. Reginald Selkirk says

    Cellebrite suspends Serbia as customer after claims police used firm’s tech to plant spyware

    Cellebrite announced on Tuesday that it stopped Serbia from using its technology, following allegations that Serbian police and intelligence used Cellebrite’s technology to unlock the phones of a journalist and an activist, and then plant spyware.

    In December 2024, Amnesty International published a report that accused Serbian police of using Cellebrite’s forensics tools to hack into the cellphones of a local journalist and an activist. Once their phones were unlocked, Serbian authorities then installed an Android spyware, which Amnesty called Novispy, to keep surveilling the two.

    In a statement, Cellebrite said that “after a review of the allegations brought forth by the December 2024 Amnesty International report, Cellebrite took precise steps to investigate each claim in accordance with our ethics and integrity policies. We found it appropriate to stop the use of our products by the relevant customers at this time.” …

  201. Reginald Selkirk says

    Christianity declines among U.S. adults while “religiously unaffiliated” grows, study says

    The portion of the U.S. population identifying as Christian has declined significantly over the last two decades, but a massive new Pew Research study finds that trend may be leveling off.

    The study, which surveyed 37,000 Americans, found that 62% identify as Christian. By comparison, when Pew did a similar study in 2007, 78% said they were Christian.

    Most of that decline occurred until 5 years ago, when it began to level off, according to the Pew study.

    The current Christian breakdown in the U.S. is that 40% identify as Protestant, 19% identify as Catholic and the remaining 3% say they are Christian without specifying additional denomination.

    All three major branches of Protestantism have declined in share of the population since 2007. Evangelical Protestants now make up 23%, down from 26%. Mainline Protestants account for 11% of U.S. adults, down from 18%. And people who attend historically Black Protestant churches make up 5% of the population, down from 7%.

    The survey included nearly 37,000 U.S. adults and was conducted in 2023 and 2024…

  202. says

    After vowing to ‘take’ Gaza, Trump shares bizarre video of Middle East ‘Riviera’ vision

    “The president used social media to amplify an AI-generated video of “Trump Gaza” that’s so utterly ridiculous, it has to be seen to be believed.”

    It started three weeks ago with a surprise. Donald Trump, making an announcement that even members of his own team didn’t expect, said that he wants the United States to take a “long-term ownership position” over Gaza. As the president described it, Americans would both “take over” and “own” the area, and when asked about the possibility of deploying U.S. military forces to the Gaza Strip, Trump added, “We’ll do what is necessary.”

    In the days that followed, Trump added new details, insisting that Gaza “would be turned over to the United States” — presumably at no cost — at which point he would “own“ the area. The president similarly claimed, in reference to Gaza, “We’re going to take it, we’re going to hold it.”

    Palestinians, under the Republican’s vision, would be relocated to other countries, and would not be welcome in his new Gaza. It led United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres to describe the White House’s proposal as “tantamount to ethnic cleansing.”

    For good measure, the [Trump] added that “nobody is going to question” U.S. ownership of Gaza because … well, he never quite got around to explaining why. Just as importantly, as experts in international law continue to explain that his plan is illegal, Trump was asked how the United States could legally claim Palestinian territory as its own. The president cited “U.S. authority.”

    He’s had plenty of opportunities to walk this back in the face of international outrage. Trump is instead finding new — and jaw-dropping — ways to lean into his ambitions. Axios noted:

    President Trump shared what appeared to be an AI-generated video late Tuesday night depicting his vision of “the Riviera of the Middle East” if his plan to “take over the Gaza strip” comes to fruition. … The video recasts the enclave that’s been devastated by the Israel-Hamas war as an oasis of Trump’s fantasy, complete with bellydancers, a golden statue of himself and Elon Musk dancing under a shower of money.

    That might sound like an exaggeration. It is not. [video at the link. JFC. See also: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:t46sqvutibvsmjgwn6r6izve/post/3lj2lxhw3uz26 ]

    The 33-second video — which, again, appears to have been generated entirely by AI, though the original source and creator are unclear — begins by showing images of devastation in Gaza.

    Roughly five seconds in, however, viewers are presented with computer-generated images of a fantastical Gaza, featuring skyscrapers, sports cars, yachts, and beach-front resorts. The same fake video featured Trump’s top campaign donor enjoying a meal, a child carrying a gold balloon of Trump’s head, Trump at a nightclub, Musk dancing under money falling from the sky, children celebrating under money that’s also falling from the sky, a high-rise featuring the “Trump Gaza” label in gold letters, and an apparent giftshop featuring golden Trump figurines.

    In case this feast for the eyes was too subtle, at the 25-second mark, the same video suggests Trump’s Gaza would also feature a giant golden status of Trump himself in the middle of an apparent thoroughfare.

    Faye Nemer, CEO and Founder of the MENA American Chamber of Commerce in Dearborn, Michigan, told NPR the video is “offensive and counterproductive to peace talks.” Nemer, who says she voted for Trump last fall, went on to call on the president to remove the video and issue a “reconciliatory statement.”

    Given everything we know about Trump, that seems extraordinarily unlikely.

  203. says

    The House Republicans’ budget plan “doesn’t even mention Medicaid,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said. The truth isn’t nearly that simple.

    […] It’s easy to understand why: GOP officials seem to realize that it’s not a great look for Republicans to cut taxes for the wealthy while simultaneously taking health care benefits for low-income families.

    Party leaders have gone out of their way to claim that the House GOP budget blueprint does not include Medicaid cuts. In fact, they said, it doesn’t even mention the health care program at all.

    “It doesn’t even mention Medicaid in the bill,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters. “The word ‘Medicaid’ is not even in this bill,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise added. “This bill doesn’t even mention the word ‘Medicaid’ a single time.”

    It’s not nearly that simple. As The New York Times reported:

    The budget resolution itself is silent on whether Congress cuts Medicaid, which provides health coverage to 72 million poor and disabled Americans. But it instructs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over the program, to cut spending by $880 billion over the next decade.

    In other words, the House Republicans’ budget plan doesn’t literally cut Medicaid, it simply directs the House committee that oversees Medicaid to find deep cuts that can only be found in Medicaid.

    Indeed, some GOP members have been willing to acknowledge publicly what is plainly true. Republican Rep. Russ Fulcher of Idaho, for example, who sits on the Energy and Commerce Committee, recently told The Hill, “There’s only one place you can go, and that’s Medicaid. That’s where the money is. There’s others, don’t get me wrong, but if you’re gonna get to $900 billion, something has to be reformed on the Medicaid front.”

    […] Donald Trump vowed on Fox News last week that Medicaid would go untouched during his presidency. Around the same time, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said, “I don’t like the idea of massive Medicaid cuts.”

    Similarly, media personality Steve Bannon warned GOP officials a week earlier, “Medicaid, you gotta be careful. Because a lot of MAGAs are on Medicaid, I’m telling you. If you don’t think so, you are dead wrong.”

    […] House Republicans are playing a shell game with their budget plan, but that doesn’t make their deceptive claims true.

    What’s more, it’s important to emphasize just how much damage the GOP blueprint, if implemented, would do to the program. We’re talking about a plan that would cut $880 billion over the next decade, which is more than just a little trim. Even if Republicans were to impose new work restrictions on Medicaid recipients, that would (a) represent a cut of its own; and (b) produce savings of roughly $100 billion over 10 years according to the Congressional Budget Office. The remaining cuts would necessarily have to include additional cuts to health care benefits for struggling families.

    If you went through the Republicans’ budget plan line by line, it’s true that you wouldn’t find references to Medicaid cuts — but that doesn’t mean they’re not there.

  204. Akira MacKenzie says

    @ 201

    Being “religiously unaffiliated” doesn’t tell me jack or shit about what these people actually believe.

  205. says

    The State Department is ordering officials worldwide to deny visas to transgender athletes who try to enter the U.S. for competitions.

    This order, obtained by The Guardian, is particularly harsh as it could even place a lifetime ban on these athletes should their passport or visa information list their gender as something different than what they were assigned at birth.

    According to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, this would be considered fraud.

    “In cases where applicants are suspected of misrepresenting their purpose of travel or sex, you should consider whether this misrepresentation is material such that it supports an ineligibility finding,” reads the directive.

    This note to officials issuing visas comes after Trump’s Feb. 5 executive order banning transgender girls and women from competing in athletic sports for girls and women.

    Specifically referring to the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, the president announced that he would direct Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to reject “any and all visa applications made by men attempting to fraudulently enter the United States while identifying themselves as women athletes.”

    It is unclear how many international transgender athletes are slated to attend the Olympics.

    Past trans Olympians include New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, who competed in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. And Quinn, a trans nonbinary Canadian soccer player, competed in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro and 2020 Tokyo Olympics. (Quinn was not out during the 2016 games, however.)

    The International Olympics Committee has allowed transgender people to participate in the games since 2004, and when similar pressure was mounting in 2021, the committee issued a statement showing their support for the LGBTQ+ community.

    “The IOC will not discriminate against an athlete who has qualified through their [International Federation], on the basis of their gender identity and/or sex characteristics,” their website states.

    But as Trump’s sports ban took hold, it also has taken its grip at a national level.

    Just this week, Pennsylvania followed suit on Trump’s executive order and banned transgender athletes from participating in school sports. Other states, such as Maine, have signaled that they may push back on Trump’s ban. […]

    Link

  206. says

    A school-aged child in Texas has died after contracting measles, the first death to result from the current outbreak spreading throughout the South Plains region of the state where more than 120 cases have been confirmed so far.

    The Texas Department of State Health Services on Wednesday said in a statement that an unvaccinated child has died in Lubbock, Texas after having been hospitalized for measles the week prior.

    […] About 81 percent of measles cases have been detected in people under the age of 18. Of the 124 infections detected so far, five are vaccinated while the rest are not.

    Among the infected, 18 people have been hospitalized.

    The outbreak is spreading in an area with a large community of Mennonites, many of whom reject conventional medicine like vaccines though the church itself does not hold an anti-vaccine stance.

    In Texas’s Gaines County, where the majority of cases have been detected, one school district was found to have a K-12 vaccine exemption rate of 47.95 percent.

    Measles is highly transmissible, with one infected individual capable of infecting nine out of 10 people they encounter. While there are no specific antivirals for measles, the disease can be prevented with one course of a two-dose measles, mumps and rubella vaccination. Most cases will resolve with supportive care but infections carry the risk of pneumonia and encephalitis that could lead to permanent disabilities.

    Link

  208. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/mi-republican-flees-own-ban-gay-marriage

    “MI Republican Flees Own ‘Ban Gay Marriage’ Presser, Gay Dem Helpfully Takes Over!z’

    “Good format for all future Republican announcements if you ask us.”

    A Republican lawmaker in Michigan, state Rep. Josh Schriver, believes so strongly in his Christian Faith that yesterday, he introduced a resolution condemning the United States Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision, with a bunch of whereases about how it’s against “natural law” and the Constitution somehow. Hilariously, it doesn’t directly call on the Supremes to overturn Obergefell, which is fine since that’s not how the Supreme Court works anyway.

    Schriver is quite the far-right MAGA idiot, as you may have guessed already. A little over a year ago, he lost his committee assignments, his staff, and even his office in the state Capitol after he endorsed the racist “Great Replacement” theory about how THEY are using immigration to “replace” wonderful white people like him and Tucker Carlson and other Twitter Nazis. […]

    In December, Schriver was mocked widely after he tweeted “Make gay marriage illegal again. This is not remotely controversial, nor extreme.” Needless to say, it was both, and so many people called him a bigoted jerkwad and said he should mind his own damn business that he knew he had to be right, so that’s how we got to yesterday’s nonbinding resolution, which has so far has attracted only six Republican cosponsors and is unlikely to pass anyway.

    But hey, it was a chance for a visibly nervous Schriver to hold a brief press conference where he advised the godless heathen media he would not take questions, then launched into a bunch of lies about how gay people getting married is bad for families, tramples on Christians’ sacred right to tell other people how to live, and other horrors. Schriver insisted that the 2015 Obergefell decision had “widened the portal for gays, queers, transsexuals, polygamists, minor-attracted persons and other perverts to advance attacks on our children,” although for some reason he didn’t also call for outlawing the most dangerous category of perverts, youth pastors.

    Schriver even got all scientific, explaining that marriage must only be between heterosexual people, a “biological necessity to preserve and grow our human race,” […] He also said a lot of God stuff about the need to recognize the “sovereignty of Christ as our King,” which did you know actually has fuck-all to do with our actual Constitution?

    True to his word, after spewing lies and invoking God’s blessings upon those assembled, […] Schriver then hurried from the room.

    Here’s video! (If you get tired of Schriver and his preaching, skip to the 5:33 mark, where Schriver leaves and the cool fun part starts.[…]) [video at the link]

    Schriver might have been a tad flummoxed because sitting right in front of him was Democratic state Sen. Jeremy Moss, who’s gay. Bridge Michigan reporter Jordyn Hermani got this beautiful shot of the presser. [social media post and photo at the link]

    After Schriver preached and fled the room so he wouldn’t be infected with “gay” or “journalist,” Moss, the state Senate’s first out LGBTQ+ member, generously stepped up to the microphone to continue the press conference, which we think was mighty civil of him:

    “I think this was, this was just as buffoonish as I expected it to be. I think this has fallen flat with people in the state of Michigan. I think that people respect their LGBTQ neighbors, their LGBTQ family members. These marriages have been the law of the land for 10 years; they contribute to family security, they contribute to economic security.”

    Moss went on to say he was pretty sure Michiganders had better things to worry about than their next-door neighbors’ marriages. But then a GOP staffer in the room finally thought to end the presser, and that was that.

    In response to Schriver’s bill, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer released her own video, in which she was succinct: “Hell no.” [video at the link]

    Calling the question non-negotiable, Whitmer added, “We fought a long, hard fight to win marriage equality, and we will always protect our family, our friends and neighbors from hateful attacks. […] This is personal for me, just like so many Michiganders, and I’m not gonna allow the people I love the most in this world to have less rights than anyone else.” This made us simultaneously cheer and whisper “Fewer, governor. It’s fewer.”

    Michigan’s constitution still includes an amendment restricting marriage to heterosexuals […] In addition, it also banned civil unions, just to keep LGBTQ+ people from getting any ideas. It was passed by voters in 2004 when that was the sort of thing that got panicky people to the polls, but it was overturned, like other state laws, by the Obergefell decision. For good measure, Sen. Moss also took to Facebook to urge a new voter initiative that would remove the now-moot amendment from the state constitution, just in case Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito get the chance to actually overturn Obergefell.

    Hell yes to that, and thank you Sen. Moss.

  209. whheydt says

    Re: Lynna, OM @ #208…
    Last Fall, California voters actually did repeal the anti-same-sex-marriage amendment Prop. 8 (aka “Prop. Hate”), and wrote affirmative marriage equality language into the state constitution.

  210. says

    whheydt @209, yes that is good news! Sometimes things do work out … but it takes time.

    In other news, “Now An Update On Elon Musk And His Band Of Pubeless Basement Dwellers!”

    “Who the hell is running this thing? What are they doing? And why?”

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/now-an-update-on-elon-musk-and-his

    The mystery of the Elon Musk chainsaw squad continues!

    Who are these creeps? While ProPublica has been keeping a tracker of the various Musk-company infiltrators, tech-startup squids, and Heritage Foundation unfuckables who have been infesting the various government agencies, Trumpistan itself has been loath to publicly say. [Embedded links to additional sources are available at the main link.]

    But it’s not Musk, Trump’s government lawyers swear! “Special Employee” Musk’s name may be the Canary M. Burns at the top of the org chart, and he may be Tweeting 24 hours a day about what “we” at DOGE are doing. But the Department Of Government Efficiency isn’t legally a government department, even as it takes $39 million of scraped-together government cash. And since Musk hasn’t been officially hired, he’s not supposed to be doing any actual work besides giving Trump his sage advice. And neither he nor Trump legally have any authority to override Congress and decide how money is spent, which they know and are actively choosing to ignore, at least until the Supreme Court (possibly) stops them.

    Musk sure isn’t hanging out in some smelly Social Security office basement, he is too busy Xitting a hundred times a day, when he isn’t busy forgetting his kid on a stage or passing his sperm around. [video with child is available at the link]

    So whose hands are actually (unlawfully) wielding the spigot of the government payment systems, deciding which people to fire? Who’s opening the digital barn door for the rats to root around in taxes, student loans, Social Security statements, the CIA’s payroll, etc., and doing things so hinky that yesterday 21 government tech workers resigned instead of agreeing to participate? Who was posting that DOGE “Wall of Receipts” that turned out to be riddled with billions in “mistakes,” and then quietly deleted it?

    The government has been stalling to avoid giving any kind of answer, either because not even government lawyers are actually being told what is going on, and/or because the sooner people are named, the sooner those people could be more directly ordered by a judge to cut it the fuck out or else […]

    But there is now one official name, thanks to Karoline Levitt. The filler in her top lip may be less lumpy than usual, and her lipstick is mostly inside her liplines for the first time ever, but is she happy? NO, she is fucking more pissed than ever that reporters are asking her questions.

    “Can you tell us who the administrator of DOGE is?” [video at the link]

    A: Elon Musk is overseeing DOGE, and there’s some career officials, there’s some appointees, and I’m not going to reveal the name of that individual, except maybe to you later, but we’re incredibly transparent kthanxbye!

    Later Leavitt did finally make with a name, it was Amy Gleason, a nurse-turned-technology-product-officer who served under Obama and Biden, whose LinkedIn lists her as a US Digital Services senior adviser. Then Leavitt fumed that she had so told the stupid reporters that already, as if it was not completely obvious that she had not and that was the whole reason they were asking. [video at the link]

    “Everybody knew and we said who she was to all of you because you are hounds in the media who are so obsessed with this for some reason. So, in the effort of transparency, we told you who that person is.”

    It wasn’t just new news to reporters, but also apparently a surprise to Gleason, who was on vacation in Mexico at the time.

    Meanwhile in court, government lawyers have continued to be all hurr durr, who, whut?

    Almost two weeks ago, federal Judge Amir H. Ali ordered the administration to resume funding to USAID, which owes like $2 billion dollars to organizations for food aid and paychecks. But in a phone hearing yesterday, government lawyer Indraneel Sur refused to say if his order had been followed (spoiler, it hasn’t, and USAID workers are still stranded and not being paid what they’re owed around the globe):

    “I’m not sure why I can’t get a straight answer from you on this,” puzzled the judge. “Are you aware of an unfreezing of the disbursement of funds for those contracts and agreements that were frozen before February 13?”

    “I’m not in a position to answer that.”

    “We’re 12 days in and you’re here representing the government […] and you can’t answer me whether any funds that you’ve kind of acknowledged are covered by the court’s order have been unfrozen?”

    “All I can do, really, is say that the preparations are underway for the joint status report on compliance,” Sur said.

    The judge was unimpressed at the existence of some future report, and gave the government until the end of today to start paying up. […] as of now, the payment system is still down. The government filed an appeal, and we shall see what happens if DOGE refuses to comply […]

    Meanwhile, according to Wired, a former Musk employee named Riccardo Biasini has been inserting some kind of code into a program called AutoRIF to help DOGE fire people. Biasini was also listed as the main point of contact in that government-wide email demanding that employees list five things they did in the past week, which a bunch of agencies told their people to just ignore. Trump clarified: “It’s somewhat voluntary. But it’s also, if you don’t get answer, I guess you get fired.”

    Is the chaos the point? Do they have no fucking idea what they are doing? Yes!

    Why are they doing it? To punish enemies of the Project 2025/techbro agenda! To make everybody in government scared and miserable! To give Musk a competitive advantage! To have blackmail material! Take your pick. And somebody’s got to find the cash for billionaires to keep paying less in taxes than schoolteachers, and to keep subsidizing Elon, king of the parasite class.

  211. says

    Followup to Sky Captain @57.

    […] The goons, showing no badges or other indication that they were hired security, grabbed Borrenpohl and forced her from her seat. Borrenpohl repeatedly asked them who they are, at one point shouting “Who the fuck are these men?” and also asked, “Sheriff Norris, is this your deputy?” Neither the men nor Norris answered her, because They Are The Law. They eventually zip-tied Borrenpohl and dragged her through the aisle of the high school auditorium.

    As the men dragged her down the aisle, Borrenpohl lost her shoe, and at one point, her shirt nearly came off. […]

    Borrenpohl said she bit one of the men who was dragging her from the auditorium.

    “I didn’t know if I was being detained by what I now knew to be the sheriff’s office or if these were private hired guns,” she said. “I was so confused, and I didn’t know if I was being arrested by the sheriff’s office or if I was being kidnapped.”

    While that was going on, “moderator” Ed Bejarana, a website developer so you know he’s nearly as smart as Elon Musk, riled up the crowd, calling Borrenpohl and other hecklers “just crazy people” and mocking, “That little girl is afraid to leave! She spoke up, and now she doesn’t want to suffer the consequences.”

    Because that’s how a great big powerful Republican man talks.

    Here’s video from the AP. [video at the link]

    [Sheriff] Norris very credibly said Sunday that he didn’t know the men — who happened to just be there, dressed identically, and with zip ties, and who came to remove Borrenpohl when he gestured to them — and also denied having any knowledge of the event’s security arrangements. Nonetheless, he insisted everything was done by the book, which we’ll assume was either The Handmaid’s Tale or Kafka’s The Trial.

    Norris said his handling of Borrenpohl was in line with protocols that were set before the town hall began, though he did not explain what the protocols were or who had set them.

    “(Borrenpohl) was asked to leave,” he said Sunday. “She was asked to leave.”

    Eventually, it turned out that the goons worked for “LEAR Asset Management” in California, a private security firm. In a heck of a coincidence, Sheriff Norris was a lieutenant in the LA County Sheriff’s office under now-shitcanned creep (and felon!) Lee Baca, and continues to collect both retirement and disability income from that job, which you can do if you’re a cop, but not if you’re a teacher, we hear. (Certainly not the retirement pay, at least.)

    Borrenpohl was initially cited and released for misdemeanor battery because she bit her unidentified assailant, the charges have been dropped, and LEAR’s business license in Coeur d’Alene has been canceled because the men didn’t wear uniforms clearly identifying them as “SECURITY” (in one-inch high letters, minimum) on both the back and front. […]

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/republicans-send-goons-after-voters

  212. says

    Followup to comment 187.

    […] Donald Trump is going to sell “gold” green cards to rich and sexxxy prospective immigrants for $5 million, LOL-LMAO raise your hand if you want to give your citizenship […] to whatever shithole trashfuck oligarchs with slicked-back hair and bad plastic surgery Trump is thinking of selling these to. Also, those green cards are gonna sink in value faster than a Trump company, or Twitter, or Tesla. […]

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/just-like-my-country-young-scrappy

  213. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Bezos orders Washington Post Opinions to skew Libertarian.

    Ben Mullin (NYT):

    WaPo Opinion editor David Shipley is out. Jeff Bezos emails staff about a change to Post Opinions: “We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.” [Screenshot]

    freedom in the economic real and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical—it minimizes coercion
    […]
    I offered David Shipley […] the opportunity to lead this new chapter. I suggested to him that if the answer wasn’t “hell yes,” then it had to be “no.” […] I respect his decision. We’ll be searching for a new Opinion Editor
    […]
    I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas

    Commentary:

    David Shipley is the one that wouldn’t let Ann Telnaes publish her bowing Mickey political comic. [Reginald Selkirk posted about that in January.]

    Kind of weird watching the NY Times report on this as if they have not been kind of similar.

    The irony of “supporting personal freedom” by telling your employees exactly what they will and will not be allowed to write.

    This definitely means every day something new about trans rights and against crazy tariffs, right?

    Ah yes, if it’s one thing the USA doesn’t have enough of, it’s powerful people from respectable perches defending free markets.

    [Musk applauded it.]
    The “I am become meme” nazi writing “bravo” about anything you do is a bad, bad sign.

    Which personal liberties? A woman’s bodily autonomy, the right to criticize government, or the right to call people “[r-slur]”? The MAGA crowd is very selective on personal liberties

  214. says

    The White House takes another unprecedented step to control press access

    “Not surprisingly, many journalists were not pleased with the idea that the White House will decide which journalists will be rewarded with pool access.”

    For those who work outside of journalism, the idea of a “press pool” might be unfamiliar. The basic idea, however, is straightforward: When a president holds an event in a small location — aboard Air Force One or in the Oval Office, for example — there’s a limited number of journalists who can realistically report on what happens.

    So, news organizations agree to pool their resources and rely on a small number of media professionals who cover the events, with the understanding that their reporting will be shared with other news outlets.

    For several decades, the White House Correspondents’ Association has determined which journalists serve in the daily pool. As NBC News reported, Team Trump has settled on a new model.

    The White House says it will decide which reporters are permitted to participate in the presidential pool in a move that will break from decades of precedent. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said [Tuesday] that the White House Correspondents Association would no longer get to say “which journalists get to ask questions of the president of the United States” at certain events.

    “I am proud to announce that we are going to give the power back to the people who read your papers, who watch your television shows and who listen to your radio stations,” Leavitt told reporters. It was a curious boast that appeared to have no real resemblance to reality: The only people who will have “the power” under the new White House policy are those who work at the White House.

    White House Correspondents’ Association President Eugene Daniels swiftly condemned Leavitt’s comments, saying in a statement that the decision “tears at the independence of a free press in the United States.”

    That’s true. It’s also the latest in a series of steps that tear at the independence of a free press in the United States. As NBC News’ report added, “The Trump administration has also broken from tradition by calling on members of the media whose outlets do not have dedicated seats in the White House briefing room, and it removed major media organizations — including NBC News — from their long-standing dedicated spots at the Pentagon. In their places, Trump officials have given spots to newer outlets, including many that lean conservative.” [All the better to spew a constant stream of misinformation at the public.]

    There’s also, of course, Team Trump’s decision to punish the Associated Press for referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of Mexico […]

    Not surprisingly, many journalists were not pleased with the idea that the White House will decide which journalists will be rewarded with access. In fact, The New York Times’ Peter Baker noted via social media, “Having served as a Moscow correspondent in the early days of Putin’s reign, this reminds me of how the Kremlin took over its own press pool and made sure that only compliant journalists were given access.” [True, and an apt comparison.]

    […] For his part, the president himself declared, when asked about the new pool policy, “We’re gonna be now calling those shots.”

    In a country that takes the First Amendment seriously, that’s not how this is supposed to work. There’s little evidence, however, that Trump cares.

  215. says

    Sky Captain @213, oh FFS. Things going from bad to worse at the Washington Post.

    In good news, Bangor Daily News reports (as summarized by Steve Benen),

    In Maine, Democrat Sean Faircloth won a state Senate special election by more than 43 points. The Democratic presidential ticket carried the same district last fall by 23 points. There were similar results last week in Delaware into two special elections for the state Senate.

  216. says

    Followup to comment 202.

    This AI video of Trump’s Gaza fantasies is your WTF moment of the day

    Late Tuesday evening, President Donald Trump shared a tasteless and offensive computer-generated video on his Truth Social platform. The opening titles read “GAZA 2025,” followed by “What’s Next?”

    The video begins with a bombed out, destroyed Gaza, reimagined as a “Trump Gaza” resort for the wealthy. The Dubai-style fantasy includes beach cabanas, private yachts, and a svelte Elon Musk making cash rain from the sky.

    The creators of this insulting monstrosity clearly aimed to please Trump, who is known for his love of garish gold things, though it has not been revealed who made the video. There is a terrifyingly large statue [yep, the statue of Trump is larger than any buildings in the video], an oversized golden Trump head on a child’s balloon, and in a glaring golden gift shop.

    Oh … and AI-generated bearded, bikini-wearing belly dancers gyrating on a beach.

    It is interesting to note that while Trump is tied to all of the gold and land, it is Musk that benefits from the most physical retooling. One scene shows Trump dancing with a belly dancer in a bar, but unlike Musk, he does not receive the same Ozempic-level makeover.

    The video ends with a shirtless Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu enjoying drinks on the sand in front of Trump’s fantasy Gaza resort.

  218. says

    Trump fawns over Musk at Cabinet meeting in latest co-presidency cringe

    At the first meeting of his presidential Cabinet, President Donald Trump put multi-billionaire Elon Musk ahead of everyone else, giving his campaign financier the first speaking slot.

    Asked by a reporter if anyone in the Cabinet had voiced dissatisfaction with Musk’s actions at the Department of Government Efficiency, which have raised security concerns and been the subject of multiple lawsuits, Trump leapt to the defense of his co-president.

    “Anybody unhappy with Elon? If you are, we’ll throw them out of here,” Trump said, adding, “we have a lot of respect for Elon that he’s doing this.” [Video at the link. The video is alarming. It shows Trump demanding and getting total syncophancy from his cabinet members, complete with North Korean-like applause.]

    The Cabinet meeting is just the latest instance of Trump ceding the spotlight to Musk in a manner starkly at odds with how he has angrily pushed back on past insinuations that he’s not in charge. Trump’s submission to his billionaire backer also raises new questions about his state of mind.

    [snipped details from 2017]

    […] Trump was also passive a few weeks ago as Musk held court with reporters in the Oval Office, with Trump looking on. Musk’s son even wiped his boogers on the desk as Trump sat for it all.

    Republican officeholders have been dealing with the fallout from Musk’s destructive actions at DOGE, fielding angry complaints about privacy violations, indiscriminate firings, and confusing mandates. Trump has defended these actions and attempted to smooth over the chaos caused in multiple departments.

    Asked directly by reporters if Musk speaks for him, Trump replied, “Yeah. Everybody speaks for me.” [video at the link]

    Some have raised questions about possible mental decline by Trump, which could perhaps explain why he isn’t the forceful personality in this dynamic that he was eight years ago.

    Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton, addressing Trump’s friendliness with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, brought up concerns about Trump’s state of mind during a recent CNN interview.

    “I think it’s an indication his mind is full of mush, and he says whatever comes into it. He believes Vladimir Putin is his friend […]” Bolton said.

    Musk contributed millions to make Trump president and got his desired result in the 2024 election. […] just a month into Trump’s presidency, Musk appears to be the beneficiary of some sort of decline by Trump, and now the public is forced to suffer the consequences of an unelected co-president.

  219. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    David Dayen (The American Prospect):

    the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration has asked for a plan for cuts to 50% of the workforce, including at the 1,200 field offices that serve millions of beneficiaries. [Full Article]

    Marisa Kabas (The Handbasket):

    SSA employee to me re: 50% staff reduction: “Can say unequivocally that such deep cuts to SSA, which is already at historically low staffing, will cause significant to extreme degradation of services, very likely including checks missed and individuals dying before their claims can be processed.”

     
    HufPo – Trump orders federal agencies to submit plans for ‘large-scale’ firings

    They give federal agencies until March 13 to produce plans […] The memo suggests different options for hollowing out their teams: by upholding Trump’s federal hiring freeze, removing “underperforming employees,” reducing head counts through attrition, and renegotiating collective bargaining agreements

  220. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    RollingStone – Who is the anonymous data expert telling Elon which cuts to make?

    Pounds is indeed a Deaf, female software engineer from Utah, who until this week worked as a senior software engineer at an AI lending company called Upstart [funded by Peter Thiel and founded by a Thiel fellow], a company that has tangled with regulations from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) for years. Pounds wrote on Tuesday, “I recently resigned from my job to pursue DOGE-adjacent efforts full-time.”
    […]
    Musk has quoted DataRepublican on X at least 24 times over the last three weeks, telling people to follow the account, and replying “noted” to her claim on Jan. 21 that she found “a quick billion” of federal spending for DOGE to cut. […] groups like Global Refuge, a faith-based organization that provides safety and support services to immigrants […] Two weeks later, Musk declared […] DOGE was “rapidly shutting down” supposedly “illegal payments” to Global Refuge.
    […]
    A newly-launched corresponding website DataRepublican.com lets users search for charities and nonprofit officers. [And search ActBlue donors.]

    Jaqueline Sweet (RollingStone):

    Interim US Attorney in DC Ed Martin has now pledged to protect the woman, who’s DataRepublican account, with disinformation about USAid, more, has been amplified by Elon

  221. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/oklahoma-republican-just-really-sad

    “Oklahoma Republican Just Really Sad For The Disabled Kids Who Won’t Get To Be Spanked For Jesus”

    “If they pass a bill banning it, anyway.”

    On Tuesday, the Oklahoma state Senate advanced a bill that would bar the use of corporal punishment on disabled children in schools — which, jarringly, came as a big disappointment to some Republicans in the Senate who believe that not beating disabled children is an affront to God.

    […] federal statistics show that from 2017 to 2018 more than 20 percent of corporal punishment in Oklahoma schools was administered on disabled students. Children with disabilities are also three times more likely to be victims of abuse or neglect than are their peers without disabilities.

    Via Oklahoma Voice:

    “[…] “Perhaps the parent of the child, in most cases, knows best what that child is going to respond to and how the child is going to perform his or her duties in the classroom,” said Sen. Warren Hamilton, R-McCurtain, who voted against the bill.

    Or not! Just because a parent chooses to physically abuse their children, that doesn’t mean the school should join in. […]

    Sen. Shane Jett, R-Shawnee, said Tuesday that banning the practice in schools amounts to “a top down socialist aligned ideological, unilateral divorce between parents’ ability to collaborate with their local schools to establish a disciplined regimen.”

    He also said it “is a violation of scripture,” and cited Proverbs 22:15 which he said says “folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.”

    The United States government is under no obligation to adhere to any scripture or to cater to the wants and needs of parents they should probably be calling social services about.

    Sen. Jett has long been an ardent supporter of corporal punishment for disabled students, having advocated against a similar bill the legislature attempted to pass last year — by arguing that those who won’t beat disabled children do not love them. [!]

    I already cited Proverbs 13:24: “Whoever spares the rod hates their child, but he who loves them disciplines them.” And we’re saying the state of Oklahoma has unilaterally decided if you have vision impairment, you cannot be disciplined, even if your parents want that. We’re going to unilaterally take that away from our schools and our parents, more importantly. If you are hearing impaired, suddenly you’re in a different class, you cannot be disciplined. And we’ve already made it abundantly clear that children can misbehave regardless of their abilities or inabilities, capabilities or incapabilities. … Are we sending a message that we don’t love our children?

    There is definitely a feeling among some on the Right that liberals have deprived parents and schools of the only truly effective means of punishing and preventing bad behavior […] there is literally no evidentiary basis for the effectiveness of corporal punishment, and a whole lot of evidence that it can actually make behavior worse.

    The World Health Organization reports that corporal punishment has been shown to result in:

    – direct physical harm, sometimes resulting in severe damage, long-term disability or death;

    – mental ill-health, including behavioural and anxiety disorders, depression, hopelessness, low self-esteem, self-harm and suicide attempts, alcohol and drug dependency, hostility and emotional instability, which continue into adulthood;

    – impaired cognitive and socio-emotional development, specifically emotion regulation and conflict solving skills;

    – damage to education, including school dropout and lower academic and occupational success;

    – poor moral internalization and increased antisocial behaviour;

    – increased aggression in children;

    – adult perpetration of violent, antisocial and criminal behaviour;

    – indirect physical harm due to overloaded biological systems, including developing cancer, alcohol-related problems, migraine, cardiovascular disease, arthritis and obesity that continue into adulthood;

    – increased acceptance and use of other forms of violence; and

    – damaged family relationships.

    Despite this, it is still extremely popular among certain Christian sects. In 1994, Michael and Debi Pearl published the book To Train Up A Child, which advocated for physical punishment even for infants [!], and it has been hugely influential in evangelical circles since then. It’s also resulted in the deaths of several children at the hands of parents who had been convinced that this was the best thing for them. […]

    If Shane Jett and others want to spank somebody so desperately, there are plenty of consenting adults out there who would be more than happy to help them scratch that itch. As far as children go, however, they should really consider keeping their hands to themselves […]

  222. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    DOGE is in HUD.

    ProPublica

    [DOGE] has gained access to a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development system containing confidential personal information about hundreds of thousands of alleged victims of housing discrimination, including victims of domestic violence.
    […]
    HUD granted [read-only access last week to Michael Mirski, who has a HUD email address and whom housing agency officials have identified as DOGE-affiliated] according to information reviewed by ProPublica and two officials familiar with the matter.
    […]
    Few records in the HUD system are redacted or anonymized, and many contain deeply personal material […] Domestic violence case files can list addresses to which survivors have relocated for their safety. Harassment cases can include detailed descriptions of sexual assaults. Disability cases can include detailed medical records. Lending discrimination files could feature credit reports and bank statements. The names of witnesses who offered information—in some cases anonymously—about landlords accused of discrimination are among the files as well. HUD enforces numerous civil rights laws, including the Fair Housing Act and aspects of the Violence Against Women Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act.
    […]
    the Trump administration is reportedly considering a 50% cut to the nearly 10,000-person workforce.
    […]
    After this article was published, Kasey Lovett, HUD’s head of public affairs, emailed ProPublica and stated, “to be clear, DOGE does not have access to HEMS.” Lovett declined to provide on-the-record evidence for her assertion.

  223. Reginald Selkirk says

    ‘Buffy’ and ‘Gossip Girl’ actress Michelle Trachtenberg dead at 39

    Michelle Trachtenberg, an actress best known for her roles in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Gossip Girl,” has died at age 39.

    Trachtenberg was found dead Wednesday in her New York City apartment near Columbus Circle just after 8 a.m. local time by her mother, police sources told ABC News.

    The sources told ABC News the actress recently underwent a liver transplant and may have been experiencing complications. Trachtenberg is believed to have died of natural causes and no foul play is suspected…

  224. says

    Followup to comment 218.

    […] Trump said he expects Cabinet secretaries to follow his orders, responding to a question about his control over the executive branch.

    “Oh yeah, they’ll follow the orders,” Trump said.

    “Of course no exceptions,” Trump added when asked by a reporter whether he would allow any exceptions of Cabinet members not obeying him. […]

    Link

  225. Reginald Selkirk says

    Why Canada can’t strip Elon Musk of Canadian citizenship

    An online petition calling on the Canadian government to revoke Elon Musk’s citizenship is on track to become one of the most popular in the history of the House of Commons.

    There’s just one problem — Canada can’t revoke Musk’s citizenship.

    Immigration lawyer Gabriela Ramo says that under Canadian law, someone’s citizenship can only be revoked if it can be proven that they committed fraud or misrepresentation to obtain it.

    “Before they could move to do this, they would need to introduce legislation, there would have to be amendments to the current Citizenship Act,” said Ramo, former chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s immigration section. “There’s no provision that would allow them to pursue revocation of citizenship of a Canadian birth, by virtue of his birth to a Canadian mother.” …

    Monday, Musk responded to a post about the petition on his social media platform X saying “Canada is not a real country.” That post has since been deleted…

    Musk was born in South Africa but his mother, Maye Musk, was born in Regina, giving him the right to Canadian citizenship. As a teenager, Musk decided to move to Canada…

  228. says

    Washington Post link

    “Supreme Court seems poised to lower bar for Whites to sue for job bias”

    “Marlean Ames challenged rulings requiring members of majority groups to meet a higher bar to prove job discrimination than groups that traditionally face bias.”

    The Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared to support the idea of making it easier for men and people who are White or straight to sue for job discrimination, based on oral arguments in the case of an Ohio woman who claims she faced anti-straight bias in the workplace.

    The high court’s conservative supermajority and at least some of the liberal justices seemed receptive to arguments by Marlean Ames, who is challenging rulings by many of the nation’s courts that require members of majority groups to meet a higher standard to prove job discrimination than groups that have traditionally faced bias.

    The justices appeared ready to strike down the test. Both conservative and liberal justices peppered the Ohio solicitor general over the state’s opposition to Ames’s arguments, pushing him to eventually affirm that he, too, thought minorities and members of majority groups should be treated equally.

    “We are in radical agreement,” said Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, a striking statement for a court that has sharply divided along ideological lines in recent years on issues from abortion to affirmative action.

    Ames, a straight White woman, filed a job discrimination lawsuit in 2020 after she was removed from her job as an administrator at the Ohio government agency overseeing juvenile corrections. Her position was given to a younger gay man.

    Ames said she was also unfairly passed over for another management role, which went to a woman whom Ames considered to be less qualified. Ames said the woman, who is a lesbian, had not initially expressed interest in the job.

    The job discrimination lawsuit Ames filed against the Ohio Department of Youth Services foundered in the federal courts in Ohio.

    There, and in many other U.S. appeals courts, plaintiffs must prove discrimination claims through direct evidence, or by mounting a circumstantial case because evidence of workplace bias can be hard to obtain.

    Those courts require members of majority groups mounting a circumstantial case to meet an extra burden of proof not required of minorities — known as “background circumstances.” White people, straight people and men must show that their employer is the unusual one that discriminates against majority groups, which have not historically faced discrimination.

    Lower courts ruled against Ames before her lawsuit went to trial, finding that she was unable to meet the background circumstances standard.

    On Wednesday, a lawyer for Ames argued that the standard fundamentally violated a portion of the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act that outlawed discrimination in the workplace based on sex, race, color, religion or national origin because it treats groups differently based on their background. […]

    In her questions to T. Elliot Gaiser, the Ohio solicitor general, Justice Elena Kagan highlighted a passage from a lower-court ruling in Ames’s case that she said was “absolutely critical.”

    “Because Ames is heterosexual, she must make a showing in addition to the usual ones for establishing a … case,” said Kagan, a liberal. “And then it says, you know, Ames’s … case would have been easy to make had she belonged to the relevant minority group here, gay people.”

    Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, a conservative, picked up the thread: “You agree those passages are wrong?”

    Gaiser conceded that he did. […] Gaiser told the justices that Ohio was less interested in defending the background circumstances standard than arguing that Ames had simply not met the burden of proof in her case. He said it would have failed regardless of the standard because she was not able to marshal evidence of anti-straight bias.

    The NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund made a forceful argument in favor of the standard in a friend-of-the-court brief. The group said that different standards for majority and minority groups were appropriate because of the nature of inequality in America: Black people and those in other minority groups have historically been the target of bias, while “reverse discrimination” is relatively rare.

    Corporations and employment lawyers are closely watching the case because many think a ruling in favor of Ames could unleash a wave of workplace discrimination claims by White people, straight people and men.

    […] The case coincides with […] Trump’s assault on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Trump has issued executive orders targeting DEI programs in the federal government — parts of which a federal judge has temporarily blocked — and has ordered the Justice Department and the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission to investigate programs in the private sector.

    Ames’s case does not directly implicate DEI initiatives, but employment lawyers said a ruling for Ames and the backlash against DEI could make some companies think twice about their DEI programs.

    A ruling in the case is expected by this summer.

  229. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Yosemite National Park’s only locksmith a victim of government layoffs

    [Nate Vince] had completed a four-year apprenticeship at the park and was just three weeks shy of the end of his one-year probationary period. He also lived onsite and was ordered to vacate employee housing. […] he was the park’s sole keyholder[, which] required him to keep track of the hundreds of keys and locks to the park’s bathrooms, gun safes, administrative buildings and gates.

    In total, 2,000 recently hired employees at the U.S. Forest Service and 1,000 National Park Service employees were terminated.

  231. says

    Followup to comments 218 and 224.

    More on the cabinet meeting Trump held as a camera-ready propaganda event:

    […] The first White House Cabinet meeting of Trump’s first term was ridiculous, not because he ceded the floor to a megadonor, but because members of his team went person by person, offering excessive, genuflecting praise for the president.

    John Harwood‏, at the time with CNBC, said after the 2017 meeting, “Honestly this is like a scene from the Third World.” The New York Times’ Glenn Thrush described it as “one of the most exquisitely awkward public events I’ve ever seen.”

    Eight years later, the first Cabinet meeting of Trump’s second term managed to be worse — not because it was more sycophantic, but because it was more undemocratic. There was no reason for Musk even to be in the room, much less force actual agency chiefs to listen to him talk about how impressed he is with a flailing, controversial quasi-governmental “department.”

    And yet, [Trump] seemed only too pleased to empower his top campaign donor anyway.

    […] In August 2024, then-candidate Trump said during an interview, in reference to Musk, “I’d put him in the Cabinet, absolutely, but I don’t know how he could do that with all the things he’s got going.”

    Six months later, it appears the Republican has effectively managed to put Musk in the Cabinet never the less.

    Link

  233. says

    Musk admits DOGE dorks cut Ebola prevention—but says it’s no biggie

    Co-President Elon Musk on Wednesday admitted that the shady Department of Government Efficiency that he leads but doesn’t actually run has made some serious errors, including “briefly” canceling Ebola prevention efforts before reversing the decision.

    Musk made the comment during Trump’s first Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, where the unqualified cast of losers Trump picked to lead the country’s federal agencies heaped praise upon Dear Leader in a way that would make a noncultist’s skin crawl.

    “We will make mistakes. We won’t be perfect. But when we do make mistakes we will fix it quickly,” Musk said during the meeting, which he commandeered in a way that should make everyone question who exactly is running things in the Trump administration.

    “So for example, with USAID, one of the things we accidentally canceled very briefly was Ebola, Ebola prevention. I think we all want Ebola prevention. So we restored the Ebola prevention immediately and there was no interruption,” Musk said nonchalantly. [video at the link]

    The United States has provided millions of dollars to prevent the spread of Ebola, a horrifying virus that causes organ failure and internal bleeding, leading to a slow and painful death in as many as 50% of people who contract it, according to the World Health Organization (which Trump has withdrawn the United States from).

    Musk’s admission that DOGE’s efforts to cut the federal budget by gutting the U.S. Agency for International Development led to the cancellation of Ebola prevention efforts is the first time the country learned of the “mistake.” [I seriously doubt that even a temporary cancelation of Ebola prevention would not cause harm. Of course harm was done.]

    But it isn’t the only potentially deadly “mistake” DOGE has made.

    For example, the DOGE-led mass purge of federal workers caused the layoffs of 300 people who help oversee the country’s nuclear weapons stockpile. The government had to rush to hire those people back or else risk the country’s national security.

    The Department of Agriculture also had to rush to hire back the fired federal workers who were working on bird flu mitigation efforts. The bird flu is currently ravaging chicken populations in the United States, leading to skyrocketing egg prices and shortages. And that doesn’t even take into account the risk that the virus could jump to humans, causing another deadly viral outbreak like the COVID-19 pandemic that Trump failed to manage during his first term.

    What’s more, the Food and Drug Administration had to scramble to hire back 180 highly trained medical device workers who monitor the safety of X-ray machines and surgical implants, among others—pretty critical things that you don’t want malfunctioning in or around your body.

    And lawmakers had to beg the Trump administration to hire back fired workers who oversee the program that reimburses health care treatment costs for 9/11 first responders and survivors who were sickened from their exposure to the air after the World Trade Center towers fell.

    […] Ultimately, Musk’s DOGE effort has been so shambolic that even Republican lawmakers are urging him to slow down to avoid these costly disasters.

    […] Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York said during a CNN interview. “What happened last week when we saw the rash decision to fire people and take away grants from the CDC, we saw the 9/11 health care program in New York City that benefits so many first responders and survivors from 9/11 that I represent, we had to go back to the White House and get that reversed.” [video at the link]

    But given that Trump has embraced Musk and even let him take over during Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting, don’t expect the bigoted billionaire’s behavior to change.

    “An average person who did something as incompetent as “accidentally cancelling Ebola prevention” wouldn’t be applauded, they’d be fired,” Democratic Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia said in a post on X. “Musk is failing up in this administration because he didn’t earn his job, he bought it. It’s corrupt, and risks Americans’ health and safety.”

    That’s an apt description from Representative Beyer.

  234. says

    NBC News:

    As the measles outbreak in Texas keeps spreading, parents who previously chose not to vaccinate their children are now lining up to get their kids the shots needed to protect them from the serious illness.

  235. says

    New York Times:

    As the price of eggs reaches record highs, the federal government is looking into importing more eggs from other countries, Brooke L. Rollins, the agriculture secretary, said on Wednesday. Ms. Rollins, in an interview on Fox News, said that the United States was in talks with several countries to secure immediate egg imports as a short-term solution. In addition to importing eggs, the department will invest up to $1 billion in its five-pronged approach to combating bird flu, Ms. Rollins wrote in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.

  236. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Ex-Twitter workers win severance over layoff after ‘fork in the road’ email

    Four ex-Twitter workers have prevailed in a recent series of closed-door arbitration proceedings over claims they were illegally denied severance […] More than two years ago […] they did not resign and were instead terminated, meaning they were entitled to severance promised by the company before Musk bought it.
    […]
    a lawyer representing [more than 2000] former employees in arbitrations, wrote in the memo that the 20 cases she’s won so far have cost the company at least twice the amount of contested severance pay because the awards have also included interest, arbitration expenses and legal fees.

    Efficient.

  237. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    southpaw (Lawyer):

    Am I having a stroke?

    Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, who [on Feb 13] was treated to a head of state-style meeting with Musk on US government property.

    On one side were Modi’s officials. Facing them were three of Musk’s infants and one of their mothers. Trump saw no problem with the fact that Musk was “possibly” there to talk business. Musk wants India to lift its blocks on Tesla and SpaceX. [Financial Times]

    * Bloomberg had the better photo.

    Rando photoshopped an Insufferable comic of Elon wearing baby armor.

  238. JM says

    Toms Hardware: Valve clarifies ban on in-game advertising on Steam

    In any case, making and dropping a dedicated page just for this question communicates the restrictions more clearly and helps ensure that developers don’t think they can get away with posting ad-laden, mobile game-esque slop on Steam. While the little regulation on Steam still allows for a lot, the most common freemium models from mobile gaming still are not welcome on the platform.

    I was worried when I heard that the policy had been updated but it really has not changed. They have just put up a page for developers that states the terms more clearly, no ads in games that you have to watch. It’s nice to see somebody sticking by some standards, if only a game company.

  239. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: Lynna @233:

    I seriously doubt that even a temporary cancelation of Ebola prevention would not cause harm.

     
    Jeremy Konyndyk (Former Covid / disaster response lead for USAID):

    I’ve actually led Ebola outbreak response at USAID.

    This is bunk from Elon. They have laid off most of the experts, they’re bankrupting most of the partner orgs, have withdrawn from WHO, and muzzled CDC. What’s left is a fig-leaf effort to cover their asses politically. [A thread.]

  240. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Anna Bower (Lawfare):

    A new DOGE-related executive order provides that “all credit cards held by agency employees shall be treated as frozen for 30 days from the date of this order…” [Full text]

    I have so many questions about this EO What do they mean “treated as frozen”?? Why’d they write “all credit cards” and not “all *government* credit cards? What is the point of freezing government credit cards? Why not just audit expenditures and go from there???

    * Every agency, except disaster relief, natural disaster response benefits, or other critical services determined by the Agency Head, consulting with DOGE.

    Rando: “The point is to humiliate employees and cause as many random problems as possible”

  241. whheydt says

    I think at this point, some enterprising congresscritter needs to submit a bill to put a hold on any and all Federal payments to any entity partially or fully controlled by Elon Musk pending a full contract review and audit to verify that all of it is the public interest and that no overhead payments exceed 15%.

  242. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Commentary on the credit card freeze.

    Gabriel Malor (Appellate attorney):

    And that’s not even counting the fact that gov’t attorneys are still appearing in cases in the normal course of business all over the country. Not sure how DOGE thinks DOJ lawyers are going to get to and from all the DOGE hearings if they can’t pay for transportation, not to mention the ones that might need hotels, since the cases are coming all over the country. Yes, some things can be telephonic, but some will need to be in person.

    They’re not supposed to pay for that out of pocket. The gov’t credit cards are how those expenses get tracked, and they have to be approved in advance.

    This is not saving any money. It’s going to cost more to fix everything after these idiot incels are gone.

    Rando 1:

    It also orders a government wide contracting freeze until the agency head (w/approval of the doge commissar) puts out guidance.

    It only exempts the uniformed military (as in military personnel) vs any DoD wide exemption, so military [contracting officers] can apparently still cut contracts while DoD civs are verboten.

    And apparently my personal credit cards are now frozen because these idiots can’t write properly. More seriously anyone non-uniformed military who is currently [Temporary Duty Travel] would legitimately have serious issues with both their continuing hotel stay as well as getting home if this is taken at face value as written.

    I do not think the person (or grok) drafting this is aware of the existence of the [Government Travel Charge Card] program

    Rando 2:

    I’m not in the federal government but I have worked in procurement for 18 years. How the heck is any procurement department supposed to do function with this? Not all vendors accept POs.

  243. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Stephanie Zvan:

    Dear friends, Medicaid isn’t dead. Budget resolutions aren’t binding. Tell people to call and protest their—particularly Republican—reps if they rely on Medicaid rather than making them feel the fight is done. Don’t encourage despair or give in early. Know which team you’re on and act accordingly.

    “My friends don’t want me telling them what to do.”

    You’d be surprised. When there’s too much happening and too many things to fight, a leader is a relief. If you’re worried about coming off as bossy, tell people what you’re doing and ask them to help you by doing the same.

  244. Bekenstein Bound says

    Cable cutting has become a standard political hostility move. It’s easy to do and hard to prove. It does occasionally happen by accident and if the ship can get away from the cut it becomes increasingly hard to prove which ship caused the damage. It’s particularly annoying because it’s just a jerk move, it does little to actual military communication which uses encrypted radio or satellite.

    It also shows that the high seas are becoming increasingly lawless … just as I predicted.

    Apple has acknowledged a peculiar bug with the iPhone’s dictation feature that briefly displays “Trump” when someone says the word “racist.”

    In entomo, veritas.

    After vowing to ‘take’ Gaza, Trump shares bizarre video of Middle East ‘Riviera’ vision

    Eugh. Colonialism is so 19th century. Get with the times, fuckheads!

    The video ends with a shirtless Trump

    So, the video ends with eye bleach. Gotcha.

    Schriver insisted that the 2015 Obergefell decision had “widened the portal for gays, queers, transsexuals, polygamists, minor-attracted persons and other perverts

    (emphasis added)

    So, he uses terms generally considered pejorative for every group except one, but a euphemism for that one. This shows where Schriver’s sympathies lie.

    With the pedophiles.

    He also said a lot of God stuff about the need to recognize the “sovereignty of Christ as our King,”

    King Trump I might want to have a few words with him about that little bit of lese majeste …

    Monday, Musk responded to a post about the petition on his social media platform X saying “Canada is not a real country.”

    I don’t suppose that statement can be considered, by implication, to be a renunciation of his citizenship? Then there’d be no need to revoke it.

    Lithgow -aka that rival serial killer in Dexter- will play Dumbledore.

    Context, please?

    Losing Donald Sutherland was expected, but Tractenberg at only 39…
    😪

    And to a botched liver transplant? Why on Earth did she need one that young?

    Musk admits DOGE dorks cut Ebola prevention—but says it’s no biggie

    Oh, wonderful. First COVID, then measles, and now Musk plots to unleash a nightmarish apocalypse virus on us. The sort whose kill-percentage puts it, as a threat, in the civilization-ender bracket with nukes and supervolcanoes.

    As the price of eggs reaches record highs, the federal government is looking into importing more eggs from other countries

    I recommnend everyone adopt a 100% tariff on all egg exports to the United States, until the United States drops its own tariff threats.

    It’s nice to see somebody sticking by some standards, if only a game company.

    Nevertheless, that game company will remain on my shitlist until the deliver the promised Half Life II: Episode III.

    Preferably under the “pizza rule”: if it isn’t there in 30 minutes, it’s free. Since it took them closer to 30 years extra to deliver it, everyone with a legit copy of HL2E2 on Steam ought to get a free E3. :P

    (The taxi regulator in my area really needs to impose the same rule on the local taxi industry.)

  245. says

    Text quoted by Sky Captain @239:

    I’ve actually led Ebola outbreak response at USAID.
    This is bunk from Elon. They have laid off most of the experts, they’re bankrupting most of the partner orgs, have withdrawn from WHO, and muzzled CDC. What’s left is a fig-leaf effort to cover their asses politically.

    Thanks for finding and posting that. That’s what I thought the true picture of the harm Musk has done would be.

    So Musk is a clueless dipshit … and a liar. From my earlier post:

    “[…] I think we all want Ebola prevention. So we restored the Ebola prevention immediately and there was no interruption,” Musk said nonchalantly.

    It continues to astound me when I see how easily, how confidently, the cabal of dipshits tells lies.

  246. says

    Here’s your tiny sliver of good news from the far-right Supreme Court

    Things are grim right now, so it’s more important than ever to celebrate the small wins, like the United States Supreme Court unexpectedly declining to hear a case that would have allowed them to declare buffer zones around abortion clinics unconstitutional. It was a surprising move from a court packed with conservatives dedicated to banning abortion.

    […] It’s not a stretch to say the current conservative supermajority owes their seats on the nation’s highest court to their demonstrated willingness to overturn Roe v. Wade. They’ve also gleefully overturned their own precedents on everything from administrative law to affirmative action to prayer in schools, so the fact that buffer zones were found to be constitutional in 2000’s Hill v. Colorado doesn’t mean much—to them.

    With that, many people expected the court would take up Turco v. City of Englewood or Coalition Life v. City of Carbondale, both of which challenged the same type of buffer zones already ruled constitutional in Hill. In brief, buffer zones provide a small space around an abortion clinic patient that anti-choicers can’t enter. In both Turco, a New Jersey case, and Coalition Life, out of Illinois, the buffer zones were eight feet—a radius already explicitly approved of by Hill.

    Predictably, anti-choice demonstrators loathe buffer zones. They argue they have a First Amendment right to “counsel” people who are going to abortion clinics, framing their efforts as gentle, persuasive conversations. Instead, what the record in Turco showed actually happened was that anti-choice protestors blocked access to the clinic, assaulted patient escorts, screamed directly into patients’ faces, and videotaped them.

    Additionally, a meager eight-foot gap doesn’t prevent clinic patients from hearing protestors or seeing their signs. So, in terms of a First Amendment right to express oneself, all the buffer zones prevent is getting in the face of a patient and making them feel physically threatened. Protestors can still scream and wave their pictures of bloody fetuses—they just have to do it a few feet away.

    According to Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s failure to take up these cases and throw out buffer zones entirely was an “abdication of our judicial duty.” Yes, Thomas is big mad that only he and Justice Samuel Alito would have agreed to hear the cases. As Mark Joseph Stern pointed out over at Slate, it isn’t unexpected that Thomas thought his conservative colleagues would join him in overruling Hill and ending buffer zones.

    […] Thomas, though, clearly sees it as a slam dunk, writing, “Following our repudiation in Dobbs [v. Jackson], I do not see what is left of Hill.”

    What is left of Hill, of buffer zones, is that abortion remains legal in blue states despite the best efforts of protestors and federal judges. […]

    However, anti-choicers don’t actually believe that other states should be allowed to keep abortion legal. That’s why GOP legislators are already introducing nationwide bans. That’s why Texas sued a New York doctor, attempting to pierce that state’s law shielding abortion providers. And that’s why anti-abortion activists are stepping up their protests in states where abortion remains legal and suing over the tiny protections that the buffer zones offer.

    Those buffer zones are going to be increasingly necessary because the current administration has signaled it has no interest in stopping anti-choice protestors from being violent. [True] […] Trump granted blanket clemency to 23 anti-abortion protestors, many of whom had violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act by blockading clinics and preventing patients from getting medical attention. Of course, Trump said these were all peaceful protesters, ignoring that they did things like crush a clinic staff member’s hand in a door and assault nurses. [Important to remember.]

    Besides giving a pass to the most violent anti-choice activists, the administration also decided it’s not really going to bother to enforce the FACE Act. The law makes it a felony to obstruct access to a clinic or to injure or intimidate—or even just attempt to injure or intimidate—patients seeking reproductive health care. But last month, Chad Mizelle, chief of staff at the Department of Justice, issued a new memo saying that violations will only be prosecuted in “extraordinary circumstances” or situations involving aggravating factors like “death, serious bodily harm, or serious property damage.” The DOJ also dismissed three existing civil FACE Act cases brought by the Biden administration.

    Additionally, DOJ prosecutors can’t bring any new abortion-related FACE Act actions without authorization from the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division. Trump’s pick for that slot is Harmeet Dhillon, who, besides being a rabid election denier, has represented anti-abortion activists and called herself a “lawyer for the pro-life movement.” Somehow, it doesn’t seem like Dhillon will be signing off on prosecutions of violent anti-abortion activists any time soon. [!]

    Instead, those activists have essentially been promised they won’t suffer any consequences for their behavior. That’s especially bad news because anti-choice protestors were already emboldened by Dobbs, with violence at abortion clinics spiking sharply in the year after the decision. The National Abortion Federation, which tracks anti-abortion violence, found a 538% increase in obstructions of clinic entrances and a staggering 913% jump in stalking of clinic staff, along with a 29% jump in assaults and batteries.

    With this as the landscape facing patients and clinics, the minimal protections of buffer zones are more necessary than ever, so it’s a genuinely good thing that the Supreme Court punted on this for now. […]

  248. says

    ‘Trump Gaza’ video shared by president originated from pro-Israel accounts that have embraced AI

    President Donald Trump posted a bizarre AI-generated video to social media Monday evening depicting an imagined future version of Gaza with bearded belly dancers on the beach, a giant golden statue of Trump, money raining from the sky, Elon Musk eating pita and a “Trump Gaza” hotel.

    The video, posted on Trump’s Truth Social and Instagram accounts, appears to have been first spread by a network of pro-Israel social media accounts. It draws on images generated by artificial intelligence that were created after Trump said in early February that the U.S. would “take over the Gaza Strip.”

    […] In a statement provided to NBC News, White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said: “As President Trump has said, Gaza in its current state is unhabitable for any human being. President Trump is a visionary, and his plan to have the United States involved in Gaza’s rebuilding will allow for Palestinians to resettle in new, beautiful communities while improving conditions in the region for generations to come.”

    The earliest post found by NBC News of the AI-generated video online was posted on Feb. 7 by pro-Israel X account Nazi Hunters (@huntersofnazis).

    […] The account, which posts a mix of pro-Israeli and anti-Palestinian memes, photos and news, did not respond to requests for comment, but seemed to suggest that they created the video in posts made Tuesday. “It was a joke 😂,” they wrote, responding to a user who posted about Trump’s use of the video. “So, it seems like Trump also saw it… 😭,” they wrote in another post.

    […] “A view of #Gaza’s future? Warmer than #TrumpTurnberry. Add some golf courses, casinos, hotels, strip clubs and a wrestling arena, and it could be the ultimate #Trump resort. #AmYisraelChai #StandWithIsrael,” the account wrote in the post.

    […] The video posted by Trump, though, has drawn a notably negative reaction, even from users who claim to be Republicans.

    On Truth Social, where the user base is predominantly composed of conservatives, many of the comments the platform labeled as “trending” condemned the post. On Instagram, influencers who had supported Trump through the campaign questioned why he was posting it. […]

    Trump obviously liked it. Glad to see he getting some blowback.

  249. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    WaPo – Musk claims DOGE ‘restored’ Ebola prevention effort. Officials disagree.

    While the Trump administration issued a waiver to allow USAID to respond to an Ebola outbreak in Uganda last month, partner organizations were not promptly paid for their work, and USAID’s own efforts were sharply curtailed
    […]
    “There have been no efforts to ‘turn on’ anything in prevention” of Ebola and other diseases, said Nidhi Bouri, who served as a senior USAID official during the Biden administration […] Bouri said her former USAID team of 60 people working on disease-response had been cut to about six staffers
    […]
    “There was a waiver for Ebola, but USAID funds have never been back online,” said a current official. “USAID has been frozen: staff and money.”

  252. KG says

    The question no one dares ask: what if Britain has to defend itself from the US? – George Monbiot

    Monbiot isn’t always right, but here I agree with him completely. The UK, and all democratic states, must see Trump’s USA as a malevolent ideological enemy, and potentially, at any point, an actual military threat. We can’t say he hasn’t warned us, with his imperialist threats to Denmark, Canada and Mexico, his siding with Russia and its satellites at the UN, his attempts to negotiate a division of the spoils of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine with Putin himself.

  254. Reginald Selkirk says

    Electronic devices used for car thefts set to be banned

    Sophisticated electronic devices used by criminals to steal cars are set to be banned under new laws in England and Wales.

    More than 700,000 vehicles were broken into last year – often with the help of high-tech electronic devices, including so-called signal jammers, which are thought to play a part in four out of 10 vehicle thefts nationwide.

    Until now, police could only bring a prosecution if they could prove a device had been used to commit a specific offence, but under new laws in the Crime and Policing Bill the onus will be on someone in possession of a device to show they had it for a legitimate purpose.

    Making or selling a signal jammer could lead to up to five years in prison or an unlimited fine.

    Keyless repeaters and signal amplifiers scramble the signal from remote key fobs inside people’s homes, enabling criminals to unlock cars.

    They are the most common way theft from a vehicle – or the theft of the vehicle itself – occurs…

    That’s nice and all, but “if you criminalize keyless repeaters, then only criminals will carry keyless repeaters” is a point. Car companies need to do a better job of making their cars hard to steal.

  256. Reginald Selkirk says

    Chief Justice John Roberts pauses order for Trump admin to pay $2 billion in foreign aid by midnight

    Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday paused a court-imposed midnight deadline that would have required the Trump administration to release $2 billion in frozen foreign aid, a goal that the government has claimed it is unable to meet.

    The emergency appeal marks the first time President Donald Trump’s efforts to drastically remake the federal government – including with deep cuts across government agencies – have reached the nation’s highest court. The case appears likely to put the justices on a collision course with Trump’s sweeping efforts to consolidate power within the executive branch.

    Roberts’ order does not resolve the underlying questions raised by the case. Rather, it imposed what’s known as an “administrative stay” to give the court a few days to review written arguments in the case. Roberts is the justice designated to handle emergency cases from the federal appeals court in Washington, DC.

    The chief justice called for the groups that sued the administration to respond by Friday…

    That was unwise. Since this is only a temporary stay, he should have considered which party is hurt more by a sudden change in status quo.

  257. JM says

    The Diplomat: Does Russia Really Believe the US is Seeking a ‘Reverse Nixon’?

    Vladimir Dzhabarov, deputy chairman of the Russian Federation Council Committee on International Affairs, echoed the statement, suggesting that the incoming Trump administration is considering normalizing relations with Moscow if it distances itself from Beijing. The senator emphasized that Russia “does not abandon friends or ever betray them” nor “become friends against anyone.”
    Does Moscow genuinely believe a “reverse Nixon” is a possibility? If the claim is merely propaganda, what are its goals?

    The article is from last December but it’s one of the more direct on the “reverse Nixon” idea and the quote from the Russian diplomat is funny. The phrase is not new, it was originally coined when Trump made friendly with Putin in his first term but didn’t amount to much at the time. It seems to be popping up now because the White House has mentioned allying with Russia against China as a reason for giving Russia good terms in the peace talks.
    Generating a split between Russia and China isn’t a terrible idea in theory but getting anything useful will be very hard and it would have to be done very carefully. When Nixon did it there was already a huge rift between Russia and China, the US wasn’t causing a split it was just being friendly to one side of an existing split. And the US wasn’t getting that close to China, it was just opening up some low level trade.
    What is likely to happen now is that the US will agree to drop sanctions against Russia and open up trade in exchange for promises of future help that will never materialize. Russia will constantly be asking for favors to stay in the alliance but won’t do anything in return except wag a finger at China occasionally.

  258. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show

    Qualifications of Trump’s new food safety official seem even worse for the company he keeps
    video is 11:08 minutes

    ‘We will regret this’: Cuts leave U.S. vulnerable to Ebola, contrary to Musk assurances
    video is 5:15 minutes

    As measles outbreak turns deadly, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. bungles the facts
    video is 3:33 minutes long

    Supreme Court temporarily halts lower court’s order for Trump to unfreeze foreign aid funds
    video is 1:55 minutes long.

  259. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/all
    That’s Chris Hayes’ show “All In”

    Gov. Beshear warns against GOP Medicaid cuts: ‘It would be a betrayal’
    video is 4:45 minutes

    ‘Nightmare scenario’: Fears grow as RFK Jr. downplays deadly measles outbreak
    video is 6:40 minutes

    ‘Incompetent, illegal’: Why the Trump White House won’t admit Musk is in charge
    video is 7:47 minutes This is an excellent presentation.

    ‘Gangsterism’: Ukraine agrees to minerals deal with Trump to secure U.S. support
    video is 6:43 minutes

    With the exception of the “Gangsterism” segment, the presentations listed above are from last night, February 26.

  260. Reginald Selkirk says

    John Deere Investors Mow Down Anti-DEI Measures, Vote To Stay Woke

    The United States has been in a massive political and economic upheaval against the imagined forces of “DEI” and “Woke” recently, a largely one-sided battle that’s mostly just made planes fall out of the sky. Major companies have been racing to strike down initiatives aimed at more equitable hiring, as shows of deference towards our eugenicist political leaders, but it turns out regular people don’t actually want those policies reversed — in fact, when given the opportunity, they’ll vote to uphold DEI initiatives themselves.

    Shareholders on a John Deere investor call “overwhelmingly” shot down a resolution aimed at killing DEI initiatives today, according to Reuters. As usual, when decisions are left up to regular people rather than CEOs, the people vote for Woke: …

  263. says

    Elon Musk tries and fails to address halting Ebola prevention funding

    Followup to Sky Captain @249.

    Donald Trump’s top campaign donor, Elon Musk, said the DOGE initiative accidentally cut off Ebola prevention funds but quickly reversed course. The evidence suggests otherwise.

    […] Musk and the DOGE initiative have struggled mightily through a series of avoidable mistakes, controversies and legally dubious moves. He isn’t denying the existence of the screw-ups, so much as he’s saying that the screw-ups are easily forgivable and inconsequential.

    […] “We will make mistakes. We won’t be perfect. But when we make a mistake, we’ll fix it very quickly.”

    He even offered an example of what he was referring to. [video at the link]

    “So, for example, with [the U.S. Agency for International Development], one of the things we accidentally canceled, very briefly, was [funding for] Ebola prevention,” Musk said. “I think we all wanted Ebola prevention. So, we restored the Ebola prevention immediately, and there was no interruption.”

    The GOP megadonor pointed to this example while chuckling a bit, as if this were an amusing example of his quasi-governmental “department” slipping on a banana peel. But the public need not worry, Musk suggested, because nothing bad actually happened when his team accidentally — but briefly — cut off Ebola prevention funds. All’s well that ends well, right?

    [snipped excerpt from Washington Post report]

    The Post’s report quoted Nidhi Bouri, who served as a senior USAID official during the Biden administration and oversaw the agency’s response to health-care outbreaks, saying, “There have been no efforts to ‘turn on’ anything in prevention” of Ebola and other diseases.

    In case that weren’t quite enough, Bouri also told the Post that her former USAID team of 60 people working on disease-response “had been cut to about six staffers as of earlier this week.” [Telling detail. A cut like that would hobble any disease prevention team.]

    She wasn’t the only one making this assessment. Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International and the many responsible for leading USAID’s response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa 10 years ago, described Musk’s comments as “bunk” as part of a larger social media thread.

    In other words, Musk adopted a rather blithe attitude, voluntarily informing the White House Cabinet, assembled journalists, and the public that DOGE briefly cut off federal investments in Ebola prevention, but the misguided mistake was quickly noticed and corrected.

    […]The president’s top campaign donor got part of the story right — funding really was halted — but the reversal part of the story, which actually matters, was wrong.

    All of which suggests this guy can’t even address one of his screw-ups without also screwing up. [True]

    The result leaves us with a familiar question for which there is no clear answer: Are Musk’s many missteps the result of rampant incompetence, or is Musk engaged in mis- and disinformation campaigns intended to deceive the public?

    Both.

  265. says

    Followup to comment 264.

    Trump Solicitor General Nom Stays Vague On Key Question Hanging Over Lawless Presidency

    Unelected billionaire and ghost Cabinet member Elon Musk has for weeks been advocating for the impeachment of federal judges who defy his government ransacking crusade. Just last night, he posted on X at least six times speculating about ways to retaliate against the federal judiciary.

    Donald Trump’s Vice President JD Vance also has a history of remarks about the possibility that a Trump-led administration might someday need to ignore a judge’s order. He, too, recently posted on social media suggesting that a federal judge had no business stepping in to temporarily halt some of the Trump administration’s early moves blocking congressionally allocated federal funds from being spent. [snipped JD Vance’s blather]

    Then there’s Trump’s Deputy White House Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller, who has expressed similar opinions, saying that a recent, temporary ruling that blocked DOGE from accessing the Treasury Department’s most sensitive payment and data systems was “an assault” on democracy. [snipped Miller’s blather]

    […] In some cases, the Trump administration has already slipped out of compliance, though the extent to which that is intentional versus a side effect of the administration’s and DOGE’s chaos is somewhat unclear.

    […] Today, we have Trump’s nominee to become solicitor general, D. John Sauer, evading an answer on the subject. While he did not explicitly suggest he thinks it is appropriate for the executive branch or the legislative branch to defy court orders, he didn’t rule it out during his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Wednesday, instead raising hypotheticals about Korematsu v. United States — the ruling that upheld Japanese American internment camps during World War II.

    Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Dick Durbin (D-IL) grilled both Sauer and Aaron Reitz, Trump’s nominee for assistant attorney general for DOJ’s Office of Legal Policy, about whether an “elected official” would “be allowed to defy a federal court order.” After Reitz demurred that it would be “too case specific” for him to weigh in on the question, Durbin pressed Sauer to explain under what circumstances a federal court order could be ignored.

    Here’s the exchange, per Roll Call:

    The Illinois Democrat then turned his attention to D. John Sauer, Trump’s nominee for solicitor general, a role that oversees the federal government’s advocacy before the Supreme Court.

    Sauer told Durbin he did not want to speak to hypotheticals. But Sauer said “generally, if there’s a direct court order that binds a federal or state official, they should follow it.”

    After being pressed by Durbin about why he used the word “generally,” Sauer said “one could imagine hypotheticals in extreme cases,” and mentioned the Supreme Court decision in Korematsu v. United States.

  266. says

    ‘King Musk’ slammed for $2.4 billion sweetheart deal from Trump

    According to a report from The Washington Post, the Federal Aviation Administration is planning to dump a $2.4 billion contract with Verizon for a communications system key to the national air traffic control system in exchange for a contract with Starlink, which is owned by Elon Musk.

    The move comes as Musk [and DOGE] have been empowered by […] Trump to attack federal infrastructure. The Post noted that the expected contract switch at the FAA “would be an especially extraordinary step for the typically cautious FAA, whose systems are vital to the safety of millions of air travelers every day.”

    Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, who has emerged as a leading congressional critic of Trump and Musk’s activities, slammed the pending agreement.

    “Did y’all hear about Elon Musk new $2 BILLION FAA contract? Conflict of interest . . .👀,” she wrote on Bluesky. Crockett also noted continual silence from Republican leadership in the House and Senate, who are tasked by the Constitution with providing oversight of executive branch activities.

    “Instead of Republicans taking jobs and programs away, they need to be investigating this—but OH RIGHT—they report to King Musk.”

    Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday to give DOGE even more power to interfere in government work, instructing agencies to work with DOGE officials to comb through contracts and grants. [!]

    A team of staffers from Musk’s company SpaceX (which is the parent company to Starlink) were recently dispatched to the FAA at the behest of former “Real World” contestant turned Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, adding to the web of entangling connections involving billions of tax dollars and airline safety. Duffy said in a Feb. 16 release the SpaceX team would be traveling to the FAA’s air traffic control center in Washington, D.C.

    Duffy failed to disclose the possible financial implications of SpaceX’s actions and how it could lead to a windfall for Musk, who is the richest person alive.

    At the same time, the Trump administration has laid off FAA staffers and put a stop to the agency’s diversity-based recruitment efforts […]

    […] Over the years, Musk has taken in tens of billions in government welfare to prop up his companies, and much of his fortune was based on investments at taxpayer expense. Under the Trump administration, it appears that Musk will be given a free pass to further enrich himself.

  269. says

    Followup to comments 2, 6, 11, 32, 57, 128, and 211.

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/republicans-quitting-town-halls-to

    “Republicans Quitting Town Halls To Spend More Time Hurting American People”

    Well, we guess Republican congressmen have tried this town hall thing and it went poorly for them, so now they’re going to go back to hiding from voters. It’s not like they believe in democracy or answering to their constituents anyway. What’s the point of Donald Trump’s and Elon Musk’s fascist Nazi takeover if Republicans have to be held accountable or face re-election? As Trump said on the campaign trail, just come out and vote this time — he was talking to white supremacist Christian nationalists — and you won’t have to vote anymore, ever again.

    No more people who jeer at you and tell you to fuck yourself when you tell them their unemployment is all part of God’s glorious plan. No more people to scream at you to do your job or get offended when you say them asking you questions is just like January 6. Don’t these peasants understand their congressman’s job is to help Dear Leader usher in a new golden age dictatorship of autocracy and Nazism?

    […] NBC News reports that House Republicans have decided to “hit the brakes” on all this town hall rigaramarole. They’re “weary and wary,” says the article. And the party leaders are saying “oh bless your hearts!” and “oh you poor things!” and saying they shouldn’t do town halls anymore if they’re scary […]

    Party leaders suggest that if lawmakers feel the need to hold such events, they do tele-town halls or at least vet attendees to avoid scenes that become viral clips, according to GOP sources.

    A GOP aide said House Republican leaders are urging lawmakers to stop engaging in them altogether.

    Hate those viral clips where a voter tells their congressman they don’t like getting fired from their important jobs so that a South African terrorist and his team of young incels can lob nuclear bombs into the very functioning of the federal government under the obviously fake auspices of “finding fraud and waste.” Some of those voters even suggest that Republican congressmen have power to do something about it […]

    […] pushing through a budget that’s basically tax cuts for ka-trillionaires, while shooting Medicaid and other vital services […] It’s just bad optics! Republicans prefer to be able to hurt the American people and destroy their lives without pushback and in general without voters noticing.

    [an RNC] official said. “Probably the best way for that to happen is no more town halls. Elon Musk’s work still has the administration’s support, period.”

    That’s right! And you know who ELSE loves the way Republicans are punching American voters in the face and running over them with flaming Cybertrucks? The American people love it, and they are asking Republicans to back up and run them over again!

    Danielle Alvarez, some delusional clownfuck from the RNC, says that “The president’s policies are incredibly popular, and the American people applaud his success in cutting the waste, fraud and abuse of their hard-earned taxpayer dollars,” and that “Pathetic astroturf campaigns organized by out-of-touch, far-left groups are exactly why Democrats will keep losing.” [LOL, sooo much self-delusion]

    Likewise, Mike Johnson, the father of lies who runs the House, told Kaitlan Collins on CNN last night that the town halls don’t concern him, because those are all paid protesters anyway. He said he doesn’t have concerns that Democrats will be able to use the clips from these town halls against Republifcans because “the videos you saw of the town halls were for paid protesters in many of those places. These are Democrats who went to the events early and filled up the seats.” [weak, stupid, ill-informed, lies]

    Kaitlan Collins was like hmmmm seems like bullshit. [True]

    And Mike Johnson said, “Many of them were. I don’t know.”

    And Kaitlan Collins said, “One Republican acknowledged they were his constituents.”

    And Mike Johnson said:

    “Uh, one Republican acknowledged they were constituents. That’s fantastic. Okay, but they had Democrats come and fill the seats early, all right? This is an old playbook that they pulled out and ran, and it made it look like that what is happening in Washington is unpopular. But I’m gonna tell you, Kaitlan, the American people are behind what’s happening.”

    [JFC]

    Do we have polling on this? We do! Let’s go to the polls!

    A new YouGov poll finds DOGE to be the most unpopular government “department” of all the departments, and a Washington Post/Ipsos poll says President Musk’s approval rating is only 34 percent, and Donald Trump’s approval ratings started out for shit and are only dropping, and these are not outliers, they are every single poll, everybody hates Donald Trump, everybody hates Elon Musk […]

    But sure, RNC dimwit Danielle Alvarez and Mike Johnson and all the rest of y’all. Continue to fuck around and find out. Your plans have all been executed flawlessly so far, can’t imagine what might go wrong.

  270. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-announces-5-million-golden

    “Trump Announces $5 Million Golden Visa Showers Program For Russian Oligarchs Who Want One”

    “For the Russian oligarch in your life” […]

    If you have been wondering hey, is there a way we could really get the Russian fancy oligarch trash to come to America, the kinds of people who will make their nesting dolls just dither themselves into dramatic Russian orgasms, the kinds of orgasms that will shake Brighton Beach and make them scream “Землетрясение!” and wonder what kind of elegant kings and queens have come to buy their tacky Mill Basin clown mansions, Donald Trump has also been thinking of that.

    And he announced an Art of the Deal for fixing it yesterday!

    It is a $5 million “gold” green card that really rich people can buy. White rich people. The really tacky ones who have only been to two places in America, and surprise, they are the same ones Trump goes to. The kinds of people that other rich people roll their eyes at and say ugh, fucking Russians.

    We’re going to be selling a gold card,” Trump said from the Oval Office. “You have a green card. This is a gold card. We’re going to be putting a price on that card of about $5 million and that’s going to give you green card privileges, plus it’s going to be a route to citizenship. And wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card.”

    Extremely trash people, yes. Classless pigs. People who think Miami Beach is like literally the most elegant place on earth, OK? (No offense to Miami Beach, we personally love it but you know the type.)

    Trump said they’re going on sale in TWO WEEKS. (Perhaps.) He says they’re going to sell MILLIONS of them. (Oh you betcha!)

    And if you think we’re being unfair about who the target market is for this, ha ha ha, you must be some kind of MAGA pig who thinks Donald Trump is what real rich guys are like, then read this quote:

    Asked whether he would consider selling the cards to Russian oligarchs, Trump responded: “Yeah, possibly. I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people.”

    Yeah uh huh. We imagine they check in with him on a fairly regular basis, to make sure he’s doing OK and still understands his assignments. Be mighty nice for Putin back in Moscow for the handlers to be fully American.

    You know, allegedly.

    Trump’s clownfucking used car salesman-type Commerce secretary dude Howard Lutnick said it’s going to be the replacement for the EB-5 immigrant investor visa, which has been around since 1992 and gives investors paths to a faster citizenship if they invest in certain ways and certain amounts. The US is not the only country to have shit like this.

    But of course the Trump version is just much trashier, much tackier […]

    Yes, Trump announced this the same day his administration announced that all undocumented immigrants must register in a database so they can be tracked, even children, even little babies.

    Can’t imagine why people would think that thing is related to this thing, this thing is about people with white skin and that one isn’t.

  271. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Military.com – Speak up before va health care is gutted

    leaders in Congress have quietly unveiled their plan to gut VA-delivered care, wrapped in the misleadingly titled “Veterans’ ACCESS Act.”
    […]
    Here’s their Trojan horse sneak attack: In response to struggles with addiction and mental health challenges many veterans face, the bill would allow unfettered access to outpatient private treatment without any VA authorization or referral. No questions asked. No guardrails whatsoever. The VA would simply pay the bills from its limited coffer. That’s phase one.

    Then, after three years, this arrangement is intended to encompass all medical care, fundamentally transforming the VA’s primary role from a health care provider to an insurance company writing checks.

    Follow the money, which will hemorrhage from the VA to the private sector. The likely outcome is that the VA will close its inpatient services and instead become a sprawling assortment of outpatient clinics. If that sounds familiar, it is the plan laid out in the Project 2025 playbook.
    […]
    Independent health care experts warned last year that the survival of the VA system is in peril if runaway community care spending (the term for private health care funded by the VA)—which has been growing 15-20% annually—doesn’t slow way down. This bill hits the gas pedal.
    […]
    veterans will be cast out to locations where there are long-standing shortages in primary, mental health, inpatient and emergency care providers. Half of U.S. counties, and 80% of rural counties, lack even a single psychiatrist. Nearly 200 rural hospitals have shuttered, and over 700 more—one-third of all rural hospitals in the country—are on the brink of collapse. In this health care desert, who exactly will treat our veterans?

    * 5calls.org – Save the Veterans Health Administration
    It’s school choice applied to hospitals.

  272. whheydt says

    Re: CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain 268…
    That would be privateers. The Constitution gives the power to issue letters of mark (formally, Letters of Marque and Reprisal) to Congress.

  273. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/unfortunately-for-us-all-a-lot-of

    Right now, it’s easy to focus on the Trump voters who “didn’t know what they were voting for.” There are a decent number of them, […] There are those who didn’t pay a lot of attention and heard that he was going to lower the price of eggs and deport undocumented immigrants with criminal records .[…]Those who thought only minorities and Democrats would be fired from their federal jobs.

    But where we also need to direct our attention is to the people who absolutely did vote for everything he is doing right now, because they are the ones both Trump and Musk have been pandering to — and who you’d think comprise the majority of the Right if you spent all of your time on social media.

    There is a reason why Trump put it out there that he wants to bring things back to the way they were during the Gilded Age. The Gilded Age isn’t an era people tend to look back upon wistfully — given its hallmarks of extreme wealth inequality, child labor, robber barons, monopolies, and corruption. Even the term itself is a criticism, deriving from a satirical novel by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner about greed and political corruption in the post-Civil War era. [Good points. Appropriate historical references.]

    However, it’s also something of a dog-whistle to a large, vocal and very online portion of the political right. The Gilded Age — being, along with Pinochet-era Chile, one of the few examples of near-total laissez-faire capitalism — is their ideal, at least from a moral and ethical standpoint. There were no federal taxes, the currency was tied to gold, there was no social safety net, and no safety regulations. Paradise! (If you’re a little bit of a sociopath.)

    So What Is It That They Believe?

    Their views are informed by a hodge-podge of right-libertarian economic ideas — the Austrian School of Economics, the Chicago School of Economics, Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, anarcho-capitalism, and the work of Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard, and Thomas Sowell — all of which hold, as a central truth, the idea that “taxation is theft.”

    […] They cheer when Elon Musk and DOGE tear through federal agencies, firing people at random, because what they want is to abolish all federal agencies and the entire social safety net, including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. They want to end all regulations so that businesses and corporations can pretty much do whatever they want. […]They want to abolish the minimum wage, unions and other labor reforms, and perhaps most of all, they want the chance to prove themselves in an environment of unfettered laissez-faire capitalism.

    For the most part, when we discuss economics, we talk about outcomes. But because this is also part of their moral philosophy, outcomes mostly do not matter. Sure, they’ll make some claims that we’ll all be more prosperous without the burden of taxes, that companies will be able to pay more employees more money, but even they know that’s mostly bullshit. Ultimately, they believe that those who flourish in such an environment will deserve it, and those who suffer will deserve that, too.

    […] Human beings do not have an infinite capacity for misery, and as both the Gilded Age and Pinochet’s Chile demonstrated, while laissez-faire capitalism produces an incredible amount of wealth for some people, it also results in a lot of misery for everyone else. Without a social safety net, without regulations, without funding for schools, without everything else that taxes provide, there will be extreme income inequality and extreme poverty, and people will only tolerate that for so long until revolution starts to look really good. [snipped historical examples]

    Similarly, there is less demand for a full-on economic revolution when people are basically comfortable and have most of their needs met. This is why modern economies are neither fully capitalist nor fully socialist, but are instead mixed economies that take elements of both.

    […] Trump and Musk are getting the online accolades they crave, but they are also on the verge of creating a precarious and miserable situation for pretty much everyone else.

  274. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/stupid-epa-chief-tells-stupid-trump

    “Stupid EPA Chief Tells Stupid Trump To Repeal EPA’s Authority On Greenhouse Gases”

    The Trump administration appears to be ready to take another wrecking ball to climate science, according to a report in the Washington Post Wednesday (archive dot ph link). EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, acting on yet another of Trump’s first-day executive orders, “has privately urged the White House to strike down a scientific finding underpinning much of the federal government’s push to combat climate change, according to three people briefed on the matter,” who were all not named because they aren’t authorized to say what’s going on in the Fascism Factory.

    Zeldin wants Trump to do away with the agency’s 2009 “endangerment finding” that greenhouse gases are a threat to public health, an official statement of widely held scientific consensus that underpins the EPA’s ability to regulate carbon dioxide, methane, and other planet warming gases under the Clean Air Act. It’s kind of a big deal, and wiping it away is just one more step in the administration’s agenda of replacing science with far-Right ideology that removes legal constraints on fossil fuel use.

    […] The original 2009 finding was based on over 100 peer reviewed scientific papers on climate change, involved the work of hundreds of scientists, and included over 500 pages of public comment. It came in response to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that determined that CO2 and other greenhouse gases are “air pollutants” under the Clean Air Act; that ruling directed GW Bush’s EPA to stop fucking around and make a formal determination as to whether greenhouse gases endanger human health or welfare. Bush’s EPA finished its assessment in 2007, determining that yes indeedy, greenhouse gases are not healthy for children or other living things.

    Notoriously, however, Bush’s Office of Management and Budget refused to open the email with the EPA finding, leaving it to whoever won the 2008 presidential election. We shit you not!

    Barack Obama’s administration did its own version of the “endangerment finding,” which went through all the proper rule-making processes, and that’s the one that Zeldin’s EPA wants to undo. Eventually, the 28-page Bush EPA finding was also released in response to a public records request; at the time, an Obama EPA spokesperson said the earlier document “demonstrates that in 2007 the science was as clear as it is today.”

    But three months ago, thanks to a narrow plurality of votes, science suddenly became totally different, because Trump and his crowd say it is .[…]

    As the Post explains, Trump’s executive order told the EPA to review the

    “legality and continuing applicability of” the endangerment finding. The order gave Zeldin 30 days to submit recommendations to Russell Vought, the head of the White House budget office.

    And you can just bet that Trump knew exactly what he was ordering! No way some oil lobbyists wrote that EO for him.

    This time out, it appears that the EPA has completed its review and found that greenhouse gases are in fact no big deal, but we won’t see the finding until the administration is good and ready. […]

    […] Those three anonymous insiders say that the effort to undo the endangerment finding has been getting advice from “Mandy Gunasekara, who served as EPA chief of staff at the end of Trump’s first term and wrote the EPA chapter in the conservative blueprint Project 2025,” and that’s probably all the science necessary. Gunasekara is so good at science that she’s not only a climate and energy expert, she also moonlights as an expert […] on how woke corporations are turning children transgender, so how’s that for a broad range of expertise? […]

    Ms. Gunasekara probably knows less about climate science — or any science — than the average blogger, because she is not a scientist at all, but a paid liar about science. She has an undergrad degree in communication and media studies, and a law degree from U of Mississippi, and that’s enough to have gotten her quite a few jobs lobbying against science and praising the poor victimized oil industry.

    […] the planet has just kept getting hotter. […]

    David Doniger, an attorney and senior strategist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told the Washington Post that if Trump’s EPA “proceeds down this path and jettisons the obvious finding that climate change is a threat to our health and welfare,” well then, “We will see them in court.”

    And even if the Supreme Court somehow decides science isn’t real and that a president has the power to nullify it, setting back the fight against climate change for as long as he holds power and making America a pariah nation, we can still point to the evidence — the rest of the world will keep it — and say, “And yet it warms.”

  275. says

    Musk Scandal at USAID Takes Ugly Turn, Putting Starving Kids at Risk

    “Two U.S. nonprofits that manufacture a treatment sent by USAID to help severely malnourished children abroad say the process is in chaos. […]”

    […] the delivery of therapeutic food assistance to nearly 400,000 severely malnourished children abroad is in doubt due to ongoing firings at USAID, two manufacturers of this product told me in interviews. The raw materials needed to make the product are sitting in warehouses, but the manufacturers say they’re uncertain whether to proceed because they don’t know if the U.S. government still wants to buy the product—and they can’t be certain it will be shipped.

    The product in question is called Ready to Use Therapeutic Food, or RUTF, a sterile, bureaucratic name that masks the horrific nature of its lifesaving function. It is a sweet paste largely made of peanuts, milk, and vitamins. It’s designed for safe ingestion by young children inflicted with what’s known as “severe wasting,” meaning they’re suffering extreme, acute malnutrition or hovering on the edge of starving to death. It’s packaged in foil packets that don’t need refrigeration, making it suitable for delivery to areas inflicted by extreme deprivation.

    “It’s the only treatment that can cure a severely malnourished child,” says Navyn Salem, the founder and CEO of Edesia Nutrition, which manufactures the product in Rhode Island.

    As it happens, enormous amounts of this lifesaving paste are produced in two American factories: In addition to the Edesia facility in Rhode Island, another organization called Mana pumps out the product in Georgia. USAID has been contracting with the two operations—both nonprofits—to send it to the world’s starving children, mostly in Africa, for over 15 years. Both have current contracts with USAID, signed during the last administration, to treat a total of 1.2 million children for seven weeks, between the two companies, which would mean full rehabilitation from severe malnutrition for those children.

    But the latest round of cutbacks at USAID has left these operations flummoxed and frustrated. As part of its current contract, Edesia has enough raw ingredients left in its warehouses to manufacture the paste for 160,000 children, Salem says. The company hasn’t decided whether to complete it because the removals at USAID have put on paid leave the employees who oversee her contracts, Salem notes, and she can’t get clarity from USAID about whether the food will be either paid for or shipped.

    “Starving children are waiting for this product to arrive,” Salem said.

    Meanwhile, the Georgia-based nonprofit Mana Nutrition has enough ingredients to manufacture the product for around 200,000 badly malnourished children, pursuant to its contract, according to its co-founder and CEO, Mark Moore. He cannot figure out who at USAID is now overseeing or processing the contract, or get confirmation that USAID wants it completed.

    “We are stacking it up in a warehouse,” Moore told me. “We have no assurance whether it will be shipped or paid for.” Moore added: “For sure, it’s in doubt.”

    This was supposed to be sorted out by now. Earlier this month, when firings first started to hit USAID, both companies were initially given stop-work orders, but then the administration lifted them. With Secretary of State Marco Rubio promising not to hamper the most desperately needed aid, it appeared that the paste would keep being shipped.

    This week, however, both companies have discovered that this promise is in question. The firings have largely led to USAID’s system for paying contractors breaking down, and have emptied the agency of people who had overseen the contracts, with no indication of who’s supposed to be replacing them, the two CEOs said.

    […] Though lifesaving assistance is supposed to continue, the Times report noted that the firings had crippled the agency’s payment systems, hobbling many of those programs. Some foreign aid payments are supposed to resume after a 90-day review, but there’s no indication that there’s a system in place to oversee that, the Times noted.

    […] the confusion we’re seeing clearly constitutes absolutely awful management. Surely it should have been possible to undertake examinations of USAID’s programs without leaving the fate of such critical assistance in limbo.

    […] This product is made in America—in factories that sit in a deep-red area in Georgia and a deep-blue area in Rhode Island. It’s made with peanuts grown mostly in the South and dairy produced in the Northeast and Midwest. It’s made by American workers, then hauled by them to American ports, where it gets loaded onto cargo ships […]

  276. says

    Why do people continue to believe whatever Trump says? I can’t get my head around it.

    Ryleigh Cooper exhaled as she slid onto the couch after nine hours of work for the U.S. Forest Service, still covered in the blue paint she used to mark trees for local loggers. Then she got the text.
    “I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” her union leader wrote.

    It was the second Thursday in February, and a historic White House purge aimed at federal workers like Cooper was sweeping the country. But the headlines felt far away from her life in rural Michigan. She figured her job, with paychecks totaling about $40,000 a year, would be safe from the cost-cutting campaign led by President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk.

    Besides, motherhood was her most pressing concern. Cooper, 24, and her husband were trying to get pregnant, but the doctor said that IVF might be their best chance. Trump had promised to make it free. That is what she thought about in the voting booth.

    […] her performance evaluation from last fall found her “fully successful” — the highest possible score. […]

    Getting fired meant she would no longer have health insurance, including the 12 weeks of paid maternity leave that was a guaranteed benefit of her federal service. Also gone would be the promotion that would allow her to plan for the kids she so badly wanted to have.

    She wondered if Trump was going to break his promise to make IVF free, and if it would even matter if he did.

    […] Cooper did not want to think about what happened three months prior but her mind went there anyway. To the voting booth in Baldwin’s town hall, where she filled out every part of the ballot before turning to the box that said “Presidential.” She recalled staring at it for 15 minutes.

    She did not want to vote for Trump. Cooper hated what he said about women and hated how he treated them. Her family always said the women who accused the president of sexual assault had either made it up or deserved it. Cooper heard them and kept her own experience a secret, thinking that they might feel the same way about her.

    She voted for Joe Biden in 2020, her first time casting a ballot in a presidential election. But life felt more complicated these days. Her mortgage was too expensive, groceries were nearly $400 a month, and one single cycle of IVF could cost more than 10 percent of her annual household income.

    Trump, at a campaign stop an hour and a half south of her, had promised to make IVF free. She knew that from a video clip she saw on TikTok. And she had believed him.

    She also believed him when he said that Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for the next Republican administration that suggested mass cuts to the federal workforce, was not his plan.

    So Cooper filled in the bubble next to his name, thinking of the daughter she wanted. She planned to name her Charlotte.

    […] Four days after Trump fired her, Cooper was in bed with her husband. She picked up her phone and saw the news.

    There was a new executive order to expand access to IVF. She read the White House fact sheet, which talked about Trump’s request for policy recommendations to reduce costs of the service.

    But it still wasn’t free, and she was out of a job and out of a plan.

    “Delivering on promises for American families,” read the White House’s announcement.

    “That’s bulls—”, she recalled thinking, and put down her phone.

    Washington Post link

  277. Reginald Selkirk says

    Doctors report upticks in severe brain dysfunction among kids with flu

    Doctors around the US have anecdotally reported an uptick of children critically ill with the flu developing severe, life-threatening neurological complications, which can be marked by seizures, delirium, hallucinations, decreased consciousness, lethargy, personality changes, and abnormalities in brain imaging.

    It’s long been known that the seasonal flu can cause such devastating complications in some children, many with no underlying medical conditions. But doctors have begun to suspect that this year’s flu season—the most severe in over 15 years—has taken a yet darker turn for children. On February 14, for instance, health officials in Massachusetts released an advisory for clinicians to be on alert for neurological complications in pediatric flu patients after detecting a “possible increase.”

    With the anecdata coming in, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed all the data it has on neurological complications from flu this year and seasons dating back to 2010. Unfortunately, existing surveillance systems for flu do not capture neurological complications in pediatric cases overall—but they do capture such detailed clinical data when a child dies of flu…

  278. Reginald Selkirk says

    Atheist’s lawsuit says Denver fired him for complaining about unwelcome Christmas questions

    Austin Ray’s trouble started at the 2023 holiday office party.

    A Department of Transportation and Infrastructure assistant manager named Carmen allegedly started grilling him about his relationship to Christmas.

    “Don’t you believe in God?” Carmen asked.

    Ray tried to get out of the conversation, which unfolded in front of two coworkers and his manager, but she kept pressing.

    That’s according to an anti-discrimination lawsuit Ray filed in U.S. District Court. The City Attorney’s Office and DOTI declined to comment on the case. Ray and his attorney, David Meretta, also declined to comment on the case. Carmen’s full name was not included in the lawsuit.

    Ray, an atheist, doesn’t believe in any gods and does not subscribe to any religious views. He found the conversation offensive and humiliating.

    And he was troubled his manager did nothing to intervene, the lawsuit states.

    So after the party, Ray followed city policy and reported what he viewed as discrimination and harassment to Denver’s human resources department. He also reached out to the director of Wastewater Operations.

    After every conversation, the suit says, he was confident the situation was being addressed.

    Then, about three months, after the holiday party, he was fired.

    The lawsuit alleges Ray’s manager began retaliating against him for the complaint: Changing his job duties, forcing him to do meaningless tasks, isolating him from coworkers, alienating him and compromising his ability to perform his job.

    The manager “thereafter went to great lengths to make it appear that Mr. Ray was incapable of performing his job,” the lawsuit states.

    On March 15, 2024, the city fired Ray. He was still waiting for a response to his complaints.

    He had never received a write-up, a performance improvement plan or any discipline, according to the complaint.

    The lawsuit alleges the city discriminated against him because of his atheism and maliciously retaliated after he filed his complaint. It also alleges he was harassed based on his religion and suffered from a hostile work environment.

    As a result, he’s lost his work and wages and suffered mental anguish and embarrassment when people ask about his employment.

    His goal in the lawsuit: To recoup the money he lost when he was fired, receive additional compensation for the harm caused by the various claims, attorney’s fees, and more.

    In his mid-January lawsuit, he asked for a jury trial. That has not happened. In mid-February, the city denied the allegations and asked for the court to dismiss the case. The judge has not decided.

  279. Reginald Selkirk says

    Jewish atheist calls out evangelicals for undermining democracy in new book

    Who is Jonathan Rauch, a gay Jewish atheist, to write a book about how conservative American Christians are failing themselves and democracy?

    “With that background, it’s certainly the most presumptuous thing I’ve ever done,” Rauch, the author of “Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy,” said. “I come to this in the spirit of both humility and chutzpah.”

    Rauch’s new book takes Protestants to task for a “politicized, partisan, confrontational, and divisive” version of faith that has helped make America “ungovernable.”

    By abandoning the humility and forgiveness embodied by Jesus, writes Rauch, evangelicals especially have embraced a “Church of Fear” that is not only toxic to the body politic, but antithetical to Christianity. The problem is not just Christian nationalists who represent a militant belief in Christianizing the government, but everyday Christians who are sympathetic to the idea that their churches should focus on “winning in politics and winning in the culture wars.” …

  281. says

    From Reclaim Idaho:

    Minutes ago, Governor Little signed into law House Bill 93, a $50 million school-voucher program that will drain funds from public schools in order to subsidize private-school tuition.

    During public hearings, testimony on HB 93 opposed the bill by a factor of 20 to 1.

    An outpouring of teachers, trustees, parents, and business leaders spoke out against the bill. 73 superintendents signed a letter in opposition.

    […] a record-breaking 22,000 Idahoans called the Governor’s office and the vast majority asked for a veto.

    But in the face of overwhelming public opposition, the governor turned his back on the people and sided with special interests.

    […] Watching other states that have adopted voucher programs, we see a clear pattern: Special interests and pro-voucher legislators begin with a relatively small program and then work, in future legislative sessions, to expand it dramatically.

    Speaking about Idaho’s voucher program a year from now, one advocate for HB 93 proudly declared: “$50 million will become $250 million in the blink of an eye.”

    In 2026 and beyond, the people of Idaho will face a choice. Will we go down the path of a universal, unrestrained voucher program that corrodes our public education system, or will we stand up and say enough is enough? […]

    In the coming months, every Idaho lawmaker who voted for House Bill 93 must be pressed by constituents to answer simple questions:

    Why did they vote for House Bill 93 in the face of overwhelming public opposition?*

    Will they commit to keeping the voucher fund capped at $50 million, and to voting NO on any future bill that lifts the cap?

    What will they do to address Idaho’s $80 million funding gap in special education?**

    What will they do to address the $8 billion needed to fix and maintain Idaho’s crumbling school facilities during the next decade? […]

  282. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    ABC – FBI Director Kash Patel wants to bring the UFC to the FBI

    the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the martial-arts entertainment giant whose wealthy CEO, Dana White, helped boost President Donald Trump’s reelection
    […]
    On a teleconference Wednesday with the heads of the FBI’s 55 field offices, Patel suggested that he wants the FBI to establish a formal relationship with the UFC, which could develop programs for agents to improve their physical fitness

  283. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/fox-business-praises-big-brother

    “Fox Business Praises Big Brother For Necessary Pain That Will Be Good For Us”

    Hey, remember how, the week before the election, Elon Musk mused out loud about how he could very easily eliminate the federal debt with a few billionaire-friendly changes to the tax code, by drastically cutting the federal budget, and of course deporting everyone. Then, all we’d need would be for everyone who isn’t a billionaire to tighten their own belts for an unspecified period of extreme austerity. But then we’d emerge from the economic crash — or at least the survivors would — into a bright new day of prosperity and living within our means!

    As Musk put it in a virtual town hall, “We have to reduce spending to live within our means. And that necessarily involves some temporary hardship, but it will ensure long-term prosperity.”

    He went on to acknowledge that it wouldn’t necessarily be easy, especially not for You People, and certainly not for Those People, who probably aren’t Trump voters anyway (except for all of them who are), so they can either get their shit together or be left on the ash heap of history, possibly literally. Don’t bother feeling sad about it, they’ll have it coming. And don’t worry about Elon, he’ll have plenty of security, and he’ll lock the doors in case he’s attacked.

    “Obviously, a lot of people who are taking advantage of government are going to be upset about that. I’ll probably need a lot of security, but it’s got to be done. And if it’s not done, we’ll just go bankrupt.”

    Fast forward to the last week of February 2025, and President Elon’s big private security team has reportedly been deputized by the US Marshals Service, so they can carry firearms on White House grounds. Just in case. [Yikes!]

    Oh yes, and Musk is also sending his Nazi Teen Bungle Force to cut as many government jobs as possible, eliminating unneeded waste like lifesaving medical treatment in other countries. Meanwhile, Trump and Republicans in Congress are taking aim at harming their own voters by slashing Medicaid, and maybe Social Security and Medicare too, but they’ll insist they’ll only eliminate “fraud.” Ergo, any Trump voters who find themselves without healthcare, disability payments, or retirement income will just have to face the fact that they were committing fraud, and be grateful they only lost their benefits instead of being prosecuted. President Musk and President Trump are tough but fair.

    And wouldn’t you know it, just yesterday on State Telescreen — the very serious Fox Bidniss Channel, not just the Two Minutes Hate Fox News for the proles — a guest on the serious business news show “Making Money” explained that Americans might want to get ready for the necessary spanking the economy needs, so it will mend its ways.

    Here’s video of bidniss consultant Danielle DiMartino Booth telling Fox Bidniss host Charles Payne (hmmm) how what’s coming this may sting a little, but it’s good for us. [video at the link]

    We have to look back to history, right? Ronald Reagan is remembered as one of the best US presidents in history. People forget that when he came into office in 1981, that he slashed federal head count and actually put the economy back into the double dip recession of 1980 and 1981.

    Or maybe that was Fed chair Paul Volcker who did the recession, but the point is that Ronald Reagan was a great American, at least as long as that’s a convenient talking point and you’re not talking about how he gave AMNESTY to ILLEGALS, making him a GLOBALIST TRAITOR. But for the moment, this is the version of Schrödinger’s Reagan it’s still OK for MAGAs to admire.

    Booth went on to explain about how a year or two of 10 percent unemployment is just the shock doctrine we need to clear the cobwebs out of the economy, and maybe the useless eaters while we’re at it:

    BOOTH: That did not last for long, and deregulation and other things that paralleled the beginning of his administration ended up taking over and brought the economy out of recession.

    The host nodded, saying “Right, Right,” agreeing there’s nothing wrong with a little short-term Payne, and Booth continued:

    BOOTH: We might just be in for some short-term pain here, which the prior administration was not willing to take and put the country on much weaker footing because of it. […]

    PAYNE: No doubt about it. And I agree with you 1,000 percent that when you change something that’s like this, lot of cash floating around, maybe there’s a little temporary pain. We also end up calling it investing.

    Mind you, this version of history sends Reagan’s huge increases in federal spending straight down the Memory Hole. Yes, he cut taxes. Yes, he fired some government workers. But he also increased government spending, not only on the military but across the board. […]

    Hey, this reminds us of a very good book we read a few times, by a British gent named George Orwell, in which the main character looks up at his telescreen and hears a report of some very good news:

    It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grammes a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be REDUCED to twenty grammes a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it.

    Still, Booth had a great point about how short the Reagan recession was. Two years isn’t very long at all, at least not when it’s 40 years in the past and you’re not living through it right now.

    In real time, the recession ground along for quite a while before all that federal spending started the economy rolling again. In August 1982, polls found only 35 percent of Americans thought Reagan should seek reelection, while 57 percent said he should pack it in. All the while, Reagan’s approval ratings sank lower and lower.

    But memory is weird, and very malleable, as Winston Smith noticed. Even as Reagan campaigned for a second term, plenty of people who’d been mauled by his recession really did believe that it was a very good thing that, from a peak of 10.8 percent unemployment in December 1982, Wise Benevolent Ronald Reagan brought unemployment down to “only” 7.2 percent in time for the 1984 election.

    Voters swallowed that fucking “It’s Morning In America” shit sandwich […] What’s more, truly in the space of a couple minutes, voters decided to overlook Reagan’s already visible dementia sundowning in the first debate against Walter Mondale, because Saint Ron delivered a scripted funny joke about “the age issue” in the second debate, making the issue vanish instantly. [video at the link]

    I remember seeing that at the local Democratic watch party in Flagstaff and my heart sinking, knowing the election was over. It wasn’t policy, it wasn’t persuasion, it was showbiz and it fucking worked.

    In conclusion, Fucking Elon Musk and the Fucking Fox Bidniss Fucks might have a fucking point here: If Trump is going to cause a recession, he may as well do it now and hope voters won’t massacre him in the midterms, if they take place.

    He’ll have all the time in the world to amend or ignore the Constitution in time for 2028 […]?

  284. says

    […] These are Russian citizens who were living in territory occupied by the Ukrainian military, injured by Russian bombs, errant or otherwise, and were brought across the border by Ukrainian forces for medical treatment that was probably lifesaving. […]

    Washington Post link

    The article tells, through interviews of patients in a Ukrainian hospital, the stories of Russians who were injured when Russians bombed them. Ukrainian soldiers saved them.

  286. Reginald Selkirk says

    Cousin marriage: What new evidence tells us about children’s ill health

    … (multiple paragraphs by a writer who doesn’t understand journalism)
    In the UK and across Europe, cousin marriage is coming under increased scrutiny – particularly from doctors, who warn that children of first cousins are more likely to experience an array of health problems.

    And there’s now some new, potentially worrying data from Bradford to add into that mix.

    Researchers at the city’s university are entering their 18th year of the Born in Bradford study. It’s one of the biggest medical trials of its kind: between 2007 and 2010, researchers recruited more than 13,000 babies in the city and then followed them closely from childhood into adolescence and now into early adulthood. More than one in six children in the study have parents who are first cousins, mostly from Bradford’s Pakistani community, making it among the world’s most valuable studies of the health impacts of cousin marriage.

    And in data published in the last few months – and analysed in an upcoming episode of BBC Radio 4’s Born in Bradford series – the researchers found that first cousin-parentage may have wider consequences than previously thought.

    The most obvious way that a pair of blood-related parents might increase health risks for a child is through a recessive disorder, like cystic fibrosis or sickle cell disease. According to the classic theory of genetics laid out by the biologist Gregor Mendel, if both parents carry a recessive gene then there’s a one in four chance that their child will inherit the condition. And when parents are cousins, they’re more likely to both be carriers. A child of first cousins carries a 6% chance of inheriting a recessive disorder, compared to 3% for the general population.

    But the Bradford study took a much broader view – and sheds fresh light. The researchers weren’t just looking at whether a child had been diagnosed with a specific recessive disorder. Instead they studied dozens of data points, observing everything from the children’s speech and language development to their frequency of healthcare to their performance at school. Then they used a mathematical model to try to eliminate the impacts of poverty and parental education – so they could focus squarely on the impact on “consanguinity”, the scientific word for having parents who are related.

    They found that even after factors like poverty were controlled for, a child of first cousins in Bradford had an 11% probability of being diagnosed with a speech and language problem, versus 7% for children whose parents are not related.

    They also found a child of first cousins has a 54% chance of reaching a “good stage of development” (a government assessment given to all five year-olds in England), versus 64% for children whose parents are not related.

    We get further insight into their poorer health through the number of visits to the GP. Children of first cousins have a third more primary care appointments than children whose parents are not related – an average of four instead of three a year.

    What is notable is that even once you account for the children in that group who already have a diagnosed recessive disorder, the figures suggest consanguinity may be affecting even those children who don’t have a diagnosable recessive disorder…

  287. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    TPM – Mapping the DOGE game plan: New details on which contracts get axed

    Let’s start with my story from last night about the abrupt and reckless cancelation of upwards of a thousand VA contracts totaling roughly $2 billion and covering a huge variety of work VA does, everything from funeral care to doctor recruitment. […] VA contract officers were sent an excel spreadsheet of almost a thousand contracts in the early morning of February 21st, told that all of these contracts should be canceled and that if anyone wanted to make a case to spare individual contracts they had till the end of business that day (2.21.25) to make their case. My sources noted that the contract code on all of these contracts was NAICS—541611, which is “Administrative Management and General Management Consulting Services.” It’s very clear they pulled up everything under that label and slated it to be cut.

    My sources’ impressions are that the DOGErs making these decisions read that label as basically, McKinsey/MBA consulting type bullshit, easy stuff to cut. At VA, most of it wasn’t that at all. But they didn’t seem to make any attempt to look under the hood at what those contracts were.

    It turns out that the folks at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had a similar contracts fire drill about 10 days earlier. That’s the agency within HHS that literally runs both of those programs. Critically, all their kill list contracts had the identical NAICS code, 541611. It’s pretty clear DOGE was going in and trying to cancel anything under that heading. They got their email on the 10th and had to get the answers back by the afternoon of the 12th—so significantly longer, but still a crazy short amount of time. [And their list had fewer contracts to investigate, each straightforward to defend as catastrophic if canceled.] CMS was able to save all or most of their contracts.
    […]
    With the VA debacle, the impression my sources had was that everyone’s afraid of DOGE and no one wanted to stick their head up […] But they and we don’t know that. […] Maybe they did. But we don’t know […] We can’t rule out the possibility that people at VA went to bat for these contracts and DOGE just said no. What’s notable to me is that it seems fairly programmatic. They show up at each agency and flag this bucket to be cut

  288. Reginald Selkirk says

    Did Iron Age ‘begin’ in India? Tamil Nadu dig sparks debate

    For over 20 years, archaeologists in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu have been unearthing clues to the region’s ancient past.

    Their digs have uncovered early scripts that rewrite literacy timelines, mapped maritime trade routes connecting India to the world and revealed advanced urban settlements – reinforcing the state’s role as a cradle of early civilisation and global commerce.

    Now they’ve also uncovered something even older – evidence of what could be the earliest making and use of iron. Present-day Turkey is one of the earliest known regions where iron was mined, extracted and forged on a significant scale around the 13th Century BC.

    Archaeologists have discovered iron objects at six sites in Tamil Nadu, dating back to 2,953–3,345 BCE, or between 5,000 to 5,400 years old. This suggests that the process of extracting, smelting, forging and shaping iron to create tools, weapons and other objects may have developed independently in the Indian subcontinent…

  289. Reginald Selkirk says

    RFK Jr. Takes a Sledgehammer to Two Major Vaccine Developments

    Multiple vaccine projects have been paused by the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

    Kennedy paused a multimillion-dollar project to create a new Covid-19 vaccine in pill form on Tuesday, and the Food and Drug Administration canceled an advisory committee meeting on updating next season’s flu vaccine, an advisory committee said Wednesday.

    The Covid project was a $460 million contract with Vaxart to develop a new Covid vaccine in pill form, with 10,000 people scheduled to begin clinical trials on Monday. Of that, $240 million was reportedly already authorized for the preliminary study…

  290. Reginald Selkirk says

    Mike Johnson claims ‘paid protesters’ are disrupting GOP town halls — then backtracks when asked for proof

    House Speaker Mike Johnson baselessly claimed that the angry constituents raging at GOP lawmakers in town halls over DOGE’s drastic cuts and layoffs were “paid protesters,” only to backtrack when CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins pressed him for evidence…

    Not only was Johnson unconcerned, but he claimed that the town hall confrontations were essentially fake.

    “No, no, I don’t because the videos you saw of the town halls were for paid protesters in many of those places. These are Democrats who went to the events early and filled up the seats,” the speaker declared.

    “You can’t argue they were all paid protestors, though, Mr. Speaker,” the CNN anchor interjected.

    “Many of them were,” Johnson demurred, only to add: “I don’t know.”

    Collins, meanwhile, pointed out that one House Republican had acknowledged that the angry town hall attendees “were his constituents,” prompting Johnson to dismiss the claim as irrelevant.

    “Uh, one Republican acknowledged they were constituents. That’s fantastic,” he snarked. “Ok, but they had Democrats come and fill the seats early, all right?” …

    He doesn’t seem to understand how evidence works.
    He doesn’t seem to understand that Democrats are also citizens, and deserve representation from their congresspersons.

  291. JM says

    The Damage Report: Tesla Corruption Scheme With Trump Just Got WAY WORSE
    It appears that the scandal with Biden ordering some Teslas is much worse. Under the Biden administration a small order for Telsa vehicles was made, 400K. Somehow this became 400 million for armored Tesla trucks but still a Biden order. Turns out that it was actually a revision made under the Trump administration that was back dated to make it look like it was made under the Biden administration. That raises the level to outright fraud.

  292. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: JM @291:

    a revision made under the Trump administration that was back dated to make it look like it was made under the Biden administration. That raises the level to outright fraud.

    The TYT YouTuber misread the article, I think.

    The document claims it was originally published in December, at the end of then-President Joe Biden’s term, but it does not appear in the Internet Archive

    That means the document wasn’t archived in that time period to go back and verify what was definitely written circa December. The article was admitting an absence of proof of fraud. The Internet Archive makes sporadic snapshots, so that is typical.

    TYT (and that Ryan Grim tweet they read) presented it as if the article had said, “The 400m Tesla entry does not appear in a copy of the document archived in December” as if that were inserted afterward and backdated.

  293. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    * I should’ve finished that sentence from the article. “it does not appear in the Internet Archive for that month.”

  294. says

    Josh Marshall: Memo on “Organizational Restructuring” at Social Security Administration

    A short time ago the Human Resources office of the Social Security Administration sent out what it titled a major “organizational restructuring” of the agency. As one SSA vet put it to me, this “we are giving you a chance to leave on your own accord before we fire you.”

    “Employees are going to jump at this,” the same person told me.

    Memo after the jump.

    (The following is a complete copy of the memo, with the exception of a part at the end providing contact info for regional offices)

    Subject: Organizational Restructuring – Availability of Voluntary Reassignment, Early Out Retirement, and Separation Incentive Payments to ALL ELIGIBLE EMPLOYEES – No Component or Position Exceptions

    To: All SSA Employees

    Subject: Organizational Restructuring – Availability of Voluntary Reassignment, Early Out Retirement, and Separation Incentive Payments to ALL ELIGIBLE EMPLOYEES – No Component or Position Exceptions

    PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE NOTICE

    Supervisors will ensure all employees under their supervision (including those on extended leave) receive this information.

    The Social Security Administration (SSA) will soon implement agency-wide organizational restructuring that will include significant workforce reductions. Through these massive reorganizations, offices that perform functions not mandated by statute may be prioritized for reduction-in-force actions that could include abolishment of organizations and positions, directed reassignments, and reductions in staffing. The agency may reassign employees from non-mission critical positions to mission critical direct service positions (e.g., field offices, teleservice centers, processing centers). Reassignments may be involuntary and may require retraining for new workloads.

    VOLUNTARY REASSIGNMENTS

    Employees interested in voluntarily being reassigned to a mission critical position should indicate their interest here Reassignment Questionnaire by March 14, 2025.

    VOLUNTARY SEPARATION INCENTIVES

    Employees who do not wish to undergo the restructuring process may elect to separate from federal service through retirement or resignation. To further support employees considering these options, SSA is offering the following to ALL EMPLOYEES:

    VOLUNTARY EARLY RETIREMENT (VERA) OR “EARLY OUT”

    Availability: VERA is now available to employees in all components and positions, with no exclusions. Please eligibility criteria below.
    Separation Window: VERA is available from March 1, 2025 through December 31, 2025. Employees not eligible now or who wish to retire later in the year under early out may do so, but may be subject to restructuring activities. Employees who are not yet eligible for voluntary early retirement, but who would like to apply later in the calendar year should alert management of their intent to do so and work with their servicing benefits specialists to process their cases as their dates become due. All eligible employees taking early retirement must separate by December 31, 2025.
    Eligibility: To be eligible for early out, employees must:
    Have 20 years of creditable service and be at least 50 years of age or have at least 25 years of creditable service at any age (this must include 5 years of civilian service).
    Must be serving under a non-time-limited appointment
    Have been continuously on SSA’s rolls at least 30 days prior to January 17, 2025
    Cannot be in receipt of an involuntary separation decision for misconduct or unsatisfactory performance.
    Note: Retirement may affect your Federal Health Insurance eligibility. Please contact your Servicing Personnel Office (SPO) with questions.

    VOLUNTARY SEPARATION INCENTIVE PAYMENTS (VSIP)

    · Availability: VSIP will be available until noon EST on March 14 to all employees electing to separate from service across all components and positions agencywide. VSIP is limited and available on a first come basis. VSIP may be paid for an optional retirement (full retirement age), voluntary early retirement (VERA), or resignation. VSIP is not available to employees who are participating in the Deferred Resignation Program.

    · Eligibility:

    o Employees must:

    § Be serving in an appointment without time limit;

    § Be currently employed by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government for a continuous period of at least 3 years;

    § Be serving in a position covered by an agency VSIP plan (all SSA employees are covered in the agency plan);

    § Apply for and receive approval for a VSIP from the agency making the VSIP offer; and

    § Not be included in any of the ineligibility categories listed below.

    o Employees in the following categories are not eligible for a VSIP:

    § Reemployed annuitants;

    § Have a disability such that the individual is or would be eligible for disability retirement;

    § Have received a decision notice of involuntary separation for misconduct or poor performance;

    § Previously received any VSIP from the Federal Government;

    § During the 36-month period preceding the date of separation, performed service for which a student loan repayment benefit was paid, or is to be paid;

    § During the 24-month period preceding the date of separation, performed service for which a recruitment or relocation incentive was paid, or is to be paid; and

    § During the 12-month period preceding the date of separation, performed service for which a retention incentive was paid, or is to be paid.

    · Separation Window: Employees must opt in by March 14 and separate from the agency no later than April 19, 2025. Employees may be placed on administrative leave through April 19, 2025.

    · How to Sign Up: Employees must complete the VSIP Sign Up as soon as possible, but no later than March 14, 2025 noon EST. Please let your manager know immediately if you sign up for VSIP.

    o Note: Completing the form does not guarantee VSIP.

    · Incentive Payment: Payments will be the following amounts for the grade level of your permanent position. All payments are subject to taxes and normal deductions from income. Employees are strongly encouraged to read the rules for VSIP payments.

    Up to GS 8 $15,000
    GS 9 – 12 $20,000
    GS 13 and up $25,000

    OPTIONAL RETIREMENT

    Employees who have reached their full retirement age may apply for optional retirement at any time. Employees serving under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) should see the OPM eligibility information for FERS, which is generally 30 years of service, plus reaching minimum retirement age. Employees serving under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) should refer to the OPM eligibility information for CSRS, which is generally 30 years of service and age 55. Additional provisions and options are available for both FERS and CSRS.

    RESIGNATION

    Employees may resign from federal service at any time. Employees who resign would be eligible for a payout of their annual leave and may be eligible to apply for a Deferred Retirement when they reach their minimum retirement age. Please see the attached table explaining the differences between resignations and retirements and the benefits that would apply.

    OBTAINING FURTHER INFORMATION

    General retirement information is available on the Benefits Portal. The Benefits Portal also includes information about accessing the GRB Platform, which provides calculators for computing estimated retirement benefits. We strongly encourage employees to use the retirement calculators in the GRB Platform to obtain initial annuity estimates and to request an official annuity computation. You may also contact your SPO (listed below) with questions.

  295. says

    AOC unloads on Musk for killing reforms to lower drug prices

    On Wednesday, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York called out billionaire Elon Musk for killing proposals to reform pharmaceutical benefit managers in order to lower drug prices.

    Ocasio-Cortez pointed out the overwhelming bipartisan support to reform PBMs, which act as negotiating entities overseeing prescription drug benefits for insurance plans. They have an almost monopolistic power over the drug supply chain. And she explained that reforms might have been passed … if Musk didn’t control the GOP.

    “Now this bill was almost passed … within a bigger package to prevent the government shutting down,” she said during a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing. “Democrats supported it. Republicans supported it. So why isn’t this moving? Well … Elon Musk began firing off a barrage of social media posts opposing pharmacy benefit manager reform. And all of a sudden, this bill that had almost unanimous support fell apart in a matter of hours.”

    Musk worked to kill a government funding bill that included reforms for PBMs. He said the bill was full of “pork.”

    Keep in mind, a vast array of patients and consumer advocates support reforming PBMs. And in December, legislation to reform them was co-sponsored in the House by Republican Diana Harshbarger of Tennessee and Democrat Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts, and in the Senate by (unbelievably) Democrat Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Republican Josh Hawley of Missouri. Talk about bipartisan.

    “The problem here is not a substance issue. It’s not a process issue. It’s an oligarchy issue. It’s a power issue,” Ocasio-Cortez continued. “And this room is where the power of the people of the United States reside.”

    “Whether you’re a Democrat or you’re a Republican, everyone here was elected to be accountable to the people of the United States, not to be governed by tweet, but to be governed by their duly elected representation,” she said, pointing to a printed-out post Musk dismissively made on X about PBMs. “And so we can get this done because there are more of us than there are of him.” [video at the link]

    Democrats have been effective in using their positions on Republican-led committees to draw attention to the illegal takeover of our government agencies by Musk, Trump, and their destructive Department of Government Efficiency cabal.

  296. says

    Musk is now begging air traffic controllers to come back to work

    Donald Trump gave […] Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency carte blanche to go on a federal employee firing spree—and now Musk is lamely begging for workers to come back.

    In a post on X on Thursday, Musk tried to unretire air traffic controllers via tweet, […]

    “There is a shortage of top notch air traffic controllers. If you have retired, but are open to returning to work, please consider doing so,” Musk wrote.

    Musk and Trump’s dizzying decisions and flippant attitudes are sure to spike anxiety for U.S. air passengers as plane crashes and near-misses continue to make headlines.

    This mess can be traced back to the very day Trump took office, when Musk forced the Federal Aviation Administration chief to resign.

    […] In February, Musk and Trump fired hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration workers […]

    But Trump and his minions remain fixated on “saving” money—seemingly at any cost.

    “One of the most important initiatives is DOGE, and we have cut billions and billions and billions of dollars. We’re looking to get it maybe to $1 trillion,” Trump said on Wednesday.

    Is it lost on Trump that Musk and his DOGE dorks have already squandered millions spent on recruiting and training by firing new, probationary federal employees? Or that much of these “savings” are a mirage, while Musk’s companies keep landing extremely lucrative government contracts?

    […] Earlier this month, Musk went on a firing and rehiring spree at the National Nuclear Security Administration—you know, the agency tasked with overseeing our nuclear arsenal. […]

    When they aren’t making the world more dangerous by firing and rehiring federal employees in the FAA and NNSA, Trump and his inefficient Cabinet are doing damage on the ground.

    Illnesses like bird flu, measles, COVID-19, and even Ebola are at risk of spreading after the health experts responsible for figuring out how to mitigate them were let go.

    […] During the meeting, the White House announced a $1 billion, five-pronged investment to deploy epidemiologists and develop a bird flu vaccine in the face of skyrocketing egg prices.

    “American farmers need relief, and American consumers need affordable food,” Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said in a press release announcing the initiative. “To every family struggling to buy eggs: We hear you, we’re fighting for you, and help is on the way.”

    If by “help” she means continuing to fire the people in charge of doing so, then sure.

    “We have to get the prices down, not the inflation down. The prices of eggs and various other things, eggs are a disaster,” Trump said.

    Trump and Musk are right about one thing: All of this is a disaster—their disaster.

  298. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/forgetful-liartrump-cant-remember

    “Forgetful (Liar) Trump Can’t Remember Calling Zelenskyy A Dictator, What A Silly (Lying) Goose!”

    Add one more foreign leader to the list of people Donald Trump humiliated himself in front of this week. That’d be Keir Starmer, prime minister of … where now? [social media post at the link]

    Andrew Feinberg tweeted the email he got from the White House telling him he had been “APPROVED for today’s Press Conference with President Donald J. Trump and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Keir Starmer …”

    And Feinberg cc-ed Sinn Fein.

    So that’s humiliating.

    And if anybody needs to look up what exactly kind of “I just stuffed my balls in my own throat” moment this is, that’s fine, you don’t work for the White House comms office.

    Maybe instead of sending out lonely, needy loser tweets about finding Jen Psaki’s stationery in the West Wing, White House Comms Director Steven Cheung should be brushing up on his Wikipedia list of “What Are Some Of The Countries Called?” […]

    Today, sitting next to Starmer during what’s called the pool spray, […] Trump started embarrassing himself again, or just lying, or just both.

    Asked if he still considered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a dictator — he called him a dictator last week — Trump attempted to play ignorant, as if he had no recollection of saying that whatsoever. Again, embarrassing himself, or just lying, or both. […] [video at the link]

    Trump has of course been lying and calling Zelenskyy a dictator, playing off lies from the Kremlin about Zelenskyy having a four percent approval rating, and suggesting it’s somehow weird that Zelenskyy hasn’t seen fit to hold elections while Ukraine is trying to prevent Vladimir Putin from personally slicing Ukrainian children’s heads off. (The Ukrainian parliament [said] that there would be no elections until this war is over. It passed unanimously.)

    But now Trump is trying to get ready to declare FLAWLESS VICTORY and ART OF THE DEAL over Ukraine’s mineral rights, and Zelenskyy is set to sign that agreement (which really gave Trump nothing) next to him tomorrow, so he’s trying to run away from his rhetoric from last week. […]

    Acyn from MeidasTouch collected more embarrassing moments from Trump’s wee-wee spray with Starmer.

    It was pointed out that literally less than one percent of the fentanyl that comes into the US comes across the Canadian border, so WTF with his bullshit about that being the reason he has to do his jerk-off tariff thing with Canada? (If you need more BlueSky in your life, here’s Editrix Rebecca having the discovery that oooohhhhh, it’s so Trump can buy all Russia’s aluminum instead of Canada’s. It’s for Putin!) [Bluesky post available at the link.]

    Trump answered that Canada should be seizing a lot more than that, and that the fentanyl is somehow going from the Mexican border to the Canadian border now, and THEN into the US!

    Trump also stupidly insisted yet again that tariffs are paid by the countries he puts them on, as opposed to by American importers and consumers. […]

    Next, did Trump have anything to say about why he and his administration decided to bring back accused rapists and sex traffickers Andrew and Tristan Tate to the US from Romania, even though not even Ron DeSantis in Florida wants that human trash on his shores? Oh no, Donald Trump does not know about that! Does he not remember, because he is too old and senile to do this job? Or is he lying? Either way, we see fucking off and resigning as a good opportunity for personal growth for him. [Bluesky post and video at the link. Trump saying: “I know nothing about it.”]

    Finally, a reporter asked, would Trump be discussing AUKUS with the prime minister of jolly olde Ireland or whatever? Trump replied, “what does that mean?”

    AUKUS, the reporter explained. The Australian, United Kingdom, United States defense alliance, which is styled as AUKUS. Once explained to him, Trump said oh sure they’re going to be talking about all the things and like such as. [video at the link]

    Again, if you had to look that up, that’s fine. But the president of the United States should not have to. […]

    Kamala Harris would have known how to answer questions about AUKUS.

  299. says

    North Korea sending more troops to Russia, South Korea says

    North Korea appears to have sent more troops to Russia despite its soldiers suffering heavy casualties fighting on the front lines in Ukraine, South Korea’s main spy agency said Thursday.

    Seoul’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) said it was trying to figure out how many additional troops North Korea deployed to Russia, according to a brief statement.

    […] Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Pyongyang’s troops were back on the front lines, an assessment backed up by the NIS.

    “Following a month-long lull, North Korean troops were placed back in the frontline region of Kursk starting in the first week of February,” the spy agency said Thursday.

    The announcement follows a report in South Korean newspaper JoongAng that said North Korea has sent up to 3,000 additional troops since January by ship and military cargo planes, as reported by The Associated Press.

    Officials and experts have speculated that in exchange for the soldiers, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is hoping to gain Russian technology to upgrade his nuclear weapons program, as well as a valuable international ally for the isolated nation. […]

  300. says

    Seven planets share the sky at once this week, but the parade of planets ends soon

    “Five of the seven planets may be visible with the naked eye. But after Friday, Mercury and Saturn will appear too faint and too low on the horizon for most people to see.”

    Photo at the link.

    As February draws to a close, skywatchers have their final chance to see the “planet parade” that has been lighting up the night sky.

    While the celestial spectacle, in which all seven planets in our solar system apart from Earth can be seen at once, has been on display for most of the week, Friday is expected to offer the best chance for skywatchers worldwide. That’s because Mercury, which did not appear above the horizon until late this month, will be at its highest point above the horizon.

    After Friday, Mercury and Saturn will likely appear too faint and too low on the horizon for most people to see.

    Including those two planets, it should be possible to spot five of the seven planets with the naked eye if conditions are right. Viewing Uranus and Neptune, however, will require a telescope.

    Planetary parades occur when multiple planets appear at the same time, spread across the sky in a kind of arc. They’re not uncommon, though it’s rare for all seven planets to be visible at the same time. In August, four planets will be visible before sunrise, but it won’t be until October 2028 that five will again be visible at once, according to NASA. […]

  301. says

    U.K.’s Keir Starmer sees ‘value’ in Trump’s pursuit of Ukrainian mineral rights deal
    Related video at the link.

    British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said there is “value” in an agreement that President Donald Trump is pursuing on Ukrainian mineral rights to repay some of the $500 billion in military aid that the U.S. has sent in support of the country’s war against Russia.

    Starmer, who met with Trump at the White House on Thursday to discuss efforts at ending the Russia-Ukraine war and a possible trade deal with the U.S., said in an interview with NBC News that economic ties between Washington and Kyiv could be considered a form of security.

    “I can see the value in the approach in relation to minerals,” Starmer said in the interview. “That’s a matter between President Trump and President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy. But I can see very clearly the argument that President Trump makes in relation to minerals, and I can also see the validity of his points when he says that if there is a deal on minerals then the U.S. has economic interests in Ukraine, which, if you like, form at least one element of any security guarantee.”

    He added, “That, in its own right, is an important aspect.” […]

    “The stakes, they couldn’t be higher,” Starmer said during a joint news conference with Trump at the White House. He said it was essential that Ukraine be “backed by strength that will stop [Russian President Vladimir] Putin coming back for more.”

    Starmer, standing beside Trump, insisted that any deal should put to rest Russian ambitions and committed to putting “boots on the ground and planes in the sky” to limit future incursions into Ukrainian territory. […]

  302. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Paul Voosen (Science):

    Firings of probationary workers at NOAA thoughout the agency—climate offices, yes, but also meteorologists at the National Weather Service.

    Levi Cowan (Meteorology), screenshot of a long statement:

    […] ongoing bulk workforce cuts would irreparably harm the National Weather Service, NOAA, and other scientists who save innumerable lives by warning people in advance of tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, tsunamis, blizzards […] Your favorite weather apps, TV meteorologists, and private weather companies would also be unable to function without this data or the civil servants who live and breather to synthesize it
    […]
    All of these benefits cost each taxpayer the equivalent of a few cups of coffee per year […] The impact of quality weather forecasts and infrastructure on society is multiplied many-fold by preventing economic disruptions, keeping public transportation efficient, and providing lead time to prepare for and mitigate disasters.

    Levi Cowan:

    Probationary employees across @NOAA and the @NWS are being terminated today, including those in mission-essential roles.

    My own wife is among them, essential to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center’s 24/7 critical mission of seismic monitoring and tsunami prediction to protect the public.

    Kayla Besong: “Hi, this is me, please pay attention to what is going on and call your senators. And please, please, never forget the weight of your vote.”

  303. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    CBS – Hundreds of NOAA employees laid off in latest cuts to federal workforce

    A congressional source told CBS News the layoffs affected 880 NOAA employees. An administration official told CBS News about 5% of the agency’s staff was let go, and nobody who was deemed critical to NOAA’s responsibilities, such as National Weather Service meteorologists, was affected. A source at the National Weather Service disputed this, however, telling CBS News some meteorologists were included in the cuts.

     
    Atul Gawande (Former Global Health lead at USAID):

    Rubio terminated 5800 USAID contracts—more than 90% of its foreign aid programs—in defiance of the courts.

    Here’s a list of just some of the lifesaving awards that were terminated. Nearly all were Congressionally mandated. They’ve saved millions of lives.
    [A long thread.]

    * Allegedly Rubio.
     
    EmptyWheel – Elon Musk’s AI-bola and Marco Rubio’s very busy month

    Rubio simply had no time—especially not blocks of time that fell into the periods when Pete Marocco claims these decisions were made—to review the contracts in depth.

    State needs to claim Rubio had personal involvement in rescinding these contracts. But it is virtually impossible that he did, much less that he had meaningful input on it.

  304. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    NBC – Judge orders OPM to rescind memo directing mass firing of federal workers

    The ruling does not reinstate dismissed employees.
    […]
    “The Office of Personnel Management does not have any authority whatsoever under any statute in the history of the universe, to hire and fire employees within another agency,” [Judge William Alsup] said […] Alsup called probationary employees “the lifeblood of our government.”
    […]
    “Something aberrational happens, not just in one agency, but all across the government, in many agencies on the same day, the same thing. Doesn’t that sound like to you that somebody ordered it to happen, as opposed to, ‘Oh, we just got guidance,'” Alsup posited to local Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelsey Helland, who was the only representative of the government at the hearing.

    “An order is not usually phrased as a request,” Helland said. “Asking is not ordering to do something.”
    […]
    Hundreds of thousands of people could have been affected by the directives

    Kyle Cheney (Politico):

    A federal judge in California has ordered OPM to […] inform other agencies it lacked the authority to issue such a directive. The judge said he can’t stop agencies from terminating those employees on their own but that they cannot be ordered by OPM to do so.

  305. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Wired – DOGE’s Chaos reaches Antarctica

    The United States Antarctic Program (USAP) operates three permanent stations in Antarctica. These remote stations are difficult to get to and difficult to maintain […] Workers present at the station aren’t able to physically leave until October, and a midseason firing, or loss of funding, would present a unique set of challenges.
    […]
    Sources are also bracing for at least a 50 percent reduction in the NSF’s budget due to DOGE cuts. […] “Foreign countries are actively recruiting my colleagues, and some have already left,”
    […]
    in Antarctica, a reversal won’t necessarily work. “One of the really scary things about this is […] “If the South Pole [station] is shut down, it’s basically nearly impossible to bring it back up. Everything will freeze and get buried in snow. And some other country will likely immediately take over.”

  306. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Atlantic – Inside the Collapse at the NIH (The narration mp3 is 19:56)

    For weeks on end, as other parts of the government have restarted funding, officials at the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH, have pressed staff at the agency to ignore court orders, according to nearly a dozen former and current NIH officials […] Even advice from NIH lawyers to resume business as usual was dismissed by the agency’s acting director
    […]
    The lights at the NIH are on; staff are at their desks. But since late January, the agency has issued only a fraction of its usual awards […] As of this week, some of the agency’s 27 institutes and centers are still issuing no new grants at all […] Grant-management officers, who sign their name to awards, are too afraid, the official said, that violating the president’s wishes will mean losing their livelihood.
    […]
    The role of acting director [went to Matthew Memoli, a previously low-ranking flu researcher], who had no experience overseeing awards of external grants or running a large agency. […] he had called COVID vaccine mandates “extraordinarily problematic” […] refused the shot himself […] [he called the term DEI “offensive and demeaning.”] From the moment of his appointment, Memoli became, as far as other NIH staff could tell, “the only person the department or the White House was speaking directly to” on a regular basis
    […]
    HHS wanted funding to stay frozen, and that overruled any legal concerns. […] NIH lawyers were grim in their prognosis. […] individual staff members could be prosecuted for failing to comply with a congressional directive. […] “They’re scared out of their minds,” the official told me. Some worry that, despite what Memoli has said, they’ll be held accountable for somehow violating the president’s wishes, and be terminated.
    […]
    Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now the leader of HHS, has said that he wants to shift the agency’s focus away from infectious disease and downsize the staff.

    At the link, Memoli made some asinine excuses to ignore the Court.

  307. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Aquilino A. Gonell (US Capitol Police):

    I just tried to order some replicas of the gold medal for us. […] Republicans at the U.S. mint have removed the Capitol congressional gold medal from the website for purchase. What a disgrace, disservice, desecration, and betrayal to the sacrifices made by the officers who risked our lives defending the Capitol from the mob of trump supporters.

    Yep, some time after Jan 9. The store page is gone, and the index of varieties of such medals now omits “Those Who Protected the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021”.

  308. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up to that sham investigation predicated on Project Veritas.

    WaPo – FBI investigating Trump EPA claims of fraud in $20B Biden grant fund

    At issue are $20 billion in grants under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund […] The Trump-appointed EPA administrator has alleged publicly the money was awarded with little oversight and said the agency would try to claw back the money from Citibank, which was tasked with disbursing the funds.
    […]
    a senior career prosecutor […] resigned rather than carry out the administration’s demand […] But the investigation did not end […] It is not clear if more evidence has since been obtained or if a warrant was granted elsewhere. But at least three groups that had been awarded money said their accounts have been frozen, and the bank won’t tell them why.
    […]
    “It’s certainly unusual for any case to involve two different U.S. attorney offices declining a case for lack of probable cause and to have the Department of Justice continue to shop it. That’s very unusual. And […] to continue to shop it after a judge turned it down,” he said. “You can’t seize a truck, you can’t seize a backpack, you can’t seize a pair of socks without probable cause.”

  309. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    WSJ – Inside Kash Patel’s whirlwind start at the FBI

    Patel […] plans to shift part of the FBI’s focus from national-security work and foreign threats toward fighting violent crime […] Soon after arriving, Patel cleared out all civil-service staff in the leadership suites and replaced them with political associates
    […]
    On Friday, his first day on the job, Patel ordered officials to relocate 1,500 employees from Washington to cities with high crime rates […] Each move could cost up to $100,000, and the bureau didn’t have the funds to cover such a restructuring, the official said. Government agencies generally aren’t allowed to spend money in ways not authorized by Congress, and often don’t have money for basic employee perks like office coffee. Patel was unmoved. Figure out how to do it anyway, and fast, he told them.

  310. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Catherine Rampell: “110 of 363 Taxpayer Assistance Centers and 5 of 10 call centers are going to be shut down, per a meeting that just happened at the IRS. During tax season.”

    Rando: “When I worked in public accounting during the first Trump admin, I had to call the IRS and was on hold for 6 hours until my phone died. It sounds like Biden fixed the issue and now we’re going back to phone zapping amounts of waiting. In the name of efficiency.”

    Missing the Point: “The only certain things are death and taxes.”

  311. Bekenstein Bound says

    Car companies need to do a better job of making their cars hard to steal.

    Sounds like they really dropped the ball. Remote unlocker systems should obviously be using a crypto challenge: car asks the remote to prove it knows a certain private key; remote proves it without actually revealing the key. Intercepting and cloning the signals would then buy you nothing, given that the car’s challenge involves generating a random number and then asking the remote to send it back digitally signed, and that there’s no way for an outsider to anticipate the car’s random number sequence. Pretty standard crypto stuff. Garage door openers and some other remote unlock/open gadgets should do this too.

    Trump intervention suspected as Andrew Tate, brother Tristan leave Romania for U.S. despite rape charges

    Maybe Trump will appoint him to a cabinet post?

    Office of Global Women’s Issues, perhaps?

    Meanwhile, after the most sloppily run election in Canadian history (much less signage than usual directing people to polling locations from main thoroughfares; missed mailings of information, including one’s polling location, to voters; inaccurate information on some of those mailings that were made; inaccurate information dispensed by phone reps; all the way down to an “enter here to vote” sign being on the wrong door at one location), it seems the Ontario electorate has seen fit to reward Doug Ford for taking away their family doctors with another fucking majority government. How much more creeping Americanization of our healthcare will happen during four more years of this fucker? Enough to make me seriously consider moving to BC, I suspect … though four more years of winters like this one would probably do it, too.

  312. Reginald Selkirk says

    @311

    Sounds like they really dropped the ball. Remote unlocker systems should obviously be using a crypto challenge: car asks the remote to prove it knows a certain private key; remote proves it without actually revealing the key. Intercepting and cloning the signals would then buy you nothing, given that the car’s challenge involves generating a random number and then asking the remote to send it back digitally signed, and that there’s no way for an outsider to anticipate the car’s random number sequence. Pretty standard crypto stuff. Garage door openers and some other remote unlock/open gadgets should do this too.

    What? That is not my understanding of the problem.

    The car and the key communicate with each other over some short-distance technology. The equipment being used simply puts a transceiver near the key and a transceiver near the car, but uses a signal that travels a farther distance. So the actual key is talking to the actual car, but the bad guy’s equipment in the middle is increasing the range.

  314. JM says

    Reuters: US officials must testify about DOGE in lawsuit over access to agency systems

    Trump administration officials must face questioning under oath about the workings of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency in a lawsuit by government employee unions seeking to block the secretive cost-cutting department from accessing federal agency systems, a federal judge ruled on Thursday.
    U.S. District Judge John Bates in Washington ruled that the unions can question four officials – one from DOGE itself and one each from the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services and from Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The order did not name the individual officials that would be questioned.

    Ordering a deposition is not unusual, what is important is when it’s happening and why. This is early in a case for a deposition, still in the preliminary injunction phase. The judge is ordering it because after several requests for information the organization and authority of DOGE is still unclear. This is a significant step towards judges taking a more direct position with DOGE. This is going beyond asking the government for information and instead demanding it.
    I suspect a lot of the problem is that Musk is running DOGE like an executive bringing in an outside consulting firm to force something through. DOGE doesn’t have a fixed command structure other then whoever hired them issues the orders. It’s authority varies from moment to moment depending on what Trump and Musk want DOGE to do. The government is not supposed to work this way, the general organization is set by law and there are requirements for how things work. Employees are supposed to have protection against this sort of political meddling.

  315. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    NYT – How Elon Musk Executed His Takeover of the Federal Bureaucracy

    September 2023, Elon Musk dropped in about an hour late to […] a $50,000-a-head dinner in honor of the presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy […] Wouldn’t it be great, Mr. Musk offered, if he could have access to the computers of the federal government? Just give him the passwords, he said jocularly, and he would make the government fit and trim. […] What started as musings at a dinner party evolved into a radical takeover […] DOGE, has inserted itself into more than 20 agencies […] Musk staff members have sought access to at least seven sensitive government databases
    […]
    the operation came together after the election, mapped out in a series of closely held meetings in Palm Beach, Fla. […] Stephen Miller and Russell Vought helped educate Mr. Musk about the workings of the bureaucracy. […] Mr. Musk and his advisers—including Steve Davis, a cost cutter who worked with him at X and other companies—did not want to create a commission, as past budget hawks had done. They wanted direct, insider access to government systems. […] to quickly penetrate the federal government—and then decipher how to break it apart.
    […]
    At three pro-Trump dinners […] over the course of 2024, Mr. Musk touted the need for a smaller government but struggled to offer specific ideas. At the time, he was infuriated by Mr. Biden and what he saw as deliberate efforts by the administration to harm his businesses Tesla and SpaceX. […] Musk was elated by Mr. Trump’s win, but he had done virtually no preparation for his new initiative.
    […]
    The group included Mr. Musk; Mr. Ramaswamy, who was then DOGE’s co-leader; Mr. Lutnick; and a health care entrepreneur, Brad Smith, who had worked with Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner during the first Trump term. Mr. Smith was a close business associate of [Amy Gleason], who had worked at one of his companies as a chief product officer.
    […]
    In the first week after the election, Mr. Smith gave Mr. Musk a presentation that amounted to a basic budget and civics lesson, explaining how Congress appropriated funds and noting major line items like defense and health care. […] Mr. Musk expressed impatience with Mr. Smith’s caution that the team would need a phalanx of lawyers to help with executive orders and regulations. Mr. Musk wanted to tear down the government to the studs, and saw Mr. Smith’s approach as incremental.
    […]
    The group at Mar-a-Lago brainstormed ways to terminate federal workers. One idea was to motivate them to quit, by forcing them to return to the office […] moving civil servants to work on administration priorities like border security. […] many federal workers would not want to be part of an immigration crackdown and would leave
    […]
    The operation would take over the U.S. Digital Service, which had been housed within the Office of Management and Budget, and would become a stand-alone entity in the executive office of the president. Mr. Musk would not be named the DOGE administrator, but rather an adviser to Mr. Trump in the White House.
    […]
    Musk was obsessed with confidentiality and fearful of leaks. If people filed lawsuits seeking disclosure of his emails or the operation’s records under the Freedom of Information Act, the arrangement would set the administration up to argue that such documents were exempt. In contrast with agencies like the Office of Management and Budget, FOIA does not apply to a president’s White House advisers or to White House entities that advise him but wield no formal power
    […]
    Mr. Davis, who was in charge of DOGE operations, spent much of the transition in Washington, vetting prospective staff. Mr. Musk also personally interviewed some applicants, often over video chats. The candidates went through a process of engineering tests, background checks and logic puzzles
    […]
    Around [December, Amy Gleason], a former civil servant and executive at Mr. Smith’s Nashville-based company, arrived at the White House digital office. […] On Dec. 17, Mr. Farritor submitted an application—not to the Trump transition, but to the Biden administration—to work at the digital office. The application included only one sentence. “Super passionate about serving my country in the U.S.D.S.!” he wrote […] His outreach confused some staff members at the digital services unit. It was not clear to them why someone would be applying with just weeks left of the Biden administration, and with such a lackadaisical submission. […] He was one of at least three applicants to the digital unit in the final weeks of the Biden presidency who were recommended by Ms. Gleason […] None of the candidates Ms. Gleason referred to U.S.D.S. were hired immediately.
    […]
    Ms. Gleason herself would eventually be named to a key role: the acting administrator of the Department of Government Efficiency. […] From their new perch, DOGE team members rapidly deployed across the federal government. The day after Mr. Trump was sworn in, Mr. Farritor was scheduled to be outfitted with a new laptop at the Government Services Administration. The next week, he showed up at U.S.A.I.D.

  316. Reginald Selkirk says

    Tesla Fires Manager Who Complained About Elon Musk’s Nazi Jokes

    Tesla has fired a manager after he wrote a LinkedIn post criticizing Elon Musk’s jokes about Nazis, according to a report from the New York Times. And it’s a great reminder that not only is Musk currently destroying the U.S. government through massive cuts that will change America’s way of life for generations to come, he’s still making time to be a vindictive prick to workers at the half dozen companies he currently controls, like Tesla, X, and SpaceX.

    The fired Tesla manager, identified as Jared Ottmann, worked with the electric vehicle company’s battery suppliers, according to the Times. And Ottmann didn’t appreciate the jokes that Musk made after the billionaire gave two Nazi-style salutes the day President Donald Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20…

    Andrew Tate Arrives in Florida and Florida Already Wants Him Gone

    Despite Donald Trump’s constant claims that other countries are sending their criminals to America, it appears that he’s helped import a couple of alleged human traffickers. Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan, the real-life Disgusting Brothers, left Romania despite facing ongoing criminal charges and touched down in Florida this morning thanks to some apparent prodding from the Trump administration. And while Tate’s arrival is sure to thrill the worst person you know, even Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is trying to figure out how to get rid of the guy.

    Tate and his brother—who are accused of human trafficking, sexual misconduct, money laundering, operating an organized crime group, and committing rape—boarded a private jet Thursday morning that took them from Romania to Fort Lauderdale, Florida after previously being banned from travel while their case was still pending. It’s believed that travel restriction got lifted thanks to pressure from the Trump administration, per previous reporting from the Financial Times—an apparent example of how buddying up to Trump and his circle can get you special treatment.

    However, while Tate might have some favor with Trump and far-right social circles, even some typically Trump-y people are not exactly thrilled to have the Tates on this side of the Atlantic. Ben Shapiro, presenter of his own form of toxic masculinity that is somehow more performative than Tate’s, tweeted “America does not need more self-proclaimed pimps and terror supporters with outstanding criminal allegations of sex trafficking and a history of pornographic distribution” in response to the news of Tate’s arrival. Republican Senator Josh Hawley told reporters, “I would hope our government wasn’t involved in any way. My view is that charges against him are very serious…I don’t think conservatives should be glorifying this guy at all.”

    And then there’s Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has to figure out what to do with Tate now that he’s apparently posted up in his state. During a press conference, DeSantis said, “Florida is not a place where you’re welcome with that type of conduct in the air, and I don’t know how it came to this. We were not involved, we were not notified. I found out through the media that this was something that was happening.” DeSantis also said that Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is actively looking into “what state hooks and jurisdiction we may have to be able to deal with this.”

    Though the right-wing splintering over just how much misogyny everyone is willing to tolerate offers a little schadenfreude, the whole situation is frankly pretty bad for the victims of the Tates’ alleged crimes.

    Per CNN, prosecutors in Romania are now unsure if their case can move forward as it’s unlikely the brothers will ever return. The women who were pressing charges against Tate and his brother issued a statement that they are “in disbelief and feel re-traumatized” and now fear Tate will “continue to spread a violent, misogynistic doctrine around the world.”

  317. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show

    Trump’s federal demolition failing on multiple fronts as courts step in, public opinion turns
    video is 4:29 minutes

    Trump suffers backlash as Musk’s crew attacks services for veterans
    video is 8 minutes

    Even Republicans object as Trump DOJ nominees are disturbingly noncommittal on obeying courts
    video is 7:28 minutes

  318. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    A WaPo writer complies with Bezos’ directive on opinion articles @213.

    In its plain language, this is unobjectionable. […] But many readers I’ve heard from suspect the words are cover for a plan to turn this into a MAGA-friendly outlet. I don’t yet know for sure.
    […]
    “I’m confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America,” Bezos wrote. I am, too. And that is why we must fight to keep Trump from destroying them.

  319. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    John Green (Author of Everything is Tuberculosis, The history and persistence of our deadliest pathogen):

    Essentially ALL TB programs funded by the U.S. Government were officially terminated last night. Horrifyingly, that includes the Global Drug Facility that coordinates the vast majority of TB treatment and tests purchased globally. Shuttering the GDF will stop TB treatment for the entire planet.

    Most countries pay for their own drugs and tests, but the GDF is the underlying infrastructure that makes it all possible, and shutting it down stops treatment for millions of people and will spell their death. I know we’re accustomed to catastrophes. This is a different level of catastrophe. Please, please, please join me in contacting your congressional representatives IMMEDIATELY

    He links to very brief email/call scripts to save USAID—by PartnersInHealth, which needlessly collects personal info and subscribes to a mailing list. I like 5calls better. That site only needs city/zipcode to provide phone numbers.
     
    The Onion – RFK Jr. vows to make measles deaths so common they won’t be upsetting anymore

  320. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/all

    Release of ‘Epstein Files’ sparks MAGA anger and disappointment
    video is 6:33 minutes

    ‘Fundamental corruption’: Chris Murphy blasts Elon Musk’s $2.4 billion FAA scheme
    video is 4:55 minutes

    Our own Brexit? Experts warn of ‘economic mayhem’ thanks to Trump policies
    video is 7:05 minutes

  321. JM says

    #320 Lynna, OM: I was surprised at how quickly parts of the right was upset about the release but from what I have seen it’s just too blindingly obviously badly done. It’s all (or almost all) court documents that are already public. However, somebody went through and covered up Trump’s name in the documents despite them already being public. The public show of giving them to a handful of right wing influencers was too obvious, and a bunch of anti-government conspiracy theorists are not that easily controlled. Pam Bondi managed to do the whole thing so badly even a lot of the MAGA crowd realized it was blatantly pandering.
    The upset is not on a large scale but any break between the right wing and the Trump administration is good.

  322. says

    As the economy shows signs of cooling, many executives sour on Trump.
    Related video at the link.

    “For a while, corporate leaders largely avoided criticizing Donald Trump and his plans. As key economic indicators start to lag, that’s changing in a hurry.”

    Oh, yeah? Why didn’t “corporate leaders” see this coming?

    As Election Day 2024 arrived, the U.S. economy had reached an extraordinary sweet spot, featuring strong growth, low unemployment, falling inflation, record highs on Wall Street, and low gas prices. The Washington Post’s Heather Long explained in an October column, “We are living through one of the best economic years of many people’s lifetimes.” The same day, Politico described the conditions as “a dream economy.”

    The Economist, a leading British publication, also described the U.S. economy as “the envy of the world,” adding that the American economy had “left other rich countries in the dust.”

    After Election Day, all Donald Trump had to do was avoid screwing it up. The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell explained in a column, “How could Donald Trump deliver on his promise to fix the U.S. economy? On Day 1, [he] should simply proclaim he’s already fixed it — and go play golf. By which I mean: Declare victory but do absolutely nothing else.”

    [Trump], of course, had a very different approach in mind, and at least so far, the results haven’t been great. The New York Times reported this week, “The United States economy is starting to show signs of strain as President Trump’s abrupt moves to shrink federal spending, lay off government workers and impose tariffs on America’s largest trading partners rattle businesses and reverberate across states and cities.”

    The latest data on consumer confidence doesn’t look great. The latest data on inflation expectations doesn’t look great. The latest data on new unemployment claims also doesn’t look great. The latest data on consumer spending — you guessed it — doesn’t look great.

    Even on Wall Street, the major stock market indexes — which Trump has long obsessed over — are lower than they were on Inauguration Day, and behind the pace of the major indexes abroad.

    As Semafor reported, the developments have not gone unnoticed among prominent private-sector executives.

    “A difficult time to invest.” “Everybody’s paralyzed.” “I’m sorry I can’t be particularly positive.” “The chaos that is reigning right now is causing everyone to sit on their hands.” That’s Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, ON Semiconductor CEO Hassane El-Khoury, Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson, and Nasdaq Private Market CEO Tom Callahan on the world of Donald Trump right now. Their comments over the past week capture a growing disquiet among business leaders, a month into a presidency that many of them had cheered.

    The report added that as CEOs watch Trump move forward with his agenda, “optimism is fading.”

    This came on the heels of The Wall Street Journal publishing a report with a headline that read, “For CEOs and Bankers, the Trump Euphoria Is Fading Fast.”

    […] as key metrics cool, and the president’s incompetence on economic matters becomes more pronounced, it’s easy to imagine even more corporate leaders shrugging off fears of political reprisals and making their displeasure with Trump known.

  323. says

    Potentially, this is good news, as summarized from the Inquirer by Steve Benen:

    In Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro easily defeated Republican Doug Mastriano in their 2022 race, winning by nearly 15 points. Looking ahead to Shapiro’s re-election bid, however, Mastriano is reportedly eyeing a rematch, which the incumbent would probably see as good news.

  324. says

    Followup to Sky Captain @302 and 303.

    Trump administration slashes NOAA staff, fulfilling Project 2025 goal

    “A Democratic senator said the cuts could be “catastrophic” for the environment and the economy.”

    In last year’s presidential election, voters might not have realized that they were voting for deep cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, but as The New York Times reported, that’s what Americans are getting anyway.

    The Trump administration has begun firing employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, one of the world’s premier centers for climate science. The firings are expected to cost more than 800 people their jobs, out of a total of about 13,000 staff members, according to two people familiar with the situation who declined to be identified for fear of retribution. The notifications went out on Thursday afternoon.

    The Washington Post reported that among the fired employees are those “responsible for producing critical weather forecasts, maintaining radar systems, gathering data from satellites and monitoring key commercial fisheries.”

    The average person might not think much about NOAA on a day-to-day basis, but as Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said in a statement, the effects of these cuts are likely to reverberate.

    “Whether they know it or not, every American in every part of the country relies on NOAA every day — for everything from weather forecasts and storm warnings to the restoration and management of our marine resources and fisheries, which is especially important in Washington state,” the senator said.

    Murray, who serves the vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, added, “Now Trump and Elon Musk are aiming their wrecking ball at NOAA and mass firing scientists, weather forecasters, and so many others for no reason. … Reliable forecasting saves lives and property — so much of our economy hinges on accurate weather predictions, whether it’s agriculture or shipping routes. This is dangerous and could be catastrophic for our economy.”

    […] The Hill reported that the far-right Project 2025 blueprint called for “privatizing and reassigning” nearly all of the agency’s functions. [FFS]

    In fact, the document, published by the Heritage Foundation, specifically referred to NOAA as “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.” [!]

    […] the Trump administration is undermining the agency in a way that’s likely to set it back years.

    A Politico report noted last week that the White House’s “promised assault on federal climate policies” is advancing at a speed “that’s surprising even some of his supporters and critics — and could leave an impact on the planet’s future well after his presidency.”

    That assault is ongoing.

  325. says

    JM @321, thanks for that additional information, especially the detail about Trump’s name being redacted from the Epstein files.

    In other news: One good reason why Trump is saying he didn’t call Ukraine’s Zelenskyy a ‘dictator’

    “The problem is not just that the president sounded coy about labeling his Ukrainian counterpart a “dictator.” It’s also why he hedged.”

    When Donald Trump first started referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “dictator,” it generated some rather pointed humor: Perhaps, some observers joked, if Zelenskyy really were a dictator, the American president might like him more.

    This week, however, Trump tried a new approach: pretending he didn’t say what everyone already heard him say. NBC News reported:

    Asked by a reporter if he stands by his earlier comments calling Zelenskyy ‘a dictator,’ Trump demurred. ‘Did I say that?’ Trump asks. ‘I can’t believe I said that. Next question.’

    [sheesh]

    There was a three-second gap between the question and the answer, suggesting the American president was unsure how best to respond.

    I’m not in a position to say whether Trump was literally unaware of his own choice of words, but if he’s genuinely unsure of his recent rhetorical record, I’m also happy to lend a hand.

    It was last week when Trump, for the first time, published an item to his social media platform that referred to his Ukrainian counterpart as a “Dictator without Elections.” Hours later, the Republican repeated the line at a public event. [video at the link]

    Two days later, Trump was given a chance to walk it back. He did not. Three days after that, he was given another chance to walk it back. He again declined. [embedded links to additional sources are available at the main link]

    Then a reporter asked the American president whether he would use an upcoming deal-signing on mineral rights to apologize to Zelenskyy for the “dictator” comment.

    “I think we’re going to have a very good meeting tomorrow,” Trump replied, adding, “I have a lot of respect for him. We’ve given him a lot of equipment and a lot of money, but they have fought very bravely.”

    And therein lies the rub: When the American president was basically switching sides in the conflict and aligning the United States with Russia, Trump was only too pleased to label the Ukrainian president a “dictator.” But with Zelenskyy en route to the White House, where he’s expected to endorse an agreement over rare earth minerals, Trump was content to play the role of Steve Urkel and ask, “Did I do that?”

  326. says

    U.K.’s Starmer becomes latest world leader to correct Trump to his face

    “On Monday, Trump suffered an embarrassment at the hands of the French president. Three days later, it happened again with the British prime minister.”

    Donald Trump’s first meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was not without hiccups. When the two leaders spoke with reporters in the Oval Office, for example, Starmer appeared proud to tout the partnership between his country and the United States as “the greatest alliance for prosperity and security” in the history of the world.

    It was soon after when [Trump] appeared to dodge a question about coming to the United Kingdom’s assistance in the event that British troops faced a Russian attack in Ukraine. Trump ended up asking Starmer if the British military could “take on Russia by yourselves.”

    The prime minister, understandably taken aback, started to answer, before Trump moved on.

    If it was an attempt at humor, it was not at all funny.

    Nevertheless, as part of the same Q&A, Starmer also took the opportunity to correct Trump’s claim that European countries that provided aid to Ukraine “get their money back.” NBC News reported:

    “We don’t get the money back,” Trump added, before blaming former President Joe Biden for not giving military aid in the form of a loan. “We’re not getting all of [our aid back],” Starmer told Trump, adding: “Quite a bit of ours was given, was gifted.”

    Observers would be forgiven for feeling a sense of déjà vu. After all, it was earlier this week when Trump, in the same room, sat alongside another foreign leader and peddled eerily similar incorrect claims. Trump falsely insisted that the United States had spent $350 billion in aid to Ukraine, while Europe had spent only $100 billion, adding that European countries would get their money back.

    It fell to French President Emmanuel Macron to interrupt his American counterpart to explain — in English — that Trump’s claims were plainly untrue. Trump didn’t appear to believe the facts as presented, but reality remained unchanged: Trump’s claims were false, while Macron’s explanation was correct.

    Having apparently learned nothing from the embarrassing public exchange, Trump made effectively the same mistake just three days later, prompting another world leader to correct him to his face.

    On Monday night, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell told viewers, “Trump became the first American president in history fully humiliated on the world stage by instantly getting caught and corrected in his lie.”

    O’Donnell added that the American president was “humiliated and exposed in a way that no previous president ever could be because no previous president would be pathological enough to try to tell a lie like that right in front of the person he’s lying about. And no previous president could possibly be stupid enough to try to tell a lie like that.”

    After Trump suffered a similar embarrassment with Starmer, O’Donnell said, “There is a kind of person whose humiliation reflex simply doesn’t work.”

  327. says

    […] Trump will soon launch another salvo against civil rights gains in America with an upcoming executive order declaring English the official language of the United States.

    For the entirety of its 249-year history, America has never had an official language. While most Americans speak English, more than 350 languages are spoken here, reflecting the diversity of the population.

    […] the Wall Street Journal reports that his executive order will rescind an order signed by former President Bill Clinton in 2000 that instructed federal agencies to provide accommodation to millions of non-English speakers.

    Clinton’s order was meant to bolster the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin. […]

    The order would not immediately make English the official language. That would require a law passed by Congress. [snipped history of past attempts to make English the official language of the USA]

    Creating an official language would likely give a federal stamp of approval for linguistic racism, which is discrimination against people who do not speak the dominant language in a population. By making one language the only accepted way of speaking, non-English speakers would likely face discrimination in the workplace and in their daily lives.

    […] Of course, Trump and his team have used languages other than English when it helped them to accomplish their goals.

    During a recent visit to Costa Rica, Secretary of State Marco Rubio conducted a press conference in Spanish (he is fluent in the language as the son of Cuban immigrants). Similarly, Trump’s campaign had no problem using Spanish in campaign ads attacking Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 election.

    […] Trump is all-in on changing the law and American tradition, as long as civil rights are rolled back.

    Link

  328. says

    ‘Epstein Files’ release turned into revolting social media stunt by Trump stooges

    After years of promising to release the information the federal government had on now-deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, the Trump administration allegedly did so on Thursday by giving documents to a group of untrustworthy right-wing influencers who are famous for spreading disinformation and hate. [See JM’s comment 321]

    Trump-loving social media personalities Rogan O’Handley, Chaya Raichik, Liz Wheeler, Chad Prather, and Mike Cernovich were seen leaving the White House holding binders that said “The Epstein Files” on the cover. Some of them even posed for smiling, jubilant photos with the binders in hand.

    No actual trustworthy sources were given access to the documents […]

    From the New York Post’s report:

    A source who has reviewed the files said the release spans more than 100 pages, including a list of contacts without further context.

    The person said the unveiling was likely to be a “disappointment” to sleuths eager for bombshell new evidence about the billionaire pedophile’s connection to prominent political and business leaders.

    Josh Gerstein, a respected legal reporter at Politico […] wrote that the binders given to the right-wing influencers were “theater.”

    “These files are not classified. Never were. That’s also not a proper declassification marking,” Gerstein wrote in a post on X.

    Now, Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel are trying to shift blame for the lack of information onto the FBI.

    “Attorney General Pam Bondi REVEALS in a letter to FBI Director Kash Patel that the FBI is WITHHOLDING Epstein documents from her,” right-wing personality and Russian propagandist Benny Johnson wrote in a post on X.

    […] The way the Trump administration handled the document release led to criticism even from MAGA personalities.

    Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, the Republican who chairs a supposed “Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets,” expressed her anger in a post on X.

    “I nor the task force were given or reviewed the Epstein documents being released today… A NY Post story just revealed that the documents will simply be Epstein’s phonebook. THIS IS NOT WHAT WE OR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ASKED FOR,” Luna raged. “GET US THE INFORMATION WE ASKED FOR instead of leaking old info to press.”

    Meanwhile Laura Loomer, an unabashed bigot and Trump superfan who made news during the 2024 campaign when she was seen traveling with Trump, was skeptical in a post on X.

    “I love President Trump. But, how embarrassing for the Trump admin that the release of the Epstein files has been FUMBLED by giving files regarding a landmark pedophile scandal to a group of ‘influencers’ instead of having an official agency release them,” she said. “Not a good look.”

    Loomer also railed on the Trump administration.

    She wrote in an all-caps screed on X:

    THERE ARE NO EPSTEIN FILES!!!
    THE BINDERS ARE PROPS.

    EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE RIGHT WING PAID INFLUENCERS LIED TO ALL OF YOU TODAY!

    THEY ENGAGED IN DECEPTION TO RUN COVER FOR PEDOPHILES!!!

    THEY POSTED SELFIES WITH PROP BINDERS!

    LIARS AND DECEIVERS

    MAGA loyalists have been claiming for years that Trump would reveal the Epstein client list.

    But they conveniently forget that Trump himself was buddies with the very wealthy financier/human trafficker, as evidenced by multiple photos of Trump and Epstein together. […]

    Trump himself was even listed in publicly released documents from a 2015 defamation lawsuit filed by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre. […]

    It’s possible Trump doesn’t want the files released for that very reason.

    In January […] Trump signed an executive order promising to release FBI files on John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., but conveniently left Epstein off the list.

    Other high-profile Trump administration officials have also been linked to Epstein, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who flew on Epstein’s private jet twice.

    During the 2024 campaign, Kennedy tried to defend his ties to Epstein by saying that he’s actually friends with lots of sexual predators—as if that was a defense.

    “I mean, I knew Harvey Weinstein. I knew Roger Ailes. I knew—OJ Simpson came to my house. Bill Cosby came to my house,” Kennedy said.

  330. says

    WTF?

    […] Trump is hosting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday [today] in their first meeting since the United States began direct negotiations with Russia on ending the war in Ukraine and as the countries move closer to securing a mineral rights deal.

    Zelenskyy’s visit is expected to focus in large part on a potential deal with the U.S. on Ukraine’s rare-earth minerals, which are used to make a variety of tech products.

    During the bilateral meeting between the two leaders in the Oval Office, Russian state media outlet TASS was seen inside shooting video. A reporter assigned to the White House pool’s “new media” seat confirmed TASS’s presence.

    […] But a White House official suggested that it was a mistake. “TASS was not on the approved list of media for today’s pool. As soon as it came to the attention of press office staff that he was in the Oval, he was escorted out by the Press Secretary. He is not on the approved list for the press conference,” the official said.

    […] “We’re going to be signing an agreement, which will be a very big agreement,” Trump said.

    An administration official said Trump was expected to strike a more “measured” tone toward Zelenskyy than in recent weeks, when he referred to the Ukrainian leader as a “dictator” and a “modestly successful comedian.”

    […] Before meeting with Trump, Zelenskyy met with a bipartisan group of senators, according to a post the Ukrainian president shared on X. It showed that Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., participated in the meeting.

    “Our discussions focused on the continued military assistance for Ukraine, relevant legislative initiatives, my meeting with President Trump, efforts to achieve a just and lasting peace, our vision for ending the war, and the importance of robust security guarantees,” Zelenskyy said. “We take pride in having strategic partners and friends like the United States. We are grateful for the unwavering bicameral and bipartisan support for Ukraine throughout all three years of Russia’s full-scale aggression.”

    After meeting with Trump, Zelenskyy is slated to deliver remarks to the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank, on Friday afternoon and is expected to meet in the evening with members of the Ukrainian community in the U.S.

    […] On Thursday, Bessent [Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent] said that a deal between the United States and Ukraine for mineral rights had been finalized, saying in a Fox News interview with Larry Kudlow, “The deal is done.”

    […] Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal confirmed that Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers on Wednesday approved the decision for Zelenskyy to sign the agreement.

    [snipped history of previous negotiations]

    Ukraine has some of the world’s largest reserves of titanium and iron ore. Many of the minerals, however, are in areas controlled by Russian troops, according to U.S. officials.

    Russia has proposed a similar deal that would give the U.S. ownership of rare-earth minerals and valuable metals in Russian-controlled Ukrainian territory, an idea that both Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have signaled interest in.

    Zelenskyy this month rebuffed the initial U.S. offer on rare-earth minerals, saying it did not include strong enough security guarantees for Ukraine.

    […] Both Starmer and Macron, who was at the White House on Monday, reaffirmed their support for Zelenskyy during their meetings with Trump.

    Starmer praised Trump on Thursday for creating a “tremendous opportunity to reach a historic peace deal” but cautioned him against negotiating an agreement that favors Russia.

    “It can’t be peace that rewards the aggressor,” Starmer said. “We agree history must be on the side of the peacemaker, not the invader.”

    Macron said at a joint news conference with Trump that any peace agreement must include strong security guarantees for Ukraine.

    “Peace must not mean a surrender of Ukraine. It must not mean a ceasefire without guarantees. This peace must allow for Ukrainian sovereignty and allow Ukraine to negotiate with other stakeholders regarding the issues it affects,” Macron said.

    Link

  331. Reginald Selkirk says

    Firefox deletes promise to never sell personal data, asks users not to panic

    Firefox maker Mozilla deleted a promise to never sell its users’ personal data and is trying to assure worried users that its approach to privacy hasn’t fundamentally changed. Until recently, a Firefox FAQ promised that the browser maker never has and never will sell its users’ personal data. An archived version from January 30 says:

    Does Firefox sell your personal data?

    Nope. Never have, never will. And we protect you from many of the advertisers who do. Firefox products are designed to protect your privacy. That’s a promise.

    That promise is removed from the current version. There’s also a notable change in a data privacy FAQ that used to say, “Mozilla doesn’t sell data about you, and we don’t buy data about you.”

    The data privacy FAQ now explains that Mozilla is no longer making blanket promises about not selling data because some legal jurisdictions define “sale” in a very broad way:

    Mozilla doesn’t sell data about you (in the way that most people think about “selling data”), and we don’t buy data about you. Since we strive for transparency, and the LEGAL definition of “sale of data” is extremely broad in some places, we’ve had to step back from making the definitive statements you know and love. We still put a lot of work into making sure that the data that we share with our partners (which we need to do to make Firefox commercially viable) is stripped of any identifying information, or shared only in the aggregate, or is put through our privacy preserving technologies (like OHTTP).

    Mozilla didn’t say which legal jurisdictions have these broad definitions…

  333. Reginald Selkirk says

    Sam Altman Is Backing a SpaceX Competitor That Wants to Shoot Stuff Into Space With an Enormous Gun

    Rockets are cool, but they’re also being fired into space by Elon Musk, who is cringe. You know what is cool, though? A giant cannon that shoots stuff into space. It might be cheaper, easier, and more efficient, too. That’s the pitch of Longshot Space, an Oakland-based company that’s constructing an enormous gun with the goal of shooting things into space. OpenAI’s Sam Altman is an investor…

  334. says

    About 45 min ago, we were watching the ‘live feed’ zelenskyy Vs tRUMP. The magat was talking over zelenskyy TELLING him what he should do, being an evil thug, playing his tiny accordion (a ‘tell’ that he is lying his ass off). It made us physically and emotionally ill.We had to turn it off. It has taken us a while to calm down and not have a stroke or heart attack from this CRAP.

    This just proves how far down the death spiral we are!

  335. says

    Followup to shermanj @334.

    Trump and Vance berate Ukraine’s Zelenskyy in ugly Oval Office meeting

    Related video at the link. I think we have to count that as one of the worst displays of bullying and incivility we have ever seen in White House. How embarrassing.

    The day before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived at the White House, Donald Trump told reporters, “I think we’re going to have a very good meeting tomorrow.” The Republican president added, in reference to his Ukrainian counterpart, “I have a lot of respect for him.”

    A day later, that “respect” for Zelenskyy was in short supply during an Oval Office meeting that turned unexpectedly ugly. NBC News reported:

    A White House meeting that was intended to kick off negotiations over a deal that would offer the United States access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals unraveled Friday afternoon as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy clashed with President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance in the Oval Office.

    [Not an accurate description. Zelensky made an effort to remain civil, to state facts, and to keep his voice modulated. Trump and Vance went completely off the rails. Zelensky tried to hold his own and to make his points, but Vance and Trump wouldn’t allow it.]

    Americans are generally accustomed to seeing presidents sit down in the Oval Office for cordial and respectful diplomatic gatherings. This was far closer to a contentious shouting match than a friendly gathering among ostensible allies.

    […] The trouble seemed to begin in earnest when Vance argued that diplomacy would lead to peace, at which point the Ukrainian president reminded the vice president that Vladimir Putin’s Russia had ignored earlier diplomatic agreements.

    “He killed our people, and he didn’t exchange prisoners,” Zelenskyy said, referring to Putin. “What kind of diplomacy, JD, you are speaking about? What do you mean?”

    At that point, Vance suggested the Ukrainian president was being “disrespectful” by saying things that were true. [Bluesky post from Aaron Rupar, with video. Mostly J.D. Vance and Trump shouting at Zelensky and talking over him. Sooo bad!! So awful.]

    The discussion, for lack of a better word, descended from there.

    When Zelenskyy explained, for example, that United States would likely feel the effects of Russian aggression in the future, Trump snapped back, “Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel because you’re in no position to dictate that.” Raising his voice, the Republican added, “You’re not in a good position. … You’re gambling with World War III.” [Another Bluesky post from Aaron Rupar, with video.]

    In case that weren’t quite enough, the American president added, “I’ve empowered you to be a tough guy. And I don’t think you’d be a tough guy without the United States. And your people are very brave, but you’re either going to make a deal or we’re out, and if we’re out, you’ll fight it out.”

    As the event neared its end, Trump told Zelenskyy, “You’re not acting at all thankful and that’s not a nice thing. I’ll be honest, that’s not a nice thing.”

    Soon after, Trump published a written statement to his social media platform that read in part, “I have determined that President Zelenskyy is not ready for Peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations. I don’t want advantage, I want PEACE. He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for Peace.”

    The president’s words are often open to some interpretation, though it’s difficult to see such a statement and conclude that the White House is prepared to stand with the United States’ allies in Ukraine.

    Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming wrote in a statement of her own, “Generations of American patriots, from our revolution onward, have fought for the principles Zelenskyy is risking his life to defend. But today, Donald Trump and JD Vance attacked Zelenskyy and pressured him to surrender the freedom of his people to the KGB war criminal who invaded Ukraine. History will remember this day — when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for.” [True]

    A couple of weeks ago, after Trump made a series of moves favored by the Kremlin, former White House national security adviser John Bolton — who served at Trump’s side for a year and a half — told CNN, “They’re drinking vodka straight out of the bottle in the Kremlin tonight. It was a great day for Moscow.”

    Today was another great day for Moscow.

    It looks to me like Trump is encouraged to be even worse than usual when JD Vance is there. They teamed up to berate Zelensky and to demand over and over and over again that Zelensky say how grateful he is to the USA.

  336. says

    Followup to comments 334 and 335.

    NBC News:

    […] The Oval Office shouting match has for now shattered hopes for the minerals deal, which Trump and his allies had presented as an important step forward for Ukraine on the road to peace with Russia more than three years after the war began. [I think Trump did that on purpose. I think he did not want to make a deal with Zelensky. Trump did what Putin wanted. Trump and Vance blew up the meeting on purpose … and then they blamed Zelensky.]

    A White House official told NBC News that Trump and other U.S. officials felt disrespected and asked Zelenskyy to leave the White House, saying that he was not welcome back on Friday. Zelenskyy abruptly departed and a planned joint press conference between the two leaders was called off.

    After departing the White House, Zelenskyy posted on X, “Thank you America, thank you for your support, thank you for this visit. Thank you @POTUS, Congress, and the American people. Ukraine needs just and lasting peace, and we are working exactly for that.”

    The exchange underscored the tension that has emerged between the United States and Ukraine — along with many of its European allies — over the tougher [“tougher”? More like “Putin appeasement”] line that Trump has taken toward the country since coming into office. He has called Zelenskyy a “dictator” and falsely said that Ukraine, not Russia, started the war.

    […] When Vance told Zelenskyy that Ukraine has “manpower problems” in recruiting troops, Zelenskyy challenged Vance, noting he had never even been to his country.

    “I’ve actually watched and seen the stories,” Vance responded. “And I know what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour, Mr. President.”

    “Do you think that it’s respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?” he added.

    […] Zelenskyy has thanked the United States for its help. In Dec. 2022, he spoke before both chambers of Congress and his first words were: “Thank you so much. Thank you so much for that. Thank you. It’s too much for me. All this for our great people. Thank you so much. Dear Americans, in all states, cities and communities, all those who value freedom and justice, who cherish it as strongly as we Ukrainians in our cities, in each and every family, I hope my words of respect and gratitude resonate in each American heart.”

    Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., was part of a bipartisan group of senators who met with Zelenskyy on Friday morning. Asked about the clash in the Oval Office between Trump, Vance and Zelenskyy, Whitehouse said, “That’s what you get for letting Vance in the room.” [I agree.] […]

  337. says

    Followup to comments 334, 335 and 336.

    Zelenskyy fights for Ukraine’s future as Trump and Vance embarrass the US

    Donald Trump and JD Vance teamed up to embarrass the United States on Friday and derail any meaningful efforts toward a peace deal in the Russia-Ukraine War when they decided to publicly berate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during what was supposed to be a diplomatic press conference in the Oval Office.

    The ambush began with Vance launching into a rant, criticizing former President Joe Biden’s handling of Russia’s 2021 invasion of Ukraine. Zelenskyy seemed to irritate the vice president by reminding him that “diplomacy” only works when both sides show that they can be trusted to keep the peace—and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin shattered that diplomacy when he decided to invade Ukraine.

    Tensions quickly escalated when Vance called Zelenskyy “disrespectful” and Trump acted as a Putin mouthpiece, angrily asserting that Ukraine doesn’t “have the cards” to negotiate, and both men repeatedly demanded that Zelenskyy be grateful to the United States for its aid.

    For his part, Zelenskyy remained as calm as one can when being berated by two men who lack any integrity whatsoever. [video at the link]

    CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted an image of Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States Oksana Markarova with her head in her hand during the exchange. [Photo at the link]

    Shortly after the blowup, Trump ran to his Truth Social account to bloviate.

    “We had a very meaningful meeting in the White House today. Much was learned that could never be understood without conversation under such fire and pressure,” Trump wrote. “It’s amazing what comes out through emotion, and I have determined that President Zelenskyy is not ready for Peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations. I don’t want advantage, I want PEACE. He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for Peace.”

    For his part, Zelenskyy remained diplomatic. [See comment 336] [Zelensky’s social media post is also available at the link.]

    Check out how cool Zelenskyy remained during the encounter, and how Vance gives an unhinged Trump a “there-there” pat at the end of it all. [video at the link]

    We all knew this meeting was bound to be awkward. But as with all things involving Trump, it turned out to be far worse than we imagined. Vance and Trump have long been criticized for transparently parroting Putin’s talking points, and their performance during that meeting will do nothing to disabuse anyone of that notion.

    This was a shameful day for the United States.

  338. says

    Posted by a readers of the article quoted in comment 337:

    I felt physically ill after watching that. It was a two on one ambush. Shameful. Embarrassing. Disgusting.
    ————————
    We are being led by lying sociopaths.

  339. says

    Followup to comments 334, 335, 336, 337 and 338.

    Politico:

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came to Washington optimistic that signing President Donald Trump’s desired minerals deal would stabilize their relationship and keep the U.S. on his side.

    Turns out he was walking into an ambush. [Exactly]

    […] Vance, who’d been sitting quietly during Friday’s meeting, took issue with the Ukrainian president’s criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who Zelenskyy referred to as a “terrorist” known for breaking his word as he pleaded for American military backing before a phalanx of TV cameras and journalists.

    “I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office, litigating in front of the American media,” Vance told Zelenskyy. “Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems, you should be thanking the president for trying to bring an end to this conflict.”

    Trump, who had earlier lauded Ukraine’s courage throughout the war and left the door open to the U.S. providing security guarantees, grew more animated as Zelenskyy tangled with Vance, who dismissed his invitation to come see the war in person as a “propaganda tour” aimed at maintaining the West’s financial support.

    […] Zelenskyy struggled to respond as Trump and Vance took turns infantilizing and berating him for what they said was a lack of gratitude […]

  340. says

    Washington Post:

    […] European officials, meanwhile, rallied around Zelensky on Friday night, with several lawmakers and diplomats expressing shock and dismay. European leaders, including in Spain, Lithuania, Moldova and Sweden, all posted messages in solidarity with Zelensky.

    Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X: “Dear Zelensky, dear Ukrainian friends, you are not alone.”

    French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated his support for Ukraine in remarks to reporters Friday evening. “I think we were all right to help Ukraine and sanction Russia three years ago and to continue to do so. And when I say we, it’s the United States of America, the Europeans, the Canadians, the Japanese, and many others,” he said, adding: “These are simple things, but they are good to recall at this moment.”

    The combative exchange was met with shock, and in many cases fury, across the political spectrum in the United Kingdom. The White House fireworks came one day after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s own meeting with Trump. The meeting highlighted mutual good feelings with the mercurial president that were greeted as at least tentatively hopeful signs that Washington could be brought along in support not just for U.S.-U.K. relations but for Ukraine, as well.

    That optimism was quickly swept away as news of the Oval Office shouting match spread. A Conservative Party member described Trump’s and Vice President JD Vance’s treatment of Zelensky “stomach churning.” Several members of parliament called on Starmer to revoke the invitation for a visit with King Charles that he had extended to Trump a day earlier.

    Senior Conservative Party leader Robert Jenrick said in a post on X that he was “sickened by that degrading spectacle.”

    “And to think the bust of Winston Churchill was in the same room as it unfolded,” Jenrick posted. “He would be turning in his grave if he saw that happen. Ukraine’s people, led by President Zelensky, have fought bravely to hold off Putin.”

    Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats Party, posted on X: “This is thuggery from Trump and Vance, plain and simple. They are bullying the brave true patriot Zelensky into accepting a deal which effectively hands victory to Russia. Unless the UK and Europe step up, we are facing a betrayal of Ukraine.”

    […] Ukrainian political analyst Maria Zolkina commended Zelensky for his approach to the meeting […]

    “I fully and completely support and commend how he held himself,” Zolkina said. “In today’s show … Zelensky was not only himself but also embodied each of us: When your main ‘card’ is your right to have your own country, your dignity, and the courage to defend it.”

    “Only the Kremlin is happy about the current situation,” said Ukrainian opposition lawmaker Mykola Kniazhytskyi. “The American people should be sure: Ukrainians want peace most of all.”

  341. says

    Trump And Vance Ambush Zelensky In Prelude To Betrayal.
    Yes, that is an accurate headline.

    “JD Vance egged on the president, setting the stage for the US to abandon a key American ally in televised Oval Office meeting.”

    [Trump and Vance] moved to betray a key U.S. ally that has lost hundreds of thousands of people in fending off a Russian invasion on Friday, taunting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at an Oval Office meeting after spending weeks trying to undermine the bilateral relationship.

    The Oval Office blowup, in which Trump and Vance berated Zelensky as ungrateful while dismissing the prospect that Russian President Vladimir Putin might renege on a potential ceasefire agreement, is a culmination in a weeks-long campaign to choreograph an end to U.S. support for Ukraine. [Yep. As I suspected, the whole thing was planned by Trump and Vance.]

    Zelensky was at the White House to sign away part of the country’s mineral reserves, after Trump spent the past several weeks trying to coerce Ukraine into handing over access to the deposits to the United States. It was a raw exercise of cynicism that appeared calculated to generate mistrust between the two countries, as revealed by the substance of the proposed agreement itself: there was none. The deal, which ultimately Zelensky did not sign on Friday, said little about where such reserves were and how they were to be extracted, and also avoided specifics about what the U.S. would provide in return.

    On Friday, when the deal was to be signed, Zelensky found himself being berated by Trump, with Vance egging his boss on from the side, telling him that the Ukrainian President was being “disrespectful” and that he had “campaigned” for the “opposition,” a misleading (though perhaps telling) reference to Zelensky’s September visit to a Pennsylvania shell factory that the U.S. government expanded to keep the Ukrainian army supplied. [Vance is so, so petty.]

    In the backdrop of it all is the Russian government’s stated aim of extinguishing Ukrainian sovereignty, while reasserting its control over Eastern European countries that currently belong to NATO. For Trump, as always, it’s about grievance. In this case, Trump was apparently incensed at the suggestion that Zelensky had failed to demonstrate personal gratitude and loyalty to him after the U.S., under the Biden Administration, supplied Kyiv with military hardware and intelligence to fend off invading Russian forces.

    Russian officials celebrated the news. Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian President and current security council official, took to X to call Zelensky an “insolent pig” who “finally got a proper slap down in the Oval Office.”

    Friday was an inflection point in a lengthy effort to undermine American support for Ukraine after the Russian government bit its teeth on a failed invasion of its peaceful neighbor in February 2022.

    […] Over the course of 2023, with Republicans now in control of the House, Trump pushed members of Congress to withhold support for legislation that would provide further aid to Ukraine’s war effort. Right-wing media outlets cast Ukraine’s war effort as a giant scam; MAGA members of Congress used their megaphones to broadcast the same, and also portrayed Ukraine’s fight for its survival as somehow being a means for the Democratic Party to finance itself.

    […] For Zelensky, Putin’s untrustworthiness as a negotiating partner is a particularly sore point. He won Ukraine’s 2019 presidential election on a campaign of bringing peace to the country, and met with Putin afterwards in an effort to negotiate an end to what was then a comparatively small-scale war.

    “We signed an exchange of prisoners, but [Putin] didn’t exchange prisoners. What kind of diplomacy are you speaking about?” Zelensky asked, adding that Putin had broken a ceasefire by launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

    Vance then replied that he was “talking about the kind of diplomacy that’s going to end the destruction of your country.”

    Vance then threw in some red meat for Trump, telling Zelensky: “I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media.”

    Vance added that Ukraine has manpower problems, and that Zelensky should be “thanking” Trump.

    […] Once Vance made it about President Trump’s ego, there was no going back. [True. Vance pushed Trump’s ego button.]

    […] Vance continued to pour fuel on the fire:

    “Have you said thank you once? This entire meeting? No,” he said. “In this entire meeting have you said thank you? You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October.”

    From there, Trump lost it.

    “Your country is in big trouble,” he said, adding later: “It’s going to be a very hard thing to do business like this.”

    After the meeting, Trump said on Truth Social that Zelensky had “disrespected” him […]

    If the past is any track record, that means demanding that Zelensky do the one thing he refused to do in the Oval Office on Friday: capitulate.

  343. Jean says

    So TASS was at the white house and Trump and Vance tried to humiliate Zelensky as much as possible and Trump then posted that he doesn’t want his supposed ally to have an advantage in “peace” negotiations (and so much more). If that doesn’t show a clear bias towards Putin and Russia, if not a complete take over, I don’t know what would.

  344. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-throws-zelenskyy-out-of-oval

    “Trump Throws Zelenskyy Out Of Oval Office […]”

    PREVIOUSLY:

    Welp, ICYMI Trump just had a goddamned meltdown, hollering while he tried to shake down Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for Ukraine’s minerals like a bully trying to take a kid’s lunch money. Trump was hoping to declare FLAWLESS VICTORY and ART OF THE DEAL over Ukraine’s mineral rights, but tough shit! Zelenskyy left there without signing any deal, not even a face-saving Canada/Mexico kind of one, and apparently nothing was achieved other than Trump threatening to abandon Ukraine and looking like a dick idiot in front of the world. What else is new?

    Here’s the full 45 minutes, if you want your eyeballs to melt into your brain. And here’s a transcript for HOLY SHIT.
    [video at the link]

    Quick backstory, when Ukraine gave up the world’s third-largest collection of nuclear weapons in 1994, it was because Russia agreed to stay the fuck out of there and not engage in economic coercion, and the US, UK, and France agreed to come to Ukraine’s aid if Russia didn’t stick to that agreement. But in 2014, Putin declared the deal void, occupied Crimea, and Russian-backed separatist forces began fighting to take the Donbas in Ukraine, too. But the Russians were unsuccessful, and negotiated a ceasefire through the Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015. However, a Pooty promise is worth jack and shit, and Russia began that full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years and four days ago.

    So today Zelenskyy met with Trump, flanked by […] JD Vance. Trump started off by being a demeaning asshole as soon as Zelenskyy stepped out of the car: “Oh look. He’s all dressed up today!” (He doesn’t seem to have minded when Elon Trump showed up to preside over his Cabinet meeting dressed in a “Tech Support” T-shirt and trucker cap.) It was all downhill from there.

    A reporter asked Trump if he was too aligned with Putin. Because yeah, claiming that Russia did not invade Ukraine and that Zelenskyy is some kind of dictator sure sounds like Putin is attached to Trump’s brain like some kind of space slug, even if a few days later Trump denied he said it. (“Did I say that? I can’t believe I said that. Next question.”)

    But Trump did not deny his “alignment.” “If I didn’t align myself with both of them we wouldn’t have a deal […] You see the kind of hatred he has for Putin, it’s very tough for me to make a deal with this kind of hatred. The other side is not exactly in love with him either.”

    […] “I’m not aligned with anybody. I’m aligned with the United States of America, and for the good of the world. I’m aligned with the world. I want to get the things set. I’m aligned with Europe. I want to see if we can get this thing done. You want me to be tough? I can be tougher than any human being you’ve ever seen. I’d be so tough. […]”

    NARRATOR: He was not, in fact, aligned with the world.

    Anyway, so TOUGH, says the guy too scared to say one word against Putin, ever. The WORLD clearly saw who invaded […] But Zelenskyy should say thanks, Putin, for violating all the agreements you ever made, stealing 20,000 Ukrainian children, and bombing babies in hospitals?

    Zelenskyy tried to explain, they had a ceasefire deal with Russia already. Russia was supposed to return prisoners. But they did not stick to the ceasefire agreement they agreed to, or return the prisoners either. And Butthair Vance was not trying to hear it, or let anybody else hear it either, and he jumped in to lecture Zelenskyy to be more grateful.

    “I think it’s disrespectful for you to try to come to the Oval Office and litigate this before the American media,” he sneered, as if Trump did not invite him and the media there, and Zelenskyy just dropped by on his way to the Tysons Corner Mall. “You should be thanking the president.” [I snipped a lot because most of it already appears in posts up-thread.]

    So, that’s what happened today. An ally of the United States met with its commander in chief to ask to be part of the negotiations to end (??) a war of aggression against it committed by an enemy of the United States, and the United States threw him out of the White House because he didn’t [description of submissive sexual act].

    No Russia, no Russia. We are the Russia.

  345. says

    Of course Trump drops prosecution of crypto bro who gave him millions

    Just a few months after investing $30 million in a company owned by […] Trump and his two eldest sons, cryptocurrency bro Justin Sun was rewarded with a decision by the Securities and Exchange Commission to drop its fraud case against him.

    Nineteen days after Trump won the 2024 election, Sun, head of the crypto company TRON DAO, announced that he had invested $30 million in World Liberty Financial.

    “The U.S. is becoming the blockchain hub, and Bitcoin owes it to @realDonaldTrump! TRON is committed to making America great again and leading innovation,” he wrote.

    World Liberty Financial is a venture of the Trump family launched last year, run by Trump and his sons Don Jr. and Eric. Trump promoted the company in a post in September, proclaiming, “Crypto is one of those things we have to do. Whether we like it or not, I have to do it.”

    In 2023, under the Biden administration, the SEC announced that it was charging Sun for fraud and other violations of federal securities law. The SEC alleged that Sun had been involved in the “unregistered offer and sale of crypto asset securities,” and also accused him of fraudulent market manipulation.

    A group of celebrities were also charged as part of the scheme, including actress Lindsay Lohan, singer Akon, and boxer and influencer Jake Paul—who endorsed Trump last October.

    The SEC decision following the financial contribution that directly benefited Trump highlights the ease with which he can be bought off. As he did in his first term, Trump has not adhered to traditional ethics guardrails in the presidency and has left himself open via multiple avenues to be bribed.

    Democrats have proposed legislation meant to curb abuses like Trump’s, putting into law what had once been bipartisan tradition. The Modern Emoluments and Malfeasance Enforcement Act, introduced by California Rep. Sam Liccardo, would prohibit federal officeholders and their families from selling and promoting cryptocurrency that would be to their financial benefit.

    Trump has portrayed himself for years as being in favor of “law and order,” but for just a few million he now appears willing to drop the pursuit of justice.

  346. birgerjohansson says

    FDA has suddenly cancelled a meeting where the next flu vaccin was up for discussion. Realingning the alliances in favor of the virus? “I have met several virii, they are great guys”. “The Flu is a great leader, not woke like the ones in the West”.

  347. birgerjohansson says

    Myself @ 342 sorry, I seem to have borked the link.
    .
    Lynna, OM @ 341
    Every time Trump does this shit, I hope people bring up the “pee tape” rumor again.
    Between FOX News, the MAGA Cult, the GOP takeover of SCOTUS and the cowardience of Republican lawmakers, USA has become a rouge country.

  349. says

    The Ukrainian gratitude that JD Vance has apparently failed to notice

    “The vice president suggested that Volodymyr Zelenskyy has never thanked the United States for its support. That’s demonstrably ridiculous.”
    Related video at the link.

    Since becoming vice president, JD Vance has not always been on hand for Oval Office meeting with foreign leaders, but the Ohio Republican eagerly participated in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s White House visit. In fact, Vance played a direct role in the meeting’s descent into an ugly shouting match.

    One of the core problems stemmed from the fact that the vice president did not appear to know what he was talking about.

    At one point during the Oval Office ugliness, for example, Vance told Zelenskyy: “You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October.” (In context, he was referring to Democrats, not Russians.)

    If you’re trying to remember the point in the 2024 campaign in which the Ukrainian president hit the campaign trail in support of the Democratic ticket, go ahead and stop. That never happened. Zelenskyy visited an ammunition factory that made weapons Ukraine used against its Russian invaders, but it wasn’t a campaign event and Zelenskyy made no reference to the candidates.

    That was not, however, Vance’s only factual error.

    The vice president also asked Zelenskyy: “Have you ever said ‘thank you’ once?” President Donald Trump added around the same time, “You have to be thankful.”

    As NBC News reported, Zelenskyy thanked the United States repeatedly in his speech before a joint meeting of Congress in December 2022, when he delivered a passionate appeal for more American aid.

    “Thank you so much. Thank you so much for that. Thank you. It’s too much for me. All this for our great people. Thank you so much,” Zelenskyy said. “Dear Americans, in all states, cities and communities, all those who value freedom and justice, who cherish it as strongly as we Ukrainians in our cities, in each and every family, I hope my words of respect and gratitude resonate in each American heart.”

    Those remarks were not at all unusual. I spent roughly 20 seconds on the Ukrainian leader’s social media feed, and I found an avalanche of instances in which Zelenskyy expressed his gratitude to the United States and the American public. It happened over and over and over and over and over and over again.

    Indeed, after the Oval Office fiasco, the Ukrainian president again wrote online, “Thank you America, thank you for your support, thank you for this visit. Thank you @POTUS, Congress, and the American people. Ukraine needs just and lasting peace, and we are working exactly for that.”

    […] to answer Vance’s question — “Have you ever said ‘thank you’ once?” — the Ukrainian leader has said “thank you” far more than once.

  350. says

    NBC News:

    The State Department this week terminated a U.S. Agency for International Development initiative that has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to help restore Ukraine’s energy grid from attacks by the Russian military, according to two USAID officials working on the agency’s Ukraine mission.

  351. says

    More on the international response to Trump and Vance ambushing Zelensky in the White House:

    […] “Your dignity honors the bravery of the Ukrainian people. Be strong, be brave, be fearless,” President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said Friday on social platform X.
    “You are never alone, dear President @ZelenskyyUa. We will continue working with you for a just and lasting peace.”

    Germany’s Friedrich Merz, whose party won the country’s national election last weekend and is poised to be the next chancellor, said Berlin stands with Ukraine “in good and in testing times.”

    “We must never confuse aggressor and victim in this terrible war,” Merz wrote Friday on X.

    […] Moldova’s President Maia Sandu wrote Friday that the truth “is simple.” “Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia is the aggressor. Ukraine defends its freedom—and ours,” she said. “We stand with Ukraine.”

    Some European leaders stood by Trump.

    Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a close ally of Trump’s in Europe, praised Trump’s handling of the meeting, proclaiming that “strong men make peace, weak men make war.”

    “Today President @realDonaldTrump stood bravely for peace,” Orbán said on X. [Bullshit] “Even if it was difficult for many to digest. Thank you, Mr. President!”

    European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, of Estonia, argued that the “free world needs” a new leader.

    “Ukraine is Europe,” Kallas wrote in an X post Friday. “We stand by Ukraine. We will step up our support to Ukraine so that they can continue to fight back the aggressor.”

    She added that after Friday’s meeting, it “became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge.”

    […] Zelensky thanked Trump after their meeting and reiterated that Ukraine “needs just and lasting peace, and we are working exactly for that.”

    Link

  352. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    WaPo – Justice Department deletes database tracking federal police misconduct

    The database was first proposed by Trump in 2020 in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd. But it wasn’t created until two years later when an executive order from President Joe Biden launched the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database. Trump issued an order last month revoking Biden’s orders, and the database.
    […]
    The policing order revoked by Trump laid out steps to improve use-of-force standards and research, ensured appropriate use of body cameras, and required anti-bias training, in addition to creating a misconduct database.
    […]
    “This database helps law enforcement agencies ensure they are not hiring officers who have been criminally charged, fired for misconduct, or are otherwise unsuitable candidates,”

  353. says

    And [sigh], this is the assessment from Fox News host Sean Hannity:

    Now, we are seeing that Zelensky releasing this statement after he got lit up by, frankly, being very arrogant before President Trump and JD Vance, and in the end, just asked to leave the White House because he came in with a horrible attitude.

    The biggest loser today is him. Because now the White House is talking about, okay, they’re just going to double down their efforts to get rid of waste, fraud, abuse in government, and that means that Zelensky and Europe now are on their own because Zelensky was being — was just not being smart. He had the opportunity of a lifetime to partner with The United States. How stupid.

    Here is the response from Fox News host Jesse Watters:

    […] It’s kinda like when you wanna propose, so you go to the girlfriend’s dad. You go into his house. Can I have your blessing? And he goes, well, do you have any money for a ring? Nope. Do you have a job? Nope. Do you have a house? Nope. And then you start arguing with the dad, and he kicks you out of the house, and you go back to the girlfriend. The girlfriend’s like, well, how did it go? Not good. It did not go very well.

    Zelensky screwed up. Thirty minutes before this happened, everything was fine. Everyone was getting along fine. And then a reporter asked Trump about aligning with Russia. Trump says, I’m just aligned with America, and I’m aligned with the world. And then Vance jumps in and he says, well, you know, you can talk tough and beat your chest, but that’s not gonna help us with diplomacy. And then Zelensky, out of nowhere, zeroes in on Vance, [Nope, that’s not accurate] and he says, you don’t know anything about diplomacy. What do you know about diplomacy? You can’t negotiate with Putin. He can’t be trusted. He violates ceasefires.

    Well, then what are we all doing here? Why did he fly all the way here to sign this mineral deal if you can’t negotiate with Vladimir Putin? What’s the whole point of this? We’re not gonna give Zelensky a security pact. It’s not in America’s interest to have to defend that country with American soldiers if Russia goes back in. The mineral deal is the best security that Zelensky’s ever going to get.

    And if you didn’t like the language of the deal, stay in Kyiv. Hash it out for another week and then fly here. Don’t fly here and get all emotional. [He’s accusing Zelensky of getting emotional?]

    We run the world. This is America’s world. He’s our proxy. This world -— this ends when we say it ends. It doesn’t end when Zelensky — if he wants to go it alone, go it alone. I’m glad we helped him. Russia invaded, we got his back. At first it was the right thing to do. But now it’s not. Now the war’s over and he doesn’t recognize it’s over, and reality’s going to eat this guy alive if he doesn’t recognize this.

    If you were in the room when Roosevelt was telling Churchill to liquidate his colonies, I don’t think it was all tea and crumpets. Or if you were Bush yelling at Musharraf when Al Qaeda was in Pakistan, no. Or Bibi getting his ear chewed out by Joe Biden. This stuff happens all of the time behind the scenes. We were just lucky enough to have it happen right in front of the cameras.

    Well, I will say this, Fox News hosts are spinning this really hard. The all-out effort at spinning the interpretation tells you something. It was really bad. Trump looked bad. Vance looked bad. So now the Fox News hosts will be sweating as they spin and spin for days.

  355. says

    Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Zelenskyy was a shameful moment for America

    “The ‘leader of the free world’ has abandoned his post — and his MAGA admirers ridiculously call it ‘peacemaking.'” By Anthony L. Fisher, Senior Editor, MSNBC Daily

    After watching the Oval Office exchange on Friday between President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance and their invited guest, Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelenskyy — I’m feeling some unusually visceral thoughts about my country. Betrayal, anger, embarrassment. Shame.

    We already know the post-World War II order is over. The U.S. voted against its allies — and with the dictatorships of North Korea and Belarus — at the United Nations this week, opposing a resolution condemning Russia for invading Ukraine and occupying about 20% of its land. We’ve already heard Trump praise Russian President Vladimir Putin (many times) and call Zelenskyy a “dictator.” At a Cabinet meeting this week, Trump dismissed pleas from our NATO allies, such as U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, to provide a “backstop” security guarantee in Ukraine, saying, “We’re going to have Europe do that.”

    But Trump and Vance’s display in the Oval Office presented America to the rest of the world in a dramatically shameful light, making it plain that our government is no longer a worthy ally to liberal democracies around the world.

    Zelenskyy expressed his appreciation to Trump for what he described as a “first step toward real security guarantees” for Ukraine, while also insisting there should be “no compromises” with the “killer” and “terrorist” Putin. Shortly after, Trump said that Zelenskyy ought to be more “grateful” and that his “hatred” for Putin makes it “tough to make a deal.” [Well that certainly shows Trump’s attitude clearly.]

    Declaring himself a peacenik, Trump wrongly claimed his position — which is essentially to pre-emptively hand over Ukraine’s bargaining chips at the negotiating table, give Putin whatever he wants and take him at his word that he won’t reinvade — is more in line with Europe and the world’s sentiments than Zelenskyy’s. [video at the link]

    Trump, typically incoherent, rambled and repeated himself, so his vice president helpfully stepped in, saying Putin invaded Ukraine because then-President Joe Biden was weak and “the path to peace and prosperity is diplomacy.”

    Zelenskyy, armed with facts to counter Vance’s MAGA rhetoric, noted that Putin first invaded Ukraine in 2014 (Trump incorrectly tried to correct him, saying it was 2015), and that he occupied Crimea and had been aggressing on Ukrainian territory ever since, including the four years of Trump’s first term. He also noted that Putin’s brutal 2022 invasion was itself a violation of a previous ceasefire — bringing further absurdity to the idea that Putin’s promises for “peace” can be trusted.

    That was when Vance went into attack poodle mode, scolding Zelenskyy as “disrespectful” for trying to litigate the matter (i.e. telling the truth with verifiable facts) in front of the American media. Vance barked that he should be thanking Trump and not attacking the administration that is “trying to prevent the destruction of your country.”

    Zelenskyy, remarkably, kept his cool, trying to get in a word over the shouts of Trump and Vance, warning them that even though the U.S. has an ocean between itself and Europe, that the country would “feel” the consequences of capitulating to Russia “in the future.”

    That’s when it completely went off the rails.

    Trump bellowed, “You’re gambling with World War III” and attempted to humiliate Zelenskyy by saying “you don’t have the cards.” (The Ukrainian president replied that he’s not playing cards, he’s fighting a war.) Trump did a mock impersonation of Zelenskyy saying, “I don’t want a ceasefire!” Vance said Zelenskyy should have raised his objections in private and not in front of the media, adding, “We know that you’re wrong.”

    When a reporter asked Trump what would happen if Putin broke a future ceasefire, the leader of the free world replied, “What if a bomb drops on your head right now?” before going on another incoherent rant about how Putin himself had suffered through the “phony witch hunt” and blamed the “Russia Russia Russia” investigation on Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and “shifty Adam Schiff.” [OMG, Trump highlighted Putin’s suffering?]

    He then turned to Zelenskyy and said, “I’ve empowered you to be a tough guy and I don’t think you’d be a tough guy without the United States,” adding that if he doesn’t “make a deal” with Putin — the U.S. is “out.” Then Trump abruptly ended the press conference, noting “this is going to be great television.” As reporters were shunted out of the room, Vance reassuringly patted his boss on the arm.

    Minutes after the meeting ended, Trump posted to his social media site Truth Social: [snipped Trump’s blather] Trump also reportedly kicked Zelenskyy out of the White House.

    Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s nominal president during the four years from 2008-12 when Putin pretended he wasn’t actually in power, posted to X: “The insolent pig finally got a proper slap down in the Oval Office. And @realDonaldTrump is right: The Kiev regime is ‘gambling with WWIII.’”

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio — who sat silently next to Vance during the Oval Office fiasco — in February 2022 tweeted: “The people of #Ukraine are tough people who will NEVER accept being ruled by #Putin … Men, women, children, the elderly, they are going to fight … And they are going to maim & kill alot [sic] of Russians.” Now that he works for Trump, Rubio posted this on Friday: “Thank you @POTUS for standing up for America in a way that no President has ever had the courage to do before.” [Rubio is a lickspittle]

    I’m not one for extensive self-flagellating over America’s many flaws. There are sins committed by this country’s government and its people, both recent and historic, that can never be fully atoned for — but which we should always be working to understand and strive to never repeat. Still, I don’t walk around life thinking the United States is irredeemable. ​​Far from it, actually. […]

    And yet, those few minutes in the Oval Office are destined for the history books as a catastrophic and disgraceful moment in the story of America.

    Our president, for almost a century known as the “Leader of the Free World,” has abandoned that post. We, as represented by our government, offer support only in mafia-esque transactional terms (“You give us your nation’s natural resources, and we’ll protect you, maybe”). Our leaders parrot the propaganda of an imperialist dictator who has acted as one of America’s primary adversaries over the past two and a half decades. And a democratic ally that has miraculously survived an existential attack by its nuclear-armed neighbor for three years was humiliated on the world stage and essentially blamed for fighting back against Putin’s aggression.

    Most perversely, the president’s admirers call this “diplomacy” and acting toward “peace.”

    It’s too soon to say “we’re the bad guys,” but it’s not at all too soon to say “we’re on the side of the bad guys” — and historic alliances and mutual values mean nothing to us anymore. The “shining city on a hill” is a gangster’s paradise. It’s a shameful day for America.

  356. Reginald Selkirk says

    King Charles invites Trump for unprecedented second UK state visit

    Donald Trump accepted an invitation from King Charles on Thursday to visit Britain, making the U.S. president the first elected political leader in modern times to be hosted for two state visits by a British monarch.

    British Prime Minister Keir Starmer handed Trump a letter from Charles in front of reporters at the White House ahead of formal meetings expected to discuss Ukraine and global security as well as bilateral issues…

  357. Reginald Selkirk says

    Intel delays $100 billion Ohio chipmaking site to next decade: First fab now coming online in 2030

    Intel has revised the construction schedule for its Ohio One semiconductor manufacturing site in New Albany, Licking County, delaying its launch to the next decade. The first phase (Mod 1) will now be completed in 2030, with production starting between 2030 and 2031. Mod 2 is set to finish in 2031, with operations launching in 2032. The company is slowing down the facility’s construction to align its investments with market conditions. However, Intel stressed that it could accelerate construction if needed.

    Intel originally planned to complete the first phase of its Ohio site — once called the Silicon Heartland — in 2025. However, massive investments amid uncertain demand made Intel push the completion of the first module to 2027 or 2028…

  359. whheydt says

    Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #357…
    At the rate That Felon in the White House is tanking the economy, I wouldn’t put down a bet that the Ohio fab will ever be built.

  360. JM says

    @356 Reginald Selkirk: The British are not stupid, anything to keep him busy. Charles can take him a golf tour of historical and elite golf courses. Keep him busy for a good week.
    In reality this is probably Charles just trying to do something historic. Charles has spent decades waiting to get the throne, knows he doesn’t have long and likely wants to do some things so he won’t just be a line on a list of British Royalty. This isn’t much but it is something he can do.

  361. JM says

    @357 Reginald Selkirk: It’s more then just market conditions. Intel is in bad shape, AMD is ahead on CPUs and Nvidia is crushing on graphics and specialized processing (AI&bit coin mining but the chips have more uses then that). Intel has not made any progress in catching up for some time. Intel would be in big trouble but they have good enough connections with the box computer makers that they are holding on.
    Intel is somewhat gambling that they can get enough subsidies to make a fab in the US really profitable. The government, military and businesses are getting nervous about being too invested in Taiwan. With Trump in office Intel can get nice words but getting subsidies is hard and promises of future help fairly worthless.

  362. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house

    ‘There is no question this was a setup’: Ambassador Susan Rice on Trump’s Oval Office ambush of Zelesnkyy
    video is 11:59 minutes

    ‘Russia is literally celebrating’: Oval Office ambush shows the American president stands with Putin
    video is 9:39 minutes

    ‘This is the point you resign’: Former U.S. National Security Advisor calls on Marco Rubio to resign
    video is 9:00 minutes

    ‘On an errand for Vladimir Putin’: Nicolle Wallace on Trump and Vance’s ambush of Zelenskyy
    video is 10:55 minutes

  364. says

    The video segment referenced in comment 363 shows the entire Oval Office contretemps, so it provides all the context. Chris Hayes provides very good commentary and analysis.

  365. says

    Thomas L. Friedman:

    What happened in the Oval Office on Friday — the obviously planned ambush of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine by President Trump and Vice President JD Vance — was something that had never happened in the nearly 250-year history of this country: In a major war in Europe, our president clearly sided with the aggressor, the dictator and the invader against the democrat, the freedom fighter and the invaded.

    […] It is hard to express what a break this is in American foreign policy. We stood on the side of liberty and those fighting for it around the world. There are times the isolationist forces in our population have held us back and had to be persuaded. There have been times when — in support of the larger cause of liberty — against dangerous foes like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, we had to align ourselves temporarily with dictators.

    But I can’t think of a single time when an American president declared that the democratically elected leader of a country preserving liberty was a “dictator” who started the war with his neighbor — when it was the vicious neighboring dictator who actually started the war.

    If you listen to Trump, everything we have done for Ukraine is pure altruism. We have no actual interests at stake ourselves in its fate or the triumph of liberty there. We have no actual interest in the fact that Ukraine is protecting the European Union — a giant, pro-American alliance of free markets and free people. It doesn’t matter a whit to Trump what happens to the E.U. or Ukraine. All that matters is that Zelensky says “thank you” louder for our altruism and that, in the middle of his war of survival, sign over a generation of Ukraine’s mineral wealth to us.

    This is a total perversion of U.S. foreign policy practiced by every president since World War I. My fellow Americans, we are in completely uncharted waters, led by a president, who — well, I cannot believe he is a Russian agent, but he sure plays one on TV.​

    New York Times link

  366. Bekenstein Bound says

    The equipment being used simply puts a transceiver near the key and a transceiver near the car, but uses a signal that travels a farther distance. So the actual key is talking to the actual car, but the bad guy’s equipment in the middle is increasing the range.

    That doesn’t make sense. That doesn’t help a thief get into the car unless they use this thing, wait for the owner to be returning to the car, and then the owner cooperates by pushing the door-unlock button much sooner than normal, and then the thief who’s waiting closer to the car beats them there and gets in first.

    Why would the owner push their keyfob’s door-unlock button earlier? They a) don’t know that the range has been extended and b) don’t want the door to be unlocked too soon, lest someone else sneak in ahead of them!

    DeSantis said, “Florida is not a place where you’re welcome with that type of conduct in the air,

    Oh really. I’ll believe you’re sincere when you say the same thing to Trump’s face the next time he tries to visit Mar-a-Lago.

    Meanwhile … I don’t suppose DeSantis can simply arrest them and extradite them back to Romania, citing the international warrant for them?

    [Trump], of course, had a very different approach in mind, and at least so far, the results haven’t been great.

    When the 1908 hurricane made landfall in Galveston, the results weren’t great. When there was a megathrust earthquake in the Indian Ocean in 2004, the results weren’t great. Trump getting into office again is a catastrophe.

  367. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: Bekenstein Bound @366:

    Why would the owner push their keyfob’s door-unlock button earlier?

    Many cars with passive keyless entry don’t require pressing the button, or even removing the fob from one’s pocket. The car unlocks from proximity alone or proximity plus grasping the door handle.

    A signal from the car wakes up the fob to broadcast an id back.

    StackExchange – How does a car with passive keyless entry know where the key is?

    Someone on GitHub described three types—”A one-way RKE” (button broadcasts a periodically changing code), “Two-way RKE” (challenge-response), and “Passive RKE” (car wakes fob, to broadcast its id)—in the introduction to their own replay attack on the first type.

    Wired – Just a Pair of These $11 Radio Gadgets Can Steal a Car (Passive RKE)

    How to mitigate vulnerabilities in keyless entry systems
    This goes in to further detail on the above types.

  368. lotharloo says

    I understood what is going on in the stupid head of Donal Trum. He is afraid of Russia.

  369. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Roger Sollenberger (Political journalist):

    A DOGE staffer appears to be posting DOGE work on his public GitHub […] Jordan Wick, also created a repository for a Twitter DM-downloading tool just 3 days ago. He posted work on geospatial data in Jan—undersea cables, ports & “critical minerals.”

    Last May, Wick’s hyperlocal SanFran-based startup (AccelerateSF) expanded to sell AI efficiency systems to the federal govt, changing to “AccelerateX.” They claimed 2 large “transit agency” clients. (DOGEr Anthony Jansco was also behind the group)

    On Feb 18, Wick uploaded “org chart_viewer” to his GitHub, with fields for employee union status, full-time status, location, & a “satisfaction” rating (out of 5). He also uploaded fields to filter searches for depts in the Small Business Adminstration.

    On Feb 24, Wick uploaded code related to a search tool that allows viewers to filter employees by office, union status, and whether positions are statutorily mandated. (Project 2025 seeks to dismantle federal govt unions.)

    The Twitter DM downloader: From Feb 25-27, Wick uploaded and updated a tool for downloading Twitter DMs. It’s entirely unclear what the hell this is for.

    Again, Wick’s GitHub is currently public. It’s not clear if he knows. […] In early January, weeks after DOGE staff—including Wick’s business partner—reportedly began recruiting for DOGE, Wick uploaded repositories for sensitive geospatial data. They include int’l ports, undersea cables, and multiple nodes for mineral deposits.
    […]
    In Feb 2024, an AccelerateX LLC was incorporated in Whitefish, Montana, a ski resort town. The company’s principal office, however, is in Ft. Lauderdale. The LLC isn’t registered as a foreign entity with the state of Florida.

    * Hours later, the repositories were no longer public.
    * The Twitter downloader seems pedestrian. The thread screenshotted its readme. Fill a config file with one’s own credentials, click a button, get a csv file of DMs. Twitter has an API for downloading one’s own DMs. I’ve written a tool for that myself. Since Musk’s acquisition, it got limited to return only recent messages IRC. The surprising thing is he’s spending time on that now while wrecking the government. Handy to preserve incriminating evidence on the rest of DOGE for leniency, I guess.
    * Lynna previously posted about Jordan Wick at the Labor Department with PuTTY. Elsewhere he was reported at CFPB, too.
    * DOGE roster articles say he used to work for Waymo, a self-driving car company.

    Rando: “Also note the detail that he’s just incorporated a company to sell AI tools to governments. That is the end game. These baby coders really believe they will be able to run a government with their AI software.”

  371. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    The Jordan Wick thread @369 screenshotted an AccelerateX tweet.

    We’re building a modern OS for the government. We’re building AI-powered solutions for the 3 use cases with the most outsized impact: Expenditure reduction, Automating tedious workflows, Co-pilot for following regulations. Our goal: Equip the government for the AGI era.

    It will do stuff, things, and whatnot!
    The AI will follow regulations about as well as the devs.
    “Artificial general intelligence” hopeful sci-fi even in deluded AI circles. Equipping for that era is promising vaporware.

  372. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    EmptyWheel:

    Five days ago, I wrote a post [#119] laying out how a lawsuit forced OPM to write a privacy policy which constrained Elon’s efforts to force the entire govt to beg him for a job. They changed that privacy policy today.

    Here are the developments since:
    1) Motion for sanctions, written 6 days ago.
    2) Response

    [Gov council saying they had no reason to believe the “it’s voluntary” PIA was inaccurate, no idea the “5 bullets or resign” email would happen, thus not a lie, we good?]

    3) Brand new PIA eliminating voluntary language.

    Rando: “‘We submitted a PIA that contained false information for no reason’ incredible winner of an argument I’m sure.”
     
    Her link to the new PIA is broken, so here it is.
    OPM – Government-Wide Email System privacy impact assessment (dated Feb 28)

    Individual federal government employees can decline to provide information by not responding to the email. The consequences for failure to provide the requested information will vary depending on the particular email at issue.

    There is a risk that individuals will not know their information is being collected, maintained, and distributed through the GWES. This risk is mitigated by the publication of this PIA and through various statements provided to government employees explaining the information collection at issue.

    The original voluntary PIA can be read at #29.

  374. Reginald Selkirk says

    Exclusive: Hegseth orders Cyber Command to stand down on Russia planning

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week ordered U.S. Cyber Command to stand down from all planning against Russia, including offensive digital actions, according to three people familiar with the matter.

    Hegseth gave the instruction to Cyber Command chief Gen. Timothy Haugh, who then informed the organization’s outgoing director of operations, Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Ryan Heritage, of the new guidance, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

    The order does not apply to the National Security Agency, which Haugh also leads, or its signals intelligence work targeting Russia, the sources said…

  375. Reginald Selkirk says

    SEC Drops Charges Against Chinese Billionaire After He Pumps $30 Million Into Trump’s Crypto Scheme

    Chinese crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun’s legal troubles seem to be fading away. In March 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged him with manipulating the market. After Trump was elected, he dumped $30 million into the President’s World Liberty Financial crypto scheme. Now a federal judge has granted him a stay in the SEC’s investigation…

  376. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show

    No spine required: Republicans immediately dump support for Zelenskyy after Trump meltdown
    video is 3:06 minutes

    Maddow: Two new details learned from Trump’s Oval Office meltdown
    video is 4:58 minutes

    ‘Who’s that good for?’: Maddow connects the dots on Donald Trump’s behavior toward Russia
    video is 11:53 minutes

  377. says

    Cartoon: The ottoman emperor

    Good followup to the Rachel Maddow segment mentioned in comment 376. ‘Who’s that good for?’: Maddow connects the dots on Donald Trump’s behavior toward Russia.

  378. says

    […] I find myself having very little to add to the general feeling of intense disgust and revulsion that I know each of us — and millions of Americans — feel about the vomit-inducing performance this nation was forced to witness today in the Oval Office. The scope of the Trump-Vance treachery is quite literally unparalleled in American history, but the pushback, thus far, thankfully appears to be equally intense.

    I want to defer this piece, though, to conservative columnist for the Atlantic, Tom Nichols, because I think his perspective speaks even more to the moment than my — or any of our — justified disgust.

    As Nichols writes:

    Leave aside, if only for a moment, the utter boorishness with which President Donald Trump and Vice President J. D. Vance treated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House today. Also leave aside the spectacle of American leaders publicly pummeling a friend as if he were an enemy. All of the ghastliness inflicted on Zelensky today should not obscure the geopolitical reality of what just happened: The president of the United States ambushed a loyal ally, presumably so that he can soon make a deal with the dictator of Russia to sell out a European nation fighting for its very existence.

    The fact is that this planned “ambush” of Zelenskyy was a tactic, one intended to justify the complete abandonment of Ukraine to Vladimir Putin. All of it was carefully orchestrated. And because of that it’s fitting that it was instigated by both Trump and Vance, a tag team veritably made for each other in their mutual embrace of betrayal of this country’s allies to advance Putin’s interests as a new American policy.

    Nichols:

    The sheer rudeness shown to a foreign guest and friend of the United States was (to use a word) deplorable as a matter of manners and grace, but worse, Trump and Vance acted like a couple of online Kremlin sock puppets instead of American leaders. They pushed talking points that they either knew or should have known were wrong.

    The fact that Republicans are either finding novel ways to endorse this travesty or twisting themselves into pretzels to try to justify it is just more evidence of that party’s complete moral bankruptcy.

    Nichols’ own personal reaction is worth sharing:

    Today’s meeting and America’s shameful vote in the United Nations on Monday confirmed that the United States is now aligned with Russia and against Ukraine, Europe, and most of the planet. I felt physically sick watching the president of the United States yell at a brave ally, fulminating in the Oval Office as if he were an addled old man shaking his fist at a television. Zelensky has endured tragedies, and risked his life, in ways that men such as Trump and Vance cannot imagine. (Vance served as a public-relations officer in the most powerful military in the world; he has never had to huddle in a bunker during a Russian bombardment.) I am ashamed for my nation; even if Congress acts to support and aid Ukraine, it cannot restore the American honor lost today.

    But, questions of American “honor” aside, and questions of our “disgust” notwithstanding, the magnitude of what was deliberately thrown away today by Trump — and (let’s be real) by those who voted for him — is something that we should all keep in mind as the coming months unfold.

    As Nichols writes:

    [N]o matter how disgusted anyone might be at Trump and Vance’s behavior, the strategic reality is that this meeting is a catastrophe for the United States and the free world. America’s alliances are now in danger, and should be: Trump is openly, and gleefully, betraying everything America has tried to defend since the defeat of the Axis 80 years ago. The entire international order of peace and security is now in danger, as Russian autocrats, after slaughtering innocent people for three years, look forward to enjoying the spoils of their invasion instead of standing trial for their crimes.

    The thing about betrayal is that, under just about any circumstances, it’s not fixable or forgivable. There’s no going back (And as an aside, I would suggest that those chuckleheads who think the U.S. economy can possibly withstand the consequences of this type of betrayal are whistling past the graveyard).

    Finally, I don’t think I’m alone in feeling sadly, tragically, glad that my father is no longer alive to see this. At least he passed away when we had a real president, not a stooge of Vladimir Putin.

    Link

  379. says

    […] Thoughts and prayers.

    Let’s head on over to Oklahoma, where former Republican state Rep. Sheila Dills, a virulent transphobe and Trump supporter, was outraged by Trump’s cuts to the National Institute of Health and their impact on Oklahoma universities. On a now-deleted comment on local station KOTV’s Facebook page, she wrote:

    The stories I am hearing first hand are devastating. I am all about efficient government and overall support the current administration, but efficient government doesn’t matter if we don’t fund LEGITIMATE research that protects us from deadly toxins. I know a young lady who has done everything right, poured her heart and soul into her education, has won every award possible, is the top of her PHD class at OU and whose research as a STUDENT will lead to therapeutics for deadly diseases. BUT, now she has watched fellow Doctoral students be stripped of their funding (much more than “back office” costs, we are talking entire fellowships)and fears everyday she will be next and the bright future she has earned at Vanderbilt for her Post Doctoral studies through total sacrifice will be taken away. A strong economy and military do not matter if we are all dead from infectious diseases! That special research student is my daughter!

    It’s always “spending is bad unless it helps me” with these people. […] Everyone else’s jobs? Inessential. Their own jobs? Essential.

    What makes MAGA so dangerous is its utter lack of empathy. We can’t get a solid progressive majority until we figure out how to teach people that we are all in this together. [Are they teachable?]

    Speaking of, let’s visit Don Shotwell of Blue Mound, Texas. He’s an America-loving patriot. Loves Donald Trump. And fears “America is under attack by Marxists!!!” according to his cover photo on X. His bio there says, “2A Advocate, Anti-Marxist, Anti-Woke, Anti-Identity Politics, Anti-Establishment, Anti-Left.”

    Boy, he sure must hate anything remotely smelling of socialism, right?

    He posted this on Facebook (now deleted):

    I am a conservative, and a Republican.
    • • I voted for Trump in all three of the presidential elections that he’s won.

    I even backed his cabinet picks, including RFK. That being said, I DISAGREE 100% with the proposed overhaul of the SNAP program. Why? Well, it’s simple…

    On average, studies show that healthier food costs MORE than other options some may consider “unhealthy.” People who are on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, colloquially referred to as, “food stamps”) are on this program because they need help affording groceries due to the fact that they are, shall we say, “financially challenged.” I happen to be one of those people, and I’m on SNAP. So, I speak from experience. We are counting EVERY penny. Long story short: if the government wants the people on SNAP to buy healthier food, then it needs to INCREASE the amount we receive so that we can ACTUALLY AFFORD said “healthy food.”

    It is a HUGE problem when you continue to receive the same amount of assistance, and yet it doesn’t buy as much food anymore. At that point, people start missing meals, and that REALLY isn’t healthy.

    Rant over. Everything else…DOGE, no men in women’s sports, America regaining respectect from other nations, Gaza, Russia, etc…keep up the GREAT work.

    Basically: “I hate socialism, but I’m white, unlike those other people, so give me my free government money so I don’t starve, but fuck everyone else.” Has there ever been anything more “Republican” than this post?

    Luckily, he’s in Texas. I’m sure he’s got some bootstraps lying around. He can pull himself up by them.

    Here’s another one of those ”I voted to screw everyone else because Trump promised to help me” stories. [snipped text describing woman mentioned in comment 276.]

    [Also snipped text quoting people who thought it would help people wake up to the horrors of conservatism if Trump won.]

    After House Republicans passed a budget blueprint that would gut Medicaid, McCarthy had the gall to tweet, “$880 billion in Medicaid cuts is insane. A lot of people are going to die.” […]

    I literally have over a dozen tabs open with more examples, but I need to wrap this up, so I’ll just end with this: [social media post about Trump/Vance arguing with Zelensky, “It is embarrassing […]”]

    Okay, one more: [social media post about being surprised to see rightwing apparent support for people involved in sex trafficking.]

    Fuck these people.

    Link

  380. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Kyle Griffin (MSNBC):

    Trump White House staffers were seen loading around 15 boxes of documents onto the rear of Air Force One. Team Trump says the boxes contain the classified documents the FBI seized from Trump’s Florida home in 2022.

    Brad Moss (National security attorney):

    For the record, the FBI turned over to Trump for storage at his library documents that were so sensitive and highly classified that his lawyers could only view them in a SCIF.

    Matt Novak (Gizmodo):

    Trump has again taken possession of the classified documents that are not his, but belong to the National Archives.

    Trump: The [DOJ] has just returned the boxes […] being brought down to Florida and will someday be part of the Trump Presidential Library.

    Trump has repeatedly claimed the documents are actually his property because of the Presidential Records Act when the exact opposite is true. The PRA was passed in 1978 after Nixon refused to hand over tapes. The Act explicitly says these types of records are property of the U.S., not the president.

    I haven’t seen any reporting yet on what specifically happened, but Trump is suggesting the DOJ has possession of the documents. I don’t believe they were ever returned to NARA as litigation was ongoing. Trump runs the DOJ so he gets the documents now.

    If they were returned to NARA and DOJ took them back, well, DOJ has people with guns. And NARA doesn’t have anyone with guns, as far as I’m aware. And in an authoritarian country, the people with guns are the ultimate arbiter.

    Brad Moss: “Cool, we can all see classified docs at Trump’s tacky library.”

  381. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/trumps-fd-up-war-on-americas-health

    “Trump’s F***d-Up War On America’s Health And Foreign Aid Claims First Casualties”

    “The first of many, unfortunately.”

    It has taken such a short amount of time to move into the “MAGA directly kills children” phase of the second administration of our Emperor of the Sun and All the Sky Donald Trump — less than six weeks by our count. And even that was about five weeks longer than we expected.

    First there was the child in Texas who on Wednesday became the first person in America to die from measles in a decade. This death can be directly attributed to the anti-vaccination message of Trump and his Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert “Bobby Brainworms” F. Kennedy Jr.

    Bobby Brainworms seemed remarkably unperturbed about the child’s death at Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting, possibly because it didn’t involve a bear carcass he could scoop up off the highway and drive around in his van for a while.

    Congrats on the accomplishment, fellas! Remind us to send in your nominations for the Nobel Prize for Stupidity.

    Then on Friday, The New York Times reported that a four-year-old child in Uganda died of the Ebola virus in the middle of the Trump administration’s cancelling of support for foreign aid organizations working to contain this particular outbreak. God we will never get tired of all this winning! The bleeding from every bodily orifice, though, that we could do without.

    The Times reports that the US cancelled four out of at least five contracts it had handed out to NGOs working to aid Ugandans during the outbreak. These programs included screening for Ebola infections at Uganda’s main airport in Entebbe, providing protective gear to healthcare workers in close contact with Ebola patients, and even filter pumps used to administer medications.

    Additionally, the cuts at USAID that came about when Elon Musk, in his own words, fed the agency into the woodchipper, meant that the number of USAID employees working to contain the outbreak went from more than 50 in January to six now.

    Authorities, meanwhile, are hoping the US will reverse course:

    “Continued support from the terminated awards is not only vital to save lives but also vital in protecting the health and security of the United States and global community,” William W. Popp, the U.S. ambassador to Uganda, wrote in the cable.

    Good luck! Saving lives isn’t something Donald Trump is particularly interested in, unless the people pay him first.

    The acting deputy inspector general for USAID, Marc Meyer, and his staff recently prepared a couple of reports (Washington Post via Archive) on the wider consequences of the funding freeze both in Africa and the Middle East. Those reports were ready two weeks ago, but the Post reports that they are not being released for fear that they will make Trump mad and invite some sort of White House retaliation.

    That seems like a weird worry to have, considering the administration has already fired something like 90 percent of USAID’s staff, closed its main headquarters, and given employees all of 15 minutes to clean out their desks. What else could they possibly do to USAID employees, poison their pets? But if Trump has a gift for anything, it is for finding new lows, so they are probably right to worry.

    In addition to Uganda, the Africa report notes that the withdrawal of American aid is destabilizing an already-volatile part of the world. The broken contracts with local organizations could lead to expensive litigation if any of them sue in US courts. West Africa will now be more at risk for increased terrorism and drug trafficking. Oh, and Russia and China will be able to expand their influence.

    […] As we mentioned, one of the reports being withheld had to do with Africa. The other was on the effect of USAID efforts in the Gaza Strip:

    USAID’s disaster assistance response team based in Jerusalem was reduced to three employees from 17, and the response management team supporting Gaza aid was down to seven employees from 20. […] USAID staff were no longer attending meetings with the Joint Coordination Board, which is responsible for the coordination of aid delivery into Gaza between the government of Israel, U.N. agencies and USAID.

    Someone else pointed out that Trump is now endangering the Gaza ceasefire that his own administration helped negotiate.

    On the other hand, we suppose letting more Gazans starve to death will allow Trump to break ground sooner on the two-bit gaudy monstrosity of a resort he wants to build on the Strip. Can’t let a little ethnic cleansing stand in the way of that.

    Didn’t the courts order the Trump administration to reverse at least some of these cuts? Sure did! But as Atul Gawande, a doctor and writer who worked for USAID under Joe Biden, explained, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is defying court orders.

    Rubio terminated 5800 USAID contracts – more than 90% of its foreign aid programs – in defiance of the courts.

    Here’s a list of just some of the lifesaving awards that were terminated. Nearly all were Congressionally mandated. They’ve saved millions of lives. 🧵

    All malaria supplies protecting 53 million people, mostly children, including bed nets, diagnostics, preventive drugs, and treatments – terminated.

    All tuberculosis programs, including the Global TB Drug Facility – terminated.

    All supplies of US-manufactured emergency food packets for starving children on the brink of death – terminated.

    USAID’s contract supporting deadly outbreak prevention, detection, and response, including Ebola and Bird Flu, in 50 countries – terminated.

    All deployable U.S. teams for earthquake assistance – terminated.

    All U.S.-backed development programming in Afghanistan, including maternal and child health services and girls education – terminated. (Estimated to cause >1,200 maternal deaths by 2028.)

    Over 1,000 food kitchens in Sudan, a country with almost 25 million people experiencing acute food insecurity – terminated.

    USAID’s contract for supplying essential medicines for maternal and child health in countries worldwide – terminated.

    Services from the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation – just one organization – reaching 350,000 people on HIV treatment, including nearly 10,000 children and more than 10,000 HIV-positive pregnant women – terminated.

    Screening program with the Mexican government to identify illicit drugs like fentanyl being smuggled at the US border.

    A project in the Democratic Republic of Congo that operates the only source of water for 250,000 displaced people in camps located in the center of current conflict.

    Gawande went on to list some of the 5800 programs Rubio cancelled. They include providing anti-malarial equipment (bed nets, drugs and so on) to 53 million people; all emergency meal kits manufactured for starving children; […]

    So there is your depressing update on the extent of how the United States is shooting itself […] for no good reason. Sorry about that. We’ll get back to being funny in 2029.

  382. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Anna Bower (Lawfare):

    As Judge Chuang pressed for more information, counsel for the government revealed that DOJ’s Federal Programs Branch “has been cut in half.”

    “They’re cutting people across the government,” the judge replied. “If you’re saying you don’t have enough people, maybe that’s part of the problem…”

    Raffi Melkonian (Appellate lawyer): “at some point the political appointees are just going to have to show up for every case.”

    Nick Bednar (Lawfare):

    If a private law firm took a significant number of cases and then cut its staff so it couldn’t manage them, the Judge would show no sympathy. If a corporation couldn’t afford the legal fees from a bunch of products liability claims, we wouldn’t deny the injured plaintiffs relief.

    The government has two options: (1) Staff itself appropriately to manage its ongoing litigation. (2) Get better at evaluating the litigation exposure of its actions.

     
    Raffi Melkonian

    In case any of you are not already despondent, I want to note that the Texas Legislature has created a “Texas DOGE” committee. […] The Texas Government is already DOGEd. It is the DOGE. What in the world are you DOGEING?

    Rando 1: “It’s sort of a self own for Texas Republicans to say that the Republican dominated state government is rife with fraud and abuse.”
    Rando 2: “Pretty impressed by the Texas Legislature looking at the Texas state government and thinking, ‘we could do less.'”

  383. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/gop-blocks-bill-to-give-grandma-2400

    One of the biggest concerns we all have, with regard to Social Security at least, is whether we’ll ever get any. Republicans have been stoking this fear for decades, trying to gin up support for privatizing it all, and refusing to fix the shortfall it’s been running since 2021. The trust fund itself is expected to be insolvent by 2033 or 2035, depending on who you ask — which would lead to retirees only getting some of what they paid into the system (estimates are they’d get around 79-83 percent of what they’re owed). That’s not great! Especially when you consider the fact that half of all Americans age 55-66 have no retirement savings at all and will have to rely entirely on their Social Security checks to get by.

    Scary, right? Except the thing is, it’s actually entirely fixable — or it would be, if Republicans didn’t suck so much and actively want it to fail.

    On Thursday, the Social Security Expansion Act was reintroduced in the Senate by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and in the House by Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois) and Val Hoyne (D-Oregon). The Social Security Expansion Act would not only keep the Social Security trust fund solvent for the next 75 years, it would increase benefits for retirees by $2,400 a year.

    “Now I know in a world here in Washington, where the government is now run by billionaires, $2,400 doesn’t seem like a whole lot of money,” Sen. Sanders said on Thursday. “But if you’re trying to get by on $15,000 a year, you can’t afford to heat your house, can’t afford to buy a prescription drug that you need, $2,400 is something that will help.” [True]

    Sanders noted that 25 percent of seniors are actually living on $15,000 a year. I will also note that the average 70-year-old gets $2,081.42 a month in Social Security benefits and 40 percent of seniors are living on Social Security alone. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the United States is $1,557 and the average monthly cost of an assisted living facility is $5,676 per month (and that is not covered by Medicare, although your granny in a nursing home very well might be on Medicaid). [video at the link]

    So how would we pull this off? Would we have to kill all of the billionaires and steal their money? Not even close! Right now, people only have to pay Social Security tax on up to $176,100 of their income. This means that someone who makes $20 million a year pays the same amount in Social Security taxes as someone making, well, $176,100 a year. This bill would not make them pay Social Security taxes on the whole $20 million, it would simply raise the threshold to $250,000.

    The Social Security tax is 6.2 percent, which means that those making over $250,000 a year would have to pay a whopping $4,581 more a year than they do right now. (Unless they’re self-employed, so if they are, double that to almost $10,000 a year.)

    That’s it. Literally, that is all we would need to do, and we could all stop worrying about whether or not we can keep Social Security going for the next 75 years and increase current benefits by $2,400 a year, $200 a month. Is your head exploding? Would you like it to explode more?

    Because after Sen. Sanders gave a stirring plea for the Senate to pass the bill, Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) got up and blocked it.

    In his response, Crapo lied his face off, insisting that it was Sanders who was lying about Republicans cutting Medicaid benefits, insisting that they are only going to be cutting “waste, fraud and abuse.” Now, the budget that was just approved by the House a few days ago cuts Medicaid by $880 billion over the next 10 years. Does Crapo seriously believe that those cuts will only be to “waste, fraud and abuse”?

    He also claimed that he never heard anything about defunding community health centers, despite the fact that Sanders explained that they are largely funded by the Medicaid payments of those who use them. Oh, and Crapo claimed that it was a lie that Republicans were trying to cut taxes for billionaires when all they were trying to do was prevent taxes from going up, which would happen if the Trump tax cuts expired, and that this would affect regular Americans as well, because Trump cut their taxes as well as the taxes for billionaires. If only it were possible to just pass legislation that only cut taxes for people making under a certain amount of money!

    This was all the big work up to Crapo’s “reasoning” behind opposing the bill, which wasn’t a reasoning at all, just a statement that Republicans and Democrats have “competing ideas” about how to make Social Security solvent and that this solution hasn’t been discussed enough or had any Republican sponsors. Oh, and it would raise taxes on people making less than $400,000 a year, which he notes that Democrats promised not to do. In actuality, that was something Joe Biden, not Democrats as a group, promised not to do. I think most of us feel just fine about people who make $250,000 a year paying about $4,500 more a year so that we can keep Social Security solvent.

    […] If Mike Crapo and the Republicans really feel they need to discuss this more, then they should do so, instead of outright ruling it out — especially when their previous plans have included things like privatizing Social Security and raising the retirement age from 67 to 69. This is clearly the least painful and safest solution for everyone in this country, and refusing to even allow a vote is a clear sign that Republicans do not give a shit about anyone but the rich.

  384. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/its-the-333rd-anniversary-of-the

    “It’s The 333rd Anniversary Of The Salem Witch Trials (And Yet It Seems Like It Could Still Happen Today)”

    […] Like many Countesses, Countess Catherine Charlotte De la Gardie was something of a trendsetter. The trend she started? The smallpox vaccine! After she became the second woman in the Swedish aristocracy to vaccinate her kids, De la Gardie set out on a campaign to get everyone, aristocrats and commoners alike, to vaccinate their kids, and it became the hip thing to do.

    Our girl also was responsible for saving the lives of 13 women and 5 men by putting a stop to the very last witch trial in Sweden. Like, this one kind of rural area tried having a witch trial about 100 years after everybody else in Sweden stopped doing witch trials — and when De la Gardie got wind of that whilst traveling throughout the countryside, she was horrified and went back to alert the proper authorities. The Swedish parliament investigated and set all of the accused free and sent the Governor who had led the whole thing to prison. De la Gardie also paid for their legal help and got them some monetary compensation, as all the torture they were put through made it impossible for them to work.

    Love her! Also love her sister-in-law, Eva Ekeblad, the scientist/salon hostess who helped seriously curb famine in Sweden and beyond and got everyone wasted by figuring out that you could make both flour and alcohol with potatoes. Her discovery led her to become the first woman admitted to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. […]

  385. says

    Washington Post link

    “Pentagon orders up to 3,000 troops and Stryker combat vehicles to border”

    “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved orders on Friday to further militarize the U.S. southern border with Mexico, officials said.”

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered an additional 2,500 to 3,000 active-duty troops to the southern U.S. border, including soldiers from a motorized brigade equipped with 20-ton armored Stryker combat vehicles, defense officials familiar with the effort said.

    The defense secretary approved the orders Friday, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal Defense Department planning. The soldiers are primarily from the 4th Infantry Division’s 2nd Stryker Brigade at Fort Carson, Colorado, and will be joined by soldiers specializing in engineering, intelligence and public affairs, the officials said.

    The Pentagon announced the deployment, first reported by The Washington Post, in a statement Saturday afternoon. Hegseth has ordered the deployment of a Stryker brigade combat team and a helicopter unit to “reinforce and expand current border security operations to seal the border and protect the territorial integrity of the United States,” the statement said.

    […] The mission had been in planning since January and comes despite a sharp drop in border crossings since the Trump administration took office. Hegseth said during a trip to the border in February that all options are on the table to support President Donald Trump’s efforts to stop illegal migration, and that the administration wants “100 percent operational control” of the border. […]

    Stryker vehicles — a lightly armored attack vehicle carrying up to 11 soldiers and typically equipped with a machine gun or grenade launcher — have been used in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. More recently, the Biden administration provided some Stryker vehicles to Ukrainian forces, who used them during a cross-border incursion into the Kursk region of Russia. It was not clear Saturday if vehicles will be mounted with weapons during the deployment. […]

  387. says

    Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Saturday as European leaders grapple with the fallout from an extraordinary on-air exchange in which the Ukrainian president was loudly berated by Donald Trump.

    Zelenskyy was seen leaving 10 Downing Street with Starmer on Saturday evening after their meeting ended. Starmer went back inside, while Zelenskyy got into a car. Neither made a statement to the media.

    European leaders are set to meet on Sunday at an emergency summit to discuss Russia and a peace plan for Ukraine.

    Britain’s Starmer and President Emmanuel Macron of France have led efforts to convince Trump to continue supporting Ukraine, which was invaded by Russia three years ago. The spat in the Oval Office in front of the media has called into question whether that support will continue, and if the United States will proceed with a dramatic rapprochement with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. [That’s a given, not “called into question.”]

    Most European countries came out in support of Ukraine, breaking with Washington as differences in the trans-Atlantic alliance built over the past 80 years burst into public view. […]

    NBC News link

    More at the link.

  388. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    WaPo – DHS asks IRS for addresses of people believed to be in U.S. illegally

    The tax agency has so far refused to give immigration enforcement officials home addresses for 700,000 individuals […] DHS also asked for skilled auditors to investigate businesses.
    […]
    a new acting IRS commissioner, Melanie Krause, took over the agency and quickly indicated she was interested in exploring how to comply with the DHS request […] As of late Friday night, it did not appear that the IRS would immediately be able to turn over the information
    […]
    Undocumented immigrants pay billions of dollars in federal taxes every year […] half—possibly more—of the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country file income tax returns […] Many immigrants proudly file tax returns and save them in hopes that a record of paying taxes will bolster their efforts to apply for legal residency one day, if Congress passes a law allowing it.

     
    Nicole Hallett (Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, Law professor):

    I’ve spent years convincing my clients to pay their taxes, even if they are undocumented. Now, poof, the privacy protections are gone and every immigrant who lawfully paid their taxes […] will be at risk.

    Teddypasketti (Lawyer, Federal civil servant):

    One of the annual required DOJ trainings is the treatment of IRS records. The training is short. The message is clear. If you are given rare—quite rare—access to any tax record and you don’t handle it basically like classified information YOU WILL GO TO JAIL. You, an attorney for the U.S.

    Jamal Greene (Law professor, Ex-DOJ/OLC):

    The tax code has detailed regulations on permissible disclosure of taxpayer info including within the government. [26 USC 6103] I see no authority for disclosure to DHS, at least without a judicial order.

    Attorney at LOL (Lawyer, fed employee): “Remember Charles Littlejohn? That’s why he’s in prison and new cases against him keep emerging.”

    Stephen Nuñez (Sociologist): “There are undocumented people who file taxes for their households (which may include, for example citizen children)”

    Randos

    MAGA: “Immigrants are parasites who don’t pay taxes.”
    Also MAGA: “Immigrants pay taxes, so let’s weaponize the IRS to hunt them down.”

    We really are going to get back to great-depression era levels of tariffs as a percentage of tax revenue if we stop auditing the rich and deport all the tax-paying immigrants

    This will mainly: 1) divert resources from tracking down criminals to going after the law-abiding; 2) stop immigrants from paying taxes; 3) terrorize a bunch of people who may or not be illegal plus any American citizens they live with.

    Note the key word “suspected”. Anyone, anywhere, can be “suspected”. You. Me. Your kids. Your parents. Don’t give these people a fucking inch.

    If they can do it for undocumented immigrants, wait until they do it with your voter registration

    The better response is “it will take us 18-34 months to compile this information due to staffing shortages”

  391. says

    In-House Gov Tech Unit for State of the Art Web Portals Disbanded by Doge

    Josh Marshall:

    This deserves more discussion. My brain is a little fried from a long week. But I wanted to let you know that 18F, an in-house government tech consultancy focused on making key public-facing government websites and services more effective and user friendly was finally disbanded last night. It’s housed within TTS (Technology Transformativon Services) which is part of GSA. Just as an example, they’re the team who built the new free IRS tax preparation portal and many other similar things across government.

    18F actually didn’t cost the government any money because it was funded by projects with individual government agencies. So they do a job for IRS and IRS “pays” them, which just means they take part of their budget and it goes to 18F for doing the work. The email from TTS Director Thomas Shed (an Elon guy installed in the position) said that the unit was being disbanded under the directive to cut all “non-essential consulting functions” within government. He additionally added that the abolition was “with explicit direction from the top levels of leadership within both the administration and the GSA,” which I take to mean, ‘Trump and Elon wanted all you guys fired.’

    The only addition or rather central point here is that 18F was mostly made up of Silicon Valley types who had or could make much more money in the private sector and were into the idea of making great government portals for the American people. That sounds corny. But that’s the essence of it. The additional part is that this and USDS, which is also basically dead now, were in critical ways what many Americans think Musk either is or should be doing: bringing in top private sector people to staff responsive and flexible teams to make things that actually work.

    From that quote above it’s very clear they’re not just collateral damage of Musk’s wilding spree but a specific target of it.

    Back in early February he proudly said on Twitter that 18F had, thanks to him, been “deleted.”

  394. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Chris D. Jackson (Democratic strategist):

    After torpedoing yesterday’s meeting with Zelensky, JD Vance fled to Vermont for vacation—only to be met by hundreds of furious protesters.

    [Fox News Clip: “pro-Ukraine signs as he makes his way to a ski resort vacation. More protestors met the Vance family outside of the resort. The family ultimately had to move to an undisclosed location.”]

    Rando: “pretended like he was a strong man yesterday yet went into hiding over some pro-Ukraine signs?”

    Raw footage of the roadside protest (30:59)

    BostonGlobe – As JD Vance takes ski weekend in Vermont, protesters give him the cold shoulder

    One resort employee […] went so far as to use Sugarbush’s online snow report to publish a lengthy condemnation of the Trump administration and the resort’s weekend guest. The post was later removed, but a shorter audio version of her missive was still available on Sugarbush’s snow report hotline
    […]
    Inside the resort two men who held signs reading “Vance is a traitor go ski in Russia,” said they were told to leave the resort […] because it is private property
    […]
    More than 700 protesters stood on sidewalks and snowbanks along Route 100, cheering, singing and holding signs aloft. The demonstration […] slowed traffic as what appeared to be mostly supportive motorists honked their approval.
    […]
    a group of activists prepared a convoy of vehicles to circle the Mad River Valley throughout the day “to tell Vance he’s not welcome here,”

    Kottke blog – Good Trouble: JD Vance Chastised by Vermont Snow Reporter

    Sugarbush operates on 1745 acres of the Green Mountain National Forest. Right now, National Forest lands and National Parks are under direct attack by the current Administration, who is swiftly terminating the positions of dedicated employees
    […]
    Anyone and everyone can buy a lift ticket. I also imagine it is incredibly difficult, and likely impossible, to say “No” to the Secret Service. […] direct your anger to the source—the Administration […] I admire and respect my fellow employees and managers […] Many of them may feel the same way that I do, but their hands are tied, and for good reason. They have families to support, they have benefits and health insurance to receive, they face far greater and more binding pressure from Corporate.

    I am in a privileged position […] I don’t have a whole lot to lose. […] We are living in a really scary and really serious time. What we do or don’t do, matters. […] I can only assume that I will be fired, but at least this will do even just a smidge more than just shutting up and being a sheep.

  395. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/lets-randomly-point-at-a-map-and

    “Let’s Randomly Point At A Map And See What Trump And Musk Are F*cking Up!”

    This post started out with one story that I saw about a really stupid thing that happened because of Donald Trump, and then Rebecca suggested I make it a roundup of stories about stupid things happening because of Trump and his billionaire boss, and that’s how the rent gets paid around here.

    Incidentally, we are now convinced Trump is never going to fire Musk in a rage over being upstaged. If all that “President Musk” stuff hasn’t enraged him yet, it isn’t gonna. He’s clocked out, and now he’s only gonna do whatever catches his interest, like [praising] Vladimir Putin, betraying our allies, dreaming of a bigger, Trumpier USA, and cheating at golf. He’s got Elon to do the hard work of governing out of whim and spite, and until Elon gets bored, we may be stuck with him.

    But as they say, a stopped Trump can still fuck up the nation twice a day, so let’s take a look-see at just some of the ways, all over our once-great nation.

    Gulf Of Pettiness

    First up, it turns out that the Trump administration isn’t just bullying journalists who don’t go along with Trump’s weird renaming of the Gulf of Mexico. This week, the venerable Nature Conservancy, the nonprofit that works to protect wild places from pollution, development, and climate threats, changed the name of its programs in the Gulf of Mexico, obliquely acknowledging in a terse statement that it was giving in to pressure from the administration:

    To ensure our programs continue, in accordance with clear directives from federal agencies under recent executive orders, TNC is required to refer to its programs in the Gulf of Mexico in U.S. territorial waters as “Gulf of America.” We continue to refer to our programs occurring outside of U.S. territorial waters in the Gulf as “Gulf of Mexico,” in accordance with international practice.

    Of course, lots of people simply noticed that the group’s website was now talking about the “Gulf of America” and accused TNC of complying in advance, being cowardly, embarrassing itself, pandering, capitulating, favoring the Dark […] holy crap, then I read this Heatmap News story explaining that TNC pretty much had a gun to its head. Reporter Jael Holzman got hold of a memo sent to all staff in the organization Friday by CEO Jennifer Morris, explaining that Trump functionaries installed at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had made TNC an offer it couldn’t refuse:

    “Please know that we did not make this decision lightly,” Morris wrote. Attached to the email was staff guidance claiming the nonprofit “received specific direction from NOAA that we must change all references to the new nomenclature in association with our NOAA funded work in the Gulf.”

    “For example, all maps, reports, and other deliverables must use ‘Gulf of America,’ the memo stated. “We have at least $156 million in active federal grants in the region, including $45 million from NOAA alone.” Federal funding makes up most of the organization’s work in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the memo.

    Maybe the Right Thing would be to forgo all that federal money because it has such odious strings attached. But that would mean shutting down TNC programs in the Gulf, with all the resulting job losses and abandonment of projects conserving habitats and wildlife. Of course, it could also turn out that the federal funding will be withdrawn all the same. Welcome to ethics under fascism. [embedded links are available at the main link.

    Idaho: Boise VA Hospital Gets Dose Of ‘Confusion And Chaos’ From DOGE

    Here in Dok Zoom’s hometown of Boise, Idaho, more than a dozen Veterans Affairs employees were summarily fired from the agency’s regional office and the VA medical center. Probably not the biggest or most devastating example of how arbitrary job and funding cuts are hurting America, but it’s being repeated in towns and cities all over.

    An email to the Idaho Statesman from the VA’s regional public affairs office insisted that the cuts “will have no negative effect on veteran health care, benefits or other services and will allow VA to focus more effectively on its core mission,” so screw you. According to an anonymous but terrified worker who remains at the VA medical center,

    One of the workers who was laid off at the Boise VA Medical Center was an administrative assistant. Another had provided direct care to veterans in the behavioral health acute care clinic, which is part of the rehabilitation wing. […]

    “I get to talk to a bunch of patients now who are asking where that person is,” the employee said. “It’s basically just sowing confusion and chaos, which I understand is the purpose of it, but it’s just demoralizing.”

    Well yes, that’s the plan. Maybe it’s time to privatize the VA so the profit motive will inspire people more. [sarcasm]

    The anonymous worker added that some of the workers who were fired “found out when they came in to work on Monday to fill out their five bullet points.” Yep.

    There are 170 VA medical centers around the US, and we’re sure every one of them is having to explain to patients why their therapist or nurse or doctor is gone. Obviously, it’s because they weren’t necessary, not one of them. [Idaho Stateman]

    Las Vegas: Does Lake Mead Really Deserve ‘Fish’ Or ‘Clean Water’?

    Just a little local teevee station story about a National Park Service aquatic ecologist who was one of several employees who got the axe from Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Dr. Riley Rackliffe moved across the country for his dream job, working with the Park Service to make sure the water in the lake was safe for people to do their recreationing in, and also to help protect the lake from invasive quagga mussels, which are a problem all across the West.

    “This lake is here, in part, so people can get out and enjoy it and experience nature. We want people to do it safely,” he says. “Don’t want people to go home with a rash or gastroenteritis, or something worse.”

    Here’s the video report from KVVU: [video at the link]

    Repeat as many times as necessary for your own state’s national parks, recreation areas, forest service campgrounds, and other treasures. But cheer up! Your sacrifices will mean more stock buybacks for giant corporations and increased value for shareholders! Nature is just full of things that want to bite you anyway. [KVVU-TV on MSN]

    Looks Like You Picked The Wrong Week To Be A Biologist

    A very similar story from Iowa, only this time it’s a US Fish and Wildlife Service biologist, Dr. Liz Renner, who though working in her home state as a federal scientist at a fish hatchery was her “dream job,” too. In fact, she was working at the very hatchery whose museum gave her the biology bug as a kid. How’s that for terrific? Except for the part where she got a termination letter telling her that

    “my skills, knowledge, and I guess my work no longer aligned with the mission of the service or was no longer needed, and as a probationary employee, I shouldn’t have expected any, I guess, job security with that. They used that kind of as the rationale to terminate everyone. We were the low-hanging fruit,” Renner said. “[I feel] Discarded. I feel like it was a slap to the face.”

    Then again, she was a faceless bureaucrat, and we don’t need those, we need billionaires and people who toady to billionaires [sarcasm]. And because I love you, dear reader, I deleted a brief paragraph summarizing what some people on Twitter think about fired federal workers. Shit’s not healthy for any of us. [KTIV]

    How About Where You Are

    The Associated Press put together an interactive map listing the number of federal workers in every congressional district in the country, and it’s pretty interesting to look at. It’s an excellent reminder that these mass firings aren’t only affecting people in Washington. [AP]

    Yeah, we hate this. And Jesus, we haven’t even gotten to the scheme to lay off as much as half the workforce at the Social Security Administration, but we will soon. Right now there’s a kitchen floor that needs someone to lie on it and drink, so we’ll get back to you.

  396. says

    Republican voters are beginning to feel the sting of betrayal that always accompanies supporting Donald Trump.

    “If I had known that this was going to happen,” former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employee Graham Peters told Great Lakes Now, “I wouldn’t have voted for him.” Peters is just one of millions of federal workers affected by the probably illegal, and definitely destructive cuts being imposed by Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency.

    While many conservative-voting Americans are now wondering what is going to happen to the federal money they were enjoying, many are still under the delusion that diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and initiatives only affect people who aren’t white.

    The harsh reality is that many Trump voters are unaware that the receipt-free spectacle of Musk and Trump’s dismantling of the government, and the focus on bigoted anti-DEI propaganda, hurt them directly.

    In Clarksburg, West Virginia, where Trump received 70% of the votes, a lead-testing program started under the Biden administration by the environmental justice division of the Environmental Protection Agency is already on Musk and Trump’s chopping block. The program helped raise lead testing rates of local families from 8% to 41%. Elevated levels of lead in children can lead to long-term health problems and developmental delays. Clarksburg is 90% white, with a poverty rate of 23%.

    According to Time magazine, a proposed expansion of the successful lead testing program into Ohio, another Trump-won state, is also up in the air.

    These are not the only programs under the Biden administration being swept under the DEI blanket of DOGE’s destructive austerity attack. Environmental justice programs that use federal funds to assist many of those rural voters whose support Trump find themselves scrambling to figure out what the future holds.

    For instance, there’s a series of initiatives that are not “race” focused, under a Biden program called Justice40. These initiatives advocated for a better redistribution of federal funds to communities with larger economic challenges. Grants awarded through Justice40 included helping to fix essential infrastructure in underserved areas—many of which voted for Trump. It’s also a casualty of Trump’s executive order pen.

    “The idea was always that the money should go where it’s needed the most, and a lot of communities that will be hurt are rural, white communities that had also qualified for funding under the Justice40 parameters,” Holly Burke, communications director with Evergreen Action, told The American Prospect. “It’s clear to me that Trump doesn’t understand that these programs also benefit a lot of people he considers his base.”

    […] One of the fundamental disconnects between Trump’s voters and the actions of Musk’s DOGE lies in a deeply misinformed understanding of what the government can and should do for its citizens.

    Link

  397. Reginald Selkirk says

    Billionaires earning $10 billion per day in January are suddenly watching their net worth get wiped out—Elon Musk has lost $90 billion alone

    Billionaires were getting $10 billion richer every day in January. Just one month later, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, and Mark Zuckerberg have lost a combined total of $138 billion.

    This January felt like the honeymoon period for billionaires, who saw their wealth surge by $10 billion every day. One month later, the daydream is over, and their net worth is tanking.

    Throughout the month of January, it’s estimated that the world’s richest people saw their fortune swell by $314 billion—a figure that’s about the collective salary of 15 million workers. But for many billionaire businessmen, from Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg to Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison, that high didn’t last. Their gains are already slipping away.

    The Bloomberg Billionaire Index is heaving with numbers in the negatives—all of the world’s richest technology, consumer, and industrial leaders are being hit hard.

    At the beginning of February, Musk’s net worth rested around $433 million; today, that number is $349 billion. Meta CEO Zuckerberg slipped from $243 billion to $232 billion in the same time period, and Larry Ellison lost about $9 billion…

  398. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump’s early backing of Ramaswamy for Ohio governor seen by some as meant to avoid a nasty primary

    The sun hadn’t set on Republican Vivek Ramaswamy’s gubernatorial campaign launch in Ohio earlier this week before President Donald Trump posted his endorsement of the Cincinnati-born biotech entrepreneur and former Department of Government Efficiency co-chair.

    Trump lauded the multimillionaire on his Truth Social site as “something SPECIAL,” calling him “Young, Strong, and Smart!”

    “Vivek is also a very good person, who truly loves our Country,” the president wrote. “He will be a GREAT Governor of Ohio, will never let you down, and has my COMPLETE AND TOTAL ENDORSEMENT!”

    The timing of Trump’s announcement intrigued Ohio political observers, who have watched over the past several years as his decisions to weigh in on key statewide races have gone from days before the election, to months, to now more than a year.

    Robert Clegg, a long-time Republican campaign adviser in the state, said it may be meant as a message for Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, already seeking the Republican nomination, or perhaps even for newly named Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel, a popular former Ohio State Buckeyes football coach whose future political plans are unclear…

  399. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    New blood test identifies hard-to-detect pancreatic cancer with 85% accuracy

    “The problem with pancreatic cancer is that we often catch it too late,” […] “The big difference with this test is the cost: It takes only […] 45 minutes to run the test at a cost of less than a penny per sample,”

     
    NBC – mRNA vaccines show promise in pancreatic cancer in early trial
    Personalized vaccines made durable T-cells for 8 of 16 patients in a phase 1 trial. Later trials will assess if that extends life. Of that 8, only 2 had their cancer return during the 3 year follow-up. Of the unresponsive 8 patients, 7 had ther cancer return.

    Other teams are focusing on a non-personalized mass-producible vaccine targeting a mutation present in 90% of these cancers. They’re also in very early trials.

  400. says

    Sky Captain @399, that’s good news.

    In yet another take on bad news, Masha Gessen, writing for The New Yorker: “Trump Has Created an Entire Class of People Who Are Never Safe”

    Sometimes the news leaves me with the throat-constricting feeling that the late Soviet dissident Larisa Bogoraz described as follows: “It becomes impossible to live and breathe.” It happened last week, when I read about Omer Abdelmaed, a Sudanese man who was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in San Francisco—at his asylum interview.[!] Abdelmaed’s lawyer, Caleb Arring, who described the arrest in a Facebook post, wrote that he had never before witnessed anything of the sort.

    But something like this had been happening in Massachusetts for months: ICE has been arresting spouses of American citizens when they come to file their initial applications for a green card. This is not dissimilar to the much more widely publicized arrest of Ravi Ragbir, a New York immigration activist who was taken by ICE agents when he came in for his annual immigration check-in. Following a wave of publicity and activism, Ragbir has been released.

    I suspect that cases that get no publicity far outnumber the ones that become known, in part because the people who are arrested, their families, and their lawyers often place their hopes in settling the issue quietly. (Arring agreed to talk to me after writing about his client’s arrest, but soon stopped responding to my attempts to contact him.) The reflex to lie low seems to kick in, in response to a sense of a profound lack of safety.

    The ultimate effect of President Trump’s war on immigrants, from his disavowal of DACA to the unleashing of ICE with the apparent intention of deporting the maximum possible number of people, is to create a class of people who are never safe. This is why my throat constricts at the news of these arrests: not only because I am an immigrant, and the people I love most in the world, including my children, are immigrants, but because the emergence of a group of people who are never safe is a terrifying development.

    Hannah Arendt understood this well. She wrote that the figure of the refugee, when it appeared in the twentieth century, gave the lie to the concept of human rights. When we say that all people have inalienable rights, we really mean that people who enjoy the protection of a state have rights. Once a person is stripped of that protection, purged from a state, his rights seem to vanish along with his proof of citizenship. [True.]

    The good people of America respond to Trump’s talk of “illegal immigrants” by talking about immigrants who are merely “undocumented.” This is a misleading term, and a telling one. Most of those whom Americans think of as “undocumented” immigrants have documents—more documents than do many native-born Americans. They have passports, visas, temporary work permits, thick binders of information that they have collected to support their asylum claims or another bid for a change of status; more often than not, they have Social Security numbers. Most “undocumented” immigrant adults have lived in the country for at least ten years, and the vast majority are employed; this means that they have amassed leases, utility bills, bank accounts, credit histories, and state or city I.D.s—all documents essential to be able to live freely in the United States.

    Many —possibly most—of them entered the United States on a valid visa, or weren’t legally required to have a visa in order to enter. An asylum seeker, for example, is likely someone who entered on a visitor’s or other temporary visa, and then applied for asylum. The asylum system, meanwhile, is designed in such a way that most people benefit from waiting until the end of their legal stay in the country—that is, the date written by a Border Patrol agent in their passports—before applying for asylum. Most immigration judges would consider these asylum applicants to be in the country legally, even after their initial visas had expired; increasingly, under the Trump Administration, ICE agents would tend to disagree, assuming that asylum seekers entered on false pretenses. The average wait for an asylum interview in New York is between two and three years. But, a hundred and fifty days after applying for asylum, a person has the right to obtain a work permit. So, most asylum seekers have documents that allow them to work in the U.S. but not, in the eyes of ICE, to be in the U.S.

    In short, when we say that they are “undocumented,” what we mean is that they lack a document that would entitle them to feel free in a country founded on a declaration of the fundamental equality and inalienable rights of all people. “Undocumented” is the lazy, pseudo-liberal alternative way of saying “illegal.”

    Many Americans understand how important it is for every person in this land to feel safe. The most commonly advanced argument for sanctuary cities (or towns, or states) is that immigrants must feel safe reporting crimes—they must know that the police will not be monitoring their immigration status. This is the simplest expression of the thesis that none of us are safe unless all of us are safe.

    Trump seems to understand this instinctively. Tyrants—or aspiring tyrants—thrive when populations feel unstable and under threat. His Administration’s ongoing attack on sanctuary cities is more than the belligerent demand for total compliance. It is part of an effort to insure that some of us are never safe, in order to insure that no one ever feels safe.

  401. says

    Murkowski slams Trump administration over Russia-Ukraine war stance: ‘Sick to my stomach’

    Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) condemned the Trump administration over the recent fallout with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky during Friday’s Oval Office meeting broadcasted by the American press.

    “This week started with administration officials refusing to acknowledge that Russia started the war in Ukraine. It ends with a tense, shocking conversation in the Oval Office and whispers from the White House that they may try to end all U.S. support for Ukraine,” Murkowski wrote in a Saturday post on X.

    […] “I know foreign policy is not for the faint of heart, but right now, I am sick to my stomach as the administration appears to be walking away from our allies and embracing Putin, a threat to democracy and U.S. values around the world.”

    Her stance, notable from a Republican, echoes that of many foreign leaders who labeled the meeting a stark sever in American values, including the country’s tradition of fighting for democracy across the globe.

    […] After yesterday’s turmoil, the Republican administration again urged Ukraine to elect a new leader to help curb violence within the nation. […]

    And already Trump is talking about possibly stopping all support for Ukraine. It’s so obvious that that was what he was aiming for all along.

  402. StevoR says

    Aussie ABC news on the state of the Gaza ceasefire:

    … minutes after the first phase (of the ceasefire-ed) ended, and as talks have begun on starting the second phase aimed at ending the war and seeing all remaining living hostages in Gaza returned home. The statement gives new details on what Israel described as a US proposal: a ceasefire extension through Passover, or April 20. On the first day, half the hostages, alive and dead, would be released. The rest would be released if agreement is reached on a permanent ceasefire.

    The statement said it was proposed after US envoy Steve Witkoff got “the impression that at this stage there was no possibility of bridging the positions of the parties to end the war, and that more time was needed for talks on a permanent ceasefire”.There was no immediate comment from Hamas, which earlier rejected an Israeli proposal to extend the ceasefire’s first phase by 42 days — doubling its length — saying it goes against the truce agreement, according to a member of the group who requested anonymity to discuss the closed-door negotiations.

    … (sub headline snipped)..

    Officials from Israel and mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States have been involved in negotiations on starting the ceasefire’s second phase in Cairo. But Basem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, told The Associated Press there had been “no progress” before Israeli negotiators returned home on Friday. Hamas did not attend, but its position has been represented through Egyptian and Qatari mediators. Under the ceasefire deal’s terms, fighting should not resume while negotiations are underway on phase two.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-02/israel-supports-us-plan-extend-ceasefire-in-gaza/105000094

  403. Bekenstein Bound says

    Many cars with passive keyless entry don’t require pressing the button, or even removing the fob from one’s pocket. The car unlocks from proximity alone or proximity plus grasping the door handle.

    a) I’ve never seen or even heard of such a thing before, probably because

    b) That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard of! The consequences were entirely predictable.

    That being said, it might be mitigated by requiring the response from the keyfob arrive within a very short time. It takes about a nanosecond for a speed-of-light signal to travel a meter, so requiring a response within 10 nanoseconds prevents the unlock occurring if the keyfob is farther than 10m away. That’s longer than the timing resolution modern microprocessors are capable of, so probably not technically infeasible.

  407. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: Bekenstein Bound @403:

    it might be mitigated by requiring the response from the keyfob arrive within a very short time. […] probably not technically infeasible.

    The “how to mitigate” article @367 name-dropped “UWB technology” (Ultra-Wideband pulses*), which can already used for distance measurement to thwart relays. It’s how AirTags approach centimeter accuracy. Tesla screwed that up of course.

    Hm, it looks like fobs with the proximity feature can likely disable it, via an esoteric ritual. while still allowing the fob’s buttons to work. With the slight complication on push-to-start ignitions needing the fob VERY near the ignition (or wherever the car expects a dead-battery fob to go for RFID detection: some cars have a special cubby). Disabling proximity will also allow leaving a fob in the car and locking it inside.

    Which segues to another feature / vulnerability. Some cars have a PIN code to unlock doors without a fob or key (i.e., it’s locked inside). By tapping a place on car repeatedly. With Subarus it’s apparently programmable, so if someone ever has your fob and car for a few minutes, they can set a new code to let themselves in at will. Won’t start the car.
     
    * The nitty-gritty of RF signalling is beyond me. Not my field. *rimshot*

  409. Reginald Selkirk says

    Utah set to become first state to ban fluoride in public water

    Utah is gearing up to make history as the first state to ban fluoride in public water systems if Gov. Spencer Cox signs a bill to prohibit the addition of the tooth decay-fighting mineral.

    If signed into law, HB0081 would prevent any individual or political subdivision from adding fluoride “to water in or intended for public water systems.”

    Cox, a Republican, did not immediately respond to a request for comment…

    If it is awaiting the governor’s signature, that means it already passed the legislature.

    The return to the dark ages continues.

  410. Reginald Selkirk says

    Mark Cuban offers to fund government tech unit that was cut in the middle of the night

    Billionaire investor Mark Cuban waded into the latest government tech shake-up on Saturday, posting an unexpected offer of support for newly laid-off federal workers on the social network Bluesky.

    His message, which quickly gained traction, urged the displaced engineers and designers to turn the upheaval to their advantage.

    “If you worked for 18F and got fired, Group together to start a consulting company,” wrote Cuban. “It’s just a matter of time before DOGE needs you to fix the mess they inevitably created. They will have to hire your company as a contractor to fix it. But on your terms. I’m happy to invest and/or help.”

    Cuban’s offer came after the government’s General Services Administration (GSA) abruptly gutted its 18F technology unit, which helps other government agencies build, buy, and share tech products. Per Politico, the layoffs affected roughly 70 individuals who learned the news around 1 a.m. Eastern time on Saturday. Among other things, the unit had reportedly built Login.gov, a secure and private way for the public to access services at government agencies, including Social Security and the Department of Veterans Affairs….

    This is exactly what government should be doing: funding stuff that is good for society, but not necessarily profitable. Turning it into a turf battle between billionaires is not progress.

  411. Reginald Selkirk says

    US Health Secretary Kennedy calls for end to deadly Texas measles outbreak

    U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Friday said he recognizes the serious impact of the current measles outbreak in Texas, in which a child died this week, and said the government is providing resources, including vaccines.

    “Ending the measles outbreak is a top priority for me and my extraordinary team,” Kennedy said in a post on X. The secretary, who has for years sown doubts about the safety and efficacy of immunization, said the Department of Health and Human Services would send Texas 2,000 doses of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine through its immunization program…

    What he didn’t say: “I was wrong and I apologize.”

  412. birgerjohansson says

    ‘Brave’ Vance runs away from his own countrymen
    Vance Shows Republicans How to Hide from American Public

  415. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    RollingStone – FAA officials ordered staff to find funding for Elon Musk’s Starlink

    Elon Musk’s satellite business Starlink may not have officially taken over Verizon’s $2.4 billion contract with the [FAA] yet […] However, on Friday, FAA officials ordered staff to begin finding tens of millions of dollars for a Starlink deal […] The sources note that these internal directives have mostly, if not entirely, been delivered verbally—which they say is unusual […] it appears as though “someone does not want a paper trail.”

    Rando: “No one wants a paper trail because spending funds Congress has not appropriated is colloquially known as ‘stealing from the US Treasury.'”

    Deb Golden (Lawyer):

    Anti Deficiency Act’s time to shine!

    For those not in the federal weeds, this law, 31 U.S.C. § 1341, makes it a crime for any federal employee to be involved with any promises to pay federal $$ that hasn’t been appropriated by Congress.
    […]
    no one has ever been prosecuted under it (tmk) [and the] chances of that are slightly less than 0 [from Trump’s DOJ]. BUT negotiating with AUSAs has taught me that they live in fear of violating it. And that the statute of limitations is longer than a presidential administration.

    Josh Marshall (TPM): “a statutory crime on the part of the individual who makes the obligation. So not Trump, but the appointee/employee who does it.”

  416. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Advance notice for a rally.

    Stand Up for Science

    rallies in Washington DC and 31 other cities around the country. […] If your city isn’t listed […] you can still make your voice heard by joining the nationwide campus and workplace walkout at 12:00 PM local time on March 7th

    Policy Goals: Secure and expand funding; End censorship and political interference; Defend diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.

  417. says

    This made me laugh:

    […] Other GOP lawmakers are also publicly lauding Musk’s DOGE efforts.

    “If I was Elon, I’m asking him to double down, not go slower,” Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas said in an appearance on Newsmax. “Think about what Elon did with Twitter. He fired 80% of the people, he changed the name of it, and now today it is worth twice as much as it was before.” […]

    Link

    Video and more details at the link.

  420. says

    Why Trump is suddenly fixated on Fort Knox’s gold

    […] Trump has long been obsessed with gold, but recently, he’s become fixated on the gold held in the depository at Fort Knox and a right-wing conspiracy theory alleging that its gold has somehow been stolen. […]

    “We’re actually going to Fort Knox to see if the gold is there. Because maybe somebody stole it,” he told French President Emmanuel Macron and reporters. [video at the link]

    Trump surprisingly isn’t alone in this. MAGA loyalist Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene also has gold fever.

    “I will be calling the Treasury and arranging for the [House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency] to go and inspect the gold at Fort Knox,” she wrote on X on Monday.

    But other than Trump bringing it up, neither Fort Knox nor the topic of gold security has been in the news recently. So why is gold top of mind for the leader of the United States and his acolytes?

    This time, the source of the fixation appears to be Trump’s billionaire financier and co-President Elon Musk. Two weeks ago, the account for the conspiracy theory website Zero Hedge tagged Musk and asked him to “take a look inside Fort Knox just to make sure the 4,580 tons of U.S. gold is there.” The account falsely claimed that the “last time anyone looked was 50 years ago in 1974.”

    […] These assertions are extra absurd in light of the fact that Steven Mnuchin, who was then Trump’s own treasury secretary, visited Fort Knox and took photographs with bars of gold in August 2017. And Mnuchin wasn’t alone on that trip. Joining him were U.S. Treasurer Jovita Carranza and a host of Kentucky Republicans, including Sen. Mitch McConnell, then-Gov. Matt Bevin, and Rep. Brett Guthrie.

    Still, following the “gold” exchange between Musk and the conspiracy website, the topic was raised over and over on Fox News and Fox Business, across multiple programs like “The Five,” “Jesse Watters Primetime,” “Gutfeld!,” “The Ingraham Angle,” and others, according to a Daily Kos search of TVEyes, a database of TV, radio, and online video.

    Trump has often made decisions at the presidential level based on half-baked information (or outright falsehoods) that he absorbs via social media and Fox News, and his Fort Knox fixation seems to fall right in line with that.

    […] in 2011, when he was representing Texas in the House, the aforementioned Ron Paul floated the notion that the bars of gold in the fort were fake and that they were just metal bars painted gold.

    Conservatives have entertained all sorts of fevered dreams about the gold supply ever since America (and much of the rest of the world) went off the gold standard in 1971.

    These conspiracies have also led to a lucrative market in fearmongering advertising and scams based on convincing conservatives to “invest” in gold, which is advertised as a stable commodity—particularly if their nightmare of a left-wing dominated world takes hold. Much of conservative media, from right wing radio to TV outlets like Fox News and Newsmax, is propped up by gold-related advertising.

    Perhaps the perfect expression of all this was reflected in the scam uncovered earlier this month in which Trump fans were persuaded to put their money in a gold scam, hocked via AI-generated imagery of Trump.

    Trump’s latest gold fixation is what happens when decades of right-wing conspiracy culture becomes intertwined with the mainstream Republican Party. By elevating a long-time conspiracy theorist like Trump to lead the party—and now the country again—gold fever was probably inevitable.

  422. says

    Israel halts all aid entry into Gaza as U.S. lifts partial arms embargo

    “Egypt, which helped broker January’s ceasefire deal, condemned Israel’s move, saying it is using ‘starvation as a weapon.’ ”

    Israel halted all entry of humanitarian aid and goods into the Gaza Strip on Sunday and warned of “further consequences” after Hamas refused to accept its proposal to extend the first phase of the fragile ceasefire deal.

    This followed a U.S. announcement that it would expedite the delivery of $4 billion in military aid to Israel and reverse a partial arms embargo from the Biden administration.

    On Sunday morning, thousands of aid trucks were seen piling up at the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing after Israel closed its checkpoints into Gaza.

    The first phase of the Hamas-Israel ceasefire expired Saturday, and negotiations for the second phase, which would ultimately lead to the end of the war, have been stalled for weeks.

    “Prime Minister Netanyahu has decided that, as of this morning, all entry of goods and supplies into the Gaza Strip will cease,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement, adding: “If Hamas continues its refusal, there will be further consequences.”

    Egypt, which helped broker the original ceasefire deal, condemned Israel’s closure of Gaza, with the foreign minister Badr Abdelatty accusing Israel of using aid “as a weapon of collective punishment and starvation.”

    Basem Naim, a senior official for Hamas’ political bureau, said Israel was “sabotaging” the existing three-phase ceasefire agreement both sides had signed in January.

    He condemned Benjamin Netanyahu and the Trump administration for what he called “a blatant coup against the ceasefire deal,” adding that Israel bears “all the responsibility for escalating the situation and for the lives of the people on both sides.” […]

    Israel’s announcement came after Netanyahu held an overnight security meeting where Israel adopted a plan by U.S. special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff that proposed extending the first phase of the six-week ceasefire through Ramadan and Passover, rather than moving to the second phase of negotiations outlined under the original agreement.

    Under Witkoff’s proposal, half of the remaining hostages, including the bodies of those who have died, would also be released on the first day, with the remaining released when both sides successfully negotiate a permanent ceasefire, according to Netanyahu’s office.

    Hamas has refused the proposal, insisting that the ceasefire talks proceed to the second stage, which would see the release of additional hostages and prisoners, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, and lead to a permanent end to the war. […]

    More at the link.

  423. says

    ‘SNL’ re-creates Trump-Zelenskyy clash, with appearance by Mike Myers as Musk

    “The show returned after its 50th anniversary special and had plenty to chew on with Friday’s White House meeting between the leaders of the U.S. and Ukraine.”
    Video snippets at the link.

    In its first episode since its 50th anniversary special, “Saturday Night Live” wasted no time diving into the clash between the presidents of the United States and Ukraine.

    James Austin Johnson’s President Donald Trump was backed up by Bowen Yang’s Vice President JD Vance in the meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who, at the real meeting Friday, was involved in a heated exchange with the pair in a discussion over ending Ukraine’s U.S.-backed war with Russia.

    Yang’s Vance seemed prepared for battle as the three sat in the Oval Office.

    “Better watch out,” he said, “because this kitty’s got claws.”

    Nearby was Marcello Hernández’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who fielded a question from Trump: “Are you excited to attack our European ally?”

    “No Inglés,” Rubio said.

    Trump invited Zelenskyy, played by Mikey Day, to show some love for Russian President Vladimir Putin despite his invasion of Ukraine, which sparked three years of ongoing war.

    “You want to say a few words, maybe tell Mr. Putin how much you love him?” Trump said.

    Vance lambasted Ukraine’s leader, who in real life has been under pressure from the U.S. to end the war under circumstances that would include little capitulation from Russia and the transfer of some rights to Ukraine’s rare earths and other critical minerals to the United States.

    “What happened to ‘thank you?’” Yang’s Vance said. “You haven’t said ‘thank you’ to us once in the past 15 seconds.”

    Soon, Vance had more criticism: “You never said anything about us being handsome.”

    Johnson’s Trump chimed in: “Our ties are matching, and they’re growing, frankly, by the minute.”

    Trump lamented that Russians have been treated “badly,” and Vance claimed to have some expertise in the matter, having to been to Ukraine “on Google Maps.”

    Noting the United States’ critical war funding for Ukraine, Vance said, “You get nothing. You lose. Good day, sir.”

    Acting dismissive of Zelenskyy, Trump said, “Who shows up to the White House in a T-shirt and jeans like a garbage person.”

    Mike Myers entered as Trump adviser Elon Musk in a T-shirt and jacket. He carried and started a chainsaw, as Musk actually did onstage at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month.

    “We love your outfit,” Trump said. “Very official and respectful.”

    Musk was disappointed that people don’t understand his sense of humor, shouting, “Legalize comedy!”

    In his controversial role helping Trump slash the government workforce, Musk said, “We are firing the nonessential employees. Like air traffic controllers.”

    “Yes,” Trump said, “sure, some of the planes are going to land upside down. But then the luggage falls right into your lap and you’re ready to go. It’s efficient.” […]

    More video clips available here: https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live

  424. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: Lynna @420:
    Nathan Tankus, US accounting wonk, wrote about the gold fixation.

    A scam built atop an accounting gimmick wrapped in bullshit: Why visiting Fort Knox is not about selling gold but is about buying Bitcoin

    Visiting Fort Knox is a publicity stunt to get Congress to back an accounting gimmick that will fund the Bitcoin reserve.
    […]
    the Treasury’s gold holdings are not actually about the gold market at all—they are about intragovernmental accounting. […]

    […] the Treasury has a handy way of filling up its bank account based on that gold without changing anything at all. Instead of having to actually physically transfer gold, the Treasury can issue “gold certificates” based on its gold holdings. Even better, it doesn’t have to sell those gold certificates on the private market. It can just sell them directly to the Federal Reserve.

    [Roosevelt wanted to use a wide array of accounting gimmicks to avoid raising the debt ceiling in 1939. In this case, replacing one asset with another (Treasury notes with gold certificates) on the Fed’s books. This changed nothing about the economy except for avoiding a government default.]

    The key to understanding this is the Federal Reserve is not going to be selling these gold certificates to the private sector. Nor is it, or anyone else, going to “cash them in” for the gold. So if the certificates are just a book entry in some accounting ledger, why does it matter that they are “gold” certificates? Couldn’t you just sell a “avoiding the debt ceiling” certificate which promised redemption in “avoiding-the-debt-ceiling brownie points”? The answer is—yes.
    […]
    [The Bitcoin Act of 2024] is aimed at resetting the government’s official gold price to “fair market value” so that they can sell 100s of billions of dollars of “gold certificates” they did not have the legal authority to issue before. The purpose of doing this is to take the supposed “proceeds” of writing in an accounting system that the Fed has “purchased” more gold certificates and deposit them into the Treasury’s bank account while scribbling (in COBOL) in another accounting system that the “Bitcoin Purchase program” can now buy billions of dollars worth of bitcoin. If you feel like you’re playing three card monte with a huckster who has you confused about which direction to look, that’s because you are.
    […]
    To me reading this legislation is like admiring the architecture of a beautiful building that is designed exactly how you’d want to design it if your goal was to collapse it upon its occupants at a precise date in the future.
    […]
    it fully turns the original motivation of Bitcoin on its head. The mysterious creator of bitcoin constantly inveighed against Bank- and State- money creation. […] Now the big thing in bitcoin is mobilizing the government’s power to create money to buy bitcoin and cash out its biggest holders. Bitcoin still promises you nothing but is now getting the same backing of public money that sustains the functioning of our payments system, and ultimately our monetary system. […] Will this proposal happen? I do not know but the Fort Knox visit suggests to me they are going to push hard.

  425. says

    Sky Captain @424, thanks a lot for that additional information. Enlightening.

    […] To me reading this legislation is like admiring the architecture of a beautiful building that is designed exactly how you’d want to design it if your goal was to collapse it upon its occupants at a precise date in the future. […]

    Ha! That’s another example of bad news that nevertheless made me laugh.

    Bitcoin. What could go wrong?

  426. says

    U.K.’s Keir Starmer pledges $2 billion to help Ukraine buy missiles

    “Starmer vowed to bolster Ukraine to allow the nation to negotiate a peace agreement from a position of power.”

    British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced billions in support for Ukraine on Sunday following a summit with European leaders, just days after […] Trump berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office.

    Starmer announced a loan of 2.2 billion British pounds ($2.8 billion) to support Ukraine, funded through the freezing of Russian assets passed on Saturday. He also highlighted a new deal that would allow Ukraine to use 1.6 billion pounds ($2 billion) in export finance to buy missiles made in Northern Ireland.

    Starmer vowed to bolster Ukraine to allow the nation to negotiate a peace agreement from a position of power.

    “We have to learn from the mistakes of the past,” Starmer said at a press conference. “We cannot accept a weak deal like Minsk, which Russia can break with ease. Instead any deal must be backed with strength. Every nation must contribute to that in the best way that it can.”

    The Minsk agreements are a set of deals aimed at ending the fighting between Ukrainian armed forces and Russian separatists. Zelenskyy also referenced the weakness of the Minsk agreements during his tense visit to the Oval Office last week.

    […] “Getting a good outcome for Ukraine is not just a matter of right and wrong. It’s vital for the security of every nation here,” Starmer said.

    Russia’s top diplomat, meanwhile, praised what he called Trump’s “common sense” approach to ending a war that began when Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, and accused European countries of trying to prolong the conflict.

    With many of America’s once staunch allies now uncertain where they stand with the Trump administration, leaders and officials from more than a dozen countries attended the high-level meeting at Lancaster House, a 200-year-old mansion near Buckingham Palace.

    […] Zelenskyy has since thanked Trump for hosting him and Americans for supporting Ukraine.

    […] On Sunday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov emphasized his country’s growing common ground with Trump.

    “Donald Trump is a pragmatist,” Lavrov told the Russian military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda, according to a transcript released by the Foreign Ministry. “His slogan is common sense. It means, as everyone can see, a shift to a different way of doing things.” […]

  427. says

    Canadians Seek To Wash Hands of Weird Musk

    “It seems that everything’s gone wrong since the skipping dipshit came along.”

    Canada is very sorry about the whole “letting the Space Nazi into North America in the first place” thing, especially now that President Musk is openly spitballing about seizing the country to steal resources that might come in handy for building a Death Star down the road […]

    A recent petition launched by BC author Qualia Reed asking the federal government to take away Elon Musk’s Canadian citizenship has already gotten more than 346,000 digital signatures at last count. For comparison, that’s more than the populations of Prince Edward Island and all three Arctic territories combined in just over a week. And that was before most people heard about Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy getting reamed out in the Oval Office for not being more open to Putin’s genocidal hopes and dreams.

    “Elon Musk has engaged in activities that go against the national interest of Canada,” reads the petition sponsored by NDP firebrand Charlie Angus, the long-serving MP for Ontario’s Timmins-James Bay region and the closest thing Canada has at the moment to an AOC or Jasmine Crockett. “He has used his wealth and power to influence our elections; he has now become a member of a foreign government that is attempting to erase Canadian sovereignty; and the attempts of Elon Musk to attack Canadian sovereignty must be addressed.”

    Musk gave precisely the sort of measured response you’d expect from the guy who had the bright idea to tell freaked-out advertisers fleeing Xitter to go fuck themselves: “Canada is not a real country” he shot back in a since-deleted tweet.

    Not exactly a display of warmth and gratitude to the country that helped grease the wheels for him to go on to become the wealthiest person in the world but it’s certainly on-brand. […]

    While the proposal easily met the 500 commoner signatures required to at least get a shot in the House of Commons, Parliament is essentially AWOL until March 24, and odds are there’s going to be a snap election before then anyway. But certainly adding another zero or two to the final tally before the e-petition closes in June would be good for morale, not unlike the country’s recent win over Team USA in the specific sport we’re so inordinately fond of.

    But while Musk likely doesn’t even know the current location of his Canadian passport, the feds couldn’t demand it back even if a majority of voters wanted it. Granted citizenship can only be revoked due to lies found on an application unless individuals choose to give it up themselves up like a common Ted Cruz or Conrad Black, and Dogeboy technically earned his fair and square thanks to his mom.

    There’s a certain irony to someone now attempting to end birthright citizenship for Americans having gotten his own foot in the door because his mother, Maye, was born in Regina. […] Mama Musk moved to Africa before she was old enough to speak, let alone get jokes about the Saskatchewan city’s name, but that’s how the system works, and young Elon was smart enough to figure out it’d be easier to score a student visa for the US as a Canadian than it would be as a South African at a time when Nelson Mandela was still rotting on Robben Island […]

    Musk escaped his childhood bullies as a teen to a farm owned by extended family living in Saskatchewan and was soon joined in Canada by younger siblings Tosca and Kimbal as well as Maye herself, who went on to have a successful modeling career that included a stint as a ghost haunting one of Beyoncé’s mansions. Which I only mention in the off-chance you didn’t have “Nazi megalomaniac’s ma artistically collaborating with beloved Black superstar” on your dumbest timeline imaginable Bingo card. All three newly Canadian family members eventually followed him to the US and became citizens there as well. […]

    There’s been a lot of attention on the allegedly porous northern border lately and who or what may be surreptitiously coming across it, so it seems timely to point out America has Canada to both thank for its greatest superhero as well as to blame for its biggest supervillain.

    Both were placed into tubes as children by their parents and sent flying to a new land to escape a dying world: an exploding planet in Kal-El’s case and an apartheid regime in Elon’s. Both ended up working on farms where their unusual gifts weren’t fully put to use, but Superman was fortunate enough to have Canadian co-creator Joe Shuster imagine him being raised under the loving care of Martha and Jonathan Kent in Kansas whereas Musk himself was instead taken under the wing of, well, fellow Musks.

    He might’ve otherwise come away with a better understanding of academic constructs such as “truth, justice and the American way.” But let’s hope there’s a Bizarro World version of Elon Reeve Musk (no relation to Christopher Reeve) where the planet’s richest man feeds starving children instead of stealing from them.

  428. says

    Bobby Kennedy Jr. plays doctor
    The legacy media’s endless quest to be seen as perfectly objective often leads the nation’s newspapers of record into funny little intellectual cul-de-sacs. Nowhere is that more apparent than in recent coverage of noted vaccine conspiracy theorist and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

    On Feb. 18, The New York Times dutifully dictated Kennedy’s unhinged talking points in an article headlined “Kennedy Says ‘Nothing’ Off Limits in Scrutinizing Chronic Disease,” which sounds … good, right? Shouldn’t the government be going all-out to solve the chronic diseases that plague nearly half of all Americans? Maybe Kennedy isn’t quite so crazy after all!

    Daily Kos had a different take on Kennedy’s new direction for HHS. “RFK Jr.’s ignorant war on vaccines will make America sick again,” wrote Alex Samuels, along with some critical reporting the Times left out. As it turns out, Kennedy’s “nothing is off limits” approach doesn’t apply to COVID-19 vaccine research, which he abruptly shut down despite the program being mere days from accepting 10,000 trial patients. [Embedded links to additional sources are available at the main link.]

    […] Kennedy isn’t “scrutinizing” chronic disease, as the Times claims—he’s actively hindering efforts to prevent outbreaks and slashing thousands of mission-critical jobs. We saw more of that distract-and-evade approach this week when Kennedy downplayed an ongoing measles outbreak that recently claimed the life of a young Texas girl.

    Kennedy may be able to launder his lack of credentials through a complacent media, but it will be tougher to hide the death toll.

    The Washington Post goes MAGA
    When billionaire Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post, announced this week that the newspaper’s legendary opinion section was changing, he really buried the lede. In a post shared on X, Bezos announced the departure of opinion editor David Shipley and a pivot towards coverage that championed “personal liberties and free markets.”

    In reality, it was nothing short of a surrender to Trump’s ongoing media pressure campaign.

    Daily Kos saw Bezos’ move for exactly what it was, writing that the “Washington Post opinion page is going MAGA—and team Trump is cheering.” Other outlets weren’t so quick, with cable news outlets largely framing Bezos’s motives as genuine and right-wing outlets praising the billionaire’s patriotism. But what does Bezos’ ultimatum actually mean?

    A healthy newspaper opinion page challenges conventional wisdom, even the opinions of its owner. The right question for Post editors to ask is why Bezos believes Trump represents “personal liberties” and “free markets” when most of the president’s record points the exact opposite direction. [True]

    Can anyone seriously argue that Trump, yuge fan of trade wars and tariffs, who routinely calls for prosecuting critical media outlets, is any kind of champion for free markets or free speech? Unfortunately, the Post no longer has a healthy newsroom to raise those kinds of glaring contradictions. The boss just made sure of that. […]

    America’s invisible veterans
    Even the largest media outlets have struggled to keep pace as Trump and Elon Musk slash their way through the federal workforce. Lost in the crush of events are the over 6,000 veterans facing serious financial worries after being pushed out of their jobs earlier this month. Yet those betrayals barely made headlines this week, drowned out by other sideshows in Trump’s chaotic circus. […]

    “We are watching the gutting of the VA,” one employee told military newspaper Stars & Stripes.

    Daily Kos was one of the few outlets reporting on House Democrats’ effort this week to advance the Protect Veteran Jobs Act, which would reinstate the thousands of veterans fired by Musk’s unofficial cost-cutters and also require regular transparency reports whenever federal agencies fire veterans. So far, not a single Republican supports the measure. […]

    Link

  430. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Aaron Rupar

    [Video clips from a Meet the Press interview]
    Mike Johnson (on Elon Musk): We meet late into the night in his office and we’ve looked at that. What he’s finding with his algorithms crawling through the data of Social Security system is enormous amounts of fraud, waste, and abuse.

    Kristen Welker: It’s worth noting the Social Security administration’s internal watchdog found that less than 1 percent of benefit payments were improper.

    Mike Johnson: Don’t believe it. Hey, don’t believe it.

    Josh Marshall (TPM): “There it is: Speaker of the House says Elon has already started running your Social Security through his AI.”

    Josh Marshall: “[Musk is] sharing the results with Mike Johnson? During some late night hoe-down in the Old Exec Office Building? Or is this in Elon’s White House office? Is this all on Elon’s laptop? Should we assume (yes) that all this data is being put on to private servers?”

  431. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    EmptyWheel:

    The richest man in the world has gotten IRS to fire the people investigating the richest men in the world for tax fraud and instead gotten them to look for fraud among people poor enough to rely on (non-DOD/IC contract) govt benefits.

    Jess Calarco (Sociologist):

    My father-in-law is a retired IRS Special Investigator. And his stories (of disguises, stake-outs, and trash bags of documents) make clear that it costs way more to investigate rich people with teams of lawyers, accountants, and lackeys than it does to investigate someone who is barely scraping by.

    WaPo – DOGE presses to check federal benefits payments against IRS tax records

    Gavin Kliger and Sam Corcos, DOGE representatives embedded at the tax agency, on Friday asked IRS lawyers to assist in creating an “omnibus” agreement with other federal agencies that would allow a broad swath of federal officials to cross-reference benefits rolls with taxpayer data […] IRS lawyers quickly arrived at the conclusion that DOGE’s request would violate privacy laws […] Melanie Krause, who took over at the agency Friday night, has indicated she is interested in complying with DOGE’s requests.
    […]
    Kliger’s agreement to work at the IRS prevents him from accessing personal taxpayer data. Corcos has not yet been granted access to IRS systems because of data privacy concerns

  432. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Anna Bower (Lawfare):

    I love my job but I really begrudge the fact that my chosen vocation requires me to listen to a 3 hour conversation between Elon Musk and Joe Rogan
    […]
    Musk: “We have continued to fund things that appear to be legitimate if there’s even the flimsiest excuse. I just say, like, ‘Send me a picture of the thing.’ You could literally have AI generate the picture. But if you’re not even willing to try to trick me then we’re not going to send the money.”
    […]
    Ok I had to stop when Elon repeated his inaccurate claim that ebola prevention efforts haven’t been interrupted (they have) and then […]
    “I actually don’t know if this work is even effective. It may or may not be. Like, it could be the kind of thing where you fund ebola prevention, but it turns out that actually you’re funding a lab that develops new ebola virii recipes […] ebola creation.” [Video clip]

    Rando 1: “‘…send me…’, So says the unelected final arbiter and grantor of all funding of the U.S. government.”

    Rando 2: “So who’s making the decisions again? Amy Gleason, was it?”

    Rando 3: “So lie to me and I’ll spend money I’m not legally authorized.
    Who’s cutting waste fraud and abuse now?”

  433. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Jesse Eisinger (ProPublica):

    When the Trump Admin abruptly cancelled almost all USAID programs, it also refused to pay $2bln the U.S. govt owes **for work that’s been done.**

    One of the cut-off programs in Syria couldn’t afford security and was robbed by masked men. [ProPublica article on USAID cancelations]

    To summarize:
    -They stopped almost all USAID work.

    -Then they conceded that some programs actually saved lives & granted waivers for those.

    -Then they promised a “careful” 90 day review of everything.

    -Then they cancelled 90% anyway within just weeks, including many they had just deemed life-saving.

    Another disaster in the article:

    [Peter Marocco] and [Marco Rubio] ordered the cancellation of contracts, including for cellphone service, at an office they do not control […] USAID’s Office of Inspector General. That office is meant to be independent from USAID so that it can effectively audit
    […]
    For more than 24 hours, OIG staff, including people in Ukraine and Haiti, did not have access to their government phones. No one at the OIG, including contract officers, knew it was coming […] “This is an urgent issue for us, as we have OIG staff in warzones with no ability to receive security alerts,” a senior official in the agency wrote in an email to [AT&T]. Eventually USAID reversed the termination.

    * Peter Marocco was the Christian nationalist who tried to undermine Bosnia’s ethnic/religious pluralism.

  434. says

    Text quoted by Sky Captain @431:

    […] Gavin Kliger and Sam Corcos, DOGE representatives embedded at the tax agency, on Friday asked IRS lawyers to assist in creating an “omnibus” agreement with other federal agencies that would allow a broad swath of federal officials to cross-reference benefits rolls with taxpayer data […]

    Musk and DOGE have already proven that they cannot competently assess Social Security databases (as referenced in your comment 430), so how are they going to competently compare benefit rolls with taxpayer data? They’ll just create another layer of misinformation.

    Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is certainly ready to believe (and to repeat) any misinformation that Musk spews.

    It’s difficult for me to get my head around how much more chaos Musk and his band of doofuses can cause if they start comparing tax rolls to benefit rolls. Scares me.

  435. says

    The trap? The set-up meant to humiliate Zelensky?

    Russian Lawmakers on Russian State TV Detailed Trump and Putin’s Planned Attack on Zelenskyy

    The day BEFORE the Zelenskyy meeting Russian lawmakers on Russian state TV said that Trump has embraced a new world order with Russia, their worldviews are aligned, and detailed the attack that Trump and Putin planned to do on Zelenskyy the next day.

    They detailed exactly what in fact happened the next day.

    It is really terrifying how they planned to undermine Zelenskyy with his people with the mineral deal. Thank God Zelenskyy didn’t capitulate. The mineral deal was nothing, but a set up.

    Russian State TV Confirmed Trump is Actively Dividing the West, Trump’s Upcoming 25% Tariff on Europe is An Economic Attack Against Europe With Russia

    They also said that Trump’s upcoming 25% tariff on Europe is Trump working with Russia to economically attack Europe. They said that Trump is doing their work to actively divide the West. Russian state TV said it was no coincidence that Trump was parroting Putin after their 90 minute call.

    Here are Quotes from the Russian State TV Show:

    Popov pointed out that Trump is strangling America’s friends and allies. Tretyakov noted, “He is pursuing policies that are beneficial for Russia.” He surmised, “With respect to Ukraine, he is ready to give Russia everything it wants to take.”

    On February 5, the Russian state TV show 60 Minutes headlined its evening broadcast “Together Against Zelenskyy,” with the opening shot featuring Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Trump. This image was indicative of Moscow’s belief that Trump and his envoy Lt. Gen. (rtd) Keith Kellogg would be used as tools to unseat the Ukrainian leader.

    “State Duma member Oleg Morozov on 60 Minutes, a state TV show. Morozov said that the meeting would be a lesson in humiliation, designed to condition Zelensky to capitulate to the United States—and later to Russia. The lawmaker said that the Ukrainian president was flying to America ‘to sign an act of capitulation,’ referring to the rare earth mineral deal Trump was determined to get as a “payback” for previous aid to Ukraine. Describing Trump as Zelensky’s ‘Daddy,’ Morozov predicted, ‘They will rub his nose into everything, like a messy puppy… Then he will sign whatever he is told to sign.’ Host Evgeny Popov chimed in, “But first, Daddy will flog him.’” http://www.yahoo.com/...

    Russian experts and pundits repeatedly articulated that Moscow isn’t seeking peace but instead wants to conquer as much of Ukraine as possible. They’ve explained that getting Zelensky out of the way is essential to achieve the Kremlin’s goal of subjugating its neighbor. [Which is probably why Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and other Republicans started calling immediately for Zelensky to resign … and saying that Ukraine needs a new leader. Russia didn’t manage to kill Zelensky so now they are trying to oust him by other means.]

    The Trump administration’s aim of forcing Ukraine into signing over its mineral rights was going to be used against Zelenskyy by the Russian propagandists. It was a set up.

    The Mineral Deal Was A Planned Set Up To Undermine Zelenskyy With His Own People

    “They openly expressed their intent to use the one-sided deal to besmirch Zelensky as an ‘illegitimate’ president who agreed to sign away Ukraine’s future, effectively turning generations of Ukrainians into indentured servants of the United States—all without obtaining any security guarantees.” So Trump and Vance just like Russia state TV said, publicly flog Zelenskyy and try to bully him into a bad deal with no security guarantees so Russian propaganda could use it against him.

    “Trump’s commentary about the urgent need for a wartime election was said to be a result of Vladimir Putin’s conversations with the American president and his special envoy, Steve Witkoff. Top Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov said that the views of the Trump administration are in total alignment with the way things look from Moscow.”

    Link

    Additional links are available at the main link.

  436. Reginald Selkirk says

    ‘SNL’ Host Quickly Loses ‘Liberal’ Crowd With Trump Jokes

    Shane Gillis figured out early into his second-ever Saturday Night Live monologue that the audience wasn’t quite feeling him.

    “My favorite thing about [Joe] Biden was that anytime he was giving a speech, in between teleprompters his face would go back to being dead,“ Gillis said. ”Do you remember that?”

    He did his Biden impression, before saying, “Look, I get it, you guys are pretty liberal here.”

    Gillis continued, “Look, I understand being liberal, dude. It feels good. It’s powerful. It’s too powerful, dude. It’s like the Sith… Sometimes somebody says something you don’t like at work and you’re like…”

    Gillis did an impression of Emperor Palpatine saying, “Do it.”

    He let out a laugh and continued on, telling the audience, “Alright, now I’m going to lose you even more…”

    That’s right, because you’re a loser.

  440. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: Reginald Selkirk @437:
    Fitting name for the ski lift. JD Vance entering Heaven’s Gate.

  441. says

    Trump and Musk refusing to pay USAID’s bills threatens far more than foreign aid

    “It takes a certain kind of mindset to believe that there are no consequences for not paying the people who have already provided their labor.”

    The Supreme Court on Wednesday night temporarily paused a looming deadline for the Trump administration to release more than $1.5 billion in foreign aid funding. Chief Justice John Roberts’ order was brief but still a major win for the White House in its effort to tear down the U.S. Agency for International Development. In coverage of and reaction to the Supreme Court’s ruling, one fact has gone underemphasized: The lower court order, which is now on hold, required the government to pay for work that has already been completed.

    The administration’s withholding of that money represents a stunning disregard for contracts signed and executed in good faith. This culture of deliberate default on display can’t spring from nowhere — it must be encouraged and supported at the top. Given the history of the two men driving this rapid, and likely illegal, dismantling of USAID, it follows that President Donald Trump and Elon Musk see paying bills as merely an option that can be discarded.

    […] The foreign aid freeze that Trump signed on his first day immediately jeopardized thousands of projects and many more lives around the world. A lack of understanding of how federal payment systems work reportedly led Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency to say they believed USAID workers were willfully skirting the freeze — and deserved to be made into an example. [Maybe. Yes Musk is ignorant, but he may have also been looking for an excuse for the unreasonable actions he wanted to take no matter what.]

    Musk tried to dodge blame for one of the “accidentally canceled” programs, claiming that DOGE quickly “restored” funding for Ebola prevention that USAID administers. Current and former USAID officials told The Washington Post that is false. In fact, most of the aid work USAID was doing remains paused. Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali ordered the administration to disburse funding that USAID had previously promised to pay contractors and grant recipients. When the State Department’s lawyers dithered in court Tuesday on whether that money had been released, the judge on Tuesday issued a follow-up order to have USAID pay up for work that had already been done prior to his initial Feb. 13 order. The Trump administration argued to the Supreme Court that there wasn’t enough time to carry out Ali’s order, leading to Roberts’ stay. [Trump and Musk can break it, but they can’t fix it.]

    […] “The actions in total paint a portrait of Trump’s sprawling organization frequently failing to pay small businesses and individuals, then sometimes tying them up in court and other negotiations for years,” USA Today reported in 2016. “In some cases, the Trump teams financially overpower and outlast much smaller opponents, draining their resources. Some just give up the fight or settle for less; some have ended up in bankruptcy or out of business altogether.” [I snipped details of a similar report from The Wall Street Journal.]

    Musk’s companies have also been subject to similar complaints. Within four months of his takeover of Twitter (now dubbed X) in late 2022, six companies sued his new business over unpaid bills. After less than a year under Musk, the number of lawsuits over unpaid bills had grown to more than two dozen. “Suing X,” wrote Ars Technica’s Jon Brodkin, “seems to be the most effective method of collecting on unpaid invoices.” [The richest man on the planet doesn’t pay his bills. He gets people to work for him and then he doesn’t pay them.]

    Reuters also reported last year that based on a review of Texas property records, Musk’s rocket company SpaceX has been slow to pay bills for work done as it expands. […] As with Trump, many of those cases involving Musk have been settled while others face ongoing, […],litigation.

    The amount that Musk and Trump have been accused of not paying totals somewhere in the millions — but the federal contracts at play are measured in the billions. State Department lawyers blamed the delay in restoring that funding on the complexity of the system, claiming it couldn’t be turned back on like a spigot. But in the same filings, they also noted the administration is eliminating 90% of the contracts USAID administers</B. and more than $60 billion in foreign assistance. In short, the Trump administration is arguing that the spigot is under its sole control, not the courts’ or Congress’, and effectively claiming the right to break legally binding contracts on a whim.

    […] If anything, removing trust in government contracts will more likely lead to higher costs for taxpayers, as expensive contractors require upfront payments to ensure that the U.S. won’t simply leave them on the hook once the job is done. […]

  443. whheydt says

    Re: Lynna, OM @ #441…
    Slow (or non-existent) payment was endemic in the SF publishing for decades…and probably still is. The authors would categorize publishers into one of three groups:
    1. Payment on acceptance of manuscript.
    2. Payment on publication of the work.
    3. Payment on threat of lawsuit.

  444. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Anna Maria Barry-Jester (ProPublica):

    USAID’s acting asst administrator, Nick Enrich, has been placed on leave after sharing a memo detailing how political appointees have “wholly prevented” staff from continuing life saving aid.

    This is the first time we are hearing from senior leadership at USAID in this way, how political appointees impeded staff from continuing life-saving programs, and who did it.

    Starting Jan 29, staff scrambled to request life-saving waivers after all foreign aid was paused. Enrich sent an email on Jan 31st to three political appointees about waivers, but didn’t get a response until Feb. 4, when one said to be “draconian” in what they approved.

    One early request was for the response to an Ebola outbreak in Uganda. Those programs got temporary permission to continue […]

    Nonprofits made clear to USAID staff that without payment, they couldn’t continue their life-saving work. On Feb 7, senior officials acknowledged that all of USAID’s payment systems had been shut off by DOGE, so funds couldn’t go out. Then senior officials were told to start terminating some programs, including ones that had been flagged as life-saving.

    In the weeks that followed, USAID received conflicting information on a near daily basis about whether waivers could continue and how. On Feb 24, political leadership said to deprioritize programs for mpox, polio, and Ebola, noting waivers for that work would not be approved.

    Then, on Feb 26, Secretary of State Marco Rubio terminated 5,000 USAID programs all at once, including care for malaria, TB and HIV. Shortly after political appointees told Enrich that they’d made some mistakes. “There is an acknowledgement some may have been sent out in error.”

    Overall, the bureau identified 72 activities that are life-saving. To date, none of these have been approved and no payments have been released, according to Enrich’s memo. Then nearly all of them were terminated on Feb 27th.

    EmptyWheel:

    This is the second time USAID/State is punishing people revealing the truth that Marco is killing children. They’re quite desperate to hide this fact, as if the reporters in Africa or court declarations are making it up.

     
    Lauren Dobson-Hughes (Planned Parenthood ExPrez, ExExecDir of Intl dev NGO):

    It’ll take time to quantify the deaths caused by the end of US aid but early internal sector figures go from 250,000 in the next few months, to 3 million+ this year.

    [First will come malnutrition and post-partum haemorrhage. Then infectious disease. TB. HIV will take longer. Malaria.] If we see a resurgence of polio, all bets are off.

    * I couldn’t identify her NGO. She and it seem high profile. Her bios never name it.

  445. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    * #444: Aha. Her NGO was “Results Canada“, lobbying govs to direct spending priorities toward anti-poverty initiatives.

  446. Bekenstein Bound says

    If signed into law, HB0081 would prevent any individual or political subdivision from adding fluoride “to water in or intended for public water systems.”

    The return to the dark ages continues.

    Oh, don’t worry! Thanks to the Randoids, pretty soon Utah will have only private water systems and from the sounds of it those are exempt! /s

    Think about what Elon did with Twitter. He fired 80% of the people, he changed the name of it, and now today it is worth twice as much as it was before.

    Erm, what?

    Trump’s Defense Secretary Hegseth Orders Cyber Command to ‘Stand Down’ on All Russia Operations

    Treason.

    Oh, and by the way, why the hell is “Contrary Brin” no longer updating? It doesn’t show anything newer than January 15, even if I shift-reload it.

    How do I fix this?

  447. robro says

    Uh oh. GOP lawmakers’ lewd texts kept House from subpoenaing [Cassidy] Hutchinson in Jan. 6 probe: report. That’s the new Loudermilk committee. Among others, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson warned against subpoenaing her because she might reveal embarrassing messages from GOP members seeking sexual favors. So, he knows about it. This Salon article is covering a WaPo story that names no names, yet. I’m guessing it won’t be long until names are named.

  448. John Morales says

    “Oh, and by the way, why the hell is “Contrary Brin” no longer updating? It doesn’t show anything newer than January 15, even if I shift-reload it.

    How do I fix this?”

    It’s not you. There have been no new posts.

  449. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: Bekenstein Bound @446:

    why the hell is “Contrary Brin” no longer updating?

    Assuming you mean the author David Brin on his blog, he wrote on Bluesky that day, “Fewer posts? So busy!” as he linked to the last blog post.
     
    Regarding your complaint a while back about gocomics.com, I’ve since encountered the ‘no comic image’ bug myself on Android Firefox a couple times. As a workaround, toggling desktop view made the image load for me.

  450. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Ryan Goodman (Former DoD Special Counsel):

    Something odd here.
    CBS News confirms other media reports: “Hegseth has issued a directive to U.S. Cyber Command to pause planning against Russia, including offensive digital actions.”

    The CBS News then notes that National Security Advisor Michael Waltz said he’s unaware of the directive.

    “On CNN State of the Union, national security adviser Mike Waltz said he was also unaware of the directive. Asked whether there were talks about pausing offensive cyber operations against Russia, Waltz said, “That has not been part of our discussions.'”

    It gets odder.
    Here’s Rep. Mike Turner Sunday morning on CBS flabbergasted by the question. Says he’s unaware of directive. He considers it literally inconceivable that Hegseth would issue such a directive. [Video clip] [Transcripr]

    Rep Turner: “I can’t- I don’t- no, I’m unaware of that and I don’t believe that.”

    “I am confident considering what Russia is currently doing against the United States, the United States status against Russia would not be that—considering what we are facing from Russia operations.”

    Many journalists have now confirmed Hegseth stand-down directive. [CNN, NYT, WaPo, Record, CBS, NBC]

    * Rep Mike Turner (R-OH) had been chair of the House Intelligence committee and member of the “Gang of Eight” (who get classified briefings) until Jan 15 when Mike Johnson removed him without warning—shocking members of both parties. Allegedly at Trump’s behest. Then chose Rick Crawford (R-AR) to be chair.

  451. StevoR says

    World Wildlife Day today – 3rd March every year. See :

    https://wildlifeday.org/en

    Not sure we can use the word “happy” for it but something to commemorate andf hink about today as we continue to live through the Anthropocene Mass Extinction ecent we are causing.

  452. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    BrianKrebs (Cybercrime journalist):

    I’ve been looking at the background of Branden Spikes, the senior member of DOGE who is director of IT over at X [Previously Paypal, SpaceX.] Prior to joining up with Musk, Spikes ran a company called Spikes Browser [at spikes.com]
    […]
    Branden used to be married to a woman named Natalia Haldeman (she went by Natalia Spikes then). Records published by ProPublica show that Ms. Haldeman is the CEO of a nonprofit called the California Russian Foundation.
    […]
    When I search in the breach tracking service Constella Intelligence for spikes.com, I find tons of Yandex profiles for people in Russia who have spikes.com email addresses (all phonenumbers{at}spikes.com).
    Going to keep poking at this.

  455. birgerjohansson says

    Addendum @ 454
    If they are caught lying they can be charged with perjury.

  456. KG says

    birgerjohansson@454,
    A significant development, certainly, but these hyperbolic headlines – “DOGE Gets Crushed” FFS – are both really annoying, and undermine the credibility of the source.

  459. says

    Trump suggests Putin was a victim of the Russia scandal, reaching new low

    When Donald Trump met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and the two leaders fielded some questions from the press, the discussion predictably turned to Russia and the war in Ukraine. Trump took the opportunity to do what he often does: express sympathy for Vladimir Putin.

    “We had to go through the Russian hoax together,” Trump said, referring to himself the Russian leader. He added that the Russia scandal “had nothing to do with Russia” — days later, I still don’t know what that meant — and that the underlying controversy was “a phony story that was made up.”

    Roughly 24 hours later, as part of his Oval Office debacle with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump managed to say something new about the scandal. The Washington Post reported:

    “Let me tell you: Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” Trump said. “He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia. Russia, Russia, Russia. You ever hear of that deal? That was a phony Hunter Biden, Joe Biden scam. … And he had to go through that.”

    At this point, I could write several paragraphs explaining that that the Russia scandal was not “phony,” no matter how many times Republicans claim otherwise. I could also go into detail, highlighting the overwhelming evidence from the investigations launched by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team and the GOP-led Senate Intelligence Committee, both of which documented the extent to which Trump and his team welcomed, received, and benefited from Russian assistance in the 2016 campaign.

    I could similarly remind readers that Team Trump obstructed the investigation into this assistance — by some measures, 10 times. I could note that Trump and his operation repeatedly lied about their interactions with Russia during the 2016 race. I could even reiterate the fact that a Senate Intelligence Committee’s report — written in part by the panel’s then-Republican majority — at one point literally described a “direct tie between senior Trump Campaign officials and the Russian intelligence services.”

    But I’m going to assume readers already know this. Let’s instead note what was new about the American president’s unscripted remarks from Friday.

    As a Washington Post analysis noted about the Republican’s claim, “It was an extraordinary comment. Trump has gone further than the evidence suggests in claiming his own exoneration in the Russia investigation. But here he was suggesting Putin also had been wronged in the process.”

    There is voluminous and unchallenged evidence that the Russian leader launched an intelligence operation targeting the American political system for the express purpose of influencing the outcome of a presidential election. Even if one were inclined to put aside questions of cooperation and “collusion” — no one should put these questions aside, of course, but just for the sake of conversation — Putin’s intelligence operation itself represented an extraordinary attack on the United States.

    Years later, Trump would have Americans believe that Putin was the victim of the attack that he perpetrated. That isn’t just wrong, it’s insane.

  461. says

    Well that didn’t take long.

    Remember when Pete Hegseth’s line on Ukraine was panned as a “rookie mistake”? His error has apparently become the official White House line.

    As Pete Hegseth prepared to become defense secretary, his many critics made a persuasive case that the former Fox News host was, among other things, wildly unprepared to lead the Pentagon. Soon after, he took steps that helped prove his detractors right.

    In fact, it was just a few weeks ago when the hapless Pentagon chief declared publicly that it was “unrealistic” to think that after the war in Ukraine ends, Russia wouldn’t keep portions of Ukraine it took by force. He added that Ukrainian membership in NATO simply wouldn’t happen.

    The comments were certainly in line with the Kremlin’s wishes — a familiar problem with this administration — but they were also immediately recognized as a dramatic misstep: Before negotiations on a possible peace plan even began, Hegseth was already giving Moscow what it wanted.

    The mistake did not go unnoticed. Not only were U.S. allies taken aback, but Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, chided the defense secretary for making a “rookie mistake.”

    Hegseth quickly tried to walk back his comments, though three weeks later, it appears his “rookie mistake” has become the White House’s official policy. Politico summarized White House National Security Adviser Mike Waltz’s appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” program.

    National security adviser Mike Waltz on the ultimate cease-fire deal, on “State of the Union”: “This will clearly be some type of territorial concession for security guarantees going forward. … This needs to be a permanent end, not a temporary end. This needs to be European-led security guarantees going forward. Part of that is Europe’s contribution to its own defense. … And then, you know, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves — what type of support we provide or not is to be negotiated. But one thing is clear: We do not see Ukraine being a member of NATO.”

    Let’s recap. In February, Hegseth said that Russia will be able to keep parts of Ukraine that it took by force, and now in March, the White House national security adviser said Ukraine will, as far as the Trump administration is concerned, have to make “some type of territorial concession” to Russia.

    In February, Hegseth said that Ukrainian membership in NATO was effectively off the table, and now in March, the White House national security adviser said effectively the same thing.

    In fact, Waltz managed to go further than Hegseth, telling a national television audience the administration isn’t sure whether Volodymyr Zelenskyy should remain as Ukraine’s leader. “We need a leader that can deal with us, eventually deal with the Russians, and end this war,” Waltz said. “And if it becomes apparent that President Zelenskyy’s either personal motivations or political motivations are divergent from ending the fighting in his country, then I think we have a real issue on our hands.”

    In other words, the diplomatic work has hardly even begun, but as far as the White House is concerned, Ukraine should be prepared to reward Russia with territory, give up on NATO membership, and even prepare to choose a new president more in line with Donald Trump’s wishes.

    It’s one thing for an amateur Cabinet secretary to make a “rookie mistake.” It’s something else for an administration to embrace the error as U.S. foreign policy.

  462. says

    Speaker Mike Johnson Is Living In A DC House That Is The Center Of A Pastor’s Secretive Influence Campaign

    This story first appeared at ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom.

    In 2021, Steve Berger, an evangelical pastor who has attacked the separation of church and state as “a delusional lie” and called multinational institutions “demonic,” set off on an ambitious project. His stated goal: minister to members of Congress so that what “they learn is then translated into policy.” His base of operations would be a six-bedroom, $3.7 million townhouse blocks from the U.S. Capitol.

    Recently, the pastor scored a remarkable coup for a political influence project that has until now managed to avoid public scrutiny. He got a new roommate.

    House Speaker Mike Johnson has been staying at the home since around the beginning of this year, according to interviews and videos obtained by ProPublica.

    The house is owned by a major Republican donor and Tennessee car magnate who has joined Berger in advocating for and against multiple bills before Congress.

    Over the past four years, Berger and his wife, Sarah Berger, have dedicated themselves to what they call their D.C. “ministry center.” […]

    A spokesperson for Johnson said that the speaker “pays fair market value in monthly rent for the portion of the Washington, D.C. townhome that he occupies.” He did not answer a question about how much Johnson is paying. House ethics rules allow members of Congress to live anywhere, as long as they are paying fair-market rent.

    […] Steve Berger claims to have personally spurred legislation. “It’s a humbling thing,” he said in a sermon in late 2022. “You get a text message from a senator that says: ‘Thank you for your inspiration. Because it has caused me now to create a bill that is going to further righteousness in this country.’”

    Berger’s interests extend beyond his staunch social conservatism. He and the donor who owns the house, Lee Beaman, have publicly advocated together for numerous specific policy changes, including a bill that would make it easier to fire federal employees and a regulation that would reduce fuel efficiency standards for the automotive industry. After the 2020 election, they both signed a letter declaring that President Donald Trump was the rightful winner and calling for Congress to overturn the results. [Sheesh]

    […] Washington pieds-à-terre can prove a significant expense for members of Congress as they split time between the capital and their home districts. Johnson is less wealthy than many other lawmakers. He worked at conservative nonprofits before he entered public service, and on his most recent financial disclosure form he did not declare a single asset. […]

    Last year, Berger, a passionate supporter of the Israeli right-wing, said he’d had “a great conversation” with the speaker about Israel.

    […] He is vehemently opposed to the World Health Organization, which Trump moved to withdraw the U.S. from last month, and recently predicted that COVID-19 vaccines will result in “young people dropping dead all over the place.” He attacked the World Economic Forum at length in a recent sermon, accusing it of “taking advantage” of COVID-19 “to implement their satanic plot.” [Again, sheesh.]

    […] He opposes homosexuality and “heterosexual sin” in equal measures, he’s said, referring to acts like watching pornography and sex between unmarried adults.

    Berger’s operation is organized as a nonprofit called Ambassador Services International, which runs on a budget of around $1 million per year, according to tax filings. The home’s […] sole owner is Beaman, the donor and businessman, who built a fortune on a chain of car dealerships started by his father. He has given millions to Republican political groups, including large donations to the Trump campaign and political committees for the Heritage Foundation and the House Freedom Caucus. […]

    He became a fixture of Nashville media in recent years because of sordid allegations made by his fourth wife during their divorce, including that he made her watch what he called “training films” of him having sex with a prostitute. Beaman’s lawyers wrote at the time that his wife’s filing contained “impertinent and scandalous matter only meant to harass Mr. Beaman.”

    […] “Listen, I have confessed things to Steve that I wouldn’t normally confess to anyone else,” Mark Meadows, a White House chief of staff in the first Trump administration who remains an important ally of the president, said at a 2023 event with Berger. “We have been praying together, having a Bible study each and every week. Not just me, but several members of Congress.”

    […] Trump has nominated Bishop to be deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, the powerful White House office that recently moved to freeze funding streams across the federal government. Berger celebrated the nomination on Instagram: “I want to congratulate my dear friend and brother, Congressman Dan Bishop, for accepting this incredible opportunity.”

  466. says

    Republican Town Hall events, an update:

    It was a weekend of pain for GOP lawmakers brave enough to hold town halls. Hundreds of angry constituents […] peppered them with questions about the chaos […] Trump and co-President Elon Musk have wrought since Inauguration Day.

    The images of Republicans facing enraged voters who are demanding that the GOP stand up to Trump and Musk are getting to Trump, who lied in a Truth Social post that the town hall attendees are being paid. [Yep. That’s a lie. And it is a lie Trump has used before.]

    “Paid ‘troublemakers’ are attending Republican Town Hall Meetings. It is all part of the game for the Democrats, but just like our big LANDSLIDE ELECTION [and that’s another lie], it’s not going to work for them!” Trump wrote on Monday morning, ignoring at his own peril the real anger bubbling up across the country at Republicans’ threats to the economy and attacks on national security and Americans’ health.

    In Texas’ 3rd Congressional District, which Trump won with 56% of the vote in the 2020 presidential election, GOP Rep. Keith Self was loudly booed by his constituents on Saturday when he tried to justify the thousands of cuts to the federal workforce that Musk and Trump made through the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

    The town hall ended with constituents chanting “vote him out.”

    In Kansas, which Trump won with over 57% of the vote in 2024, GOP Sen. Roger Marshall got up and walked away rather than answer a question from a constituent about how he will ensure veterans aren’t caught up in Trump and Musk’s firing rampage.

    “I’m not a Democrat, but I’m worried about the veterans, man,” one constituent said, referring to reports that thousands of veterans have been fired in the federal workforce purge that Trump and Musk are undertaking.

    Marshall, however, flatly ignored the constituent’s questions, saying he had “two more events today” before standing up and walking away without acknowledging the voter’s legitimate concerns. As Marshall turned his back on his constituents and walked out, a woman was heard yelling, “We’re going to vote you out.”

    And in Tennessee, Republican Rep. Diana Harshbarger spewed conspiracy theories and lies as her constituents in her safely Republican district yelled at her about Trump’s cuts to the government.

    “There’s been a mandate to the president from the American people. Am I correct?” Harshbarger said, as voters yelled, “No!”

    Harshbarger chastised her constituents, telling them they had to be “respectful” as she lied about the cuts Trump and Musk are making.

    For example, Harshbarger claimed Musk is not getting paid by the federal government, even though his companies are taking in billions in federal funding. When voters pointed that out to her, she accused them of listening to “propaganda news.” [video at the link]

    […] In Minnesota, hundreds of protesters gathered at Rep. Pete Stauber’s district office in Duluth.

    “We don’t have any representation, basically he’s catering to President Trump and his policy of trying to undermine the democracy in the country,” U.S. Coast Guard Veteran Marty Ferguson told Northern News Now, saying that Stauber is refusing to hold town halls.

    […] “Right now Republicans think their seats are at greater risk from Trump/Musk retaliation than from their constituents’ votes. Time for the people to rise up and make your voices heard,” Democratic Rep. Daniel Goldman of New York said. “My GOP colleagues will only stand up to Trump if they believe their seat depends on it.”

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/3/3/2307539/-Town-halls-are-getting-even-uglier-for-Republican-lawmakers

  467. says

    After his narrow Feb. 20 confirmation, FBI Director Kash Patel stormed into office with a laundry list of sweeping promises, from purging the FBI of “woke” agents to prosecuting Donald Trump’s extensive list of political enemies. Optimists hoped that Patel might prove more bravado than bureaucrat. No such luck this time.

    Patel represents something truly dangerous in a Trump administration weighed down by fools and sycophants. Patel merges a genuine, fundamentalist zeal for MAGA ideology with an effective administrative mind. […]

    The FBI is facing an existential crisis, and it isn’t clear if Congress (or anyone else) can stop Patel from turning the bureau’s nearly 14,000 special agents into Trump’s personal secret police. […]

    In one shocking move, Patel announced a new investigation into former FBI director and prominent Trump critic James Comey. Its purpose? To discredit the FBI’s prior investigation into misconduct on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

    […] Trump also moved to centralize even more law enforcement power under Patel last week—by making him acting chief of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. The gun lobby couldn’t wait to congratulate Patel on his new job, mostly because Patel shares their extreme view that even current federal gun laws are too restrictive.

    […] Last week Patel announced that former Fox News commentator and current protein powder pitchman Dan Bongino would assume the role of deputy FBI director despite promising otherwise to the Bureau’s active duty agents. The decision sparked understandable fury at the FBI, an agency Bongino once dismissed as “irredeemably corrupt.” [See comments 77 and 82]

    […] Trump’s second term is still taking shape, but Patel is poised to be a major player not only at the FBI, but in shaping Trump’s crime and policing—with sweeping consequences for American law enforcement. […]

    Link

  469. says

    Let me begin by saying if you are not following Paul Krugman since his move to Substack, you are missing a lot. It’s well worth subscribing to get full access to everything he posts. Krugman is a really smart guy who knows stuff and can explain it to other people so it can be understood. […]

    Nathan Tankus is someone I had never heard of — but it looks like I and many others need to right now. He’s been doing remarkable work to document what is happening since Trump returned to power, using expertise that gives him a unique perspective. […]

    Krugman had a video chat with Nathan Tankus on March 1, 2025. Krugman considers what they discussed so important that it’s not behind a paywall. You can watch the video and read a transcript.

    Krugman: Like most people paying attention, I was and remain terrified by the predictable power grab by the Musk/Trump administration. But it never occurred to me that Musk’s people would try to seize control of the computer systems that, in effect, cut all the checks the federal government sends out. In fact, very few people realized it was happening.

    One person who did realize it, however, was Nathan Tankus — an independent expert on the financial “plumbing” at the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department. So Nathan suddenly became the man of the moment. His blog Notes on the Crises has become crucial reading — and he may have helped steer us, temporarily at least, away from the edge of the abyss.

    Tankus has spent 15 years delving into the depths of the financial systems underpinning the way the government gets money to where it is supposed to go, working from outside the government. He’s become a go-to guy that the experts call when it comes to questions about how the government moves money around. For example during the pandemic:

    Krugman: OK, we stepped up to help people through this—what I was calling a ‘medically induced coma for the economy’ during Covid. But that involved trying to get money out in unusual, unprecedented ways and presumably was technically very demanding. And you were writing about that then.

    Tankus: Absolutely. I was largely focused on the Federal Reserve, but I had interest in other things, including state unemployment insurance and actually how, as we’ll get to in a bit, related to this, how their COBOL systems made updating them very technically complex. So for example, why the unemployment insurance checks were an additional $600 a week, rather than say, “We’re going to replace 80% of your income.” It was just too technically complicated in the time available to program 80% or replacement rates. And so they just slapped on adding $600 a week to everyone’s check because that was technically easier.

    […] What the government does is absolutely vital to keep the financial systems operating smoothly. The systems that make it possible are held together by the equivalent of rubber bands and patchwork running on old code. It’s kept operating by a relatively small number of people with specialized knowledge and experience.

    Musk through DOGE has been sending in teams of people who have no clue about what they’re dealing with or how it really works. All they are looking for is things they can cut and people they can fire. They think government is wasteful, government employees are disposable, and A.I. can be used to fix everything.

    And that’s why they’re sending all these people to physically take over the buildings, to shut off people’s emails, all that stuff. And that stuff is hard. It’s a pain. It’s annoying to have to actually go to try to take control of the federal government. It would be a lot easier if you could just flip a switch and it doesn’t matter what those people are doing. And hey, maybe we can flip a switch and get those people to stop being paid. And with those people stop being paid, then they’re going to have to quit and go somewhere else. Because they have to live. And it’ll be a lot easier to take over the federal government that way. And that is what they were trying to do.

    If you remember a few weeks ago, there was a news story about a top treasury official being forced out because he tried to block them from accessing critical systems. Here’s how Tankus reacted when he got wind of what was happening:

    Tankus:

    …And in an article in the Washington Post I had seen a headline about how a high level person in the Treasury had resigned in protest or is on leave or something, but related to the treasury’s payment system. And as a payments expert, that headline was incredibly alarming. […]

    And my friend, colleague, the economist Stephanie Kelton at Stony Brook, when I told her that, she had already read the article and was already alarmed. She said, ‘I don’t think that’s the right order.’ […]

    […] literally, four paragraphs into this article, I had a panic attack. It was possibly the scariest or one of the scariest moments of my life when I read that article. And it was so scary to me because what the article said was that the fiscal assistant secretary, who’s the highest civil servant in the treasury, where everyone above him are political appointees. You know, there’s that top layer of every agency which are political appointees that, you might fire the old people, you fire the Biden administration or the Trump people, and you bring in your people. That’s a normal expected part of government. But everyone below them are supposed to be professional civil servants who were doing the job regardless of the partisan status of the executive branch, regardless of who is president.

    And the fact that this person had been pushed out because DOGE and Elon Musk in the Department of Government Efficiency were asking to have access to the Treasury and this guy, a long time official, someone who’d been in the government since 1989, had been in this highest status position since 10 years ago had been widely credited as the person who has expertly managed the treasury and payments throughout the various debt ceiling crises where you’re trying to squeeze every dollar and make sure payments go out without breaching the debt ceiling. I immediately understood how desperately serious and what the worst case scenarios could be and was overwhelmed by it. And I was also overwhelmed and alarmed as an expert in this area that so few people understood how serious this was that it was, and that it was going to be, that it’s not just that this was so dangerous, but that there was very few people who were in a position to really say anything about this. […] I knew immediately that this was basically up to me.

    (Yes this is a long quote — but Krugman has made the entire chat available, so excerpting this should be justifiable given how serious the matter is, and how little of it is making it into the press.)

    How bad is it?

    Tankus:

    Well, first I would just say overwhelmingly, we don’t really know. I mean, the full scope of what these people are doing is not very clear. It’s, of course, under very unclear authority, likely illegal in so many cases. And so the most dangerous thing is just how little we know. In this case, with Marko Elez getting in there, it seems to be downloading data. For a time, I had sources right in the Bureau of the Fiscal Service office or building where he was bouncing around looking at all these very sensitive systems and my sources could see him download data. But the systems are so sensitive that even senior IT people in these places could see that Marko Elez was downloading data but couldn’t see what the data was because these systems are so sensitive, even they don’t have access to them.

    That’s how things like this happen, as with USAID:

    Krugman: So that’s before they actually seized the building and told everybody to go home. They actually just stopped the payments. Wow. So I was going to offer a hypothetical, but I don’t need to. That’s an actual case. They just sort of made the judgment, decided we don’t like USAID and without even telling the officials at USAID to stop paying the money or before we get around to that, we just tell the computer to stop making the payments.

    If I were trying to come up with a metaphor that begins to approach just what is happening with Elon Musk and DOGE, between their access to government computer systems and mass firings of government employees, it’s as though hackers have taken over like a virus flooding through government computer systems while simultaneously given the government agencies a lobotomy that cripples their ability to cope with the insane demands being placed on them. They are not just breaking stuff — they are doing their best to make it impossible to fix it.

    No part of government is safe from these looters and vandals. Digby is sounding an alarm about Social Security: Will Trump Let Him Do It?

    Trump says that he won’t touch benefits. But he’s all for Elon eliminating waste. fraud and abuse in the program, all of which is defined by Elon.

    Here’s what he thinks of the program:

    The billionaire argued Friday on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast that the United States government is “one big pyramid scheme” before blasting Social Security as “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.”

    When asked to clarify, Musk said, “Well, people pay into Social Security and the money goes out of Social Security immediately, but the obligation for Social Security is your entire retirement career. If you look at the future obligations of Social Security, it far exceeds the tax revenue.” […]

    And… By the way, there’s already trouble on the way:

    Social Security has never missed a benefit payment since the program first began sending individuals monthly benefits more than eight decades ago. But the recent actions at the U.S. Social Security Administration by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency are putting monthly benefit checks for more than 72.5 million Americans at risk, former commissioner and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley told CNBC.com.

    “Ultimately, you’re going to see the system collapse and an interruption of benefits,” O’Malley said. “I believe you will see that within the next 30 to 90 days.”

    Ahead of any interruption in benefits, “people should start saving now,” O’Malley said.

    [Bitter laughter. A lot of people living on Social Security are not in a position to save money.]

    It’s already happening. A friend of mine has stopped getting Social Security payments. The nearest office she could go to to sort out the problem has been closed. Good luck trying to get through on phone lines when there’s no one left to answer them.

    Anyone who expects the Republican Party to stop this is living in an alternate reality. Even though Social Security is supposed to be the untouchable third rail in politics, all bets are off with the GOP traitors, wrecking crew, and looters now running the government.

    Link

  470. says

    The weirdness around Trump’s “US Crypto Reserve” announcement, briefly explained

    “Ethical questions are swirling around Trump’s plan. So are practical ones.”

    […] Trump announced Sunday that he’d include select cryptocurrency tokens in a “U.S. Crypto Reserve” — but what that actually means, and whether it will actually happen, is just about as clear as mud.

    In a TruthSocial post, Trump said he’d directed his advisers to “move forward” on creating a “Crypto Strategic Reserve,” and that it would include the cryptocurrencies XRP, Solana, and Cardano. In a follow-up post, he added that Bitcoin, Ethereum, and “other valuable Cryptocurrencies will be at the heart of the Reserve.”

    Naturally, the announcement sent crypto prices — which had been trending downward since Trump’s inauguration — shooting higher on Sunday, particularly among the specific tokens Trump named. But some of the market enthusiasm wore off on Monday as questions deepened about what Trump’s announcement actually meant and whether it would be meaningful.

    The announcement also set off alarm bells from those concerned about corruption and cronyism. Not only did Trump seem to suggest government plans to favor an industry some of his top supporters have heavily invested in, but he called out specific cryptocurrencies, including some lesser-known ones, by name.

    How exactly did he come up with that list? And was he proposing to spend taxpayer money not only on buying crypto, but on picking favorites in the market, to make his allies richer?

    Even some Trump fans weren’t on board with that idea. Libertarian venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale complained on X that “it’s “wrong to tax me for crypto bro schemes,” adding, “cut it out with these schemes guys.”

    “Nobody announced a tax or a spending program,” David Sacks, the White House adviser for AI and crypto, soon fired back, adding: “Maybe you should wait to find out what’s actually being proposed.”

    But it remains very unclear what, exactly, is being proposed.

    What is a “strategic crypto reserve?” It depends who’s talking about it.
    The background here is that some crypto backers have been pushing this idea for a US crypto reserve for some time, hoping it would give the stamp of government approval and legitimacy to an industry often associated with speculation, money laundering, and either criminal activity — as well as, of course, juicing prices.

    One version of that proposal would amount to law enforcement agencies simply holding onto crypto they’ve seized from criminals rather than selling it — an idea Trump backed last July.

    But another more ambitious and controversial version would involve the government actually buying a whole lot of crypto itself, perhaps through the Federal Reserve. [Yeah, that sounds like something Trump would do.]

    […] what does Trump have the power to do via executive action rather than legislation?

    Details remain scant, though more may come at a White House crypto summit Friday.

    Spotlight on David Sacks
    The summit will be chaired by Sacks, a venture capitalist and close ally of Elon Musk who was one of several major tech figures to endorse Trump in the middle of last year — hence his appointment to the White House “AI and crypto czar” post.

    Sacks — a pugnacious online presence — was roundly criticized on social media this weekend due to the perception that he was steering crypto policy to make himself and his friends richer. Sacks was an early backer and major investor in Solana, one of the lesser-known cryptocurrencies named by Trump for inclusion in the reserve. [Corruption alert!]

    Sacks said on social media Sunday that he had sold all his cryptocurrency holdings before he joined the administration.

    The Financial Times reported, though, that Sacks’s investment firm still had stakes in some crypto start-ups. His White House ethics paperwork has not yet been made public. [Par for the course. Hiding the facts.]

  471. says

    As expected [sigh]:

    […] Trump on Monday doubled down on his criticism of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, just days after their Oval Office meeting went off the rails, bashing his latest comments that an end to the Ukraine-Russia war is far away.

    “This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer!” the president said on Truth Social.

    “It is what I was saying, this guy doesn’t want there to be Peace as long as he has America’s backing and, Europe, in the meeting they had with Zelenskyy, stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the U.S. – Probably not a great statement to have been made in terms of a show of strength against Russia. What are they thinking?” Trump said.

    Zelensky later on Monday said “we need real peace” and insisted on security guarantees, saying he is still working with American and European partners.

    “It is very important that we try to make our diplomacy really substantive to end this war the soonest possible,” he said on X.

    Zelensky said late Sunday that he thinks the relationship between the United States and Ukraine will continue, despite the explosive spat at the White House, but added that a deal to end the war “is still very, very far away,” The Associated Press reported. […]

    Link

  472. says

    The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board went after President Trump on foreign policy on Sunday, saying it is “less brave new world than a reversion to a dangerous old one.” [True]

    The board highlighted recent actions such as Trump trying to “wash his hands” of Ukraine and threatening allies in Europe and North America with even higher tariffs than adversaries like China.

    “All of this would amount to an epochal return to the world of great power competition and balance of power that prevailed before World War II. It’s less a brave new world than a reversion to a dangerous old one,” the board wrote.

    […] “A bad day for America’s foreign policy. Ukraine wants independence, free markets and rule of law. It wants to be part of the West. Russia hates us and our Western values. We should be clear that we stand for freedom,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) told The Hill in a text message last week, commenting on the meeting. […]

  473. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/president-bone-spurs-oval-office

    Fallout continues from the embarrassing shitshow that was the Zelenskyy/Bone Spurs meeting on Friday, with the whole western world disgusted by the display, and only Russia and Republicans happy with Trump’s eagerness to invite an ally at war to visit, then insult and abandon them. […]

    Republicans thought it was genius, of course, and loved that […] Vance and Trump harangued Volodymyr Zelenskyy about his outfit; lied over and over that Zelenskyy had never said “thank you” to the US […]

    “We have a president who’s willing to do anything to bring about world peace,” gushed Sean Duffy’s wife on “Fox & Friends.” “Man, if he doesn’t get the Nobel Peace Prize after this, that thing means nothing.” [Reference to and link to more Republican quotes.]

    Outside of the Russo-Republican bubble, in the real world, support for Zelenskyy has poured in. Zelenskyy met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and representatives of 15 countries and NATO on Sunday to work up a Putin-repelling plan without the US in it. Starmer pledged to put “boots on the ground” if necessary, and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said the European plan was “basically turning Ukraine into a steel porcupine that is indigestible for potential invaders.” Poetic!

    Norway is also reportedly considering tapping into its $1.7 trillion sovereign wealth fund to support Ukraine, and the UK now also says it will provide a $2.84 billion loan backed by frozen Russian assets, on top of a $50 billion loan the G7 approved in October. ($20 billion of that is supposed to come from the US, assuming we’re still good for it, but who knows anymore.) And the UK also announced a new export deal to sell Ukraine 5,000 air defense missiles.

    Norwegian marine fuel company Haltbakk Bunkers has announced it will stop fueling up US military forces in Norway, [PZ posted about that ] and any American ships docking in Norwegian ports. Said the company in a now-deleted Facebook post,

    We have today been witnesses to the biggest shitshow ever presented “live on tv” by the current American president and his vice president. Huge credit to the president of Ukraine restraining himself and for keeping calm even though USA fa put on a backstabbing tv show. It made us sick. Short and sweet. As a result, we have decided to immediate STOP as fuel provider to American forces in Norway and their ships calling Norwegian ports.

    “No Fuel to Americans!”

    We encourage all Norwegians and Europeans to follow our example. SLAVA UKRAINA

    Trump was invited on Friday to a state visit to the UK, including the prospect of tea and some of those little crustless cucumber sandwiches with King Charles, but was apparently too busy golfing to respond.

    Meanwhile last weekend in Sugarbush, Vermont, where JD Vance was already trying to go on vacation six weeks into the job, protestors lined the streets to demand he GO SKI IN RUSSIA, forcing him to leave the resort for an “undisclosed location” before he could even make it down the bunny slope […]. [video at the link]

    It sounds like Trump had sincerely expected Zelenskyy to sign his shitty proffered “minerals deal,” and then brag about it in a spectacle that Reuters and the Associated Press couldn’t get into but Russian media agency TASS could.

    Except Zelenskyy is not an idiot, and the deal is not much of a deal at all. The Center for Strategic and International Studies breaks it down in more detail, but the main rub is Trump wanted Ukraine to use its mineral resources to repay the United States $500 billion in military aid that the Trump administration says it already provided, putting it in a “reconstruction investment fund” with joint US and Ukraine ownership. But, for one thing, the US has not spent $500 billion on Ukraine, not even half of that. And 90 percent of what the US has spent did not go directly to Ukraine, but to the US, to buy new weapons to replace the old ones we gave them, and to train Ukrainians to use the equipment. [Good fact checking.]

    And in exchange for that “deal,” Ukraine would have gotten no future security assurances, not even a pledge for a ceasefire or continuing military or financial support. The “deal” would require private-sector companies to do this mineral-mining, because the US government is not in the mine-building business. But without security assurances, why would anyone want to invest in building mines that are going to get continually bombed by Russia?

    But Trump Truth-Socialed that he thinks somebody will!

    By negotiating a mineral deal, Trump ensures that Americans will be involved in Ukraine’s mining industry. This prevents Russia from launching an invasion, because attacking Ukraine would mean endangering American lives— something that would force the United States to respond. […] once US companies have mining operations in Ukraine, Putin will be unable to attack without triggering massive international consequences.

    Step right up to be human shields, geologists! […]

    Conveniently, many of the alleged minerals also happen to be in the areas that Russia is disputing. But allegedly, because the area has not been geologically surveyed since at least 30 to 60 years ago, back in the days of the old Soviet Union. Even if some mining company was willing to get to work tomorrow, it could still take decades to survey the land and get a mine and mineral refinery up and running; then, assuming that the titanium, lithium and etc. are actually there, Ukraine would get half of the profit. Also $500 billion is an insane number, when the entire global rare earth minerals market is worth only about $4 to $12 billion. And any profit to Ukraine would be after paying off that bonkers amount, and after its share of mining expenses. [Yikes!] […]

    Still, Zelenskyy is diplomatically not completely refusing a deal. He wants a ceasefire, at least, backed up by some kind of assurance from the US that it will follow the security agreement it already made to defend Ukraine, […] Tweeted Zelenskyy:

    We are ready to sign the minerals agreement, and it will be the first step toward security guarantees. But it’s not enough, and we need more than just that. A ceasefire without security guarantees is dangerous for Ukraine.

    It’s also worth noting that Ukraine is not losing as badly as Russia is, despite what Moscow and Washington would like us to think. Vance mouthed off about Ukraine’s defense having “problems,” but Russia has suffered somewhere between three to 10 times as many fatalities since 2022, depending on whose estimates you believe (neither side will release official estimates). Russia is importing confused North Korean soldiers who can’t read or speak Russian and have no combat experience, and zapping Russian men at nightclubs and bus stops with Tasers to force them to join the army. Not signs of strength, or a war with ongoing popular support at home. All he has to do is get out of there, and it’s no more sanctions, frozen assets returned. The war is entirely a self-made Putin problem.

    AND OH HEY REMEMBER THE TIME TRUMP TRIED TO EXTORT ZELENSKYY TO LIE AND MAKE UP THINGS ABOUT JOE AND HUNTER BIDEN? There was a whole impeachment about it.

    The Washington Post has forgotten, and published an op-ed entitled “Zelensky must mend the breach with Trump — or resign.” So much for when Jeff Bezos told the staff that op-eds would now only be about “free markets and personal liberties,” not even a week ago. [JFC!]

    Anyway, great negotiating there, Art O’Deal! The US humiliated on the international stage, cowering to Putin, and all for nothing except the tongue-bathing from Fox that he was going to get no matter what anyway. […]

  474. says

    […]

    TULSI GABBARD: Many of these European countries, and Zelensky himself, who claim to be standing and fighting for the cause of freedom and democracy when we actually look at what’s happening, in reality in these countries as well as Zelenskyy’s government in Ukraine, is the exact opposite. You have the cancellation of elections […] political parties being silenced, or even criminalized or thrown in prison. […] You have total government control of the media […] issues that go against the values of democracy and freedom. […] It’s clear they’re standing against Putin […] But what are they actually really fighting for? And are they aligned with the values that they claim to hold in agreement with us?

    We’ll have more on Tulsi Gabbard in another post. But really, if the Kremlin sent out a morning email full of daily talking points, how would it be different from every word out of Tulsi Gabbard’s mouth?

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/marco-rubio-wont-tolerate-zelenskyy

    Video at the link.

  475. says

    […] if Trump is under the impression that his party is united on the issue [of Ukraine], he’s mistaken. Republican Sen. James Lankford, for example, appeared on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” and took a position that was largely the opposite of what Americans have heard from the West Wing. The Oklahoman said Zelenskyy is right about Vladimir Putin — whom the senator described as “a murderous KGB thug and a “dictator” — adding, “We’re not turning our back on Ukraine, nor should we.”

    Sen. John Curtis made related comments on Friday. “Diplomacy and statesmanship seem to have been checked at the door of the Oval Office today,” the Utah Republican wrote online. “Ukraine is an ally in pursuit of free markets, free speech, and free people — Western values that align with our own. A win for Putin, on the other hand, does not.

    But Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski went considerably further than others in the GOP. Politico reported:

    Sen. Lisa Murkowski delivered a scorching rebuke Saturday of President Donald Trump’s explosive exchange with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a rare voice of Republican dissent as party members lined up in support of the president’s increasingly combative relationship with Ukraine. “I am sick to my stomach as the administration appears to be walking away from our allies and embracing Putin, a threat to democracy and U.S. values around the world,” the Alaskan wrote in a Saturday afternoon post to X.

    It’d be an overstatement to suggest the president received overwhelming pushback from Republicans, but there’s no denying the fact that some GOP officials on Capitol Hill are not impressed with Trump’s approach — and some are even willing to say so in public.

    In the meantime, there are a handful of Republicans who appear to be hedging their bets. Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Roger Wicker of Mississippi, for example, appeared eager to shake Zelenskyy’s hand on Friday morning and offer support, only to reverse hours later, after Trump lambasted the Ukrainian leader. […]

    Link

  476. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re Lynna @469:
     
    From Nathan Tankus in the Krugman interview:

    it seems like for now they are respecting court injunctions. But, you know, for example, the federal judiciary is paid through the Bureau of the Fiscal Service. Hypothetically, they could just shut down the federal judiciary from getting paid. And then what happens from there?

    A rando commented below the transcript:

    As a retired attorney, […] I think most federal judges would keep on working, at least for quite some time. Most of them have foregone significantly higher salaries they already had – or could have had – in the private sector, because they are truly dedicated public servants. (I’ve known a few personally; their dedication and integrity is beyond reproach.)

  477. says

    Followup to comment 469.

    Elon Musk slams Social Security as a ‘Ponzi scheme,’ sparking new concerns

    “It’s one thing for Musk to peddle bogus claims about imagined Social Security “fraud.” It’s something else when he targets the system itself.”

    Elon Musk’s recent social media posts leave little doubt: He has been thinking about Social Security a lot lately. In fact, Donald Trump’s biggest campaign donor and the head of the quasi-governmental DOGE operation keeps tweeting bizarre claims about alleged fraud and “inconsistencies” he thinks he has identified in the Social Security system.

    Those claims have invariably collapsed under scrutiny. Indeed, it has become rather embarrassing lately. Musk claimed, for example, that millions of people over the age of 130 were receiving Social Security checks — he said it was perhaps “the biggest fraud in the history of humanity” — but none of this was true. [embedded links to debunking sources re available at the main link]

    […] It’s also possible that Musk is indifferent to the facts and is engaged in a misinformation campaign. Either way, there’s no reason for the public to take his claims at face value, since they keep getting debunked.

    […] many of the nation’s most powerful Republicans, including Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, continue to peddle Musk’s claims about Social Security as if they were true. They are not.

    […] Making matters worse is the apparent fact that the donor helping run the executive branch in 2025 has a problem with the Social Security system itself. USA Today reported:

    Elon Musk sharply criticized Social Security in a Friday podcast interview with Joe Rogan, labeling the critical elder benefits program a “Ponzi scheme.” Musk, who is the world’s richest man and an increasingly powerful adviser to President Donald Trump, also described the federal government as “one big pyramid scheme.” Musk is a leading figure in the administration’s effort — largely through the Department of Government Efficiency — to cut costs and dismantle the federal bureaucracy.

    And it’s at this point where the offensive becomes tougher to shrug off.

    Indeed, let’s take stock. Trump has put his top campaign donor in a position of enormous authority, despite Musk’s unfamiliarity with basics of governing. [Elon Musk] regularly peddles falsehoods about Social Security, keeps suggesting there are people receiving benefits checks that shouldn’t exist, is helping advance thousands of layoffs at the Social Security administration and, in case that weren’t quite enough, is condemning the structure of the popular social insurance program.

    […] “You don’t need to scratch your head and wonder what’s going on when you see that the Trump administration is decimating Social Security offices and staff,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement. “And you don’t need to ponder what might happen next when Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, says that the tens-of-millions of seniors, families, and children who depend on these earned benefits are part of some scam — because that’s a real threat and a real promise: they are coming for your Social Security.”

    The New York Democrat added, “The richest man in the world and his sidekick, the President of the United States, have decided to attack the bedrock of America’s social safety net, and now your pocket is in the way.”

  478. says

    Satire.

    LONDON (The Borowitz Report)—In an abrupt about-face, King Charles III of the United Kingdom announced on Monday that he was downgrading Donald J. Trump’s upcoming state visit to lunch with Prince Andrew.

    Instead of Windsor Castle, where the state visit was to be held, the lunch between Andrew and Trump will now occur at a Pizza Express restaurant in Woking.

    According to royal sources, Andrew was “incandescent with rage” when his older brother informed him of the engagement, but the King told him, “Sorry, chap, you’ve got to take one for the team.”

    After Andrew asked what he and Trump could possibly talk about over their pizza, Charles suggested, “Maybe you two can reminisce about your good times with Jeffrey Epstein.”

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/king-charles-downgrades-trumps-state

  479. birgerjohansson says

    The perspective from Britain: Could Trump end up costing  his tech bros all minerals?

    “Could Trump Lose it All Over Mineral Deal?”

    This is worse self-harm than Brexit.

  480. birgerjohansson says

    Sorry about the link, it is late in the evening here, cannot think clearly.

  481. whheydt says

    Re: birgerjohansson @ #480…
    That seems to be a persistent problem with posting late in the evening. Have you ever considered not posting when you’re tired?

  482. birgerjohansson says

    Whheydt@ 481.
    You are absolutely right. I am torn between a perceived duty to get potentially useful information out there, and on the other hand getting more than two-three hours of sleep. This has been an issue whenever there are ‘turbulent’ world news.

  483. birgerjohansson says

    Swedish portable AA missiles are making a difference in the fight over Toretsk.

    This is from a pro-Ukrainan site so take it with a grain of salt.
    The important thing is, the Ukrainans are still capable of making offensive operations even if the scale of this fighting is modest.
    Shooting down Su-25 aircraft (aka ‘flying tanks’) is not trivial. No quick Russian victory in sight despite Putin’s recent schadenfreude.

    “Massive upgrade! Ukrainans unleash hell on Russian aviation! Shortage of MANPADS ended”.
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=pxxDtzfEqFI

  484. JM says

    The Hill: Trump: Ukraine mineral deal not dead, but Zelensky ‘should be more appreciative’

    Asked if the deal was dead, Trump said, “I don’t think so.”
    “It’s a great deal for us, because you know Biden very, very foolishly, stupidly, frankly, gave $300 billion … to a country to fight and to try and do things. And you know what happened? We get nothing.”
    Asked what Zelensky needed to do to restart negotiations, Trump said the Ukrainian leader needed to express more gratitude for U.S. assistance.

    I saw the video on another site and Trump doesn’t say much beyond he doesn’t think the plan is dead. He could be entirely wrong. He repeats the lies that the US is donating more then Europe and that Europe is making a lot of loans. Somebody obviously coached Trump on how to give this speech because after those lies and talking about the US’s financial interest in rare earth metals he did bring up the lives lost in the war.
    Reuters: Trump threatens to lose patience as Europeans float proposals for Ukraine ceasefire

    Britain said on Monday that several proposals had been made for a truce in fighting between Ukraine and Russia, after France floated a plan for a one-month pause leading to peace talks, but U.S. President Donald Trump suggested his patience was running out.

    White House national security adviser Mike Waltz told Fox News that Zelenskiy must apologise.
    “What we need to hear from President Zelenskiy is that he has regret for what happened, he’s ready to sign this minerals deal and that he’s ready to engage in peace talks,” he said.
    “I don’t think that’s too much to ask. We’ll see what happens in the next 48 hours, but we are certainly looking to move forward in a positive way.”
    Friedrich Merz, the conservative due to become Germany’s chancellor after winning the largest share of the vote in an election a week ago, suggested Friday’s Oval Office argument, in which Zelenskiy was pressed to commit publicly to a diplomatic solution, had been a pre-planned trap.

    Trump really wants this deal but doesn’t understand Ukraine’s position. Ukraine is not really interested in giving up land and wants strong guarantees of security. At this point Ukraine thinks it is winning, slowly and painfully, and can outlast Russia as long as they are getting outside support.
    No idea what direction things go from here. Zelensky is likely willing to make a public apology in exchange for a good enough deal but he also has to recognize that American promises are not worth much as long as Trump is in power. At the same time he may be willing to sign a deal that he knows future US administrations will be willing to tear up. It’s not like Ukraine is opposed to inviting American companies in and having American companies helping to develop the land will give the US a good reason to be involved.
    Trump may be willing to negotiate down also. Trump wants his Noble peace prize and this is his shot. If he really wants it he may be willing to loosen his position. If the European countries really step up it would make Trump look like a coward and fool, which also gives him another reason to stay in.

  485. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    TPM – Trump orders permanent govt shutdown—No, really

    Trump’s February 11th “workforce optimization” executive order […] includes the following language: […] plan to cut “all components and employees performing functions not mandated by statute or other law who are not typically designated as essential during a lapse in appropriations as provided in the Agency Contingency Plans on the Office of Management and Budget website.”
    […]
    you know that when there’s government shutdown the guys guarding the nuclear warheads don’t just go home and the FBI doesn’t close down. […] the case of a “lapse of appropriations.” […] a skeleton crew
    […]
    It will be like a permanent shutdown. That’s not hyperbole or a metaphor. It’s literally what they say in the executive order. Those cuts are beyond draconian. And there’s no uncertainty. It’s spelled out

  486. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Dave Levitan (Science journalist):

    [Headline]: Unusually powerful March storm threatens to create a blizzard, tornadoes, and fires as it crosses the US

    The rare fireblizznado on its way.
    tbh that is quite the weather.gov warnings map right now. [Screenshot]

    Rando 1: “Please lord, just give us a sign.”
    Rando 2: “Weather is happening!!!”
    Rando 3: “Yeah, I was just thinking ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we knew way less about the weather? Wouldn’t we all rather just experience it live, without all the spoilers from those nerds over at NOAA?'”

  487. whheydt says

    Re: CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @ #485…
    That Felon in the White House may just get that shutdown if his backers in Congress persist in going for draconian budge cuts. I wonder how slim the White House staff would be under those conditions… I don’t think their jobs are defined by statute.

    (Not wishing the pain on the White House staff, they’ve done nothing to deserve such treatment. On the other hand making That Felon in the White House do his own cooking, cleaning and laundry does have a certain amount of attraction.)

  488. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Atlanta Federal Reserve – GDPNow

    a running estimate of real GDP growth based on available economic data for the current measured quarter.

    the first quarter of 2025 is -2.8 percent on March 3, down from -1.5 percent on February 28. [Chart]

    E.J. Fagan (PoliSci Professor): “-2.8%. Really, really bad. Q4 2008 was -1.9%.”

    Rando 1: “It was -1.5% just a few days ago and was +3.9% 4 weeks ago.”

    Rando 2: “I had to check this, and as far as I can tell this not even annualized. Loss of 3% of GDP in one quarter. And, very obviously, rapidly accelerating. For reference: the Great Depression saw a 30% contraction… over four years. However terrified you are, you are not terrified enough.”

    Rando 3: “This is before Social Security Checks start not showing up, before tariffs start really having an effect, and enough deportations grind certain industries to a halt. FAFO will be devastating.”

    Rando 4: “Wait, so measles isn’t going to lower the price of eggs?”
    Rando 5: “We’re gonna need a bigger chart.”

    Rando 2: “It took two months from the greatest economy in history to ‘everybody needs to raise their own chickens for food’. [Video: Sec of Agriculture on Fox recommenging that]”
     
    TheNewRepublic – Trump is about to hide DOGE’s true costs from the entire country

    Lutnick’s response was to cast doubt on GDP reports and announce a change. […] “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.”

    [Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick] appears to be repeating what Musk posted […] [Musk] claiming that “a more accurate measure of GDP would exclude government spending. Otherwise, you can scale GDP artificially high by spending money on things that don’t make people’s lives better,”
    […]
    Musk was corrected by his own Community Notes […] the government already has a report measuring GDP excluding government spending called “Value Added by Private Industries” that accounts for 88.7 percent of American GDP.

    All of this seems to indicate that Musk, Lutnick, and the rest […] are worried that the coming economic reports are going to look very bad […] So, they are attempting to discredit the numbers and try to juke the stats

  489. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Wired – Elon Musk’s $1 spending limit is paralyzing federal agencies

    In many cases, employees are already unable to carry out the basic functions of their job.
    […]
    “With the Twitter pausing of payments […] we were in a meeting at 1 am on a Saturday, and it was like, ‘Hey, let’s turn the credit cards off to see what bounces, and what happens,'” explained angel investor Jason Calacanis […] (Calacanis was part of Musk’s transition team at Twitter.) “And of course, we started getting calls… The people who come first […] are in on the biggest grift.”

    Travel (conferences, inspections, etc.), repairs, supplies, refrigerant, journal fees, shipping (court evidence stuck in forensics labs)
     
    CNN – USAID reinstates contracts for Georgia company that helps feed malnourished kids after Elon Musk responds to CNN reporting

    the founder MANA Nutrition, shared screenshots of the rescinded contract termination […] In their warehouse, Moore said last week, there were around 400,000 boxes of USAID-branded RUTF ready to be shipped out.

     
    EmptyWheel:

    Remember how Elon falsely claimed that Ebola prevention programs had been restored after DOGE shut it down?

    Here’s some background on why it wasn’t. Pete Marocco literally ordered that personnel who were not available pesonally deliver PPE for use. [Screenshot]

    He forbade using an existing agreement for the WHO to deliver it from the stockpile, as there was an executive order against WHO. Had to be USAID.

  490. says

    Associated Press:

    President Donald Trump said Monday that 25% taxes on imports from Mexico and Canada would start Tuesday, sparking renewed fears of a North American trade war that already showed signs of pushing up inflation and hindering growth.

    NBC News:

    Stock markets saw heavy selling Monday afternoon following comments from President Donald Trump indicating previously threatened trade duties were set to be imposed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped about 800 points, or 1.8%. The S&P 500 fell 2.1% and was set for its worst day of the year.

  491. says

    Wall Street Journal:

    It was the first call U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth held with Mexico’s top military officials, and it wasn’t going well.

    Hegseth told the officials that if Mexico didn’t deal with the collusion between the country’s government and drug cartels, the U.S. military was prepared to take unilateral action, according to people briefed on the Jan. 31 call. Mexico’s top brass who were on that call were shocked and angered, feeling he was suggesting U.S. military action inside Mexico, these people said.

  492. says

    CNN:

    Foreign adversaries including Russia and China have recently directed their intelligence services to ramp up recruiting of US federal employees working in national security, targeting those who have been fired or feel they could be soon, according to four people familiar with recent US intelligence on the issue and a document reviewed by CNN.

  493. says

    Yeah. Project 2025. A Republican legislator say the quiet part out loud.

    One of President Trump’s most obvious lies of the 2024 presidential campaign was just exposed … by a Republican congressman.

    Project 2025, the nearly one thousand page blueprint for a potential Trump administration, became a lightning rod during the campaign cycle when Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris and her allies pointed out it contained a series of shocking and extreme policy proposals designed to aggressively expand the limits of presidential power and impose a right wing social agenda. Faced with the criticism, Trump repeatedly insisted he had “nothing to do with Project 25.”

    However, now that Trump is in office, Rep. John Rose (R-TN) has essentially admitted that was not true at all. In fact, Rose credited Project 2025 with helping Trump hit the ground running with a spate of executive orders that mirror many of the authoritarian and retrograde ideas presented in the document.

    “How do you think the president was prepared to issue all these executive orders?” Rose said in an interview with the Tennessee publication the Williamson Scene. “How do you think they were prepared to make all of these appointments in such quick succession after he got into office? Project 2025.”

    […] Of course, Trump’s efforts to distance himself from Project 2025 were always laughable. The Heritage Foundation-led effort, which included a database of possible hires along with the policy blueprint, was packed with Trump’s associates and staffers from his first administration. […] Trump has also built out his current team with a bunch of Project 2025 authors and contributors. The roster of Project 2025 alums in the second Trump administration includes Russell Vought, who authored a chapter detailing “a plan for the executive branch” and is now leading the powerful Office of Management and Budget […]

    Naturally, Trump and the many Project 2025 alums in his administrations have, thus far, implemented an agenda that closely matches the right-wing blueprint.

    There’s nothing surprising about Rose’s remarks. What’s notable is that he said the quiet part out loud.

    Link

  494. says

    Trump pauses aid to Ukraine amid clash with Zelensky

    […] Trump has ordered a pause on U.S. aid going to Ukraine in its war against Russia, a consequential move as he clashes with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about the path to ending the conflict.

    “The President has been clear that he is focused on peace. We need our partners to be committed to that goal as well,” a White House official said in a statement. “We are pausing and reviewing our aid to ensure that it is contributing to a solution.” [Propaganda and bullshit from the Trump administration.]

    The pause applies to all military aid not already on the ground in Ukraine and will effect munitions, anti-tank weapons and other materials the U.S. has provided to Kyiv since Russia invaded roughly three years ago.

    Trump took office with nearly $4 billion in drawdown authority available from previously approved congressional funding for Ukraine. That funding now appears poised to go unused. […]

  495. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    David Dayen (The American Prospect):

    A pathetic and humiliating walkback from the would-be destroyers of CFPB, who know they’ve lost in court and can’t kill the agency. This email from [Chief Legal Officer] Mark Paoletta went to employees [on Mar 2].

    It [memory holes] Vought’s Feb 10 “stop-work” email […] ending all activity with no exceptions.

    [Excerpt of a longer screenshot, To All Hands]
    It has come to my attention, however, that some employees have not been performing statutorily required work. Let me be clear: employees should be performing work that is required by law

     
    At the same time, Adam Martinez (CFPB’s COO) submitted a “supplemental declaration” in the legal case that, no joke, completely contradicted his initial declaration, which was, admittedly now, full of lies. He admits that he was working to illegally winding down the agency. Then he says no no no, Russ Vought just wanted to “streamline” the agency. Forget the tipline that he set up to catch any CFPB employee actually working.

    Then he admits that Vought was trying to send CFPB’s funding back to the Federal Reserve […] there is no legal way to do that. Oops.

    Then Martinez says the same day employees demonstrated that the (statutory) Consumer Complaint Database wasn’t functioning, leadership “activated” it. So they illegally shut down a statutory function, & they’re likely lying about it restarting. He also admits he lied about the CFPB Ombudsman Office.
    […]
    CFPB’s leadership has offered *no other defense* in this case but Martinez’s declarations, which they just admitted were false.

    They’re restarting agency functions and claiming they never stopped, falsely. Vought’s going to lose big.

    * Matthew Pfaff, chief of staff for the Office of Consumer Response, responded to the claim that the complaint database is up & running:

    “None of the activities listed in my original declaration, including responding to escalated issues via the Escalated Case Management Team, are currently happening”

    Rando: “As I clearly stated previously, at the time that I tried to fire you all, please continue to do your work as required by law.”

  496. says

    Trump’s former national security adviser [H.R. McMaster] accuses him of ‘coddling Putin’

    […] [Trump] brought on retired Gen. James Mattis to serve as his first secretary of defense, and Mattis reportedly came to believe that Trump was a threat to the United States. He brought on retired Gen. John Kelly to serve as his first Homeland Security secretary, and Kelly came to believe that Trump was a “fascist.” Trump tapped Gen. Mark Milley to serve as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but Milley also came to believe that Trump was a “fascist.”

    And then, of course, there’s retired Gen. H.R. McMaster, who also served at Trump’s side, and who also came to see the president as utterly misguided. The Washington Post reported:

    H.R. McMaster, a former national security adviser to President Donald Trump and a retired Army lieutenant general, condemned Trump and Vice President JD Vance’s tense exchange Friday afternoon with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “It is impossible to understand why President Trump and Vice President Vance seem determined to put more pressure on President Zelensky while they seem to be coddling Putin — the person who inflicted this terrible war in Ukraine,” McMaster wrote in a post on X.

    The president apparently heard about this, and published a related item to his own social media platform. “H.R. MCMASTER IS A WEAK AND TOTALLY INEFFECTIVE LOSER!” Trump wrote, in his usual understated way.

    […] McMaster is a highly decorated retired combat veteran, who earned, among other things, a Silver Star and a Purple Heart. A variety of adjectives come to mind when describing his lengthy term of service, but “weak” isn’t one of them.

    Of course, McMaster’s criticisms from Friday were not the first the public has heard from him. Last year, the retired Army general’s book on his 14-month tenure as Trump’s White House national security adviser came out, and it was not a flattering portrayal: He described Oval Office meetings as “exercises in competitive sycophancy,” complained of Trump’s “outlandish“ national security ideas, and alerted readers to the fact that Trump was a president who was “addicted to adulation” and easily manipulated by flattery.

    But perhaps most notable of all was the book’s description of McMaster’s concerns about Trump and Putin. The Wall Street Journal published a striking excerpt, which began: “From the beginning of my time as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, in February 2017, I found that discussions of Vladimir Putin and Russia were difficult to have with the president.” It continued:

    [O]ur relationship reached a breaking point after I attended the Munich Security Conference in February 2018. … [W]hat made news was the response I gave to a question from a member of the Russian Duma, the lower house of the Federal Assembly, who suggested cooperation between Moscow and Washington in the area of cybersecurity. After joking that I doubted there would be any Russian cyber experts available because they were all engaged in subverting our democracies, I described evidence cited in the Mueller investigation’s indictments of Russians for election interference in 2016 as “incontrovertible.”

    Trump, McMaster quickly learned, was “furious” that his national security adviser had told the truth in public, and his “aversion” to McMaster soon intensified — in part because the retired general “was the principal voice telling him that Putin was using him.”

    […] McMaster […] confided to his wife, “After over a year in this job, I cannot understand Putin’s hold on Trump.”

    A year later, those same questions continue to plague the same retired general who served at Trump’s side for over a year.

  497. says

    Followup to comment 496.

    H.R. McMaster must have touched a nerve when he appeared on 60 Minutes on Sunday. Trump must have been watching. Otherwise it would have been just a “reTruth” from someone else.

    McMaster was the U.S. National Security Advisor to Donald Trump for a year starting in Feb. of 2017. Preceded by Michael Flynn, Succeeded by John Bolton.

    McMaster criticized Trump after he left the administration and never stopped. The 60 minutes interview went the same way, and Trump was livid.

    McMaster laid into Trump about how stupid Trump was handling things and being played by Putin.

    “Vladimir Putin couldn’t be happier because what he sees is all this pressure on Zelensky, all of the pressure on Ukraine, and no pressure on him.”

    McMaster says Trump is being manipulated by Putin. “He appeals to President Trump’s sense of aggrievement, right? That, you know, ‘Donald, you know, like me, you know, you’ve been treated so unfairly.’ And he’s been very successful at it, because he’s a master manipulator and one of the best liars in the world. […]

    “War is a contest of wills, and I think what you’re seeing is Donald Trump delivering a series of body blows to the Ukrainians in a way that could affect, you know, their will to continue to fight.”

    Ukraine’s allies were probably confused by the meeting. “They think, you know, ‘How can President Trump be berating the leader of Ukraine while he’s saying kind things about Vladimir Putin?”

    […] [McMaster’s most recent book] came out in August of last year and is another good reason Trump hates the man now. It’s called At War With Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House.

    […] Trump is still colluding with the Russians. McMaster knows how it works in Trump’s mind and that’s why Trump is so angry in a short all caps rant.

    Link

  500. Bekenstein Bound says

    After over a year in this job, I cannot understand Putin’s hold on Trump.

    Blackmail seems likely.