“This morning, my financial team shockingly uncovered that President Trump and his crony Elon Musk illegally executed a revocation of $80 million in congressionally-appropriated FEMA funding from New York City’s bank accounts late yesterday afternoon. This is money that the federal government previously disbursed for shelter and services and is now missing. This highway robbery of our funds directly out of our bank account is a betrayal of everyone who calls New York City home.”
Crazy times...
An honourable resignation here. Danielle R. Sassoon, the interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, quit after the Justice Department told her to withdraw corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams.
NEWS -- The Justice Department planned to remove the prosecutors handling the mayor’s case and reassign it to the Public Integrity Section in Washington. However, as soon the Public Integrity Section was informed it would be taking over, John Keller, the acting head of the unit and his boss, Kevin Driscoll, the senior most career official in the criminal division resigned, multiple sources tell me
Trump administration officials fired more than 300 staffers Thursday night at the National Nuclear Security Administration — the agency tasked with managing the nation’s nuclear stockpile — as part of broader Energy Department layoffs, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.
Sources told CNN the officials did not seem to know this agency oversees America’s nuclear weapons.
An Energy Department spokesperson disputed the number of personnel affected, telling CNN that “less than 50 people” were “dismissed” from NNSA, and that the dismissed staffers “held primarily administrative and clerical roles.”
The agency began rescinding the terminations Friday morning
Woodchopper wrote: Sat Feb 15, 2025 5:18 am
Move fast and break things, with nuclear weapons
Trump administration officials fired more than 300 staffers Thursday night at the National Nuclear Security Administration — the agency tasked with managing the nation’s nuclear stockpile — as part of broader Energy Department layoffs, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.
Sources told CNN the officials did not seem to know this agency oversees America’s nuclear weapons.
An Energy Department spokesperson disputed the number of personnel affected, telling CNN that “less than 50 people” were “dismissed” from NNSA, and that the dismissed staffers “held primarily administrative and clerical roles.”
The agency began rescinding the terminations Friday morning
Woodchopper wrote: Sat Feb 15, 2025 5:18 am
Move fast and break things, with nuclear weapons
Trump administration officials fired more than 300 staffers Thursday night at the National Nuclear Security Administration — the agency tasked with managing the nation’s nuclear stockpile — as part of broader Energy Department layoffs, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.
Sources told CNN the officials did not seem to know this agency oversees America’s nuclear weapons.
An Energy Department spokesperson disputed the number of personnel affected, telling CNN that “less than 50 people” were “dismissed” from NNSA, and that the dismissed staffers “held primarily administrative and clerical roles.”
The agency began rescinding the terminations Friday morning
It seems too much of a gift to all their critics for them to have done something so spectacularly clumsy as to have deleted any and all contact information. "...we do not have a good way to get in touch with those personnel" probably just means they don't get work email any more so they can't all be contacted at the click of a button. They're asking colleagues to forward the message to personal email.
It's embarrassing enough that they've had to publicly acknowledge they f.cked up and sacked people they still need, in their eagerness to throw away everything that's not bolted down. It helpfully demonstrates that Musk's hype about what geniuses the Muskrats are can't be taken as any indication they can be trusted to know what they're doing.
Is it just me or do other people feel that the earth has just suddenly shifted on its axis? Something feels very different in a disquieting way.
Or it could be just me.
Opti wrote: Mon Feb 17, 2025 5:38 pm
Is it just me or do other people feel that the earth has just suddenly shifted on its axis? Something feels very different in a disquieting way.
Or it could be just me.
It's been heading that way for quite a while but I think people are maybe less in denial about it now. Although I did accidentally listen to Radio 4 a few weeks ago when there was some talk about Musk donating to Reform, and someone on the panel of whatever show it was said it couldn't happen because it would undermine Reform's reputation as being a party 'for ordinary people' (or something like that), which just seemed insanely naive.
To defy the laws of tradition is a crusade only of the brave.
Opti wrote: Mon Feb 17, 2025 5:38 pm
Is it just me or do other people feel that the earth has just suddenly shifted on its axis? Something feels very different in a disquieting way.
Or it could be just me.
It's been heading that way for quite a while but I think people are maybe less in denial about it now. Although I did accidentally listen to Radio 4 a few weeks ago when there was some talk about Musk donating to Reform, and someone on the panel of whatever show it was said it couldn't happen because it would undermine Reform's reputation as being a party 'for ordinary people' (or something like that), which just seemed insanely naive.
Yes, it’s been wobbling for about a decade, but now it looks like it’s tipping. It’s far easier to break things than build them, and we’ll probably see a lot more get broken over the next few years.
Like Trump is really going to take on the sugar and junk food industries. The report combines physical health with neuro divergence, which is worrying. One of the concerns is that there aren't enough healthy people to join the armed forces.
Tessa K wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 8:39 am
Now it's MAHA.
Like Trump is really going to take on the sugar and junk food industries. The report combines physical health with neuro divergence, which is worrying. One of the concerns is that there aren't enough healthy people to join the armed forces.
Worryingly, there's a lot in there which is anti-vax speak for "vaccines"...
It first was a rumour dismissed as a lie, but then came the evidence none could deny:
a double page spread in the Sunday Express — the Russians are running the DHSS!
There was an online comment that, with their keenness to root out DEI (by which they really mean anyone not white and male) and trying to get rid of it in new hires, they might struggle to meet their targets for military recruitment, as in recent years they've only met it through a rise in the numbers of black women enlisting.
Tessa K wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 8:39 am
Now it's MAHA.
Like Trump is really going to take on the sugar and junk food industries. The report combines physical health with neuro divergence, which is worrying. One of the concerns is that there aren't enough healthy people to join the armed forces.
Putin’s decades of statecraft have paid off, with healthy dividends.
The hegemony of “the West” has failed and I don’t see much hope for liberal democracies in the coming decades. The world, as we know it, has fundamentally changed and I don’t see much to stop the authoritarians and oligarchs from taking over the place…without an all-out fight for it, of course. But this time the people who hold the nuke codes seem to mostly be on the same side, some I’m not even sure M.A.D. will prevent anything.
Tessa K wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 8:39 am
Now it's MAHA.
Like Trump is really going to take on the sugar and junk food industries. The report combines physical health with neuro divergence, which is worrying. One of the concerns is that there aren't enough healthy people to join the armed forces.
Putin’s decades of statecraft have paid off, with healthy dividends.
The hegemony of “the West” has failed and I don’t see much hope for liberal democracies in the coming decades. The world, as we know it, has fundamentally changed and I don’t see much to stop the authoritarians and oligarchs from taking over the place…without an all-out fight for it, of course. But this time the people who hold the nuke codes seem to mostly be on the same side, some I’m not even sure M.A.D. will prevent anything.
It was good while it lasted.
That may be too pessimistic. Democracy has also proved its self to be remarkably resilient and Trump and Musk at least seem to be good at breaking things but not at building an authoritarian state. We'll have to see what happens, but it isn't a one way street.
headshot wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 10:42 am
Don't worry....Keir Starmer and Olaf Scholz will stop it!
By bombing a room in Saudi Arabia sometime soon?
My avatar was a scientific result that was later found to be 'mistaken' - I rarely claim to be 100% correct
ETA 5/8/20: I've been advised that the result was correct, it was the initial interpretation that needed to be withdrawn
Meta? I'd say so!
headshot wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 1:31 pm
We could have just ended the war two years ago. We just need all sides to agree to the things the other sides want. Simples.
Ukrainians already thought they had an agreement with Russia - no Nukes, NATO or EU membership, etc. Putin invaded anyway. Seems there is not much point making agreements with tyrants.
headshot wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 1:31 pm
We could have just ended the war two years ago. We just need all sides to agree to the things the other sides want. Simples.
Ukrainians already thought they had an agreement with Russia - no Nukes, NATO or EU membership, etc. Putin invaded anyway. Seems there is not much point making agreements with tyrants.
