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9 hours ago, bolverk said:

E.P.A. Tells More Than 1,000 They Could Be Fired ‘Immediately’
A spokeswoman for Lee Zeldin, the new head of the agency, said the goal was to create an “effective and efficient” federal work force.

The Trump administration has warned more than 1,100 Environmental Protection Agency employees who work on climate change, reducing air pollution, enforcing environmental laws and other programs that they could be fired at any time.

An email, reviewed by The New York Times, was sent to staff members who were hired within the past year and have probationary status. Many of those employees were encouraged to join the E.P.A. under the Biden administration to rebuild the agency, which had been depleted during President Trump’s first term. Others are experienced federal workers who had taken new assignments within the agency.

Many had been hired to work on programs that Congress created through two recent laws, doing things like helping communities replace lead pipes, remediating toxic sites and funding clean energy projects aimed at reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that are heating the planet.

“As a probationary/trial period employee, the agency has the right to immediately terminate you,” the email states.

Molly Vaseliou, an E.P.A. spokeswoman, said in a statement that “our goal is to be transparent.” She declined to answer questions about the email, though, including whether Lee Zeldin, the agency’s new administrator, intended to terminate employees and, if so, for what reason.

“On his first day in office, he engaged directly with career staff across E.P.A.’s headquarters — spanning two city blocks in downtown D.C. — listening to their insights and perspectives,” Ms. Vaseliou said. “Ultimately, the goal is to create a more effective and efficient federal government that serves all Americans.”

At 9:21 a.m. on Monday, E.P.A. employees received another email notifying them of that the agencywide intranet was out of service. Without the internal agency network, employees cannot access documents or other information needed for their jobs.

The email from E.P.A.’s Office of Mission Support reads “Access to work.epa.gov is current unavailable” and that technical specialists were working to resolve the issue. It was not immediately clear if the outage was related to efforts to reduce the work force.

Asked about the email, Ms. Vaseliou said “There was an outage.”

Other federal agencies have been directed by the Office of Personnel Management to submit lists of probationary employees, but E.P.A. workers appear to be the first to receive notice that they may be immediately dismissed.

Leaders at the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents unionized E.P.A. employees, called the move a clear attempt to gut an agency that Mr. Trump dislikes. Through the E.P.A., the Biden administration developed aggressive regulations to curb planet-warming pollution from power plants, automobiles and oil and gas wells.

“E.P.A. is at the center of the bullseye for President Trump’s vindictive purge of public servants,” said Michelle Roos, executive director of the Environmental Protection Network, a group of agency alumni.

She called it “the most chaotic and vindictive transition in the history of the Environmental Protection Agency.”

Two E.P.A. employees who received the email said it had caused them to rethink the Trump administration’s offer to federal employees to resign but be paid through the end of September. The employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are concerned about being fired, said they had initially dismissed that offer as untrustworthy.

Being informed that their jobs are particularly precarious has caused them to rethink their options, both said.

Probationary employees are considered easier to fire because they do not have the full range of civil service protections, but rules still exist, said Marie Owens-Powell, president of the federation of government employees union, which represents about 8,000 E.P.A. workers.

“There has to be cause, and the cause can’t be because you’re a Democrat and it’s a Republican administration,” Ms. Owens-Powell said. The union is consulting lawyers about whether the administration can fire workers based on a simple declaration of a change in agency priorities, she said.

Ms. Owens-Powell said the Trump administration had placed about 15 E.P.A. employees who were working on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts on administrative leave. She said the next likely targets are those working on environmental justice, or programs to help marginalized communities that suffer from disproportionate amounts of air and water pollution.

Staffing at the E.P.A. peaked in 2004 during the George W. Bush administration, when there were 17,611 employees, according to the agency. Those levels ebbed and flowed slightly, but began to take a sharp dip during the Obama administration amid Republican control of the House and Senate.

When Mr. Trump entered the White House in 2017, the E.P.A. had 15,408 employees. The following year that number dropped to 14,172 as political appointees reversed regulations, shut scientists out of decision-making and shrank the agency’s budget.

The Biden administration sought to reverse those losses. The agency currently employs about 15,130 people around the country, a level slightly higher than when Ronald Reagan was president.

Of course Lee Zeldin got a spot in this farce. A stone cold loser that New York did not want so here he is now on a national level stage being the same clown he was before.

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17 hours ago, bolverk said:

E.P.A. Tells More Than 1,000 They Could Be Fired ‘Immediately’
A spokeswoman for Lee Zeldin, the new head of the agency, said the goal was to create an “effective and efficient” federal work force.

The Trump administration has warned more than 1,100 Environmental Protection Agency employees who work on climate change, reducing air pollution, enforcing environmental laws and other programs that they could be fired at any time.

An email, reviewed by The New York Times, was sent to staff members who were hired within the past year and have probationary status. Many of those employees were encouraged to join the E.P.A. under the Biden administration to rebuild the agency, which had been depleted during President Trump’s first term. Others are experienced federal workers who had taken new assignments within the agency.

Many had been hired to work on programs that Congress created through two recent laws, doing things like helping communities replace lead pipes, remediating toxic sites and funding clean energy projects aimed at reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that are heating the planet.

“As a probationary/trial period employee, the agency has the right to immediately terminate you,” the email states.

Molly Vaseliou, an E.P.A. spokeswoman, said in a statement that “our goal is to be transparent.” She declined to answer questions about the email, though, including whether Lee Zeldin, the agency’s new administrator, intended to terminate employees and, if so, for what reason.

“On his first day in office, he engaged directly with career staff across E.P.A.’s headquarters — spanning two city blocks in downtown D.C. — listening to their insights and perspectives,” Ms. Vaseliou said. “Ultimately, the goal is to create a more effective and efficient federal government that serves all Americans.”

At 9:21 a.m. on Monday, E.P.A. employees received another email notifying them of that the agencywide intranet was out of service. Without the internal agency network, employees cannot access documents or other information needed for their jobs.

The email from E.P.A.’s Office of Mission Support reads “Access to work.epa.gov is current unavailable” and that technical specialists were working to resolve the issue. It was not immediately clear if the outage was related to efforts to reduce the work force.

Asked about the email, Ms. Vaseliou said “There was an outage.”

Other federal agencies have been directed by the Office of Personnel Management to submit lists of probationary employees, but E.P.A. workers appear to be the first to receive notice that they may be immediately dismissed.

Leaders at the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents unionized E.P.A. employees, called the move a clear attempt to gut an agency that Mr. Trump dislikes. Through the E.P.A., the Biden administration developed aggressive regulations to curb planet-warming pollution from power plants, automobiles and oil and gas wells.

“E.P.A. is at the center of the bullseye for President Trump’s vindictive purge of public servants,” said Michelle Roos, executive director of the Environmental Protection Network, a group of agency alumni.

She called it “the most chaotic and vindictive transition in the history of the Environmental Protection Agency.”

Two E.P.A. employees who received the email said it had caused them to rethink the Trump administration’s offer to federal employees to resign but be paid through the end of September. The employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are concerned about being fired, said they had initially dismissed that offer as untrustworthy.

Being informed that their jobs are particularly precarious has caused them to rethink their options, both said.

Probationary employees are considered easier to fire because they do not have the full range of civil service protections, but rules still exist, said Marie Owens-Powell, president of the federation of government employees union, which represents about 8,000 E.P.A. workers.

“There has to be cause, and the cause can’t be because you’re a Democrat and it’s a Republican administration,” Ms. Owens-Powell said. The union is consulting lawyers about whether the administration can fire workers based on a simple declaration of a change in agency priorities, she said.

Ms. Owens-Powell said the Trump administration had placed about 15 E.P.A. employees who were working on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts on administrative leave. She said the next likely targets are those working on environmental justice, or programs to help marginalized communities that suffer from disproportionate amounts of air and water pollution.

Staffing at the E.P.A. peaked in 2004 during the George W. Bush administration, when there were 17,611 employees, according to the agency. Those levels ebbed and flowed slightly, but began to take a sharp dip during the Obama administration amid Republican control of the House and Senate.

When Mr. Trump entered the White House in 2017, the E.P.A. had 15,408 employees. The following year that number dropped to 14,172 as political appointees reversed regulations, shut scientists out of decision-making and shrank the agency’s budget.

The Biden administration sought to reverse those losses. The agency currently employs about 15,130 people around the country, a level slightly higher than when Ronald Reagan was president.

Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning.

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13 minutes ago, tokamak said:

So we’ve agreed to deport American citizens to El Salvador. Totally cool, totally normal.

Yeah, that was my reaction.  Pretty sure there's going to be some people who have issues with this.  

 

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51 minutes ago, tokamak said:

So we’ve agreed to deport American citizens to El Salvador. Totally cool, totally normal.

If anyone isn’t already familiar, read up on El Salvador’s CECOT, their Supermax for what Bukele deems to be terrorists.

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57 minutes ago, tokamak said:

So we’ve agreed to deport American citizens to El Salvador. Totally cool, totally normal.

Wait, so we're exporting our correctional officer jobs to a foreign country now?  I'm so confused!

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19 minutes ago, Michael Knight said:

 

Remember how all the MAGAts loved to yell about how they are "strict constitutionalists!"?   Yeah.  I remember.

The movement is nothing but a fascist authoritarian movement, bolstered by white and christian nationalism.  That's it, that's all that's there.  Don't bother trying to find nuance, there isn't any.  

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4 hours ago, royiv said:

If anyone isn’t already familiar, read up on El Salvador’s CECOT, their Supermax for what Bukele deems to be terrorists.

It is at capacity. The gringos will be sent to Mariona. check that one out.

 

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4 hours ago, Pig Bellmont said:

Leavitt said on Fox that flights are taking migrants to Gitmo today. 

Yes, but a question is I have is where they gonna put them? X-ray is still occupied. Last time the other sections were used was a bit ago. How many hurricanes have gone through there? Guess that one Houston company and their friends are loving life.

At least our Sec Def knows base.

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Trump Official Warns NY Times ‘Almost No One Can Control’ Elon Musk

https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-official-warns-ny-times-almost-no-one-can-control-elon-musk/

No fucking shit, geniuses.

Anybody have a NYT sub that can cut-and-paste the article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/03/us/politics/musk-federal-government.html

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6 minutes ago, C-Man said:

Trump Official Warns NY Times ‘Almost No One Can Control’ Elon Musk

https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-official-warns-ny-times-almost-no-one-can-control-elon-musk/

No fucking shit, geniuses.

Anybody have a NYT sub that can cut-and-paste the article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/03/us/politics/musk-federal-government.html

 

Spoiler

In Elon Musk’s first two weeks in government, his lieutenants gained access to closely held financial and data systems, casting aside career officials who warned that they were defying protocols. They moved swiftly to shutter specific programs — and even an entire agency that had come into Mr. Musk’s cross hairs. They bombarded federal employees with messages suggesting they were lazy and encouraging them to leave their jobs.

Empowered by President Trump, Mr. Musk is waging a largely unchecked war against the federal bureaucracy — one that has already had far-reaching consequences.

Mr. Musk’s aggressive incursions into at least half a dozen government agencies have challenged congressional authority and potentially breached civil service protections.

Top officials at the Treasury Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development who objected to the actions of his representatives were swiftly pushed aside. And Mr. Musk’s efforts to shut down U.S.A.I.D., a key source of foreign assistance, have reverberated around the globe.

Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man, is sweeping through the federal government as a singular force, creating major upheaval as he looks to put an ideological stamp on the bureaucracy and rid the system of those who he and the president deride as “the deep state.”

The rapid moves by Mr. Musk, who has a multitude of financial interests before the government, have represented an extraordinary flexing of power by a private individual.

The speed and scale have shocked civil servants, who have been frantically exchanging information on encrypted chats, trying to discern what is unfolding.

Senior White House staff members have at times also found themselves in the dark, according to two officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive discussions. One Trump official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said Mr. Musk was widely seen as operating with a level of autonomy that almost no one can control.

Mr. Musk, the leader of SpaceX, Tesla and X, is working with a frantic, around-the-clock energy familiar to the employees at his various companies, flanked by a cadre of young engineers, drawn in part from Silicon Valley. He has moved beds into the headquarters of the federal personnel office a few blocks from the White House, according to a person familiar with the situation, so he and his staff, working late into the night, could sleep there, reprising a tactic he has deployed at Twitter and Tesla.

This time, however, he carries the authority of the president, who has bristled at some of Mr. Musk’s ready-fire-aim impulses but has praised him publicly.

“He’s a big cost-cutter,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Sunday. “Sometimes we won’t agree with it and we’ll not go where he wants to go. But I think he’s doing a great job. He’s a smart guy.

Mr. Musk, who leads a cost-cutting initiative the administration calls the Department of Government Efficiency, boasted on Saturday that his willingness to work weekends was a “superpower” that gave him an advantage over his adversary. The adversary he was referring to was the federal work force.

“Very few in the bureaucracy actually work the weekend, so it’s like the opposing team just leaves the field for 2 days!” Mr. Musk posted on X.

There is no precedent for a government official to have Mr. Musk’s scale of conflicts of interest, which include domestic holdings and foreign connections such as business relationships in China. And there is no precedent for someone who is not a full-time employee to have such ability to reshape the federal work force.

The historian Douglas Brinkley described Mr. Musk as a “lone ranger” with limitless running room. He noted that the billionaire was operating “beyond scrutiny,” saying: “There is not one single entity holding Musk accountable. It’s a harbinger of the destruction of our basic institutions.”

Several former and current senior government officials — even those who like what he is doing — expressed a sense of helplessness about how to handle Mr. Musk’s level of unaccountability. At one point after another, Trump officials have generally relented rather than try to slow him down. Some hoped Congress would choose to reassert itself.

Mr. Trump himself sounded a notably cautionary note on Monday, telling reporters: “Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval. And we’ll give him the approval where appropriate, where not appropriate, we won’t.”

“If there’s a conflict,” he added, “then we won’t let him get near it.”

However, the president has given Mr. Musk vast power over the bureaucracy that regulates his companies and awards them contracts. He is shaping not just policy but personnel decisions, including successfully pushing for Mr. Trump to pick Troy Meink as the Air Force secretary, according to three people with direct knowledge of his role.

Mr. Meink previously ran the Pentagon’s National Reconnaissance Office, which helped Mr. Musk secure a multibillion-dollar contract for SpaceX to help build and deploy a spy satellite network for the federal government.

At least four lawsuits have been filed in federal court to challenge his authority and the moves by the new administration, but it remains to be seen if judicial review can keep up with Mr. Musk.

The New York Times spoke to more than three dozen current and former administration officials, federal employees and people close to Mr. Musk who described his expanding influence over the federal government. Few were willing to speak on the record, for fear of retribution.

“Before Congress and the courts can respond, Elon Musk will have rolled up the whole government,” said one official who works inside an agency where representatives from Mr. Musk’s cost-cutting initiative have asserted control.

Mr. Musk says he is making long overdue reforms. So far, his team has claimed to help save the federal government more than $1 billion a day through efforts like the cancellation of federal building leases and contracts related to diversity, equity and inclusion, although they have provided few specifics.

 

 

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On 1/27/2025 at 1:44 PM, Vegas64 said:

Egg Arbitrage. Go to a diner/breakfast restuarant and order your egg plates before they jack up the prices. 

Had a week headstart:

Waffle House has imposed a temporary surcharge of 50 cents per egg due to rising prices from a nationwide shortage caused by bird flu. The chain, which serves 272 million eggs annually, says the surcharge will remain until market conditions improve. Meanwhile, Biscuit Belly, with over a dozen locations in the South, has switched to cheaper eggs to manage costs. Prices have increased sevenfold in two years and are expected to jump another 20% in 2025, per the USDA.

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/04/food/waffle-house-egg-surcharge/index.html

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