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Posted
1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:


We’re gonna go from one of the world’s leading counties to a second world pile of despair, in recession.

 

but think how much the tech billionaires will be saving on their taxes !!!

please quit being selfish 

Posted
1 hour ago, Satchel said:

President Musk is not playing around:

https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/dallas-county/ut-southwestern-medical-lose-100m-annually-if-nih-cuts-take-effect-official-says/287-55d26ef0-c430-40f9-b1f6-c4b4d68e7798

 

 

DALLAS — UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas could lose up to $100 million if a rate cut proposed by the National Institutes of Health goes into effect, UT Southwestern Medical Center President Dr. Daniel Podolsky warned this week.

On Friday, the National Institutes of Health announced changes to how it would reimburse research institutions, like UT Southwestern, for indirect costs related to medical research. These indirect costs, also called facilities and administrative costs, help pay the costs of running a research lab, but aren’t related to a specific grant. 

 

 

 

if Texas had a governor with any balls, he'd stand up fight about now. hou med center, dallas med center, san antonio med center are huuuuuge research medical hubs. the new ut medial center in austin 

 

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Posted
3 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

 

if Texas had a governor with any balls, he'd stand up fight about now. hou med center, dallas med center, san antonio med center are huuuuuge research medical hubs. the new ut medial center in austin 

 

maga would rather go back to the dark ages if it meant them having sole control

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Posted
4 hours ago, westexhorn said:

maga would rather go back to the dark ages if it meant them having sole control not having to deal with the blacks and mexicans...

FIFY

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Posted
1 hour ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

 

 

 

 

 

Calling it now:  We are a month away from learning that DOGE is simplifying the enormously wasteful Rube Goldberg architecture of distributed government systems into a streamlined and efficient Wordpress architecture.

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Posted
President Musk is not playing around:
https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/dallas-county/ut-southwestern-medical-lose-100m-annually-if-nih-cuts-take-effect-official-says/287-55d26ef0-c430-40f9-b1f6-c4b4d68e7798
 

DALLAS — UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas could lose up to $100 million if a rate cut proposed by the National Institutes of Health goes into effect, UT Southwestern Medical Center President Dr. Daniel Podolsky warned this week.
On Friday, the National Institutes of Health announced changes to how it would reimburse research institutions, like UT Southwestern, for indirect costs related to medical research. These indirect costs, also called facilities and administrative costs, help pay the costs of running a research lab, but aren’t related to a specific grant. 
   

Get out those knee pads Greg.

Oh wait…
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Posted (edited)
10 hours ago, Brisketexan said:


We’re gonna go from one of the world’s leading counties to a second world pile of despair, in recession.

I’d be curious to know which countries are licking their chops at the chance to take over as the world’s preeminent power. China, obviously, but which western countries?

Edited by Biff Tannen
Posted
16 hours ago, TreatyOak said:

We just lost our big, national advertiser. They are associated w American farms and had all their grants removed. 

"Recent actions taken by the Trump Administration have put federal funding for work with farmers and ranchers in jeopardy.  At this time, ________________ is not being paid by the Federal government for expenses incurred under our federal grants and agreements."

"As a result, we request that you pause work on your contracts with _____, not incur additional expenses, and take steps to cancel outstanding commitments relating to the work."

Shit getting real in Westlake, yo.

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Posted
On 2/12/2025 at 5:59 PM, mchookem said:

@PenelopeWitherspoon approves 😄

So, I think like "weird," this messaging style may work.  Call em weird dicks then follow up with some real, pithy criticism.

The problem for Democrats is that they have to counter an opponent that is collectively lying its ass off and Democrats probably don't want to have to lie their asses off.

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Posted
52 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

I’d be curious to know which countries are licking their chops at the chance to take over as the world’s preeminent power. China, obviously, but which western countries?

Spain and Portugal have been biding their time.

It's about to get 16th Century up in here.

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Posted

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/musk-trump-doge-threats-nerd-army-1235267839/

 

Quote

Every regime’s enforcement mechanisms rely on threats and politicized intimidation. In the case of Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s ongoing power grab, it’s involved young staffers with Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) barging into different federal agencies, departments, and institutes, demanding that security officials and other senior staff give them access to whatever they want. 

 

Quote

When security officials, for instance, at several departments and agencies have responded that they need to check to ensure these young Musk allies have proper clearance to view sensitive databases, DOGE staff have routinely erupted in fury. Some have told these security officials that if they don’t give them what they want immediately, they’ll call Musk’s cell phone and give him the officials’ names — and have the richest man in the world call and yell at them, or get them reprimanded or fired.
 

 

Quote

“Do I need to call Elon?” one DOGE member barked at a federal security official while demanding access to sensitive information at one agency this month, a source familiar with the exchange tells Rolling Stone. 
This has happened repeatedly since the dawn of the second Trump administration — at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Treasury Department, at the Office of Personnel Management, and elsewhere. It has become a cruel punchline within the federal bureaucracy, four sources familiar with the matter tell Rolling Stone, that “some child” from the DOGE team “will threaten to call Elon Musk, if you don’t do what the child wants,” as one federal career official describes it.

 

Spoiler

So far, it’s working: The DOGE teens — no matter how ridiculous their backstories or racist their posts — have swiftly been granted sweeping access to sensitive data and systems, including the Treasury systems that handle trillions of dollars in payments, longstanding federal laws be damned. 
A DOGE spokesperson did not respond to Rolling Stone’s request for comment.

USAID, America’s foreign aid bureau, is being shuttered and folded into the State Department, and the vast majority of the agency’s workers have been axed. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s work has been paused, and many of its employees were terminated via form letter. There have also been mass firings at the Department of Education, the Small Business Administration, and the General Services Administration. 
The Trump administration managed to seize $80 million in congressionally appropriated funds — right out of New York City bank accounts — that were meant to help the city house asylum-seekers, after Musk falsely claimed that DOGE had “discovered” that disaster relief funds were “being spent on high-end hotels for illegals.” 


Such a move, known as “impoundment,” is one of several ways that DOGE’s efforts have effectively upended the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution does not empower the president to impound, freeze, or refuse to spend funds appropriated by Congress, though Trump actively campaigned on doing so. It appears that the Trump administration has also failed to comply with a judicial decision regarding its effort to freeze funds, with Trump instead threatening to “look at” judges ruling against him.


Trump has publicly backed Musk and DOGE’s efforts both rhetorically and with executive orders, depicting their work as necessary to root out fraud, waste, and abuse, despite them uncovering nothing of the sort. So far, DOGE has primarily highlighted publicly available information about contracts, grants, and spending that Trump and Musk disagree with on an ideological basis. (Somehow, even amid Trump’s war on electric vehicles, DOGE didn’t bother flag the $400 million the State Department planned to spend on “armored Teslas” from Musk’s EV company; that was only put “on hold” after it became a national news story.)

Of course, identifying wasteful spending isn’t the point: DOGE appears to be working mostly toward reducing essential government services, eliminating regulators and consumer protections, and slashing the federal workforce until it’s deeply MAGA, so that the government exclusively serves the interests of the wealthy and Trump. 


On that front, the DOGE blitz has been a success. None of it would be possible without direct access to the most sensitive inner workings of agencies across the federal government.


Even at the Pentagon, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation, there have been times recently when career Department of Defense staff have received probing questions — including about foreign and domestic defense systems, or certain defense contracts — from DOGE representatives, leading Pentagon staffers to wonder to one another: How does DOGE even know that?


How DOGE knows anything, at all, is based on an explicit threat system: Comply immediately, or the so-called “DOGE kids” will pick up the phone to call their unelected billionaire boss — not President Trump, not a member of the Cabinet or a senior White House official — and snitch. 
“It was so fucking stupid,” says another federal official, who was on the receiving end of the “Karen”-style DOGE threats about calling the cops — in this case, Elon Musk. “I can’t believe this is how they’re blowing up the Constitution, with this little nerd army … God help us. What else can I say?”

 

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Posted
12 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

 

if Texas had a governor with any balls, he'd stand up fight about now. hou med center, dallas med center, san antonio med center are huuuuuge research medical hubs. the new ut medial center in austin 

 

This is a real risk to the Houston economy. The Med Center has historically been a gigantic economic engine for the region. MD Anderson currently has around $700 million in construction projects underway including a 600,000sf research facility on OST. TMC has the $1.5 billion Helix Park in development. Hines is developing Levit Green adjacent to TMC aimed primarily at private medical research. Long story short, keep cutting at medical research and Houston loses PhD researchers, MDs, construction jobs, grant writers, support jobs, the people that pick up the trash, etc. It’s a huge ecosystem that a lot of people depend on for jobs and our governor will do nothing to try to stop the impending disaster. It’s negligence.

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Posted

Sweeping US energy department layoffs hit nuclear security, loans office, sources say

WASHINGTON, Feb 14 (Reuters) - The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has laid off about 1,200 to 2,000 workers at the Department of Energy, including employees at the nuclear security administration and the loans office, three sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.

Democratic lawmakers also said the layoffs include workers at national labs and hydroelectric plants, and Cold War legacy nuclear sites that pose safety risks. The DOE has about 14,000 federal employees and 95,000 contractors.

The two sources said the layoffs come after three people representing billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency arrived at the agency.

Some 325 workers have been let go from the department's National Nuclear Security Administration, which manages the U.S. nuclear weapons fleet and works to secure radiological materials around the world, two of the sources said.

"It's insane," the sources said, pointing out the losses at the NNSA occur at a time when nuclear power plants have been at risk in Russia's war on Ukraine, including Zaporizhzhia, the largest in Europe.

Another source said the NNSA is still working to secure radiological materials in the region.

The DOE press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A copy of a letter seen by Reuters and sent to some DOE employees says: "DOE finds that your further employment would not be in the public interest. For this reason, you are being removed from your position with DOE and the federal civil service effective today."

The department laid off workers' access to government-issued laptops and phones just after midnight Eastern Time (0500 GMT) on Friday, which left many with no way to receive the notifications and no knowledge they had been fired, one source said.

Some 45 workers were let go from the Loan Programs Office, which has hundreds of billions of dollars in loan authority for clean energy, nuclear and clean vehicle projects, one source said.

In addition, 18 of 148 people were let go at the Grid Deployment Office, which seeks to modernize the power grid, making it resilient to extreme weather and able to transmit power from clean energy and fossil fuel-fired power plants.

In Washington state, at least a dozen workers at the Hanford nuclear site - a 1940s site for plutonium and uranium production for atomic bombs - now decommissioned but highly contaminated - were laid off, including safety engineers who clean up and monitor the site, according to Washington Democratic Senator Patty Murray.

"These reckless firings will slow down critical cleanup work and make workers less safe—trying to run Hanford with a skeleton crew is a recipe for disaster that could have irreversible impacts," she said. "These layoffs will hurt companies, workers and their families across Eastern Washington."

Murray said there were layoffs at other DOE-run facilities in the Pacific Northwest, including the Bonneville Power Administration hydroelectric facility and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which carries out research on everything from nuclear energy to battery storage.

Murray's office reported layoffs of over 600 electricians, scientists, cybersecurity experts at BPA.

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Posted
37 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

“I can’t believe this is how they’re blowing up the Constitution, with this little nerd army … God help us. What else can I say?”

Frustrated World Cup GIF

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Posted

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/elon-musk-doge-posts-classified-data_n_67ae646de4b0513a8d767112

 

Quote

Elon Musk’s team at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency has posted classified information about the size and staff of a U.S. intelligence agency on its new website, raising bigger concerns about where Musk’s programmers got this information and what they are doing with it.

DOGE, which President Donald Trump created to purportedly root out waste in the federal government, launched its website on Wednesday night with a feature allowing users to “trace your tax dollars through the bureaucracy.” People can navigate through all federal agencies and offices for details about their head counts, budgets and average ages of employees.

 

Quote

The website states in tiny print at the bottom that its database excludes information from U.S. intelligence agencies.

But an easy search shows that DOGE’s database provides details on the National Reconnaissance Office, the federal agency that designs, builds and maintains U.S. intelligence satellites. Not only are NRO’s budgets and head counts classified, but the prospect of Musk’s tech team meddling in sensitive personnel information is setting off alarms for some in the intelligence community.

 

Quote

“DOGE just posted secret NOFURN info on their website about [intelligence community] headcount, so currently people are scrambling to check if their info has been accessed,” said one Defense Intelligence Agency employee, who requested anonymity to avoid retaliation from senior leaders.

NOFURN stands for “Not Releasable to Foreign Nationals,” meaning information in this category can’t be shared with any foreign governments, international organizations or foreign nationals without specific authorization.

 

Spoiler

NRO appears to be the only intelligence agency with its data publicly available on DOGE’s website. The U.S. intelligence community is composed of 18 organizations, and HuffPost searched DOGE’s website for details on all of them. None of the others had any data.

Musk can’t claim he wasn’t aware that the National Reconnaissance Office is one of the nation’s intelligence agencies. His company, SpaceX, has a $1.8 billion contract with NRO to build hundreds of spy satellites.

Two Senate aides who work on intelligence matters confirmed that NRO’s headcount and budget are classified, though they noted there have been debates within the intelligence community as to whether they should be. The reason to keep this information private at all, they said, is because foreign adversaries could use it to extrapolate how much the U.S. is prioritizing certain intelligence activities.

Nonetheless, DOGE sharing this information “is absolutely a problem under the current intelligence standards,” said one of the Senate aides.

And the real concern is that Musk’s surrogates are bumbling around in classified programs. “These 25-year-old programmers, I don’t think they have enough experience to know what they don’t know,” said this aide. “Really, the question is: Where did this get this information and what are they doing with it?”

A spokesperson for the National Reconnaissance Office punted questions about this back to DOGE.

“We defer to the Department of Government Efficiency for comment on the release of information posted on DOGE.gov,” said the spokesperson.

A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on where DOGE workers got this information, why they are sharing it publicly and if the president is concerned about DOGE workers accessing sensitive data.

 

 

 

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Posted
1 hour ago, bolverk said:

Sweeping US energy department layoffs hit nuclear security, loans office, sources say

WASHINGTON, Feb 14 (Reuters) - The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has laid off about 1,200 to 2,000 workers at the Department of Energy, including employees at the nuclear security administration and the loans office, three sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.

Democratic lawmakers also said the layoffs include workers at national labs and hydroelectric plants, and Cold War legacy nuclear sites that pose safety risks. The DOE has about 14,000 federal employees and 95,000 contractors.

The two sources said the layoffs come after three people representing billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency arrived at the agency.

Some 325 workers have been let go from the department's National Nuclear Security Administration, which manages the U.S. nuclear weapons fleet and works to secure radiological materials around the world, two of the sources said.

"It's insane," the sources said, pointing out the losses at the NNSA occur at a time when nuclear power plants have been at risk in Russia's war on Ukraine, including Zaporizhzhia, the largest in Europe.

Another source said the NNSA is still working to secure radiological materials in the region.

The DOE press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A copy of a letter seen by Reuters and sent to some DOE employees says: "DOE finds that your further employment would not be in the public interest. For this reason, you are being removed from your position with DOE and the federal civil service effective today."

The department laid off workers' access to government-issued laptops and phones just after midnight Eastern Time (0500 GMT) on Friday, which left many with no way to receive the notifications and no knowledge they had been fired, one source said.

Some 45 workers were let go from the Loan Programs Office, which has hundreds of billions of dollars in loan authority for clean energy, nuclear and clean vehicle projects, one source said.

In addition, 18 of 148 people were let go at the Grid Deployment Office, which seeks to modernize the power grid, making it resilient to extreme weather and able to transmit power from clean energy and fossil fuel-fired power plants.

In Washington state, at least a dozen workers at the Hanford nuclear site - a 1940s site for plutonium and uranium production for atomic bombs - now decommissioned but highly contaminated - were laid off, including safety engineers who clean up and monitor the site, according to Washington Democratic Senator Patty Murray.

"These reckless firings will slow down critical cleanup work and make workers less safe—trying to run Hanford with a skeleton crew is a recipe for disaster that could have irreversible impacts," she said. "These layoffs will hurt companies, workers and their families across Eastern Washington."

Murray said there were layoffs at other DOE-run facilities in the Pacific Northwest, including the Bonneville Power Administration hydroelectric facility and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which carries out research on everything from nuclear energy to battery storage.

Murray's office reported layoffs of over 600 electricians, scientists, cybersecurity experts at BPA.

What could go wrong?

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Posted

The I.R.S. is expected to lay off thousands, starting as soon as next week.

The Internal Revenue Service is preparing to lay off thousands of employees as soon as next week, according to three people familiar with the matter, as the Trump administration pushes to dramatically shrink the size of the federal work force.

The Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s human resources department, ordered agencies across the government this week to terminate probationary employees, who are relatively new to their positions and do not enjoy as much job protection. It was unclear on Friday exactly how many I.R.S. employees would be affected by the order.

An I.R.S. spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment nor did a spokesman for the Treasury Department.

A sudden drop in the number of employees at the I.R.S. could interfere with the agency’s work to process millions of Americans’ tax returns. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with Bloomberg News last week that the department, which oversees the I.R.S., would limit changes until after tax season ends in the spring.

“So I don’t imagine anything’s going to go on at the I.R.S. until then or beyond,” he said. “We’re in the middle of the tax-filing season right now.”

The I.R.S. has dramatically grown its work force in recent years, reaching roughly 100,000 employees, after the Biden administration pushed to revitalize the beleaguered agency. Republicans have long attacked the additional I.R.S. personnel as villains who harass middle-class taxpayers, with President Trump targeting the agency for an extended hiring freeze and pushing to repurpose some of its agents to help with immigration enforcement.

Elon Musk’s team of young software engineers and cost-cutters have also taken an interest in the agency. A member of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Gavin Kliger, arrived at the I.R.S. headquarters on Thursday, according to people familiar with the matter.

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Posted
2 hours ago, royiv said:

This is a real risk to the Houston economy. The Med Center has historically been a gigantic economic engine for the region. MD Anderson currently has around $700 million in construction projects underway including a 600,000sf research facility on OST. TMC has the $1.5 billion Helix Park in development. Hines is developing Levit Green adjacent to TMC aimed primarily at private medical research. Long story short, keep cutting at medical research and Houston loses PhD researchers, MDs, construction jobs, grant writers, support jobs, the people that pick up the trash, etc. It’s a huge ecosystem that a lot of people depend on for jobs and our governor will do nothing to try to stop the impending disaster. It’s negligence.

There's no reason to waste money on medical resources if everyone just does their own research.

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Posted

A good article on the national security consequences of DOGE.

 

https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/02/11/doge-cyberattack-united-states-treasury/

 

Quote

What makes this situation unprecedented isn’t just the scope, but also the method of attack. Foreign adversaries typically spend years attempting to penetrate government systems such as these, using stealth to avoid being seen and carefully hiding any tells or tracks. The Chinese government’s 2015 breach of OPM was a significant U.S. security failure, and it illustrated how personnel data could be used to identify intelligence officers and compromise national security.

In this case, external operators with limited experience and minimal oversight are doing their work in plain sight and under massive public scrutiny: gaining the highest levels of administrative access and making changes to the United States’ most sensitive networks, potentially introducing new security vulnerabilities in the process.

But the most alarming aspect isn’t just the access being granted. It’s the systematic dismantling of security measures that would detect and prevent misuse—including standard incident response protocols, auditing, and change-tracking mechanisms—by removing the career officials in charge of those security measures and replacing them with inexperienced operators.

 

Quote

The Treasury’s computer systems have such an impact on national security that they were designed with the same principle that guides nuclear launch protocols: No single person should have unlimited power. Just as launching a nuclear missile requires two separate officers turning their keys simultaneously, making changes to critical financial systems traditionally requires multiple authorized personnel working in concert.

This approach, known as “separation of duties,” isn’t just bureaucratic red tape; it’s a fundamental security principle as old as banking itself. When your local bank processes a large transfer, it requires two different employees to verify the transaction. When a company issues a major financial report, separate teams must review and approve it. These aren’t just formalities—they’re essential safeguards against corruption and error.


These measures have been bypassed or ignored. It’s as if someone found a way to rob Fort Knox by simply declaring that the new official policy is to fire all the guards and allow unescorted visits to the vault.

 

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Posted
4 hours ago, bolverk said:

Sweeping US energy department layoffs hit nuclear security, loans office, sources say

WASHINGTON, Feb 14 (Reuters) - The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has laid off about 1,200 to 2,000 workers at the Department of Energy, including employees at the nuclear security administration and the loans office, three sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.

Democratic lawmakers also said the layoffs include workers at national labs and hydroelectric plants, and Cold War legacy nuclear sites that pose safety risks. The DOE has about 14,000 federal employees and 95,000 contractors.

The two sources said the layoffs come after three people representing billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency arrived at the agency.

Some 325 workers have been let go from the department's National Nuclear Security Administration, which manages the U.S. nuclear weapons fleet and works to secure radiological materials around the world, two of the sources said.

"It's insane," the sources said, pointing out the losses at the NNSA occur at a time when nuclear power plants have been at risk in Russia's war on Ukraine, including Zaporizhzhia, the largest in Europe.

Another source said the NNSA is still working to secure radiological materials in the region.

The DOE press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A copy of a letter seen by Reuters and sent to some DOE employees says: "DOE finds that your further employment would not be in the public interest. For this reason, you are being removed from your position with DOE and the federal civil service effective today."

The department laid off workers' access to government-issued laptops and phones just after midnight Eastern Time (0500 GMT) on Friday, which left many with no way to receive the notifications and no knowledge they had been fired, one source said.

Some 45 workers were let go from the Loan Programs Office, which has hundreds of billions of dollars in loan authority for clean energy, nuclear and clean vehicle projects, one source said.

In addition, 18 of 148 people were let go at the Grid Deployment Office, which seeks to modernize the power grid, making it resilient to extreme weather and able to transmit power from clean energy and fossil fuel-fired power plants.

In Washington state, at least a dozen workers at the Hanford nuclear site - a 1940s site for plutonium and uranium production for atomic bombs - now decommissioned but highly contaminated - were laid off, including safety engineers who clean up and monitor the site, according to Washington Democratic Senator Patty Murray.

"These reckless firings will slow down critical cleanup work and make workers less safe—trying to run Hanford with a skeleton crew is a recipe for disaster that could have irreversible impacts," she said. "These layoffs will hurt companies, workers and their families across Eastern Washington."

Murray said there were layoffs at other DOE-run facilities in the Pacific Northwest, including the Bonneville Power Administration hydroelectric facility and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which carries out research on everything from nuclear energy to battery storage.

Murray's office reported layoffs of over 600 electricians, scientists, cybersecurity experts at BPA.

 

putin has replacements to over see the us nukes  

Posted
1 hour ago, Chuckie Finster said:

No one in history has ever needed to be Luigi'd more.

edited to add: not advocating for it, of course.

If karma was really a thing, he'd be incinerated in one of his wankpanzers.

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Posted
3 hours ago, Gil Bang said:

 

I'm hopeful she's pissed about all the time she wasted throwing J6 traitors in jail only to have them pardoned.

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Posted
12 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

I’d be curious to know which countries are licking their chops at the chance to take over as the world’s preeminent power. China, obviously, but which western countries?

Germany. Third time is a charm, what’s the worst that can happen?

Posted
8 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/musk-trump-doge-threats-nerd-army-1235267839/

 

 

 

 

  Hide contents

So far, it’s working: The DOGE teens — no matter how ridiculous their backstories or racist their posts — have swiftly been granted sweeping access to sensitive data and systems, including the Treasury systems that handle trillions of dollars in payments, longstanding federal laws be damned. 
A DOGE spokesperson did not respond to Rolling Stone’s request for comment.

USAID, America’s foreign aid bureau, is being shuttered and folded into the State Department, and the vast majority of the agency’s workers have been axed. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s work has been paused, and many of its employees were terminated via form letter. There have also been mass firings at the Department of Education, the Small Business Administration, and the General Services Administration. 
The Trump administration managed to seize $80 million in congressionally appropriated funds — right out of New York City bank accounts — that were meant to help the city house asylum-seekers, after Musk falsely claimed that DOGE had “discovered” that disaster relief funds were “being spent on high-end hotels for illegals.” 


Such a move, known as “impoundment,” is one of several ways that DOGE’s efforts have effectively upended the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution does not empower the president to impound, freeze, or refuse to spend funds appropriated by Congress, though Trump actively campaigned on doing so. It appears that the Trump administration has also failed to comply with a judicial decision regarding its effort to freeze funds, with Trump instead threatening to “look at” judges ruling against him.


Trump has publicly backed Musk and DOGE’s efforts both rhetorically and with executive orders, depicting their work as necessary to root out fraud, waste, and abuse, despite them uncovering nothing of the sort. So far, DOGE has primarily highlighted publicly available information about contracts, grants, and spending that Trump and Musk disagree with on an ideological basis. (Somehow, even amid Trump’s war on electric vehicles, DOGE didn’t bother flag the $400 million the State Department planned to spend on “armored Teslas” from Musk’s EV company; that was only put “on hold” after it became a national news story.)

Of course, identifying wasteful spending isn’t the point: DOGE appears to be working mostly toward reducing essential government services, eliminating regulators and consumer protections, and slashing the federal workforce until it’s deeply MAGA, so that the government exclusively serves the interests of the wealthy and Trump. 


On that front, the DOGE blitz has been a success. None of it would be possible without direct access to the most sensitive inner workings of agencies across the federal government.


Even at the Pentagon, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation, there have been times recently when career Department of Defense staff have received probing questions — including about foreign and domestic defense systems, or certain defense contracts — from DOGE representatives, leading Pentagon staffers to wonder to one another: How does DOGE even know that?


How DOGE knows anything, at all, is based on an explicit threat system: Comply immediately, or the so-called “DOGE kids” will pick up the phone to call their unelected billionaire boss — not President Trump, not a member of the Cabinet or a senior White House official — and snitch. 
“It was so fucking stupid,” says another federal official, who was on the receiving end of the “Karen”-style DOGE threats about calling the cops — in this case, Elon Musk. “I can’t believe this is how they’re blowing up the Constitution, with this little nerd army … God help us. What else can I say?”

 

We’ve seen the pictures of those dork ass incels.  Next time one of those shitbirds gets mouthy, he needs to be picking shards of his teeth out of the office carpet.

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Posted

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/doge-3-men-show-up-at-sf-city-hall-demand-records/

 

Quote

San Francisco city officials are investigating after three men who claimed to be from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) showed up at City Hall on Friday demanding records from offices before fleeing.

According to the San Francisco Sheriff's Office, the men, who were dressed in "DOGE" shirts and hats with the pro-Trump slogan Make America Great Again, arrived at City Hall around noon. The men entered several offices and demanded employees turn over digital information "related to alleged wasteful government spending and fraud."

 

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In response, the employees refused their requests and called sheriff's deputies. The men had left City Hall before deputies arrived.

"We do not believe the individuals requesting access to City files were representatives from DOGE," the sheriff's office said Friday.

Deputies said they are reviewing surveillance footage and using other investigative tools to pursue leads.

 

 

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Posted
On 2/14/2025 at 3:04 PM, bolverk said:

 

…. with President Trump targeting the agency for an extended hiring freeze and pushing to repurpose some of its agents to help with immigration enforcement.

Ah, yes. Let’s reassign all the CPAs as ICE agents. What a very natural transition for them.

Posted (edited)
On 2/13/2025 at 7:58 PM, tx 3 putt said:

coming in hot ....

U.S. Forest Service will fire roughly 3,400 federal employees.

 

per an nps alt account 

Who is going to rake the leaves to prevent forest fires?

Edited by StassneyHorn
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Posted
On 2/14/2025 at 12:05 PM, Francisco 2.0 said:

Nothing to see here.

 

 

 

Move fast, and break things.   Aircraft carrier (check).   Helicopter (check).  Civilian airplane full of kids? (check).  Fighters? (Check).   Historic alliances? (check).  stopgaps to prevent disease outbreak? (Check)  Privacy? (check)  Democracy? (Check) social programs that help poors, widows and handicapped? (check)  Law enforcement? (check).  Justice system? (Check)   Education? (check) 

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Posted

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-musk-faa-firings-purge-air-safety-1235271233/

 

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Donald Trump and Elon Musk fired hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration workers Friday night, amid a startling series of plane crashes and other air-related incidents in recent weeks. A few days later, the Trump administration is telling Americans not to worry, because they didn’t fire anyone too important. 

Musk posted on X on Monday: “To the best of our knowledge, no one affecting safety has been fired.” Trump White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt similarly wrote that no employees “who perform safety-critical functions were terminated,” calling it “fake news” to report otherwise.

 

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Former and current FAA officials, however, say the purge could certainly affect air safety going forward. According to the Associated Press, the mass firings included “personnel hired for FAA radar, landing, and navigational aid maintenance.” 

Rolling Stone spoke with a fired FAA employee who was among a handful of employees working on an obstacle impact team at the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center in Oklahoma City. The team evaluates many tens of thousands of potential new hazards — such as new buildings, windmills, and especially cranes — to inform flight procedures each year. 

 

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The obstacle impact team was already understaffed before it was gutted. “There are currently four people remaining over there to do the work of 15 people,” they say, adding: “The danger to the national airspace can’t be understated. This is a very real threat to the American flying public.” 

While the mass firings targeted “probationary” employees, that doesn’t mean the cuts only affected employees with limited experience. The fired FAA employee, a veteran, previously performed the same role for years for a government contractor; after the contract ended, the FAA hired most of the team back directly. The probationary status, however, made the obstacle impact team ripe targets for Musk’s hit squad at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

 

Spoiler

On a personal level, the fired employee says they “found it very insulting that after [decades] of military and civil service to my country, I was discarded in a moment with an e-mail.” They worry they could lose their home — but they’re more concerned about the well-being of their other fired colleagues. 

Asked about Musk’s claim that the FAA didn’t fire anyone affecting safety, they respond: “Well, he’s wrong.” (Musk, whose team at SpaceX was scheduled to tour the FAA’s Air Traffic Control Center on Monday, says his company’s “engineers will help make air travel safer.”)

As news of the purge circulated Friday night and over the weekend, FAA staffers and longtime personnel who were already preparing for the worst were stunned at Trump and Musk’s recklessness, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell Rolling Stone. 

“Holy hell — that was my response,” one FAA official tersely says, describing their initial reaction. 

Asked on Tuesday about Musk and the Trump White House’s line that it’s “fake news” that the new administration sacked a bunch of safety-critical personnel over the long weekend, the FAA official simply replies: “How do they think airports and airplanes work?” 

During the first month of the second Trump presidency, numerous staffers and career officials within the FAA and Department of Transportation have been preparing exit strategies in the event of further purges of probationary employees and other staffers, and actively fearing potential worst-case scenarios, the sources say. 

However, for many of these federal staffers, what Trump and Musk did late last week was considerably more shocking than they expected.

Another source who works with the Transportation Department says they couldn’t help themselves and immediately informed their spouse that Americans could die from this.

“President Plane Accident,” this source says. “Is that how Donald Trump wants to be remembered?”

Spokespeople for the White House and the Department of Transportation did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Though Musk and the White House claim their job cuts relate in no way to anyone involved with airline safety, Rolling Stone separately spoke with a second terminated FAA employee whose job was ensuring that pilots are medically able and certified to fly. It’s a vital role, especially given the ongoing airline pilot shortage.

“We were already behind,” says the terminated FAA employee. “The pilots already complained that there’s a shortage in getting their medical certification [approved]. It’s just going to be put further behind now.”

They say the FAA firings came as a surprise: “I don’t think we expected it to happen to us, especially with all the aviation crashes and things going on, all the safety issues that are already out there, and then being already understaffed.”

Since Trump took office, there has been a spate of terrifying air accidents — including a deadly mid-air collision just outside Washington, D.C., between an American Airlines regional jet and a U.S. Army helicopter; a fatal plane crash in Philadelphia; and another fatal plane crash off the coast of Alaska. On Monday, a plane traveling from Minneapolis crash-landed in Toronto, Canada. 

The fired FAA employee who worked on the obstacle impact team tells Rolling Stone it’s not fair to blame Trump for these incidents — but that the president and Musk are certainly increasing the risk of accidents going forward. 

“Firing people that do this sort of work is not conducive to preventing accidents,” they say. “None of these accidents were anything having to do with the new administration — but that’s coming. When you lay off people that investigate these things and prevent these things, it’s only a matter of time.”

 

Posted
14 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

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Doesnt matter. The idiots read the initial headline or chryon and now it's fact that people 200 years dead were getting checks. It's now a fact. They won't question how those people were cashing those checks, since they died before checking accounts existed, but whatever. 

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