Politics & Stuff

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She hoped Trump’s victory would change her life, but not like this

Ryleigh Cooper is normally more focused on motherhood than politics. Then came DOGE.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/27/fired-federal-worker-trump-voter/

 

BALDWIN, Mich. — 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.

Now she was staring at her phone, learning that probationary workers in the Forest Service were the next to be fired by his administration. Cooper was likely to be one of them, her union head told her.

Her eyes watered. She knew it wasn’t personal. Every day brought new rumors of cuts, and her performance evaluation from last fall found her “fully successful” — the highest possible score.

She reminded herself that she had done everything right: graduated college with a 3.5 GPA, finished her first semester of work toward a master’s degree in forestry with a 4.0, rescued two dogs and two cats from the local shelter, chosen a man who held her on the shower floor when she found out she had endometriosis, a condition that can lead to infertility, and told her, “It’s okay, there is more than one way to be a parent.”

She thought about the Facebook posts she had seen a few days earlier.

“It’s February 3,” her grandmother posted, “and we’re going in the right direction.”

“Any government employee who is afraid of transparency,” wrote the man who taught her AP government class in high school, “is a criminal!”

Cooper knew the people in her life meant well, but she wanted her future to be different from theirs. She had grown up watching her family struggle as her mother lost one job, then another, then another. She was just a few months shy of her graduate degree and close to a promotion that could nearly double her salary. Even $50,000 or $60,000 a year, she thought, could help get her a house a few counties over, with better schools.

For now, she and her husband lived in Baldwin, a village of about 1,000 people where the high school track is made of cracked concrete and weeds. They had purchased their home because it was cheap, less than $150,000, and close to their families, who could help with child care.

It takes three minutes to drive past Baldwin’s one post office, one bar and one bowling alley, which also serves pancakes and omelets for breakfast. The median household income is about $23,000, according to the most recent American Community Survey, putting it among the poorest towns in Michigan.

In the winter, locals ice fish from shanties warmed by propane heaters and drive snowmobiles to bars. In the summer, they drive lawn mowers to gas stations, though Cooper said she would never do that.

Most people in Baldwin like Trump; more than 62 percent in Lake County, which includes the town, voted for him in November and in 2020. But people don’t talk about it. Politics here, at least until recently, felt removed from everyday worries.

Now it was in her living room, as she turned to her husband and burst into tears. “I think I’m getting fired,” she said.

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.

Her husband sat beside her and squeezed her hand, still processing. Together they had been counting. Sixteen days until they could try again. Twenty-eight until she could take her next test.

After she was sexually assaulted at 16, Cooper had sworn she would never be caught unprepared. But here she was. Betrayed by her body, which would not cooperate. Betrayed by her family, who supported firing federal workers like her. And, perhaps most painfully, betrayed by herself.

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.

The days after she got the text passed quickly. A call from the district ranger, who is in charge of the Forest Service in Baldwin, telling her to pack up her things. A box of printed performance reviews and tree identification books and a framed picture from her wedding last fall under a willow tree. A text from her co-worker who brought candy to refill the jar at her desk but arrived to find it, and her, gone.

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.

 

The Ultimate "Leopards Ate My Face" Rendition

[NikkiCFC 8,102]

On 24/02/2025 at 00:23, KEVINAA said:

Be on high alert in Europe. At any moment it would fireworks again 

We already died from your previous alert about Chernobyl 🥱

[Fulham Broadway 17,023]

Bezos is censoring and not allowing 'certain points of view' in the Washington Post. So funny watching the billionaires rimming Trump.

How's that free speech going ?

[bluesman2610 1,369]

Things just keep going from bad to worse in North America we are having elections and projections are showing the PC( Progressive  Conservative/Republican) candidate Pierre Poilievre leading. Which means we will give up all our sovereignty to be in good with the United States.

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Anneliese Dodds resigns over Keir Starmer’s aid budget cuts

The MP for Oxford East says it was ‘not a decision I wanted to make’ and the prime minister’s order would ‘bolster Russia and China’

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/anneliese-dodds-quits-cabinet-over-starmers-aid-budget-cuts-dxc0fxd00

Anneliese Dodds, the international development minister, has resigned from the government over Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to cut the international aid budget to pay for an increase in defence spending.

In a scathing letter to the prime minister, Dodds said that pulling back from development spending would bolster Russia and China.

Dodds accused Starmer of abandoning the world’s poorest with a political decision that appeared to be “following in president Trump’s slipstream”.

She also attacked the prime minister for refusing to have a cabinet debate about whether to raise the additional money needed for defence spending through tax rises or increased borrowing.

Instead, she said he had taken a “tactical decision” for the overseas aid budget “to absorb the whole burden”, suggesting that he had tried to take an “easy path” to securing Britain’s defence.

Dodds said she had delayed the announcement until after Starmer’s visit to Washington to avoid disrupting his attempt to reach a deal on Ukraine but pointedly confirmed she was only told about the cuts the day before they were announced.

“These cuts will remove food and healthcare from desperate people — deeply harming the UK’s reputation,” Dodds wrote. “You have maintained that you want to continue support for Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine; for vaccination; for climate; and for rules-based systems. Yet it will be impossible to maintain these priorities given the depth of the cut; the effect will be far greater than presented.”

Dodds’s departure is the first resignation over policy of Starmer’s government and threatens to galvanise growing left-wing discontent within Labour.

She was Starmer’s first choice as shadow chancellor when he became Labour leader and his demotion of her has been seen as a sign of how he has marginalised the party’s soft left.

Dodds said she had been willing to find some savings from the aid budget to boost defence spending, but told Starmer she had “expected we would collectively discuss our fiscal rules and approach to taxation, as other nations are doing”. She warned that even raising defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP may be “only the start”.

“It will be impossible to raise the substantial resources needed just through tactical cuts to public spending,” she said.

She said there were “no easy paths” to increasing defence spending. “Strategic decisions for the sake of our country’s security cannot be ducked,” she added.

 

Dodds said that the cuts would force the UK to stop providing aid across large swathes of the world. “The cut will likely lead to a UK pull out from numerous African, Caribbean and western Balkan nations at a time when Russia has been aggressively increasing its global presence,” she wrote.

She added that it would also leave the UK “shut out of numerous multilateral bodies” and “having a reduced voice” in the G7, G20 and climate negotiations. “All this while China is seeking to rewrite the global rules and when the climate crisis is the biggest security threat of them all.”

Dodds stressed that she would continue to support Starmer’s government, but her decision was hailed by critics of the prime minister’s decision.

Sarah Champion, the Labour chair of the Commons international development committee, praised Dodds’s “honourable” decision, suggesting that she had no option but to resign. “You knew cuts were unworkable to deliver the PM’s commitments but held back resigning to not mar the DC visit,” she told her.

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https://digbysblog.net/2025/03/01/yes-im-horrified/

Russian dissident Gary Kasparov spoke at the Principles First conference in Washington last weekend, writes Michael Tomasky. Kasparov “uttered a very simple line that chilled the thousand or so people in the room: ‘The United States has changed teams.’ ”

The hell it has. I resent being told the United States of America switched sides because the White House is in the grip of a band of lawless sociopaths.

Donald Trump’s country-wreckers have changed teams, certainly. Most of the Republican upper echelons has. Many MAGA foot soldiers have as well. How many have aligned with Vladimir Putin’s “might makes right” geopolitics simply because Trump has is unclear. How many would snap out of it after he’s gone is even less clear.

The lean toward Russia on the Christian right comes from the ludicrous proposition that there people live under biblical law because the nation is heavily white and Putin is hostile to LGBT people. One conservative Christian couple from Canada moved to Russia to be free from “LGBT ideology” and quickly found themselves free from being free.

What is clear after yesterday’s world-shaking, Oval Office shouting match is that Trump and J.D. Vance are all in on Vladimir Putin’s brand of autocracy. “[W]elcome to the Putinization of America, comrade!” Kasparov wrote in The Atlantic Friday morning before the fireworks:

Imitation and servility aren’t the same thing. Trump and Musk could attempt to undermine American democracy and create a Russian-style power vertical without kowtowing to Putin or abandoning Ukraine. But they haven’t. And while imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, affinity and envy aren’t enough to explain the abruptness and totality of the Trump administration’s adoption of every Russian position. On Monday, the anniversary of Russia’s all-out invasion, the United States even joined Russia in voting against a United Nations resolution condemning Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Yesterday’s “appalling spectacle” [timestamp 9:03] did not arrive out of thin air.

Tomasky writes:

If anyone doubted that before this horrifying exchange Friday, it surely can’t be doubted now. You had the president of Ukraine who, whatever his flaws, was representing a democracy—a struggling and imperfect democracy, for sure, but one that was invaded by a gangster regime; a country of 38 million people ravaged by a country of 144 million. He came to Washington willing to meet with a president whom he knows to be hostile but ready to sign a totally one-sided deal giving that president control over his country’s mineral rights. That he decided not to sit there in silence as lies were being told about him and the nature of Putin’s invasion was renamed impertinence. And in that moment, about three minutes and change into the tape linked to above, the United States of America symbolically and visibly switched from being the leader of the free world to being a partner of the global authoritarian axis.

The New York Times’ reliably wrong Peter Baker described the “verbal brawl in the Oval Office” as Trump coming to Putin’s defense over Zelensky’s lack of diplomatic finesse:

But what was particularly striking in their exchange was how much Mr. Trump seemed insulted on Mr. Putin’s behalf. He has long been an open admirer of Mr. Putin and has rarely offered any criticism of his own. Just this week, he called Mr. Putin “smart” and “cunning,” and declined to call him a dictator even after calling Mr. Zelensky that.

“You want me to say really terrible things about Putin and then say, ‘Hi, Vladimir, how are we doing on the deal?’” Mr. Trump told Mr. Zelensky on Friday. “It doesn’t work that way.”

He did not explain why it was OK to say terrible things to Mr. Zelensky while pursuing a deal. Instead, he portrayed the Ukrainian leader as unreasonably distrustful of Mr. Putin, who has broken multiple agreements guaranteeing Ukrainian sovereignty and calling for cease-fires and now faces an international arrest warrant for war crimes.

Asked by a reporter what he would do if Putin breaks a ceasefire, Trump haughtily replied that it had happened in the past because Putin didn’t respect the U.S. president. Then came this weird ramble:

They broke it with Biden because Biden, they didn’t respect him, they didn’t respect Obama. They respect me. Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me. 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—that was a phony Hunter Biden, Joe Biden scam. Hillary Clinton, shifty Adam Schiff, it was a Democrat scam. And he had to go through that. And he did go through it and we didn’t end up in a war. He went through it, he was accused of all that stuff—he had nothing to do with it. It came out of Hunter Biden’s bathroom. It came out of Hunter Biden’s bedroom. It was disgusting. And then they said, ‘Oh, oh, the laptop from hell was made by Russia.’ The 51 agents, the whole thing was a scam, and he had to put up with that. He was being accused of all that stuff.

Trump taking offense on Putin’s behalf, as Baker sees it, appear more pathological from where I sit. Trump identifies with Putin. He looks up to Putin. The coward fantasizes about being like Putin: a strongman. He wants to be accepted in the exclusive club of world autocrats who wouldn’t have an easily manipulated whiner like him as a member.

The wrongs Trump rattled off as done to Putin were done to Trump himself. Trump was not taking offense on Putin’s behalf. Trump saw Zelensky’s listing of Putin’s crimes as an attack on himself. Because in Trump’s fractured mind, he and his BFF are one in the same. Inseparable.

We are in the grip of a madman. Madmen, to be accurate. Sociopaths, megalomaniacs, career grifters, and anti-democracy tech oligarchs. How we purge ourselves of them and heal our alliances, I don’t know.

But I cannot believe real Real Americans™ have gone autocrat or worse. There are more of us than there are of them. We’d best start acting like it. In numbers.

* * * * *

Have you fought the coup today?
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink

  

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Israel cuts off humanitarian supplies to Gaza as it seeks to change ceasefire deal

Netanyahu wants Hamas to allow for release of hostages without troop withdrawal, in plan Israel says came from US

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/02/israel-cuts-off-humanitarian-supplies-to-gaza-as-it-seeks-to-change-ceasefire-deal

Israel has cut off humanitarian supplies to Gaza in an effort to pressure Hamas into accepting a change in the ceasefire agreement to allow for the release of hostages without an Israeli troop withdrawal.

The office of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Sunday it was imposing a blockade on Gaza because Hamas would not accept a plan which it claimed had been put forward by the US special envoy, Steve Witkoff, to extend phase one of the ceasefire and continue to release hostages, and postpone phase two, which envisaged an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

“With the end of phase one of the hostage deal, and in light of Hamas’s refusal to accept the Witkoff outline for continuing talks – to which Israel agreed – Prime Minister Netanyahu has decided that, as of this morning, all entry of goods and supplies into the Gaza Strip will cease. Israel will not allow a ceasefire without the release of our hostages,” it said in a statement. “If Hamas continues its refusal, there will be further consequences.”

After the announcement, Netanyahu’s spokesperson, Omer Dostri, wrote in a social media post: “No trucks entered Gaza this morning, nor will they at this stage.”

The existence and details of a Witkoff plan had not been confirmed by Washington by Sunday morning. A statement from Hamas called the suspension of aid a “war crime” and a violation of the ceasefire agreement. It said Netanyahu’s “decision to suspend humanitarian aid is cheap blackmail, a war crime and a blatant coup against the [ceasefire] agreement”.

During the 15 months of the Israel-Gaza war, the Netanyahu government repeatedly denied claims from aid agencies that it was blocking humanitarian deliveries, blaming the very limited flow on other factors. Before the ceasefire, UN officials had warned that widespread famine was imminent. In the six weeks of the first phase of the truce, deliveries returned to the prewar levels of about 600 trucks a day, mostly carrying food.

Aid officials said that even with the restoration of food deliveries, the lack of drinkable water, the near complete destruction of Gaza’s hospitals and clinics, the lack of shelter in the midst of winter, and the buildup of untreated sewage among the rubble could all be lethal to the surviving 2.2 million population.

Netanyahu made his announcement, which his office claimed had US backing, after the breakdown of talks in Cairo aimed at maintaining the ceasefire as it approached the end of its first six-week phase, over whether the truce should advance to a second phase.

The prime minister’s office said earlier on Sunday that it agreed on the adoption of what it described as Witkoff’s proposal to extend the first phase of the ceasefire through Ramadan and Passover, which end on 20 April, during which half of the living hostages and half of the bodies of those who have died would be released.

On the conclusion of that temporary extension, the statement said: “If agreement is reached on a permanent ceasefire, the remaining living and deceased hostages will be released.”

The first phase of the ceasefire chiefly involved the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails, an increase in aid deliveries and a retreat of Israeli troops from some positions. The second phase requires a complete Israeli withdrawal and a more enduring cessation of hostilities.

The Witkoff plan as described by Netanyahu’s office appeared similar to Israel’s proposal for a six-week extension of the first phase of the ceasefire, with hostage releases, but it made no mention of the troop withdrawal that was part of the original truce agreement in January.

Hamas said the proposal made clear that Israel was seeking to disavow the deal it previously signed.

Hamas has not been directly participating in the talks in Cairo, but has been coordinating with Qatari and Egyptian officials who are at the negotiating table with US and Israeli delegations. The negotiators left Cairo on Friday night, and there was no sign of them reconvening late on Saturday.

An Israeli withdrawal would first involve a pullback from the Philadelphi corridor along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt but such a retreat could trigger the collapse of Netanyahu’s rightwing coalition, which would in turn force new elections, in which his political future would be uncertain.

Israeli political analysts have suggested that Netanyahu agreed to the ceasefire under pressure from Donald Trump, confident that the agreement would never reach a second phase. Since the start of the ceasefire, he prevented Israeli negotiators from discussing a second phase. Witkoff has, however, insisted that a second phase of the ceasefire deal should be implemented, to ensure the release of the remaining 59 hostages, only 25 of whom are thought to be still alive. Most Israelis also want the government to make a priority of freeing the hostages, but that position is opposed by the Israeli far right, without whom the coalition could not stay in power. The rightwing parties argue Israel’s priority should be the destruction of Hamas.

The far-right Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said the decision to halt the flow of aid was “an important step in the right direction”.

Referring to Donald Trump’s earlier threat to open the “gates of hell” on Gaza, Smotrich said in a social media post: “Now we need to open these gates as quickly and deadly as possible on to the enemy, until complete victory.”

There remains no agreement on who should run Gaza once an enduring end to the war can be agreed. Trump caused consternation and bewilderment early in February with the shock suggestion that the US should “own” Gaza, which would be somehow emptied of its more than 2 million Palestinian inhabitants to make way for a “Riviera on the Mediterranean”.

 

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QOTD: Harry Truman

Published by digby on March 2, 2025

Some things never change:

 

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SNP MP calls for Trump state visit to be scrapped

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyj0ve33x1o

An SNP MP has said that Donald Trump's second state visit to the UK cannot go ahead if he refuses to show further support for Ukraine.

Trump accused Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky of "gambling with World War Three" during a fiery showdown at the White House on Friday.

It came the day after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer used his US visit to present Trump with a letter from the King, offering an initial meeting in Scotland to discuss the unprecedented second visit.

Stephen Gethins, the SNP's foreign affairs spokesperson, called Trump's behaviour towards Zelensky "grotesque" and said it amounted to "bullying".

Speaking to BBC News, he said: "I'd describe last night's performance as bullying, as a bigger country ganging up on a small country that is struggling for its very survival.

"The UK has left itself in an utterly isolated position. We need to get closer to our European partners and allies.

"Right now, given that treatment of one of our allies in Ukraine, I do not see how a state visit could possibly go ahead. We've had a bit of silence from the prime minister so far and that's extremely disappointing."

Mr Gethins' call was echoed by SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn who posted on X that the prime minister "better get back up off his knees and revoke that offer of a state visit".

Zelensky arrived in London earlier and embraced the prime minister outside Downing Street.

Starmer reiterated the UK's support for Ukraine, saying "we stand with Ukraine for as long as it may take" and spoke of "unwavering determination" to achieve a lasting peace for Ukraine.

Zelensky thanked Starmer for his support, and thanked King Charles III for accepting a meeting with him on Sunday - the same day he will take part in a summit with European leaders.

Three years on, the war continues in Ukraine, with further injuries in the city of Kharkiv after a recent Russian drone attack.

Zelensky had hoped for positive talks with Trump during his visit, including the signing of a minerals deal which would give the US a real stake in his country's future, if not an outright security guarantee.

Instead he faced an extraordinary dressing down in front of the world's media, with Trump and his Vice-President JD Vance demanding that he show more gratitude for years of US support.

The Ukrainian president pushed back at suggestions from his more powerful partners that he should work harder to agree a ceasefire with Vladimir Putin. They responded that he was being "disrespectful".

After his departure, Zelensky said Ukraine is "ready to sign the minerals agreement" but continued his call for US security guarantees.

The exchange prompted a series of responses from European leaders with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz among those reiterating their support for Ukraine.

Posting on X on Friday, First Minister John Swinney said: "Today's events in Washington are a clear cause for deep concern, for shock, for anger.

"What we need now are cool heads and clear thinking. We must stand firm with our European allies in the steadfast defence of Ukraine. That is where Scotland stands."

Scottish Conservative MP Andrew Bowie, who is shadow secretary of state for Scotland, said the White House exchange was a "sad and depressing spectacle".

On X, he added: "In the face of unprovoked Russian aggression and in the third year of a war to save his country, Vlodomyr Zelensky has been a symbol of calm strength and determination.

"Today his restraint was incredible. We stand with him and Ukraine."

State visit

If Trump does indeed meet the King in Scotland to discuss a second state visit, it would be his first return to the country where he has family and business connections since 2023.

The Scottish government said Swinney, who endorsed rival Kamala Harris in last year's election, would work to "strengthen" ties between the two countries.

Trump was hosted by the late Queen Elizabeth for a three-day state visit during his first presidential term in 2019.

Second-term US presidents are traditionally not offered state visits and have instead been invited for tea or lunch with the monarch, usually at Windsor Castle.

But King Charles' letter proposed a meeting in Scotland, where Trump owns two golf courses, to discuss arrangements for a second state visit.

The letter suggested meeting at either Dumfries House in Ayrshire, which the King has owned since 2007, or Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire.

Trump appeared taken aback by the letter, but after taking a minute to read it he said he accepted the invite and that it would be an "honour" to visit the "fantastic" country.

The prime minister said it was a "privilege and an honour" to deliver the King's letter to Trump, adding he "looked forward to welcoming" the president to the UK.

Meanwhile the Scottish Greens have said Donald Trump is not welcome in Scotland, with co-leader Patrick Harvie forecasting "protests and a great deal of anger" around the visit.

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18F: Sabotage And Showboating

Published by Tom Sullivan on March 2, 2025

 

Musk is a dangerous phony

I created this graphic when Ramaswamy was still a part of Doge.

White House tech veteran, Waldo Jaquith, posted a Bluesky thread about what Elon Musk’s DOGE saboteurs did on Friday to a federal technology group where Jaquith once worked. We know by now (and as you read on Saturday) that Musk’s “waste, fraud, and abuse” pitch for the cameras and is as phony as Trump University.

Musk possesses “scant interest in constitutional law” and considers oversight of his operations the “dictatorship of the bureaucracy.” His goal is not to improve government or even to shrink it (the Goldilocks question) but to hobble it. So under the pretext of cutting “waste,” he is in fact destroying the government’s ability prevent his becoming … emperor, or something more like Eldon Tyrell or Peter Weyland. Musk would enjoy the comparison.

Pay attention:

18F, the federal government’s technology shop, was demolished by Musk’s team shortly after midnight. It was a cost-recoverable org, charging agencies for their expertise, using a consulting model. Its cost to government was negligible, its benefits huge. My team there once saved DoD $500 billion.

18F is *precisely* what Musk and team claim should exist within government. But when his team found it, they destroyed it, because it is evidence that government works well (can’t have that!), and because like Zelensky, 18F didn’t bend the knee.

Trump and Musk are eliminating any part of government that works well, because that undermines their thesis that government doesn’t work. GSA (which houses 18F) turns a profit as an agency. Naturally it has to be destroyed. 18F’s healthy revenue stream also means it must go.

To anybody in leadership at the state or municipal level: 18F’s destruction makes this *the perfect time* to hire experienced technologists, which you all need very badly. Most 18Fers would love to stay in public service. They are spread throughout the country. Go go go!

For any devs wondering what 18F does (did), here’s its GitHub org page, with 1,210 repos. A few were mine! All the work they did for all their agency partners was open source. Public money should produce public software, for public inspection. Those days are over, starting today.

18F

github.com

18F did two things, both for agencies that hired them to help with projects: it built software and it taught agencies how to hire & oversee vendors to build software. The former raised the bar by showing agencies what “good” looks like, the latter allowed those practices to expand sustainably.

The work that I led at 18F I naturally feel was really important (I hope all 18Fers felt the same way about their work): codifying the procurement principals that we’d all identified there over the years. I thought this would have a tiny audience. Instead it became a foundational text.

Introduction | 18F De-risking Guide

guides.18f.gov

The work I do today at @usdigitalresponse.org is simply what I did at 18F (software procurement, budgeting, and oversight), except I’m a team of one, dependent on grant funding. I have sent many an agency to 18F when they need large-scale support. But no more—I have nowhere to send them now.

 

Republican myth-making

I wish we could hire a bunch of 18Fers at U.S. Digital Response, but we’re a small organization, reliant on grants for funding. Heck, my position is only 3/4-time. Instead we’ll work with our state and local partners to create positions appropriation for these folks, and help to make those matches.

18F faced a lot of threats over the years. In the beginning it was mostly from within, frankly. It’s the way of digital services that they break a bunch of rules to get started. Then the threats were external. But I never thought a threat was being too effective for Republican myth-making.

I see folks asking about forking all the 18F GitHub repos so there are copies. Don’t worry, that was done at scale by multiple organizations, weeks ago, anticipating this.

“It’s chaotic, and it feels like it’s chaotic on purpose,” says a former 18F worker describing the demolition of 18F to The Atlantic (gift link). “Move fast and break things” comes to Washington like January 6 without the riot.

Matteo Wong writes:

DOGE’s actions have been widely compared to the playbook that Musk used to decimate and remake Twitter into X: The inefficiency is the point. Asking workers to resign and justify their work through scrambled, aggressive messages almost inevitably prompts exodus and collapse, voluntary or not. But another useful comparison might be to the playbook Musk follows from space programs for his company, SpaceX. Government teams, their staff, and the citizens they serve are like test launches of rocket prototypes: try a new ship design uncrewed, knowing it could well explode, and repeat. But in this case, there are people aboard.

And like everything in Trump’s career, there is a lot of myth-making involved. The gaming community seems ahead of the press in spotting the bullshit behind Musk, suggests one Bluesky poster.

So far the gaming community is really the first to comprehensively debunk the central musk myth that “what’s incredibly difficult and time-consuming for normal people is trivially easy for me” and I assume that’s partly because the consequences for that imploding elsewhere are too high

Btw even when musk talks about working around the clock it’s part of this myth, he’s just saying “oh it’s hard for you to do, but for me it’s second nature.” But like, he doesn’t work. He never learns any new skills or has breakthroughs, he just stays up all night dming rw influencers & doing drugs

Like oh you’re such a “hardcore” worker and singular genius that every tech problem is trivial? And these legacy govt computer systems are giving you fits? Why not simply become a COBOL expert faster than anyone ever has? Oh what’s that, you can’t, because you’re a charlatan & a moron.

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4u42vwglz35baspkeivbgw3n/post/3ljddqp5eqk2g

 

 

Musk had been paying someone else to play Path of Exile for him to achieve the alleged high scores he bragged about. It was a lie.

“The man has more money and power than you could ever want,” says Karl Jobst in the video above, “yet he still felt compelled to lie about something so trivial.”

No wonder he gets along so well with Donald Trump. He’s an uber-rich super villain out of a Bond film.

Where’s 007 when you really need him?

* * * * *

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Elon Musk Supports US Leaving NATO and UN

While Trump has not explicitly stated an intention to leave either organization, he has recently argued that the U.S. should not bear the financial burden of European security

https://www.latintimes.com/elon-musk-supports-us-leaving-nato-un-577277

Elon Musk vocalized his support for the United States leaving NATO and UN in a social media post. Michael M. Santiago; Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Elon Musk, a key figure in President Donald Trump's administration and head of the United States Department of Government Efficiency, has publicly backed the idea of the U.S. withdrawing from NATO and the United Nations.

Musk voiced his support on Saturday night, simply responding "I agree" to an X post stating, "It's time to leave NATO and the UN." His remarks align with calls from some Republican lawmakers, including Senator Mike Lee, who has criticized NATO as a "Cold War relic" that disproportionately benefits Europe at America's expense, the UK Defense Journal reported.

Musk's endorsement of the move comes amid ongoing discussions within the Trump administration regarding the U.S. role in international alliances. While Trump has not explicitly committed to leaving NATO, he has repeatedly pressured European nations to increase their defense spending, arguing that the U.S. should not bear the financial burden alone.

With the war in Ukraine ongoing and NATO playing a key role in European security, U.S. withdrawal could significantly reshape global defense dynamics. European leaders have already expressed concerns over Trump's approach to the alliance, particularly as Trump seeming embraces Russian President Vladimir Putin while NATO counters Russian aggression.

Musk's comments signal a growing push within the administration for a more isolationist foreign policy, prioritizing domestic defense over international commitments.

[Vesper 29,290]

on the tube today

[KEVINAA 110]

PATRICK BEN DAVID OF VALUETAINMENT AND PBD PODCAST

LIVE INTERVIEW WITH THE ANDREW THE TATE

 

Live at 6am my time and 5pm later today England time.

Andrew Tate Tells America: “I’M BACK!” – The Interview They Tried to Stop

 

 

[Fernando 6,508]

13 hours ago, Vesper said:

on the tube today

Once you start seeing that and making fun of the stocks it just means a bottom is close. 

Time to buy some TSLA sharess 🙂