I lost my job. USDA Forest Service. My probation was up next week. I did everything right. I took a GS-7 role with a master’s degree just to get my foot in the door. I spent years doing seasonal fieldwork for low pay, working in remote places, gaining experience, and building skills, just for a chance at a permanent position. I was about to be a GS-9. I wrote NEPA reports. I conducted field surveys. I worked fire support. I dedicated myself to this work because I believed in it. Public lands don’t manage themselves. The wildlife, watersheds, and forests we protect don’t just stay protected without people on the ground making it happen. My coworkers and I took on that responsibility, often in places most people never think about but that matter more than they know. And now? Just like that, I’m out. Edit: I’ve consistently supported progressive policies and have voted Democrat in every national and local election since I was 18. I do appreciate folks asking, I have some coworker having a serious 'leopards ate my face' moment right now.

This comment on r/fednews really stood out to me. Trump and Musk want people to think they're firing do-nothing "bureaucrats," but they're really getting rid of people dedicated to serving this country and keeping it operational. I hope these stories get told.

“Mass terminations of probationary workers also swept through the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-autonomous agency within the Energy Department that oversees the nation's nuclear weapons.” www.npr.org/2025/02/13/n...

Economist Paul Krugman on how political attitudes changed with U.S. economic shifts We're getting a look at how the public mood and political attitudes have changed over time thanks to economic shifts and dislocation. Paul Solman sat down with Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman to ...

Given "what appears to be a loyalty purge of the federal bureaucracy, what appears to be unwillingness of the Trump administration to obey court orders, maybe historians will look back and say that American democracy ended in January 2025," Paul Krugman said. www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...

A court in Washington D.C. will hear a lawsuit today from undergrad students in the University of California system seeking to block the Department of Education from granting DOGE access to sensitive student loan data.

Read the lawsuit: www.democracydocket.com/wp-content/u...

🚨 State of New York v. Trump Learn more.

TODAY: A New York court will hear a challenge from Democratic attorneys general from 19 states to block DOGE's access to Treasury Department data and payment systems.

The DOGE Czar’s Plan to Loot Medicare Elon Musk’s coup plotters cut their teeth at an obscure Obamacare agency that burned $10 billion testing bogus cost savings initiatives.

Terrific Moe Tkacik piece on Brad Smith, one of the under-the-radar implementers of DOGE, whose previous "government efficiency" gig was eventually proven to be a $10 billion waste of money designed mainly to bring a bunch of unnecessary middlemen into health care:
prospect.org/health/2025-...

More beauty in diversity. Love is love.

TODAY: Washington, D.C. court will hear a lawsuit from students in the University of California system seeking to block the Department of Education from granting DOGE access to student data.

Read the lawsuit: https://www.democracydocket.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/12025-02-07-Complaint-1.pdf

After Biden just about had inflation tamed, it is spiking today, the hottest number since early 2022. You can thank Donald Trump and his ill advised rhetoric and policies. Fools that thought he would fix this!

The author of this piece was an associate WH counsel under Reagan. He has a very polite way of explaining that what Trump is doing with DOGE is a coup. wapo.st/4hSE7Ox

bsky.app/profile/mrsb...

Rebuked by the pope not long after he was rebuked by countless legal scholars for his pretense the judiciary cannot set law for the administrative branch, affirmed in the famous Marbury v. Madison case.

Yes. This is the question that has to be put to Trump, his lackeys, and DOJ lawyers in court: if DOGE and Trump are allegedly so concerned with waste, fraud, and abuse, why did he (*purport to*) fire all the IGs?

The answer can't be that catturd found something fishy in a spreadsheet.

Tedious to keep pointing this out, but:

1) Trump did NOT get "majority" of vote. (49+%, to KH 48+%). Biden 2020, Obama both times, GWB 2004 most recent w *majority*.

2) Carried House w smallest margin in modern times.

3) He flatly denied even knowing what Proj 2025 was.

No Proj2025 'mandate'

US Republicans find unity on taxes a heavy lift in Trump 'golden age' Barely a month after predicting a new "golden age" under President Donald Trump, congressional Republicans are struggling to move forward on the president's tax-cut agenda, despite their control of both the Senate and House of Representatives.

Barely a month after predicting a new 'golden age' under President Donald Trump, congressional Republicans are struggling to move forward on the president's tax-cut agenda, despite their control of both the Senate and House of Representatives reut.rs/3QeUb1m

The fact that NBC can (accurately) call the Administrative Procedure Act “obscure” just shows how little Americans know about how their government works.

It literally is one of the most important laws ever enacted by Congress.

"High on Trump": Netanyahu sees Trump's Gaza gambits as Israel's big chance "There was this feeling of intoxication in the room, like all of our Gaza problems are now solved because Trump said something."

President Trump's public ultimatum to Hamas this week and his stunning Gaza takeover plan have thrown the Israeli government into a frenzy of both excitement and confusion, Israeli officials tell Axios.

Seeing an unelected South African billionaire in the Oval Office giving a briefing next to the mute and demented US President is jarring to say the least…

They are pulling back the curtain to let us all know who is in charge.

The exchange is bad enough: Elon basically confessed, in front of Trump, that a hoax Elon started that traveled first to Trump propagandist Karoline Leavitt and from there, through Jesse Watters’ exaggerations on Fox News, into several repetitions of the false claim by Trump was wrong. The entire point of this presser was to substantiate Trump’s false (and undocumented) claim that DOGE [sic] had found billions of dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse and use that to, first, pressure judges who are putting brakes on DOGE and, then, justify giving DOGE [sic] authority to fire a bunch of people via Executive Order. When Trump asked Elon to substantiate such claims, Elon instead vaguely pointed to people who were wealthy even though they had meager salaries — not something that should be under his review. He listed other things that are known — and were known, during Trump’s first term — which are archaic but not fraud. And in that appearance, a journalist called Elon out for inventing something about Gaza that led Trump to lie publicly. That should have led to stories about how, in Trump’s presence, Elon admitted he makes shit up and Trump repeats them. For the most part, it didn’t happen:

The media is utterly failing to cover what is actually happening with Musk: that he is using the power Trump has given him, along with his X platform and its relationships with right-wing media, to spread massive lies and disinformation, while they laugh off 1/2

www.emptywheel.net/2025/02/12/t...

Russell Vought wants to slash the government down to a mass deportation force. No more medical research, no more education department, no more civil rights enforcement, no more Social Security, no more Medicaid--think of all the things he wants to cut while "begging" for more of your $ to deport ppl

my view is that as soon as the administration froze disbursement of congressional appropriations we entered constitutional crisis territory

The great Yale historian, Timothy Snyder, expert on fascism and on Ukraine and Russia

USAID IG fired day after report critical of impacts of Trump administration’s dismantling of the agency | CNN Politics The inspector general of the US Agency for International Development was fired on Tuesday, a day after his office released a report critical of the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the agen...

NEW: Trump fired the USAID Inspector General just one day after the IG filed a report critical of Trump's dismantling of the agency. www.cnn.com/2025/02/11/p...

The new regime killed Black History Month. Nothing stops us from celelbrating the diverse people who made our lives better and improved our understanding of the world. I won't stop. You don't need to, either.

Strength in diversity. Beauty in diversity.

Who else wants to see this happen…👇

Like now?! 🤚

Egg prices +15.2% m/m in January ... largest increase since June 2015

(via Kevin Gordon) #CPI

USAID Kept My Troops Safe in Afghanistan If not for American aid, we would have faced more enemies and won fewer friends.

"People who like to sound tough reflexively back the guys with guns over the guys in jeans with sacks of grain or the guys in suits with papers. But take it from someone who spent nearly 1,500 days downrange over the course of 20 years: USAID is worth every penny." www.thebulwark.com/p/usaid-kept...

Egypt's President Sisi to not attend any White House talks if Gaza displacement on agenda, Egyptian sources say Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will not travel to Washington for talks at the White House if the agenda includes U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to displace Palestinians from Gaza, two Egyptian security sources said.

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will not travel to Washington for talks at the White House if the agenda includes President Donald Trump's plan to displace Palestinians from Gaza, two Egyptian security sources said reut.rs/3QfWmld

Trump executive order vows substantial cuts to federal workforce The executive order directs agency heads, after the hiring freeze expires, to recruit no more than one employee for every four who leave the federal government,

“The executive order gives billionaire Elon Musk’s DOGE, tasked with finding government inefficiencies, even more power than it has amassed in the first three weeks of the new administration.”

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

WSJ: “.. Sheinbaum is now the most popular politician in Mexico, with approval ratings of 75%. It is a sign of how much the country has rallied around her ..”

www.wsj.com/world/americ...