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Category: Politics

Speaking out in solidarity with FBI and other federal workers who are defending democracy

Speaking out in solidarity with FBI and other federal workers who are defending democracy

Yesterday, in response to my own sense of powerlessness while watching the ongoing assault on democracy led by Elon Musk and Donald Trump, I engaged in a quixotic gesture: I went down to my local FBI field office to offer a small token of public support. Not surprisingly, it isn’t possible to walk into an FBI office. Since the Oklahoma bombing, all such offices are well fortified. This office did have a kiosk in front of the main entrance where…

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Elon Musk’s ‘rapid unscheduled disassembly’ of government services that almost no one can control

Elon Musk’s ‘rapid unscheduled disassembly’ of government services that almost no one can control

Charlie Warzel writes: Two days before the 2024 election, I wrote that Musk’s chaotic takeover of Twitter was going to be the blueprint for his potential tenure at DOGE. Unfortunately, I was right—he’s running the exact same playbook. But it’s worth keeping in mind that there are two ways of measuring success for Musk’s projects: first, whether the organizations themselves benefit under his leadership, and second, whether Musk himself gets something out of the arrangement. Musk’s stewardship of X has…

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A 25-year-old Musk operative has direct access to the federal payment system posing ‘apocalyptic’ risk

A 25-year-old Musk operative has direct access to the federal payment system posing ‘apocalyptic’ risk

Wired reports: A 25-year-old engineer named Marko Elez, who previously worked for two Elon Musk companies, has direct access to Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly all payments made by the US government, three sources tell WIRED. Two of those sources say that Elez’s privileges include the ability not just to read but to write code on two of the most sensitive systems in the US government: The Payment Automation Manager (PAM) and Secure Payment System (SPS) at the Bureau…

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‘Accidental’ FBI director gains a following as agency’s defender

‘Accidental’ FBI director gains a following as agency’s defender

The New York Times reports: Brian Driscoll, the acting director of the F.B.I., has become an improbable symbol of quiet resistance toward the Justice Department’s campaign to single out F.B.I. employees who investigated the Jan. 6 riot. To start, Mr. Driscoll’s appointment was an accident. Shortly after President Trump’s inauguration, the White House identified the wrong agent as acting director on its website and never corrected the mistake. Even if he was not meant to be leading the agency, he…

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FBI agents sue to block DOJ from compiling list of officials who worked on Jan. 6 or Trump cases

FBI agents sue to block DOJ from compiling list of officials who worked on Jan. 6 or Trump cases

Politico reports: FBI agents who worked on cases stemming from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — or the criminal investigations of President Donald Trump — have filed a class action lawsuit to block Justice Department leadership from assembling lists of agents they say will be used as part of a retaliation campaign. The agents, who brought the federal suit anonymously, included screenshots of a three-page survey they say DOJ leadership intends to use to identify thousands of agents…

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Federal workers sue to disconnect DOGE server at OPM

Federal workers sue to disconnect DOGE server at OPM

Wired reports: Federal employees are seeking a temporary restraining order as part of a class action lawsuit accusing a group of Elon Musk’s associates of allegedly operating an illegally connected server from the fifth floor of the US Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) headquarters in Washington, DC. An attorney representing two federal workers—Jane Does 1 and 2—filed a motion this morning arguing that the server’s continued operation not only violates federal law but is potentially exposing vast quantities of government…

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Jewish leaders call out Elon Musk’s antisemitism and push for X boycott

Jewish leaders call out Elon Musk’s antisemitism and push for X boycott

A group of rabbis, leaders of Jewish organizations, artists, activists, and academics with diverse ideologies and beliefs, have come together to address the danger Elon Musk and X represent to Jews and others: Almost a year and a half ago, we came together to send two important messages: Elon Musk is one of the leading purveyors of antisemitism in the world and presents an urgent danger to Jews and many other groups the world over. The dangers of antisemitism on…

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How climate change could upend the American dream

How climate change could upend the American dream

By Abrahm Lustgarten This story was originally published by ProPublica Houses in the Altadena and Pacific Palisades neighborhoods were still ablaze when talk turned to the cost of the Los Angeles firestorms and who would pay for it. Now it appears that the total damage and economic loss could be more than $250 billion. This, after a year in which hurricanes Milton and Helene and other extreme weather events had already exacted tens of billions of dollars in American disaster…

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Trump’s talking about shutting down FEMA. Republicans oppose the idea

Trump’s talking about shutting down FEMA. Republicans oppose the idea

Politico reports: President Donald Trump’s suggestions that he might shut down the federal agency charged with responding to disasters are running into trouble with Republican lawmakers. Deeply red states are experiencing some of the costliest disasters, and lawmakers from those states fear that eliminating Federal Emergency Management Agency would leave them on the hook for increasingly expensive bills. So while they’re open to overhauling FEMA, congressional Republicans said they flatly reject the idea of abolishing the agency. “FEMA can’t go…

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Trump ally Peter Marocco behind evisceration of USAID: ‘He’s a destroyer’

Trump ally Peter Marocco behind evisceration of USAID: ‘He’s a destroyer’

Ya'll remember Merritt Corrigan and Peter Marocco?#SeditionHunters #Acountability #Jan6thInsurrection pic.twitter.com/giIb4IebTp — Not Sandy 📛 (@K2theSky) November 4, 2024 In November, D Magazine reported: Pete Marocco, the executive director of Dallas HERO, and his wife, Merritt Corrigan Marocco, have been accused by citizen investigators of entering the U.S. Capitol during the January 6, 2021, insurrection. A group of semi-anonymous, volunteer sleuths that has become known as the Sedition Hunters identified the couple by scouring social media, video footage, and by using…

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What every American should know about U.S. foreign aid

What every American should know about U.S. foreign aid

George Ingram wrote in 2019: Seventy-five years of U.S. foreign assistance has produced more fiction than fact when it comes to how American tax dollars are being spent around the world. In the interest of providing taxpayers with information about the value of their federal investment in this regard, it might be helpful to look at some of the top myths surrounding foreign aid, and how these myths compare with reality. Myth #1: America spends too much on foreign aid…

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What it’s been like inside USAID, an agency that Trump and Musk decided to eliminate

What it’s been like inside USAID, an agency that Trump and Musk decided to eliminate

A USAID employee, who has requested anonymity for fear of retribution, writes: Working for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) — the conduit for American soft power across the globe — demanded I prepare for frightening things that thankfully most Americans don’t need to worry about. Defensive driving techniques to escape from a terrorist attack. How to spot where landmines might be in the field. Emergency first aid in the event of a shooting or other attack, including in…

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Elon Musk is staging a cyberattack and a coup

Elon Musk is staging a cyberattack and a coup

  Cathy Gellis writes: People sometimes think that cybersecurity is just about defending computer systems from remote adversaries. But it’s broader than that; cybersecurity has always been about protecting computer systems more generally from any sort of misuse, no matter how the adversary might access them. So that Elon Musk and his minions have managed to walk right into government offices to take over computer systems where they had no legitimate authorization or entitlement needs to be understood as a…

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Musk’s team of young DOGE disruptors have been unmasked

Musk’s team of young DOGE disruptors have been unmasked

The Daily Beast reports: One is a 19-year-old college freshman and heir to a popcorn fortune. Another was hosting Model UN sessions in 2019 and a third was given money by his parents to invest in stocks while at his high school in Silicon Valley. The world’s richest man lashed out at an X account which suggested the six young men, who now have access the Treasury Department’s payment system, among other things, should be “paid a visit” by FBI…

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Donald Trump is a product of American sadness — not its remedy

Donald Trump is a product of American sadness — not its remedy

If Donald Trump truly cared about the fentanyl crisis, he would focus on where the drug is being consumed rather than where it originates. Where sadness is endemic, there is hunger for relief, but instead of addressing the root causes of societal pain, Trump is implementing policies that will produce even more pain. In Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography (2014), Richard Rodriguez wrote: If you would understand the tension between Mexico and the United States that is playing out along our…

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Why Trump’s tariffs can’t solve America’s fentanyl crisis

Why Trump’s tariffs can’t solve America’s fentanyl crisis

By Rodney Coates, Miami University Americans consume more illicit drugs per capita than anyone else in the world; about 6% of the U.S. population uses them regularly. One such drug, fentanyl – a synthetic opioid that’s 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine – is the leading reason U.S. overdose deaths have surged in recent years. While the rate of fentanyl overdose deaths has dipped a bit recently, it’s still vastly higher than it was just five years ago….

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