Breaking NYT:The Trump admin will reduce the number of workers at USAID from more than 10,000 to only about 290 positions.USAID officials were also told that about 800 awards and contracts administered through the agency were being canceled.www.nytimes.com/live/2025/02…
NEW: Apparently the Dept of Energy has replaced its Chief Information Officer with a "network engineer from SpaceX" who has maybe run a service desk but has no other IT leadership experience, per a source with knowledge. The DOE, among other things, oversees all nuclear security. So that's cool.
“I don’t work here for the fucking money,” said one longtime agency employee who works on air pollution. “I work here because I believe in it, and I want to serve the public.”What #EPA Employees Say About the Decision to Stay or Go Under Trumpper @propublica.orgwww.propublica.org/article/epa-…
A federal judge this am gave two DOGE staffers access to Treasury payments. WSJ reports: One of them is "associated with" a social media account that has posted racist statements (e.g. “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity"). Staffer resigned when asked about it this afternoon:
If that link is behind a paywall, this one may work:
Here is a gifted unlocked version. This is insane. I got this motherfucker out of government (forgive some ego). I fucking did it.www.wsj.com/tech/doge-st…
We are in the midst of an administrative coup the like of which we have never seen – or even imagined – in our lifetimes. Every day brings new abuses, new scandals, which can’t just be undone or fixed. We are in a very dark place as a country and as a constitutional republic right now.
Yesterday, workers found a creative way to protest the “fork in the road” offer: a spoon emoji. Today, they discovered the spoon emoji was removed from workplace chat. http://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/02…
New Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Scott Turner just sent out his first email to staff that starts off "I want to welcome you to the new Golden Age of America!"This part stood out to me as particularly disturbing:
Musk's DOGE agents access sensitive personnel data, alarming security officialsThe highly restricted data includes personally identifiable information for millions of federal emplovees…www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec…
Ranking member of the House committee on education and workforce calls on the Government Accountability Office to investigate DOGE's actions and impacts http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
According to Project 2025, NOAA & NWS will be privatized. Privatizing services will mean some people will not be able to afford having access to reports of severe weather like hurricanes, & flash floods. People will die so someone can make more money. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Thanks for taking over for me today. Finally got back from all those clinic visits! I got to pick out my new glasses between doctors too!! Now I just need to get my new prescription.
BREAKING: The Treasury Department has installed DOGE ally Tom Krause as fiscal assistant secretary, placing the Musk ally in a powerful position over the nation's +$5 trillion payment networkMusk continues to demand unilateral cessation of paymentswww.washingtonpost.com/business/202…
JUST IN:Federal judge, Carl Nichols, GRANTS the plaintiffs’ request for a temporary restraining order (TRO) of the planned administrative leave for thousands of USAID employees.
🚨BIG SCOOP: Musk’s DOGE Teen Was Fired By Cybersecurity Firm for Leaking Company SecretsEdward Coristine posted online that he had retained access to the firm’s servers. Now he has access to sensitive government information.🎁 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Musk’s DOGE Teen Was Fired By Cybersecurity Firm for Leaking Company Secrets
Edward Coristine posted online that he had retained access to the firm’s servers. Now he has access to sensitive government information.
Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old member of Elon Musk’s squad that’s criss-crossing US government agencies, was fired from an internship after he was accused of sharing information with a competitor.
“Edward has been terminated for leaking internal information to the competitors,” said a June 2022 message from an executive of the firm, Path Network, which was seen by Bloomberg News. “This is unacceptable and there is zero tolerance for this.”
A spokesperson for the Arizona-based hosting and data-security firm said Thursday: “I can confirm that Edward Coristine’s brief contract was terminated after the conclusion of an internal investigation into the leaking of proprietary company information that coincided with his tenure.”
Afterward, Coristine wrote that he’d retained access to the cybersecurity company’s computers, though he said he hadn’t taken advantage of it.
“I had access to every single machine,” he wrote on Discord in late 2022, weeks after he was dismissed from Path Network, according to messages seen by Bloomberg. Posting under the name “Rivage,” which six people who know him said was his alias, Coristine said he could have wiped Path’s customer-supporting servers if he’d wished. He added, “I never exploited it because it’s just not me.”
His comments, made in a Discord server focused on another competitor company, worried executives at Path Network, who believed there was no legitimate reason for a former employee to access their machines, according to a person familiar with the incident. The person asked not to be named, citing the sensitivity of the matter.
In response to his firing, Coristine, who is wearing a blazer and shorts in one undated photo that was posted anonymously online, wrote on Discord that he had done “nothing contractually wrong” while working at Path Network.
Several of Coristine’s online peers and former co-workers said they were surprised that the teenage friend they knew has been brought into one of the most high-profile teams in the Trump administration. His 2022 dismissal and the circumstances surrounding it add to questions about how he arrived in this new job with Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and how he’ll handle the sensitive government information that comes with it.
“Giving Elon Musk’s goon squad access to systems that control payments to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other key federal programs is a national security nightmare,” Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Bloomberg News about his general concerns regarding the DOGE team. “Every hour new disturbing details emerge to prove that these guys have no business anywhere close to sensitive information or critical networks.”
The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
peej
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Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Okay…remember, if you have difficulty seeing the images up top, just click on the picture.
More shit has happened…I will post it below.
I keep getting reminded of the phrase, “When you’re going through hell, keep going.” Which is attributed to Winston Churchill during the blitz.
All this news feels like the modern equivalent.
Thanks for the work.
ty
Thanks for taking over for me today. Finally got back from all those clinic visits! I got to pick out my new glasses between doctors too!! Now I just need to get my new prescription.
katiephang
58 minutes ago
JUST IN:Federal judge, Carl Nichols, GRANTS the plaintiffs’ request for a temporary restraining order (TRO) of the planned administrative leave for thousands of USAID employees.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-07/musk-s-doge-teen-was-fired-by-cybersecurity-firm-for-leaking-company-secrets?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTczODk1NzQyNCwiZXhwIjoxNzM5NTYyMjI0LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTUkJXMTlUMVVNMFcwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiIyQjE3NzFFOTlEODc0QzRDOTY1Njg1RTZBQkJGM0QwRCJ9.vxGv4ncXEbIrUGmUYpTUdxLmCVDwzmEWp-VRWV9otME&leadSource=uverify%20wall
Musk’s DOGE Teen Was Fired By Cybersecurity Firm for Leaking Company Secrets
Edward Coristine posted online that he had retained access to the firm’s servers. Now he has access to sensitive government information.
Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old member of Elon Musk’s squad that’s criss-crossing US government agencies, was fired from an internship after he was accused of sharing information with a competitor.
“Edward has been terminated for leaking internal information to the competitors,” said a June 2022 message from an executive of the firm, Path Network, which was seen by Bloomberg News. “This is unacceptable and there is zero tolerance for this.”
A spokesperson for the Arizona-based hosting and data-security firm said Thursday: “I can confirm that Edward Coristine’s brief contract was terminated after the conclusion of an internal investigation into the leaking of proprietary company information that coincided with his tenure.”
Afterward, Coristine wrote that he’d retained access to the cybersecurity company’s computers, though he said he hadn’t taken advantage of it.
“I had access to every single machine,” he wrote on Discord in late 2022, weeks after he was dismissed from Path Network, according to messages seen by Bloomberg. Posting under the name “Rivage,” which six people who know him said was his alias, Coristine said he could have wiped Path’s customer-supporting servers if he’d wished. He added, “I never exploited it because it’s just not me.”
His comments, made in a Discord server focused on another competitor company, worried executives at Path Network, who believed there was no legitimate reason for a former employee to access their machines, according to a person familiar with the incident. The person asked not to be named, citing the sensitivity of the matter.
In response to his firing, Coristine, who is wearing a blazer and shorts in one undated photo that was posted anonymously online, wrote on Discord that he had done “nothing contractually wrong” while working at Path Network.
Several of Coristine’s online peers and former co-workers said they were surprised that the teenage friend they knew has been brought into one of the most high-profile teams in the Trump administration. His 2022 dismissal and the circumstances surrounding it add to questions about how he arrived in this new job with Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and how he’ll handle the sensitive government information that comes with it.
“Giving Elon Musk’s goon squad access to systems that control payments to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other key federal programs is a national security nightmare,” Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Bloomberg News about his general concerns regarding the DOGE team. “Every hour new disturbing details emerge to prove that these guys have no business anywhere close to sensitive information or critical networks.”