You know, when all this shit was about to start…and I restarted my persona here on the blog…I picked the name Sigh-ve (spelled Sadhbh) because I was sighing all the time. It is an old Celtic Irish name probably derived from the old Celtic root swadu meaning sweet. (Remember, my degree is in medieval history, specifically ancient Irish Literature.)
So the name Sighve seemed to fit. But now I am so fucking pissed off, every day, I should probably change it to: Tá mé dubh dóite de, I am heartily sick of it.
So today I have a bunch of cartoons. Before we get to that, some newsy stuff:
Trump earlier today…at 5:30 am:
JUST IN: USDA Confirms Detection of Bird Flu Genotype D1.1 in Nevada Dairy Cows.This marks the first detection of this virus genotype in dairy cattle.Previously, all detections in dairy cattle have been linked to HPAI H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b, genotype B3.13.
So this is how this DOJ will operate. Actions and beliefs are deemed CRIMINAL if they are not in line with this Administration’s beliefs and platform.There is no criminal penalty for supporting or even continuing to apply DEIA principles.This is a muscle job. Corporations must stiffen their spines.
Coast Guard leaders had given Linda Fagan, the first female Coast Guard commandant, a 60-day waiver to find new housing. But on Tuesday, DHS officials told the acting commandant to kick Fagan out because “the president wants her out of quarters.”Trump is such a fascist asshole.
EXCLUSIVE — On Tuesday, the Trump administration evicted former Coast Guard Commandant Linda Fagan from her house with just 3 hours notice http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/don… by @nbcnews.com
Argentina will pull out of the World Health Organization, a presidential spokesperson said, following President Donald Trump's executive order last month to pull the United States out of the global health group reut.rs/3Q3lwmW
Ed Martin, acting as Acting US Attorney, signed the letter dismissing the still-active case against his client, police assailant Jose Padilla. I've been waiting for the first obvious case of enormous conflict.www.reuters.com/world/us/top…
Is A Federal Judge Getting The Whole Story On Musk?
A lot of new reporting this morning on what Elon Musk’s team has been up to at Treasury. The substance of it matters for what are obvious reasons, and I’ll get to that in a moment.
But there’s important new context in which this is happening: The Justice Department is making representations in court to a federal judge in DC about what has and had not occurred at Treasury, and the judge is relying on those representations to issue a temporary restraining order to try to lock in the previous status quo.
It is not at all clear that what DOJ is telling the judge is accurate or complete. Whether that’s because the judge hasn’t asked the right questions or the Justice Department lawyers haven’t been given complete information from Treasury or everyone is operating from a deficiency of technical knowledge, there are plausible explanations that stop well short of outright lying or deceit. But whether it’s bad information or nefariousness, the stakes are a lot higher with an active court case on the matter pending.
Much of the confusion comes down to Treasury’s repeated claim that Musk team members designated as “special employees” have only had “read-only” access to sensitive payment systems. Without getting into technical details that are over my head, it seems increasingly likely that to whatever extent that is true, it doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story.
As Wired and TPM have reported, the Muskovites have been working on changing the underlying code that the payments systems run on. The most important new overnight reporting comes from the NYT, which says that the reason Musk’s team wanted to get access to the Treasury payment system in the first place was to cut off USAID payments at the source:
But emails reviewed by The New York Times show that the Treasury’s chief of staff originally pushed for Tom Krause, a software executive affiliated with Mr. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, to receive access to the closely held payment system so that the Treasury could freeze U.S. Agency for International Development payments. …
The emails viewed by The Times undercut the Treasury’s explanation for why Mr. Krause and his team were given access to the payment system last week.
A reasonable read of the judge’s TRO is that it’s mostly targeted at limiting access to the database that contains records of the payments and sensitive payee information. It’s not clear that it would keep Musk’s flunkies from blocking payments, rewriting code, or meddling with the payment system while still being limited to “read-only access.”
I’m hearing that he hated USAID because they helped bring down apartheid South Africa.
Lawsuits Related to Trump Admin Executive Orders
We put them all in one place.
Editor’s Note: Pulling thousands of pages of court records for these cases requires payment of PACER fees to the U.S. Government. An explanation of why we believe this is a complete racket is here. To offset our costs for providing the documents free to the public, please consider a paid subscription to Court Watch. If you choose to do so, our preference is a paid subscription, but if you’d like to make a one time show of support, our venmo is @SeamusHughes or Paypal. (If you are not in a position to become a paid subscriber, you can still sign up free for our weekly court record roundups)
More than thirty lawsuits have been filed and we are trying our best to keep this page updated in real-time. The Docket links are updated in real-time. By 2/10/25, we will organize this page by topic area for ease of read. If you’re new to Court Watch, we’d encourage you to check out our reporting.
ABC News reported Marco Rubio has been acting as head of the National Archives for weeks. This is news to everyone at the National Archives, including, apparently, the current head of NARA:www.404media.co/national-arc…
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
Carissa
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/what-was-elon-musks-team-really-up-to-at-treasury
Is A Federal Judge Getting The Whole Story On Musk?
A lot of new reporting this morning on what Elon Musk’s team has been up to at Treasury. The substance of it matters for what are obvious reasons, and I’ll get to that in a moment.
But there’s important new context in which this is happening: The Justice Department is making representations in court to a federal judge in DC about what has and had not occurred at Treasury, and the judge is relying on those representations to issue a temporary restraining order to try to lock in the previous status quo.
It is not at all clear that what DOJ is telling the judge is accurate or complete. Whether that’s because the judge hasn’t asked the right questions or the Justice Department lawyers haven’t been given complete information from Treasury or everyone is operating from a deficiency of technical knowledge, there are plausible explanations that stop well short of outright lying or deceit. But whether it’s bad information or nefariousness, the stakes are a lot higher with an active court case on the matter pending.
Much of the confusion comes down to Treasury’s repeated claim that Musk team members designated as “special employees” have only had “read-only” access to sensitive payment systems. Without getting into technical details that are over my head, it seems increasingly likely that to whatever extent that is true, it doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story.
As Wired and TPM have reported, the Muskovites have been working on changing the underlying code that the payments systems run on. The most important new overnight reporting comes from the NYT, which says that the reason Musk’s team wanted to get access to the Treasury payment system in the first place was to cut off USAID payments at the source:
But emails reviewed by The New York Times show that the Treasury’s chief of staff originally pushed for Tom Krause, a software executive affiliated with Mr. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, to receive access to the closely held payment system so that the Treasury could freeze U.S. Agency for International Development payments. …
The emails viewed by The Times undercut the Treasury’s explanation for why Mr. Krause and his team were given access to the payment system last week.
A reasonable read of the judge’s TRO is that it’s mostly targeted at limiting access to the database that contains records of the payments and sensitive payee information. It’s not clear that it would keep Musk’s flunkies from blocking payments, rewriting code, or meddling with the payment system while still being limited to “read-only access.”
I’m hearing that he hated USAID because they helped bring down apartheid South Africa.
https://www.courtwatch.news/p/lawsuits-related-to-trump-admin-executive-orders
Lawsuits Related to Trump Admin Executive Orders
We put them all in one place.
Editor’s Note: Pulling thousands of pages of court records for these cases requires payment of PACER fees to the U.S. Government. An explanation of why we believe this is a complete racket is here. To offset our costs for providing the documents free to the public, please consider a paid subscription to Court Watch. If you choose to do so, our preference is a paid subscription, but if you’d like to make a one time show of support, our venmo is @SeamusHughes or Paypal. (If you are not in a position to become a paid subscriber, you can still sign up free for our weekly court record roundups)
More than thirty lawsuits have been filed and we are trying our best to keep this page updated in real-time. The Docket links are updated in real-time. By 2/10/25, we will organize this page by topic area for ease of read. If you’re new to Court Watch, we’d encourage you to check out our reporting.