Good morning. It is a bit of a sad news today. Last night Keely crossed over, she was Dak’s beloved cat. Keely had been through a lot the last couple years and she passed away in Dak’s arms. Peace to her and to our Dak. We love you honey.
I will keep this post short today. And share a couple of things with you. I think we all need a break.
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…
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…
Good morning…I needed to start out with a laugh. I don’t know why that meme was so funny to me. It just was.
Ok, I got a video to share with you. I taped it myself yesterday…sorry about the train, yes I live near a train track and you can hear it in the video. But if you are having any problems, I have the closed captions on…so you can read what they are saying. This is a few minutes from Deadline Whitehouse.
What they are talking about is this:
US prosecutor warns of legal risk for anyone hindering Musk's efficiency effortwww.reuters.com/legal/us-pro…
In related news, look who has filed suit over Musk getting into the classified Treasury accounts:
If the acting attorney general is sending out whatever remaining loyal FBI agents after people getting in the way of Musk and his fucking Coup conspirators…I guess the folks from these Unions will be arrested soon.
EXCLUSIVE: The Bureau of the Fiscal Service is a sleepy part of the Treasury Department. It’s also where, sources say, a 25-year-old engineer tied to Elon Musk has admin privileges over the code that controls Social Security payments, tax returns, and more.
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 of the Fiscal Service (BFS).
this guy needs to be a focus of Dem TV appearances and Trump staff need to be asked about him in every interview“why is a 19 year old who called himself Big Balls being given access to our most sensitive personal information?”it sounds absurd because it is absurd and people need to hear it
1/ Important development"The FBI’s office of general counsel decided the demand by the Trump Justice Department for all the names was legal and compliance was not optional."www.nbcnews.com/politics/nat…
I wrote about Musk and this bureaucratic coup as plainly as I could. There's reporting in here & the particulars are overwhelming but what's happening is so clear: He's not trying to run the federal govt like a software company He's trying to turn it into a political weapon. (gift link)
The guy overseeing USAID was identified two years ago as a Jan. 6 participant who entered the Capitol through a broken window. http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/whi…
UPDATE: 8 Dems voted today to confirm yet another Trump nominee during Musk's coup: Bennett (CO), Gallego (AZ), Hassan (NH), Heinrich (NM), Hickenlooper (CO), King (ME), Lujan (NM), Shaheen (NH). If you're a constituent, don't just call – write an op-ed, protest their office, make clear you care.
🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.
Raskin: "Elon Musk, you may have illegally seized power over the financial payments systems of the Treasury, but you don't control the money of the American people. The US Congress does that under Article 1 of the Constitution … we don't have a fourth branch of government called 'Elon Musk'"
Their brief is here. It is badly written, badly reasoned, and filled with bad history, and the people who wrote it are bad people who are seeking to strip million of their own residents of the constitutional guarantee of citizenship. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us…
Joe Kent, the guy Trump is nominating to lead his counterterrorism division, employed Proud Boys and Patriot Front members, met with Nick Fuentes and sat down with a neo-Nazi YouTuber for an interview.
Sometimes self-government just means elections. And sometimes it means recognizing the deeper dignity and meaning of what it means to be a people. That means speaking up, standing out, and protesting. We can only be free together.snyder.substack.com/p/the-logic-…
Phil Williams of NewsChannel 5 in Nashville, Tennessee, reported on Friday that federal prosecutors were withdrawn from a criminal investigation of Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN) for election fraud; Ogles recently filed a House resolution to enable Trump to run for a third term and another supporting Trump’s designs on Greenland. On Wednesday, federal prosecutors asked a judge to dismiss an election fraud case against former representative Jeffrey Fortenberry (R-NE). Trump called Fortenberry’s case an illustration of “the illegal Weaponization of our Justice System by the Radical Left Democrats.”
(…)
Musk is interested in the government for future contracts, although a report from January 30, when Musk’s Tesla company filed its annual financial report, showed that the company, which is valued at more than $1 trillion and which made $2.3 billion in 2024, paid $0 in federal income tax. Today, Musk’s X social media company became a form of state media when the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said it would no longer email updates about this week’s two plane crashes—one in Washington, D.C., and one in Philadelphia—and that reporters would have to get their information through X.
There is other points made in her post…please go and read the entire thread.
Did you all see this during the last WH press conference:
Scoop: In a contentious staff meeting, DOGE’s new HR chief couldn't answer many questions about the "deferred resignation" offer that was emailed to federal workers—including whether they could even get a copy of the agreement.Latest from @makenakelly.bsky.social: http://www.wired.com/story/doge-h…
Musk’s DOGE Accused of Seizing Sole Control of Essential Federal Databases“Congress famously has the power of the purse,” wrote one analyst, “but it looks like DOGE is trying to snatch it.” http://www.commondreams.org/news/musk-do…
Education Department employees placed on leave for attending diversity trainingSeveral employees began receiving leave notices late Friday.www.politico.com/news/2025/02…
This next link was something Dak shared on Facebook:
The White House and Treasury have yet to comment on the reports of Musk and DOGE attempting to access the payment systems, but more lawmakers may demand such information in the coming days – especially if the possibility of another fund freeze appears likely.www.newsweek.com/lawmaker-dem…
“'They seem to want Treasury to be the chokepoint on payments, and that’s unprecedented,' the person added, emphasizing that it is not the bureau’s role to decide which payments to make — it is 'just to make the f-ing payments.'"
This woman here: @boldandbliss on Bluesky has logged in all of Trump’s EOs, included a description, compared it to the Project 2025 plan, provided links…
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.
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