20250219

• Letter From a Federal Worker
  This is a heartbreaking letter that a federal worker has asked me to share with the public.
  

• When DHS Sends Your Son to Gitmo
  The mother of a young Venezuelan man sent to Guantánamo discusses her son’s case. It heralds an unsettling new phase in Trump’s deportation policy.
  …
  By the letter of the law, merely being in the country as an undocumented immigrant is not a crime.

• Letters from an American
  …
  Fisher’s statement went on to say that Musk is neither an employee nor the service administrator—that is, the leader—of the Department of Government Efficiency.
  …
  President Trump has routinely referred to Musk as DOGE’s leader, and the media routinely refer to “Elon Musk’s DOGE.” Musk has flooded his social media site with claims that DOGE is cutting programs that he claims are wasteful or fraudulent, although so far he has yet to provide any proof of his extravagant claims. In the early hours of Monday, he reposted a picture of a leaner, meaner version of himself dressed as a Roman gladiator with the caption: “I vowed to destroy the woke mind virus.” Musk added: “And I am.”

• Would Europe really be defenceless without the US?
  …
  In other words, Washington’s military investments are driven first and foremost by its desire to police sea lanes, deter rivals like China, fight terrorism worldwide and secure access to key resources, rather than altruistically fortify Europe’s defences.
  …
  There’s no doubt America’s military power has been a cornerstone of NATO’s deterrence. However, Europe is far from defenceless. Collectively, the EU countries (plus the UK) spend over $300 billion in annual defence spending among them, making European combined military expenditure second only to America’s​.

• Does Putin Own Trump?
  Why is Trump bending the knee to Putin?

• The Risk in Immigration Reporting
  The United States is home to about 48 million immigrants today, but media outlets favoring a more restrictive immigration policy report on only a small fraction of them.

• Hold My Beer, Neville Chamberlain
  The U.S. “peace talks” with Russia over Ukraine, which include neither Ukraine nor any of our allies, is an upside down horror show.

• Long lines and canceled rentals: Firings bring chaos to national parks
• Trump Orders the VA to Scrub Veteran Medical Record Note Templates
  The Trump administration is changing the way medical professionals at the Department of Veterans Affairs can chart in Veterans electronic health record by removing prohibited language.

• Mexico awaits new response from Google on dispute over Gulf of Mexico name before filing lawsuit
• U.S. reverses plan to shut down free covid test program
• 
• Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife gifts $19billion of fortune in ‘unrestricted’ donations post-divorce settlement
• Fox News: Skeptical judge questions executive order barring transgender service members from joining the military
  ‘We are dealing with unadulterated animus,’ Judge Ana Reyes complained to an attorney representing the Trump administration

• USDA says it accidentally fired officials working on bird flu and is now trying to rehire them
• Fox News: Medicaid becomes flashpoint in House debate over Trump budget bill
  “I’m concerned that $880 billion out of [the House Energy & Commerce Committee] is likely very steep cuts to Medicaid – and it’s the very thing President Trump asked us not to do,” Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., told Fox News Digital on Tuesday.
  Wyden: “Nobody should lose sight of what happened this morning. Trump endorsed the House budget resolution. This resolution mandates that $880b in cuts come from the House Energy & Commerce Committee … there is no plausible way to hit that target without hundreds of billions in cuts to Medicaid.”

• Are We Now the Bad Guys?
  There was a time, not too long ago, when America stood as the beacon of freedom, the defender of democracy, and the steadfast ally of those who resisted oppression. We weren’t perfect—far from it—but we tried to stand for something bigger than ourselves. Yet today, as I watch the behavior of our political leaders, the comments of an ever-increasingly unhinged Trump, and the growing indifference of many Americans toward our role in the world, I have to ask a painful question: Are we now the bad guys?

• The DOGE Brain Drain Has Begun
  It’s not just jobs cut and agencies gutted. It’s the talent that will be lost for generations to come.

• Emil Bove Throwing Gold Bars Off the Titanic
• Anatomy of a sociopath — Trump and the GOP dismantled
• DOGE Claimed It Saved $8 Billion in One Contract. It Was Actually $8 Million.
  The biggest single line item on the website of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team appears to include an error.

• 
  Legal Requirements and Assurance of Compliance

• Elon Musk Says Black ’60 Minutes’ Journalist Deserves ‘Long Prison Sentence’ Over Kamala Harris Interview
  Trump’s right-hand man took to X to air his grievances over the 2024 interview.

• Elon Musk is Clearly Anti-Black and Anti-American, But Here are His Real Motivations
  To find the answer behind his actions, you have to read between the lines.

• These Soldiers Risked Their Lives Serving in Afghanistan. Now They Plead With Trump to Let Their Sister Into the U.S.
  Trump’s executive orders have blocked entrance to the country for thousands of Afghans, including those who worked with the U.S. military and their relatives. Two brothers hope answers come quickly for their sister and her husband, who they say are in danger.

• U.S. bishops sue Trump administration over refugee funding freeze
• Who Is Running the United States, Musk or Trump?
  In an interview with Sean Hannity, three men demonstrated that they have no idea how American democracy works.
• DOGE’s Reign of Ineptitude
  Slashing and burning won’t help with efficiency.
• Leak: Trump Admin Amasses Photo Collection of Children
  Border agencies to register minors in biometrics sweep
• A Terrible Milestone in the American Presidency
  Trump switches sides in the war for freedom.
• The American Pantagruel has declared himself the enemy of the United States.

Answer of German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius to the speech of what he calls Christofascist vice President Vance,
‘ I am incandescent with rage right now. I feel sick to the stomach. A US Vice President stood today on the soil of where so many Americans gave their lives to defeat fascism in Europe. He delivered a disgraceful speech that spat on their graves. Not that we should expect any different, given his boss skipped visiting the graves of fallen Americans in Europe for fear of getting his hair wet. The same man who called the same fallen heroes suckers and losers.
As a Brit that loves America and the American people, I am deeply disturbed at the insults delivered by a man who once described Donald Trump as an “idiot” and said he was “reprehensible.” Privately, comparing him to Adolf Hitler.
How times have changed. Vance is now part of the most authoritarian administration in American history. An administration actively seeking to deny bodily autonomy to women. An administration pursuing the same mass deportation of immigrants that Europe witnessed in 1930s Germany. Vance is a man that his own president doesn’t even see as his successor.
He came to Europe to vomit his Christo-fascist bile on leaders from the UK and across Europe, in what appears to be a retribution tour designed to assert American power.
The U.S. are to my knowledge the only NATO country to have invoked Article 5 of the NATO charter after 9/11. We, his European allies, met that call with no questions asked. We sent thousands of soldiers to the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq to fight a war on the false premise of Donald Rumsfeld’s ‘known unknowns’. We did this despite millions of our own citizens protesting in the streets of our cities.
Our military stood shoulder to shoulder with his military and we, like many Americans, stood to salute our fallen young men and women returning home day after day. I have tears in my eyes as I write this, thinking of them and their loved ones. Our brave men and women willingly gave their all and far too many made the ultimate sacrifice in support of an American led war.
For the record, 6000 Ukrainian solders server alongside American soldiers in Iraq. This, despite Ukraine not being a member of NATO. In 1994 upon signing the Budapest Memorandum they gave up their nuclear weapons in return for security assurances from the US and the UK. These were then reneged upon in 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea. They were told ‘An assurance is not a guarantee’.
Now, despite their friendship and their brave sacrifice on the battlefields of Ukraine, the President of the United States has decided to abandon them and hand a victory to an indicted war criminal, who illegally invaded the sovereign territory of a US ally. An ally who’s soldiers had previously lost their lives supporting America in its war on terror.
SHAME ON HIM. Shame on the man who dodged the draft and never served a day in defense of his nation. He is a coward and I would gladly call him that to his face. To all those Americans on social media currently posting vile insults to those who have always been there for America, I say, democracy is bigger than you, as you sit anonymously behind your phones posting poison.
America might have the most powerful army on the planet, but remember, that same army fled from Saigon after being handed their ass by a bunch of peasant rice farmers, armed with grenades made from discarded US coke cans. Ukraine have been to the Russian army what the Vietnamese were to you and we salute them.
You might want to throw Ukraine under the bus while stealing there mineral deposits, BUT EUROPE WILL NOT ALLOW THAT TO HAPPEN. I know for sure that the UK will not abandon the Ukrainian people. Our aid to GDP contribution already exceeds that of the US as does Poland, Germany Finland and others.
The U.S. is no longer a reliable ally and if need be, we will stand with Ukraine without America.
As for your pathetic tariffs, do your worst. You will soon have no friends but thugs and autocrats, so I’m sure Wun Dum Fuc will be right at home.