#Committee of experts on public administration

[unpublicserviceday]

(9th meeting) 23rd session of the Committee of Experts on Public Administration - Economic and Social Council.

Institution building in fragile and conflict-affected areas

- Expert panel moderated by the Vice-Chair

- Interactive dialogue with CEPA members, Member States, United Nations system and civil society organizations 

Adoption of the report on the 23rd session

- Moderated by the Chair

- Informal report of the working group on the United Nations Public Service Awards

- Presentation of draft report by the Rapporteur

- Review of recommendations and matters to be brought to the attention of the Economic and Social Council Adoption of the draft report on the 23rd session

Closing of the session 

The Committee of Experts on Public Administration (CEPA) is a UN technical advisory body that studies and makes recommendations to improve governance and public administration structures and processes for development. It assists ECOSOC by reviewing trends, issues and priorities in public administration, notably in relation to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and in support of the implementation and progress reviews of the SDGs.

The Committee of Experts on Public Administration will hold its twenty-third session (CEPA23) at UN Headquarters in New York from 15 to 19 April 2024. The theme is "New governance insights to advance the SDGs and eradicate poverty".

Watch the (9th meeting) 23rd session of the Committee of Experts on Public Administration - Economic and Social Council

[verycleverboy]

The Health Consequences of Being Led By The Stupidest Man Who Ever Lived

An old bacterial foe has been making itself very cozy in Kansas. Local health officials reported this month that the state is in the midst of a large outbreak of tuberculosis—reportedly now the largest outbreak of the disease ever documented in the United States. Ashley Goss, a deputy secretary at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE), gave an update on the state’s TB outbreak to the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee last week. Dozens of active and latent TB cases have been linked to the outbreak dating back to last year. And the danger has not yet passed. “The current KCK Metro TB outbreak is the largest documented outbreak in U.S. history, presently,” Jill Bronaugh, a spokesperson for KDHE, told local media outlet The Topeka Capital-Journal Friday. “This is mainly due to the rapid number of cases in the short amount of time. This outbreak is still ongoing, which means that there could be more cases.”[...] Globally, experts have blamed the pressures of the pandemic for the recent uptick in TB, particularly in weakening screening and prevention programs for the disease. At this point, however, there appears to be no clear explanation for the outsized number of cases in this local outbreak. And given the ongoing pause in communication from federal health agencies like the CDC, it’s unknown whether the CDC will even weigh in publicly anytime soon.

(full article)

If you've been paying attention, you already know what's coming next.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is going dark, along with other federal agencies within the umbrella of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This week, the returning Trump administration told these agencies to stop talking to the public—for how long, no one knows. The Washington Post first broke news of Trump’s sweeping directive late Tuesday evening. Staff at these agencies have been reportedly ordered to cease external communication for the time being. The move is the latest to unnerve outside experts about the direction of the country’s public health infrastructure under Trump.[...] Halting communication from federal health agencies like the CDC, NIH, and FDA during an administration transition is highly problematic, especially with active public health threats like the H5N1 outbreak in the U.S. and the Marburg outbreak in Tanzania, according to Krutika Kuppalli, an infectious disease physician in Dallas with experience in global health and pandemic preparedness. “A blanket suspension of external communication from health agencies is unusual and potentially harmful,” Kuppalli told Gizmodo. “Trust in institutions like the CDC is built on transparency and reliability. A lack of communication could lead to skepticism or distrust, making it harder to re-establish credibility when communication resumes.” There’s also past history to consider, as the Trump-led White House has a track record of muzzling its federal agencies and scientists. In the early days of Trump’s first term, the administration similarly ordered several agencies, including the United States Department of Agriculture, to temporarily stay quiet (much of this directive was quickly revised, however). More worryingly, the Trump administration prevented health officials from communicating with the press and public in the early months of the covid-19 pandemic, while his staff reportedly later tried to alter reports from the CDC concerning covid-19—allegedly with the goal of downplaying the harms of the pandemic.

(full article)

We were so busy wringing our hands about the latest strain of bird flu that the tuberculosis comeback tour is a genuine surprise. Guidance from the top might come in handy right now. Damn shame that King Baby muzzled the part of the government tasked with doing that. He's probably still sucking his thumb about Fauci.

[mentally-quiet-spycrab]

URGENT!

Right now, House Democrats, led by Representatives Raúl Grijalva and Frank Pallone, Jr., are calling on President Biden to block all new offshore drilling plans. This is a pivotal moment and a chance to achieve real progress—We must amplify this call with grassroots pressure.

Representative Grijalva has been a tireless champion for environmental justice and climate action throughout his career, especially in his leadership as Ranking Member of the Natural Resources Committee.

As he prepares to retire from that role, one of his final requests to President Biden is crystal clear: stop expanding offshore oil and gas drilling. We can honor his leadership and protect our planet by making our voices heard today.

The science is undeniable. More drilling means more climate pollution, more devastating oil spills, and further harm to the frontline communities that bear the brunt of fossil fuel expansion.

If the administration is serious about its climate commitments, they must end new offshore drilling leases in all U.S. waters—not expand them.

We need to show the White House that there is support for this action–and time is running out. Every call matters.

By taking two minutes to pick up the phone, you’re helping show the administration that the public is watching and demanding climate action.

Tell the White House to stop offshore drilling!

Call (202) 951-8872

Why is oil drilling bad?

According to what we can find it says that "Oil drilling is generally considered bad for the environment due to the potential for significant negative impacts like oil spills, air and water pollution, disruption of ecosystems, and contribution to climate change, although it does provide a vital energy source for many societies; therefore, most experts would say it is bad overall."

It is also said to be bad due to the current social economic collapse.

[democracyunderground]

Washington, D.C. (January 31, 2025)—Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Committee on the Judiciary, issued the following statement in response to President Donald Trump’s latest assault on the nonpartisan federal workforce, this time taking aim at qualified, expert Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) agents and DOJ prosecutors who worked on the investigations into the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol and Trump’s mishandling of classified documents:

“In another repulsive affront to the rule of law and our nation’s law enforcement officers, the Trump Administration today moved to fire scores of FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors simply for enforcing the law and impartially carrying out the largest criminal investigation in American history which they had been assigned to work on. On Day One, the unpopular President Trump pardoned the members of violent militias and street gangs who beat police officers to a pulp with pipes, flagpoles and broken furniture when they attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021 to overturn the presidential election Trump had lost by more than 7 million votes, 306-232 in the electoral college.

“Today, shockingly but not surprisingly, Trump takes aim at the career FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors who investigated and prosecuted the violent insurrectionary assault on our police officers to block the peaceful transfer of power, as well as those FBI agents who were assigned to investigate Trump’s efforts to illegally retain classified records at his Mar-a-Lago club, defy judicial subpoenas, obstruct justice, conceal evidence, and lie to law enforcement.

“Trump’s outrageous attack on the DOJ and FBI is a clear and present danger to public safety, and a wrecking ball swinging at the rule of law. Trump wants to send the message to the police and federal officers that the law doesn’t apply to Trump and his enablers. It’s also part of his campaign to replace nonpartisan career civil servants with political loyalists and incompetent sycophants. Trump’s moves have already left the Justice Department and the FBI rudderless and adrift by ousting their career senior ranks. Now, these unprecedented purges of hundreds of prosecutors, staff and experienced law enforcement agents will undermine the government’s power to protect our country against national security, cyber, and criminal threats.

“The loyal friend of autocrats, kleptocrats, oligarchs and broligarchs, Trump doesn’t care about the requirements of democracy, national security and public safety. His agenda is vengeance and retribution. If allowed to proceed, Trump’s purge of our federal law enforcement workforce will expose America to authoritarianism and dictatorship.

“Democrats will do everything in our power to stop this lawless and dangerous purge. We’ll stand with the dedicated FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors who have been targeted simply for doing their jobs and upholding their oaths.”

[blueiscoool]

‘Horrible’ Painting Found by a Junk Dealer Could Be a Picasso Worth $6 Million

An Italian family had long debated throwing away the unconventional portrait.

It’s not often you sit down to read a book about the greatest masterpieces of art history, then look up to find a stellar example hanging on your own wall. Yet this was apparently the experience of Andrea Lo Rosso, who began raising questions about a peculiar painting in his parents’ living room at their home on Capri in Italy. Could it possibly be by Picasso, the forefather of Modern art himself?

For years the man’s parents had argued over the unconventional portrait, which was discovered by his father Luigi Lo Rosso in the cellar of a villa in Capri 1962, given a cheap frame, and put on the wall. This did not please his wife, who despaired at the female sitter’s strangely contorted face. The scrawled name “Picasso” in the top left hand corner meant nothing to either of them.

“My father was from Capri and would collect junk to sell for next to nothing,” Lo Rosso told the Guardian. “He found the painting before I was even born and didn’t have a clue who Picasso was. He wasn’t a very cultured person.”

“My mother didn’t want to keep it—she kept saying it was horrible,” he added.

The family sought out the counsel of the Arcadia Foundation, which carries out art attributions and appraisals. A member of its scientific committee, Dr. Cinzia Altieri, a trained graphologist or handwriting specialist, studied the signature on the painting. The foundation also enrolled the help of famed art detective Maurizio Seracini, who led a chemical-scientific analysis of the work.

As a team, these experts have confirmed the attribution to Picasso. The painting has been identified as a portrait of Dora Maar, the French Surrealist photographer, painter, and poet who was at that time Picasso’s mistress.

It is believed to have been made some time between 1930 and 1936 during a trip to Capri, where Picasso often visited, although he first met Maar in late 1935 or early 1936. The pair had a relationship lasting nearly nine years and, though she was an artist in her own right, Maar’s work has only recently received the attention it deserves. In 2019, a landmark retrospective of over 250 works by Maar was presented at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and Tate Modern in London.

If the attribution turns out to be true, the Lo Rossos can expect a financial windfall. The Arcadia Foundation has valued the alleged Picasso at €6 million ($6.7 million).

The artist painted many portraits of Maar in their time together, and several reside in major museum collections today. The auction record for a painting of Maar by Picasso was set in 2006, when Sotheby’s New York sold Dora Maar au chat (1941) for $95.2 million, according to the Artnet Price Database.

Unfortunately for this team of Italian art sleuths, their rediscovered modernist masterpiece piece is unlikely to fetch in the millions until it has been legitimized by official Picasso authenticators.

Andrea Lo Rosso said that, so far, the Picasso Foundation in Malagá, Spain has refused to even assess the work, which it believes to be a fake. The foundation declined to comment publicly on the work when contacted. It reportedly receives hundreds of authentication requests every day.

The Picasso Administration in Paris has also been reached for comment but did not respond by publication time.

By Jo Lawson-Tancred.

[actualrealnews]

Saturday news roundup: This is the shit that went down in the Trump Admin's first week

Certainly, here's the information organized with supporting articles for each statement:

1. Economic Warfare Through Tariffs

*resident Trump imposes 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, and 10% on China, citing national security while impacting the economy.

President Donald Trump announced new tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China — signing them at his Mar-a-Lago club on Saturday.* - CNN: Trump announces new tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China

*Supply chains collapse overnight. Food, medicine, and electronics prices skyrocket. Inflation surges, affecting the working class.

Experts warn that the tariffs could significantly heighten inflation, reduce US household income, and impede economic growth.* - AP News: Trump imposes tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, spurring prospect of inflation and trade conflict

*Eldon Musk calls it necessary for sovereignty while preparing to replace workers with AI-driven automation in his factories.

Elong Musk's associates have infiltrated the General Services Administration, aiming to implement AI tools for federal workers.* - Wired: Elon Musk's Friends Have Infiltrated Another Government Agency

*. Seizing Control of Media & Infrastructure

*Truth Social merges with X, formerly Twitter, creating a right-wing propaganda machine where dissent is algorithmically suppressed.

Rumors have started circulating following President-elect Donald Trump's election victory that billionaire Elon Musk may merge X (formerly Twitter) with Truth Social.* - Newsweek: Will Donald Trump's Truth Social Merge With Elon Musk's X?

*Starlink deprioritizes independent news sources, ensuring only pro-Trump, pro-coup narratives reach the public.

Starlink's deprioritized plan assigns an unlimited amount of deprioritized data each month to customers.* - Starlink: Fair Use Policy

*Tesla police drones patrol Republican-led states under private security contracts, enforcing new laws against domestic terrorism, which now includes anyone protesting.

With the increasing presence of drones, many businesses and local law-enforcement agencies are seeking authority to take them down, citing potential threats.* - WSJ: As Mystery Drones Fill Skies, Police and Businesses Want Authority to Take Them Down

*. Federal Collapse & State Secession Threats

*Texas, Florida, and other red states reject federal authority, forming billionaire-backed Patriot Leadership Committees to govern independently.

Twenty-five Republican governors have lent their support to GOP Gov. Greg Abbott as he defies a U.S. Supreme Court order.* - Common Dreams: 25 GOP Governors 'Stand With Texas' in Defying Supreme Court at Border

*Right-wing militias mobilize, seizing government buildings in key cities while Trump calls for the people to reclaim America.

Law enforcement conducts an investigation in connection with the New Orleans terrorist attack.* - CNN: New Orleans truck attack, at least 14 killed on Bourbon Street

*The federal government, weakened by inflation and mass unrest, hesitates to intervene.

Experts warn that the tariffs could significantly heighten inflation, reduce US household income, and impede economic growth.* - AP News: Trump imposes tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, spurring prospect of inflation and trade conflict

*. Dismantling DEI and Social Programs

*Trump bans DEI programs in all federal agencies, eliminating diversity initiatives, forcing employees to remove pronouns, and rolling back workplace protections.

President Trump has initiated a campaign to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs from the federal government and the US military.* - The Times: Trump has declared war on DEI. What will change?

*After a mid-air airline crash, Trump blames DEI despite no evidence, using the incident to justify purging diversity policies further.

In his second week of the second term, President Trump has focused his efforts on eliminating DEI programs, linking them to a tragic airplane crash in the Potomac River that claimed the lives of 67 people, although no evidence was presented to support this claim.* - WSJ: Fight Against DEI Dominates Start of Trump's Second Term

*Elon Musk calls DEI a failed experiment and pushes for its removal across Silicon Valley companies.

Elon Musk's associates have infiltrated the General Services Administration, aiming to implement AI tools for federal workers.* - Wired: Elon Musk's Friends Have Infiltrated Another Government Agency

*Supporting Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing

President Trump halts all foreign aid to Gaza, exacerbating famine and medical shortages.

The Trump administration has suspended all U.S. foreign aid, including critical assistance to regions like Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan, intensifying existing humanitarian crises.

Cadena SER: Trump congela toda la ayuda internacional de Estados Unidos y pone en riesgo la asistencia a Gaza, Ucrania o Sudán

[misfitwashere]

The man no rational person would put in charge of the public’s health

ROBERT REICH

JAN 28

Friends,

Tomorrow, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will appear before the Senate Finance Committee for the first of two confirmation hearings as Trump’s nominee for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. 

This is a big deal. Kennedy Jr. is a nutcase and conspiracy theorist with racist tendencies. 

If confirmed, he’d have sweeping control over 18 agencies critical to the nation’s health, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

In his confirmation hearings, keep your eye on these three big issues: 

Vaccines

Kennedy Jr. has assured senators that he doesn’t want to take vaccines away from Americans but just wants to cast more “sunlight” onto the science behind them. 

But his history of anti-vaccine advocacy has made those promises difficult to believe.

Over the past five years, Kennedy Jr. has repeated over 100 times false claims linking vaccines to autism — a theory debunked by decades of scientific research.

He has claimed that COVID-19 was “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people” and that “the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

And that “the Chinese are spending hundreds of millions of dollars developing ethnic bioweapons and we are developing ethnic bioweapons. They’re collecting Russian DNA. They’re collecting Chinese DNA so we can target people by race.”

He was a leading proponent of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation, erroneously suggesting the vaccine has killed more people than it has saved.

In his 2021 book, The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health, he alleged, without plausible evidence, that Dr. Fauci performed “genocidal experiments, sabotaged treatments for AIDS, and conspired with Bill Gates to suppress information about COVID-19.” This is libelous nonsense.

RFK Jr.’s misinformation about vaccines continues to endanger public health.

Kennedy Jr.’s nomination comes as childhood vaccination rates are falling. According to KFF, a nonprofit group that researches health policy issues, less than 93 percent of kindergartners had received all of their state-required vaccines in the 2023-2024 school year, compared with 95 percent in the 2019-2020 school year.

The secretary of Health and Human Services also shares with the surgeon general the nation’s highest pulpit for speaking about health care. That means that Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vax bias is likely to deter more parents from getting their children vaccinated. 

The good news is we’ve largely eliminated these diseases. The bad news is we’ve eliminated the memory of these diseases. So parents are now more prone to worry about the safety of vaccines.

Kennedy has opposed vaccine mandates — including those for children to attend schools. He could direct the Center for Disease Control to remove requirements that children receive certain vaccines, and leave the decision up to parents or guardians. 

He cold also stop shielding manufacturers and providers of COVID vaccines from legal liability — which would spur a tidal wave of litigation over alleged injuries from the shots.

Bird flu

The H5N1 bird flu virus is ripping across America. As of January 16, an estimated 928 herds of dairy cattle in 16 states have been infected, according to the Agriculture Department.

Experts worry that bird flu has the potential to set off another pandemic if it were to mutate to spread easily among people. So far, at least 67 cases have been found in people, mostly farmworkers. One person has died from the virus.

There have been no documented instances of human-to-human transmission of bird flu in the United States, at least so far. 

Kennedy Jr. would oversee the CDC, which has managed much of the outbreak and tracked the risk to humans, as well as the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, an agency responsible for managing the nation’s stockpile of flu vaccines, which currently includes two bird flu vaccine candidates. 

He’d also have authority over the FDA, which would need to authorize the vaccines before they could be used in people.

Given his anti-vax advocacy, there is no reason to trust his judgment on any of this. 

Public health insurance 

If confirmed, Kennedy Jr. would also oversee Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act. Taken together, these three programs provide health insurance to more than half the American population. 

Many Republicans in Congress want to let expire the subsidies that make Obamacare premiums more affordable. They have also expressed interest in imposing work requirements for Medicaid eligibility. Trump’s nominee to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Dr. Mehmet Oz, has previously expressed support for privatizing Medicare. 

We don’t know Kennedy Jr.’s views on any of this, but I’m wary. 

The bigger picture 

Kennedy Jr. is not just a nutcase. He’s also a designated hitter in the oligarchy’s efforts to get government out of public health — and force Americans to rely instead on private for-profit corporations for their health insurance, hospitalization, vaccines, and pharmaceuticals. 

These corporations continue to merge into giant for-profit monopolies and oligopolies. 

Recall that Kennedy Jr.’s candidacy for president was supported by billionaire Timothy Mellon — grandson of Andrew Mellon and an heir to the Mellon banking fortune — who donated $15 million to Kennedy Jr.’s SuperPAC. (Mellon was also a major donor to PACs supporting Trump.)

Friends, I knew and worked for Robert F. Kennedy. Robert F. Kennedy Junior is no Robert F. Kennedy. Robert F. Kennedy was passionately committed to social justice. He would never have suggested that a deadly virus was targeted at certain races. 

In 1962, when Robert F. Kennedy was President John F. Kennedy’s attorney general, JFK signed the Vaccination Assistance Act in order to, in the words of a CDC report, “achieve as quickly as possible the protection of the population, especially of all preschool children … through intensive immunization activity.”

The Senate should reject RFK Jr.’s nomination to be secretary of Health and Human Services. 

[justinspoliticalcorner]

John Nichols at The Nation:

Donald Trump has made no secret of his determination to govern as a “dictator” if he regains the presidency, and that’s got his critics warning that his reelection would spell the end of democracy. But Trump and his allies are too smart to go full Kim Jong Un. Rather, the former president’s enthusiasm for the authoritarian regimes of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Tayyip Erdoğan, and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán suggests the models he would build on: managing elections to benefit himself and his Republican allies; gutting public broadcasting and constraining press freedom; and undermining civil society. Trump, who famously demanded that the results of Georgia’s 2020 presidential voting be “recalculated” to give him a win, wants the trappings of democracy without the reality of electoral consequences. That’s what propaganda experts Edward Herman and Frank Brodhead once described as “demonstration elections,” in which, instead of actual contests, wins are assured for the authoritarians who control the machinery of democracy. The outline for such a scenario emerges from a thorough reading of Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership, which specifically proposes a Trump-friendly recalculation of the systems that sustain American democracy. The strategy for establishing an American version of Orbán’s “illiberal democracy” is not spelled out in any particular chapter of Mandate. Rather, it is woven throughout the whole of the document, with key elements appearing in the chapters on reworking the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the Federal Election Commission (FEC). In the section on the DHS, for instance, there’s a plan to eliminate the ability of the agency that monitors election security to prevent the spread of disinformation about voting and vote counting.

How serious a threat to democracy would that pose? Think back to November 2020, when Trump was developing his Big Lie about the election he’d just lost. Trump’s false assertion that the election had been characterized by “massive improprieties and fraud” was tripped up by Chris Krebs, who served as director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in the DHS. The Republican appointee and his team had established a 24/7 “war room” to work with officials across the country to monitor threats to the security and integrity of the election. The operation was so meticulous that Krebs could boldly announce after the voting was finished: “America, we have confidence in the security of your vote, you should, too.” At the same time, his coordinating team declared, “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.” This infuriated Trump, who immediately fired the nation’s top election security official.

In Mandate’s chapter on the DHS, Ken Cuccinelli writes, “Of the utmost urgency is immediately ending CISA’s counter-mis/disinformation efforts. The federal government cannot be the arbiter of truth.” Cuccinelli previously complained that CISA “is a DHS component that the Left has weaponized to censor speech and affect elections.” As for the team that worked so successfully with Krebs to secure the 2020 election, the Project 2025 document declares that “the entirety of the CISA Cybersecurity Advisory Committee should be dismissed on Day One.” The potential impact? “It’s a way of emasculating the agency—that is, it prevents it from doing its job,” says Herb Lin, a cyber-policy and security scholar at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.

This is just one way that Project 2025’s cabal of “experts” is scheming to thwart honest discourse about elections and democracy. A chapter on public broadcasting proposes to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as part of a larger plan to upend NPR, PBS, and “other public broadcasters that benefit from CPB funding, including the even-further-to-the Left Pacifica Radio and American Public Media.” More destabilizing than the total funding cut that Project 2025 entertains is a parallel plan to end the status of NPR and Pacifica radio stations as “noncommercial education stations.” That could deny them their current channel numbers at the low end of the radio spectrum (88 to 92 FM)—a move that would open prime territory on the dial for the sort of religious programming that already claims roughly 42 percent of the airwaves that the FCC reserves for noncommercial broadcasting. And don’t imagine that the FCC would be in a position to write new rules that guard against the surrender of those airwaves to the Trump-aligned religious right.

[...]

While project 2025 seeks to rewire the FCC to favor Trump’s allies, it also wants to lock in dysfunction at the Federal Election Commission, the agency that is supposed to govern campaign spending and fundraising. Established 50 years ago, the FEC has six members—three Republicans and three Democrats—who are charged with overseeing the integrity of federal election campaigns. In recent years, however, this even partisan divide has robbed the FEC of its ability to act because, as a group of former FEC employees working with the Campaign Legal Center explained, “three Commissioners of the same party, acting in concert, can leave the agency in a state of deadlock.” As the spending by outside groups on elections “has exponentially increased, foreign nationals and governments have willfully manipulated our elections, and coordination between super PACs and candidates has become commonplace,” the former employees noted. Yet “the FEC [has] deadlocked on enforcement matters more often than not, frequently refusing to even investigate alleged violations despite overwhelming publicly available information supporting them.”

John Nichols wrote in The Nation about how Project 2025’s radical right-wing wishlist of items contains plans to wreck and subvert what is left of America’s democracy.

See Also:

The Nation: June 2024 Issue

[karadin]

While you were sleeping ...

Two plane crashes in two days create the largest amount of fatalities in the US in more than twenty years

In DC a passenger plane collided with a US military helicopter, 67 people were killed.

Trump blamed Diversity and Inclusion polices under Democratic administrations for the accident, and refused to go to the site of the crash as it was 'just water'. However the current hiring practices for air traffic controllers were put in place when Trump was President.

A small private medical plane crashed in Philadelphia, killing all on board and injuring people on the ground.

Elon Musk forced the Head of the FAA out of office, as this individual was prosecuting Musk for accidents involving Musk's company SpaceX

Trump shut down the Aviation Security Advisory Committee last week as well as firing the Transportation Secretary, and put a freeze on all government hires when he was inaugurated, which left the DC tower with only one air traffic controller at the time of the accident instead of two.

Trump plans to put 25% tariffs on our allies Canada and Mexico and a 10% tariff on China (additional) as of Feb 1,

which is tanking the stock market and guaranteed to raise prices if trade wars begin

The a top Treasury official, having served in a non partisan fashion for 30 years is retiring in protest over Elon Musk seeking access to all federal monies through The Bureau of Fiscal Service

This secure system processes Social Security and Medicare benefits, federal salaries, payments to government contractors, grants, and tax refunds, among it's purview. Only a small number of career officials control Treasury’s payment systems. Experts do not know why Musk would need this level of access.

ELON MUSK LOCKS FEDERAL EMPLOYEES OUT OF THEIR ACCOUNTS

Workers at the Office of Personnel Management, have had their access to department data revoked. They lost access to the Enterprise Human Resources Integration database, which includes the dates of birth, Social Security numbers, appraisals, home addresses, pay grades, and length of service of government workers.

“We have no visibility into what they are doing with the computer and data systems, There is no oversight. It creates real cybersecurity and hacking implications.”

Trump changed the email system so that every single federal worker could be contacted with one email. all 13,000 employees of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, were flooded with explicit spam emails on Thursday.

The federal gov system email no longer has a basic form of security. Trump admin is now being sued for the lack of privacy for all federal employees

Trump has fired all prosecutors at the DOJ who were linked to investigations of Jan 6th insurrection, despite the fact they were only following the direction of their bosses. The prosecuters might file a class action lawsuit.

Trump fired the Head of the Consumer Protection Agency

which among it's numerous investigations held Wall Street accountable for cheating hard-working families and prevented the de-banking of Americans across the country

FEDERAL EMPLOYEES ARE NOT TAKING TRUMP'S FALSE 'BUYOUT' which has led to a begging email from Trump, the President has no authority and no budget to pay employees for not working.

Trump is telling federal employees to remove any pronouns from their email signatures

Governor J.B. Pritzker of Illinois is blocking any January 6 rioters pardoned by Donald Trump from working for the state, other states may follow suit.

Trump has gutted the National Labor Relations Board and moves to invalidate labor agreements with federal workers

Thousands of agents with the FBI are facing reivews, possible loyalty tests and terminations

ELON MUSK has put his employees into the General Services Administration which controls public buildings, he's taking their proprietary public-paid tech and planning to sell off government real estate.

REMEMBER, THE OFFICE OF DOGE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE 'ADVISORY' NOT LET LOOSE TO CONTROL THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, ONLY CONGRESS CAN SET THE BUDGET AND DIRECT SPENDING, ALL OF THESE ACTIONS ARE ILLEGAL.

SEEYOU IN COURT

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Los Angeles is close: understand how the financing of sports in Brazil foments Olympic medals

Little known, the system supports high-performance athletes began to be structured at the beginning of the 2000s

It’s almost a tradition: during the Olympic Games, questions about Brazilian performance emerge strongly on social media platforms. Commonly, complaints about the structure and salaries athletes receive become important. However, the right information about how this system works did not get the same attention.

That’s why Brasil de Fato interviewed experts in sports financing to explain how the transfer of public resources to high-performance sports works.

The current public funding system for Olympic and Paralympic sports was developed almost entirely during the first two governments of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers’ Party), between 2003 and 2010. The mechanisms that allocate most of the resources are Brazil’s Lottery Law, which sends money directly to the Brazilian Olympic and Paralympic committees and also to the confederations of each sport; the Sports Incentive Law, a mechanism similar to the Rouanet Law, which allows companies to make tax waivers to support sports projects; and the Athlete Scholarship, a monthly payment to athletes who achieve certain results, starting with youth sports.

There are also budget resources from the sports departments of the federal, state and municipal administrations. In addition, in 2008, a sui generis program was created to support the careers of high-performance athletes, the High-Performance Athletes Program (PAAR, in Portuguese) of the Armed Forces. It provides that athletes with a chance of winning medals can apply to join the Army, Navy or Air Force to take part in military competitions. For the athlete, this guarantees income, retirement and use of the Forces' facilities for training.

“Looking back over history, we can see that, over time, Brazil has been expanding and improving its participation in high-performance sports,” says Fernando Henrique Carneiro, a researcher at the Group for Research and Sociocritical Training in Physical Education, Sport and Leisure at the University of Brasilia (Avante/UnB, in Portuguese).

“So much so that in Tokyo [Olympic Games, in 2021], the country had its best results, which was very much the result of what was being built up for the Rio 2016 Games cycle. Over time, the Lula and Dilma governments have been structuring public policies for the sector,” he explains.

Continue reading.

[darkeagleruins]

WEAPONIZATION: Biden's DHS sought to declare 'being conservative' a public health emergency to justify mass surveillance of Trump supporters as recently as 2023.

Internal documents from Biden’s DHS reveal a disturbing strategy: targeting Trump supporters as domestic extremists. This revelation, forced into the open by America First Legal's litigation with Richard Grenell, highlights Biden's misuse of federal agencies for political purposes.

On September 19, 2023, the DHS announced the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group. However, AFL and Grenell sued, alleging it violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). The settlement requires DHS to wind down the Experts Group within 30 days, cease future meetings, and avoid reconstituting the group in a manner inconsistent with FACA or the Homeland Security Act of 2002.

Highlighted by AFL, one document from the Brennan-Clapper intel group asserts that:

“most of the domestic terrorism threat now comes from supporters of the former president.”

This paints a significant portion of American citizens as threats to national security based solely on their political beliefs. The group’s strategy to label Trump supporters as domestic terrorists is a blatant and illegal power grab designed to silence opposition.

Other documents expose plans to classify Trump supporters, military personnel, and religious individuals as potential "domestic violent extremists." Under the Brennan-Clapper committee’s approach, DHS should profile people in the military or with religious beliefs, tagging them as having “indicators of extremists and terrorism” to justify spying on them.

Still more documents reveal that the advisory committee discussed ways for DHS to increase efforts to collect intelligence on Americans, including attempting to “get into local communities in a non-threatening way.” By the time the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group was announced in September 2023, the Group had already been meeting for as long as four months. When it held a discussion on “Collection Posture and Associated Challenges,” a Group member complained that there was “no mandate for state and local partners” to collect information, resulting in “limited access in I&A.”

These documents prove the Biden administration is leveraging federal agencies to target and intimidate political opponents. This weaponization of government power is a clear violation of democratic principles and threatens the foundation of our republic. This discriminatory profiling undermines freedom and equality, casting suspicion on military service members and religious individuals, leading to widespread abuse and mistrust.

Shockingly, the documents reveal the DHS Intelligence Group's planned to require Americans to report their neighbors to the federal government. They discussed reclassifying political dissent under the guise of “public health” to give them more power to spy on Trump supporters more easily. They even planned to encourage “mothers and teachers” to report perceived threats. This tactic, using public health as a cover to silence political opposition, creates a culture of suspicion and fear, where neighbors spy on neighbors, undermining trust within communities further dividing the nation.

The group discussed the current threat landscape, domestic terrorism strategy, collection posture, and associated challenges, civil liberties and privacy challenges. Concerning the efforts to collect, it is interesting to see how we have collected and reported since January 6th. Support for this mission set has varied but changed after January 6th as their mission to combat domestic terrorism gained departmental and political support. This context shows how the DHS Intelligence Group was pushing to expand surveillance and intelligence collection efforts, using any pretext necessary to justify their actions.

The Group noted that the “See Something, Say Something” campaign after 9/11 fell short because “Americans have an ambivalent feeling of telling on each other.” The problem, as one attendee phrased it, is, “How do we get into local communities in a non-threatening way? How do people safely report a concern about their neighbors?” Where DHS lacks capabilities and cannot convince mothers and teachers to report their own children, one contributor suggested turning to corporate America as a resource.

Biden was forced to dissolve the unlawful DHS Intelligence Experts Group, stacked with deep state partisans like James Clapper and John Brennan but I have no doubt the effort to target Trump supporters continues in earnest.

[unpublicserviceday]

(8th meeting) 23rd session of the Committee of Experts on Public Administration - Economic and Social Council.

Public sector workforce matters

- Expert panel moderated by the Vice-Chair

- Interactive dialogue with CEPA members, Member States, United Nations system and civil society organizations 

The Committee of Experts on Public Administration (CEPA) is a UN technical advisory body that studies and makes recommendations to improve governance and public administration structures and processes for development. It assists ECOSOC by reviewing trends, issues and priorities in public administration, notably in relation to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and in support of the implementation and progress reviews of the SDGs.

The Committee of Experts on Public Administration will hold its twenty-third session (CEPA23) at UN Headquarters in New York from 15 to 19 April 2024. The theme is "New governance insights to advance the SDGs and eradicate poverty".

Related Sites and Documents

CEPA, 23rd session website Watch the (8th meeting) 23rd session of the Committee of Experts on Public Administration - Economic and Social Council

[ausetkmt]

Calls for justice filled Bay Street Sunday afternoon as dozens of people rallied on the steps of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office headquarters after a video went viral showing the arrest of 24-year-old Le'Keian Woods. 

Woods' arrest on Friday was caught on video by a bystander showing multiple officers standing and kneeling over him. At one point, an officer picks Woods up and slams him onto the grass.

Moments later, officers lifted Woods up, revealing bruises and blood across his face. Woods' family accused the officers of punching him during the incident, causing his facial injuries, although this isn't shown in the arrest video.

The family told First Coast Newsthat Woods, his uncle and his friend were pulled over for not wearing their seatbelts as they were on their way to Woods' grandmother's house.

The Sheriff's Office says the incident is under administrative review.

USA TODAY noted the incident is the latest case of alleged police brutality, where encounters with police over traffic violations have turned violent or even fatal. Recent studies have shown racial disparities in policing and experts have said Black people are disproportionately stopped or searched by law enforcement across the country.

During a rally Sunday afternoon, Woods' mother, Natassia Woods, spoke to the crowd describing how hard it's been to get an update on her son's condition. She told First Coast News her son's attorney, Harry Daniels, told her that Woods was going to and from the hospital to be treated for a concussion. 

“I’m at a point now that I just want answers for my son," Woods told the crowd. "I want justice for my son. No one should be beaten like that.”

Natassia Woods isn’t the only calling for those things — as she was surrounded by dozens of people with signs and posters.

“We were definitely outraged," said Mary Dennis, who attended the rally. "When I saw the video, I just couldn’t believe that it took that many people to take one person down.”

Woods' mother said she did get a chance to speak with her son, but it was a painful conversation.

"When he called me from the jail, he said, 'Mama, what happened to me?'" Natassia Woods said.

"He didn't even know he got beat like that. He didn't even know that stuff had happened to him. He did not know that he had got beaten that bad."

The Sheriff's Office shared the following statement withmedia on Saturday regarding the incident:

"The agency takes all allegations of inappropriate use of force by JSO officers seriously. As such, this incident is now under administrative review to determine if the involved officers violated any JSO policy. Because the matter is currently under investigation, the agency cannot comment further about the incident until the investigation is completed.”

The Jacksonville Community Action Committee, who organized the rally, called for three things in light of Woods' arrest going viral on social media.

One, for the officers responsible to be held accountable. Two, for the Sheriff's Office to get rid of the gang unit. Three, create a public safety committee made up of community members to review public safety policies.

“Why can’t the city have an institution that can hear the voices of the community in a controlled way that can affect policy in a positive way," said Michael Sampson with the Jacksonville Community Action Committee.

Woods is being held on charges of armed drug trafficking, possession of a controlled substance and resisting an officer with violence.

Police shooting: Jacksonville state attorney deems officer justified in shooting of Jamee Johnson

Attorney Dexter Van Harris represented Woods in court Sunday morning. Van Harris told First Coast News the judge found no probable cause on two of the six charges he is facing, and his bail on the other four totals about $170,000.

Woods' next court date is scheduled for Oct. 24.

Woods was previously arrested and faced a second-degree murder charge in 2018 for an attempted robbery at a Tallahassee apartment complex where his roommate was fatally shot, according to The Florida Times-Union.

Traffic stops across the United States

A number of high-profile cases of police brutality have begun with traffic violations. Traffic stops are one of the most common interactions civilians have with police and while a majority end uneventfully, experts have said people of color — particularly Black people — are disproportionately stopped by police, USA TODAY reported.

These encounters can quickly escalate into violent, and sometimes fatal, incidents. Hundreds of people, including Tyre Nichols, Patrick Lyoya, Daunte Wright, Jayland Walker, Philando Castile, Sandra Bland and Walter Scott have been killed after being stopped by law enforcement for traffic violations.

Police pull over more than 50,000 people daily and more than 20 million motorists annually, according to the Stanford Open Policing Project. Officers generally stop and search Black drivers at higher rates, the study found.

Daniels said Woods' case "bears a striking similarity" to the shooting of 22-year-old Jamee Johnson in 2019. The attorney represented Johnson's family in a federal lawsuit against the city of Jacksonville and the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.

"Johnson was also pulled over for an alleged seat belt violation before being fatally shot by (Jacksonville Sheriff's Office) officer Josue Garriga," Daniels said on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Sunday.

Garriga was one of the officers involved in Woods' arrest, according to a newly released arrest report.

[rivensdefenseattorney]

Interplanetary Federation of Education (IFEd)

(WIP)

Mission Statement: IFEd is dedicated to fostering excellence in education, promoting collaboration among planets, and ensuring educational equity and community engagement.

Structure:

The IFEd is structured consists of a panel led by an experienced Chairperson and comprising representatives from participating planets, education experts, community leaders, and youth representatives. Policy advisors ensure alignment with interplanetary governance, while a dedicated Diversity and Inclusion Officer fosters equitable representation. The Secretary-General manages administrative tasks, committee chairs lead focused sub-committees on key aspects like charity assessment and resource allocation, and an advisory council, including seasoned educators, former members, and individuals with historical knowledge, provides valuable guidance.

Resource Allocation Committee

The Resource Allocation Committee (RAC) is tasked with overseeing the distribution of resources to schools based on their charitable contributions. This committee is responsible for evaluating and quantifying schools' public service, research contributions, and donations. It utilizes a weighted system, considering factors such as the size, quality, history, and prestige of each school to determine tiered contribution levels. The committee establishes a fair and dynamic framework, ensuring that schools with varying resources and capacities can actively engage in meaningful philanthropy. The RAC plays a crucial role in fostering equity, accountability, and continuous improvement within the interplanetary education system.

Quantifiable Metrics for Charitable Contributions:

Public Service

Volunteer Hours: The number of volunteer hours contributed by students and staff from elite schools to community service projects. This metric reflects the direct involvement of the school community in public service.

Community Impact Index: A standardized index that quantifies the tangible impact of community service projects initiated by schools.

Public Research

Research Publications: Research publications produced by schools that directly contribute to public knowledge, address societal challenges, or provide solutions to community issues.

Innovation Index: An innovation index that assesses the level of creativity and novelty in research projects undertaken by schools.

Public Charity

Monetary Donations: The total amount of monetary donations made by schools to charitable organizations, community projects, or public welfare initiatives. This provides a direct measure of financial support to the community.

Scholarship Funds: The establishment and contributions to scholarship funds that support underprivileged students or those with exceptional talent. This metric reflects a commitment to fostering educational opportunities within the broader community.

Material Contributions: The value and quantity of non-monetary donations made by schools. This includes items such as food, potions, elixirs, medicine, technology, and other tangible contributions that directly benefit the community.

Resource Impact Assessment: Evaluates the impact of non-monetary donations on the community. This assessment could consider the essential needs addressed, technological advancements shared, or improvements in the quality of life resulting from these donations.

Tiered Contribution Levels:

Tier 1 Contributors

Characteristics:

Size: Large student body and extensive facilities.

Quality: Renowned staff, state-of-the-art facilities, and high-achieving students.

History/Prestige: Long-standing history and high prestige within the interplanetary education system.

Contribution Requirement:

High contribution requirement due to the school's extensive resources and capacity for significant impact.

Tier 2 Contributors

Characteristics:

Size: Moderate to large student body with well-maintained facilities.

Quality: Competent staff, good facilities, and academically proficient students.

History/Prestige: Established history and a positive reputation.

Contribution Requirement:

Moderate contribution requirement, reflecting the school's capacity to make a substantial impact.

Tier 3 Contributors

Characteristics:

Size: Varied student body size with adequate facilities.

Quality: Capable staff, functional facilities, and engaged students.

History/Prestige: A decent history and a respectable reputation.

Contribution Requirement:

Moderate to low contribution requirement, considering the school's balanced resources and potential impact.

Tier 4 Contributors

Characteristics:

Size: Smaller student body with basic facilities.

Quality: Developing staff, basic facilities, and a growing student body.

History/Prestige: Limited history and reputation.

Contribution Requirement:

Low contribution requirement, recognizing the school's developing status and potential for growth.

Tier 5 Contributors

Characteristics:

Size: Small student body and limited facilities.

Quality: Novice staff, basic facilities, and entry-level students.

History/Prestige: Recently established with minimal reputation.

Contribution Requirement:

Minimal contribution requirement, acknowledging the school's entry-level status and the need for gradual growth.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

In at least two executive orders since he took office last week, President Trump has invoked a panel with a telling nickname: the God Squad.

The committee is made up of high-level officials who can override the landmark Endangered Species Act so that development or other projects can proceed even if they might result in an extinction. It’s called the God Squad because its members “literally have the authority over the life and death of the species,” said Patrick Parenteau, an emeritus professor at the Vermont Law and Graduate School who, in the late 1970s, had a hand in writing the legislative language that created the God Squad provision.

“They can cause the species to go extinct from the face of the earth,” he said.

The power to convene the committee comes from an amendment to the act itself, but it has rarely been used. And just because Mr. Trump says he plans to use it now, legal experts emphasize, it doesn’t mean he will be successful. There are stringent procedural requirements that have to come first.

Officially named the Endangered Species Committee, the group is led by the interior secretary and composed of five other senior officials: the secretaries of agriculture and the Army, the head of the Council of Economic Advisers and the administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Each has a vote.

It also includes one person each from any affected states, whose votes collectively add up to one.

When a federal action in question is deemed to be in the public interest and is nationally or regionally significant, the members of the committee can decide that major economic factors outweigh the Endangered Species Act’s requirements.

If five of the seven votes are in favor of a project proceeding, it can do so.

The God Squad has ruled three times since it was created in 1978. One exemption was denied, and two were permitted.

A dam was allowed to proceed in 1979 despite concerns about whooping cranes, but the project included significant measures to help the birds, whose numbers have grown over time. In the other, related to the northern spotted owl, environmental groups sued in 1992 after an exemption was given for logging, arguing that the committee’s decision had violated legal procedures and was based in politics rather than science. The Bureau of Land Management withdrew its request for the exemption.

He has referred to the committee in at least two executive orders since taking office.

In an order that declares a national energy emergency, Mr. Trump directs the interior secretary to “convene the Endangered Species Act Committee not less than quarterly, unless otherwise required by law.” If there are no applications for the committee to review, then it should still meet to “to identify obstacles to domestic energy infrastructure” related to the Endangered Species Act or the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the order says.

In another executive order, made public on Sunday and related to the management of California’s water, the president orders the interior secretary to expedite any actions related to an exemption.

But unless the group is reviewing a request for a specific exemption for a specific action, environmental lawyers say, it’s not acting as the God Squad. And to convene the God Squad, the law requires that certain procedures be met. These can take a long time.

“It seems like they believe that the God Squad can wave its hand and declare a particular species no longer within the protection of the Endangered Species Act,” said Drew Caputo, vice president of litigation for lands, wildlife and oceans at Earthjustice, an environmental law organization that sued the federal government in the spotted owl case. “That’s not how the process works at all.”