#social security advisory committee

[davidhencke]

Social Security watchdog warns ministers of flaws in the scheme to scrap pensioner winter fuel allowances

Department for Work and Pensions In a polite but tough message to Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, the Government’s official advisory body on social security, has exposed flaws in the government’s implementation of its rushed policy to abolish winter fuel allowances for 9.3 million pensioners and encourage the poorest to claim pension credit. It also undermines the government’s…

[cleoselene]

from facebook of all places

posted by Jay Michaelson, and sourced by him as well:

Hello! I'm posting in response to the many sincerely anguished claims that not enough is being done to stop Trump. This is not reflected in the facts. - Represented by Public Citizen Litigation Group and State Democracy Defenders Fund, the Alliance for Retired Americans, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) filed suit on Monday against the Treasury Department “for sharing confidential data with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), run by Elon Musk.” Go to Public Citizen's website to learn all about this lawsuit, which is very likely to prevail. - On USAID, appearing with other Democratic lawmakers outside USAID offices on Monday, Representative Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) shouted, “Elon Musk, you didn't create USAID. The United States Congress did for the American people … like Elon Musk did not create USAID, he doesn't have the power to destroy it. And who's going to stop him? We are... This a constitutional crisis that we are in today.” Lawsuits have also been filed in this matter, and are also likely to prevail. - Hakeem Jeffries has announced lawsuits have been filed regarding the firings of inspectors general. - On Jan 21, Democracy Forward, was filed at 12:01 p.m. ET on Monday and accused Elon Musk's DOGE of being a "shadow operation led by unelected billionaires" that flouts federal transparency rules. That should win. - National Security Counselors filed a suit arguing that DOGE meets the requirements to be a federal advisory committee and is therefore legally required to have "fairly balanced" representation, keep regular minutes of meetings and allow public access to meetings. Clearly accurate. - Eighteen state attorneys general and a slew of immigrants' rights groups brought swift legal action against Trump after he signed his executive order seeking to ban birthright citizenship for some children born in the U.S., arguing that it violates the Fourteenth Amendment. Obviously, clearly unconstitutional. - "Schedule F" has been challenged in court by the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents employees in 37 agencies and departments. - Several immigrant rights groups in the United States, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), have filed a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s ban on asylum claims. - GLAD Law and the National Center For Lesbian Rights (NCLR) have sued to stop Trump's ban on trans people in the military. And there are many more - I'll link to a great list of them in the comments. Yes, there are Trump judges in the courts, and if Aileen Cannon types get these cases, Trump may prevail. But most judges are not like her. These actions are clearly illegal and/or unconstitutional, and they WILL be stopped. Just like the tariffs were not meant to prevail -- Trump won that round, "forcing" Canada and Mexico to take "action" on fentanyl -- these actions are not meant to prevail. They're meant to flood the zone with shit, confuse and immobilize us. They said they'd do "Shock and Awe" and that's what they've done. Nothing here should be surprising. Shock and Awe is up to YOU. I am not shocked, I am not in awe. Oh, and the "mainstream media" has reported on all of these. The info above has come from Newsweek, the NY Times, and other mainstream sources. Please stop attacking journalists when we are being threatened by the FBI. Who do you think you're helping by doing that? Stop it with the doomsaying and gloomsaying. Want to make a difference? Give thousands of dollars to Public Citizen, the ACLU, and similar groups. Show up at marches. Put your ass on the line and help protect people from ICE. If you're safe, do simple symbolic things (like changing your social media pictures) to support people who are not safe. Just like we should not obey in advance, we should not panic in advance either. This is not the end of democracy. That is just what the bad guys want you to think. Get over it and fight.

I don't know how many times I've heard "Dems do nothing!" when they are in fact doing a lot of things. You just don't hear about it because the mainstream news doesn't pay attention or you don't see out news beyond your social media feeds.

The other thing is, Dems don't break laws in their fights the way Republicans do. Your desire to turn every Dem POTUS into the Dick Cheney Version of the Executive but then screaming injustice! when the GOP does it -- you see the problem there?

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Emily Singer at Daily Kos:

Donald Trump's co-president, Elon Musk, admitted on Wednesday that he probably can't cut $2 trillion from the federal budget as he had promised, running into the political reality everyone told him existed but that he refused to accept because he’s a billionaire who thinks he knows better than everyone else. In an interview with Mark Penn, the contemptible political strategist who once backed Democrats but now has become a Trump defender, Musk said that his toothless Department of Government Efficiency advisory committee can probably cut only half of the original $2 billion he promised to slash. "I think if we try for $2 trillion, we’ve got a good shot at getting $1 [trillion],” Musk said in the interview, which aired on Musk's disinformation platform X. “And if we can drop the budget deficit from $2 trillion to $1 trillion and free up the economy to have additional growth, such that the output of goods and services keeps pace with the increase in the money supply, then there will be no inflation. So that, I think, would be an epic outcome.” When asked what specific things he'd cut, Musk offered nothing concrete. “It’s a very target-rich environment for saving money. … It’s like being in a room full of targets—you could close your eyes and you can’t miss,” Musk said, a metaphor so stupid he almost sounds like his buddy Trump. Experts always said Musk's $2 trillion goal was unattainable.

The entire federal budget in fiscal year 2024 was $6.75 trillion, with massive chunks of it spending that is either legally or politically impossible to cut, including Social Security, Medicare, defense spending, and debt service. “Our federal budget is about $7 trillion a year. And I still think that they're talking about that $2 trillion number with serious purpose, that that's what they're looking at. And it would be unimaginable that we could find $2 trillion in savings out of seven in one year," Maya MacGuineas, president of the nonprofit Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told NPR in November. Even finding $1 trillion in cuts, as Musk now says he can achieve, will be extremely hard.

Elon Musk knows what we all admitted: DOGE was just a ripoff scheme.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Monica Lenis was in Great Exuma, Bahamas, yesterday when she caught this image of Starship's explosion. Thank you, Monica! SpaceX's flagship vehicle, #Starship - designed to take humans to the moon and Mars - exploded midair late yesterday minutes after its test launch from a beach in south Texas. Other aircraft flying over the Gulf of Mexico were forced to alter their courses in order to avoid the falling debris, which was seen by beachgoers in the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos. Starship itself was completely lost. Meanwhile, the Super Heavy booster that had launched Starship successfully returned to the launchpad and was caught in midair. Read more at https://earthsky.org/human-world/starship-explodes-minutes-after-launch-planes-diverted/

EarthSky

* * *

In what sounds like an attempt to hand over air traffic control systems to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite system and his AI company, Trump today said—and here are his words, as Aaron Rupar transcribed them—“We’re all gonna sit down and do a great computerized system for our control towers. Brand new. Not pieced together, obsolete, like it is, land-based. Trying to hook up a land based system to a satellite system. The first thing that some experts told me when this happened is you can’t hook up land to satellites and you can’t hook up satellites to land. It doesn’t work. We spend billions of billions of dollars trying to renovate an old, broken system, instead of just saying cut it loose, and let’s spend less money and build a great system one by two or three companies, very good companies, specialists, that’s all it is. They used 39 companies. That means that 39 different hookups have to happen. And I don’t know how many people of you are good in terms of all the kinds of things necessary for that. And it's very complex stuff. But when you have 39 different companies working on hooking up different cities at different people. You need one company. With one set of equipment. And there are some countries that have unbelievable air controller systems. And they would’ve, bells would’ve gone off when that helicopter literally even hit the same height. Because it traveled a long distance before it hit. It was just like, just wouldn’t stop. Follow the line. But bells and whistles would’ve gone off. They have ‘em where it actually could virtually turn the thing around. It would’ve just never happened if we had the right equipment . And one of things that’s gonna be, I'm gonna speaking to John and to Mike and to Chuck and everybody, we have to get together and just as a single bill just pass where we get the best control system. When I land in my plane, privately, I use a system from another country because my captain tells me, I’m landing in New York and I’m using a sys— I won’t tell you what country, but I use a system from another country because the captain says ‘This thing is so bad, it’s so obsolete.’ And we can’t have that.”

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted today that “the DOGE team” is “going to plug in to help upgrade our aviation system,” saying that “‘experienced’ Washington bureaucrats are the reason our nation’s infrastructure is crumbling.”

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton pointed out that “US airlines had gone 16 years without fatal crashes. Then MAGA fired the FAA chief, gutted the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, and threatened air traffic controllers with layoffs. Now there have been two fatal crashes. Hope your unvetted 22-year-olds fix things fast.”

Critics of the idea of Musk taking over the nation’s air traffic control systems note that his Tesla electric vehicles have the highest fatal accident rate among all car brands in America. The average fatal crash rate is 2.8 per billion vehicle miles driven; Tesla has a rate of 5.6 per billion miles driven. On social media, “God” posted: “Thou shalt not let the foreign billionaire whose rockets blow up all the time anywhere near the air traffic control system,” an apparent reference to the January 16 explosion of a SpaceX rocket over the Caribbean that scattered debris over the region led the Federal Aviation Administration to lock down airspace over Turks and Caicos.

[Heather Cox Richardson : Letters From An American: Feb.6,2025]

[yourreddancer]

He should have STAYED and RESISTED and FOUGHT!!!!

Make them fire him and then tell the world WHY!!!!

According to the newspaper, Lebryk has clashed with allies of Musk, whom Trump has named to lead his new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), over access to payment systems that the agency uses to distribute more than $6 trillion annually to households and businesses.

Social Security and Medicare benefits, paychecks for federal employees, and payments to government contractors and grant recipients all flow through the payment systems run by the Bureau of Fiscal Service, among thousands of other functions.

Since Trump won the election in November, officials Musk has named as DOGE staffers have been asking for access to the payment systems, and the demands have been reiterated since the president took office last week, the Post reported.

Mark Mazur, who served in the department under Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, said the push for access to the systems from an advisory committee aligned with a partisan agenda suggests "bad intentions" from Musk and his allies.

"This is a mechanical job—they pay Social Security benefits, they pay vendors, whatever," said Mazur. "It's not one where there's a role for nonmechanical things, at least from the career standpoint. Your whole job is to pay the bills as they're due. It's never been used in a way to execute a partisan agenda."

The idea that "good government technocrats could work with Musk and DOGE to improve technology and services" has been proven to be "all grift," added Owens in a post on Musk's social media platform, X.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

#20yrsago Forever War with better sex, Starship Troopers without the lectures: Old Man’s War https://memex.craphound.com/2004/12/12/forever-war-with-better-sex-starship-troopers-without-the-lectures-old-mans-war/

#20yrsago Cable companies will expire your Six Feet Under recordings after 2-4 weeks https://memex.craphound.com/2004/12/12/cable-companies-will-expire-your-six-feet-under-recordings-after-2-4-weeks/

#15yrsago FDIC sends a big F-U: completely blacked out documents in response to WaMu takeover freedom of information requests https://web.archive.org/web/20100114010713if_/https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/2009/12/the_fight_for_wamu_documents.html

#10yrsago IBM’s banking security software demands the right to spy on you https://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/12/11/2233234/bank-security-software-eula-allows-spying-on-users

#10yrsago US Christian terrorism: the other white meat https://web.archive.org/web/20141205144046/https://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/12/04/3599271/austin-shooter-christian-extremism/

#10yrsago Senate IP address vandalizes Wikipedia to scrub “torture” from CIA torture report https://mashable.com/archive/senate-wikipedia-torture-report

#5yrsago Teespring removes Techdirt’s “Copying is Not Theft” tees for copyright infringement, and won’t discuss the matter any further https://www.techdirt.com/2019/12/12/teespring-takes-down-our-copying-is-not-theft-gear-refuses-to-say-why/

#5yrsago The three biggest Chinese business scams that target foreign firms https://web.archive.org/web/20200107202820/https://www.chinalawblog.com/2019/12/china-scams-our-annual-holiday-edition.html">https://web.archive.org/web/20200107202820/https://www.chinalawblog.com/2019/12/china-scams-our-annual-holiday-edition.html

#5yrsago A Wechat-based “mobile court” presided over by a chatbot has handled 3m legal procedures since March https://web.archive.org/web/20191207192051/https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/12/07/asia-pacific/crime-legal-asia-pacific/ai-judges-verdicts-via-chat-app-brave-new-world-chinas-digital-courts/#.Xev7n2bP1qY

#5yrsago Facebook promised to provide academics data to study disinformation, but their foot-dragging has endangered the whole project https://socialscience.one/blog/public-statement-european-advisory-committee-social-science-one

#5yrsago DJ Riko is back with the 18th annual Merry Mixmas mashup album! http://djriko.com/mixmases.htm

#5yrsago Family puts Ring camera in children’s room, discovers that hacker is watching their kids 24/7, taunting them through the speaker https://www.vice.com/en/article/how-hackers-are-breaking-into-ring-cameras/

#5yrsago 2019 was the year of voice assistant privacy dumpster fires https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-12-11/silicon-valley-got-millions-to-let-siri-and-alexa-listen-in

#1yrago An Epic antitrust loss for Google https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/12/im-feeling-lucky/#hugger-mugger

[moontyger]

Operatives working for Elon Musk have gained unprecedented access to a swath of U.S. government departments — including agencies responsible for managing data on millions of federal employees and a system that handles $6 trillion in payments to Americans.

During the past two weeks, Musk’s group of representatives — a presidential advisory board within the Trump administration known as the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE — have taken control of top federal departments and datasets, despite questions about their security clearances, their cybersecurity practices, and the legality of Musk’s activities.

Whether a feat or a coup (which depends entirely on your point of view), a small group of mostly young, private-sector employees from Musk’s businesses and associates — many with no prior government experience — can now view and, in some cases, control the federal government’s most sensitive data held on millions of Americans and the nation’s closest allies.

The access by Musk’s DOGE team represents the widest-known compromise of federal government-held data by a private group of individuals — and little has gotten in their way. 

DOGE has acknowledged few details about its ongoing activities. That task has been left to the media, which has reported questionable cybersecurity practices and the breakdown in long-standing cybersecurity norms that risk sensitive government data from being accessed by nefarious actors. 

Much of DOGE’s work is avoiding oversight and transparency, leaving open questions around whether cybersecurity and privacy practices are being followed. It’s unclear whether DOGE staffers are following the procedures to keep this data from being accessed by other people, or if any other steps are being taken to protect the sensitive data on Americans.

So far, the evidence suggests that security is not top of mind.

For example, a DOGE staffer reportedly used a personal Gmail account to access a government call, and a newly filed lawsuit by federal whistleblowers claims DOGE ordered an unauthorized email server be connected to the government network, which violates federal privacy law. 

Whether DOGE staffers are bad actors misses part of the point. Acts of subterfuge, espionage, or ignorance could produce the same suboptimal outcome: exposure or loss of the nation’s sensitive datasets. 

...

DOGE’s takeover of government

Within a week of President Trump’s inauguration — and his executive order establishing DOGE — Musk’s staffers began infiltrating a variety of federal agencies. The U.S. Treasury’s sensitive payments systems, which contain personal information of millions of Americans who receive payments from the government, from tax refunds to Social Security checks, was among the first. 

DOGE has also gained access to the Office of Personnel Management, the government’s human resources department that includes databases on the personal information of all federal workers, and USAJOBS, which has data on applicants who applied for a federal job. 

Officials at the OPM said they had no visibility or oversight into Musk’s team’s access to its systems. “It creates real cybersecurity and hacking implications,” they told Reuters.

DOGE’s activity has led to widespread opposition, including from some Republicans.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), who serves as the most senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, called Musk’s access to sensitive federal payments systems a national security risk, given the conflict of interest over his extensive business operations in China. A group of senior Democrats later said in a letter to the Treasury that DOGE’s access to sensitive government data “could irreparably damage national security.” 

In a post on Bluesky, former Republican strategist Stuart Stevens called the takeover of the Treasury’s systems “the most significant data leak in cyber history,” adding: “Private individuals in the data business now have access to your Social Security information.” 

The Treasury defended its move to grant access to the department’s sensitive payments systems, confirming in an unattributed response to Democratic lawmakers that Musk’s DOGE team has access to the Treasury’s banks of personal information on Americans. The letter confirms Tom Krause, the chief executive of Cloud Software Group, which owns Citrix and several other technology companies, is now a Treasury employee. Krause has not returned a request for comment. 

DOGE has since gained access to multiple sensitive internal systems at the Department of Education, including datasets containing the personal information on millions of students enrolled in financial aid. DOGE staff also demanded “access to all” systems at the Small Business Administration, including contracts, payments, and human resources information.

Musk’s team also reportedly has access to payment systems within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and access to data at the U.S. agency that administers Medicare and Medicaid. DOGE is also accessing personnel systems at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and plans to access systems at the Department of Transportation.

[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

[darkmaga-returns]

Trump Revokes Biden’s Security Clearance. Trudeau: Trump is serious about wanting to annex Canada. Khamenei rejects US talks. EU Approves Insect-Infused Food. Treasury Adds $2.2T of debt in 2024

Lioness of Judah Ministry

Feb 08, 2025

‘JOE, YOU’RE FIRED’ — Trump Revokes Biden’s Security Clearance

President Donald J. Trump has revoked the security clearances of his predecessor, Joe Biden, citing his past mishandling of classified documents and failing mind.

“There is no need for Joe Biden to continue receiving access to classified information. Therefore, we are immediately revoking Joe Biden’s Security Clearances, and stopping his daily Intelligence Briefings,” the America First leader announced on his Truth Social platform. “He set this precedent in 2021, when he instructed the Intelligence Community (IC) to stop the 45th President of the United States (ME!) from accessing details on National Security, a courtesy provided to former Presidents,” Trump explained.

Trump points Musk to targets in federal government with Pentagon up next

President Donald Trump said Friday that he is directing Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency to target specific government departments and agencies, with the Pentagon set for a review in the near future.

Musk and DOGE have ignited sharp criticism in recent days after their audits led Trump to take steps toward shuttering the U.S. Agency for International Development. The Trump administration claims the agency spent millions of taxpayers’ dollars on wasteful projects around the globe. Reports indicate Trump plans to house a significantly slimmer international development team within the State Department, with less than 300 of the more than 10,000 USAID employees being kept on by the government. The president did not say during a Friday press conference if he had told Musk there are specific agencies or departments DOGE “cannot touch” but confirmed that an audit of the Pentagon would soon be underway.

14 States To File Lawsuit Against DOGE Access To Government Payment Systems

The state attorneys general said the level of access given to DOGE is ‘unlawful’ and ‘unacceptable.’

A coalition of 14 state attorneys general said on Thursday that they will file a lawsuit to stop the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing sensitive federal payment systems. The coalition said that DOGE, an advisory committee led by tech billionaire Elon Musk, has no authority to access federal government systems—which they said contain Americans’ personal data, state bank account data, and “some of our country’s most sensitive data.” “This level of access for unauthorized individuals is unlawful, unprecedented, and unacceptable,” the coalition said in a statement released by New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin.

USAID corruption at ‘unexplainable’ level – Trump

The US president has called for the agency to be shut down

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) is riddled with almost unprecedented levels of corruption, and should be shut down, President Donald Trump has said. In one of the first executive orders after his unauguration, Trump suspended all US foreign aid, pending a three-month review, amid a wider push to cut down on government spending. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio subsequently halted a number of projects assigned to USAID, Washington’s main agency for administering funding to political projects abroad.

[shoujoboy-restart]

16-year-old non-binary student Nex Benedict was beaten to death at Owasso High School in Oklahoma.

Self-described stochastic terrorist and January 6th Capitol rioter Chaya Raichik, owner of the social media account Libs of TikTok, has become infamous for her viral harassment and moral panic campaigns targeting minorities— with an emphasis on vilifying LGBTQ+ existence. Since 2021, Raichik’s posts targeting advocates for and members of the LGBTQ+ community have been followed with a deluge of violent death threats (including lynching threats against the Los Angeles Unified School District). Nowhere has Raichik’s influence been more visible than Oklahoma, where her anti-LGBTQ+ exploits earned her an official position on the Oklahoma Department of Education’s Library Media Advisory Committee by controversial far-right Superintendent Ryan Walters. Under Walters’ leadership, Oklahoma has been aggressively working to ban books and education on LGBTQ+ issues in schools across the state, with Oklahoma’s Attorney General Gentner Drummond stating that proposed rules to ban LGBTQ+ books and content were “unconstitutional and cannot be enforced.” It’s been confirmed that Raichik’s posts have fueled multiple bomb threats against schools specifically in Oklahoma. Officials from Oklahoma told NBC News that they believe Chaya Raichik’s anti-LGBTQ+ culture warring “sparked threats in their localities with her posts on social media that digitally heckle people such as drag performers, LGBTQ teachers and doctors who treat transgender patients.”   One of these instances was at the Owasso School District (just outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma). In 2022, Chaya Raichik targeted an Owasso teacher for speaking out in support of LGBTQ+ students who lacked acceptance from their parents. Raichik’s post was shared thousands of times on social media and resulted in the teacher getting condemned and harassed until they resigned. The posts Raichik made about the teacher were later deleted, but have been archived. It’s unclear what prompted the deletion of the posts by Raichik. We know Raichik’s Libs of TikTok posts have contributed to a culture of intolerance against LGBTQ+ youth in schools, and now this hate may be manifesting beyond mere threats. This month, a non-binary 16-year-old student at Owasso High School was brutally murdered in the girl’s restroom. According to local news outlets and family, Nex Benedict was beaten by three older female students. The mother of Benedict’s best friend told KJRH News that "one of the girls was pretty much repeatedly beating [Benedict’s] head across the floor.” Reports say Benedict was unable to take themselves to the nurse’s office after a teacher finally intervened in the brutal assault. For reasons that remain unclear, Owasso High School refused to call an ambulance for 16-year-old Nex Benedict, who died from their injuries in the hospital the next day. A motive for this killing has not been shared by law enforcement, but we know that schools in Oklahoma have been specifically pushing violent eliminationist rhetoric against transgender and non-binary youth— a fact exemplified by the state’s hiring of Chaya Raichik following her incitements of terror against the state’s schools over LGBTQ+ rights.  “This is the inevitable result of the anti trans moral panic,” said civil rights attorney Alejandra Caraballo, who shared an article about Benedict’s death published by the Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents Blog. “This is horrifying, and comes as lawmakers are increasingly spreading fear over trans people in bathrooms,” wrote LGBTQ+ journalist and advocate Erin Reed regarding this murder.

[perfectlyyoungtimetravel]

Black History Month:Day 07

I drew Dorothy Lee Bolden-She was born on October 13th in 1924.In Atlanta,Georgia.Her parents were Georgia Mae Patterson (who was a housekeeper) and Raymond Bolden(who was a chauffer).When she was 9 she would help her mom out with housekeeping and would see how awful and unfair it was (they worked for $1.25 a week). And her early experience as a maid in late 1940s inspired her civil rights activism,she was arrested and taken to county jail after her white employer demanded her to wash dishes even though Dorothy's work hours were over and of course Dorothy refused,after she was taken to county jail to get psychiatric evaluation because she was seen as this "crazy lady" because she disobeyed orders from the white person,she was never institutionalized luckily but still that is just cruel...and that inspired her to start an organization to protect maids.In 1964.She organized a boycott of Atlanta schools to protest the school board’s reluctance to improve the quality of education for African American students,and in mid 1960s.She worked with Dr.Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders to confront police brutality,especially in her Atlanta neighborhood,Vine City.In 1968 she found an organization 'National Domestic Workers Union of America' (NDWUA).Her motivation for NDWUA came from her bus rides.She would use public transportation to connect with other domestic workers,listening to their stories of low wages,their long hours,their long commutes horrible working conditions.Realizing their common and same experiences,Dorothy began to mobilize these workers. In the summer of 1968, hundreds of female domestic workers gathered in Atlanta to form the NDWUA with Dorothy as its first president in September of that same year.The NDWUA quickly enrolled thousands of domestic workers across 10 cities in the U.S.Through most of the 1960s.The national minimum wage was $1.25 an hour with black maids earning an average of $3.50 to $5.00 a day for twelve-to-fourteen hour shifts.The NDWUA demanded higher wages and within two years of the organization's founding Atlanta maids earned an average of $13.50 to $15.00 a day.The NDWUA also made sure domestic workers benefited from social security and workers compensation.As working conditions would improve she taught maids how to negotiate with their employers or to find alternate employment if negotiations were unsuccessful.Thousands of women around the country utilized the NDWUA’s job placement programs and learned of their workplace rights.Dorothy also understood the power of the ballot and made registration and voting a requirement for the members of the NDWUA.She became a very influential political leader in the 1970s.She was appointed to President Richard Nixon’s advisory committee on social services and welfare,she would later consult with Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter on workers’ rights.Dorothy's time and advocacy became divided between Atlanta’s community efforts and national politics as conditions for domestic workers across the country continued to would improve year by year.But she also had to use her own money to carry out NDWUA programs during the 1980s.And because federal funding did not suffice the organization stopped operations in 1996.But she still continued to work in the social services sector.

She died on July 14th in 2005.In Atlanta,Georgia at the age of 80.

Her famous quotes was 'I don’t want to be out here pushing for you and you not registered to vote.We aren’t Aunt Jemima women and I sure to God don’t want people to think we are.We are politically strong and independent.' (Aunt Jemima was a racial stereotype and it was in the now Pearl Milling Company's name and products before they changed it)

Credits for information: blackpast.org

Materials used:Soft pastel crayons, HB pencil,8B pencil and a marker

See you soon everyone! 💖💖💖

[eretzyisrael]

Adeel Mangi is not a victim of “Islamophobia,” “bigoted smears” or anti-Muslim discrimination, as Timothy Lewis’s recent Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed asserted. The real reasons bipartisan senators, Jewish organizations and others oppose confirming Mangi as a federal appellate judge (one step below the U.S. Supreme Court) are the following:

Mangi was until recently an advisory director and repeated donor to a viciously antisemitic, anti-American, pro-terror organization—the so-called “Center for Security, Race and Rights” (CRSS) at Rutgers Law School; Mangi evaded questions and improbably professed ignorance about key matters (including antisemitism, terrorism and Middle East issues) that are likely to come before the federal appellate court; and Mangi has absolutely no judicial experience.

It is absurd to claim that a bipartisan group of senators oppose Mangi’s confirmation because Mangi is Muslim. The Senate overwhelmingly confirmed another recent Muslim nominee for a federal judgeship: Zahid Nisar Quraishi.

The majority of appellate judicial nominees have years of prior judicial experience and a record of judicial decisions that can be vetted. In public statements and letters, leading Jewish organizations involved in combating antisemitism, including: our organization, the Zionist Organization of America; Americans Against Antisemitism; StopAntisemitism; Students Supporting Israel; and the Coalition for Jewish Values (representing over 2,500 rabbis) noted that it is dangerous to elevate Mangi to a lifetime Court of Appeals judgeship when he has no judicial record to examine, which is not even to mention his alarming CRSS involvements.

Among other horrors, while Mangi was on CRSS’s Advisory Board (referred to as its “brain trust”), CRSS celebrated the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks’ 20th anniversary by hosting terror-affiliated speakers, including Sami Al-Arian, who was convicted for funneling funds, goods and services to the designated terror organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad. CRSS also hosted a group whose officials have connections to Al-Qaeda and Hamas networks, the notorious antisemite and anti-Israel propagandist Rashid Khalidi, and Israel-bashing BDS groups and leaders including Jewish Voice for Peace, Peter Beinart, Khaled Elgindy and Marc Lamont Hill (who was terminated by CNN for antisemitic comments).

Furthermore, CRSS’s website posted a resource guide listing and linking to numerous antisemitic, anti-Israel, BDS and terror-linked organizations, films, books, journals, “educational resources,” websites, podcasts and reports.

CRSS’s website also included CRSS Executive Director Sahar Aziz’s open letter praising and justifying Hamas terrorism and denying Israel’s right to self-defense while Hamas launched 4,500 rockets at Israel in May 2021. Aziz recruited Mangi to the CRSS advisory board. The Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest New Jersey stated that “Aziz has regularly and consistently promoted vile antisemitic propaganda” on social media and elsewhere.

In addition to his own donations and services, Mangi obtained donations from his law firm for CRSS.

During his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Mangi repeatedly refused to condemn viciously antisemitic, anti-Israel CSRR events and statements by reciting this mantra: “I do not have the expertise or factual background to express views regarding the complex history of the conflict in the Middle East, which is irrelevant to my potential work on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.”

Of course, condemning antisemitism and antisemitic Israel-bashing does not take expertise; it just takes courage. Moreover, antisemitism and Middle East issues are highly relevant to potential cases on the Third Circuit, including cases seeking remedies for antisemitic attacks and harassment on college campuses and city streets; cases regarding antisemitic boycotts; and cases brought by victims of Hamas and other terror groups under federal victims of terrorism and victims of torture statutes. Mangi is unfit and unqualified to fairly judge these important matters and should not be confirmed.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Maggie Fox at The Fuller Project, via The Guardian:

As they prepare to take control of the White House and Congress next month, conservatives are eyeing cutbacks to federal programs that help tens of millions of women pay for healthcare, food, housing and transportation. Slashing or overhauling social support programs, long a goal of Republican lawmakers, could be catastrophic for women experiencing poverty. Supporters contend the social safety-net programs are already grossly underfunded.

“With this new administration that is coming in … I really am concerned about the lives of women. We are seeing so many policies, so many budget cuts,” said Christian Nunes, president of the National Organization for Women. Republicans say they want to keep campaign promises to cut government spending, and three major programs make easy targets: Medicaid, the joint state/federal health insurance program for people with lower incomes; Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), a cash-allowance program that replaced welfare; and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), widely known as food stamps. While conservatives frame cuts as making government more efficient and even restoring freedom, advocates for and experts on families with little or no income say reducing these programs will throw more people – especially women and children – further into poverty. “It is going to fall heavily on women,” said Elaine Waxman, a senior fellow in the Income and Benefits Policy Center at the Urban Institute, a non-profit research organization.

Predicting precisely what Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration will do is difficult. Congressional leaders are close-mouthed about negotiations, and the president-elect has not finished putting together his advisory team. None of the spokespeople contacted for this story returned calls or e-mails. But organizations known to advise top leaders in Congress and the previous Trump administration have laid out fairly detailed roadmaps. Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for the incoming administration, denies its proposed changes will harm women, saying instead that marriage and “family values” will improve their economic situations. “Marriage, healthy family formation, and delaying sex to prevent pregnancy are virtually ignored in terms of priorities, yet these goals can reverse the cycle of poverty in meaningful ways,” reads the section on proposed changes to TANF and Snap.

Numerous other groups that have studied the problem say forcing or even encouraging marriage will not make poverty disappear. And a recent study by a team at the University of South Carolina found that when state laws make it harder for pregnant women to get divorced, they’re more likely to be killed by their partners. Trump has promised not to attack the two most expensive and popular government programs: social security and Medicare. But he and Congress are up against a deadline to extend his 2017 tax reforms, which raised the federal deficit. They’ll have to cut something, and social spending programs, especially the $805bn Medicaid program, are low-hanging fruit for conservatives. Trump repeatedly tried to slash Snap during his last tenure in office: his 2021 budget proposal would have cut the program by more than $180bn – nearly 30% – over 10 years. Conservatives in Congress have continued these efforts and, with majorities in the House and Senate, they may be able to get them through next year. The Republican Study Committee, whose members include about three-quarters of the House Republican caucus, recommends more work requirements for Snap and TANF.

[...] Snap currently helps 41 million people buy groceries and other necessities every month. Women accounted for more than 55% of people under 65 receiving Snap benefits in 2022, according to the National Women’s Law Center, a gender justice advocacy group. About one-third of them were women of color, the NWLC said. Among other things, cutting these programs will trap women in dangerous situations, the NWLC said: “SNAP helps survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault establish basic economic security.” TANF, which provides cash assistance, overwhelmingly benefits women. In 2022, 370,000 TANF adult recipients were female and 69,000 were male, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Perhaps Medicaid is the most tempting target for conservatives because they can use it to undermine the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The GOP has been gunning for the ACA since it was signed into law without a single Republican vote in 2010.

Republicans and their he-man woman-haters club agenda blooms with their inane proposals to cut subsidies such as SNAP and WIC that are primarily used by women.

[gabriellademonaco]

Crown Princess Mary’s Official Engagements in October 2023:

03/10: Opening of Parliament

03/10: The Mary Foundation Presidium Dinner

05/10: Visit to Danish Hospital Clowns

12/10: 50th Anniversary of BUPL

12/10: Meeting with the Crown Princess Mary Center Advisory Committee

15/10: Prince Christian's 18th Birthday - Balcony Appearance

15/10: Prince Christian's 18th Birthday - Gala Dinner

23/10: Visit to New York - UN Mission Reception

24/10: Visit to New York - UN Day Conferences & Promoting Denmark’s Candidacy for the UN Security Council 2025-2026

25/10: Visit to North Carolina - World Anti-Bullying Forum 2023

30/10: 130th Anniversary of Offside Social Gardens

31/10: Meeting with Rare Diagnoses Association

[lingyunxiang]

Martha Olney is a Teaching Professor Emerita in Berkeley's Economics Department. She joined the department in 1991 as a Research Associate at the Institute of Business and Economic Research. She was a visiting associate professor from 1992 to 2002, when she became an adjunct professor. She was promoted to Teaching Professor (Senior Lecturer with Security of Employment) in July 2017 and retired in July 2022. She served as Chair of the Department's Undergraduate Committee for 9 years, 2012-2021. Professor Olney organized and hosted the Economic History Lunches for graduate students and faculty from 1996 until her retirement in 2022. Prior to joining Berkeley, she was an associate professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she had taught since 1984. She has also taught at Stanford University (2001) and Siena College (2011-2012). She received her PhD from Berkeley in 1985. Professor Olney is the recipient of multiple teaching and mentoring awards including Distinguished Teaching Awards from UC Berkeley, UC Berkeley's Social Science Division, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, plus awards from Phi Beta Kappa, the Economic History Association, The Stavros Center for Economic Education, and UC Berkeley's Faculty Award for Outstanding Mentorship of GSIs. She is a member of the American Economic Association, Business History Conference, Cliometric Society, Economic History Association, and the Social Science History Association. She previously served on the academic advisory board of the Financial Services Research Program of George Washington University and on the boards of the AEA's Committee for the Status of Women in the Economics Profession, and the Business History Conference. She is currently a member of the board of the AEA's Committee on the Status of LGBTQ+ Individuals in the Economics Profession (CSQIEP) and the AEA's Task Force for Outreach to High School and Undergraduate Students in Economics.

[partisan-by-default]

Hello! I'm posting in response to the many sincerely anguished claims that not enough is being done to stop Trump. This is not reflected in the facts.

- Represented by Public Citizen Litigation Group and State Democracy Defenders Fund, the Alliance for Retired Americans, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) filed suit on Monday against the Treasury Department “for sharing confidential data with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), run by Elon Musk.” Go to Public Citizen's website to learn all about this lawsuit, which is very likely to prevail.

- On USAID, appearing with other Democratic lawmakers outside USAID offices on Monday, Representative Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) shouted, “Elon Musk, you didn't create USAID. The United States Congress did for the American people … like Elon Musk did not create USAID, he doesn't have the power to destroy it. And who's going to stop him? We are... This a constitutional crisis that we are in today.” Lawsuits have also been filed in this matter, and are also likely to prevail.

- Hakeem Jeffries has announced lawsuits have been filed regarding the firings of inspectors general.

- On Jan 21, Democracy Forward, was filed at 12:01 p.m. ET on Monday and accused Elon Musk's DOGE of being a "shadow operation led by unelected billionaires" that flouts federal transparency rules. That should win.

- National Security Counselors filed a suit arguing that DOGE meets the requirements to be a federal advisory committee and is therefore legally required to have "fairly balanced" representation, keep regular minutes of meetings and allow public access to meetings. Clearly accurate.

- Eighteen state attorneys general and a slew of immigrants' rights groups brought swift legal action against Trump after he signed his executive order seeking to ban birthright citizenship for some children born in the U.S., arguing that it violates the Fourteenth Amendment. Obviously, clearly unconstitutional.

- "Schedule F" has been challenged in court by the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents employees in 37 agencies and departments.

- Several immigrant rights groups in the United States, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), have filed a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s ban on asylum claims.

- GLAD Law and the National Center For Lesbian Rights (NCLR) have sued to stop Trump's ban on trans people in the military.

And there are many more - I'll link to a great list of them in the comments.

Yes, there are Trump judges in the courts, and if Aileen Cannon types get these cases, Trump may prevail. But most judges are not like her. These actions are clearly illegal and/or unconstitutional, and they WILL be stopped.

Just like the tariffs were not meant to prevail -- Trump won that round, "forcing" Canada and Mexico to take "action" on fentanyl -- these actions are not meant to prevail. They're meant to flood the zone with shit, confuse and immobilize us. They said they'd do "Shock and Awe" and that's what they've done. Nothing here should be surprising.

Shock and Awe is up to YOU. I am not shocked, I am not in awe.

Oh, and the "mainstream media" has reported on all of these. The info above has come from Newsweek, the NY Times, and other mainstream sources. Please stop attacking journalists when we are being threatened by the FBI. Who do you think you're helping by doing that?

Stop it with the doomsaying and gloomsaying. Want to make a difference? Give thousands of dollars to Public Citizen, the ACLU, and similar groups. Show up at marches. Put your ass on the line and help protect people from ICE. If you're safe, do simple symbolic things (like changing your social media pictures) to support people who are not safe. Just like we should not obey in advance, we should not panic in advance either. This is not the end of democracy. That is just what the bad guys want you to think. Get over it and fight.