3 Mar 2025
Demonstrating in front of Senator McCormick’s office. The Trump Administration has just been crashing around and causing immense damage to Americans.
What exactly is DOGE, the Elon Musk-run Department Of Government Efficiency, up to NOW?!?! Very interesting theory involving the development of AI and what that has to do with really large amounts of data. Basically, Musk is accessing US Government databases in order to feed it all to AI developers. The White House Press Secretary denies this, but it’s not like Trump’s people have a good record with telling the truth.
DOGE’s latest target is the computer system of the Department of Health and Human Services. HHS has a child-support database that contains income data (including Social Security numbers) of nearly all working Americans. Again, DOGE doesn’t give a reason as to why they need this data nor did they indicate what they plan to do with it.
DOGE wants access to Social Security data, which of course, unions and a retiree group are fighting tooth and nail. DOGE is canceling leases all over the country, allegedly on the theory that some of those government properties may be unnecessary. One of those properties is
Skeen-Whitlock Building in Carlsbad, New Mexico, a 90,000 square foot facility which manages the nation’s only storage area for DOD-created nuclear waste and the only operating deep geologic nuclear waste storage facility in the world.
Yeah, really “wasteful” there. This of course, indicates that there’s no real analysis that goes into these lease cancellations. One of the theories that DOGE is using is that the government is spending a lot of money on vacant or little-used buildings. But suppose the government needs to expand in response to an emergency? Isn’t it far better to have the properties and buildings already under government control as opposed to having to find and erect buildings on those properties?
How is the US doing with its Northern neighbor? The CNN host Christian Amanpour talks with Canada’s Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly
and Joly is considerably less than happy about the pugnacious approach that the US has taken towards Canada. Joly also makes it quite clear that Canada is not prepared to surrender to anything they feel is unreasonable from the US. She makes it quite clear that they agree on tightening up the US-Canadian border, but that they’re getting quite tired of Trump’s attitude towards them.
In a very bad case of FAFO ((eff) Around and Find Out), Alaska elected a Republican governor and voted for Trump in the 2024 election by 55%. British Columbia (BC) is the Canadian province that separates Alaska from the continental US, meaning all road traffic has to pass through BC. BC has ruled out using tolls, but their
economic actions have provoked the Alaska governor to say that “My hope is that the federal governments between our two great countries work out solutions to the tariff issues,” but Trump and his tariff ideas are 100% of the reason that there is friction between the two countries.
As long as Trump continues to pick a fight with our neighbor to the North, US consumers in Alaska and elsewhere will continue to pay the price.
How’s the Israeli-Palestinian situation going since the ceasefire in Gaza was reached? The ceasefire hasn’t collapsed, but it’s not doing that great, either. Mondoweiss describes a killing by an Israeli drone that seems very hard to justify. A couple was walking about and an Israeli tank opened fire on them for no apparent reason.
…Israel has killed 121 Palestinians since the ceasefire began, marking one of Israel’s most flagrant violations of the terms of the agreement, in addition to its refusal to allow in the agreed-upon amounts of tents, prefabricated mobile homes, and heavy machinery for the removal of rubble.
The US and Israel are now trying to completely restructure the ceasefire agreement so as to “return the situation in Gaza to square one.”
In contrast to Trump’s plans to turn Gaza into a US-owned “Riviera of the Middle East,” the League of Arab States presented their own plan.
The plan previews the reconstruction of Gaza in four years, with modern housing, infrastructure, and a transportation network. Implementing it would cost 53 billion dollars.
They foresee strong connections between Gaza and the West Bank, with Gaza being run by an independent commission until the rebuilding is complete. Naturally, “The Israeli government rejected the plan outright” so we’ll see what happens.
P.S. We had a rally at Glenside, PA March 4th. It got dark pretty quickly, so this video is mostly just people singing and speaking.
Here’s a piece of mine on human-caused climate change.
Rally in Germantown March 7.
Rally is in Germantown, Philadelphia, PA. They’ve been holding weekly rallies at this location (in front of the Unitarian Society of Germantown church) and will continue until there is a fair and just peace for Ukraine.
Video by CBS Philadelphia.
Just how much is the president is beholden to Vladimir Putin?
Not only did the president and vice-president gang up on President Zelenskyy in an Oval Office meeting, Trump then cut off US satellite intelligence that enabled Ukraine to aim HIMARS rockets and to carry out long-range strikes. It’s not entirely clear whether other nations will feel obliged to follow Trump’s dictates, but Trump has ordered that no other nation compensate Ukraine for the lack of US intelligence.
Latest is that Britain and France will continue to supply Ukraine with intelligence that they have gathered themselves, but will not pass on intelligence that they get from the US.
Trump’s “advisers told CNN the pause will remain in place until Trump determines Zelensky has made enough of a commitment to seeking peace talks.” What that means, of course, is anybody’s guess as Zelenskyy is apparently being expected to read Trump’s mind.
Trump later scolded both parties equally “To Russia and Ukraine, get to the table right now, before it is too late. Thank you!!!”
This would, of course, be fine if the war took place because of actions taken of rhetoric spoken on both sides. As the war is 100% the fault of Russia (if all Russian troops were to withdraw from Ukraine, the war would immediately be over) it is wildly inappropriate. Oh, and “Trump Plans To Revoke Legal Status Of 240,000 Ukrainian Refugees”
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