#Bureau of Admin

[konohagakurekakashi]

|| Uhuh. Your discontent has been noted and filed with the Bureau of Admin.

Question have we now settled on the gate headcanon being included in this, or is that still in dispute?

@senjutsunade @minaa-munch

ooc;

I hate you two right about now... @konohagakurekakashi, @minaa-munch

My fingers hurt and my feelings hurt even more.

Whose dumb idea was the Survivors Guilt verse? >>

[askmarcille]

Hmm, I should sell potions, But I'll need materials, You'll be my first T st subject, Give me ingredients And I'll Make something for you for free

(Sorry if this sounds creepy or anything)

Wait, a t-test subject?! There better be some consent forms or something to fill out...and you'll need the proper licenses before you just start selling potions!!

*It seems she's understandably nervous about being used as a test subject. She'll want to see some paperwork or something so she knows exactly what she's getting into.*

(ooc: the vibes this ask is giving off is like in Zelda games where the potion sellers are like: "bring me a bottle or this mushroom and I'll make you a potion for free!")

[cute-pluto]

I think it’s very relevant all fed workers we’ve met are part of the census bureau but I’m too dumb to figure out what it means. first of all what’s a census bureau

[letuce369]

You're Invited!

The menu for the QSMP Election Dinner Event has been released!

[neiyuu]

l'enfer c'est un bureau administratif.

[the-cimmerians]

Vice President Kamala Harris announced this week that the Biden administration is looking to lessen the burden medical debt has on people by purging it from their credit report. This means that even if people have piles of medical debt — one in five Americans say they do — it’s not going to affect their ability to get a mortgage or a car loan. So they will at least have a place to rest their head and a car they can drive to work every day while paying off their medical bills.

Via AP:

Harris said that would make it easier for them to obtain an auto loan or a home mortgage. Roughly one in five people report having medical debt. The vice president said the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is beginning the rulemaking process to make the change. The agency said in a statement that including medical debt in credit scores is problematic because “mistakes and inaccuracies in medical billing are common.” “Access to health care should be a right and not a privilege,” Harris told reporters in call to preview the action. “These measures will improve the credit scores of millions of Americans so that they will better be able to invest in their future.”

It only seems fair that high medical bills for an emergency or serious illness shouldn’t affect one’s credit rating anyway. It’s not like we’re talking about someone irresponsibly dropping several grand at Versace and then never paying off the credit card bill. Fifty-seven percent of Americans could not afford a surprise $1000 emergency, so the inability to pay off massive amounts of medical debt is hardly a fair reflection of an inclination to default on normal payments — payments you can budget for — on something like a mortgage or auto loan. “Way to be irresponsible by getting cancer, lady! You should definitely be punished for that by not being able to find any place to live!” seems pretty harsh, no?

[batboyblog]

Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #36

September 27-October 4 2024

President Biden and Vice-President Harris have lead the federal response to Hurricane Helene. President Biden's leadership earned praise from the Republican Governors of South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Georgia, as well as the Democratic Governor of North Carolina and local leaders. Thousands of federal workers are on the ground in effected communities having given out to date over 8 million meals, over 7 million letters of water. Both President Biden and Vice-President Harris have been on the ground in resent days meeting with effected families. During her trip to Georgia Vice-President Harris announced that the federal government will reimburse state and local government 100% of the costs from Hurricane Helene.

A strike by the International Longshoremen’s Association that briefly shut down ports on the East Cost and Gulf ended in a tentative deal. Both sides thanked Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg for helping push the deal through. President Biden and Vice-President Harris had expressed solidarity with the works when the strike was announced and President Biden directed Secretary Buttigieg to take the lead in pressuring management to make a deal with the Longshoremen. The ILA got a 62% raise as part of the agreement.

Vice President Harris announced new actions to help those struggling with medical debt. This actions include new standards from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on debt collection. the CFPB plans on requiring debt collectors to confirm debts are valid and accurate before engaging in collection actions. As well as cracking down on debt collectors that collect on debt that is not owed by patients. Other actions included an announcement by the DoD that it was reducing pricing for civilians who get medical treatment at DoD hospitals and a track down on tax-exempt hospitals who are required by law to offer financial assistance but often do not. These steps come after Vice President Harris in June announced plans to remove medical debt from credit scores. Following the Vice President's call to action North Carolina moved forward a plan to eliminate medical debt for 2 million people in the state. President Biden's American Rescue Plan funds have been used by state and local Democrats to eliminate $7 billion dollars in medical debt.

The Department of Transportation announced $62 Billion in infrastructure funding for 2025. Thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed by President Biden this will be $18 billion dollars more than was spent in 2021. The Biden-Harris Admin has helped support over 60,000 infrastructure projects across all 50 states, rebuilding roads and bridges, breaking ground on America's first high speed rail, updating ports and airports, and breaking high speed internet to rural communities.

The Department of Transportation announced $1 Billion dollars of investment in America's passenger rail future. This comes on top of $8.2 billion in investments announced in December 2023. The funds will help expand and modernize intercity passenger rail nationwide.

The Departments of Energy and Agriculture announced a $2.8 billion joint project to bring 100% carbon pollution-free energy to the rural midwest. The DoE is investing $1.5 billion into helping bring the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan back on-line. Shut down in 2022 plans to refit and reopen it to allow the plant to keep generating clean energy till 2051. Once back online the Palisades Nuclear Plant will help stop an anticipated 4.47 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions a year, or 111 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions over its lifetime. The USDA is investing $1.3 billion in two rural electric cooperatives, Wolverine Power Cooperative and Hoosier Energy, which cover rural communities in Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana. This investment will help Wolverine and Hoosier connect to the Palisades Plant, reduce prices for customers, and reduce climate pollution, putting Wolverine Power on the path to be 100 percent carbon-free energy before 2030.

The Treasury and the IRS announced that 30 million Americans, across 24 states will qualify for free direct filing of their taxes in 2025. The IRS says that the average American spends $270 dollars and 13 hours filing their taxes. Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, passed by President Biden with Vice President Harris' tie breaking vote, Americans will be able to file their taxes quickly and for free directly with the IRS. Tax payers in Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming will in 2025 be able to use direct file.

The USDA announced $7.7 billion in funding for Climate-Smart Practices on Agricultural Lands. This represents the single biggest investment in these programs in USDA history. Since implementation began in 2023 this conservation assistance has helped over 28,500 farmers and ranchers apply conservation to 361 million acres of land.

The Department of Energy announced $1.5 billion in investments in transmission infrastructure to help ensure our grid is reliable and resilient. This will help support nearly 1,000 miles of new transmission lines across Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. These lines will bring 7,100 MW of new capacity and create 9,000 good paying union jobs. Studies find to keep up with growth and meet our climate goals of carbon free energy the US will need to triple the 2020 transmission capacity by 2050. This is an important step to meeting that goal.

[saywhat-politics]

In its most aggressive attack against offshore wind yet, the Trump administration halted the $5 billion Empire Wind 1, already under construction off New York’s coast.

Norwegian developer Equinor announced yesterday that it received notice from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) ordering Empire Wind 1 to halt all activities on the outer continental shelf until BOEM has completed its review. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum posted this tweet yesterday:

[dostoyevsky-official]

A 25-Year-Old With Elon Musk Ties Has Direct Access to the Federal Payment System

A 25-year-old engineer named Marko Elez, who previously worked for two Elon Musk companies, has direct access to Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly all payments made by the US government, three sources tell WIRED. Two of those sources say that Elez’s privileges include the ability not just to read but to write code on two of the most sensitive systems in the US government: The Payment Automation Manager (PAM) and Secure Payment System (SPS) at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (BFS). Housed on a top-secret mainframe, these systems control, on a granular level, government payments that in their totality amount to more than a fifth of the US economy. Despite reporting that suggests that Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) task force has access to these Treasury systems on a “read-only” level, sources say Elez, who has visited a Kansas City office housing BFS systems, has many administrator-level privileges. Typically, those admin privileges could give someone the power to log into servers through secure shell access, navigate the entire file system, change user permissions, and delete or modify critical files. That could allow someone to bypass the security measures of, and potentially cause irreversible changes to, the very systems they have access to. “You could do anything with these privileges,” says one source with knowledge of the system, who adds that they cannot conceive of a reason that anyone would need them for purposes of simply hunting down fraudulent payments or analyzing disbursement flow. "Technically I don't see why this couldn't happen," a federal IT worker tells WIRED in a phone call late on Monday night, referring to the possibility of a DOGE employee being granted elevated access to a government server. "If you would have asked me a week ago, I'd have told you that this kind of thing would never in a million years happen. But now, who the fuck knows." A source says they are concerned that data could be passed from secure systems to DOGE operatives within the General Services Administration (GSA). WIRED reporting has shown that Elon Musk’s associates—including Nicole Hollander, who slept in Twitter’s offices as Musk acquired the company, and Thomas Shedd, a former Tesla engineer who now runs a GSA agency, along with a host of extremely young and inexperienced engineers—have infiltrated the GSA, and have attempted to use White House security credentials to gain access to GSA tech, something experts have said is highly unusual and poses a huge security risk.

[silverware-drawer]

What the hell is a "cue es em pee"

0 notas

🦈 kocwillrock 🔁 philza

🏳️‍⚧️ wanna-flippa Seguir

MY& P4PA: WH@T D0' #)W3 S4Y WHE;N WE SE3 TH*E H@TER5??,?(

$M'E: D1$LIK€ 4ND #-_UNS+UBSCR/_1BE

M#Y PAP@:; # HEL,L YE4,H!;!!!$!!

*.*W3 BOT,H,, B@CKF''L1P 4WA_-Y"__*+&

🪹 philza

@backflipo-numero-uno please stop impersonating your dead daughter on fucking tumblr and get therapy

🦠 backflipo-numero-uno Seguir

NO LISTEN ITS REALLY HER THIS TIME I SWEAR

🪹 philza

I'm reporting you for your own good m8

🪹 philza

and also because you don't tag the months-old interactions with mariana you keep reblogging and I don't wanna see that shit on my dash lmao

🦈 kocwillrock Seguir

damn slime your dead daughter knows how to write a banger post

1,010 notas

💣 federation-sanitation-unofficial 🔁 im-the-orb-theyre-always-pondering

💣 2b-or-not-2b

Finally finished the enchants on my scythe. Going to test this shit on a dungeon run will update

⚠️ pactriggerwarning Seguir

you can come over and test it on me instead if i'm closer. like not in a weird way you can just hit me and I'll tell you how close I am to dying, how much blood I've lost etc

💣 im-the-orb-theyre-always-pondering

fuck okay- pac I've been meaning to talk to you about this. Listen.

💣 federation-sanitation-unofficial

you have. . . tendencies

4 notas

🔎 cellbo 🔁 peterparkoier

⚪ qsmp-census-bureau ☑️ Seguir

I hope you enjoy the island.

cellbit-deactivated19358

FUCK YOU

🐦 its-nice-to-miku Seguir

wait cellbit is this why your old blog got deleted lmao???

🔎 cellbo

shut up

🔎 cellbo

I hear you typing guapito don't you fucking dare

🥵 peterparkoier Seguir

NO MAMES

🔎 cellbo

GOD DAMN IT

201 notas

🌸 bagi-the-vegan 🔁 bagi-the-vegan

🌸 bagi-the-vegan

this island is so weird why did people seriously consider the disgusting green egg as a presidential candidate

🌸 bagi-the-vegan

Nevermind gegg is my son now

692 notas

🌸 bagi-the-vegan 🔁 gegg

🇧🇷 gegg Seguir

what we need is not government it is true union between the people

121.193 notas

🌸 bagi-the-vegan 🔁 gegg

🇧🇷 gegg Seguir

yo soy brazil. nosotros somos brazil. We Are Gegg.

992 notas

🌸 bagi-the-vegan 🔁 gegg

🇧🇷 gegg Seguir

the sun is a false god but a true threat

238.816 notas

🌸 bagi-the-vegan 🔁 gegg

🇧🇷 gegg Seguir

gegg

- gegg

1.1 millón notas

🪹 philza 🔁 philza

⚪ qsmp-census-bureau Seguir

I hope you enjoy the island.

etoiles-deactivated2884

dark metal when

etoiles-deactivated2884

dark metal when

etoiles-deactivated2884

dark metal when

etoiles-deactivated2884

dark metal when

elotes-deactivated1191866

dark metal when

elotes-deactivated1191866

dark metal when

elotes-deactivated1191866

dark metal when

etwall-deactivated92701

dark metal when

etwall-deactivated92701

dark metal when

🔰 etoyless

guys I cant believe it they are introducing dark metal soon its not a lie the admins really said so because otherwise it means they hate me GG woooo good fight i dont have to cry anymore!! well played!!

🪹 philza

etoiles you are going to get banned again stop provoking the feds

🔰 etoyless

you are right philza because you are the best ok i am never going to spam them again

🪹 philza

Good job I'm proud of you GGs

🪹 philza

ETOILES

69 notas

🔰 etoyless 🔁 etoyless

🔰 etoyless

@01101110011101010110110001101100 FIGHT ME

🔰 etoyless

@01101110011101010110110001101100 FIGHT ME

🔰 etoyless

@01101110011101010110110001101100 FIGHT ME

🔰 etoyless

@01101110011101010110110001101100 FIGHT ME

[tiki-was-here]

The Law of Attraction

Aaron Hotchner x College Professor Reader (AMAB) P1

Word Count: 1.3k

If you hate Haley please get off of my blog and go rewatch the show with your head not shoved up your ass this time. Anyways. I always absolutely hate my writing after even the shortest break but I can’t be a baby about everything 😢. Hotch is such a cutie grrrrr

P2

The Mary Baldwin campus was different now — polished, more modern, with glinting glass buildings and freshly paved walkways that hadn’t been there when you’d first arrived nearly a decade ago. But some things hadn’t changed. The red brick of the main quad still soaked up the sunlight the same way, and the sharp winter air still bit at your coat collar as you crossed to your office in the humanities department. 

Only this time, there was a new weight on the campus — fear hung over the students like a veil. Conversations hushed when you passed, glances flicked toward your office door, and every knock made your chest tense. Three colleagues dead. Three intelligent, kind, and passionate people with no obvious connection beyond their department and the cruel way they’d been killed. Each crime more violent than the last. 

You’d known the Bureau would get involved eventually. This wasn’t something campus security or even the local police could handle. But what you hadn’t expected was him. (gaybo)

The moment Aaron Hotchner stepped into the faculty lounge, everything in your stomach twisted. His presence, quiet but still commanding, drew all eyes to him and his team. He looked good. God, he looked good. Older, of course, with sharper angles in his jaw and the weight of years behind his eyes. But it was unmistakably him. The same voice you used to pick out in crowded lecture halls. The same posture, like he carried the world on his back and expected no help. You hadn’t seen him since graduation. Not even in photos. You knew from whispers and articles that he’d joined the FBI, that he’d risen quickly. But you didn’t know he’d be called here of all places.

—

He’d found you in your office not long after his arrival, knocking softly on the mahogany  frame. “Dr. L/N?” he asked, and you almost didn’t look up right away, too used to grief counselors, frightened students, and overworked admin staff shuffling in and out. But when you did, your breath caught.

“Aaron?” The name slipped out before your mind could stop your mouth. A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips, and that was when you knew that he remembered you too.

You stood from your desk, suddenly aware of how disheveled you looked. “I… I didn’t realize you’d be on this case.I saw you and your team come in yesterday but I didn't know if i should have greeted you.”

“We were called in yesterday. This isn’t a typical killing spree,” he said, tone even. “The staging. The symbolism. It’s almost certainly personal.”

You nodded, exhaling a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding. “I figured.”

“I saw your name in the list of faculty. I thought I’d stop by first to check on you personally.” There was no weight in his tone, no implication that he meant something that he wasnt willing to say outright. But your mind was already racing back to long nights in the library, to shared coffee breaks during finals week, to the way you used to wonder what it would feel like to be noticed by Aaron Hotchner instead of always watching him from just out of reach. You’d always been drawn to his discipline, his silence, the way he never seemed to need validation the way the rest of your peers did. But back then, he’d been committed to Haley. You couldn't take a chance if it meant  ruining a love you knew he deserved, so you’d buried the feelings deep.

Now, standing across from him again, years later, the weight of that memory threatened to surface all over again.

You motioned toward the chair opposite your desk, regaining some composure. “Please. Sit. I’ll help however I can.”

He sat without hesitation, folding his hands in his lap as he studied your face with that same clinical focus he’d once used to break down case law. “You knew the last victim personally?”

“Harold? Yes. He was… he was a friend.” You didn’t try to keep the tremor out of your voice. Telling yourself that wasn't a weakness. It was grief. And Hotch, of all people, would understand.

 He gave a slight nod, acknowledging the loss with quiet respect. “He was one of the first people who welcomed me when I joined the department. He fought to get this campus to fund minority literature courses. He was brilliant. Kind. He didn’t deserve…” You stopped, shaking your head. “None of them did.”

“No one does,” Hotch said simply,  “But this one is personal. Whoever’s doing this has a message, and they’re using your department to deliver it.”

You nodded again, reaching for the folder you’d already begun putting together. “I’ve been keeping records. Students who’ve shown unusual patterns. You know, dark themes in their writing, obsessions with violent texts. We’ve had a few disciplinary reports over the years, but nothing that I thought could help the police”

Hotch raised an eyebrow as you handed him the documents. “You’ve been profiling your students?”

“I prefer the term preemptive risk assessment,” you said with a faint smile. “But yes. After the first murder, I couldn’t sit idle. This is my home. My work. And I knew… I knew something was wrong even before the second body.”

He scanned the notes in silence, and you couldn’t help but watch the way his brow furrowed in concentration, the way he mouthed a student’s name under his breath to test the sound of it. He hadn’t changed much at all.

“You’ve built a solid base here,” he finally said, setting the folder down. “Would you consider assisting us with this case? Your insight into the campus, the department dynamics… it would be valuable.”

You tried not to let your heart trip over itself. “Of course. Whatever you need.”

The following days unfolded in a blur of classes, meetings, and consultations. You hadn't worked as closely with the team as you'd thought you would, mainly reviewing student files and helping to provide possible literary references to the unsub’s crimes since the team suspected that it could be an english student.

But from your interactions you'd found them to be deeply empathetic people who respected your expertise. What surprised you most, though, was how often Hotch kept you close. A shared coffee while going over timelines. A walk around the campus while he asked about your perspective on things. At times you thought you must be imagining things. After all he never said anything personal or even remotely close to being unprofessional, but you could swear that the air between you two began to shift. 

One night, while combing through student essays you caught him watching you. You looked up from your desk, and he didn’t look away fast enough.

“What is it?” you asked, softly.

He hesitated, then gave a rare, careful smile. “Just reminiscing on the olden days.You always did stay at the library later than everyone else.”

You smiled back, “And you stayed with me.”

He laughed lightly, a sound you hadn’t heard from him in years but you’d missed all the same. “You know that people thought that there was something going on between us.”

“Could you blame them? We were pretty close back then. Practically attached at the hip”

“I guess…But we’re both straight. And I was—”

“Married,” you finished for him, the word leaving you with a bitter taste in your mouth despite all the years trying to convince yourself that you didn't care.

But his expression shifted. Something unreadable, something small and broken, flickered in his eyes. “Not anymore.”

You said nothing at first, unsure what to do with the sudden vulnerability in his voice. Then, finally, you said, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok,” he replied solemnly. “Let's just get back to the essays.”

[technofeudalism]

The Bureau of the Fiscal Service is a sleepy part of the Treasury Department. It’s also where, sources say, a 25-year-old engineer tied to [ ] as admin privileges over the code that controls Social Security payments, tax returns, and more."

[ ... ]

"Two of those sources say that Elez’s privileges include the ability not just to read but to write code on two of the most sensitive systems in the US government: The Payment Automation Manager (PAM) and Secure Payment System (SPS) at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (BFS). Housed on a top-secret mainframe, these systems control, on a granular level, government payments that in their totality amount to more than a fifth of the US economy."

[ ... ]

"“You could do anything with these privileges,” says one source with knowledge of the system, who adds that they cannot conceive of a reason that anyone would need them for purposes of simply hunting down fraudulent payments or analyzing disbursement flow."

the Bureau of the Fiscal Service is responsible for financing the national debt. get ready for these morons to inject blockchain into the nation’s banking system. tech bros so desperately want to crash the USD and switch us over to crypto and this is just another brick in the wall of that construction effort. all of this while many BRICS nations are ready to switch to a different default currency altogether. the 20's are really back, baby. Great Depression 2 Electric Boogaloo.

[mariacallous]

US Treasury Department and White House officials have repeatedly denied that technologists associated with Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) had the ability to rewrite the code of the payment system through which the vast majority of federal spending flows. WIRED reporting shows, however, that at the time these statements were made, a DOGE operative did in fact have write access. Not only that, but sources tell WIRED that at least one note was added to Treasury records indicating that he no longer had write access before senior IT staff stated it was actually rescinded.

Marko Elez, a 25-year-old DOGE technologist, was recently installed at the Treasury Department as a special government employee. One of a number of young men identified by WIRED who have little to no government experience but are currently associated with DOGE, Elez previously worked for SpaceX, Musk’s space company, and X, Musk’s social media company. Elez resigned Thursday after The Wall Street Journal inquired about his connections to “a deleted social-media account that advocated for racism and eugenics.”

As WIRED has reported, Elez was granted privileges including the ability to not just read but write code on two of the most sensitive systems in the US government: the Payment Automation Manager (PAM) and Secure Payment System (SPS) at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (BFS), an agency that according to Treasury records paid out $5.45 trillion in fiscal year 2024. Reporting from Talking Points Memo confirmed that Treasury employees were concerned that Elez had already made “extensive changes” to code within the Treasury system. The payments processed by BFS include federal tax returns, Social Security benefits, Supplemental Security Income benefits, and veteran’s pay.

Over the last week, the nuts and bolts of DOGE’s access to the Treasury has been at the center of an escalating crisis.

On January 31, David Lebryk, the most senior career civil servant in the Treasury, announced he would retire; he had been placed on administrative leave after refusing to give Musk’s DOGE team access to the federal payment system. The next morning, sources tell WIRED, Elez was granted read and write access to PAM and SPS.

On February 3, Politico reported that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Republican lawmakers in the House Financial Services Committee that Musk and DOGE didn’t have control over key Treasury systems. The same day, The New York Times reported that Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said that DOGE’s access was “read-only.”

The significance of this is that the ability to alter the code on these systems would in theory give a DOGE technologist—and, by extension, Musk, President Donald Trump, or other actors—the capability to, among other things, illegally cut off Congressionally authorized payments to specific individuals or entities. (CNN reported on Thursday that Musk associates had demanded that Treasury pause authorized payments to USAID, precipitating Lebryk’s resignation.)

On February 4, WIRED reported that Elez did, in fact, have admin access to PAM and SPS. Talking Points Memo reported later that day that Elez had “made extensive changes to the code base for these critical payment systems.” In a letter that same day that did not mention Musk or DOGE, Treasury official Jonathan Blum wrote to Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, “Currently, Treasury staff members working with Tom Krause, a Treasury employee, will have read-only to the coded data of the Fiscal Service’s payment systems.” (Krause is the top DOGE operative at Treasury and CEO of Cloud Software Group.) The letter did not say what kind of access the staff members actually had.

Sources tell WIRED that by afternoon of the next day, February 5, Elez’s access had been changed to “read-only” from both read and code-writing privileges.

That same day, a federal judge granted an order to temporarily restrict DOGE staffers from accessing and changing Treasury payment system information, following a lawsuit alleging the Treasury Department provided “Elon Musk or other individuals associated with DOGE” with access to the payment systems, and that this access violated federal privacy laws. The order specifically provided a carve-out for two individuals: Krause and Elez. At a court hearing later that day, Department of Justice lawyer Bradley Humphreys asserted that the order said their access would be “read-only.”

“It’s a distinction without a difference,” a source told WIRED. Referring specifically to the PAM, through which $4.7 trillion flowed in fiscal year 2024, they said Elez should not have had “access to this almost $5 trillion payment flow, even if it’s ‘read-only.’ None of this should be happening.”

The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Elez did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“People will be held accountable for the crimes they’re committing in this coup attempt,” Wyden tells WIRED. “I’m not letting up on my investigation of what these Musk hatchet men are up to.”

[dertaglichedan]

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday fired Pamela Hicks, the general counsel for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).

“Earlier today, I was served official notice from the Attorney General of the United States that I was being removed from my position as the Chief Counsel of ATF and my employment with the Department of Justice terminated,” Hicks said in a statement on social media confirming the news.

“I have had the privilege of serving in the federal civil service for almost 28 years, including 23 as an attorney for the Department of Justice,” Hicks continued. “Serving as ATF Chief Counsel has been the highest honor of my career and working with the people at ATF and throughout the Department has been a pleasure.”

Gun Owners of America said that Hicks “oversaw the enforcement of every Biden infringement of the Second Amendment since taking the position in 2021.”

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Michael de Adder :: @deAdder :: The Globe and Mail

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 2, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Feb 03, 2025

Billionaire Elon Musk’s team yesterday took control of the Treasury’s payment system, thus essentially gaining access to the checkbook with which the United States handles about $6 trillion annually and to all the financial information of Americans and American businesses with it. Apparently, it did not stop there.

Today Ellen Knickmeyer of the Associated Press reported that yesterday two top security officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) tried to stop people associated with Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, from accessing classified information they did not have security clearance to see. The Trump administration put the officials on leave, and the DOGE team gained access to the information.

Vittoria Elliott of Wired has identified those associated with Musk’s takeover as six “engineers who are barely out of—and in at least one case, purportedly still in—college.” They are connected either to Musk or to his long-time associate Peter Thiel, who backed J.D. Vance’s Senate run eighteen months before he became Trump’s vice presidential running mate. Their names are Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran, and they have little to no experience in government.

Public policy expert Dan Moynihan told reporter Elliott that the fact these people “are not really public officials” makes it hard for Congress to intervene. “So this feels like a hostile takeover of the machinery of governments by the richest man in the world,” he said. Law professor Nick Bednar noted that “it is very unlikely” that the engineers “have the expertise to understand either the law or the administration needs that surround these agencies.”

After Musk’s team breached the USAID computers, cybersecurity specialist Matthew Garrett posted: “Random computers being plugged into federal networks is obviously terrifying in terms of what data they're deliberately accessing, but it's also terrifying because it implies controls are being disabled—unmanaged systems should never have access to this data. Who else has access to those systems?”

USAID receives foreign policy guidance from the State Department. Intelligence agencies must now assume U.S. intelligence systems are insecure.

Musk’s response was to post: “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.” Also last night, according to Sam Stein of The Bulwark, “the majority of staff in the legislative and public affairs bureau lost access to their emails, implying they’ve been put on admin leave although this was never communicated to them.”

Congress established USAID in 1961 to bring together the many different programs that were administering foreign aid. Focusing on long-term socioeconomic development, USAID has a budget of more than $50 billion, less than 1% of the U.S. annual budget. It is one of the largest aid agencies in the world.

Musk is unelected, and it appears that DOGE has no legal authority. As political scientist Seth Masket put it in tusk: “Elon Musk is not a federal employee, nor has he been appointed by the President nor approved by the Senate to have any leadership role in government. The ‘Department of Government Efficiency,’ announced by Trump in a January 20th executive order, is not truly any sort of government department or agency, and even the executive order uses quotes in the title. It’s perfectly fine to have a marketing gimmick like this, but DOGE does not have power over established government agencies, and Musk has no role in government. It does not matter that he is an ally of the President. Musk is a private citizen taking control of established government offices. That is not efficiency; that is a coup.”

DOGE has simply taken over government systems. Musk, using President Donald Trump’s name, is personally deciding what he thinks should be cut from the U.S. government.

Today, Musk reposted a social media post from MAGA religious extremist General Mike Flynn, who resigned from his position as Trump’s national security advisor in 2017 after pleading guilty to secret conversations with a Russian agent—for which Trump pardoned him—and who publicly embraced the QAnon conspiracy theory. In today’s post, Flynn complained about “the ‘Lutheran’ faith” and, referring to federal grants provided to Lutheran Family Services and affiliated organizations, said, “this use of ‘religion’ as a money laundering operation must end.” Musk added: “The [DOGE] team is rapidly shutting down these illegal payments.”

In fact, this is money appropriated by Congress, and its payment is required by law. Republican lawmakers have pushed government subsidies and grants toward religious organizations for years, and Lutheran Social Services is one of the largest employers in South Dakota, where it operates senior living facilities.

South Dakota is the home of Senate majority leader John Thune, who has not been a strong Trump supporter, as well as Homeland Security secretary nominee Kristi Noem.

The news that DOGE has taken over U.S. government computers is not the only bombshell this weekend.

Another is that Trump has declared a trade war with the top trading partners of the United States: Mexico, Canada, and China. Although his first administration negotiated the current trade agreement between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, on Saturday Trump broke the terms of that treaty.

He slapped tariffs of 25% on goods coming from Mexico and Canada, tariffs of 10% on Canadian energy, and tariffs of 10% on goods coming from China. He said he was doing so to force Mexico and Canada to do more about undocumented migration and drug trafficking, but while precursor chemicals to make fentanyl come from China and undocumented migrants come over the southern border with Mexico, Canada accounts for only about 1% of both. Further, Trump has diverted Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents combating drug trafficking to his immigration sweeps.

As soon as he took office, Trump designated Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, and on Friday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth responded that “all options will be on the table” when a Fox News Channel host asked if the military will strike within Mexico. Today Trump was clearer: he posted on social media that without U.S. trade—which Trump somehow thinks is a “massive subsidy”—“Canada ceases to exist as a viable Country. Harsh but true! Therefore, Canada should become our Cherished 51st State. Much lower taxes, and far better military protection for the people of Canada—AND NO TARIFFS!”

Trump inherited the best economy in the world from his predecessor, President Joe Biden, but on Friday, as soon as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Trump would levy the tariffs, the stock market plunged. Trump, who during his campaign insisted that tariffs would boost the economy, today said that Americans could feel “SOME PAIN” from them. He added “BUT WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AND IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID.” Tonight, stock market futures dropped 450 points before trading opens tomorrow.

Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum wrote, “We categorically reject the White House’s slander that the Mexican government has alliances with criminal organizations, as well as any intention of meddling in our territory,” and has promised retaliatory tariffs. China noted that it has been working with the U.S. to regulate precursor chemicals since 2019 and said it would sue the U.S. before the World Trade Organization.

Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau announced more than $100 billion in retaliatory 25% tariffs and then spoke directly to Americans. Echoing what economists have said all along, Trudeau warned that tariffs would cost jobs, raise prices, and limit the precious metals necessary for U.S. security. But then he turned from economics to principles.

“As President John F. Kennedy said many years ago,” Trudeau began, “geography has made us neighbours. History has made us friends, economics has made us partners and necessity has made us allies.” He noted that “from the beaches of Normandy to the mountains of the Korean Peninsula, from the fields of Flanders to the streets of Kandahar,” Canadians “have “fought and died alongside you.”

“During the summer of 2005, when Hurricane Katrina ravaged your great city of New Orleans, or mere weeks ago when we sent water bombers to tackle the wildfires in California. During the day, the world stood still—Sept. 11, 2001—when we provided refuge to stranded passengers and planes, we were always there, standing with you, grieving with you, the American people.

“Together, we’ve built the most successful economic, military and security partnership the world has ever seen. A relationship that has been the envy of the world…. Unfortunately, the actions taken today by the White House split us apart instead of bringing us together.”

Trudeau said Canada’s response would “be far reaching and include everyday items such as American beer, wine and bourbon, fruits and fruit juices, including orange juice, along with vegetables, perfume, clothing and shoes. It’ll include major consumer products like household appliances, furniture and sports equipment, and materials like lumber and plastics, along with much, much more. He assured Canadians: “[W]e are all in this together. The Canadian government, Canadian businesses, Canadian organized labour, Canadian civil society, Canada’s premiers, and tens of millions of Canadians from coast to coast to coast are aligned and united. This is Team Canada at its best.”

Canadian provincial leaders said they were removing alcohol from Republican-dominated states, and Canadian member of parliament Charlie Angus noted that the Liquor Control Board of Ontario buys more wine by dollar value than any other organization in the world and that Canada is the number one export market for Kentucky spirits. The Liquor Control Board of Ontario has stopped all purchases of American beer, wine, and spirits, turning instead to allies and local producers. Canada’s Irving Oil, which provides heating oil to New England, has already told customers that prices will reflect the tariffs.

In a riveting piece today, in his Thinking about…, scholar of authoritarianism Timothy Snyder wrote that “[t]he people who now dominate the executive branch of the government…are acting, quite deliberately, to destroy the nation.” “Think of the federal government as a car,” he wrote. “You might have thought that the election was like getting the car serviced. Instead, when you come into the shop, the mechanics, who somehow don’t look like mechanics, tell you that they have taken the parts of your car that work and sold them and kept the money. And that this was the most efficient thing to do. And that you should thank them.”

On Friday, James E. Dennehy of the FBI’s New York field office told his staff that they are “in a battle of our own, as good people are being walked out of the F.B.I. and others are being targeted because they did their jobs in accordance with the law and F.B.I. policy.” He vowed that he, anyway, is going to “dig in.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[saywhat-politics]

The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday issued new regulations barring medical debts from American credit reports, enacting a major new consumer protection just days before President Joe Biden is set to leave office.

The rules ban credit agencies from including medical debts on consumers' credit reports and prohibit lenders from considering medical information in assessing borrowers.

Shots - Health News

The fight against medical debt is pivoting to the states after Trump's election

These rules, which the federal watchdog agency proposed in June, could be reversed after President-elect Donald Trump takes office Jan. 20. But by finalizing the regulations now, the CFPB effectively dared the incoming Trump administration and its Republican allies in Congress to undo rules that are broadly popular and could help millions of people who are burdened by medical debt.

Medical debt will soon be wiped off credit reports for millions of Americans https://one.npr.org/i/nx-s1-5251328:nx-s1-5316379-1