The Collapse

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Bird flu vaccine...cancelled
RFK Jr in charge...what could possibly go wrong?
America is in the midst of a record-breaking bird flu outbreak that’s affected dozens of cattle herds along with poultry flocks nationwide. While human cases have been rare, the virus has caused deaths in the past, and experts are concerned it could become more transmissible and dangerous. Some recent developments do not bode well.
But on Wednesday, it was revealed that the Trump administration has decided to reevaluate a $590 million contract for bird flu shots the Biden administration awarded to Moderna, known for its highly successful Covid-19 shot. Moderna said last month it was gearing up for a big, final-stage trial of its new vaccine, having successfully completed an early-stage trial last year. But without funding, that trial may not happen.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now President Donald Trump’s top health official, has been a vaccine skeptic and openly criticized Covid-19 shots. In 2021, during the height of the pandemic, Kennedy called them “the deadliest vaccine ever made.” According to the US National Institutes of Health, which now answers to Kennedy, Covid vaccines saved tens of millions of lives during the pandemic.

Wall Street Journal

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Inflation up, consumer confidence plunging
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... e-february

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21 DOGE employees quit
Twenty-one United States Digital Service technology staffers just resigned today in what is being seen as a mass protest resignation against the efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), according to a federal government employee with knowledge of the resignations.

These are, according to this source, “Your most skilled people – pretty much handling the top priorities – they all just resigned. Engineers, designers, data scientists, project managers, leading work on critical projects across the government..”

These are workers who were USDS, which is the agency that became DOGE.

“It is people who don’t want to be a part of this. For this group…it is a protest. They don’t want to be a part of it.”

The Tuesday after the “Valentine’s Day firing” was the first time DOGE led the team’s staff meeting, the source said. The message was acknowledging it had been a very tough few days and meant to turn the page, the source said. But, according to the source, it “did not go over well,” which prompted people to start the conversations, “is there anything to save, what should people do.”

This source said the decision was made by a group to resign en masse today.

The Associated Press, which first reported on the resignations, said their resignation letter states: “We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services,” adding “We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE’s actions.”

[PAL]

People are supposed to email HR@opm.gov and send only important things according to Elon, not pictures of your cats, dogs, or babies. Hmm, could we clog up the works?

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Posted by someone who knows:
'You might have heard that all federal government employees were ordered to send a list to "HR" of 5 things we accomplished last week, or else get fired. Lots of controversy. Maybe you wonder why its a big deal. Here's my take on it:
1) There is no such thing as "HR". This order came from a private citizen named Elon Musk. He said on X he was going to send it, and, boom, it appeared in our inboxes. But guess what? I don't work for Elon Musk, and neither does anyone else in the federal government. If some South African billionaire wants to dictate human resource policies for the American government, then he should get elected or get appointed and confirmed. Until then, he can kick rocks.
2) In my organization, there is already a process in place to evaluate what I accomplish. I evaluate my employees, my supervisor evaluates me, and so on it goes, up the chain of command. It's the same way across the federal government. So, what possible value could there be in 3 million government employees sending in random bullet points about their accomplishments to an unknown entity that has no idea what tasks or objectives the employees have been assigned, or what their job descriptions look like? Answer: It serves no purpose. Unless, of course, the real purpose is to intimidate, frighten, and demoralize people.
3) Lastly and most importantly - who the f*** do these clowns think they are? The tone of the message is so disrespectful and belittling. Obviously, they think we don't do jack squat, and we're going to melt into jelly at the thought of having to justify our paychecks. Well, you know what? I'm proud of what I've done over the course of 20 years in public service (which includes time as a Peace Corps Volunteer, a US Army Paratrooper with three combat tours, and a Foreign Service Officer). I won't give Elon the satisfaction of responding to his message, but if you're curious, here's the kind of stuff a "deep state" bureaucrat like me in the State Department does on a daily basis:
- Provide emergency aid and comfort to American citizens victimized by terrorists.
- Help American citizens getting evacuated from countries that are descending into civil war.
- Assist American children stranded abroad get back home to their families.
- Collect up the belongings of Americans who died abroad and deliver the terrible news to their families in the most humane and decent way possible.
- Design programs to build trust between poor communities at risk for extremism and local security services, in order to prevent ISIS-affiliated groups from gaining a foothold.
- Start entrepreneurship programs so that people in developing countries have more opportunities and don't need to depend on aid or try to immigrate to the US to get a job.
- Help poor kids get scholarships to study in the United States, so that they can come back to their home countries to start businesses, bring development, and make reforms so that those countries can stop relying on assistance from the U.S.
All the above is drawn from my own personal experience - and I'm nothing special. I am surrounded everyday by more impressive colleagues with more noteworthy achievements. And all of them got into this line of work because they are patriotic citizens who believe in America as a force for good in the world and who want to make our country safer, stronger and more prosperous.
And for some reason today that marks us as lazy shitbags at best, or corrupt criminals at worst.
We're in weird times right now folks. It's perfectly normal to want the federal government to be more effective, more responsive, and less wasteful. But we can get there without dragging loyal public servants through the dirt. They deserve better.
And we should demand better of the people in charge right now.
Thank you'

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Meeting at Winthrop library cancelled. This should be put under a different category. Was replying to David about his interest in crisis planning.

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Despite the hype, DOGE hasn't found a shred of evidence
https://www.publicnotice.co/p/despite-t ... asnt-found

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Ok, here is what is going on. There is already a group formed in Winthop that are working on the very things you suggest David. Also a meeting is being planned at the Winthrop Library community space either Wed. or Thurs. eve this week from 5:30-7:30. Will keep you informed when I find out what date.
Below is a list of various email lists I am on. Also, not my wording.

Hi, all - The next demonstration of resistance to our current national crisis is scheduled for 12:00 - 1 PM this Saturday, 3/1/25. Meet at the Twisp Community Center Parking lot. Bring a sign, pass the word.
At this point, we've continued to focus upon protest demonstrations and are proceeding from week to week. We are still non-partisan as far as I know.
For those interested in additional/different activities, below is info from the Okanogan Action Coalition (OAC.) My understanding is that you do not need to be a member of OAC if you want to participate:
From Okanogan Action Coalition (OAC): "We plan to have an in-person get together next week on March 6, 5 pm at the Twisp River Tap House, back room. It will be a social get together where we can meet each other, talk about how this group can be most effective and organize some post card writing. OAC will provide hors d'oeuvres. Please rsvp to okanoganactioncoalition@gmail.com, but if you don't have a chance to rsvp, you are still welcome!"

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Office of Special Counsel finds firings by DOGE were unlawful
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/bi ... al-counsel

[mister_coffee]

Oh, Elon says he will "Primary" them.

They already tried to "Primary" Newhouse once though.

If we were going to do some "crisis planning" I'd be happy to participate. To me the first big efforts should be on building a catalog of skills people have available that might be useful. One other thing is to build neighborhood contact trees so we can keep everyone in communication when the phones or internet might not be functioning.

Both of those things are beneficial in any major disaster we might suffer.

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The question of what the future holds with Bonneville with the layoffs is still in play. A fire season without Fed'l aid, more fires, more smoke, no income from firefighters camped in the valley, no tourists seems a pretty rough road.

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Pal, try link again, it had dropped a letter. fixed.

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Right. They haven't been in session but are today according to a staffer my husband talked to. Right, what good would it do except waste our time.
On the other hand maybe we could convince him to team up with other Republicans that are more outspoken.
Oh, Elon says he will "Primary" them.

[mister_coffee]

I just don't see how Newhouse is in any position to contribute constructively. We should still call him and complain but I don't see how a rowdy town hall meeting would accomplish anything. Or for that matter a polite town hall meeting...

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As for here. We were laughed at but we formed a Y2K group in 1999 and we took an inventory of the resources in the Valley. You name it, we inventoried it. We had committees that were in charge of various things like communication, food sources, farming equipment and guns and ammunition, supply chain, grid, etc. and now firefighting resources.
Once again that kind of group needs to form. Many are still here that were involved. There are various meetings in the Valley this week and in March.
Indivisible is having a meeting March 6th, on the TwispWorks campus. I don't have the details in front of me.
So what we have here in this Valley, is community. This needs to be our focus. And the usual calls and holding the GOP feet to the fire. The other BB mentions having a town hall with Newhouse. I say good luck with that. He seems to be cowering. It would be good to have him as long as all could be respectful.

[mister_coffee]

Semafor page not found. Already! But wait Elon wants to give all taxpayers $5000. He wants to buy us. And most people will take the $5000, as they are in need of funds. So all is just hunky dory.
Canadians are not travelling to the US.

Of course we are all assuming $5000 will buy us anything worthwhile and not just a watered-down latte if we ever receive the money.

I suspect that depending on where you are the near future is going to be somewhere between modestly inconvenient and nearly apocalyptic. The problem is that which future you get probably depends a lot not just on where you live but on how the catastrophe unfolds. I mean for here we might be in for some hard times financially and personally but nobody will starve and the electricity mostly stays on and we get to still live here. On the other extreme we might all be forcibly displaced or dead.

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Semafor page not found. Already! But wait Elon wants to give all taxpayers $5000. He wants to buy us. And most people will take the $5000, as they are in need of funds. So all is just hunky dory.
Canadians are not travelling to the US.

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https://www.semafor.com/article/02/18/2 ... d-campaign


Rupert Murdoch expresses concern about loss of advertising revenue. Donald Trump says don't worry and awards Murdoch $200 million from the budget of the Department of Homeland Security in a massive ad buy, all with Murdoch, running ads that supposedly target undocumented immigrants but run in English on a channel they don't watch, and are essentially just Trump campaign ads. So outlandish, it's hard to believe.

This is what happens when budget cuts are used for political purposes.

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It's being called a 'polycrisis' which is a label for multiple crisis all arriving and interplaying with one another. The interaction of so many failures, either simultaneous or rolling out one after the other with no stop gaps is what terrifies me. The states will become all the more important, a sign that we're all on our own.

The budgets are what politicians and strategists like to focus on because it involves Congressional power plays, but for the rest of us who are concerned with the day after the political power plays grind to a halt and we have to live with the consequences...we're the ones with no safety nets funded, no messaging to tell us food in the grocery stores has salmonella, no planes overhead to help fight the wildfires, no school lunches for kids, health care cut because there's no $ from Medicare or Medicaid to pay hospitals and clinics...

We're only a couple of weeks away from the budget fight crescendo, but Musk's cuts are already telegraphing that the danger is marching towards all of us.

[mister_coffee]

We should keep in mind that we are only about a month in, and it is many months (approximately 20) before there is an election, so I'm not sure how much public opinion matters right now. At the rate things are deteriorating, it is an open question if a vote in November of 2026 would even be relevant.

What terrifies me is that some critical government function that we all depend upon might already be destroyed and it might not be possible to fix or paper over that broken function in any way that would matter. What's worse is that the people who know about it and would be able to fix it might already be fired.

Even if in the very best case the broken functions are fixable, I suspect that fixing them will cost far more than the entire DOGE effort might have "saved."

If I were to bet the first thing to break is probably some aspect of the federal payments system and that critical payments to service that national debt might be disrupted, triggering a federal default. That is a world-ending event.

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From The Hill:
"Democratic strategist James Carville suggested the Trump administration will “collapse” within 30 days as the public reacts to the sweeping actions from the executive branch.

“I believe that this administration, in less than 30 days is in the midst of a massive collapse and particularly a collapse in public opinion,” Carville said during a conversation with Mediaite’s Dan Abrams about the Trump administration’s unprecedented recent actions.

Abrams asked Carville to clarify what he meant to confirm that Carville believes the administration will crumble shortly.

“It’s collapsing right now. We’re in the midst of a collapse,” Carville replied. “This is the lowest approval, not even close, that any president has ever had at a comparable time.”

As the Trump administration moves to slash federal spending through Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), concern and shock has spread across the country. Thousands of federal workers are out of work as DOGE is examining various federal agencies, potentially gaining access to sensitive information.

It appears that some of President Trump’s closest allies are at odds. Musk and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) sent federal employees a request for them to detail what they accomplished last week but several agencies have pushed back and said they will not have their workers comply.

Carville noted that Trump has already dropped in approval ratings from one “pretty damn good poll” and believes it will be “easy pickings” in about six weeks. The mentioned poll showed Trump’s approval rating dropping from the low fifties to the upper thirties

He also noted that he doesn’t believe Republicans will be able to pass a reconciliation package to tackle the country’s debt. GOP leaders will have to go to House Democrats, who Carville said would shock the American public, over the matter.

“I think they know exactly what they’re doing and they know exactly what’s going to happen,” Carville said. “I’ve never been mistaken.”

Carville’s comments following previous ones he’s made predicting the Trump administration would collapse. He joined Fox News’s “Hannity” last week to say Democrats don’t need to be aggressive in combatting Trump because his poll numbers predict that a “collapse is already underway.”