Week of February 17, 2025

The List, continued...

1. Remember how I said they were coming for our national parks? (Week of January 27) Well they are coming after our National Parks and our forest service (AP). Thousands of NP and FS workers with stellar work histories were fired for “performance issues” because if you are fired for “cause” you don’t get unemployment insurance or your pension. So, they are being fired without notice or severance. The cruelty of the letters is gratuitous, and for what? The cruelty brings them joy. Look no further than the chainsaw wielding Musk at CPAC and the laughing, cheering crowd (excuse me a moment, I am going to have to go vomit.)

Parks are closing or reducing hours and cancelling reservations. Seniors who bought lifetime passes are being kept out. It should be noted that The National Parks bring in $26 billion a year and cost just $3 billion. Seems this is not the place for layoffs. And by the way, have you ever gone to a National Park and said to yourself, jeeze this place is over-staffed. Why do we need so many people to make sure the park is well maintained, the bathrooms cleaned, and that it is safe to enter and explore? I’m thinking no, no one ever said that.

I guarantee you, what they are doing is setting up a situation where they can sell OUR parks, drill or log in OUR parks, and or build resorts. Resorts – at OUR National Parks. (Btw this is more Project 2025 crap) Trump fired 1000 National Park personnel and over 3,000 forest service employees.

2. Musk calls people on Medicare and Medicaid and other federal assistance programs the “parasite class” (MSN). Is your elderly mother who relies on Medicare a “parasite”? It should be noted that Musk (hookworm that he is) benefits from 25 billion in subsidies, contracts, and tax breaks.

3. Trump accuses Ukraine of starting the war. Um, now you know what I mean by “Upside-Down-Land”. RUSSIA. INVADED. UKRAINE. We all understand this right!? None of their Orwellian “alternative facts” or “fake news” accusations can change that. You can’t get this twisted. RUSSIA. INVADED. UKRAINE. RUSSIA. INVADED. UKRAINE.

4. Trump, while working closely with Putin(!) and excluding Zelenskyy (!), calls Zelenskyy a dictator, who doesn’t have elections. Okay, in NOT-Upside-Down-Land, Ukraine’s cities have been leveled and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have been killed. Elections have been impossible.

5. And in your weekly edition of, “Why is J.D. Vance such an asshole?”: “If Americans can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg, you guys (Europe) can survive a few months of Elon Musk."(The Independent, The Daily Beast), Sure. Same-same.

6. The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to allow it to fire the head of the Office of Special Counsel, which oversees government whistleblower protections and enforces certain ethics laws. (NYT, Guardian)

7. Donald Trump says if he 'saves his country,' he breaks 'no laws,' quoting Napoleon Bonaparte, also refers to himself as “King” on social media.

8. Quote from recently fired federal worker: “The thing that I can’t get over is that the actual richest man in the world directed my f%$king firing. I make $50k a year and work to keep drinking water safe. The richest man in the world decided that was an expense too great for the American taxpayer.”

9. Trump and Musk are dismantling NOAA. Project 2025, written by several former Trump staffers, has called for the agency to be “broken up and downsized”, claiming the agency is “harmful to US prosperity” for its role in climate science.

Why is NOAA important? (AI summary) NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) is important because it provides critical information about weather patterns, climate change, ocean conditions, and coastal ecosystems, enabling preparedness for severe weather events, supporting marine commerce, and protecting marine life through fisheries management and coastal restoration efforts, essentially playing a vital role in safeguarding lives and the economy by understanding and predicting changes in the atmosphere and oceans.

10. The Trump administration “doth proclaim” that all college financial aid programs, scholarships, prizes, housing, and graduation ceremonies that help Black or Latino students are now considered to be illegal. In a letter made public on Friday, the Acting Secretary of Education accuses colleges and universities of discriminating against white students.(LA Times)

11. The Trump administration's dismantling of USAID has halted work at a network of farm research laboratories at land grant universities in 13 states. (Reuters). These research stations conduct research on seed, soil, pests, equipment, and develop overseas markets for farmers. My (wonderful) Grandfather was a soil scientist at the one in Prosser, WA.

12. FAA staff fired over the weekend included personnel that worked radar, landing and navigational aid maintenance, among others. Hundreds were fired, just weeks after a fatal mid-air collision in DC killed 67 (AP, The American Project)

13. I am not making this up: Republicans have introduced legislation… to increase your bank fees. Because, sadly, banks aren’t making enough money.(Yahoo)

14. Trump and Musk claim that tens of millions of dead people are receiving SS checks (Time Mag, ABC News). This is just…dumb. Even Trump’s ne head of SS had to admit it is not happening, which doesn’t stop Trump from lying about it. Does it happen sometimes, sure. But millions of dead people are still in the database for records retention – they don’t get checks. Ask people who have lost loved ones on SS, the agency cuts off the checks immediately and if it doesn’t claws it back ASAP. Really, ask an actual funeral director about this.

15. A Trump official from OMB just announced that Trump has signed an executive order claiming that “only the President and the Attorney General can speak for what the law is.” That doesn't sound like a dictatorship at all, right? This is blatantly unconstitutional but aligns with Trumps authoritarian goals. Agencies are independent for a reason. The Federal Elections Committee for example(!), for obvious reasons.

16. More on Trump/Zelenskyy - Trump really just said Zelenskyy “shouldn’t have started” the war in Ukraine (I know I'm repeating myself, but Bloody Hell, this is why I've named this website "Conversations in Upside Down Land"). And Trump then said: "I could have made a deal for Ukraine that would have given them almost all of the land, everything, almost all of the land, and no people would have been killed, and no city would have been demolished, and not one dome would have been knocked down. But they chose not to do it that way." Ok, sure. By the way Ukraine asked to have direct negotiation several times in 2021.

17. One more thing about Ukraine (swear). Remember when Trump was impeached for extorting Ukraine ("I need you to do me a favor, though"...in exchange for military aid). Well now he is saying (Don Corleone voice) give us 50% of your mineral rights, and we will provide you with protection (leave the gun, take the cannoli). So, Zelenskyy is supposed to believe Trump is going to protect Ukraine from Russia? From Putin, who he is physically incapable of criticizing - for anything? I'm also thinking Ukraine is going to need THEIR mineral rights in order to rebuild.

18. Trump and Musk just cut funding for 9/11 survivors -- and firefighters, police, and first responders. The World Trade Center Health Program was just cut by 20% and forced to lay off staff -- and slash critical care. They apparently reversed this after a backlash. But why do this in the first place? Either their callousness is world class, or they are so reckless they didn’t know they did it – like having to rehire the nuclear officials at DOD when they’d realized what they’d done.

19. Trump and Musk have now set their sights on the U.S. gold reserves at Fort Knox, insisting on personally ensuring the gold remains intact. Trump, “We have to make sure it’s all there.” (Bloomberg News, Economic Times) Yeah, fox…hen house. According to Military Times, “The actual structure and content of the facility is known by only a few, and no one person knows all the procedures to open the vault.”

20. More Trump BS about Zelenskyy: “I mean, I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% approval rating; and where a country has been blown to smithereens.” Zelenskyy’s actual approval rating: 57%. Trump’s approval rating: 47% (39% on the economy). He just makes crap up.

21. Elon called a Danish ASTRONAUT "fully RETARDED" and an "idiot" after Andreas called him out for lying that Butch and Suni (the Boeing astronauts still on the ISS from last year) had to stay up longer for political reasons. Elon is wrong. It was never political.

22. Back to the mass, reckless, cruel, and mostly unnecessary federal firing (thanks Rod Dow) Trump’s appointed director of the Office of Management and Budget has openly stated “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected…When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains … We want to put them in trauma.” Can’t be clearer than that as the respect this administration has for the work of the federal employee." (ProPublica)

This notion among Republicans that all of the federal government is overstaffed and bloated is interesting. The population continues to grow and Rs continue to want to cut funding for essential services. But you know what? Why is it frustrating to - say - go to the DMV? IT'S BECAUSE THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH EMPLOYEES BEHIND THE COUNTER TO HELP everyone in a timely manner. Why do you have to wait so long on hold to talk with an IRS employee. My friend waited 2 hours on hold to get information on her student loans this week. This is not happening because these departments are OVER staffed. They have been lying to you about this for generations. Make government not work, so they can say, "See, government doesn't work."

23. Well crap. Apparently a DOGE staffer who goes by “Big Balls,” or 19-year-old Edward Coristine—is a former former member of online cybercriminal organization The Com and a cybersecurity worker who reportedly got fired from his job for leaking company secrets?. And According to independent journalist Jacob Silverman, Coristine is the grandson of Valery Martynov, a former KGB spy (double-agent, spied for Russia and US). The grandson of a KGB spy, fired for leaking company secrets, has access to our most sensitive information.

As an aside, Alt National Park is reporting that this story was up on many news organizations web sites but was suddenly removed. Interesting.

24. Finally, Trump is purging military leadership. Including this man: Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr. who is the 21st Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, and the principal military advisor to the President, Secretary of Defense, and National Security Council. General Brown has had nothing but a stellar career. The danger to our national security, with this move alone, is incalculable. But Trump was big mad during his first term because military leadership often (thankfully) told him “no”. We are so screwed. And what an awful thing to do to this patriot.

FYI: Here is some info on the General’s career:

As always, in the words of Thomas Jefferson in Hamilton, "So what did I miss?".