Wednesday, January 29, 2025


Acrid Takeover, 29th Day of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Electra): An interesting 24 hours - since my last post here yesterday, a federal judge put a hold last night on the Trump administration's freeze on all federal grant money, and then the administration announced that it was rescinding the freeze, although it was still reviewing federal programs for evidence of any "woke" activity, whatever that means.

Meanwhile, about two million federal employees, including my daughter who works for CDC, received a letter appearing to offer a buyout for their resignation, claiming they would be paid eight months salary if they left their jobs by February 6. The letter had the title, A Fork in the Road, the same title that Musk sent last year to Twitter employees as he thinned the ranks of employees there. The sincerity of the offer is not apparent, and recipients are being cautioned against replying until more is known.

Then today, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., vaccine skeptic and nut-job health conspiracy theorist, had his Senate confirmation hearing to lead the federal Department of Health and Human Resources. The questions, especially from the Democrats, were lacerating, and Kennedy showed that he didn't understand the role of the Department he was tagged to lead and was unable to distance himself from his inflammatory statements of questionable veracity (mostly outright lies) from the past. Still, despite his obvious lack of qualifications, he'll probably get confirmed, because Republicans. 

But barely noticed because of all the attention on Kennedy today, the Senate confirmed Lee Zeldin to head the EPA, where he will be oversee Trump’s directives to dismantle major environmental regulations and possibly parts of the Agency itself. The Senate voted 56-42 to confirm Zeldin, a former congressman with little experience in environmental matters. Zeldin will likely work to erase rules to fight climate change and chemical pollution, while shutting down programs designed to help poor and minority communities that are disproportionately affected by pollution. 

May providence have mercy on this beleaguered nation.

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