Deplorable:

Scores of senior career diplomats are resigning from the State Department effective at noon on Monday after receiving instructions to do so from President-elect Donald Trump’s aides, three U.S. officials familiar with the matter said.

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The forced departures, aimed at establishing a decisive break from the Biden administration, will result in an exodus of decorated veterans of the Foreign Service, including John Bass, the undersecretary for management and acting undersecretary for political affairs, and Geoff Pyatt, the assistant secretary for energy resources, said the officials, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel decisions aheSkip to end of carousel

Trump presidential transition​

End of carouseRequesting the resignations, the prerogative of any incoming administration, indicates a desire to quickly shift the tone and makeup of the State Department as Trump seeks to upend the global diplomatic chessboard after four years of President Joe Biden. Key priorities for Trump include imposing sweeping tariffs on allies and adversaries, ending the war in Ukraine, solidifying the wobbly ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and deporting millions of undocumented immigrants.


“It is entirely appropriate for the transition to seek officials who share President Trump’s vision for putting our nation and America’s working men and women first. We have a lot of failures to fix, and that requires a committed team focused on the same goals,” said a spokesperson for the transition team.
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The State Department declined to comment.
On Friday, the Trump team made clear to many of the department’s career officials serving as assistant secretaries and in other high-level positions that they would not be needed beyond Monday.
Some incoming presidents choose to keep a larger stable of career diplomats in senior roles until handpicked political appointees receive Senate confirmation. Instead, Trump has authorized the selection of more than 20 “senior bureau officials” to take over various divisions where leadership posts are being vacated this week. A number of those officials served in key roles in the State Department and the National Security Council during Trump’s first term, and some have been pulled out of retirement, officials familiar with the matter said.


The hiring of the senior bureau officials was first reported by Fox News. The departures of Bass and other key officials had not been previously reported.
Trump campaigned on dismantling what he has called the “deep state” of federal bureaucrats whom he views as lacking loyalty and undermining his agenda. He has pledged to kill workforce protections for thousands of government employees in a move expected to face significant legal challenges.
His pick for secretary of state, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), said the State Department needs to prioritize Trump’s “America First” agenda, and he vowed to make the department “relevant again.”
“What has happened over the last 20 years under multiple administrations is the influence of the State Department has declined,” Rubio said at his confirmation hearing last week. “We have to be at that table when decisions are being made, and the State Department has to be a source of creative ideas and effective implementation.”


One senior official who was asked to resign said he was willing to serve longer to help bridge the gap but underscored that this is Trump’s call to make. “We should all wish the new team success,” the official said.


A second diplomat who was asked to resign said the Trump team handled the matter professionally and made clear the request wasn’t personal.
“They want to have people in place whom they’ve worked with before who are known quantities,” the official said.
One such official is Lisa Kenna, who heads the State Department’s intelligence arm called the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Kenna worked as the executive secretary for then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. She is expected to reprise that role and serve also as acting undersecretary for political affairs. The latter job is one of the most challenging in the building, overseeing regional bureaus from Asia to Latin America to Africa to Europe. “They’re both full-time jobs,” one official said.

Kenna did not respond to a request for comment.

Deplorable:

The incoming Trump administration is preparing executive orders aimed at the federal workforce that could be implemented within days, kicking off an effort they see as essential for wresting power away from career government employees, according to four people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal conversations.


House Republican leaders are also gearing up to enact their own curbs on federal workers this spring, which could include significant cuts to employee benefits, said two other people, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect internal conversations, as well as a document circulating on Capitol Hill.
The executive actions under consideration include measures to weaken the power of federal employee unions by stripping workers of collective bargaining rights they’ve had for four decades, the people said. Trump aide Stephen Miller told GOP congressional leadership Sunday that the administration may also move quickly to undo federal diversity initiatives, according to two people familiar with a call he held, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the private talk. Miller also said the administration would order some teleworking federal workers back to the office and push to reinstate a policy to reclassify tens of thousands of career civil servants so they have fewer job protections, other people familiar with the call said.

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Trump officials have promised to scrap programs set in motion by the Biden administration devoted to advancing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and direct agencies to find efficiencies that could result in staff cuts. While the precise timing of these measures remains unclear, several people in contact with Trump transition officials said they could come in the first week of his administration.
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The efforts on Capitol Hill and in the transition represent the GOP’s first efforts to make good on Trump’s vow to rein in a federal bureaucracy that he and his allies have long derided as a “deep state” bent on disrupting his agenda.
Trump’s aides have already prepared upward of 200 executive orders on everything from tariffs to immigration, but his allies view taking on 2.3 million career civil servants as crucial to the administration’s goals.


Trump clashed repeatedly with federal workers during his first term, accusing them of resisting his policies. But he made little headway in reducing the workforce or diluting its power. Now, he and incoming officials have made clear that they want to more aggressively confront the career employees who stay on through every administration, a group they perceive as filled with liberals likely to try to block his plans. Some moves are likely to set off an immediate court challenge, including from federal labor unions.
“From day one, they need to be very clear: The president is elected by the American people, and the bureaucrats are not, and they’ll either implement what Trump wants — or they’ll be gone,” said Newt Gingrich, a Trump ally who was speaker of the House in the 1990s. Gingrich compared Trump’s move to purge the civil service with President Abraham Lincoln’s decision to force out Confederate sympathizers during the Civil War. “Trump certainly has the ability to suspend union contracts — I’m confident he has lawyers working out right now how to make that happen quickly.”
Advisers from the “Department of Government Efficiency,” an outside group led by billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, working with experts in the civil service who served at the White House in Trump’s first term, have been also working since the election to find administrative actions to reduce the size of the workforce without going through Congress, aware that they could run into opposition in the closely divided Senate.


Until late last week, attorneys planning to serve in the new administration were reviewing possible executive orders and assessing which to issue right away, and which could bring legal challenges or take time to implement. The directive known as Schedule F, for example, which Trump issued near the end of his first term to replace thousands of high-ranking civil servants with political loyalists, was quickly rescinded by President Joe Biden. Biden then issued a regulation to make it harder for Trump to revive it, likely requiring the new administration to issue a new rule if it wants to reinstate the policy. Miller told GOP leaders that Schedule F would soon be re-issued, a third person familiar with that call said.
The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
Experts on the federal workforce warn that Trump’s plans could diminish critical capabilities of the U.S. government. While Musk and Ramaswamy have claimed their ranks can be reduced with little effect on services, federal workers are often essential for safeguarding functions such as clean drinking water, air traffic, pension checks and thousands of other daily operations.

I was researching the effect of Iowa farm runoff and the huge dead zone in the Gulf of Mexi..America and found this gem updated a week ago. Floridians should also be concerned with the pollution of nitrates from the sugar cane farms.

Increasing use of nitrogen-based fertilizer over the last half-century is putting Americans' health at risk. Excess nitrate in drinking water increases the risk of cancer, birth defects and thyroid disease.

The Environmental Protection Agency limits how much nitrate can be present in drinking water: a maximum of 10 milligrams per liter. But growing research ties serious health risks to nitrate levels far below that federal limit.

The EPA has spent more than two decades urging states to contain the runoff from Midwest farms that flows into rivers, sources for drinking water, and eventually the Gulf of Mexico. There, the pollution contributes to a dead zone where fish and other wildlife can't survive.

It's a critical concern in Iowa, which has one of the highest rates of nitrate pollution in the United States. Iowa also has the second-highest cancer rate in the country. Studies have linked high nitrate levels in Iowa water to kidney, bladder, thyroid, and other cancers.

My high school classmate is moving to London.

91.2 ppg over the last 5 games.

During that period Iowa let another team set arena records for a place the was built 27 years ago.

The trend is worsening as Iowa has given up 96.5 ppg over the last two games to teams with winning percentages under 70%.

MAGA

It is great to be an Iowa Wrestling fan.

Go Hawks!

Well, part of it.

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In case you missed it, Statehouse Republicans have a mandate. The Golden Dome of Wisdom is now redder than a Tesla fire.



“Iowans have spoken, loud and clear. They demand common sense, and it is incumbent upon us to continue implementing common sense solutions,” said Senate President Amy Sinclair in her remarks on the opening day of the 2025 legislative session.


“The verdict issued by Iowans and Americans leaves no doubt about what direction they want government to take,” said Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver.




Readers, too, have been reminding me that Republicans rule, and I drool.


“Apparently (and not surprisingly), you haven't gotten the message yet about the presidential election,” a reader wrote.


“If you, a TDS liberal, have forgotten that elections have consequences, you are in for considerable heartache ahead,” he added.


Others were slightly more emphatic.





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“What a piece of s--- you must be at the core not to wake up to reality truth and facts !!!! A feel sorry for you !!! Hope you someday find a moral compass,” a reader wrote.


Can pieces of s--- even have moral compasses?


It’s true, Iowans clearly have chosen Republican governance over the last five election cycles. Voters have given Republicans historic majorities in the Iowa House and Senate. Gov. Kim Reynolds has been elected twice. I would never argue that somehow these election results are in any way ambiguous, unlike my critics.


Iowans want Republicans in charge. Case closed.


One of the spoils of victory is, apparently, ignoring the concerns of hundreds of thousands of Iowans who did not support Republicans. They won, so that means you need to shut up. Bring your views in line with the majority or remain silent. If you don’t like it, move to California.


Republicans love to rule but they don’t like to listen.


Republican leaders skipped out on a traditional pre-session forum where journalists could ask them about their agenda. Many GOP candidates skipped forums during the campaign where voters could ask about their plans. I’ve heard from Iowans who say attempts to communicate with their lawmakers leads to silence.


The governor, who once promised weekly news conferences, rarely takes questions or grants interviews. Fox News, notwithstanding.


The GOP majority calls public hearings on legislation affecting a sizable swath of Iowans to be held on weekdays in small room. They limit floor debate so it’s possible to shove bills through faster. In some cases, bills have sprung from behind the scenes to the governor’s desk with remarkable speed. Bills that couldn’t pass through the normal, public process are added as little surprises to budget bills at the end of the session.


Checks and balances have eroded. The Legislature no longer provides any meaningful oversight of the Republican-controlled Executive Branch. Political blood is thicker than law.


Did you ever think you’d hear a Republican governor brag about how government is now “centralized.” More power for the governor, less for the people.


Women who want abortion rights, public schoolteachers, trans Iowans and those of us who want to clean up our dirty water are among those who have been bulldozed by lawmakers and Reynolds’ regulators. Think tanks from out of state have more say in legislating than Iowans.


Want to turn to local government? State edicts have weakened their authority.


But the Legislature is not supposed to be a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party, governing only on behalf of its political allies. The GOP controls the agenda, but it should not ignore other voices. That governing for the common good the late Republican congressman Jim Leach often described has fallen far out of fashion.


And if Iowans oppose what’s happening at the Capitol, it’s their civic duty to weigh in. Questioning authority is a necessity, not an annoyance.


But the message from the Capitol often is, “Cry more, libs.”


Maybe there is an upside to the Republican push to make sure Iowa kids get a big dose of the Founding Fathers in social studies class.


“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny,” James Madison wrote in Federalist 47.


"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression,” Thomas Jefferson said in his second inaugural address.


John Adams often warned against the “tyranny of the majority.”


I’m not screaming “tyranny!” in a crowded Statehouse. But the founders lived with having their concerns ignored by the powers that be across the pond. Their anger over the trampling of the minority was a real and fresh wound.


So, loyal opposition, don’t shut up or go away. Continue to speak out and question legislative actions. It’s your right as a citizen. No voter mandate, no matter how clear, can take that right away.


(319) 398-8262; dorman.todd@thegazette.com

Opinion: A mandate doesn’t mean you have to shut up

Gov. Kim Reynolds delivers the annual Condition of the State address to the Iowa Legislature on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025, …

www.thegazette.com

I gotta go with South Park because it's been consistently hilarious throughout.

Wild Fork Foods has ostrich filets on sale for $48 a pound. Seems like a bargain.

I used to play SWGOH, but that became too much of a chore. These days I tend to migrate towards Solitaire while dropping the kids off at the pool. What about you? What game(s) do you play, if any, to pass the time in waiting rooms, the john, avoiding the MIL, etc.?

Good luck with that... President Musk is part of the Oligarchy

The New Republic reports:

Republicans may not know it yet, but they’re in the process of handing Steve Bannon a powerful weapon to wield in his war with Elon Musk over visas granted to high-skilled immigrants. The weapon in question, it turns out, is buried in the Laken Riley Act, the controversial bill that would mandate the detention of undocumented immigrants accused of minor nonviolent crimes.
The law would authorize state attorneys general to bring lawsuits to force presidential administrations to deny visas to any country that isn’t accepting deportees. Bannon can now enlist a right-wing state attorney general—like Ken Paxton of Texas—to bring a lawsuit designed to halt visas to, say, people from India, which supplies many high-skilled tech workers. “We’re definitely going to use it, and we’re going to get after attorneys general,” Bannon said.

Click to expand...

Read the full article.

Seems like a name invented by people who spent lots of time swearing “marijuana isn’t addictive”. And yet, the definition of this sounds an awful lot like addiction. Whatever. Smoke up, ya hippies!


CNN —
Developing cannabis use disorderis relatively common in Washington state, one of the first states to fully legalize cannabis, and can even occur in people who only use medical marijuana, according to a new study.



Many Americans wrongly believe exposure to marijuana smoke is safer than tobacco, study finds
“There’s a perception that people who are using marijuana for medical reasons have a lower risk of a cannabis use disorder,” said lead author Gwen Lapham, assistant professor at Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine in Seattle.

To have cannabis use disorder, or CUD, a person must have two or more of such symptoms as craving weed, becoming tolerant, using more than intended, using marijuana even though it causes problems in life, using it in high-risk situations, experiencing withdrawal and being unable to quit, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The main take home message of our study is that cannabis use disorder is common among primary care patients in a state with legal cannabis use,” said Lapham, who is also an assistant investigator at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute.

In addition, using both medical and recreational weed led to a more severe addiction than using medical marijuana alone, the study revealed.


“This study reports some unique, badly needed data on cannabis use in the post-legalization period, specifically, what is the extent and nature of problematic, concerning cannabis use in the general population,” said Nicholas Vozoris, assistant professor and clinician investigator in the division of respirology at the department of medicine at the University of Toronto. He was not involved in the study.

“Not all people will want or remember to report their cannabis use … therefore, this study likely underestimates the prevalence of cannabis use disorder,” he added.

Cannabis use disorder where access is legal​

The study, published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open, quizzed nearly 110,000 patients of a Kaiser Permanente integrated health system in Washington State about their attitudes towards marijuana, then asked 5,000 of those more confidential questions about their use of weed in the past year. Only those who reported cannabis use in the past 30 days, or 1,500 people, were included in the study.



Using marijuana may affect your ability to think and plan, study says
One of the key findings was how frequently people used marijuana, said Dr. Alexandre Dumais, associate clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Montreal, who was not involved in the research.

“The authors show that 38.8% of medical cannabis users, 25.2% of non-medical cannabis users and 56.1% of mixed medical/non-medical cannabis users consume the substance daily or almost daily,” Dumais said in an email.“Moreover, 39.7% of mixed users consume more than 3 times per day.”

Because frequent use is an important risk factor for the development of cannabis use disorder, “it is not surprising” to find an elevated prevalence of such symptoms, Dumais said.

“Notably, those who reported any non-medical use were at greatest risk of moderate to severe CUD … this is an interesting aspect of the study as not many authors have evaluated the prevalence according to CUD severity,” he said.

There are no current FDA-approved medications to treat cannabis use disorder, Lapham said, so behavior-based treatments or specialty addiction centers are the rule. Yet not getting treatment can have consequences.

What a leader, what a man, what a PRESIDENT!!! >

Glory Hallelujah!! No more getting hired because you lopped off your johnson!!

What's your go to?

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Market has been on a heater for 2+ years, and it is up 2% through biden’s term in 2025. I assume many here who voted for trump did so not because he’s a swell guy, but because of anticipated financial considerations. Where do we end up? A three peat of 20%+?

Jill 2024 She’s a Doctor



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Tik Tok is back online basically because Trump promised not to enforce the law that congress just passed in a bipartisan fashion.

Given that the reasoning for all of this was because it's a national security threat for China to have that information, by that logic I guess that means Trump wants to help China.

Personally I don't buy into that logic, I kind of think we could have just fixed this with a data privacy law and find it odd that we're trying to ban tik tok for doing what American companies already do. But other than my concerns about this chilling free speech, the law is the law it was passed in a bipartisan manner with the SCOTUS unanimously upholding the law. But Trump decided he's not going to enforce that law. So I guess he's on the side of Xi.

The good ole days end in a few hours boys. Thankfully the seeds are on the way, we get our eggs farm fresh, own a bidet and have access to pork and beef locally.

This was buried in another thread and thought I it would be interesting for DSM folks.

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