onfocus

Federal workers across the U.S. government received an email on Saturday afternoon asking them to account for what they did in the past week — and Elon Musk says they will be fired if they don't respond.

Federal workers don’t deserve this bullying and disrespect. At some point Republicans are going to find there aren’t enough sycophants or party loyalists to do the things they want to do.

Update (2/25): AP: Federal technology staffers resign rather than help Musk and DOGE

They warn that dismantling the behind-the-scenes scientific research programs that backstop American life could lead to long-lasting, perhaps irreparable damage to everything from the quality of health care to the public’s access to next-generation consumer technologies. The US took nearly a century to craft its rich scientific ecosystem; if the unraveling that has taken place over the past month continues, Americans will feel the effects for decades to come.

It's almost as if Republicans are trying to stop the American people. After all, their job has shifted from making their constituents happy to making a handful of billionaires happy. And those billionaires seem to feel like they'd be better off without the American people dragging them down.

“I’m in close contact with the CDC. They have about what, 13,000 employees, 13,000 employees at the CDC. In the last couple years, those probationary people, which is about 10% of their employee base, about 1,300 people, which you’re referring to. A lot of the work they do is duplicitous with AI,” McCormick said. The mention of AI led to “no’s” and murmurs from the crowd, leading the Republican representative to say, “I happen to be a doctor. I know a few things.”

AI’s primary use right now is devaluing workers. Sounds like even Republican constituents have had enough of the AI snake oil.

A lot of us know by now that Substack has a Nazi problem. It not only profits from fascist voices, it actively promotes their work and recruits them. And it's funded by Silicon Valley anti-democracy billionaires like Marc Andreesen — the same type of people who are, right now, raiding the US government to basically cut funding for social services and scientific research, and to steal money for themselves.

Every day I see more and more people starting their indie left-leaning journalism venture on Substack. Cut that out! They're taking your money and paying fascists to post. The slight boost you might see in list-building is not worth the trade-off of supporting their ideological project that is at odds with your values.

It’s one thing to be reminded that “elections have consequences,” but quite another to insist that the best response to the abuse of authority is to be restrained, demure, neutral.

Defending democracy takes work. Silence subverts the mission of education.

The last portion of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker's 2025 State of the State and budget address included Pritzker invoking Nazis when criticizing President Donald Trump.

This is what defending our liberty really looks like. Don't fall for the scam of blaming our friends and neighbors for our problems.

The operational emphasis on Signal from multiple threat actors in recent months serves as an important warning for the growing threat to secure messaging applications that is certain to intensify in the near-term.

Secure messaging apps under fire. Good to see the methods involved in gaining access to be aware of them.

The President of the United States is aligning himself with the dictator of Russia, Vladimir Putin, to undermine the independence of Ukraine and its democracy.

The US Republican party is betraying our longtime allies and siding with the forces of oppression around the world. I don't think people voted for this.

I really like this text-only version of the NPR news site. I understand why more sites don't do this, but they should. I normally don't go to any NPR sites, but I do visit this page fairly often to scan the headlines. See also: CNN Lite, CBC Lite

"Although several positions supporting [bird flu efforts] were notified of their terminations over the weekend, we are working to swiftly rectify the situation and rescind those letters," a USDA spokesperson said in a statement. "USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service frontline positions are considered public safety positions, and we are continuing to hire the workforce necessary to ensure the safety and adequate supply of food to fulfill our statutory mission."

[clown emoji]

Four out of 10 Americans have shifted their spending over the last few months to align with their moral views, according to the Harris poll.

I am one of those four. I haven’t made any Amazon purchases in 2025 and canceled Prime.

“A lot of these diversity programs and multicultural centers on campuses were founded as retention tools to help students who had been shut out of higher education in some of these institutions for centuries,” Harris said. “To penalize institutions for taking those steps to help students, that is actually very much an echo of the segregation era.”

Not even trying to hide their racism.