In Maine, of all places, large tracts of beautiful forest are being cleared to make ‘solar farms’ (bullshit term). Maine is the worst state in the union for this. When the free tax money is consumed and the companies fail, Mainers will pay for cleanup of the toxic solar panels destroyed by harsh winter weather. The multiple layers of bullshit on this are surreal — Anthropogenic Global Warming (rebranded as climate change), CO2 (the invisible impossible cause), government can save us hype leading to government boondoggle money and sketchy companies while misleading voters, no guarantees except probable failure and zero restitution. ABN
Talent, competence, little to no government experience, at an age when complex mathematical learning happens fast: These are the factors that will produce excellent results. These guys give me more hope than anything that DOGE will succeed and USA will benefit enormously from it. The best of all possible outcomes is DOGE, plus whatever else Trump does, creates a peaceful Second American Revolution, which remakes our beautiful nation in its own best image and seals the deal by reorganizing government in a way which prevents the grotesque levels of corruption we have been experiencing. Thomas Jefferson called for a revolution every twenty years. Maybe that’s what we will need. I’ll take what we can get. It should be possible, however, that well-programmed AI coupled with open source and procedural transparency will be able to stop massive cheating and corruption within the US government. ABN
WASHINGTON — President Trump signed an executive order Monday to create a sovereign US wealth fund — saying that TikTok may become one of its first acquisitions.
The world’s largest and wealthiest sovereign funds are owned by China and resource-rich countries like Norway and Middle Eastern emirates.
“Other countries have sovereign wealth funds, and they’re much smaller countries, and they’re not the United States,” Trump said.
“As an example, TikTok, we’re going to be doing something perhaps … and we might put that in the sovereign wealth fund, whatever we make, or if we do a partnership with very wealthy people — a lot of options, but we could put that as an example in the fund.
“We have a lot of other things that we can put in the fund.”
“We’re going to stand this thing up in the next 12 months. We are going to monetize the asset side of the US balance sheet for the American people. We are going to put the assets to work,” Bessent said.
“And I think it’s going to be very exciting. We’ve studied best practices that’s done around the world. It will be a combination of liquid assets, assets that we have in this country as we work, work to bring them out for the American people.”
Lutnick added that “the extraordinary size and scale of the US government, and the business it does with companies should create value for American citizens.”
Over the last several days, the Trump administration’s move to strip USAID of its independence and be rolled into the State Department has been well-telegraphed with leaks and reports via media outlets.
If USAID is rolled into the State Department, Marco Rubio will ensure grant scrutiny, preventing taxpayer funds from being stuffed into the coffers of the Deep State. And this will ultimately mark a historic shift in America’s role in the world.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. I hope this adage is not true on this matter, but passing it off to Rubio does not bode well. I remain optimistic, nonetheless. ABN
Just because corruption and malfeasance exists at every level, does not mean it can’t be cleaned out. Trump is well on his way to cleaning it out. I will continue to support Trump’s moves even if I sometimes do not have all the facts. As a large population of caring Americans, we need to roughly agree on major subjects and not get lost in the weeds. Trump does not have much time to effect what may amount to a peaceful 2nd American Revolution. If he succeeds, he will very beneficially affect Europe and other Western countries. He will also have a huge impact of the rest of the world. ABN
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Billionaire Elon Musk and his government efficiency team have been given access to the U.S. Treasury Department’s payment system, resolving a days-long standoff, the New York Times reported on Saturday.
Musk, who chairs the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency, has been tasked by President Donald Trump to identify fraud and waste in the government and had sought access to the system Treasury uses to dole out federal funds.
His efforts were resisted by a career Treasury official, David Lebryk, who was placed on leave this week and then retired. On Friday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave Musk’s team access, the Times reported.
The system sends out more than $6 trillion per year in payments on behalf of federal agencies and contains the personal information of millions of Americans who receive Social Security payments, tax refunds and other monies from the government.
The White House issued a memo Tuesday offering to pay federal workers who don’t want to return to the office through Sept. 30, as long as they resign by Feb. 6.
Why it matters: The action, first reported by Axios, marks an acceleration in President Trump’s already unprecedented purge of the federal workforce.
Driving the news: The Office of Personnel Management described the offer as administrative leave with pay and benefits.
More information was shared by OPM later on Tuesday online in a memo titled, “A Fork in the Road.”
State of play: Employees who wish to resign were told: “1) Select “Reply” to this email. You must reply from your government account. A reply from an account other than your .gov or .mil account will not be accepted. 2)Type the word “Resign” into the body of this reply email. Hit “Send.”
The subject line, and some of the wording, echoed an email Elon Musk sent to Twitter employees in 2022 giving them a similar ultimatum: to either leave, or stay and become “hardcore,” The Verge points out.
Musk himself appeared to acknowledge this in a post on X Tuesday evening.
Zoom in: “The government-wide email being sent today is to make sure that all federal workers are on board with the new administration’s plan to have federal employees in office and adhering to higher standards. We’re five years past COVID and just 6 percent of federal employees work full-time in office. That is unacceptable,” a senior administration official tells Axios.
The White House expects 5% to 10% of federal employees to accept the offer, which would potentially mean hundreds of thousands of people.
The administration projects the buyouts could ultimately save taxpayers up to $100 billion a year.
The offer applies to all full-time federal employees, except for military personnel, the Postal Service, and those working in immigration enforcement or national security.
American Buddhist Net 