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“They Are Covering Immense Fraud”: Musk Says Surprise Fed Emails Meant To Uncover ‘Non-Existent Or Dead People’ Collecting Paychecks

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“They Are Covering Immense Fraud”: Musk Says Surprise Fed Emails Meant To Uncover ‘Non-Existent Or Dead People’ Collecting Paychecks

Update (1118ET): After panic swept through Washington over Elon Musk’s email requiring all federal employees to send an email by Monday at midnight with five bullet points explaining what they got done last week, Musk explained the reasoning behind the last minute demand: “immense fraud.”

“The reason this matters is that a significant number of people who are supposed to be working for the government are doing so little work that they are not checking their email at all!” Musk wrote on X. “In some cases, we believe non-existent people or the identities of dead people are being used to collect paychecks. In other words, there is outright fraud.”

Musk then said that the email is “a very basic pulse check,” adding in a subsequent post “They are covering immense fraud.“

*  *  *

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Update (2356ET): Panic has predictably ensued over Elon Musk’s requirement that all federal employees provide a five bullet point summary of what they accomplished last week, due by midnight on Monday (full details below).

 

While newly minted FBI Director Kash Patel exempted agency employees from the requirement (with much of the intelligence community reportedly set to get the same pass), there’s a lot of upset feds out there.

Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) lashed out, posting to X, “This is the ultimate dick boss move from Musk – except he isn’t even the boss, he’s just a dick.” (she said on the heels of a coordinated campaign to brand him ‘Co-President Musk’)

To which Musk replied, “What did you accomplish this week?”

The Rapid Response team, which posts daily information about the Trump agenda, was happy to oblige.

Stay tuned for more…

* * *

Update (2308ET): New FBI Director Kash Patel sent an email to all agency employees on Saturday night instructing them to “pause any responses” to Elon Musk’s request that all federal employees provide summaries of their accomplishments over the past week or face termination.

“The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes, and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures,” reads the note from Patel. “When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses.“

Meanwhile, at least one federal employee apparently don’t have time to answer the email – but did have time to complain to a MSM reporter about having to do it.

*  *  *

Elon Musk is ‘running the Twitter playbook on the government,’ after writing in a Saturday post on X that all federal employees will be receiving an email “shortly” requesting to “understand what they got done last week.”

Those who fail to reply “will be taken as a resignation.”

And there it is (though no mention of the implied resignations for failure to respond):

When X user ‘The Rabbit Hole’ commented that Musk is “running the Twitter playbook on the government,” Musk replied: “It works.“

The post came hours after President Donald Trump encouraged Musk to “get more aggressive” with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), adding “REMEMBER, WE HAVE A COUNTRY TO SAVE.“

Musk’s email comes after roughly 77,000 federal employees accepted DOGE’s “Fork in the Road” email offering roughly 8 months of pay in exchange for resigning. After that, DOGE moved to fire thousands of employees across various agencies – mostly those in a probationary period who have been in their jobs for less than one year.

It also comes after the Trump administration scored a legal victory when a judge allowed Musk and crew to continue accessing federal data and arranging for mass layoffs.

Last week, Trump signed an executive order directing agencies to work with DOGE to make “preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force.”

*  *  *

 

Tyler Durden
Sun, 02/23/2025 – 11:18

MSNBC Cancels Far-Left-Crazed Host Joy Reid As Woke Implosion Accelerates 

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MSNBC Cancels Far-Left-Crazed Host Joy Reid As Woke Implosion Accelerates 

A major shake-up is underway at MSNBC as the network’s new president has canceled far-left prime-time host Joy Reid’s show, “The ReidOut,” multiple sources familiar with the changes confirmed to The New York Times.

Reid’s final episode is planned for sometime this week, according to sources, adding that her prime-time spot will be swapped out with several anchors, including political commentator Symone Sanders Townsend, former Democratic strategist and former chairman of the Republican National Committee Michael Steele, and journalist Alicia Menendez. 

The move signals Rebecca Kutler’s effort to overhaul MSNBC after being named the network’s president earlier this month. Ratings have plummeted since Trump secured the White House in last November’s presidential election. Many hosts, including Reid, have been visibly struggling with severe cases of “TDS.”

“Joy Reid’s show getting canceled is devastating news for the left. Now where will they go for their daily dose of race-baiting lies and far-left conspiracy theories?!” journalist Breanna Morello wrote on X. 

The crazed TV host has been one of the loudest Trump bashers in corporate media and still does not have enough common sense to understand the Overton Window shifted last summer from artificially being held at the left to now center-right. 

Yet, to this day, she continues to spread far-left misinformation and disinformation propaganda, even as ratings plummet—not just for her show, but for the entire network.

Nielsen Media Research data shows that viewership for the ReidOut show has crashed 50% since Trump won the election. 

The latest cable news ratings as of Feb. 20 show that MSNBC was ahead of CNN but well behind Fox News in the prime-time news race. 

Here’s some of the looney batshit crazy toxic propaganda the woke host (soon to be unemployed) pushed to the American people:

And it gets worse:

Oh – and remember when this happened?

Back to Kutler, a former senior executive at CNN, who has made it very clear that MSNBC faces severe headwinds in the Trump era. 

“Our jobs are hard on a normal day, and these are not normal times,” Kutler told MSNBC employees on her first day. This comes as the dying network is being spun off by cable giant Comcast, NBCUniversal’s parent company.

More shake-ups at MSNBC are ahead. NYT explained: 

Other major changes are expected at MSNBC. In January, Rachel Maddow, the network’s best-known anchor, returned to hosting her 9 p.m. show five days a week during the first 100 days of the Trump administration after having scaled back to only Mondays. At the time, the network said that Alex Wagner, who had hosted the 9 p.m. show four days a week, would return at the end of April.

That is no longer the case. Instead, MSNBC is planning to appoint a new anchor to fill Ms. Wagner’s spot, the two people said. A likely candidate for that hour is Jen Psaki, a former White House press secretary in the Biden administration, who hosts shows on Sunday at noon and 8 p.m. on Mondays, the people said, though adding that this decision hadn’t been finalized.

This comes as dying corporate media has spent the last 15 years pushing an info war of a woke agenda on the American people to divide the nation instead of actually reporting the news. The result has been not only a collapse in public trust but also a sharp decline in ratings.

Not even the government’s censorship blob could keep leftist corporate media alive, as alternative news media is set to flourish in an era under Trump’s executive order called “Restoring Freedom Speech and Ending Federal Censorship.”

*  *  *

You can support ZeroHedge by purchasing one of these high-quality, sharp, kickass ZeroHedge Multitools which comes with belt pouch. On sale until Monday!

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Tyler Durden
Sun, 02/23/2025 – 11:05

Trump Admin Goes To War With Zelensky & Europe In UN Resolution Showdown

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Trump Admin Goes To War With Zelensky & Europe In UN Resolution Showdown

As the war of words between the Trump and Zelensky administrations has grown, so has a diplomatic war and rift at the United Nations in New York. It has resulted in a crisis which may result in deadlock over a planned statement commemorating the Ukraine war’s three-year mark.

The United States is seeking to stymie a draft resolution Ukraine prepared to bring before the UN Security Council and General Assembly. The Ukraine resolution has support from European nations, which is intended to call out three years since the Russian invasion, and condemn Moscow.

The Ukrainian proposed text blames Russia for starting the war and calls for its swift end. “In a note to capitals, seen by The Wall Street Journal, U.S. diplomats told European counterparts over the past day that Washington would oppose the Ukrainian resolution if it advances and pressed the Europeans to persuade Kyiv to withdraw its text,” WSJ writes.

A Saturday statement on X by Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha blasted efforts to alter any resolution in a way that deflects blame from Russia. “The root causes of this war are Putin’s denial of Ukraine’s right to exist and his wish to destroy our nation,” he posted. “This is why Russia started this war, commits atrocities, and tries to change borders by force.”

The chief complaint is that the US version makes no reference to who started it.

The Trump administration is reportedly mulling a change proposed by Russia, which is a permanent member of the security council, and this has set off fierce diplomatic conflict, per Reuters:

The U.S. text mourns the loss of life during the “Russia-Ukraine conflict” and reiterates “that the principal purpose of the United Nations is to maintain international peace and security and to peacefully settle disputes.”

It also “implores a swift end to the conflict and further urges a lasting peace between Ukraine and Russia.”

Russia has proposed an amendment to that line – to be voted on by the General Assembly – so it reads “implores a swift end to the conflict, including by addressing its root causes, and further urges a lasting peace between Ukraine and Russia.”

For Russia, key among the root causes is NATO expansion and Western efforts to militarize Ukraine, as well as Kiev’s anti-Russia actions in the predominantly speaking Donbass region.

The WSJ underscores that in Trump playing nice with Russia, “The clash pits the U.S. and Russia on one side against Ukraine and Europe on the other, in the most dramatic display of trans-Atlantic tensions in years.”

Apparently the US side isn’t budging even if the face of strong European push-back and pressure:

The diplomats said the U.S. on Friday asked Ukrainian officials to withdraw their resolution. Ukraine refused. Meanwhile, British and French officials asked Washington to amend its draft. The U.S. said it wouldn’t, the diplomats said. 

And the Trump administration is not going to back down, to be sure, as has been evident within only the first month of the Republican president returning to office.

In siding with the Moscow-proposed change to the resolution, the US side is being accused by Europe and Ukraine as essentially caving to Russian demands. “We urge all U.N. member states to join the United States in this solemn pursuit,” Rubio has said of efforts to quickly negotiate peace.

Ukraine’s FM Sybiha has meanwhile stated that in conversions with Rubio and American diplomats, “I stressed that Russian responsibility for the war cannot be put into question.”

* * *

Below is a full statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio stating that The UN Must Act to Bring Peace to Europe:

“President Trump is committed to ending the Russia-Ukraine war and to a resolution that leads to a lasting peace, not just a temporary pause. This Monday, February 24, will mark three years of the Russia-Ukraine war.  This war has now dragged on for far too long, and at far too terrible a cost to Ukraine and Russia.

The United States has proposed a simple, historic resolution in the United Nations that we urge all member states to support in order to chart a path to peace.  This resolution is consistent with President Trump’s view that the UN must return to its founding purpose, as enshrined in the UN Charter, to maintain international peace and security, including through the peaceful settlement of disputes.  If the United Nations is truly committed to its original purpose, we must acknowledge that while challenges may arise, the goal of lasting peace remains achievable.  Through support of this resolution, we affirm that this conflict is awful, that the UN can help end it, and that peace is possible.

We strongly believe that this is the moment to commit to ending the war. This is our opportunity to build real momentum toward peace.  We urge all UN member states to join the United States in this solemn pursuit.”

Tyler Durden
Sun, 02/23/2025 – 08:45

Commercial Flights Diverted After CCP Warships Begin Surprise Live-Fire Exercise Near Australia

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Commercial Flights Diverted After CCP Warships Begin Surprise Live-Fire Exercise Near Australia

Authored by Rex Widerstrom and Daniel Y. Teng via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Commercial flight paths between Australia and New Zealand have been disrupted after Chinese warships began preparing to fire live ammunition as part of an apparent military exercise.

Chinese People’s Liberation Army-Navy Jiangkai-class frigate, Hengyang, sailing within Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone, provided on Feb. 11, 2025. Courtesy of the Australian Department of Defence

The three People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) vessels have traversed the Australian coastline for the past week with no indication of their motives, and came within 150 nautical miles (277 kilometres on land) of Sydney on Feb. 19.

Several flight have been re-routed, including Qantas and Emirates aircraft, following advice that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) warships had been “live firing in international waters” on Feb. 21.

“As a precaution, we have advised airlines with flights planned in the area,” an Airservices Australia spokesperson said.

“We are also working together to coordinate advice to operators and pilots.”

Australian and New Zealand Defence Forces have been tracking the flotilla since last week.

The weapons firing is understood to be taking place 346 nautical miles (640 kilometres) off Eden, south of Sydney in New South Wales, according to a Defence Department spokesperson.

In a statement, Air New Zealand said it “has modified flight paths as needed to avoid the area, with no impact on our operations.”

Qantas and its subsidiary Jetstar told RNZ they are working with the Australian government to monitor the situation.

The small fleet called Task Group 107, includes the heavily armed Renhai-class cruiser (named Zunyi), a Jiangkai-class frigate (Hengyang), and the Fuchi-class replenishment vessel Weishanhu.

The type 055 guide missile destroyer (Renhai-class), Nanchang, of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy participates in a naval parade in the sea near Qingdao, in eastern China’s Shandong province on April 23, 2019. Mark Schiefelbein/AFP via Getty Images

Australia’s Defence Department Not Officially Notified

The Australian Defence Department said it was not notified of the Chinese fleet’s intent to conduct the activity, and that the only notice came via a verbal radio broadcast to civilian aircraft.

“The process undertaken by the PLAN to inform of the live fire activity was conducted in accordance with applicable international law conventions,” a Defence spokesperson told The Epoch Times.

“However, to minimise disruption to aircraft and vessels, best practice is the establishment of Notice to Airmen or Notice to Mariners [a formal notice to a local authority about potential hazards], which the Australian Defence Force would typically release 24 to 48 hours prior to a live firing activity on the high seas.

“Defence is not aware of a Notice to Airmen or Notice to Mariners for this activity having been submitted or requested by the PLAN.”

Defence said despite moving into firing formation, no weapons were seen or heard to be fired, and the floating firing target was later recovered.

“Defence will continue to monitor the [PLAN] Task Group while it remains in the vicinity of Australia’s maritime approaches.”

Australian Foreign Minister to Discuss With CCP Counterpart

Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong told the ABC that the events would be discussed with Beijing.

“We already have at official level in relation to the notice given and the transparency provided in relation to these exercises, particularly the live fire exercises,” she said.

“Obviously, this is an evolving situation, but it would be normal practice where a task group is engaging in exercises for there to be advice given to vessels and aircraft in the area, and Airservices Australia is doing what it should do, which is to give that advice.

“We are aware of this task group, we are monitoring this task group very closely. It is, as I understand it, operating in international waters.”

Senator Wong is expected to meet with CCP Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Feb. 21, for a scheduled meeting on the sidelines of the G20.

Royal Australian Navy sailors on HMAS Arunta keeping watch on People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLA-N) Fuchi-class replenishment vessel, Weishanhu, and Jiangkai-class frigate, Hengyang, in the Tasman Sea. Courtesy of the Australian Department of Defence

Calls for More Direct Action Against Beijing

Lincoln Parker, former chair of the Liberal Party’s Defence and National Security Policy Branch, called for stronger action.

“Chinese warships brazenly conducting live-fire exercises off Australia’s coast—right between us and New Zealand— forcing flight diversions, is nothing short of incendiary, dangerous, and unacceptable,” he told The Epoch Times.

“China has attacked Australian Navy divers, our planes, and now is firing live ordnance in our waters! What’s next?”

The shadow defence spokesman, Andrew Hastie, said the Labor government needed to be more direct with the CCP leadership.

“The Chinese government has built a blue-water navy to project power into the Pacific region. They are now using gunboat diplomacy to test US allies like Australia,” he said in a statement.

“This latest provocation by the Chinese navy comes after continued weakness from the prime minister.

“Our Australian Defence Force personnel on routine lawful patrols in the region have been targeted by the People’s Liberation Army with dangerous and provocative manoeuvres with flares, chaff, and sonar.”

*  *  *

Speaking of Australians and weapons and whatnot… THIS is a knife…

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Tyler Durden
Sun, 02/23/2025 – 08:10

US Border Czar: “We’re Going To Wipe Drug Cartels Off The Face Of Earth”

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US Border Czar: “We’re Going To Wipe Drug Cartels Off The Face Of Earth”

US Border Czar Tom Homan told Fox News’ Jesse Watters that President Donald Trump intends to dismantle the command and control centers of Mexican drug cartels, vowing to “put them out of business” and “wipe them off the face of the Earth.” These are strong words against cartels that have fueled a drug overdose crisis responsible for the deaths of 100,000 Americans each year.

Watters asked Homan how cartels have adapted in the last 30 days since Trump’s ‘America First’ border policies of placing the military by the thousands on the southern border… 

Homan responded: “Look, they’re going maritime. We knew they would. That’s why Coast Guard patrols increased by three times. So we’re going to shut them down maritime too.”

“We’re going to put them out of business. President Trump does not mess around with criminal terror organizations. These cartels have killed more Americans than every terror organization combined,” the official said. 

He continued: “President Trump will end up wiping the cartels off the face of the Earth – putting them out of business. If you put them out of business – you take their money away – they can’t buy or bribe Mexican officials. Without money, they have no power. 

“We’re not just going to attack in Mexico, the Jalisco cartel. We’re going to attack them in the 43 countries they have operations currently. We’re going to attack them worldwide,” the border emphasized. 

Watters ended with, “That’s a bold statement.” … 

Catching up with the latest ‘America First’ headlines on the border crisis:

Readers should understand that the disrupt-and-dismantle strategy is broad, targeting not only Mexican cartels but also transnational criminal organizations spanning from Canada to China.

This is what ‘America First’ looks like. It’s time to stop the drug death overdose crisis in America that kills 100,000 per year. 

We must caution that the fight against cartels could get messy, considering the Biden-Harris regime intentionally flooded the nation with thousands of Tren de Aragua terrorists.  

Tyler Durden
Sun, 02/23/2025 – 07:35

Trump Is Unlikely To Pull All US Troops Out Of Central Europe Or Abandon NATO’s Article 5

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Trump Is Unlikely To Pull All US Troops Out Of Central Europe Or Abandon NATO’s Article 5

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

Germany’s Bild cited unnamed members of Western security services to sensationally report that Trump is allegedly planning to pull all US troops out of Central Europe in compliance with one of the security guarantee requests that Putin put forth in December 2021 as an attempt to avert the special operation. 

Friedrich Merz, the frontrunner to become Germany’s next Chancellor, shortly thereafter publicly declared that his country must prepare for the possibility that Trump abandons NATO’s Article 5.

He’s unlikely to do either of these things, but American policy towards NATO will certainly change in the coming future, which will likely take the form of what was detailed in the policy brief that was published at the Trump-affiliated Center for Renewing America in February 2023.

Titled “Pivoting the US Away from Europe to a Dormant NATO”, it describes how the US can get the EU to defend Europe while the US focuses on containing China in Asia and was analyzed here last July, which readers should review.

This goal explains why Trump is demanding that all NATO allies spend 5% of GDP on defense and accounts for the nascent Russian-US “New Détente”. Brokering an armistice or peace deal between Russia and Ukraine is meant to free up some of the US’ forces in Central Europe, which includes Germany, for redeployment to Asia. Forcing the Europeans to accept what had practically been their worst nightmare for the past three years should then motivate them to increase defense spending.

New US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth praised Poland as “the model ally on the continent” during his trip to Warsaw earlier this month and Trump sought to make Poland the US’ top ally there during his first term so he probably won’t pull out of there. In fact, “Poland Is Once Again Poised To Become The US’ Top Partner In Europe” for the reasons explained in the preceding hyperlinked analysis, which boil down to restoring its historical geopolitical role as a wedge between Germany and Russia.

The Baltics might not fare the same though since they have nowhere near the same regional significance as Poland does and they could try to provoke a war with Russia in order to drag the US in via NATO. Accordingly, Trump might calculate that it’s better to withdraw some or even all American troops from there while conveying to them that the US won’t come to their aid if they instigate a regional conflict, which could be expressed either behind the scenes or through one of his characteristic pronouncements.

The newfound US-German political tensions could even possibly see the US redeploy some troops from there to Poland, which in the most extreme scenario could result in transferring the headquarters of its European Command from Stuttgart to some Polish city, though it’s too early to say for certain. After all, something as serious as the second-mentioned requires a lot of work, and Trump might also wager that it’s better to keep the headquarters where they’re at in order to not lose more influence in Germany.

In any case, redeploying US troops from Europe to Asia would likely please Russia even if some are transferred from Germany to Poland, especially if Trump makes it clear that NATO members can’t provoke a conflict with Russia and expect America to ride to their rescue via Article 5. Retaining some troops in Europe alongside the integrity of Article 5 amidst the aforesaid conditions could be a pragmatic compromise between the US and Russia’s security interests.

The purpose would be to alleviate their security dilemma that was worsened by NATO’s eastward expansion after the end of the Old Cold War all while maintaining some American military influence on the continent as the US “Pivots (back) to Asia” to more muscularly contain China. The era of Europe freeloading off of the US and its liberal-globalists manipulating it into doing their geopolitical bidding against Russia would end to the benefit of peace-loving people and businessmen on all three sides.

Tyler Durden
Sun, 02/23/2025 – 07:00

Panic Ensues, Dem Senator Lahes Out At ‘Dick Boss’ Musk Over Email Requiring Feds Explain Work

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Panic Ensues, Dem Senator Lahes Out At ‘Dick Boss’ Musk Over Email Requiring Feds Explain Work

Update (2356ET): Panic has predictably ensued over Elon Musk’s requirement that all federal employees provide a five bullet point summary of what they accomplished last week, due by midnight on Monday (full details below).

While newly minted FBI Director Kash Patel exempted agency employees from the requirement (with much of the intelligence community reportedly set to get the same pass), there’s a lot of upset feds out there.

Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) lashed out, posting to X, “This is the ultimate dick boss move from Musk – except he isn’t even the boss, he’s just a dick.” (she said on the heels of a coordinated campaign to brand him ‘Co-President Musk’)

To which the White House Rapid Response team replied, “What did you accomplish this week, Tina? Five bullets, please,” and Musk replied with a fire and ‘crying while laughing’ emojis.

The Rapid Response team, which posts daily information about the Trump agenda, was happy to oblige.

Stay tuned for more…

*  *  *

You can support ZeroHedge by purchasing one of these high-quality, sharp, kickass ZeroHedge Multitools which comes with belt pouch. On sale until Monday!

Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back.

* * *

Update (2308ET): New FBI Director Kash Patel sent an email to all agency employees on Saturday night instructing them to “pause any responses” to Elon Musk’s request that all federal employees provide summaries of their accomplishments over the past week or face termination.

“The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes, and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures,” reads the note from Patel. “When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses.“

Meanwhile, at least one federal employee apparently don’t have time to answer the email – but did have time to complain to a MSM reporter about having to do it.

*  *  *

Elon Musk is ‘running the Twitter playbook on the government,’ after writing in a Saturday post on X that all federal employees will be receiving an email “shortly” requesting to “understand what they got done last week.”

Those who fail to reply “will be taken as a resignation.”

And there it is (though no mention of the implied resignations for failure to respond):

When X user ‘The Rabbit Hole’ commented that Musk is “running the Twitter playbook on the government,” Musk replied: “It works.“

The post came hours after President Donald Trump encouraged Musk to “get more aggressive” with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), adding “REMEMBER, WE HAVE A COUNTRY TO SAVE.“

Musk’s email comes after roughly 77,000 federal employees accepted DOGE’s “Fork in the Road” email offering roughly 8 months of pay in exchange for resigning. After that, DOGE moved to fire thousands of employees across various agencies – mostly those in a probationary period who have been in their jobs for less than one year.

It also comes after the Trump administration scored a legal victory when a judge allowed Musk and crew to continue accessing federal data and arranging for mass layoffs.

Last week, Trump signed an executive order directing agencies to work with DOGE to make “preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force.”

*  *  *

 

Tyler Durden
Sat, 02/22/2025 – 23:57

Bovard: Can Kennedy Save Kids From Psychiatric Ravage?

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Bovard: Can Kennedy Save Kids From Psychiatric Ravage?

Submitted by Jim Bovard

President Trump issued an executive order last week creating a Make America Healthy Again Commission, to be chaired by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Among other targets, the commission will examine “prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors [SSRIs], antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, stimulants, and weight-loss drugs.”

Kennedy has been outspoken on the danger of SSRIs, linking them to school shootings and stating that members of his family “had a much worse time getting off of SSRIs than they have getting off of heroin.”

Kennedy’s views mortify the mainstream media. The Washington Post did a hefty piece portraying Kennedy’s commission as more dangerous than any drugs prescribed to children. To discover the absolute truth, the Post turned to the CEO of the American Psychiatric Association, who assured the Post that “psychiatric drugs can be very effective and generally are given to children carefully after front-line treatments such as talk therapy.”

Decades ago, who would have expected an apology for Adderall, Prozac, Zoloft, and similar drugs to sound like a pitch for Kellogg’s breakfast cereals? Prescription drug use is skyrocketing. Antidepressant prescriptions for young Americans aged 12 to 25 increased by 66% between 2016 and 2022.

The New York Times reported last year that many young people were left worse off thanks to “mental health interventions.” The Times showcased psychiatric “prevalence inflation” – a vast increase in reported mental illness among teenagers who are encouraged to view normal feelings as grave maladies requiring intervention. Oxford University psychologist Lucy Foulkes observed that school programs are “creating this message that teenagers are vulnerable, they’re likely to have problems, and the solution is to outsource them to a professional.” 

Foulkes explained that “awareness efforts” spur young people “to interpret and report milder forms of distress as mental health problems.” Filing such complaints “leads some individuals to experience a genuine increase in symptoms, because labeling distress as a mental health problem can affect an individual’s self-concept and behavior in a way that is ultimately self-fulfilling.”

Like a New Yorker cartoon from the 1950s, psychiatric diagnoses have become status symbols, propelled by snake oil “social-emotional learning” programs. University of Southern California clinical psychologist Darby Saxbe warns that mental illness labels have “become an identity marker that makes people feel special and unique. That’s a big problem because this modern idea that anxiety is an identity gives people a fixed mindset, telling them this is who they are and will be in the future.” Psychiatric labels can become a ball-and-chain that people drag behind them. Endless classroom presentations on mental health spur “co-rumination” – excessively talking about one’s problems – which evokes memories of first dates from hell.

Hungarian-American psychiatrist Thomas Szasz warned in the last century, “Psychiatrists manufacture mental diagnoses the way the Vatican manufactures saints.” But protests by Szasz and other dissident shrinks did nothing to prevent a sham stampede.

The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) now lists more than 300 mental illnesses, five times as many as it specified in the 1960s. Dr. Allen Frances, writing in Psychology Today, warned that the latest DSM contained “many changes that seem clearly unsafe and scientifically unsound” and is “likely to lead to massive over-diagnosis and harmful over-medication.”

After the DSM redefined autism in the 1990s, the autism rate “quickly multiplied almost 100 fold.” Thanks to another DSM redefinition, the “number of American children and adolescents treated for bipolar disorder increased 40-fold” between 1993 and 2004, the New York Times reported. Psychiatrist Laurent Mottron complained in 2023 that the latest version of the DSM “is full of vague and trivial definitions and ambiguous language that ensures more people fall into various, abnormal categories.”

The DSM provides a road map for federal law. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compels schools and universities to provide “reasonable accommodation” to students who claim to have a disability, physical or mental. Even before the pandemic, up to 25% of students at top colleges were “classified as disabled, largely because of mental-health issues such as depression or anxiety, entitling them to a widening array of special accommodations like longer time to take exams,” the Wall Street Journal reported in 2018. Similar string-pulling occurs for the rigorous entrance exams for New York City’s elite high schools, where “white students…are 10 times as likely as Asian students to have a [disability] designation that allows extra time,” the New York Times reported.

Between 2008 and 2019, the number of undergraduate students diagnosed with anxiety increased by 134%, 106% for depression, 57% for bipolar disorder, 72% for ADHD, 67% for schizophrenia, and 100% for anorexia, according to the National College Health Assessment. Students’ struggles skyrocketed after Covid shutdowns. A Boston University analysis of students on almost 400 campuses in 2022 found that “60% of the respondents met the qualifying criteria for ‘one or more mental health problems, a nearly 50% increase from 2013.’” But awarding endless psychiatric Purple Hearts will do nothing to help college graduates adjust to the challenges of life beyond the classroom.

I recognized that the DSM was becoming unhinged after attending the 1986 annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in Washington. Here are some riffs from a Detroit News op-ed I wrote at that time:

The APA served attendees a batch of freshly-ordained mental illnesses, including “premenstrual dysphoric disorder.” The APA says symptoms of this “mental illness” include “irritability,” “marked fatigue,” and “negative evaluation of self.” According to the APA’s definition, a third of all women go crazy once a month.

The second newly ordained mental illness is “self-defeating personality type,” previously known as common or garden-variety masochism. The symptoms for this grade disorder include, “complaints, directly or indirectly, about being unappreciated,” “repeatedly turns down opportunities for pleasure,” and “remains in relationships in which others… take advantage of him or her.” Bring on the Valium!

The third “discovery” was guaranteed to raise the APA’s popularity with trial lawyers. The APA tentatively decided that anyone who persistently fantasizes about or actively forces a non-consenting person to have sex suffers from “paraphilic rapism.” In other words, a person would have to be nuts to rape somebody. As one protester at the APA’s meeting declared, “Sexual assault is a crime – not a mental disorder.” The Committee of Women of the APA said the new category would “provide an instant insanity plea for anyone charged with rape.”

If shrinks only cleaned out people’s wallets, then they would be no more harmful than your average politician. But psychiatrists nowadays routinely rely on mind-numbering drugs and mind-shattering electric shock treatments. Some mental patients are developing Parkinson’s disease symptoms as a result of years of heavy medication. Electric shock “therapy” – aside from being a terrifying experience – sometimes causes permanent memory loss, thus making it harder for a patient to handle reality.

We have new mental illnesses not because of new breakthroughs in understanding the mind, but because psychiatrists want more money and more power over the rest of us. Shrinks generally have a poor batting average for curing known mental problems – but that has not stopped them from creating new “illnesses” that supposedly they alone can treat. But a con artist with an MD is still a con artist.

My carping did nothing to slow the white-coated hucksters. In 2019, the American Psychological Association officially designated traditional masculinity as a de facto mental illness. Their new guidelines specifically state that “stoicism” and other traits are “on the whole, harmful.” Did Marcus Aurelius spin in his grave? Apparently, instead of toughing out challenges, people are supposed to spend their lives whimpering to shrinks and getting appropriately drugged. At least prior to the current administration, the Food and Drug Administration has been a shill for Big Pharma and is unlikely to expose or admit the long-term harm from drugs that can partially numb minds.

Image: Shuttestock

Psychiatrists have helped some individuals better understand themselves and deal more deftly with everyday reality. But bogus mental illnesses have turned millions of healthy Americans into “mental patients,” according to Dr. Allen Frances. 

But this peril also profoundly endangers freedom. The profusion of new diagnostic labels encourages people to view themselves as psychologically fragile. Actually, the Americans with Disabilities Act rewards people who demand “reasonable accommodations” (extra time for tests, no deadlines, etc.) because they are depressed or anxious. Those incentives create a downward politico-psychological spiral.

Kennedy’s commission will report to Trump within 100 days on the “potential over-utilization of medication” and other unrecognized health perils in America. Hopefully, the commission will deliver a stunning, well-documented report that will help people recognize how psychiatrists have concocted labels that have left millions of Americans at their mercy. 

Tyler Durden
Sat, 02/22/2025 – 23:20

Six Israelis & Nearly 500 Palestinians Freed In Final Phase 1 Ceasefire Exchange

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Six Israelis & Nearly 500 Palestinians Freed In Final Phase 1 Ceasefire Exchange

The final six living hostages who were still in Hamas captivity have been released on Saturday, as part of the final hostage/prisoner exchange closing out phase one of the Israel-Hamas truce deal.

They are Tal Shoham, Omer Shem Tov, Omer Wenkert, Eliya Cohen, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, and this marks the largest single day of releases of this current ceasefire deal. There are four more deceased hostages whose bodies are expected to be handed over Saturday. 

Via AP

The men were released in two different locations, all looking frail, apparently having suffered significant weight loss.

Two of the Israeli men had already been captive in Gaza long before the events of Oct.7. They’ve been freed after a full decade, shockingly enough:

Shoham, Shem Tov, Wenkert and Cohen were all taken captive on October 7, 2023 during the Hamas-led attacks and massacres, and had been held as hostages in Gaza for over 500 days.

Mengistu and al-Sayed both entered Gaza on their own accord in 2014 and 2015, respectively, and had been held captive by terror groups in Gaza for around a decade each.

There are reports that the agreed to release of Palestinians prisoners from the Israeli side was delayed, but is now being facilitated.

It is a huge release this time – involving the transfer of 491 Palestinian detainees. The Red Cross is conducting pre-departure interviews and medical assessments, and are in contact with relatives.

Whether the ceasefire continues to hold into a second phase remains an open question. Each side has accused the other of violating the terms of the truce over the last month. 

Spokesman for Hamas’ political bureau Basem Naim has described, “Unfortunately, Netanyahu and his government have been rejecting to engage with the second phase while only one week is left from the first phase. We believe that again, these are dirty games from the right-wing government to sabotage and undermine the deal and to send a message of willingness to go back to war.”

At least one of the captives who had long been held by Hamas was mentally unwell when he was taken hostage:

“Over 100 Palestinians have been killed in the first phase, much of the agreed humanitarian aid was not allowed into Gaza, and the withdrawal from the Netzarim Corridor was postponed,” Naim said.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 02/22/2025 – 22:45

It All Comes Down To Accounting

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It All Comes Down To Accounting

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

There are two portals of money in every institution: money coming in and money going out. Keeping track of that in both directions is the key to operations. The final number can reveal profits or losses, surpluses or deficits. Regardless, the accounting books are the beating heart of every institution.

Accounting means accountability, holding people to account for their work.

This is why the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), formed by Elon Musk with a business-based mindset, sets its sights on two primary institutions in the federal government: the U.S. Treasury payment systems and the revenue agency. That is where the money goes out and where the money comes in.

Tying these together and tracing the funds with normal accounting standards is the key to eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse. This is all about verifying what is true. It’s not enough just to look at printouts of Congressional budgets or long spreadsheets published by some other agency. The only way to discern what is absolutely true is to go to the source.

The penetration of both ends of this have generated astonishing results, among which that many millions of Social Security recipients are apparently not alive. Or maybe they are and this is just a recordkeeping error. They are going to find out one way or another.

The most shocking revelation from the very limited look at the U.S. Treasury books that judges have permitted DOGE concerns proper tagging of expenditures. They have documented that $4.7 trillion in government spending is not tagged with what’s called a Treasury Access Symbol (TAS) that ties the spending to a Congressional authorization.

Those are huge numbers. Maybe all these expenditures are legitimate and authorized. Or maybe not. Without the TAS tag, there is no way to know. That change in the books has now been made mandatory so that at least we have the beginnings of a valid and verifiable system of accounting in government.

One does wonder. Every year, Congress debates the budget and there is horse trading all around with every politician fighting for a share of the loot. They estimate revenues. They forecast deficits and debts. After a version is produced that includes both the House and Senate, the final result is sent to the President for a signature.

From there, we’ve always just assumed that the deeper machinery of the bureaucracy takes it from there. But what if there is no real and necessary relationship between what Congress authorizes and what the President approves and what actually happens on the expenditure and revenue side? This seems to be the situation.

How long has this gone on? Five former Secretaries of the Treasury have said that it has been almost 80 years since elected officials and their appointees have had access to the payment systems. They have been controlled for all living memory by a small group of civil servants who have long walled themselves off from the electorate. This is a stunning realization, one of many that has been unearthed by the forensics being undertaken by DOGE. It remains entirely possible that once this group of appointed outsiders have completed their work, which is in two years, the budget will be balanced even with lower taxes.

That might sound crazy but it is entirely possible.

To be sure, many administrations have come and gone that swore to get to the bottom of the budget problem, to eliminate waste and fraud and make sure that the government is a better steward of public resources. But think about it. If they never really had certifiable access to the real-time sources of collecting and spending, what good could they actually do? This time does seem to be different.

It fascinates me that the real battles of our time really do come down to something as granular and seemingly mundane as accounting. One hundred years ago, a big debate broke out within economics and political science over accounting and its role. This debate spoke directly to the issue of economic systems and which would be best for society.

The socialists in those days said that they would implement their vision with collective ownership of the means of production and the assignment of experts at the top to direct the use of resources. Economist Ludwig von Mises in 1920 made the salient point. He said that with collective ownership, there would be no operational markets for capital goods and thus no market prices for them.

Market prices are essential for calculating profit and loss through means of double-entry bookkeeping. Without that, even the smartest central planning would lack access to data concerning the wisest use of scarce resources. They would have no idea what consumers valued relative to other options and no idea what kinds of materials were available to meet those needs.

For this reason, Mises said, socialism would institutionalize economic irrationality. Creating an actual economy—meaning an environment in which resources were deployed to their most socially optimal ends—would be impossible. The unfolding of events in Russia proved his point. The experience of socialism in every country would always end up the same: despots at the top squandering resources until the whole society sank into desperate poverty.

Mises concluded from his deductions that the only real system that allows for rational economizing is the market economy with private property in the capital-good sectors. His argument was shocking, and debated for 20 years following, simply because he was bringing cold hard truths to a subject that had been dominated for far too long by airy philosophy that had nothing to do with the realities of the material world.

Similarly, government has always had an accounting problem. It does not know what to charge for goods and services and its decisions about revenue were ultimately arbitrary. The larger the government budget, the more irrationality itself is baked into economic structures. That is a given.

That said, there at least should be some attempt to keep track by creating a web of relationships between what is approved, where the money comes from, and how it is used. This is just normal bookkeeping, without which fraudsters and corruption run rampant.

It truly boggles the mind that fully $4.7 trillion in federal expenditures have routinely taken place without any real obligation to attach that spending to an authorized source. It makes one wonder if all the debates about the budget and all the voting and signing ceremonies have been nothing but theater for generations.

What also intrigues me about this line of thinking and work is how, in the end, this is not really about big ideological and philosophical debates about the purposes and scope of government. This is really about something very simple: how the nation goes about balancing its checkbook. Until we get that part right, all the rest of the debates are so much hot air.

No matter your political outlook, you should be grateful that DOGE seems finally to be setting things right in the operations of government. There absolutely must be a standard of compliance with accounting practices that every single business, nonprofit, or household has to use in order to maintain economic viability. After DOGE does its work, government should continue to practice the precedent established in these days, weeks, and months.

The whole reason for accounting and careful audits is to verify what is true and thus enhance public trust in their own government. Again, we can argue all day about what the government should and should not do, but until we know for certain what is actually going on, such debates mean nothing.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 02/22/2025 – 22:10

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