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CURATED ECOLOGICAL NEWS Corporate.gov hostile takeover
“Imagine if it had gone like this. Ten Tesla cybertrucks, painted in camouflage, a giant X on each roof, drive noisily through Washington DC. Tires screech. Out jump a couple of dozen young men, dressed in red and black Devil’s Champion armored costumes. After giving Nazi salutes, they grab guns and run to one government department after another. Historically, that is what coups looked like. The center of power was a physical place. Americans would have recognized that as a coup attempt. And that sort of coup attempt would have failed.
“Now imagine that, instead, the scene goes like this. A couple dozen young men go from government office to government office, dressed in civilian clothes and armed only with zip drives. They gain access to the basic computer systems of the federal government, access to information and the power to start and stop all government payments.
“That coup is, in fact, happening. And if we do not recognize it for what it is, it could succeed. In the third decade of the twenty first century, power is more digital than physical. The buildings and the human beings are there to protect the workings of the computers. The ongoing actions by Musk and his followers are a coup because the individuals seizing power have no right to it. “Elon Musk was elected to no office and there is no office that would give him the authority to do what he is doing. It is all illegal. If Musk has the power to halt payments by the Department of the Treasury, he can make laws meaningless. Which means, in turn, that Congress is meaningless, and our votes are meaningless, as is our citizenship.” More at: DODGY team bores into sensitive data and Treasury payments
“According to the best source I’ve found on this (Nathan Tankus’s Crises Notes), Musk’s rats have now gained unrestricted access to your Social Security number, your confidential bank information, your confidential medical information, and much more. “Musk boasts that his team is ‘rapidly shutting down’ Treasury remittances. They’ve tunneled into the Department of Health and Human Services payment systems, the Labor Department (I have no idea whether they’ve penetrated the Bureau of Labor Statistics as yet), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Veterans Affairs systems. “Yesterday, federal Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly temporarily barred the Treasury Department from handing data from its payments system to Musk and his rats. Technically, Musk’s rats still retain “read and write” code access because Judge Kollar-Kotelly barred “read only” access. That means they can still stop or alter federal payments. “According to yesterday’s Wired magazine, some of Musk’s rats couldn’t pass background checks required for such access. A 23-year-old has gained entree to sensitive databases in at least five federal agencies, including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Another, a 19-year-old high school graduate now combing through sensitive government information, was fired from a data security firm after an investigation into the leaking of internal information.” More at: Teens with zip drives breaching federal data bases
“Invited to join Mr. Musk on Thursday morning in Vice President JD Vance’s stately ceremonial office suite in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building were a clutch of young aides. Across the federal government, civil servants have witnessed the sudden intrusion in the last two weeks of these young members of the billionaire’s team. These aides have emerged as Musk’s enforcers, sweeping into agency headquarters with black backpacks and ambitious marching orders. “Musk’s dizzying blitz on the federal bureaucracy is largely being carried out by a group of male engineers, including some recent college graduates and at least one as young as 19. Of the roughly 40 people on the team, many have little government experience, The New York Times found. This account of their background and activities is based on public records, internal government databases and more than 20 people familiar with their roles. “Elon Musk is an ‘idol’ to the 19-year-old popcorn fortune heir who dropped out of college to work for the tech billionaire’s Department of Government Efficiency (DODGY), according to an unnamed friend. Edward Coristine was a freshman engineering major at Northeastern University before he left to sign onto Musk’s team of baby-faced programmers, who have been given unprecedented access to sensitive government records.” More at: Mump* malice or stupidity could crash global finance
“Whether or not you share the zeal for cuts in government spending, giving Musk and his callow team of computer coders access to payment systems at the U. S. Department of Treasury risks a global financial meltdown. “First, the U.S. Department of Treasury processes some $6 trillion in payments each year. If that system were to come to a halt for even a relatively short period of time, the consequences would be devastating. It is also important to grasp that the Treasury Department stands behind the entire U.S. banking system. It has the full faith and credit of the United States government behind it, and is a potent force for forestalling panic and crisis in the banking system. “In addition, the Treasury Department stands behind all U. S. government debt instruments, ‘Treasuries’ for short, which today amount to $36 trillion outstanding. Treasuries are considered the most trustworthy debt in the world and are frequently used as collateral for loans to banks. “Much of the world’s financial system is premised on the belief that U.S. Treasuries will continue to always pay interest on time in full and be redeemed at its full value at maturity. Were this belief to be shattered, the consequences for the world economy would be grave. “The gaining access to the U. S. Treasury’s payment systems can only be for one purpose: To deny payments to programs and people Mump* doesn’t like. Whether Mump* can deny such payments is a matter of law. They cannot. Not without Congressional approval as specified by the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. If investors in U.S. Treasury debt come to believe that they might not get paid by the Treasury, they would almost certainly move their money elsewhere. That would likely trigger a worldwide financial crisis. “There is reason to believe the members of Musk’s computer coding army have inserted new code into the Treasury’s payment system. The purpose of such code might be surveillance, remote access or even to make it easier to find and deny payments. Whatever the purpose, the results could be catastrophic. Government systems are complex and multilayered. Changing them in any way without careful testing could lead to damage [that] might be difficult or impossible to undo. New code could also result in unrecognized security flaws that could be exploited by a hacker. “Which brings us to the problem of cybersecurity. First, Musk and his team had no security clearances when they began their work. Those clearances generally take months to obtain because those seeking such clearances must undergo an extensive background check. There was no background check into these members of Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency. One IT professional quoted in The Atlantic article said, ‘That these guys, who may not even have clearances, are just pulling up and plugging in their own servers is madness, a major security violation’. “Unauthorized, unvetted computers may have all manner of malware that could be transferred intentionally or transfer themselves without knowledge of the laptop owner, and infect, alter, spy on, or bring down the government’s computers. “It gets worse: The top level of access for computers called ‘administrator privileges’, could grant the broad ability to control a system, including hiding evidence of other alterations. ‘They could change or manipulate treasury data directly in the database with no way for people to audit or capture it’, one contractor told us. ‘We’d have very little way to know it even happened’.” More at: * Mump regime — Musk plus Trump = Mu…mp. Renewables cut, fossil fuels expand under Mump*
“A tangible assault is gathering pace under Donald Mump* – aimed squarely at wind, solar and other cleaner forms of power. Mump* has, like his first term, issued orders to open up more American land and waters for fossil fuel extraction. He also launched a blitzkrieg against renewable energy, with his department of interior temporarily suspending all clean energy development on federal land. “Mump* has long disparaged wind energy, calling it ‘disgusting’. ‘We don’t want windmills in this country’, the president recently told Fox News. ‘The wind blows and then it doesn’t blow, the things cost a fortune, they are made in China, they kill the birds, they’re horrible’. ‘You know what people also don’t like, those massive solar fields built over land that cover 10 miles by 10 miles’. Smaller-scale solar projects are also being suspended, with the new administration freezing $7bn in funding already awarded for community and rooftop solar in low-income communities. “‘This is a new day for American energy’, said Mike Sommers, president of the American Petroleum Institute.” More at: * Mump regime — Musk plus Trump = Mu…mp. Dumb down the electorate with lead poisoning
“Republicans in Congress and the Mump* administration are attempting to repeal the Biden rules that require all the country’s lead pipes to be replaced. The Mump* administration is also working to kill a recently implemented ban on TCE, a compound that is among the most toxic and common water pollutants. “If the GOP is successful in repealing the lead rule, tens of millions of people would continue to have drinking water contaminated with the heavy metal, a neurotoxin that the EPA has found lowers IQ scores in children, stunts their development, and increases blood pressure in adults. “The agency estimates the stricter standard will prevent up to 900,000 infants from having low birthweight, save about 200,000 IQ points in children and avoid up to 1,500 premature deaths annually from heart disease. ‘It’s a bad look to support lead poisoning children, said Erik Olson, senior adviser to the NRDC Action Fund. ‘Not the best foot forward for the new Congress’, Olson added.” More at: * Mump regime — Musk plus Trump = Mu…mp. Industrial society is subverting human lives through extinctions
“In a matter of mere centuries, we humans are unraveling the web of life and triggering a mass extinction event that is likely to impact virtually all species on the Earth. We are destabilizing the fundamental planetary systems upon which we too depend. “We humans represent a new kind of threat to the rest of life: our development of language, tool-making, and fire-spreading rendered us hyper-effective hunters and foragers. Tens of thousands of years ago, we were already reshaping landscapes and impacting wildlife. Our ability to expand our own habitat has generated unwanted results. Since the start of the European conquest of most of the rest of the world, and especially since society’s rapid adoption of fossil fuels starting around 1800, human impact on the biosphere has accelerated at a breathtaking pace. “Expanding human populations and associated land use changes, industrial agriculture, industrial forestry, industrial-scale fishing, proliferation of toxic chemicals, and climate change are decimating native species of plants and animals around the world. According to some estimates, populations of many non-domesticated species have declined, on average, by 70%, and the pace of species extinctions has quickened to 100 or more times the usual or ‘background’ rate. “The status quo is buttressed by a couple of pernicious but deeply entrenched ideas: human exceptionalism (we are above nature, which exists to serve us) and capitalism (the notion that natural resources, starting with land, should be privately owned, and that the economy should always grow). These ideas and their imperatives are woven into our entire social structure, all the way down to the granular level of individuals who simply want a home with a neat lawn, running water, electricity, and smooth streets and roads to drive upon. “The scale of destruction is vast and its pace is rapid and accelerating. But, realistically, we are playing a waiting game: we don’t know exactly when or how techno-civilization will crash, though it assuredly will. Meanwhile, it matters enormously what and how much of nature can be saved.” More at: RFK, Jr., the Panama Canal, and public health
“America gave up the Panama Canal, not out of a spirit of generosity or wokeness, but because U.S. occupation of the Canal Zone had become a strategic liability. U.S. occupation of the zone had become a flashpoint for anti-Americanism, and defending it would be difficult if not impossible. “There’s a lot to be learned by asking how we managed to build the canal in the first place. To build the canal, America first had to conquer yellow fever and malaria. This meant understanding how these diseases were spread, then implementing widespread preventive measures. For much of the 20th century America led the world both in medical research and in the application of that research to public policy. This one-two punch of knowledge and knowledge-based action led to an incredible decline in the rate of death from infectious disease. “Now Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a crank who rejects vaccines in particular and medical science in general, is on track to become the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The National Institutes of Health have effectively been shut down. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have stopped releasing crucial data. “But back to science in general: Because it’s a method rather than a set of declarations from on high, you can’t consume it a la carte, rejecting scientific results you dislike for political, cultural or religious reasons. And Republican politicians have been rejecting science they don’t like for a long time. In addition to rejecting science he didn’t like, Reagan did all he could to undermine belief that government can be a force for good. This is a real problem for health policy, because most of the long-term decline in deaths from infectious disease has been the result of collective action. “Where does RFK Jr. fit into all of this? The deepest divide in America isn’t between left and right, it’s between ‘rationalists’ who focus on facts and reason, on one side, and ‘intuitionists’, who rely on their feelings, on the other. Intuitionists have become the dominant force in the conservative movement and Republican Party politics. And RFK Jr., although he holds some views at odds with conventional conservatism, fits right in.” More at: Musk’s SpaceX ego trip just blew up a chunk of his change
“On January 16, just after sundown, a spacecraft erupted into a ball of flames over the North Atlantic Ocean near Turks and Caicos Islands southeast of Florida. The upper stage of a SpaceX Starship launch system, the most powerful rocket ever built, had broken apart minutes after liftoff from South Texas during its seventh test flight, fracturing into a cloud of debris that streaked through the evening sky. Blazing orange and white, the astonishing spectacle left onlookers gazing in awe from beaches and cruise ships. “Said Lori Kaine, a resident of Providenciales, ‘At first, I thought it was an actual plane that had exploded’. The noise was deafening, she recalled, even inside with her doors and windows closed. No injuries resulting from the explosion have been reported, but multiple residents say the rocket parts did land near homes and have washed up along beaches. Debris has now been found all over the islands. After the Starship broke apart, the Federal Aviation Administration activated a ‘Debris Response Area’, and is overseeing an investigation into the incident. “SpaceX’s response to the incident has drawn criticism from Turks and Caicos residents. And the ordeal raises broader questions about the company’s approach to launch the vehicle’s test flights out of South Texas, on a path that takes the spacecraft over populated areas. Previous Starship flights have resulted in explosions over the Gulf of Mexico and other areas of the ocean.” More at: | 
