You really, really, REALLY couldn't make this shit up

[Scooter]

[Scooter]

Between this and all the other decimations of intelligence resources, you'd almost believe they WANT there to be a terror attack. Can't imagine what advantage they think they would get from that.

A 22-year-old college grad with no security experience is now leading a government terror prevention team: ‘Putting the intern in charge’

A 22-year-old college graduate with no previous government leadership or security experience appointed to a major posting at the Department of Homeland Security is now drawing further scrutiny from President Donald Trump’s Democratic critics in the wake of military strikes against Iran and warnings from officials about the heightened risk of terror attacks at home.

Thomas Fugate, a former Heritage Foundation intern and self-described “Trumplican,” joined DHS in a leadership role at the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships, known as CP3 in May. The CP3, which works to combat terrorism, school shootings and other hate-driven violence, oversees an $18 million grant program intended to help communities battle violent extremism.

The appointment of the recent University of San Antonio grad put counterterrorism experts and insiders on edge, ProPublica first reported in early June. “It sounds like putting the intern in charge,” a counterterrorism researcher who has experience working with CP3 told the outlet.

“We’re entering very dangerous territory,” another longtime counterterrorism official said.

Those warnings were echoed by Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator from Connecticut, on Sunday after the Department of Homeland Security warned in a bulletin that “ongoing Iran conflict is causing a heightened threat environment in the United States”. On Saturday evening, Donald Trump authorized military strikes against three Iranian nuclear sites the administration and Israeli government claimed were part of a renewed push by Tehran to obtain nuclear weapons. The U.S. has not provided evidence to back up its assertion.

While Trump officials warn publicly against retaliation, the strikes are the most significant military action committed by the U.S. against Iran in years.

“As our nation girds for possible Iranian terrorist attacks, this is the person Trump put in charge of terrorism prevention. 22 years old. Recent work experience: landscaping/grocery clerk. Never worked a day in counter-terrorism. But he’s a BIG Trump fan. So he got the job,” wrote Murphy on Twitter.

Though Fugate’s position at CP3 involves levels of responsibility far beyond his previous experiences, he’s far from the final authority in the Trump administration overseeing counterrorism [sic] efforts. The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces are the main investigative body in this matter; CP3 does not engage in law enforcement or data collection duties, per its own website. The agency instead works with local government entities on violence prevention programs.

But officials spoke out about Fugate’s appointment nonetheless as spring saw a number of high-profile, violent incidents, including the attack in Boulder, Colorado, the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C., and a car bombing outside a California fertility center.

Fugate took over from Army veteran Bill Braniff, who resigned in March after the Trump administration cut 20 percent of his staff.

Another Twitter user wrote of his appointment Saturday evening: “If Iran activates sleeper cells, I feel safe knowing Trump appointed this 23 year old to run counter terrorism operations at Department of Homeland Security.”

Braniff had more than 20 years’ experience in national security. “If I cannot advance the prevention mission from inside of the government for now, I will do what I can outside of government,” he wrote in a LinkedIn post announcing his resignation. “CP3 is the inheritor of the primary and founding mission of DHS - to prevent terrorism,” he added.

Braniff’s achievements in the post included funneling nearly $90 million since 2020 toward helping communities tackle extremist violence.

Replacing Braniff with Fugate is “an insult,” a source told ProPublica. Braniff helped with the move “toward evidence-based approaches to terrorism prevention” in a field still dealing with post-9/11 work that was predisposed to stigmatizing Muslims, the source added.

“They really started to shift the conversation and shift the public thinking. It was starting to get to the root of the problem,” they said. “Now that’s all gone.”

Before taking up the new leadership responsibilities, Fugate was hired as a “special assistant” in an immigration office at the Department of Homeland Security.

The department told The Independent that Fugate was “temporarily given additional leadership responsibilities” in CP3 “due to his success.” Staffers he works with, however, have likened meeting with him to “career counseling” while expressing shock at how little he appears to know about the role, the outlet reported.

According to Fugate’s LinkedIn profile, he worked as a gardener briefly in 2020 before embarking on fellowships and internships, including at the conservative Heritage Foundation. He worked on the Trump campaign last year where he attended the Republican National Convention. He also served as secretary general of a Model United Nations club.

He shared photos in recent months at the White House. In one post, he gushed about taking “the first major leap” of his career.

The criticism of the 22-year-old follows similar outrage over Elon Musk’s hiring of teenagers in the Department of Government Efficiency.

[Big RR]

Still better than Kristi Noem. Or Pete (I don't know how to use the phone) Hegseth or... Trump's appointments are generally incompetent or useless.

[MajGenl.Meade]

And billionaires

[Burning Petard]

It hit the century mark on the thermometer yesterday here where I live. But there is balance in this universe, because Hell must have frozen as well.

I agree with Congress critters Marjorie Taylor Green.(R-Ga)

https://www.yahoo.com/news/marjorie-tay ... 52929.html

snailgate

[eddieq]

Broken clock. She's still a horrible person and an even worse legislator.

[Burning Petard]

Broken clock? Me, I vote for Blind Pig. Even Worse Legislator? Not sure how that can be. There so many really awful legislators there now, as well as horrible people in politics at every level.

Perhaps Congress should bring back caning and Make America Great Again.

snailgate.

[Scooter]

[BoSoxGal]

Liberia's official language has been English a lot longer than here in the USA lol.


They even have their own creolized dialects called Liberian English.

[Joe Guy]

Trump would probably know things like that if he ever went to a libery.

[Scooter]

Trump Megadonor Given Contract To Build ICE Camp In Texas Was Previously Convicted Of Hiring “Illegal Aliens”

ProPublica reports:

On Monday, the Department of Defense announced that it had awarded a massive new contract to build the nation’s largest migrant detention camp on the Fort Bliss military base, a facility that will play a key role in the Trump administration’s deportation plans.

Unmentioned was that one of the subcontractors slated to work on the project, Disaster Management Group, is owned by Nathan Albers, who previously co-owned a company that pleaded guilty in 2019 to a scheme to hire undocumented workers and conceal them from immigration authorities. Albers is a big-time Republican donor who has spent time at Mar-a-Lago.

Two people with direct knowledge of the award and two familiar with the company told ProPublica that Disaster Management Group would help build the new facility, receiving a substantial chunk of the more than $1.2 billion the government has allocated for the project.

“The idea that you could use illegal labor and then sell services to ICE, the irony is thick,” said Scott Shuchart, a former official with the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during President Donald Trump’s first term and later under President Joe Biden.

Read the full article.

[Scooter]

As Trump Administration Plans to Burn Contraceptives, Europeans Are Alarmed

The Trump administration’s plans to incinerate $9.7 million in birth control pills and other contraceptives stored in a Belgian warehouse have left European governments struggling as they try to prevent the destruction.

When the Trump administration abruptly defunded and dismantled the United States Agency for International Development, or U.S.A.I.D., earlier this year, millions of contraceptives it had purchased were stuck in Geel, Belgium. The pills, intrauterine devices and hormonal implants were destined for clinics in the poorest countries in Africa.

With the contraceptives in limbo, the contractor managing the supply explored selling it to outside organizations, including the United Nations’ main sexual and reproductive health agency, the U.N. Population Fund. The nonprofit MSI Reproductive Choices offered to take over the warehousing and redistribute the contraceptives at no cost to the United States.

But last month it emerged that the U.S. government had instead decided to burn the supplies, at a cost to the government of more than $160,000 in transport and incineration fees.

“U.S.A.I.D. was allegedly dismantled to prevent future wastage and to deliver value for money for the American people,” said Sarah Shaw, the associate director of advocacy at MSI Reproductive Choices. “It’s just egregious that they’re willing to waste $9 million worth of contraceptives that are so desperately needed.”

She added, “Women are going to die because they’ve not had access to those contraceptives.”

The decision to destroy the contraceptives has created alarm in Brussels and France as politicians scramble to figure out if the supplies have physically left the warehouse and how they can prevent their destruction.

The State Department confirmed in a statement that “a preliminary decision was made to destroy certain” birth control products. It declined to say exactly why the decision was made or to specify the current location or status of the products.

The department said the contraceptives that had been flagged for destruction were “abortifacient,” meaning that they work by inducing abortion. None of the supplies registered for storage in the Belgian warehouse fit that description, and U.S.A.I.D. was forbidden by law to purchase such products.

The department did not reply to repeated requests for clarification.

While earlier reports suggested that the supplies would be destroyed by the end of July in France, European governments, advocacy groups and an American congressional office all said they did not know whether the burning had actually begun.

It is not clear why the government would not sell or donate the contraceptives. The department, in its statement, referred to policies preventing the U.S. government from providing aid to overseas nongovernmental organizations that provide or help with access to abortions, based on a rule that the Trump administration reinstated.

And the United States recently refused to work with the U.N. Population Fund, citing other government policies.

The dissolution of U.S.A.I.D. has created a huge gap in the supply chain of contraceptives for the world’s poorest countries, because the United States was a major donor.

Siobhan Perkins, who was the procurement adviser for the U.S.A.I.D. contraception supply chain, said the products slated for destruction were enough to prevent approximately 362,000 unintended pregnancies, 110,000 unsafe abortions and 718 maternal deaths.

The contraceptive supplies in the Belgian warehouse would have been enough to supply Senegal for three years, Ms. Shaw, of the reproductive health group, said. Most of the products have a remaining shelf life of several years.

European governments are still hoping to stop the incineration. The Belgian government’s foreign office has been in talks with its American counterparts about an alternative plan.

“Foreign Affairs is exploring all possible avenues to prevent the destruction of these stocks, including their temporary relocation,” Florinda Baleci, a spokeswoman for the department, said in an email on Tuesday. She said that she could not confirm or deny whether the stock was still in Geel and that Belgium had “not officially received any information to the contrary.”

Attempts at negotiating a solution have, so far, been unsuccessful. The U.N. population agency spent weeks in April trying to buy the contraceptives from the United States’ contractor, said Udara Bandara, the U.N. official handling those negotiations.

He said the American side missed an April 25 deadline to discuss the terms of the deal and then missed another deadline on April 30. On May 8, the contractor wrote to ask if the U.N. group was still interested in the purchase. It was.

Mr. Bandara said he never heard back.

If the Belgian talks fall through, it is not clear what else European officials can do.

Politicians on the left in France have urged the government to seize the stockpile.

“We cannot allow an anti-choice ideology to be imposed on us within our own borders,” Marine Tondelier, the head of France’s Green party, wrote last month in an open letter to President Emmanuel Macron.

But France’s government has suggested that it cannot legally seize the drugs.

And while Mélissa Camara, a French member of European Parliament for the Greens, wrote the European Commission was asking it to intervene diplomatically, the commission has merely said it is monitoring the situation and exploring solutions.

[Bicycle Bill]

As Trump Administration Plans to Burn Contraceptives, Europeans Are Alarmed

When the Trump administration abruptly defunded and dismantled the United States Agency for International Development, or U.S.A.I.D., earlier this year, millions of contraceptives it had purchased were stuck in Geel, Belgium. The pills, intrauterine devices and hormonal implants were destined for clinics in the poorest countries in Africa.
...

Siobhan Perkins, who was the procurement adviser for the U.S.A.I.D. contraception supply chain, said the products slated for destruction were enough to prevent approximately 362,000 unintended pregnancies, 110,000 unsafe abortions and 718 maternal deaths.

The contraceptive supplies in the Belgian warehouse would have been enough to supply Senegal for three years, Ms. Shaw [Sarah Shaw, the associate director of advocacy at MSI Reproductive Choices], of the reproductive health group, said. Most of the products have a remaining shelf life of several years.

Well, there's your reason.   What's one of the biggest things Trump and MAGA are bound and determined to keep out of the US?   Black and brown people.   And where were these contraceptive devices bound?   Africa and poor black people.   It's just one more thing Trump and the MAGA-infestee GOP will do to advance The United States of (White) America at the expense of anyone who isn't white and a "Born in the USA" American.

-"BB"-

[Scooter]

So... wouldn't the use of contraceptives mean that there would be fewer Africans who might try to make their way to the U.S.?

[Crackpot]

Of course not! They wouldn’t suffer if they didn’t exist.



They also wouldn’t have a scapegoat to look down on.