The American people deserve better': Fired FEMA employee's perspective on DOGE cuts (February 2025)
www.nbcmiami.com

... For the past month, the Trump Administration has taken a chainsaw approach to slashing the federal workforce, axing thousands of civil servants from their jobs in the president's quest to reshape the government.

The agencies impacted include the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Here in Florida, we see FEMA at work on a regular basis. When natural disasters strike, FEMA and state officials work together to help the victims.

"To show up for the American people on their worst day," explained Paris Rossiter, who just got fired from his job at FEMA.

Six months ago, Rossiter was promoted. That made him a probationary employee and a potential target for Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency. On President's Day, Rossiter got a call from his boss. His last day at work would be the next day, and there would be no severance and almost no continuation of benefits.

"This was very callous, and it felt very punitive at the time, it felt like I'd done something wrong," Rossiter said, admitting he's still angry, especially since his supervisor had just told him he'd be eligible for another promotion, and then a few days later, he was getting fired. ...

OpEd: Putin plans to make the West destroy itself (2020)
www.spectator.co.uk

... Chaos and division is the real goal for Russia

There's only one person who'll be genuinely pleased with the Intelligence and Security Committee's Russia report, finally revealed on Tuesday, and that's Vladimir Putin.

Russia emerges as an amorphous and formidable enemy -- all the more so because the inconclusive and much-redacted report contains next to no substantiated allegations. Instead Russia appears as a phantom, unknowable menace, and this will spawn a thousand conspiracy theories far more corrosive and confusing to our politics than any Moscow-generated Twitter-storm or document leak. ...