Tag: emails
Elon Musk

'Elon Emails' Pulled Operators Away From Social Security Hotline

Over the weekend, South African centibillionaire Elon Musk gave federal workers an ultimatum: Respond to an email asking what they accomplished at work this week, or risk losing their jobs. This has reportedly caused an interruption in services for at least one critical federal agency.

Talking Points Memo reported Monday that the 1-800 number for the Social Security Administration (SSA) was interrupted, as workers were expressly told they had to "write their Elon emails" even if they answered calls to the hotline. TPM founder Josh Marshall reported that Jill Hornick — a union representative for the American Federation of Government Workers (AFGE) Local 1395 chapter — confirmed that agency higher-ups expected hotline workers to take time way from their duties to respond to Musk's email.

Hornick specified to Marshall that hotline workers' schedules were being managed to ensure that desks would be manned throughout the day on Monday even as some workers stepped away from the phones to write their weekly work summaries. However, he noted that workers were somewhat caught off-guard by the response deadline, and that most calls to the hotline are from elderly people on fixed incomes having difficulty accessing the money they depend on to live.

"Needless to say, what’s created this crisis posture is the fact that all of this is being demanded on one day’s notice," Mrshall wrote. "According to the email, all the replies must be submitted no later than 11:59 PM tonight."

Musk's "Department of Government Efficiency," or DOGE (which is not yet an official federal agency authorized by Congress) sent the email on Saturday to the roughly two million federal workers over the weekend through the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which effectively functions as the federal government's human resources department. TPM reporter Josh Kovensky posted to Bluesky that one unnamed "hill source" said that at least one federal judge also got the OPM email.

Some agencies have taken a different approach to the Musk email, with workers elsewhere being told they didn't have to respond to Musk's demands. And federal workers' unions have made it clear that they will have workers' backs if DOGE attempts to remove them for not complying with the ultimatum.

In an all-caps post to his Truth Social platform on Saturday, President Donald Trump made it clear he not only approves of what Musk is doing, but that he should "GET MORE AGGRESSIVE." He added that "WE HAVE A COUNTRY TO SAVE," though he didn't specify what he was attempted to save the country from.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

#EndorseThis: Stephen Colbert issues apology to Eric Trump

#EndorseThis: Stephen Colbert issues apology to Eric Trump

After a weeklong hiatus, Late Show host Stephen Colbert made it back to work just in time for President Trump’s White House to collapse under the weight of (what else but) its very own email scandal.

A lot of the blame squarely on Donald Trump Jr.’s shoulders, Colbert figured the president’s second-born son, Eric, deserved an apology.

#EndorseThis: Colbert Slices Up Pizzagate, Mike Flynn, And Alex Jones

#EndorseThis: Colbert Slices Up Pizzagate, Mike Flynn, And Alex Jones

Stephen Colbert, perhaps the nation’s most skillful satirist of news as entertainment, is fed up with fake news – especially in the wake of the Pizzagate hoax that resulted in a shooting incident at Comet Ping Pong in Washington, D.C. He quotes Pope Francis comparing “media that…spread fake news to…people who have a morbid fascination with excrement.”

Noting that among the “uninformed gullible people” who appeared to be taken in by the Pizzagate hoax were Michael Flynn, the retired general nominated as Donald Trump’s national security adviser. That may not be the right job for “a guy who spreads this bullshit.”

Thanks to a Wikileaks email, conspiracy kooks like Alex Jones have come after Colbert as well. Gently but firmly, the Late Show host schools that fulminating impresario of idiocy. He concludes with a pointed message for Jones, Wikileaks, and all of the “subReddit sub-geniuses.”.

FBI Director: Agency Has Found New Emails ‘Pertinent’ To Clinton Probe

FBI Director: Agency Has Found New Emails ‘Pertinent’ To Clinton Probe

By Steve Holland

MANCHESTER, N.H. (Reuters) – Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign was hit on Friday by the FBI’s reopening of its investigation into her use of a private email server while secretary of state, eroding a political boost from a strong U.S. economic report.

With just 11 days to go before the Nov. 8 election, FBI Director James Comey said in a letter to several congressional Republicans that the agency had learned of the existence of emails that appeared to be pertinent to its investigation.

However, he said the FBI did not know if the emails were significant and did not provide a time frame for the probe.

Republican Donald Trump’s campaign reacted with glee. His campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, said on Twitter that “a great day in our campaign just got even better.”

The resurrection of the email issue, which has dogged Clinton’s campaign from the start, dimmed a day that had featured good news for her effort to win the White House.

The Commerce Department reported that the economy grew at a 2.9 percent annual rate in the third quarter, its fastest pace in two years and higher than the expected 2.6 percent, thanks to a surge in exports and a rebound in investment.

The report had bolstered Clinton, who has positioned herself as the best candidate to continue years of economic expansion under Democratic President Barack Obama.

More Americans say jobs and the economy are their No. 1 priority when they decide who to vote for than any other issue.

Trump argues that as a successful businessman and political outsider, he is the best person to take a new approach to rebuilding an economy that has sent too many jobs overseas and left many Americans struggling to find decent jobs.

His campaign said the figures are still not good enough.

“America can do better than the modest growth of 2.9 percent recorded for the 3rd quarter and the dismal growth of 1.5 percent for the past year,” Dan Kowalski, Trump’s deputy policy director, said in a statement.

While many voters do not follow economic indicators closely, outside experts said the release was still a good one for Clinton. She is seeking to solidify her lead in opinion polls as the Democratic Party works to win as many seats as possible in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, where Republicans now control majorities.

Clinton has also been looking to broaden the electoral map. Her campaign said on Friday that she would campaign in Arizona next week.

“Today’s release will likely improve the perception of economic conditions in the U.S. and slightly increase the odds of a Democratic president remaining in the White House,” said Brian Schaitkin, senior economist at the Conference Board.

Clinton’s camp said Friday’s report showed “real progress” since Obama took office in 2009, when the country was struggling to emerge from economic recession.

“With more than 15 million jobs created since early 2010 and real median incomes growing more than 5 percent last year, it’s clear we’ve made real progress coming back from the crisis,” Clinton senior policy advisor Jacob Leibenluft said in a statement.

But he added that there is still more that can be done.

Clinton was campaigning on Friday in Iowa, where polls show she and Trump running neck-and-neck, and in Michigan, a traditionally Democratic state hit hard by the movement offshore of many formerly well-paying American manufacturing jobs.

Trump was holding rallies in Iowa as well as in another closely contested swing state, New Hampshire, and in Maine, where his campaign sees a chance to grab one of four electoral votes.

(Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and Patricia Zengerle in Washington; Writing by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Alistair Bell)

IMAGE: Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton boards her campaign plane in White Plains, New York, U.S. October 28, 2016.  REUTERS/Brian Snyder

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