So That Happened: A Roundup of This Week's Worst News

I spent all week doomscrolling so you don't have to - here's what you need to know about this week's news.

Get Forked

• On January 28th private citizen Elon Musk offered millions of actual federal workers the option to accept buyouts through a government-wide “deferred resignation” program.

• The offers come as President Donald Trump’s administration pushes federal employees to return to the office five days per week and threatens to fire those who do not comply with the order

• The White House expects up to 10% of federal employees to take the buyout but as of the writing of this article, about 3% of federal employees have accepted the offer

• On Thursday, February 6th, a federal judge in Boston paused the Trump administration’s offer, less than 11 hours before the deadline for workers to accept the deal.

• The injunction pausing the plan would continue until at least a court hearing Monday, when a judge will consider arguments on the legality of the buyout.

• The so-called Fork Directive allegedly will allow employees to submit a deferred resignation, so they will no longer have to work but will be paid with benefits until the end of September.

Things You Should Medicare About

• Elon Musk and his band of boys voted 'Most Likely to be Shoved into a Locker' are about to decide who gets healthcare and other social benefits

• In case you missed it, Musk, and his fabricated government agency – the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE – has brought in random tech-bros to do things we know nothing about with zero permission from or oversight by Congress.

• Colbert King of The Washington Post described Musk and Co.’s hijacking of federal systems like this: “Musk and his hirelings are gaining access to vast amounts of privileged and restricted government information on a scale unseen in our nation’s capital. The Treasury Department, where I once worked, has given DOGE license to scrutinize federal payment systems that annually disburse trillions of dollars in government expenditures. The systems also contain a trove of sensitive information about hundreds of millions of Americans ‒ information that private commercial interests and foreign governments would pay dearly to get their hands on.”

Trump Cabinet Hellscape

• Trump's FBI director nominee Kash Patel is a dangerous person

  • He has a list of enemies, mostly democratic leaders that he thinks need to be "targeted"

  • Kash Patel has published an enemies list of 60 people he calls “members of the deep state,” all of whom are public servants—both Democrats and Republicans.

  • He has even said he plans to “shut down the FBI Hoover Building on Day 1 and reopen it the next day as a museum of the “deep state” and to target journalists and media professionals.

  • Patel suggested—without evidence—that Chinese cyber intrusions were linked to railroad switch failures and electric grid accidents, fueling conspiracy theories rather than presenting fact-based analysis

  • During his confirmation hearing, Patel knowingly made several false statements while under oath.

  • By his own account, in 2005, he graduated from Pace University Law School in the bottom third of his class -- something he was "very proud of," he once joked.

  • After Trump's first administration ended, Patel regularly appeared on conservative media outlets, frequently praising Trump and criticizing the Justice Department for investigating and then prosecuting Trump

  • Patel has claimed -- despite the Justice Department's inspector general finding otherwise -- that the FBI played a part in pushing pro-Trump protesters to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6

  • He has advocated for partisan retribution against Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC)

I Miss Pete Buttigieg

• The new Secretary of Transportation is an ex-reality star - so maybe he'll be president one day. Here are some of his greatest hits:

  • Sean Duffy was a reality TV star on MTV’s The Real World: Boston

  • A video has emerged from the show in which Duffy was seen appearing to simulate a strip show in his underwear before switching to just a towel covering his groin while dancing.

  • In an additional clip, Sean Duffy pointed to his penis, directing a production assistant named Bonnie, who he called “hot,” to touch him.

  • Duffy then told Bonnie he was “getting a boner,” pretended to be overcome with pleasure, and motioned for her to move towards his penis.

  • In another clip, Sean Duffy revealed he didn’t get along with the show’s cat named Karma. The special then showed Duffy holding the cat upside down, calling it a “bitch,” attempting to push the cat off a pool table with a cue, and closing the cat inside a duffle bag.

  • In another segment, Duffy pretended to be one of his co-stars, a Black man, after getting into his clothing, jewelry, and headphones. He began to throw up fake gang signs and use a "blackccent". This is the same guy who has now shut down all DEI training at the Department of Transportation.

  • Another clip shows Sean Duffy asking a woman co-star if she touches herself sexually.

  • He also pulled down his pants and mooned his female co-stars.

  • As one account pointed out: “This guy makes sure planes aren’t falling from the sky.”

  • Duffy used his reality TV status to launch a career in politics, resulting inhis current position as transportation secretary. He doesn’t have any related experience running a large agency, yet Trump chose him to usher in “the Golden Age” of air traffic safety and travel. Last week we had 2 major plane crashes for the first time in recent history.

More Terrible Things of Note

• Elon Musk deleted the US Census and archives references

• Trump signs executive order banning 12 trans women from competing in sports

• The Trump Administration has offered a buyout to every employee of the Central Intelligence Agency. The buyout offers CIA employees pay and benefits for a period of eight months, mimicking the buyout offered to other federal employees.

• The CDC has been ordered to purge science and medical research mentioning DEI from its website.

• Trump keeps flirting with a trade war with China, Canada, and Mexico.

• TQIA+ has been removed from the US government travel safety advisory site in an extremely ironic move