The US Education Department announced that it is cutting nearly 50% of its workforce, according to senior agency officials, as President Donald Trump has proposed eliminated the agency altogether.
Hundreds will be laid off starting this evening in addition to those who took voluntary “buyouts.” The department employs around 4,400 workers.
The layoffs will take effect in 90 days. Those fired will begin teleworking starting Wednesday and go on paid administrative leave starting March 21, according to the officials, who added that the employees will receive severance pay.
The cuts are in addition to the 63 probationary employees who were fired as part of a White House directive last month, the officials added. More than 300 employees also took an up to $25,000 voluntary separation incentives.
“Today’s reduction in force reflects the Department of Education’s commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers,” said Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
Some background: Trump has been mulling over an executive order to eliminate the department altogether, which was expected to be signed last week but was never announced.
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said the roughly 2,000 remaining staff members will make sure outward-facing programs like grants and appropriations from Congress are being met and handled appropriately.
"None of that’s going to fall through the cracks," she vowed.
Education Department starts massive layoffs for half of ALL staff
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] The Department of Education temporarily closed all its offices in the Washington, D.C., area for 'security' reasons amid reports it is slashing half its workforce in cuts driven by Elon Musk's DOGE.
Offices closed at 6PM on Tuesday, according to a notice to employees sent by James Hairfield, from the office of security, facilities and logistics at the department.
The email notified all workers to bring their work laptops from the office and work from home starting Wednesday, March 12.
'Employees will not be permitted in any ED facility on Wednesday, March 12 for any reason,' the email read.
A Department of Education spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
McMahon was asked about the buildings closing in an interview with Laura Ingraham Tuesday night.
'We didn't want part of people being permanently let go and those remaining to all - some of them to show up work tomorrow morning,' she said.
Both McMahon and Ingraham noted that this was 'standard corporate practice.'
'We lock the doors and said for those that are coming back we'll know that they will be coming back on Thursday morning.'
There will be a chance for those let go to come back and take personal affects, as well as 'say goodbye' to one another.
The Department of Education currently employs over 4,000 employees and has a budget of $80 billion. The most significant function handled by the department is student loans, which could be shifted to the Treasury Department.
On Friday, McMahon also said she would continue to work with Congress to make sure students would still receive student loan assistance.
'This is not a turn off the lights and walk out of the department,' she told NewsNation in an interview.
'It's in close consultation with Congress and looking at how the needs of students can best be serviced.'
#6
Reduce it down to a single employee. Some Pa Kettle looking individual with an old upright phone with a single line and an empty desk. Ok, maybe a coffee maker for the old boy, but that's it.
[JustTheNews] New letter reveals Biden administration didn’t fully comply with requests involving Democrat online fundraising platform
The Biden administration failed to fully comply with a demand to allow Congress to review Suspicious Activity Reports involving the massive Democrat online fundraising platform, prompting a fresh request Monday to the Trump Treasury Department, according to correspondence obtained by Just the News.
House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., and House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil, R-Wis., made the joint request to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant seeking access to the SARs, which are required by federal law when banks suspect money laundering or other suspicious activity.
The committees first sought the reports last fall, and Comer has said government officials told them there are hundreds of such reports.
In their new letter, the chairmen revealed the Biden Treasury Department only let Congress see some of the reports.
“Although the Biden Administration initially stalled the Committees’ requests in its entirety for months, on January 2, 2025, Treasury allowed the Committees to review only limited documents,” they wrote Bessant. “We write to request Treasury, in its commitment to transparency and cooperation, provide both Committees with the remaining records relevant to our investigations.”
Congress along with numerous state attorneys generals began investigating ActBlue last election, citing concerns the massive fundraising online platform, which claims to have raised $2 billion for Democrats and liberal causes over the last two decades, had not until recently used security tools like the CVV number on the back of credit cards to ensure donor identities.
The lawmakers told Bessant they were concerned that loose security might have led to abuses on the platform, including the flow of prohibited foreign monies into U.S. elections.
“Our Committees are concerned that the failure to properly vet contributions made through online platforms may allow bad actors, including foreign nationals not lawfully admitted for permanent residence or individuals attempting to evade individual contribution limits, to more easily commit fraud to illegally exploit and violate federal campaign finance laws,” they wrote.
For emphasis, they added the committees want to “guard against illicit foreign influence or other illegal activities in U.S. elections.”
In a recent interview with the Just the News, No Noise television show, Comer indicated the “small fraction” of documents the committees was shown by the Biden Treasury Department only heightened lawmakers’ concerns and determination to get access to all records.
“I think you are going to have a lot to report on ActBlue in the coming weeks,“ Comer said. Asked whether there is a foreign trail of money, he responded: “Absolutely.”
Back in December, Steil told the Just the News, No Noise television show that Congress likely will refer ActBlue to the Trump Justice Department for possible investigation.
“Once Pam Bondi comes in as attorney general under the Trump administration, we then have a partner at the United States Department of Justice to look at this, to do the investigation into bad actors, and to hold anyone who is engaged in this activity accountable,” he said.
In October, Steil and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, a fellow Republican, wrote to then-Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, then-FBI Director Christopher Wray and then-Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines about concerns that four U.S. adversaries may have donated through the platform.
“We write to you to raise an urgent concern regarding potential illicit election funding by foreign actors,” the lawmakers wrote. “CHA has been investigating claims that foreign actors, primarily from Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and China, may be using ActBlue to launder illicit money into U.S. political campaigns.”
#1
We are talking a Massive Liberal, Democrat rip off of $Billions here. When will we see arrests and the seizure of assets from those that milked the US Taxpayers?
#2
ActBlue refined 'Surfing' into their largest method of foreign donor money laundering.
Millions and millions of dollars split up into small bite-sized 'donations' from folks who were totally unaware that it was happening.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
03/12/2025 7:24 Comments ||
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#3
DOGE is shutting down dozens of questionable Biden Administration projects (contracts). "Shutting down" is good, but where is the contract and Contracting Officer's Representative that awarded these efforts ?
* Were the contracts running in previous years ?
* Where is the statement of work ?
* What were the deliverables ?
* To whom was the contract awarded ?
Shutting down is fine, but there's likely more to the story.....unless the awards were bogus and the money was going elsewhere.
#7
2^
the smurfing was done specifically to avoid SARs
if each of the smurfed donations to actblue was given to Congress, it would be in the millions of separate files
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
03/12/2025 13:15 Comments ||
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#8
the smurfing was done specifically to avoid SARs
Which works beautifully until a bunch of programming geniuses white hats with AI embellishments start collating the records. Moments later, of course, it is entirely too late.
[TennesseeConservativeNews] Homeschooling Bill Killed In House Subcommittee Over Concerns That Parents Might Abuse Their Children
A pro-homeschooling bill that was endorsed by both state and national homeschooling advocates died in the House Education Administration Subcommittee on Tuesday over concerns that parents might abuse their children without any state oversight.
The answer is to write a stronger bill that addresses those concerns. Politics is about horsetrading.
Had it passed, the FREE Act would have made Tennessee the 14th state to enact such legislation as Wyoming passed a similar bill this year, becoming the most recent of 13 states to do so.
House Bill 0552 (HB0552), sponsored by Representative Todd Warner (R-Chapel Hill-District 92), would not have repealed any current regulations regarding homeschooling in Tennessee.
Instead, the “Family Right to Educational Emancipation Act” or FREE Act” would have created a new independent category for homeschooling that would have been exempt from compulsory school attendance while also keeping homeschool families who might have chosen the new option free of any data collection, reporting, or assessment requirements.
According to Warner, this new option would have kept homeschool families from participating in any state program like a future expansion of school vouchers that would include homeschool families or the current TSSAA rules that allow homeschool students to participate in sports at their local public schools.
Following testimony on the bill, Committee Chair William Slater (R-Gallatin-District 35) read a few lines from a letter that he received from the Sumner County Juvenile Court Judge in Slater’s district.
“It could potentially create a loophole for some rather unscrupulous parents to abuse Tennessee’s educational system,” Slater read. “And our greatest fear is unscrupulous parents when threatened with the notions of mandatory referrals for abuse would remove a child from school and place them under the umbrella of this bill so as to avoid detection.”
Slater said that while he understood “the importance of the freedom to homeschool” he nevertheless was inclined to side with the judge’s opinion which sounded strikingly similar to a Stewart County Juvenile Court Judge’s letter shared by Free YOUR Children whose founder wrote the FREE Act.
#7
Well done, NN2N1. You have much to be proud of.
I never home schooled, because even before I fell ill I lacked the discipline, so I admire anyone who can do it effectively. But I enriched the heck out the trailing daughters and whichever of their friends came home with them on any particular day, challenging them to meet my standards for both learning and work.
I wish I’d got my hands on final daughter while she was still in school — td #1 only met her when both were in their mid-twenties. She is bright, but autistic and both dyslexic and dys-numeric(?). The public school where she grew up was not prepared for her; unfortunately, her mother also was not prepared for all that while home schooling, thinking the child lazy rather than learning disabled. Coupled with severe health issues, final daughter never got past eighth grade in terms of formal education.
[IsraelNationalNews] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he is suing former minister Moshe Ya'alon over Ya'alon's claim that he received money from Qatar.
"Nothing will stop me from continuing to make the right decisions for the security of our country. Not the fake campaign, the fake scandals that are constantly on the news. The people yawn because they know that everything is fake and the number of cases being filed is not keeping up with the number of cases being opened," Netanyahu said in a video he posted.
He added, "I have decided not to remain silent any longer. Today I sued 'Bogie' Ya'alon for the despicable lie he spread as if I received something from Qatar. I will tell you: I received nothing from Qatar, but I will receive from Bogie, and this is just the beginning."
Posted by: Grom the Affective ||
03/12/2025 00:00 ||
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Link ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
