FEDERAL employees are offered a buyout, if they agree by Feb. 6 (Shutterstock)

In an effort to reduce the federal workforce, the Trump Administration is offering those workers a buyout with seven months of pay … provided they leave their jobs by Feb, 6.

The Associated Press reports that additionally, the federal government would start holding its workers to “enhanced standards of suitability and conduct.”

More than 3 million people currently work for Uncle Sam, with the average tenure for a federal employee being about a dozen years.

The American Federation of Government Employees union president Everett Kelley saw the move as a way to pressure employees not “loyal” to the Trump Administration to quit or be fired, the result of which would be “chaos.”

An earlier directive to federal employees was to require that they return to the office and end working at home. “You have to go to your office and work. Otherwise, you’re not going to have a job,” said Trump.

Effects of halt to foreign aid

UPDATE: The cutoff of foreign aid was withdrawn.

THE EARTH (Flickr/Kevin Gill).

A wide variety of programs to enhance public health, combat crime and educate poor children are facing the possibility of being permanently ended as President Donald Trump has signed an executive order temporarily stopping foreign aid to nearly all nations of the world.

The standard would be that program would have to be “efficient and consistent with U.S. foreign policy under the America First agenda.”

According to The New York Times, the lone exceptions are Israel and Egypt. Aid to other nations will undergo a 90-day assessment period but – The Times reported that any foreign aid promoting diversity, women’s reproductive rights and combatting climate change are almost certain to be cut.

Drones weren’t alien ships

MQ-9 REAPER drone (Wikipedia).

Those drones that flew over New Jersey were not alien invaders.

Instead, according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, they were “authorized to be flown by the [Federal Aviation Agency] for research and various other reasons,” speaking in the first press briefing of Donald Trump’s second term.

Additionally, she said the others – including hobbyists – joined in. “In time,” she said, “it got worse due to curiosity.”

The government drones had been authorized by then-President Joe Biden.

Weather: Back to the 50s

Not the decade, but the temperatures. The forecast for our West Orange County area for Wednesday and Thursday calls for daytime highs of 59 and 57 with lows of 47 and 44, both under partly cloudy skies. Friday and Saturday will warm to 62 and 66 (46 and 51 overnight) with – you guessed it – partly cloudy skies.

Great Thoughts

“All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle; that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression.”
– Thomas Jefferson, first Inaugural Address, 1801