Sherwood News

The Department of Government Efficiency is coming for fed agencies and contractors

It might not find that many permanent jobs to cut at the federal level.

11/18/24 9:03AM

Vivek Ramaswamy, who only dropped out of the GOP presidential nomination race himself at the start of the year, yesterday warned that certain federal agencies could be “deleted outright” as part of his and Elon Musk’s planned work with the Department of Government Efficiency.

Though it’s still unclear how far the advisory body, announced by President-elect Trump last Tuesday, can actually go in enacting some of the moves its chiefs have been touting, Musk has spoken confidently about the potential for major changes to how the US government is run, like wiping “at least $2 trillion” from current spending and reducing the federal agency count by more than 75%.

The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE (get it?), will work to “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” per Trump’s statement. While inflation-adjusted federal spending has increased steadily over the past few decades, direct employment within the federal government has remained surprisingly stable over the past ~70 years. Per data from the BLS, employee counts at America’s state and local governments have each risen by more than 300% since 1955, whereas the federal government workforce has risen just 31% in the same period — perhaps a reason that nonpermanent federal contractors are likely to be such a focus for DOGE.

Congress votes to end shutdown

The over 40-day government shutdown came to an end without a guarantee that the ACA tax credits will be extended.

J. Edward Moreno11/12/25

Jon Keegan11/12/25

OpenAI: The New York Times is forcing us to turn over 20 million ChatGPT conversations

A judge in the The New York Times’ copyright lawsuit against OpenAI (and Microsoft) has ordered that the ChatGPT maker hand over the conversations of 20 million users to the Times’ lawyers, in an effort to find examples of copyright violations.

Today, OpenAI is lobbying the public in a last-ditch effort to prevent the release, which is due Friday:

“The New York Times is demanding that we turn over 20 million of your private ChatGPT conversations. They claim they might find examples of you using ChatGPT to try to get around their paywall. This demand disregards long-standing privacy protections, breaks with common-sense security practices, and would force us to turn over tens of millions of highly personal conversations from people who have no connection to the Times’ baseless lawsuit against OpenAI.”

If the company’s final appeals to the court do not succeed, OpenAI explains that it will de-identify the chat logs, scrub any personally identifying information from the chats, and that technical experts hired by The New York Times’ legal team will be the only ones who can examine the data, which will be tightly controlled.

Fighting the New York Times’ invasion of user privacy

Today, OpenAI is lobbying the public in a last-ditch effort to prevent the release, which is due Friday:

“The New York Times is demanding that we turn over 20 million of your private ChatGPT conversations. They claim they might find examples of you using ChatGPT to try to get around their paywall. This demand disregards long-standing privacy protections, breaks with common-sense security practices, and would force us to turn over tens of millions of highly personal conversations from people who have no connection to the Times’ baseless lawsuit against OpenAI.”

Millie Giles

THE BILL, PLEASE

11/10/25

The Senate just advanced a deal that could end the government shutdown

Prediction markets have done a U-turn as Washington looks to end the longest government shutdown in US history.

USA government shutdown, political crisis concept illustration

Max Knoblauch11/4/25

Big four airlines sink as Transportation Secretary Duffy says parts of US airspace could close if shutdown continues

The US may close parts of its airspace as early as next week if the government shutdown continues, according to comments made by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Tuesday.

“If you bring us to a week from today, Democrats, you will see mass chaos. You will see mass flight delays. You’ll see mass cancellations, and you may see us close certain parts of the airspace, because we just cannot manage it,” Duffy said at a news briefing on Tuesday.

The shutdown, which entered its 35th day on Tuesday, has fueled already problematic shortages of air traffic controllers. This week, airlines said 3.2 million passengers have faced delays or cancellations because of the shortages. Last week, about 13,000 air traffic controllers and 50,000 TSA agents received their first $0 paycheck amid the shutdown.

Shares of the big four US airlines all sank on Duffy’s comments, with United Airlines, American Airlines, and Delta Air Lines all down more than 5%.

Jon Keegan11/3/25

Trump’s deal offering top Nvidia chips to China was nixed at last minute, the WSJ reports

Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, really wants to sell the chipmaker’s most powerful Blackwell GPUs to China. He almost had his way.

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, President Trump was ready to put Blackwell chips on the negotiating table for his meeting with Chinese President Xi to seek relief from China’s decision to block crucial rare earth exports to the US.

But according to the report, Trump advisers presented a unified front and were able to dissuade him from giving up the most powerful chips to China at the last minute. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer were among those opposed to the chip deal. After the meeting, Trump said he did not talk with Xi about Nvidia’s “super duper” chips.

Reportedly those opposed to the deal cited national security concerns, as well as wanting to keep a competitive edge as China seeks to challenge the US’s current dominance of the AI industry.

Exclusive | Trump Officials Torpedoed Nvidia’s Push to Export AI Chips to China