#Presidential Transition Project

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Eric Hananoki at MMFA:

Paul Dans, a former Trump administration official and the director of Project 2025, told a right-wing podcast last year that his group has a “great” relationship with former President Donald Trump, and “Trump's very bought in with this.” His comments fly in the face of Trump’s recent attempts to distance himself from Project 2025.  Project 2025, which is organized by right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation, states that “Dans directs Heritage’s 2025 Presidential Transition Project, organizing policy and personnel recommendations and training for appointees in the next presidential administration. Prior to joining Heritage, Dans served in the Trump Administration as Chief of Staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.”  Media Matters has heavily documented the extreme nature of Project 2025. Notably, Heritage Foundation president and key Project 2025 figure Kevin Roberts recently sparked heavy criticism when he said, “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” 

Following the controversy, Trump attempted to distance himself from the Heritage plan and has repeatedly claimed, “I know nothing about Project 2025.” But media outlets including Media Matters have documented the numerous connections between the project and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.  Dans himself appears to have contradicted Trump’s claim that he knows nothing about the project.

In an unearthed video by MMFA, Project 2025 Director Paul Dans has praised Donald Trump and said that he’s “very bought in with this.”

See Also:

MMFA: Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts on WMAL's The Vince Coglianese Show: “The overlap is tremendous” between Trump's campaign platform and Project 2025

[hale-nathan]

Trump Weird News - Project 2025 - Really, Still in Denial?

[guiltyidealist]

In case you haven't had the chance to go through the specifics of Project 25, here's the Wikipedia blurb with some key highlights.

( Please be very alarmed by the statement "we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be" )

[bloghrexach]

Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project, is a collection of conservative policy proposals from the Heritage Foundation to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power should a Republican Party candidate win the 2024 presidential election. Wikipedia

[chuck-glisson]

STOP Project 2025, and BOYCOTT Coors Beer!

Donald Trump's "Presidental Transition Project" is a plan by The Heritage Foundation, as outlined in THEIR "Project 2025", to OVERTHROW the "US Constitution", SUSPEND ALL "Future Elections", & "Appoint" DONALD TRUMP as a DICTATOR!

[charyou-tree]

Ok, I get it, you hate Biden

You want a cool, leftist candidate to vote for instead. Great, me too!

What is your plan to get some candidate you like better into power?

Who should we campaign for?

How do we raise money?

What races are important? What races can't they win?

And most importantly, how do we convince ~100 Million other Americans that you're right, and we should vote for this person?

You don't have a plan.

You say "don't vote for Biden" and refuse to provide any alternatives, so I can only assume you'd rather the people on Tumblr not vote at all.

I guarantee the fascists will be voting next year, and making sure that if they win, this will be the last election you get to vote in. Don't take it from me, here it is in their own words:

There's a 900 page plan about how the fascists intend to take over America.

So I ask again, what's your plan? Do you want to help Palestinians, or do you want to make sure that the last people who still believe in elections lose?

If your only contribution is "Biden is evil" and "both sides are the same" or "every American politician is evil" then I'm going to assume your intentions are to keep young leftists disillusioned and prevent them from voting, and I'll block accordingly.

[dertaglichedan]

Trump Plans To Revive Keystone XL Pipeline Project on Day One

It’s been quite some time since we covered the Keystone XL Pipeline, a proposed extension of the existing Keystone Pipeline System designed to transport crude oil from Alberta, Canada, to Nebraska.

The project’s goal was to expand the pipeline system’s capacity by allowing the transport of up to 830,000 barrels of oil per day over a distance of approximately 1,210 miles. The aim was to provide a more direct route for Canadian oil, and provisions were included for adding American-produced oil from the Bakken formation in Montana and North Dakota.

The last time we reported on this Keystone KL, it included a review of the number of jobs that were not created because Biden terminated this project (initially authorized by President-elect Donald Trump.)

The report, which the Department of Energy (DOE) completed in late December without any public announcement, says the Keystone XL project would have created between 16,149 and 59,000 jobs and would have had a positive economic impact of between $3.4-9.6 billion, citing various studies. A previous report from the federal government published in 2014 determined 3,900 direct jobs and 21,050 total jobs would be created during construction which was expected to take two years.

Now, people familiar with the incoming administration’s plans indicate that Trump will revive the project on Day One.

Trump believes declaring the 1,200-mile Canada-to-Nebraska crude project back on the table would drive the pro-oil message he delivered in his campaign, said people involved in the transition team discussions about the idea. Trump also wants to show he can defy President Joe Biden, who reversed Trump’s initial 2017 approval of the project, which was strongly opposed by the climate movement. “It’s on the list of things they want to do first day,” said one of the people familiar with Trump’s plan, who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. …During his latest presidential campaign, Trump railed against Biden’s decision to revoke the Keystone XL permit. “Why does Biden go in and kill the Keystone [XL] pipeline and approve the single biggest deal that Russia’s ever made, Nord Stream 2, the biggest pipeline anywhere in the world going to Germany and all over Europe?” Trump said during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, referring to the gas line that was hit by sabotage in 2022. “Because they’re weak and they’re ineffective.”

[qqueenofhades]

Not to ruin your day but thoughts on the 2025 project?

It is, with zero exaggeration or hyperbole, a literally perfect blueprint for fascism. If anyone is somehow still on the fence about voting for Biden, plans not to vote for Biden, or to throw away their vote on some third-party whackjob just to "send a message," I urge you to read these articles and understand the magnitude of what is at stake (courtesy, again, of the fucking Heritage Foundation):

A Rational Analysis of the Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Presidential Transition Project, “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise”

The Heritage Foundation Plan to Help Trump End Democracy in America

What is Project 2025? Trump Shadow Network Plans to Overhaul 'Deep State'

‘Project 2025’: plan to dismantle US climate policy for next Republican president

[rjzimmerman]

Mexico elects climate scientist as next president (Heatmap AM)

Mexico resoundingly��elected Claudia Sheinbaum as its next president over the weekend. Sheinbaum, 61, is making headlines for becoming the country’s first female president, as well as its first Jewish leader, but she is also a climate scientist, and her landslide victory “could mark a turning point from the current administration’s pro-fossil fuel policies,” as Climate Home News explained. Sheinbaum studied physics and then received her doctorate in energy engineering. She spent four years at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab studying Mexico’s energy consumption, and had a brief stint on the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). She was tapped as secretary of the environment for Mexico City before being elected as the capital’s mayor in 2018. During her tenure she was an advocate for rooftop solar and better public transportation infrastructure.

On the presidential campaign trail, Sheinbaum promised to “accelerate the energy transition” by boosting wind and solar, installing new transmission lines, and improving the country’s hydropower stations. But she has also backed the “energy sovereignty” policies of her predecessor and mentor, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. He built an oil refinery, funneled support into an indebted state oil company, and failed to set a national net zero target. Under his leadership, private investment in renewable projects has slumped. Energy policy may be on Sheinbaum’s to-do list when she takes office in October, but tackling crime is likely to be top of the agenda.

[ohyeslawd]

Google Project 25

What is Project 2025?

The Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project is a well-funded (eight-figure) effort of the Heritage Foundation and more than 100 organizations to enable a future anti-democratic presidential administration to take swift, far-right action that would cut wages for working people, dismantle social safety net programs, reverse decades of progress for civil rights, redefine the way our society operates, and undermine our economy.

A central pillar of Project 2025 is the “Mandate for Leadership,” a 900+ page policy playbook authored by former Trump administration officials and other extremists that provides a radical vision for our nation and a roadmap to implement it.

Project 2025 Snapshot

Proposals from Project 2025, discussed in detail throughout this guide, that they claim could be implemented through executive branch action alone — so without new legislation — include:

Cut overtime protections for 4.3 million workers

Stop efforts to lower prescription drug prices

Limit access to food assistance, which an average of more than 40 million people in 21.6 million households rely on monthly

Eliminate the Head Start early education program, which serves over 1 million children annually

Cut American Rescue Plan (ARP) programs that have created or saved 220,000 jobs

Restrict access to medication abortion

Push more of the 33 million people enrolled in Medicare towards Medicare Advantage and other worse, private options

Expose the 368,000 children in foster care to risk of increased discrimination

Deny students in 25 states and Washington, D.C. access to student loans because their state provides in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants

Roll back civil rights protections across multiple fronts, including cutting diversity, equity, and inclusion-related (DEI) programs and LGBTQ+ rights in health care, education, and workplaces

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Andy Kroll and Nick Surgey at ProPublica:

ProPublica and Documented obtained more than 14 hours of never-before-published videos from Project 2025’s Presidential Administration Academy, which are intended to train the next conservative administration’s political appointees “to be ready on day one.” Project 2025, the controversial playbook and policy agenda created by the Heritage Foundation and its allies for a future conservative presidential administration, has lost its director. In recent weeks, it faced scathing criticism from both Democratic groups and former President Donald Trump, whose campaign has tried to distance itself from the effort. But Project 2025’s plan to train an army of political appointees who could battle against the so-called deep state government bureaucracy remains on track. Video trainings like these are one of the “four pillars” of that plan, says Spencer Chretien, the associate director of Project 2025, in “Political Appointees & The Federal Workforce.” For transparency, we are publishing the videos as we obtained them.

The Heritage Foundation and most of the people who appear in the videos cited in this story did not respond to ProPublica’s repeated requests for comment. Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign, said, “As our campaign leadership and President Trump have repeatedly stated, Agenda 47 is the only official policy agenda from our campaign.”

ProPublica and Documented partner up to reveal 14+ hours’ worth of never-before-published videos from The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 Presidential Administration Academy.

[hale-nathan]

Trump Weird News - Trump Is Project 2025

[mariacallous]

During the final six months of Donald Trump’s presidency, his administration carried out an unprecedented execution spree, killing 13 people on federal death row and ending a 17-year de facto federal execution moratorium.

Shortly after Joe Biden entered the White House, the Justice Department formally reinstated the federal execution moratorium and announced a sweeping policy review. But despite Biden’s campaign promise to work to end the federal death penalty, there has been little progress toward that goal.

Meanwhile, Trump, the GOP’s presumptive 2024 presidential nominee, has openly fantasized about executing drug dealers and human traffickers. He reportedly suggested that officials who leak information to the press should be executed, too. And behind the scenes, there’s a team of pro-Trump conservatives who are pushing for a second Trump term that involves even more state-sponsored killing than the first.

Last year, a coalition effort by conservative groups known as Project 2025 released an 887-page document that lays out policy goals and recommendations for each part of the federal government. Buried on page 554 is a directive to execute every remaining federal death row prisoner — and to persuade the Supreme Court to expand the types of crimes that can be punished with death sentences.

Gene Hamilton — a former Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security official under Trump, and the author of the transition playbook’s DOJ chapter — wrote that the next conservative administration should “do everything possible to obtain finality” for every prisoner on federal death row, which currently includes 40 people.

Read on for more about how the Project 2025 proposal envisions an extreme shift in how the death penalty is used in America.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 20, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Nov 20, 2024

Remember how American voters so hated Project 2025, the playbook for a second Trump term written by the Heritage Foundation and other right-wing institutions, that Trump said he had nothing to do with it, and then one of its key architects, Russell Vought, told undercover filmmakers that Trump was only running away from the project as political cover? 

It appears Vought was right and the story that Trump had nothing to do with Project 2025 was, indeed, just political cover. Ed O’Keefe and Major Garrett of CBS News reported today that two sources close to the Trump transition team have told them that they expect Trump to name Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). 

Vought wrote the section of Project 2025 that covers the presidency, calling for “aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch” to “bend or break the bureaucracy to the presidential will” and identifying the OMB as the means of enforcing the president’s agenda. Vought was Trump’s OMB director during the end of his first term and tried to remove the civil service protections that have been in place since 1883 to protect federal workers from being fired for political reasons. That plan, known as Schedule F, would have affected about 88% of the federal workforce. 

One of the first things Biden did when he took office was to rescind Trump’s executive order making that shift.

Like that earlier attempt, Project 2025 leans heavily on the idea that “personnel is policy,” and that idea illuminates the choices the Trump team is making. Trump has refused to sign the official documents required by the 2022 Presidential Transition Act. Those documents mandate ethics commitments and require the incoming president to disclose private donations. They also limit those donations. Without the paperwork, Trump appointees cannot start the process of getting security clearances through the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the team says it is planning to do its own vetting of its candidates instead.  

Claiming they have a mandate, Trump’s people have said they are launching “a hostile takeover” of the American government “on behalf of the American people.” But as voting numbers continue to come in, Trump’s majority has fallen below 50% of voters, meaning that more voters chose someone else than chose Trump on November 5. These results are far from being in “mandate” territory.

The U.S. Constitution charges Congress with writing the laws under which the American people live, and the president with taking “care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Since 1933, Congress has created an extensive system of agencies that regulate business and provide a basic social safety net. Congress will say, for example, that the U.S. needs an agency to protect the environment (like the Environmental Protection Agency, established under Republican president Richard M. Nixon), appropriate money for it, oversee its leadership, and then trust those leaders to hire the personnel necessary to carry out its mission. 

Regulations and social welfare programs and the agencies that provide them are broadly popular—think how hard it has been for members to get rid of Social Security, for example—so Congress trims at the edges rather than abolishing them. As the U.S. budget has grown, they often bear the brunt of accusations that the government spends too much, although what has really caused the budget to operate deeply in the red is the tax cuts for the wealthy put into place by Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump.  

Right-wing leaders who want to continue cutting regulations and taxes are newly empowered by Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, and they are turning to a quirk of the government to enable them to work around Congress. 

Since the first administration of President George Washington, agencies created by Congress have lived in the Executive Branch. If, as Vought and others argue, the president is the absolute authority in that branch, Trump can do whatever he wants with those agencies and the civil servants—the bureaucrats—who run them.  

In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today, billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy laid out their plans for cutting the U.S. government. Neither of them has ever held elected office, but they see that as an advantage, not a downside: “We are entrepreneurs, not politicians,” they write. “We will serve as outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees.” Trump has named them to the “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE. Despite the “department” name, DOGE is not an official government agency—which would require ethics disclosures—but rather an advisory panel. 

Their op-ed begins by redefining congressional authority to create agencies to suggest that agencies are illegitimate. “Most government enforcement decisions and discretionary expenditures aren’t made by the democratically elected president or even his political appointees,” they write, “but by millions of unelected, unappointed civil servants within government agencies who view themselves as immune from firing thanks to civil-service protections.” This, they say, “imposes massive direct and indirect costs on taxpayers.” 

“Thankfully,” they continue, “we have a historic opportunity to solve the problem. On Nov. 5, voters decisively elected Donald Trump with a mandate for sweeping change, and they deserve to get it.”

While “politicians” have “abetted” an “entrenched and ever-growing bureaucracy,” they write, they will work with the OMB to identify regulations that, they claim, Trump can issue an executive order to stop enforcing. “This would liberate individuals and businesses from illicit regulations never passed by Congress and stimulate the U.S. economy,” they write. Should Trump want to cut things that Congress wants to fund, they claim that Trump will simply refuse to spend those appropriations, challenging the 1974 Impoundment Control Act that declared such withholding illegal. 

Musk and Ramaswamy reiterated their support for cutting programs that are not currently authorized, although budget experts note that such a lapse is a tool to permit adjustments to programs Congress has, in fact, authorized and have also pointed out that one of the top items on that list is health care for veterans. Cuts to all these programs will naturally mean extensive cuts to the federal workforce. 

“With a decisive electoral mandate and a 6–3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court,” they write, “DOGE has a historic opportunity for structural reductions in the federal government. We are prepared for the onslaught from entrenched interests in Washington. We expect to prevail. Now is the moment for decisive action.” 

They conclude by asserting that “[t]here is no better birthday gift to our nation on its 250th anniversary than to deliver a federal government that would make our Founders proud,” which is one heck of a conclusion to a blueprint for taking the power of American lawmaking from the Congress, where the Framers put it, and delivering it into the hands of an extraordinarily powerful president acting on the advice of two unelected billionaires, one of whom wasn’t born in the United States.  

In the vein of getting rid of regulations, today the chief executive of Delta Air Lines said he expected the Trump administration would be a “breath of fresh air” after the Biden administration’s consumer-protection laws that he called government “overreach.” 

Meanwhile, in Washington, the Senate has been confirming President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees, with the absence of Republican senators making the confirmations easier.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[thedystopianexperiance]

What is Project 2025?

Project 2025, also known as the 2025 Presidential Transition Project, is a plan developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation to prepare for a future conservative administration in the United States. Launched in 2022, the initiative aims to reshape the federal government by consolidating executive power and implementing a conservative agenda. It is a continuation of Heritage’s 'Mandate for Leadership' series, which has influenced Republican administrations since the 1980s.

The plan includes several key elements:

1. Policy Guidance: Detailed recommendations for reorganizing major federal agencies to align with conservative principles, such as dismantling the Department of Education, reducing environmental regulations, and emphasizing traditional family values.

2. Personnel Strategy: A database and vetting system to place loyal conservatives into key government roles, replacing many career civil servants with political appointees.

3. Training Programs: A "Presidential Administration Academy" to prepare conservatives for federal leadership roles.

4. Agency Playbooks: Transition plans for each agency to quickly reverse prior policies and implement new reforms.

Critics warn the project, promote an authoritarian vision, undermine democratic norms like separation of powers, and threaten civil liberties.

Supporters argue that it seeks to restore limited government and uphold conservative values.