#Republicans want to end the Department of Education

[republicansaretheproblem]

Lewisville,Texas closes five schools because they’re not planning on getting any Federal aid since Trump promised to close the Department of Education. The residents of Lewisville are furious their schools are closing. FYI Lewisville is in Denton County (north Dallas suburbs) voted overwhelmingly for Trump in the recent election.

Lewisville voters F—ked Around & Found Out. The dumb asses still can’t grasp the fact that they brought this on themselves. They had no idea what the consequences of closing the Deptartment of Education would be. Trump said he was going to defund education and their MAGAt pea brains had no idea they would be hurt by it. They voted for the Leopards That Bite Faces Off Party and now they’ve had their faces bitten off but somehow it’s not their fault. It must certainly be the fault of liberals…God Emperor Trump would never hurt his own people… would he?

5 minute YouTube video.

[welcometoqueer]

Some U.S. election news updates (as of afternoon November 7, 2024):

Many states, including major battleground ones, have started recounting votes on their own despite there still being no national call for a recount. Some of these states recounting or considering recounting as of November 7, 2024 include: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona (considering), and Texas (considering).

Most news outlets have been covering state laws regarding recounts and what a recount could mean. Notably, right-wing sources like Fox News have not mentioned the possibility of a recount or the high demand for one (hmmm).

In cities such as Chicago and Philadelphia, people took to the streets in a peaceful protest to demand a recount (wait, you can protest peacefully?? without starting an insurrection?? Crazy).

More information alleging Trump cheating has come forward, although many people are expressing their frustrations over there being little to no coverage of election interference by the mainstream media. Additionally, many Democratic voters are vowing to boycott news sources such as CNN and MSNBC due to their apparent tone-deaf and lackluster response to the allegations.

On Twitter, hashtags such as “Do Not Concede Kamala,” “Recount 2024,” “He/Trump Cheated,” and “Rigged” continue to trend nationally since election night.

Also in the Twitter hellscape, Elon Musk has been removing posts with resources, posts alleging Trump cheated, and posts with information on how to check your ballot and demand a recount. This is awfully suspicious and concerning behavior from someone who has also been accused of bribing voters, which is a federal crime.

Many people are also sharing their grief over the extreme likelihood of programs and services such as Social Security, Medicare, SNAP, the Department of Education, and others being diminished or fully gutted as many Republican lawmakers and Trump have promised to do. Already today (Nov. 7), House Republicans have proposed a bill that would reduce social security payments for U.S.Americans who receive disability benefits or a pension.

There are also concerns over imposed tariffs, the United States losing its NATO membership, and the potential dissolving of the United Nations.

Many MAGA Trump supporters have started to be more emboldened, not just in the Twitter space. Multiple parents have come forward to share that young boys at their children’s schools have also begun repeating the “your body, my choice” mantra, leaving other kids in distress.

Speaking of distress, nationwide, queer and trans people have been largely absent from work and school. Since election night, LGBTQ+ and other helplines have had long waits due to such high demand.

TW: suicide mention, skip the next paragraph

There’s been over 2000+ suicides of just LGBTQ+ individuals since election night and the numbers keep increasing drastically.

End TW

Politically, sitting President Joe Biden addressed the nation today to discuss a “peaceful transfer of power.” He addressed people questioning Donald Trump’s win and the election system saying: “It is honest, it is fair, and it is transparent, and it can be trusted, win or lose."

Needless to say, no one was pleased by his response and are still demanding an investigation or recount.

Other political figures such as Bernie Sanders and the Obamas’ released their own statements regarding the election.

The Obamas’ had a very professional yet disappointed statement.

Bernie Sanders however, took a different approach, sharing the mass sentiment among democratic voters and criticizing the Democratic Party based on their response to the situation. “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.”

[ID:

Multiple videos and images with election news and updates.

The first video, posted to Twitter, is of an Anti-Trump protest in Chicago.

These should be peacefully taking place all over the country. This is what democracy is about, not storming Capitol buildings. Right MAGA? pic.twitter.com/lgzsP41Lze — Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) November 7, 2024.

The video shows people in the streets of Chicago and in front of Trump tower peacefully protesting in demand for a recount and investigation.

Protesters chants include:

“Donald Trump, you will see!”

“Racist, sexist, anti-gay! Donald Trump, go away!”

and “You’re not welcome in this town! Donald Trump, you fascist clown!”

The second video was also posted to Twitter by CALL TO ACTIVISM (@CalltoActivism) on November 6, 2024. It’s a video from MSNBC reporting on the strange behavior of Trump leading up to the election where he repeatedly said he didn't need votes. These statements seem to imply that regardless of how people voted, he expected to gain power.

The next image is of the official statement regarding the election results by Barack and Michelle Obama.

The statement reads:

STATEMENT BY PRESIDENT AND MRS. OBAMA ON THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION NOVEMBER 6, 2024

“Over the last few weeks and through Election Day, millions of Americans cast their votes - not just for president, but for leaders at every level. Now the results are in, and we want to congratulate President Trump and Senator Vance on their victory. This is obviously not the outcome we had hoped for, given our profound disagreements with the Republican ticket on a whole host of issues. But living in a democracy is about recognizing that our point of view won't always win out, and being willing to accept the peaceful transfer of power. Michelle and I could not be prouder of Vice President Harris and Governor Walz - two extraordinary public servants who ran a remarkable campaign. And we will always be grateful to the staff and volunteers who poured their heart and soul into electing public servants they truly believed in. As I said on the campaign trail, America has been through a lot over the last few years - from a historic pandemic and price hikes resulting from the pandemic, to rapid change and the feeling a lot of folks have that, no matter how hard they work, treading water is the best they can do. Those conditions have created headwinds for democratic incumbents around the world, and last night showed that America is not immune. The good news is that these problems are solvable - but only if we listen to each other, and only if we abide by the core constitutional principles and democratic norms that made this country great. In a country as big and diverse as ours, we won't always see eye-to-eye on everything. But progress requires us to extend good faith and grace - even to people with whom we deeply disagree. That's how we've come this far, and it's how we'll keep building a country that is more fair and more just, more equal and more free.”

The last two images are Bernie Sanders’ statement on the election results, criticizing the response of the Democratic Party.

Sanders’ statement reads:

NEWS: Sanders Statement on the Results of the 2024 Presidential Election November 6, 2024 BURLINGTON, Vt. - Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today released the following statement in response to the outcome of the 2024 presidential election:

“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they're right. Today, while the very rich are doing phenomenally well, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and we have more income and wealth inequality than ever before. Unbelievably, real, inflation-accounted-for weekly wages for the average American worker are actually lower now than they were 50 years ago. Today, despite an explosion in technology and worker productivity, many young people will have a worse standard of living than their parents. And many of them worry that Artificial Intelligence and robotics will make a bad situation even worse. Today, despite spending far more per capita than other countries, we remain the only wealthy nation not to guarantee health care to all as a human right and we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. We, alone among major countries, cannot even guarantee paid family and medical leave. Today, despite strong opposition from a majority of Americans, we continue to spend billions funding the extremist Netanyahu government's all out war against the Palestinian people which has led to the horrific humanitarian disaster of mass malnutrition and the starvation of thousands of children. Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign? Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not. In the coming weeks and months those of us concerned about grassroots democracy and economic justice need to have some very serious political discussions. Stay tuned.”

/end ID]

[batboyblog]

Happy 100th Birthday to President Jimmy Carter

Born October 1st 1924

Carter was America's 39th President serving from 1977 till 1981. President Carter is notable for many reasons, the first American President to oversee a Middle East peace deal ending 30 years of war between Egypt and Israel, the first President to address climate change, and established the Departments of Education and Energy. After his 1980 defeat by Republican Ronald Reagan Carter would redefine what it is a former President is supposed to do. His 40 years out of office saw the Carters work tirelessly on humanitarian projects around the world. Carter worked with Habitat for Humanity to build houses for those in need across America well into his 90s. Carter also worked to combat decease in the developing world particularly Africa. President Carter once said he wanted only to live long enough to outlive the last Guinea worm, a goal he may have reached, when the Carter Center started its work in 1986 there were 3.5 million cases, so far in 2024, 4. In 2002 President Carter became the first and only American President to win the Nobel Peace Prize for activities after their Presidency. He was awarded the prize for the Carter Center's work promoting Democracy and Human Rights around the world. Carter's political reputation in the US has long been overshadowed by his 1980 loss and the rough end of his Presidency but in 2010s and 2020s President Carter has become more engaged with domestic politics campaigning and speaking in his native Georgia. In February 2023 aged 98 President Carter decided to enter hospice care, and many believed the end was near. 19 months later Carter is celebrating his 100th birthday. Sadly his beloved wife of 77 years former First Lady Rosalynn Carter passed away in November 2023. Many commented on a frail President Carter's personal strength appearing in person at her funeral. President Carter's Family reports that since Kamala Harris entered the 2024 race he's become more alert and following events more closely. When asked about his upcoming birthday Carter told his grandson that he's looking forward to being 100, but what he really wants is to make it to November 5th and cast his last vote for Kamala Harris for President.

[saywhat-politics]

Donald Trump ran his presidential campaign promising to abolish entire federal agencies and departments, but it’s not quite so easy for a president to simply end an organization that was created and funded each year by Congress, which is supposed to be the president’s equal.

So the president and his allies, led by Elon Musk, have found a different way to achieve many of the same goals: Put agencies long targeted by Republicans into a coma by sidelining their workforce, halting their operations and launching a review of their activity. Then, maybe, ask Congress to kill them outright.

The list of government agencies on life support or targeted for direct attack after two weeks of Trump 2.0 looks something like this:

► The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

CFPB was set up by Congress after the Great Recession to protect consumers from financial abuses, and the agency has long drawn the ire of Republicans. All of its work has been halted and the director, Rohit Chopra, was fired this past weekend, before the end of his five-year term.

The acting head of the agency, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, ordered a review of agency policy to guarantee “consistency” with the new administration.

► US Agency for International Development

Set up by John F. Kennedy and Congress to help the developing world and defend US interests in 1961, USAID employees in 2025 have been locked out of headquarters and the website has been shut down. Agency staff around the world will be placed on administrative leave Friday and ordered to return to the US, according to a directive issued Tuesday night.

A freeze on most foreign aid while Trump’s administration reviews the agency has caused a worldwide ripple effect among non-profits and aid organizations and sparked fear the US is completely retreating from its leadership position in international development. Musk called the agency “evil” and Trump said it’s run by the “radical left.”

The acting head of USAID, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, told lawmakers in a letter that he would “begin the process of engaging in a review and potential reorganization of USAID’s activities to maximize efficiency and align operations with the national interest.”

Musk used more colorful language in a post on social media that he spent the weekend “feeding USAID into the woodchipper,” an apparent reference to the freezing of foreign aid.

► The Department of Education

In existence since the 1800s, but elevated by Congress as its own agency in 1979, the Department of Education is Trump’s next target. CNN reported that an executive order is being drafted ordering the incoming secretary, Linda McMahon, who has yet to get a Senate confirmation vote, to begin to “diminish” the department through executive action.

“I told Linda, ‘Linda, I hope you do a great job in putting yourself out of a job.’ I want her to put herself out of a job – Education Department,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday.

A narrowly divided Congress likely won’t consent to abolishing the department. But McMahon, who led the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term and made her wealth as founder of WWE, may well succeed in severely “diminishing” its functions — and her own job.

[mckitterick]

Christofascist Republican calls LGBTQ people "filth" during public forum

The culture of hate among Christofascists recently led to the violent beating and subsequent death of Choctaw two-spirit teenager Nex Benedict in Oklahoma.

When questioned about how 50+ anti-LGBTQ bills might have affected this case, State Senator Tom Woods said,

“We are a Republican state - supermajority - in the House and Senate. I represent a constituency that doesn’t want that filth in Oklahoma.”

Several audience members clapped at his statement, while others appeared shocked.

“We are a religious state and we are going to fight it to keep that filth out of the state of Oklahoma because we are a Christian state - we are a moral state,” Woods said. “We want to ... let people be able to go to the faith they choose. We are a Republican state and I’m going to vote my district, and I’m going to vote my values, and we don’t want that in the state of Oklahoma.”

State Representative David Hardin added, “How you live your life personally, that’s between you and God... but what goes through our public schools - I will fall back on my faith. I want to make sure that at least the children in our public schools have that faith... what I want to make sure of is that our young children have the right to grow up with that faith."

After the forum, Woods reiterated his stance on the matter: "I support my constituency, and like I said, we’re a Christian state, and we are tired of having that shoved down our throat at every turn... I stand behind my statement, and I stand behind the Republican Party values."

When asked what he thought of Woods’ characterization of LGBTQ people as “filth,” State Senator Dewayne Pemberton said, “No comment.”

Again and again, today's christofascist Republicans (any other sort doesn't get elected these days) reveal that they want to indoctrinate public school kids into their own bigoted hatred, forcing children to hate anyone who doesn't subscribe to their narrow interpretation of their religious texts. Christofascists seek to impose their personal, misguided religious biases on the general public, including creating laws codifying hate and authoritarian control over the lives and bodies of everyone, not just others in their own religion.

Make no mistake, Nex Benedict's death was caused by christofascist indoctrination of the three girls who brutally beat Nex in that school bathroom. Nex Benedict's death was caused by the school failing to take their injuries seriously, by hate codified in Oklahoma state laws designed to harass LGBTQ folks and normalize bigotry against them, by Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters appointing hate-speech villain Chaya Raichik (responsible for "Libs of TikTok") to the Oklahoma Department of Education's Library Media Advisory Committee even though she doesn't live in the state (but he likes that she used Benedict's school and teacher for targeted hate). And on and on - it's a systematic attack on personal freedom and human rights - and the lives of queer folks.

Nex Benedict's death is exactly what christofascists seek through indoctrinating children into their hate that perpetuates bigotry into the future and forcing their religious fanaticism into the public sphere through unconstitutional laws built on hate and control.

Do you want to live in a theocracy dictated by those who narrowly interpret their personal religious texts to promote hate? Because as long as citizens fail to speak out against these harbingers of civilizational collapse, they'll only feel more and more emboldened to turn hate crimes into victories.

We must not let another of our people become victim of systemic bigotry. To protect children and end generational indoctrination, we must fire all public officials who subscribe to christofascist hatred and, when appropriate, prosecute them for the violence they incite.

If we fail to end the careers of hateful christofascists, we fail our children.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dan Pfeiffer at The Message Box:

The pace and breadth of the Trump/Musk Administration's actions feel overwhelming. Anything and everything is under attack. One day, it’s USAID; the next, it’s the National Institute of Health, air traffic controllers, and the Education Department. How can we keep up with what’s happening and respond before Trump moves on to the next thing? This is by design. This is the “flood the zone” strategy described by Trump ally Steve Bannon. Bannon explained in a 2018 interview:

[Every day we hit them with three things. They'll bite on one, and we'll get all of our stuff done. Bang, bang, bang. These guys will never—will never be able to recover.]

If the Trump presidency's first month taught us one lesson, it is that playing whack-a-mole doesn’t work. We need a broader strategic framework to stay ahead. There are no easy answers. Democrats are at a massive media disadvantage. We have neither the messengers nor the platforms to compete with Trump and Musk (And don’t get me started on the message). We need to solve these problems as soon as possible without stepping back and while simultaneously addressing our long-term challenges. To that end, I want to put forward a framework to simplify the task ahead for Democrats. Make Donald Trump unpopular. This task is easier said than done, but it’s the only way to slow down — and eventually stop — Trump. As with everything in politics, the most significant forces are beyond our control. Despite messaging and media advantages, the primary reason that the GOP is now in power was a global spike in inflation as the world came out of COVID. But there are methods to bring down Trump’s numbers.

Why Make Trump More Unpopular?

A president’s power is directly related to their popularity in three ways. One, vulnerable members of the president’s party are more likely to take tough votes when the president is popular. Two, party performance in the midterms is historically correlated with the incumbent president’s approval rating. Finally, the media narrative around a president is based on their poll numbers. When the numbers are good, the president is portrayed as strong and successful; and when the numbers go down they are seen as weak and feckless. In the first six months of Joe Biden’s presidency, he was treated as a transformational figure akin to FDR or LBJ. Once his poll numbers took a dive after Afghanistan, his press coverage turned. While legacy media coverage matters less these days, it can still set the tone and tenor for larger online conversations. The less popular Trump is, the more challenging it will be for him to pass his agenda in a narrowly divided Congress; and the more likely it will be that Democrats win the majority in 2026; and the sooner members of Trump’s coalition will abandon him. While Trump is less popular than any recent newly elected president, he is more popular than he has ever been before. [...] Therefore, Democrats need to adopt a “no layups” rule. This is a concept borrowed from basketball. There are no easy shots. If the other team tries to make a layup, you foul them before they can. This is the mentality Democrats need. We must complicate everything for Trump and the Republicans and use every lever of power to slow things down and gum up the works. Time is the only non-renewable resource in politics. Every day that Trump doesn’t move his agenda is a day he won’t get back. This is what McConnell did to Obama and it’s what Democrats need to do to Trump. The real test will come when government funding runs out and the debt limit expires. The Democratic approach must be in total opposition to any Republican proposal. We have all the leverage. If Republicans want Democratic votes, they must pay in concessions. This doesn’t mean we demand Medicare For All or an expansion of Social Security, but we can insist on concessions to protect many of the priorities being slashed by Musk and his minions. To be clear, Democrats are not forcing a shutdown. Republicans have the votes to keep the government up and running. I am simply saying that Democrats shouldn’t bail out the Republicans due to some sense of civic duty.

Dan Pfeiffer is right: The Democrats must drive Donald Trump’s approval ratings into the negatives, especially with all the evil and anti-American things he’s done in his time in office.

[socialjusticeinamerica]

“The Trump administration has begun drafting an executive order that would kick off the process of eliminating the Department of Education, the latest move by President Donald Trump to swiftly carry out his campaign promises, two sources familiar with the plans told CNN.

The move would come in two parts, the sources said. The order would direct the secretary of Education to create a plan to diminish the department through executive action.

Trump would also push for Congress to pass legislation to end the department, as those working on the order acknowledge that shuttering the department would require Congress’ involvement.

While calls to abolish the department or merge it with another federal agency are not new, the move has historically failed to get support from Congress.

During Trump’s first term as president, his administration proposed merging the Education and Labor Departments into one federal agency. Even though Republicans controlled both the Senate and House of Representatives at the time, the proposal did not go anywhere.

This year, the Education Department is simultaneously being targeted by the Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, as CNN previously reported.

Dozens of employees at the Education Department were placed on paid administrative leave Friday as part of the Trump administration’s larger effort to rid the federal workforce of employees associated with diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility efforts.

On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly pointed to the department as a sign of federal overreach and tied it to culture war issues. “We will drain the government education swamp and stop the abuse of your taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate America’s youth with all sorts of things that you don’t want to have our youth hearing,” Trump said.

But even if he succeeded in ending the department, it’s possible that some programs and funding could be retained and shifted to other agencies, which is where they were housed before the department was created in 1979.

Federal funding programs for K-12 schools that help support the education of students from low-income families and children with disabilities, for example, predated the creation of the Department of Education.

When presidents have proposed cuts to the department’s budget in the past, Congress has resisted and appropriated more funding than what the president asked for about 71% of the time, according to an analysis from the Brookings Institution. Even when the first Trump administration proposed cutting the department’s budget, the Republican-controlled Congress ultimately increased funding.”

🖕🖕🖕

[marvelsmostwanted]

Anyway, Trump intends to abolish the federal Department of Education this week. That’s a messy proposition that will involve legal challenges, and an act of Congress that probably (?) won’t pass, and most schools do not rely exclusively on federal funding anyway, but it would put federal education programs at risk and the very idea should be enough to have Democrats out in the street rallying.

Is no one interested in standing up for public school students or teachers, who surely have suffered enough in the past few years - from the pandemic, dealing with anti-vax parents, having to remove banned books from classrooms, trans kids being targeted and teachers being told we’re turning kids trans, doing active shooter drills and facing frequent threats, teachers being chronically underpaid, and students dealing with mental health crises and academic needs that schools are not always properly resourced to deal with? Anyone care? Hello? And that’s not to mention issues in higher education, from the cost to the unfairness of legacy admissions (actual DEI) to Republicans claiming “free speech” is being attacked and someone should be fired every time someone says something they don’t like.

Democrats should be champions of public education, especially since Republicans clearly have no issue exclusively supporting private and religious schools and “school choice” (a coded term for people who miss when schools were segregated). This should be a key issue and it should be easy for us to win. Everywhere Republicans put school choice vouchers on the ballot, they lost in 2024. Voters want good public schools. They want public funds to go to public schools. We just have to show up and fight for that.

I could go on for days on this topic - like, can we talk about how we can be a pro-science, pro-education, and pro-intellectual party and also the relatable, pro-worker, pro-people having jobs without a college degree party? What happened to talking about free community college, btw? I could go on!!

But I’ll end with this - there are elected Democrats who are former public school teachers - Tim Walz and Elizabeth Warren, to name a few. Where are they? Who’s leading the charge here? We’re just going to sit around and pretend things are fine while Republicans put Bibles in our publicly funded schools?

Far from the first person to say it in the past few weeks, but what the fuck, guys? Where are we on this????!

[bludhavens-finest]

Ok so this is the biggest blog I have so I will be talking about it here, also comics have always been inherently political so it makes sense to talk about here, this will be posted to the rest of my blogs as well

I’m going to tag this with tw’s, if you don’t want to see more shit about the election I get it believe me I do, that’s fine. If you do stay around I’m going to be incredibly blunt about this shit

1. Do not fucking kill yourself. The amount of queer and especially young people I have seen saying that they are going to is astronomical, these people are not worth loosing your life. If you need help, get help, talk to someone, at the end of this post I’ll add numbers/websites

2. If you are disabled like me, and you need something medically whether that be vaccines, surgeries, procedures, mobility aids, medications, or even certain information; get them now while you can. The medical system in America is a bitch to deal with and even harder to get into, most of my appointments take at least three months, but if you can get in and get things done before they switch who’s in office, get it done now.

3. If you are trans and planning to get gender affirming surgery or healthcare in the next few months same goes for you, get the surgeries while you still can and get on meds now, if you get on them now it’s going to be easier to keep the prescription for as long as you can.

4. If you’re a woman or afab, get birth control while you can. Because they are going to get rid of birth control at this point, they’ve already gone after abortions and this is the next step.

5. But queer/feminist/punk media and books while you still can, because yes they can and will ban books they already do it in schools

6. Honestly I would even go so far as to say start buying physical copies of certain bands if you can, because most hardcore and just regular punk bands will probably be less accessible

7. Honestly probably just get a vpn at this point, I know you’ve gotten an ad for one from a YouTuber before, look into the company’s, find one you can afford and like

8. If non-Americans or even just some Americans who are republicans (which if you are fuck off.) think this is an over-exaggeration it’s really not.

America is the only first world country without universal healthcare, most people in this country either die waiting for a doctor, die because of a doctor (medical negligence and malpractice are leading causes of death in America, over a quarter of a million people die a year because of it.), public transit is non-existent, disabled people have been fighting for our rights for decades, women lost the right to control their own bodies after having that right for less then a life span. Many woman were there when roe v wade passed and still alive when it was overturned. Because it all happened in the span of 50 years. The amount of violence in our police departments (that are only getting more and more funding), the lack of education and lack of historically accurate information taught in public schools, the literal fucking constant brainwashing campaigns.

This is all coming from someone who is Afab, a Minor, living in the south, mentally and physically disabled, a lesbian, and trans. Believe me I understand how fucking scared people are.

It is 2024 almost 2025, not 1970. You have access to information and you are entitled to being informed, so inform yourself. Check your own sources, do your own research.

I’m well aware that this all seems fucking dystopian, I know that it seems like there’s no point, but keep yourself safe. If you need a break from seeing all this filter your tags, go outside for a while, get off the internet, play with your pets, talk to friends. Just don’t let yourself sit in this and worry yourself to death, it’s not going to help anyone.

Numbers you can call: 1-866-488-7386 (Trevor project), If you go to their website you can also text if talking isn’t safe, 988 (suicide and crisis line),

[runawaymarbles]

The 30 chapters are a daunting read. Project 2025 proposes, among a host of things, eliminating the Department of Education, eliminating the Department of Commerce, deploying the U.S. military whenever protests erupt, dismantling the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, removing protections against sexual and gender discrimination, and terminating diversity, equity, inclusion and affirmative action.

Additional mandates include: siphoning off billions of public school funding, funding private school choice vouchers, phasing out public education’s Title 1 program, gutting the nation’s free school meals program, eliminating the Head Start program, banning books and suppressing any curriculum that discusses the evils of slavery.

Project 2025 also calls for banning abortion (which makes women second-class citizens), restricting access to contraception, forcing would-be immigrants to be detained in concentration camps, eliminating Title VII and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, recruiting 54,000 loyal MAGA Republicans to replace existing federal civil servants, and ending America’s bedrock principle that separates church from state.

Anyway anyone telling you that Biden is the same as Trump is either so deep in the sauce they don't know how to find a toilet, or actively lying to you because this is the outcome they want.

Project 2025 isn't going to kickstart the glorious revolution. It's going to make people exhausted, and scared, and dead.

[mimi-0007]

****†** EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS BEFORE YOU VOTE. ****Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project, is a collection of policy proposals to thoroughly reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Established in 2022, the project aims to recruit tens of thousands of conservatives to the District of Columbia to replace existing federal civil servants—whom Republicans characterize as part of the "deep state"—and to further the objectives of the next Republican president. It adopts a maximalist version of the unitary executive theory—which asserts that the president has absolute power over the executive branch upon inauguration. Unitary executive theory is a disputed interpretation of Article II of the Constitution of the United States. Project 2025 envisions widespread changes across the entire government, particularly with regard to economic and social policies and the role of the federal government and its agencies. The plan proposes slashing funding for the Department of Justice (DOJ), dismantling the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), sharply reducing environmental and climate change regulations to favor of fossil fuel production, eliminating the Department of Commerce, and ending the independence of various federal agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The blueprint seeks to institute tax cuts, though its writers disagree on the wisdom of protectionism. .

Project 2025 recommends abolishing the Department of Education, whose programs would be either transferred to other government agencies, or terminated. Scientific research would receive federal funding only if it suits conservative principles. The Project urges the government to explicitly reject abortion as health care and to restrict access to contraception. The Heritage Foundation, an American conservative think tank that leads the development of Project 2025, asserted in April 2024 that "the radical Left hates families" and "wants to eliminate the family and replace it with the state" while driving the country to emulate totalitarian nations, such as North Korea. The Project seeks to infuse the government with elements of Christianity, stating in its Mandate that "freedom is defined by God, not man." Project 2025 proposes criminalizing pornography, removing protections against discrimination based on sexual or gender identity, and terminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, as well as affirmative action. The Project advises the future president to immediately deploy the military for domestic law enforcement and to direct the DOJ to pursue Donald Trump's adversaries by invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807. It recommends the arrest, detention, and deportation of undocumented immigrants across the country. It promotes capital punishment and the speedy "finality" of such sentences. Project director Paul Dans, a former Trump administration official, explained that Project 2025 is "systematically preparing to march into office and bring a new army, aligned, trained, and essentially weaponized conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state." Dans admitted that it was "counterintuitive" to recruit so many people to join the government in order to shrink it, but pointed out the need for a future President to "regain control" of the federal government. Although the project does not promote a specific presidential candidate, many contributors have close ties to Donald Trump and his presidential campaign. The Heritage Foundation has developed Project 2025 in collaboration with over 100 partners including Turning Point USA, led by its executive director Charlie Kirk; the Conservative Partnership Institute including former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows as senior partner; the Center for Renewing America, led by former Trump Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought; and America First Legal, led by former Trump Senior Advisor Stephen Miller. The Project is detailed in Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, a version of which Heritage has written as transition plans for each prospective Republican president since 1980. Critics of Project 2025 have described it as an authoritarian Christian nationalist movement and a path for the United States to become an autocracy. Several experts in law have indicated that it would undermine the rule of law and the separation of powers. Some conservatives and Republicans also criticized the plan, for example in the contexts of centralizing power, climate change, and foreign trade.

[mysticalcrusadepeach]

Musk called for slashing federal agencies and ending the Democratic Party altogether.After Trump took office, he raised the banner of "anti-corruption", but the actual target was former President Joe Biden and his Democratic Party. Breaking 200 years of history, Musk will "wipe out the Democratic Party," What is he up to? Us federal agencies have been slashed, why say that Trump's political opponents are all miserable?

As soon as Trump took office, he immediately let the "government Efficiency Department" led by Musk play a role. Under Trump's authorization, where Musk's "cut government spending" stick went, agencies such as the United States Agency for International Development and the National Intelligence Department "fell to the ground." Next, he targeted the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Defense, ready to check the "books" of these powerful departments. Musk took the "imperial sword" given by Trump to kill the four sides, breaking the rules of 200 years of history of the United States, and the purpose is to "eliminate the Democratic Party."

Musk's "mandate" to check the US Department of Defense will touch the sensitive nerves of a large number of interest groups such as the US military industrial complex. However, he is not going to stop there, and recently made a brief but powerful statement that the United States will become a "one-party state". This has shocked many US media: Does this mean the end of the multi-party system in the United States? You know, the American political situation is a donkey like the two parties in turn, if Trump really wants to engage in a "one-party state" as Musk said, then the first thing to do is to eliminate the Democratic Party. Of course, even if Trump had such a thought, he could not say it publicly at this time. So it's a good way to send his message to the American people through Musk's mouth, because if something goes wrong, Musk will carry it himself, which he's happy to do anyway. In this regard, some analysts believe that Musk's statement is almost equivalent to issuing an ultimatum to completely eradicate the Democratic Party from the political history of the United States.

In response, some analysts said, "Throughout the 200 years since the founding of the United States, even during the Cold War era, there has never been such a fierce internal conflict." But just because something doesn't happen in American history doesn't mean it doesn't happen in other countries. The advantage of this political system is that the government does not need to be constrained by other parties in pursuing policies. Trump seems to be "inspired" by some national leaders to try to eliminate the unfavorable factors that hinder "America being great again," and thus authorized Musk to make a big fight against the Democratic Party. Therefore, after Musk took office as the head of the "Government Efficiency Department" in the United States, he immediately sounded the horn of "comprehensive attack" on the Democratic Party, and the result was that a large number of relevant US federal agencies were cut, and Trump's political enemies' nightmares came. With Trump's support, Musk has gone even further, calling for the "removal of all agencies" from the US federal government, because "the United States certainly does not need 450 federal agencies, so the roots should be cut, or the weeds will easily grow back." In fact, Musk is ostensibly cutting down these "waste of American taxpayer money" agencies, but the target of the sword is the Democratic Party.

Not long ago, Musk's order cost tens of thousands of former Biden administration employees their jobs. Judging from Musk's latest statement, there will be more former government employees who will lose their jobs due to the relevant agencies being cut. Musk's move seems to have nothing to do with politics, but in fact it is more like reminding civil servants and even ordinary people in the United States: those who support the Republican Party have food, and those who support the Democratic Party may lose their jobs. Of course, this may only be the beginning, because if Trump wants to turn the United States into a "one-party state," all those who disagree with it must be "eliminated." Trump has repeatedly vowed to "retaliate" against his "political enemies" after taking office, in order to prevent accidents, Biden before leaving office, "precautionary" pardoned five of his relatives, and including Fauci and Milley, including a number of former politicians. Trump then asked Biden "why would he do that?" It can be seen that Musk's statement that the United States will become a "one-party state" should have been authorized by Trump, and he checked the accounts of the Department of Education and the Department of Defense may be hoping to find out the "black material" of the Democratic Party to help Trump bring down the Democratic Party.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Pat Byrnes :: @thePatByrnes

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 5, 2024 (Friday)

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUL 06, 2024

For all that certain members of the media continue their freakout over Biden’s electability after his appearance in last Thursday’s event on CNN, it is Trump and his Republicans who appear to be nervous about the upcoming election. 

Journalist Jennifer Schulze of Heartland Signal noted today that as of 8:00 this morning, the New York Times had published 192 pieces on Biden’s debate performance: 142 news articles and 50 opinion pieces. Trump was covered in 92 stories, about half of which were about the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. Although Trump has frequently slurred his words or trailed off while speaking and repeatedly fell asleep at his own criminal trial, none of the pieces mentioned Trump’s mental fitness. 

But for all of what independent journalists are calling a “feeding frenzy,” egged on by right-wing media figures, it seems as if the true implications of Project 2025 are starting to gain traction and the Trump campaign recognizes that the policies that document advocates are hugely unpopular. 

On July 2, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts assured Trump ally Steve Bannon’s followers that they are winning in what he called “the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” In March, Roberts told former Trump administration official and now right-wing media figure Sebastian Gorka about Project 2025: “There are parts of the plan that we will not share with the Left: the executive orders, the rules and regulations. Just like a good football team we don’t want to tip off our playbook to the Left.” 

This morning, although Roberts has described Project 2025 as “institutionalizing Trumpism,” Trump’s social media feed tried to distance the former president from Project 2025. “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it,” the post read. Despite this disavowal of any knowledge of the project, it continued: “I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.” 

In what appeared to be a coordinated statement, the directors of Project 2025 wrote on social media less than two hours later that they “do not speak for any candidate.”  

Aside from the fact that “[a]nything they do, I wish them luck,” sounds much like the signaling Trump did to the Proud Boys when he told them to “stand back and stand by,” Trump’s assertion and Project 2025’s response can’t possibly erase the many and deep ties of the Trump camp to Project 2025. Juliet Jeske of Decoding Fox News noted that Trump’s name shows up on more than 190 pages of the Project 2025 playbook. 

Rebekah Mercer, who sits on the board of the Heritage Foundation, was one of Trump’s top donors in 2016; her family founded and operated Cambridge Analytica, the company that misused the data of millions of Facebook users to push pro-Trump and anti-Clinton material in 2016. Trump’s national press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, has appeared in a Project 2025 video. Trump’s own super PAC has been running ads promoting Project 2025, calling it “Trump’s Project 2025,” and many of its policies—killing the Department of Education, erasing the separation of church and state, ending renewable energy programs and ramping up use of fossil fuels, deporting immigrants—are also Trump’s.

Project 2025’s director, Paul Dans, as well as both of its associate directors, Spencer Chretien and Troup Hemenway, were in charge of personnel in Trump’s White House, and the theme of Project 2025 is that “people are policy,” by which they mean that hand-picked loyalists must replace civil servants. Trump’s former body man John McEntee, who reentered the White House as a senior advisor after having to leave because he failed a background check, was in charge of hiring in the last months of the Trump White House; he helped to draft Project 2025. Key Trump ally Russell Vought wrote the section of Project 2025 that called for an authoritarian leader; he is also on the platform committee of the Republican National Convention. 

If indeed Trump knows nothing about Project 2025 and has no idea who is behind it, his cognitive ability is rotten. As former chair of the Republican National Committee Michael Steele wrote, “Since [Project 2025] is designed to institutionalize Trumpism and you know nothing about it, then why do you echo some of its policy priorities during your rallies? Coincidence? And how exactly don’t you know that Project 2025 Director Paul Dans served as your chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management, and Associate Director Spencer Chretien served as your special assistant and associate director of presidential personnel? And folks say we should be worried about Biden.”

Trump’s attempt to distance himself from Project 2025 indicates just how toxic that plan is with voters. As political scientist Ian Bremmer dryly noted, it seems that “the second [A]merican revolution apparently [is] not polling as well as the first in internal focus groups.” Former Republican strategist Rick Wilson was even more direct, saying that Trump was trying to distance himself from Project 2025 because “most of it polls about like Ebola,” the deadly virus that causes severe bleeding and organ failure, and has a mortality rate of 80 to 90%.

The extremism of the MAGA Republicans was on display in another way today as well after The New Republic published a June 30 video of North Carolina lieutenant governor Mark Robinson, currently the Republican nominee for governor of North Carolina, saying to a church audience about their opponents—whom he identified in a scattershot speech as anything from communists to “wicked people” to those standing against “conservatives”—"Kill them! Some liberal somewhere is gonna say that sounds awful. Too bad!... Some folks need killing! It's time for somebody to say it.” 

Today the Vatican turned against one of those extremists when it excommunicated pro-Trump archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who was the Vatican’s diplomat to the U.S. from 2011 to 2016, for “schism” after he refused to recognize the authority of Pope Francis. Viganò has repeatedly attacked Francis’s Catholic Church for being “inclusive, immigrationist, eco-sustainable, and gay-friendly.”

Also today, Trump’s lawyers asked Judge Aileen Cannon, who is overseeing Trump’s criminal trial for retaining hundreds of classified documents, to dismiss charges that can no longer be prosecuted in light of the Supreme Court’s decision that a president cannot be charged for crimes committed while engaging in “official acts.” They also called the case “politically motivated” and asked Cannon to stop the case entirely in light of Justice Clarence Thomas’s suggestion that Special Counsel Jack Smith was not properly appointed.

The other big news today was that the U.S. added 206,000 jobs in June, bringing the total number of jobs created under this administration to 15.7 million. Last month’s numbers were, once again, higher than economists expected and, according to economic analyst Steven Rattner, above job growth levels before the pandemic. He added that these jobs are not simply a bounceback from the depths of the pandemic: 6.2 million more Americans are employed now than before Covid hit. 

Poking fun at the calls for Biden to step down, conservative lawyer George Conway posted: “Biden needs to RESIGN NOW before any more of these terrible job things are created.”

In a speech today in Madison, Wisconsin, Biden vowed to stay in the race, and the speech appeared strong enough that right-wing extremists, including Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and activist Laura Loomer, posted on social media—falsely—that he was having a medical emergency aboard Air Force One. Tonight, George Stephanopoulos of ABC interviewed Biden without a teleprompter or notes, focusing only on Biden’s age without any questions about policy. ABC News posted the interview transcript with the president’s conversation portrayed the “g”s dropped off the words and with other colloquial pronunciations spelled out, as if it were dialect. Trump, whose words the press tends to turn into clean prose, has refused to do an interview under the same conditions.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Nathalie Baptiste at HuffPost:

Donald Trump promised over the course of his campaign to abolish the Department of Education. It’s been a pet policy goal of the right ever since the agency was created in 1980 under former President Jimmy Carter and is spelled out in Project 2025, the conservative playbook that Trump will probably use once he is back in the White House.

But Trump doesn’t need to shut down the department in order to launch an all-out war on public schools. He outlined his plan for education in a video last year, saying that not only will he close down the agency, he will bring back prayer in schools, end the supposed indoctrination of students and take politics out of schools. “We will ensure our classrooms are focused not on political indoctrination but on teaching the knowledge and skills needed to succeed,” Trump said, adding, “We will teach students to love their country, not to hate their country like they’re taught right now.” It’s the same agenda that right-wing culture warriors have been pushing in red states for the last four years — and Trump wants to spread it across the country. “This renewed push to go after the Department of Education isn’t so much a sincere push for smaller government or even reducing the federal role,” Jon Valant, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, told HuffPost. “It’s more about this continued attack on public education as a concept and eroding support for public schools in general.”

The Department of Education’s primary functions are providing funding for programs that serve low-income public schools and children with disabilities and protecting students from discrimination. If Trump were able to abolish it, it would spell disaster for the entire country. But public education has increasingly become politicized, and support for public schools, especially among Republicans, is now at an all-time low. The upcoming Trump administration will likely seize on that sentiment to further attack public schools through rolling back Biden-era rules designed to make them safe and equitable for all students, supporting the expansion of programs that take away funding from public schools and promoting laws that restrict books and censor teachers. “One of their first moves would be pulling back Title IX protections for LGBTQ+ students,” Valant said. Title IX is the federal regulation that protects students from sex-based discrimination. The Biden administration expanded it to include protections for students in the LGBTQ+ community. Republicans have fought against the change from the beginning, and several GOP-led states sued to block the rule. An overwhelming majority of transgender students have reported feeling unsafe or unwelcome at school. Then there’s the Office for Civil Rights. This arm of the Department of Education allows students, parents and families to sue their school districts over civil rights violations. Often, the department works with both sides to seek a resolution because it’s a low-risk way of settling civil rights violations. But Project 2025 proposes gutting the office and only allowing lawsuits to go through the courts, thus eliminating an avenue for addressing discrimination in our nation’s schools.

[...] Multiple states have already passed their own versions of parental rights bills, like in Iowa and Tennessee. These laws often ban books that conservatives believe are sexually explicit but usually target books with LGBTQ+ themes. Teachers are typically restricted in what they can say about gender identity and sexual orientation and are required to inform parents if their child wants to go by another name or pronouns at school — even against the student’s wishes.

The Orange Fascist’s war on public schools could have very costly consequences for the quality of education across America, and especially for LGBTQ+ students, staff, and faculty.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this article from Mother Jones. The author is David Corn.

It’s a war.

In the first two weeks of his presidency, Donald Trump and his billionaire sidekick Elon Musk have initiated an all-out battle against the US government, the rule of law, and decency. They have mounted a blitzkrieg, a coup, an assault on the Constitution. It’s a mad power grab designed to steer the nation toward autocracy and full-fledged oligarchy. What’s under way is not merely the implementation of far-right policies but an attack on the American system and a hostile takeover of the nation.

Trump and his minions have rooted out civil servants they deem insufficiently loyal to Dear Leader and taken draconian steps to depopulate federal agencies that do the people’s business, such as safeguarding our food supply, researching cures for diseases, protecting workers and the environment, overseeing our transportation systems, and keeping the financial system secure and stable. They tried through an arguably illegal executive order to freeze funding for health care, education, transportation, and other services.

Musk and his mafia took over the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees hiring across the executive branch, installing their own servers. They also invaded the highly sensitive Treasury Department to gain control of the government’s payment system, presumably to cut off funds to programs Musk and Trump want to defund—a step that risked massive privacy violations, hacks, assorted abuses, and the possible breakdown of what is essentially the government’s circulatory system. Trump’s shock troops suspended foreign aid, a move that caused the closure of soup kitchens in famine-stricken Somalia, the cessation of medical services for war refugees in Thailand, the end to heating assistance for Ukrainians on the frontline of the war with Russia, and other programs—increasing misery, death, and disease around the world. Musk, the richest man in the world, called the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which distributes foreign aid that helps millions of low-income and indigent people, “a criminal organization” and tweeted, “Time for it to die.”

This is a revolution of the elite. Trump and Musk aim to gut government. Their intent is to emasculate the one force that can counter the excesses of the powerful and the wealthy. While Trump yearns to be a strongman who commands all corners of the government and demands absolute fealty to his whims and desires, Musk seeks to weaken the one entity that can check corporate power and abuses, including his own. During a Twitter chat with two GOP senators, he urged abolishing all government regulations. He’s pursuing a right-wing libertarian fantasy of unfettered capitalism. The disrupters and technologists shall rule as they see fit, without the pesky interventions of bureaucrats committed to the public good. This is not the typical fight of the well-to-do for tax cuts and deregulation—which, of course, the Republicans and their billionaire underwriters do crave—but an ideological crusade to change the foundation of American society and crush checks and balances that might prevent Trump, Musk, and others in the oligarchy from reigning supreme. It’s class warfare, top-down. Feel free to call it fascism.

With this war raging, where are the Democrats?

They should have a war room that operates 24/7 to generate and voice loud and smart opposition to the Trump-Musk onslaught. They need to be coordinating messaging and running a nonstop firehose of social media. A never-ending string of fiery speeches on the House and Senate floor, obstructionist tactics, the exploitation of every possible forum and platform. Their best and most media-savvy members—Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Chris Murphy, say—should be denouncing and decrying on a daily basis. Instead of licking wounds, Democrats ought to be showing some fight, conveying the perilous reality of the moment, and presenting themselves as a fierce and united bulwark against this treacherous attack. It’s not about moving to the left or to the right. They need to rush to the barricades. All of them.

[4bttnra]

Heather Cox Richardson

February 3, 2025 (Monday)

I’m going to start tonight by stating the obvious: the Republicans control both chambers of Congress: the House of Representatives and the Senate. They also control the White House and the Supreme Court. If they wanted to get rid of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), for example, they could introduce a bill, debate it, pass it, and send it on to President Trump for his signature. And there would be very little the Democrats could do to stop that change.

But they are not doing that.

Instead, they are permitting unelected billionaire Elon Musk, whose investment of $290 million in Trump and other Republican candidates in the 2024 election apparently has bought him freedom to run the government, to override Congress and enact whatever his own policies are by rooting around in government agencies and cancelling those programs that he, personally, dislikes.

The replacement of our constitutional system of government with the whims of an unelected private citizen is a coup. The U.S. president has no authority to cut programs created and funded by Congress, and a private citizen tapped by a president has even less standing to try anything so radical.

But Republicans are allowing Musk to run amok. This could be because they know that Trump has embraced the idea that the American government is a “Deep State,” but that the extreme cuts the MAGA Republicans say they want are actually quite unpopular with Americans in general, and even with most Republican voters. By letting Musk make the cuts the MAGA base wants, they can both provide those cuts and distance themselves from them.

But permitting a private citizen to override the will of our representatives in Congress destroys the U.S. Constitution. It also makes Congress itself superfluous. And it takes the minority rule Republicans have come to embrace to the logical end of putting government power in the hands of one man.

Musk’s team in the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has taken control of the U.S. Treasury payment systems that handle about $6 trillion in annual transactions for the U.S. government, thus gaining access to Americans' personal information as well as information about Musk's competitors. From there, Musk claims to have been cancelling those transactions he thinks are wasteful. He claims, for example, to have “deleted” the popular Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Direct File system that enabled people to file their taxes online for free, without the help of paid tax preparers.

Musk’s team apparently consists of six engineers, aged 19 to 24, who are taking control of the computers at government agencies. From the Treasury Department, they went on to the U.S. Agency for International Development, which receives foreign policy guidance from the State Department. Their breaching of the computers there compromises our national intelligence systems, which must now be considered insecure.

From there, they went on to the General Services Administration (GSA), which manages the federal government’s 7,500 or so buildings. Musk’s people sent an email to regional managers telling them to begin ending the leases on federal offices. According to Chris Megerian of the Associated Press, the person in charge of that initiative is Nicole Hollander, who describes herself on LinkedIn as employed at Musk’s social media company, X.

Today, according to an email sent to employees of the Small Business Administration, Musk’s people have gotten into that agency’s human resources, contracts, and payment systems. The Small Business Administration supports small businesses and entrepreneurs, and under the Biden-Harris administration, small businesses boomed thanks to small-dollar loans to women, Black, and Latino entrepreneurs.

By this afternoon, Musk’s people were digging into the data of the Department of Education with an eye to dismantling it from the inside before Trump tries to shut it down with an executive order, although only Congress itself can shutter the department. According to Laura Meckler, Danielle Douglas-Gabriel, and Hannah Natanson of the Washington Post, Musk’s DOGE staffers had accessed sensitive internal data systems, including the personal information of millions of students who are taking part in the federal student aid program. It is highly unlikely that Congress would destroy the Department of Education, so Musk and Trump hope to hollow it out from within.

On a livestream last night, Musk said of his destruction of the federal government: “If it’s not possible now, it will never be possible. This is our shot, This is the best hand of cards we’re ever going to have. If we don’t take advantage of this best hand of cards, it’s never going to happen.”

Three federal employees unions are suing the Trump administration to stop Musk, and today, Democratic members of the House and Senate tried to enter the USAID building but were denied entry. Led by Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT), Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Representatives Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Gerry Connolly (D-VA), the Democrats condemned what Raskin called Musk and Trump’s “illegal, unconstitutional interference with congressional power.”

“Elon Musk, you may have illegally seized power over the financial payment systems of the United States Department of Treasury,” Raskin said, “but you don’t control the money of the American people. The United States Congress does that—under Article I of the Constitution. And just like the president, who was elected to something, cannot impound the money of the people, we don’t have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk. And that’s going to become real clear.”

Senator Murphy said: "[L]et's not pull any punches about why this is happening. Elon Musk makes billions of dollars based off of his business with China. And China is cheering at [the destruction of USAID]. There is no question that the billionaire class trying to take over our government right now is doing it based on self-interest: their belief that if they can make us weaker in the world, if they can elevate their business partners all around the world, they will gain the benefit.”

Murphy continued: “But there’s another reason this is happening. They’re shuttering agencies and sending employees home in order to create the illusion that they’re saving money, in order to…pass a giant tax cut for billionaires and corporations.”

While Musk and his DOGE team are trying systematically to dismantle the government, today Judge Loren L. AliKhan of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to freeze trillions of dollars in grants and loans before DOGE got going. AliKhan said that by impounding funds—which Congress declared illegal in 1974—Trump’s Office of Management and Budget “attempted to wrest the power of the purse away from the only branch of government entitled to wield it.” It is Congress, not the president, that determines federal spending.

Meanwhile, the elected president, Donald Trump, sparked a crisis last Friday when his White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, announced that he fully intended to go through with the trade war he had hyped on the campaign trail. Trump announced he would levy tariffs of 25% on most products from Mexico and Canada and of 10% on products from China, beginning at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, in violation of the trade agreement his own team had negotiated during his first term.

As soon as Leavitt announced the upcoming tariffs, the stock market began to fall, and by last night, stock market futures had fallen 450 points on the expectation of tariffs hitting at midnight tonight. Today, the stock market continued to fall. Even reliable Trump allies began to complain that the tariffs would raise prices. The Wall Street Journal editorial board called Trump’s tariffs “the dumbest trade war in history.”

Today, the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, announced that she and Trump had “reached a series of agreements” that would pause the threatened tariffs for a month. Mexico agreed to “reinforce the northern border with 10,000 elements of the National Guard immediately, to prevent drug trafficking from Mexico to the United States,” while the U.S. “commits to work to prevent the trafficking of high-powered weapons to Mexico.”

When Trump announced their conversation shortly afterward, he omitted the part of the agreement that committed the U.S. to try to stop the flow of guns to Mexico. He also did not mention that, in fact, Mexico committed to putting 10,000 troops at the border in 2021. As Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post commented: “Any news outlet reporting Mexico conceded anything to Trump to get him to delay tariffs has not done its homework. Trump boasts he got Mexico to commit to stationing 10K troops at our border. Apparently he didn't realize Mexico already has 15K troops deployed there[.]”

The crisis at the northern border worked out in a similar fashion. After conferring, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Trump announced a 30-day pause in the implementation of tariffs. Trudeau agreed to appoint a border czar and to implement a $1.3 billion border plan that Canada had announced in December.

In other words, while Musk was causing a constitutional crisis, Trump created an economic crisis that threatened both domestic and global chaos, then claimed Biden administration achievements as his own and declared victory.

The tariffs on Chinese goods went into effect as planned. China has promised to levy tariffs of up to 15% on certain U.S. products beginning a week from today. It also said it will investigate Google to see if it has violated antitrust laws.