#anti russell vought

[mugiwara-lucy]

Well guys if you aren’t aware,

Russell Vought has been brought in to be in Shitbreak’s administration and for those unaware, he’s the chief writer behind Project 2025 who has been on video not only saying he wants Americans living in trauma and fear but he wants to use the military on American civilians when they inevitably get fed up with things, I.e, why Pete Hegseth aka Drunky Brewster was selected.

Which is ironic considering Trump wanted to shoot BLM protestors back in 2020 if you all remember.

Now the main reason behind this post is I want to remind veterans that either see this post or follow me; remember your oath is NOT to the president but to the constitution that founded America.

Considering Trump is a draft dodger who made a spectacle out of Arlington and called Veterans “suckers and losers”, is this the guy you want to potentially commit illegal actions for? And what are illegal actions?

These include: using the military to go after political enemies, invading allied countries such as Canada and Mexico and Columbia and Greenland and Panama and shooting at protestors.

Do you really want to shoot protestors who are as young as being in college or even in high school for protesting an obviously corrupt government? Like look at the people Trump has appointed. They are LAUGHINGLY unfit for their jobs. Not to mention do you really want to commit heinous acts for a cabinet that wants to cut your benefits? Yeah as a quick reminder, Project 2025 cuts VA benefits. (Which is ironic considering these bastards want to use the military for a police state hell yet clearly don’t give two shits about them).

So with all that said and done, you all have two choices.

1.) You can go with your sense of morality and help us fight back against these assholes and you will be remembered on the right side of history.

2.) You can be the police force for these corrupted wannabe Nazis and be hated and reviled like the soldiers in Russia and North Korea. Those soldiers are not looked at fondly in those places I mentioned but rather with fear, hatred and disgust.

Even though I believe you all will side with the constitution (or rather there will be enough that will against all the looneys), I just want to remind you all:

DO WHAT’S RIGHT.

[clementine-elegance]

In a 2021 opinion article, Vought wrote that Christian nationalism is “a commitment to an institutional separation between church and state, but not the separation of Christianity from its influence on government and society.”

And now he is the budget director for the White House.

[sadbicth]

elon musk did a nazi salute twice at the inauguration, and republicans are defending him.

trump revoked executive order 11246, which prohibited discrimination.

trump put all dei employees on leave to be fired.

trump blamed the dc plane crash on dei.

trump banned all lgbtq+ flags from being hung in government buildings.

trump ordered the pentagon to cancel celebration of mlk jr. day, black history month, women's history month, holocaust remembrance day, asian american pacific islander heritage month, lgbtq+ pride month, juneteenth, women's equality day, national hispanic heritage month, national disability employment awarenessmonth, and national american indian heritage month.

trump proposed removing all palestinians from gaza, turning the area into a vacation resort called “riviera of the middle east”.

trump rolled back biden’s executive order to lower prescription drug costs for people using medicare and medicaid.

trump rescinded the $35 cap on insulin, and prices are expected to rise to $1500 a month.

trump ordered the national institutes of health to cancel their review panels on cancer research.

trump ended the guidelines to prevent ai misuse. the guidelines prevent many things, but notably it prevents production of ai child pornography.

when sean hannity asked trump about the economy, he said “i don’t care”, after campaigning with the economy as his main talking point.

trump has withdrawn the us from the world health organization.

trump is ordering health agencies to stop reporting on bird flu and halt publications of scientific reports.

trump has pardoned over 1500 people who stormed the capitol on january 6th.

trump changed denali back to mount mckinley.

trump signed an executive order to rename the gulf of mexico to gulf of america.

trump shut down cbp one, an app which granted legal entry to 1 million+ immigrants.

trump is allowing ice raids at churches and elementary schools.

trump announced plans to declare a national emergency at the us-mexico border.

trump signed an executive order to expand the use of the death penalty.

trump disbanded the school safety board that works to prevent school shootings. it was comprised of survivors, educators, and gun violence prevention advocates and formed after the school shooting in parkland.

trump withdrew from the paris climate act.

trump revoked all protections for transgender troops in the us military.

trump rescinded executive orders made by biden that benefited and protected women, lgbtq+ people, black americans, hispanic americans, asian americans, native hawaiians, and pacific islanders.

trump is attempting to make it legal to refuse to hire or fire pregnant women.

multiple state legislators are drafting bills to allow the punishment for abortion to be the death penalty.

trump pardoned 23 individuals convicted under the freedom of access to clinic entrances (FACE) act for their anti-abortion activism, including oftentimes violent protests at abortion clinics.

trump signed an executive order allowing deportation of foreign students who they believe express support for hamas or hezbollah.

trump announced that the us government will from here on out only recognize male and female as sexes. intersex is not legally recognized anymore.

the trump administration paused health communications to prevent the fda from announcing food recalls.

andy ogles drafted a constitutional amendment to allow trump to be president for a third term.

the us senate confirmed russell vought, one of the main authors of project 2025, will lead the white house budget office.

andy biggs introduced a bill to abolish osha and completely eliminate federal workplace safety protections.

georgia republican congressman mike collins called for the deportation of new jersey born mariann budde, the bishop who urged trump to “have mercy” on the lgbtq+ community and immigrants during a service at the national cathedral.

six states (arizona, idaho, iowa, kansas, mississippi, and north dakota) are planning on challenging obergefell v. hodges, which would end same-sex marriage nationwide. about a dozen more states have representatives are also considering filing similar resolutions.

amazon revoked protections for lgbtq+ and black employees.

the cdc has removed their hiv prevention page.

the united states state department has officially changed its “travelers with special conditions” page which previously said “lgbtqi+ travelers” to “lgb travelers”, completely getting rid of the tqi+.

every single republican told us we were overreacting. trump swore he had nothing to do with project 2025 yet continues implementing details outlined in it. not a single person has the right to tell us we’re being dramatic anymore.

hope “cheaper eggs and gas” was worth it.

EDIT: i removed the “trump refused to swear on the bible” point because it was being taken as me being an offended christian. i’m not christian, im agnostic. the reason i included it in the first place is because he’s the first president in history to ever refuse to swear on ANYTHING. meanwhile his “conservative christian” followers had no issue with this, and decided to continue to scramble for excuses instead of admitting he may not be as religious as he claims he is. i figured taking that point out entirely is probably better than filling this with an explanation in the middle of the other important issues.

[quasi-normalcy]

To describe the current situation in the executive branch as merely a constitutional crisis is to understate the significance of what we’re experiencing. “Constitutional crisis” does not even begin to capture the radicalism of what is unfolding in the federal bureaucracy and of what Congress’s decision not to act may liquidate in terms of constitutional meaning. Together, Trump and Musk are trying to rewrite the rules of the American system. They are trying to instantiate an anti-constitutional theory of executive power that would make the president supreme over all other branches of government. They are doing so in service of a plutocratic agenda of austerity and the upward redistribution of wealth. And the longer Congress stands by, the more this is fixed in place. If Trump, Musk and their allies — like Russell Vought, the president’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget and a vocal advocate of an autocratic “radical constitutionalism” that treats the president as an elected despot — succeed, then the question of American politics won’t be if they’ll win the next election, but whether the Constitution as we know it is still in effect. The extent to which the United States is embroiled in a major political crisis would be obvious and apparent if these events were unfolding in another country. Unfortunately, the sheer depth of American exceptionalism is such that this country’s political, media and economic elites have a difficult time believing that anything can fundamentally change for the worse. But that, in fact, is what’s happening right now.

[pintadorartist]

The Senate Must Block Trump’s Cabinet Nominees

Here is an image of the President-Elect, Donald Trump's cabinet picks for his administration:

These picks are not only bad since most of these picks lack experience in these fields, but some actually have written parts of the Project 2025 guidebook, like Russel T. Vought for example.

And although the Republicans took the Senate, they still need Democrat cooperation to confirm these nominations.

Another factor to consider is that not all of the Republicans are on board with these nominations, an example being Matt Gaetz, who ended up withdrawing his bid for Attorney General after facing backlash from fellow Repubs amid allegations of sexual misconduct

So, I ask that you all Call, Email, and Fax your senators to tell them to reject these nominations.

For more info on the appointees, https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4985802-trump-cabinet-nominees-second-term/

Here's where you'll find your Senator:

You can also call (202) 224-3121, where a switchboard operator will connect you directly with the Senate office you request.

If you're nervous about talking with someone call after your senator's office is closed or test RESIST at 50409 to turn your text into an email or fax

Fax tool here:

Scripts;

If your Senator is a Democrat, use this script for calls, email, and fax:

"Hello [Senator name], my name is [Your name], and I urge you to reject Trump's cabinet picks. Instead of competent experts, Trump has picked his most loyal allies as Cabinet members to enforce his authoritarian agenda and disrupt the most essential services for everyday Americans. He's appointed self-serving people like anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of health and human services and former Fox News host and white nationalist Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense.

The Senate must reject these Cabinet nominees to protect working Americans from the dysfunction our federal agencies will face under the direction of these appointees. We're worth fighting for, and we deserve better. I urge you and the Senate to reject RFK Jr., Hegseth, and any other extremist Trump nominees who will seek to enact Trump's radical Project 2025 agenda."

If your Senator is a Republican, use this script instead:

"Hello [Senator name], my name is [Your name], and I urge you to reject Trump's cabinet picks. Instead of competent experts with experience, Trump has picked unqualified Cabinet members who will disrupt the most essential services for everyday Americans. He's appointed people who lack qualifications, like anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services and former Fox News host and white nationalist Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense.

The Senate must reject these Cabinet nominees to protect working Americans from the dysfunction our federal agencies will face under the direction of these appointees. We're worth fighting for, and we deserve better. I urge you and the Senate to reject RFK Jr., Hegseth, and any other unqualified Trump nominees who lack the expertise and qualifications for these roles"

Here are also some petitions to sign as well:

[goddessofwisdom18]

Hi, if you're USAmerican please consider contacting your senators to tell them to vote against Trump's cabinet picks!

RFK JR. is being nominated for secretary of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He is a known anti-vaxxer, including perpetuating the myth that vaccines cause Autism. He has also been accused of rape by a former babysitter, something he publically refused to comment on besides saying he was “not a church boy … I have so many skeletons in my closet”.

You can email your senators here or call them at their numbers using this script (last slide).

-

Russell Vought is being nominated for Director of the Office of Management and Budget, which is the office that was used for the funding freeze this past week. He is a Trump loyalist who aims to dismantle civil service as we know it to ensure the government is filled to the brim with Trump loyalists. He is willing to use military power to make this happen. Additionally, he is one of the architects of Project 2025.

You can email your senators here or call them at their numbers using this script.

-

Tulsi Gabbard is being nominated for Director of National Intelligence. She has no relevant experience for this position. In the past she has parroted Russian propaganda, including myths that justified Russia's invasion of Ukraine. She has also had secret meetings with war criminal Bashar Al-Assad. She was raised in and still adheres to a religious sect that some have called a cult and that has been tied to scams.

You can email your senators here or call them at their numbers.

-

Kash Patel is being nominated for Director of the FBI. He has continuously courted QAnon and other conspiracy theories, including the theory that Biden's win in 2020 was illegitimate and that there is such a thing as "the deep state." QAnon perpetuates antisemitic myths that have been around for millennia.

You can email your senators here or call them at their numbers.

-

Even if your senators are Republicans, contacting them is still worth it; you have no idea what is going on behind the scenes and what might make them act. Your email might be the final push they need, and even if it isn't, it's still worth it to show them we're still here and not giving up. Every piece of effort counts.

Please reblog, even if you aren't USAmerican. This will have impacts that reach far beyond the U.S.!!

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Matt Davies :: Shirk. http://Newsday.com/matt

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 24, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Nov 25, 2024

Since the night of the November 5, election, Trump and his allies have insisted that he won what Trump called “an unprecedented and powerful mandate.” But as the numbers have continued to come in, it’s clear that such a declaration is both an attempt to encourage donations— fundraising emails refer to Trump’s “LANDSLIDE VICTORY”—and an attempt to create the illusion of power to push his agenda. 

The reality is that Trump’s margin over Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris will likely end up around 1.5 points. According to James M. Lindsay, writing for the Council of Foreign Relations, it is the fifth smallest since 1900, which covers 32 presidential races. Exit polls showed that Trump’s favorability rating was just 48% and that more voters chose someone other than Trump. And, as Lindsay points out, Trump fell 4 million votes short of President Joe Biden in 2020. 

Political science professor Lynn Vavreck of the University of California, Los Angeles, told Peter Baker of the New York Times: “If the definition of landslide is you win both the popular vote and Electoral College vote, that’s a new definition” On the other hand, she added, “Nobody gains any kind of influence by going out and saying, ‘I barely won, and now I want to do these big things.’”

Trump’s allies are indeed setting out to do big things, and they are big things that are unpopular. 

Trump ran away from Project 2025 during the campaign because it was so unpopular. He denied he knew anything about it, calling it “ridiculous and abysmal,” and on September 16 the leader of Trump’s transition team, Howard Lutnick, said there were “Absolutely zero. No connection. Zero” ties between the team and Project 2025. Now, though, Trump has done an about-face and has said he will nominate at least five people associated with Project 2025 to his administration. 

Those nominees include Russell Vought, one of the project's key authors, who calls for dramatically increasing the powers of the president; Tom Homan, who as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) oversaw the separation of children from their parents; John Ratcliffe, whom the Senate refused in 2019 to confirm as Director of National Intelligence because he had no experience in intelligence; Brendan Carr, whom Trump wants to put at the head of the Federal Communications Commission and who is already trying to silence critics by warning he will punish broadcasters who Trump feels have been unfair to him; and Stephen Miller, the fervently anti-immigrant ideologue.

Project 2025 calls for the creation of an extraordinarily strong president who will gut the civil service and replace its nonpartisan officials with those who are loyal to the president. It calls for filling the military and the Department of Justice with those loyal to the president. And then, the project plans that with his new power, the president will impose Christian nationalism on the United States of America, ending immigration, and curtailing rights for LGBTQ+ individuals as well as women and racial and ethnic minorities.

Project 2025 was unpopular when people learned about it. 

And then there is the threat of dramatic cuts to the U.S. government, suggested by the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE, headed by billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. They are calling for cuts of $2 trillion to the items in the national budget that provide a safety net for ordinary Americans at the same time that Trump is promising additional tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. Musk, meanwhile, is posturing as if he is the actual president, threatening on Saturday, for example: “Those who break the law will be arrested and that includes mayors.”  

On Meet the Press today, current representative and senator-elect Adam Schiff (D-CA) reacted to the “dictator talk,” with which Trump is threatening his political opponents, pointing out that "[t]he American people…voted on the basis of the economy—they wanted change to the economy—they weren’t voting for dictatorship. So I think he is going to misread his mandate if that’s what he thinks voters chose him for.”

That Trump and his team are trying desperately to portray a marginal victory as a landslide in order to put an extremist unpopular agenda into place suggests another dynamic at work. 

For all Trump’s claims of power, he is a 78-year-old man who is declining mentally and who neither commands a majority of voters nor has shown signs of being able to transfer his voters to a leader in waiting. 

Trump’s team deployed Vice President–elect J.D. Vance to the Senate to drum up votes for the confirmation of Florida representative Matt Gaetz to become the United States attorney general. But Vance has only been in the Senate since 2022 and is not noticeably popular. He—and therefore Trump—was unable to find the votes the wildly unqualified Gaetz needed for confirmation, forcing him to withdraw his name from consideration. 

The next day, Gaetz began to advertise on Cameo, an app that allows patrons to commission a personalized video for fans, asking a minimum of $550.00 for a recording. Gaetz went from United States representative to Trump’s nominee for U.S. attorney general to making videos for Cameo in a little over a week. 

It is a truism in studying politics that it’s far more important to follow power than it is to follow people. Right now, there is a lot of power sloshing around in Washington, D.C. 

Trump is trying to convince the country that he has scooped up all that power. But in fact, he has won reelection by less than 50% of the vote, and his vice president is not popular. The policies Trump is embracing are so unpopular that he himself ran away from them when he was campaigning. And now he has proposed filling his administration with a number of highly unqualified figures who, knowing the only reason they have been elevated is that they are loyal to Trump, will go along with his worst instincts. With that baggage, it is not clear he will be able to cement enough power to bring his plans to life.

If power remains loose, it could get scooped up by cabinet officials, as it was during a similarly chaotic period in the 1920s. In that era, voters elected to the presidency former newspaperman and Republican backbencher Warren G. Harding of Ohio, who promised to return the country to “normalcy” after eight years of the presidency of Democrat Woodrow Wilson and the nation’s engagement in World War I. That election really was a landslide, with Harding and his running mate, Calvin Coolidge, winning more than 60% of the popular vote in 1920.

But Harding was badly out of his depth in the presidency and spent his time with cronies playing bridge and drinking upstairs at the White House—despite Prohibition—while corrupt members of his administration grabbed all they could. 

With such a void in the executive branch, power could have flowed to Congress. But after twenty years of opposing first Theodore Roosevelt, and then William Howard Taft, and then Woodrow Wilson, Congress had become adept at opposing presidents but had split into factions that made it unable to transition to using power, rather than opposing its use.

And so power in that era flowed to members of Harding’s Cabinet, primarily to Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon and Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, who put into place a fervently pro-business government that continued after Harding’s untimely death into the presidency of Calvin Coolidge, who made little effort to recover the power Harding had abandoned. After Hoover became president and their system fell to ruin in the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt took their lost power and used it to create a new type of government. 

In this moment, Trump’s people are working hard to convince Americans that they have gathered up all the power in Washington, D.C., but that power is actually still sloshing around. Trump is trying to force through the Senate a number of unqualified and dangerous nominees for high-level positions, threatening Republican senators that if they don’t bow to him, Elon Musk will fund primary challengers, or suggesting he will push them into recess so he can appoint his nominees without their constitutionally-mandated advice and consent. 

But Trump and his people do not, in fact, have a mandate. Trump is old and weak, and power is up for grabs. It is possible that MAGA Republicans will, in the end, force Republican senators into their camp, permitting Trump and his cronies to do whatever they wish. 

It is also possible that Republican senators will themselves take back for Congress the power that has lately concentrated in presidents, check the most dangerous and unpopular of Trump’s plans, and begin the process of restoring the balance of the three branches of government.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[usgovsummary]

February 6, 2025

POTUS:

Published a memo for all government agencies to review their funding to non-government agencies and to stop providing funding to those "that actively undermine the security, prosperity, and safety of the American people"

Made remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast

An executive order called Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias. Its purpose is to establish a task force to stop "anti-Christian weaponization of government or unlawful conduct targeting Christians." Many of the examples give are people who were arrested for blockading the entrances of abortion clinics and violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. The executive order said those people were simply praying

Signed an executive order placing sanctions on the International Criminal Court for "illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel." Read fully here

SCOTUS:

No cases were heard, and no decisions were published

More information here

Congress:

61 bills and resolutions were introduced in the Senate. Full list is here

Two resolutions were passed by the Senate. One supporting the goals and ideals of "Career and Technical Education Month." The other honoring the memory of those who passed in the mid-air collision on January 29th

The Senate confirmed the nomination of Russell Vought to be Director of the Office of Management and Budget

76 bills and resolutions were introduced in the House of Representatives. Full list is here

One resolution was passed in the House appointing a member onto one of the committees

One bill was passed in the House, the HALT Fentanyl Act. The purpose is to change the classification of fentanyl to schedule 1 controlled substance under the Controlled Substances Act. Read more here

[yetisidelblog]

You and 10,000 other EDF Action members wrote to your Senators demanding they vote NO on Russell Vought’s confirmation as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. And they are listening! Democrats are currently working to slow the process as the Senate moves toward a final confirmation vote on a dangerous nomination.  But we’re coming down to the wire. The final vote will be this week and we need to keep up momentum. Will you take the next step and call your Senators to demand they vote “no” on  Russell Vought?

Vought and his Project 2025 agenda have been clear since the beginning. If confirmed, he plans to defy Congress, withhold disaster aid, traumatize civil servants and eliminate the scientific foundation and expertise that support addressing climate change. His nomination poses a monumental threat to our ability to make climate progress. But we have one last chance to fight back. Take two minutes and call your Senators (don’t worry, we’ve written a script for you!) and tell them to vote “no” on Vought.

@upontheshelfreviews

@greenwingspino

@one-time-i-dreamt

@tenaflyviper

@akron-squirrel

@ifihadaworldofmyown

@justice-for-jacob-marley

@voicetalentbrendan

@thebigdeepcheatsy

@what-is-my-aesthetic

@ravenlynclemens

@thegreatallie

@writerofweird

@bogleech

@anon-lephant

@mentally-quiet-spycrab

@therealjacksepticeye

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Steven Beschloss at America, America:

This is a strange, in-between moment, rippling with uncertainty stirred by a deeply vengeful man bent on destruction who will soon retake the ultimate levers of power. His hasty dumping of unqualified nominees—each one providing a different version of reckless endangerment to our nation’s safety and security—underscores the serious questions about how bad the coming months and years will be.

Will they mete out punishments to serve their boss’ whims, ending justice as we know it? Will we be able to rely on the safety of our food and water and drugs? Will diseases long abated by vaccines re-emerge as new and unnecessary dangers to our children and ourselves? Can we trust that our military will serve the American people rather than be transformed into a weapon against us? Will we face new attacks by foreign adversaries because our allies can no longer safely share intelligence with us? Will we suffer serious economic decline fueled by billionaires and reckless ideologues focused on expanding their own fortunes while demanding sacrifices from everyone else? Can we be sure that in 2026 there will be another election?

In turn, who will be the heroes of this time? Who will stand up and speak out, refusing to be cowed or ruled by fear? Who will take action to stop the demolition of our democracy? Who with power will demand that the practices and principles that have successfully driven the American system of government be recognized and followed? There are some early signs: Matt Gaetz was a road too far for Attorney General. The Senate chose South Dakota’s John Thune as its new majority leader, not Trump-backed lickspittle Rick Scott from Florida. Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve, said categorically that he would not leave his post if Trump asked or tried to fire him. Alaska’s Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski announced she would oppose Trump’s nominees if they are not properly vetted by the FBI. “This isn’t about partisanship," she reportedly told close allies, "it’s about ensuring we don’t compromise the standards of public office." South Dakota’s other GOP senator, Mike Rounds, said this when asked about anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: “Look, I believe in vaccines. I think they’ve saved millions of lives.”

Will there be other GOP senators who find their spine in the coming months to confront Trump’s reckless decisions? Will we see Democrats oppose the coming onslaught with all the vigor and virulence they can muster? These would be leaders to notice and encourage. Let’s also pay attention to the critical role of state and local officials to protect their citizens and push back against the Trump-inspired federal efforts to deport millions of undocumented migrants and pursue myriad other actions that will cause damage to real people. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker best summarized this commitment: “You come for my people, you come through me.”

In this period, we will need fearless truth-tellers to remind us of the differences between right and wrong, true and false. They will be critical in asserting factual reality as the anti-government propaganda intensifies to justify extreme attacks on the agencies, procedures and resources established to create safety and security, particularly for at-risk people. Trump lackey and election denier Pam Bondi, nominated for Attorney General, has already pledged to prosecute the prosecutors. Trump chose Russell Vought, a chief architect of Project 2025, to lead the Office of Management and Budget, even though Trump said he knew nothing about the project’s policy agenda. Vought has already pledged to help impound any funds approved by Congress if the next president disapproves of their intended purpose—demonstrating utter disregard for the legislative body’s power of the purse enshrined in the first article of the Constitution.

Steven Beschloss wrote in his America, America blog on who will be the heroes to save America.

[democracyunderground]

"Donald Trump said he has “no idea” who’s behind it. His presidential transition chair and the man he picked to be the secretary of commerce said he wouldn’t touch it. “They made themselves nuclear,” he said.

But the authors of Project 2025 — a 900-page playbook from a right-wing think tank for the next Republican president’s agenda — are all over Trump’s incoming administration.

Trump is reportedly expected to appoint Russell Vought as the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, a key role that oversees spending across the administration. Vought also is among the architects of the Heritage Foundation’s plan and wrote the chapter on transforming the executive branch.

He was among the authors of the blueprint’s playbook for the first 180 days of the administration, and his Center for Renewing American is on Project 2025’s advisory board.

Trump repeatedly tried to distance himself from the Heritage Foundation’s sweeping proposals on the campaign trail, claiming that he both knows “nothing” about it and has “no idea who is behind it” while also saying he disagrees with some of its “absolutely ridiculous and abysmal” proposals.

“Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them,” he added.

Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee for secretary of commerce, told CNBC in September that there is “absolutely zero” connection between Trump’s campaign and Project 2025.

“I won’t take a list from them,” said Lutnick, referencing the Heritage Foundation’s policy proposals and vetted hires for Trump’s administration. “I won’t take a topic from them. I won’t touch them. They made themselves nuclear.”

Trump has since nominated several of the authors to key roles in his administration.

Brendan Carr, Trump’s nominee to chair the Federal Communications Commission, authored Project 2025’s chapter on the agency, which regulates television, radio, internet and communications.

Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan — a former acting director of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement who will lead Trump’s plan for mass deportations — also is listed among the contributors to Project 2025, and was a visiting fellow with the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, where he drafted a series of articles about immigration policy for the group.

John Ratcliffe, the former director of national intelligence, was nominated as the next CIA director. He is included in Project 2025’s chapter on US intelligence.

Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s anti-immigration agenda in his first term in office, will return to the Trump White House as a deputy chief of staff for policy, overseeing Trump’s agenda.

His organization America First Legal was initially listed among the contributors to Project 2025, but the group’s name was removed from its website after Trump and his allies began to criticize the proposal.

Project 2025 — the name for the contents of the mammoth Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise — was a key focus of Democratic campaigns leading up to Election Day, with Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz routinely amplifying its agenda in an effort to underscore the stakes of Trump’s return to office.

A series of segments throughout the Democratic National Convention even highlighted excerpts from the plan using oversized, printed-out hardcover versions.

The plan calls for mass firings across the federal workforce, abolishing the Department of Education, slashing funds for federal law enforcement agencies, and using agencies that regulate the airwaves and campaign financing to silence dissent. It also proposes mass deportations and banning widely used abortion drugs in an effort to outlaw abortion nationally, among many other proposals.

“Some on the right, severe right, came up with this Project ‘25,” Trump said during a rally in September. “I don’t even know, some of them I know who they are, but they’re very, very conservative. They’re sort of the opposite of the radical left.”

Trump campaign director Chris LaCivita said during the summer that Project 2025 had become a “pain in the ass.”

But shortly after Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election, the Heritage Foundation signaled it was done hiding in the shadows and prepared to re-enter Trump’s orbit, while right-wing media personalities openly touted Project 2025’s contents.

“Now that the election is over I think we can finally say that yeah actually Project 2025 is the agenda. Lol,” far-right influencer Matt Walsh wrote after the election. Podcaster Benny Johnson said “it is my honor to inform you all that Project 2025 was real the whole time.”

“We’re so back,” one Heritage official said.

In a statement on Wednesday, Trump campaign press secretary and incoming White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt continued to deny that Trump has anything to do with Project 2025.

“After months of lies to the American people, Donald Trump is taking off the mask: He’s plotting a Project 2025 Cabinet to enact his dangerous vision starting on day one,” Democratic National Committee spokesperson Alex Floyd said in a statement on Wednesday."

[marta-bee]

This executive order isn't getting much focus. I get it, it's not sexy, and it's not as obviously important as (say) the birthright citizenship or anti-trans EO's. It's probably worth keeping an eye on, though.

All foreign aid will be paused for three months, which obviously hurts those humanitarian groups' ability to operate effectively but it also means their governments need to be on super-best behavior and go along with whatever President Trump says. Panama, it's a beautiful country you got here, sure would be a shame if something happened to it, etc.

OMB is mentioned five times in this EO, too. I'm no expert on government policy, but it seems odd OMB should be mentioned if the approval process. Perhaps now's a good time to remember Russell Vought, Mr. Project 2025 himself, is up for Director of OMB, and that Project 2025 had some rather disastrous ideas on how to fight climate change, gender-based violence, and abortion access on the global scale.

As I said, probably not the most disastrous to Americans, certainly not the most obvious so, but this sure isn't what I'd call good news. :-$

[mswyrr]

Again, if Musk had been elected to some office, this would still be one of the worst abuses of executive power in American history. No one in the executive branch has the legal authority to unilaterally cancel congressional appropriations. No one has the legal authority to turn the Treasury payments system into a means of political retribution. No one has the authority to summarily dismiss civil servants without cause. No one has the authority to take down and scrub government websites of public data, itself paid for by American taxpayers. And no private citizen has the authority to access the sensitive data of American citizens for either information gathering or their own, unknown purposes.

The thing, of course, is that Musk isn’t elected. He is a private citizen. He was neither confirmed for a cabinet job nor formally appointed to a high-level position within the administration. He does not even have a presidential commission; he has been designated a “special government employee.” Musk says that he is acting on the authority of the president of the United States. Even still, it is not as if the president of the United States has the authority to unleash an unvetted, unaccountable private citizen onto some of the most sensitive data possessed by the federal government.

But that is the situation.

[...] To describe the current situation in the executive branch as merely a constitutional crisis is to understate the significance of what we’re experiencing. “Constitutional crisis” does not even begin to capture the radicalism of what is unfolding in the federal bureaucracy and of what Congress’s decision not to act may liquidate in terms of constitutional meaning.

Together, Trump and Musk are trying to rewrite the rules of the American system. They are trying to instantiate an anti-constitutional theory of executive power that would make the president supreme over all other branches of government. They are doing so in service of a plutocratic agenda of austerity and the upward redistribution of wealth. And the longer Congress stands by, the more this is fixed in place.

If Trump, Musk and their allies — like Russell Vought, the president’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget and a vocal advocate of an autocratic “radical constitutionalism” that treats the president is an elected despot — succeed, then the question of American politics won’t be if they’ll win the next election, but whether the Constitution as we know it is still in effect.

[yourreddancer]

In recent days, various Senate committees held hearings on some of Donald Trump’s most ludicrous nominees for key positions in his administration.

These dangerous, unqualified, and vindictive MAGA sycophants include:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

RFK Jr. is an anti-science conspiracist and anti-vaccine zealot who Trump wants to put in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Here are just some of the agencies and programs that are part of HHS: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Head Start, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

And — oh yeah — Medicare and Medicaid.

If confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr. would be a direct threat to our nation’s public health infrastructure and to the well-being of every person in America and, indeed, the world.

Kash Patel

Patel is a MAGA fanatic and “deep state” conspiracist who Trump wants to put in charge of the entire Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

He has been brazen in announcing his intention to weaponize the FBI against government officials, journalists, nonprofit groups, and the American people.

Here’s one example of just how absurd Patel’s hearing was: He claimed not to be familiar with a far-right podcaster who promotes antisemitism and white supremacism even though he has been on the man’s podcast eight times.

Russell Vought

Vought is a Christian nationalist and one of the architects of Project 2025 — which, despite Trump’s see-through claims otherwise, is his regime’s playbook. Trump wants to put Vought in charge of the mundane-sounding but absolutely critical Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

In a nutshell, OMB oversees everything the entire executive branch of the federal government does.

Vought is fixated on a maximalist vision of presidential power that would let Trump ignore Congress and the Constitution. And he is committed to using government power to advance the view that America should officially be a Christian nation.

The illegal freeze on all federal grants and loans this past week is exactly the kind of thing the American people will be subjected to again and again if Vought is confirmed.

Look, we know that many MAGA senators will rubber stamp these nominees in groveling fealty to Trump. But we also know that some Republican senators have doubts about each of these men and that the Republican majority in the Senate is wafer thin. We have to try to get 51 senators to reject these preposterous nominees.

By the way, as we fight to block Trump’s dangerous and unqualified nominees for essential roles throughout the federal government, some people ask what happens if we defeat one person and Trump nominates someone else just as bad or even worse. The answer is simple: we fight that person too, and the one after that, and the one after that. What we don’t do — what we absolutely will not do — is throw up our hands and give in. Not gonna happen.

To the United States Senate:

You CAN stand up to Donald Trump. You did it with Matt Gaetz. You almost did it with Pete Hegseth (a one-vote shortfall you’ll come to regret because the man will endanger national security). Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Kash Patel, and Russell Vought are just as unqualified and just as much of a threat. Have some backbone. Honor your duty as a supposedly coequal branch of government. Put the American people before rank partisanship. Do not confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Do not confirm Kash Patel for director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Do not confirm Russell Vought for director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Click to add your name now.

Thanks for taking action.

For democracy,

- Robert Weissman, Co-President of Public Citizen

[misfitwashere]

November 24, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

NOV 25

Since the night of the November 5, election, Trump and his allies have insisted that he won what Trump called “an unprecedented and powerful mandate.” But as the numbers have continued to come in, it’s clear that such a declaration is both an attempt to encourage donations— fundraising emails refer to Trump’s “LANDSLIDE VICTORY”—and an attempt to create the illusion of power to push his agenda. 

The reality is that Trump’s margin over Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris will likely end up around 1.5 points. According to James M. Lindsay, writing for the Council of Foreign Relations, it is the fifth smallest since 1900, which covers 32 presidential races. Exit polls showed that Trump’s favorability rating was just 48% and that more voters chose someone other than Trump. And, as Lindsay points out, Trump fell 4 million votes short of President Joe Biden in 2020. 

Political science professor Lynn Vavreck of the University of California, Los Angeles, told Peter Baker of the New York Times: “If the definition of landslide is you win both the popular vote and Electoral College vote, that’s a new definition” On the other hand, she added, “Nobody gains any kind of influence by going out and saying, ‘I barely won, and now I want to do these big things.’”

Trump’s allies are indeed setting out to do big things, and they are big things that are unpopular. 

Trump ran away from Project 2025 during the campaign because it was so unpopular. He denied he knew anything about it, calling it “ridiculous and abysmal,” and on September 16 the leader of Trump’s transition team, Howard Lutnick, said there were “Absolutely zero. No connection. Zero” ties between the team and Project 2025. Now, though, Trump has done an about-face and has said he will nominate at least five people associated with Project 2025 to his administration. 

Those nominees include Russell Vought, one of the project's key authors, who calls for dramatically increasing the powers of the president; Tom Homan, who as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) oversaw the separation of children from their parents; John Ratcliffe, whom the Senate refused in 2019 to confirm as Director of National Intelligence because he had no experience in intelligence; Brendan Carr, whom Trump wants to put at the head of the Federal Communications Commission and who is already trying to silence critics by warning he will punish broadcasters who Trump feels have been unfair to him; and Stephen Miller, the fervently anti-immigrant ideologue.

Project 2025 calls for the creation of an extraordinarily strong president who will gut the civil service and replace its nonpartisan officials with those who are loyal to the president. It calls for filling the military and the Department of Justice with those loyal to the president. And then, the project plans that with his new power, the president will impose Christian nationalism on the United States of America, ending immigration, and curtailing rights for LGBTQ+ individuals as well as women and racial and ethnic minorities.

Project 2025 was unpopular when people learned about it. 

And then there is the threat of dramatic cuts to the U.S. government, suggested by the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE, headed by billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. They are calling for cuts of $2 trillion to the items in the national budget that provide a safety net for ordinary Americans at the same time that Trump is promising additional tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. Musk, meanwhile, is posturing as if he is the actual president, threatening on Saturday, for example: “Those who break the law will be arrested and that includes mayors.”  

On Meet the Press today, current representative and senator-elect Adam Schiff (D-CA) reacted to the “dictator talk,” with which Trump is threatening his political opponents, pointing out that "[t]he American people…voted on the basis of the economy—they wanted change to the economy—they weren’t voting for dictatorship. So I think he is going to misread his mandate if that’s what he thinks voters chose him for.”

That Trump and his team are trying desperately to portray a marginal victory as a landslide in order to put an extremist unpopular agenda into place suggests another dynamic at work. 

For all Trump’s claims of power, he is a 78-year-old man who is declining mentally and who neither commands a majority of voters nor has shown signs of being able to transfer his voters to a leader in waiting. 

Trump’s team deployed Vice President–elect J.D. Vance to the Senate to drum up votes for the confirmation of Florida representative Matt Gaetz to become the United States attorney general. But Vance has only been in the Senate since 2022 and is not noticeably popular. He—and therefore Trump—was unable to find the votes the wildly unqualified Gaetz needed for confirmation, forcing him to withdraw his name from consideration. 

The next day, Gaetz began to advertise on Cameo, an app that allows patrons to commission a personalized video for fans, asking a minimum of $550.00 for a recording. Gaetz went from United States representative to Trump’s nominee for U.S. attorney general to making videos for Cameo in a little over a week. 

It is a truism in studying politics that it’s far more important to follow power than it is to follow people. Right now, there is a lot of power sloshing around in Washington, D.C. 

Trump is trying to convince the country that he has scooped up all that power. But in fact, he has won reelection by less than 50% of the vote, and his vice president is not popular. The policies Trump is embracing are so unpopular that he himself ran away from them when he was campaigning. And now he has proposed filling his administration with a number of highly unqualified figures who, knowing the only reason they have been elevated is that they are loyal to Trump, will go along with his worst instincts. With that baggage, it is not clear he will be able to cement enough power to bring his plans to life.

If power remains loose, it could get scooped up by cabinet officials, as it was during a similarly chaotic period in the 1920s. In that era, voters elected to the presidency former newspaperman and Republican backbencher Warren G. Harding of Ohio, who promised to return the country to “normalcy” after eight years of the presidency of Democrat Woodrow Wilson and the nation’s engagement in World War I. That election really was a landslide, with Harding and his running mate, Calvin Coolidge, winning more than 60% of the popular vote in 1920.

But Harding was badly out of his depth in the presidency and spent his time with cronies playing bridge and drinking upstairs at the White House—despite Prohibition—while corrupt members of his administration grabbed all they could. 

With such a void in the executive branch, power could have flowed to Congress. But after twenty years of opposing first Theodore Roosevelt, and then William Howard Taft, and then Woodrow Wilson, Congress had become adept at opposing presidents but had split into factions that made it unable to transition to using power, rather than opposing its use.

And so power in that era flowed to members of Harding’s Cabinet, primarily to Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon and Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, who put into place a fervently pro-business government that continued after Harding’s untimely death into the presidency of Calvin Coolidge, who made little effort to recover the power Harding had abandoned. After Hoover became president and their system fell to ruin in the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt took their lost power and used it to create a new type of government. 

In this moment, Trump’s people are working hard to convince Americans that they have gathered up all the power in Washington, D.C., but that power is actually still sloshing around. Trump is trying to force through the Senate a number of unqualified and dangerous nominees for high-level positions, threatening Republican senators that if they don’t bow to him, Elon Musk will fund primary challengers, or suggesting he will push them into recess so he can appoint his nominees without their constitutionally-mandated advice and consent. 

But Trump and his people do not, in fact, have a mandate. Trump is old and weak, and power is up for grabs. It is possible that MAGA Republicans will, in the end, force Republican senators into their camp, permitting Trump and his cronies to do whatever they wish. 

It is also possible that Republican senators will themselves take back for Congress the power that has lately concentrated in presidents, check the most dangerous and unpopular of Trump’s plans, and begin the process of restoring the balance of the three branches of government.

—

[wwarborday]

Project 2025 isn’t gonna throw you into a concentration camp day 1, but it does want to get rid of the entire department of education, make schooling a state issue, give free school vouchers to anyone who asks (essentially paying state money to send kids to religious and private school, rather than pay public teachers better), and uh. Ban? Free? Lunch? Programs?

The forward says that the Constitution’s “pursuit of happiness” should be interpreted as “pursuit of blessedness,” and, “an individual must be free to live as his creator ordained.”

You? Making no money and living paycheck to paycheck? They want you taxed at 30%. They want corporate taxes to be lowered to 18%. They want work requirements for people on SNAP/food stamps. Abortion will be officially declassified as healthcare, and federal insurance will not cover it.

There are, currently, tens of thousands of federal civil servants—post office workers, White House staff (staff, like cleaners, security, gardeners), EPA workers, NASA, Social Security—people who work in federal government, in what are, hypothetically, non-partisan positions. Current policy is to, uh, keep those people around through administrative changes, so that they can do their jobs.

Project 2025 would re-instate what Trump did in his first term, and class many of these jobs as “Schedule F” workers. (Biden eliminated this in his first term.) The administration would then, uh, fire those people, and rehire people who pass a “loyalty test,” because if government works too well, then we have socialism, and big business can’t thrive. Deporting illegal immigrants would become a top priority, but seeking fees from asylum seekers would become top priority, which the project calls “an opportunity for a significant influx of money.”

Jesus Christ.

Related to the above, but last month, June 2024, 2025 launched “Project Sovereignty 2025,” which aims to list 100 people who would oppose Trump. (Not project 2025, or a hypothetical candidate; Trump.) These names will apparently be listed publicly.

The DOJ would, I shit you not, “prosecute all state and local governments, institutions of higher education, corporations, and any other private employers” who participate in DEI or affirmative action programs, since those are anti-white racism.

Like—even if you take away the, yes, idea that trans people are inherently pornographic, this is a plan designed to, essentially, kill the government. The issue isn’t “big government,” the issue is fucking OSHA, and the EPA, and protections for queer people and POC, because what conservatives really want, is the ability to make as much money as possible, by exploiting as many people as they can.

“Trump hasn’t said he’s gonna do project 2025” yeah my bad man, it’s just made by people like Jeffrey Clark (from Trump’s DOJ), Stephen Miller (created immigration policy for Trump), and Russel Vought (policy director for the Republican National Committee).

If you want to scoff at the idea of the military being deployed against civilians on day one, sure, fine, kinda outlandish, but like. This is still, bad? This is still really bad? “The white liberals are scared of the bogeyman” is something I keep seeing, “oh, project 2025, it’s soooo scary,” dude! You should be fucking concerned about anyone wanting to dismantle public education and implement a loyalty test before you can work at the post office!

I find it consistently and endless frustrating, this condescending idea of, “Oh, okay, sure, just one more vote and we’ll defeat fascism…. Why do we still have to vote, then? Idiots .” My guy!! My man!! My dude!! I love having food and safety laws! Big fan of environmental laws that keep lead out of my water! I want OSHA to exist forever! I will kiss social security on the mouth! People wanna get rid of them forever!! I’d love that to not happen!! Gonna vote about it!! If these fuckers would stop trying to dismantle the current government so that they can work me to death, I wouldn’t have to keep asking people to vote!!

“The Democrats should be doing more and Biden sucks” yup!! Gonna vote anyway! Super quick and easy way to keep this from happening in a year! Gives me time to organize with others and create a more systemic solution!