#muskrump takeover

[mizelaneus]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/02/08/nih-cuts-billions-dollars-biomedical-funding-effective-immediately/

Washington Post

NIH cuts billions of dollars in biomedical funding, effective immediately

The move halts a large slice of money for most universities and research institutions virtually overnight, imperiling vital research in everything from cancer to heart disease.

Excerpt:

“The Trump administration is cutting billions of dollars in biomedical research funding, alarming academic leaders who said it would imperil their universities and medical centers and drawing swift rebukes from Democrats who predicted dire consequences for scientific research.


“The move, announced Friday night by the National Institutes of Health, drastically cuts NIH’s funding for “indirect” costs related to research. These are the administrative requirements, facilities and other operations that many scientists say are essential but that some Republicans have claimed are superfluous.”

[webntrmpt2x]

Excerpt:

“Trump learned a valuable lesson from this: It's way more fun to be the facsimile than the real thing. He barely showed up at the office in his first term, and clearly hated every minute of actual work. Whether they've explicitly discussed it or not, it appears he and Musk have a deal: One will do the annoying dirty work of illegally smashing up the federal bureaucracy, while the other pretends to be a president for the cameras and fanfare. Trump gets to sign papers and get his picture taken. He gets to do fun reality-TV villain stuff, like threatening tariffs but mostly not enacting them, because that would create consequences he doesn't want to deal with. As with being a fake businessman on "The Apprentice," being a fake president is much better than the real thing. He gets all the ego-fluffing and attention, while not having to think about stuff, much less do any work. “

[webntrmpt2x]

Jeet Heer

First two paragraphs:

“Elon Musk, often described as Donald Trump’s shadow president, has quickly morphed into something much more dangerous: Trump’s co-autocrat. Hitherto, Trump’s biggest threat to American democracy came when he incited the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The event was typically Trump in that it was lurid, violent, theatrical, and televised. January 6, like Trump’s first term, demonstrated that he had the ability to menace democratic norms and spur on mayhem—but not to really control the ultimate operation of government.

“For his second term, Trump has tried to make amends for that failure by recruiting true believers who share his passion for subduing the government, including running roughshod over the system of checks and balance. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who specializes in taking over large companies and remaking them in his image, has been Trump’s most important ally in this agenda, acting as considerably more than an aide. In truth, Musk is emerging as a government within the government, using the time-honored revolutionary tactic of developing dual power in order to seize control.”

Another excerpt—one of Muskrump’s methods;

“Musk is currently targeting mainstream Protestant churches involved in immigration resettlement. On X, the social media site he owns, Musk went after Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, DC, who delivered a sermon calling for compassion to immigrants at a service Trump attended. Musk retweeted a claim that Episcopal Migration Ministries received $53 million for immigration resettlement and said, “She’s on the take.” There is a strong element of political theater in this smearing of Budde, as in Musk’s attack on the Lutheran church. Government funding of social programs run by religious organizations is a long-standing practice and already a matter of public record. But Musk is trying to create the illusion that he’s uncovered a deeply buried government secret.”

[webntrmpt2x]

Excerpt:

“But the most catastrophic aspect of Musk’s leadership at DOGE is its unprecedented access to government data. DOGE employees reportedly have digital permission to see data in the U.S. government’s payment system, which includes bank account information, Social Security numbers and income tax documents. Reportedly, they have also seized the ability to alter the system’s software, data, transactions and records.

“Multiple media reports indicate that Musk’s staff have already made changes to the programs that process payments for Social Security beneficiaries and government contractors to make it easier to block payments and hide records of payments blocked, made or altered.

“But DOGE employees only need to be able to read the data to make copies of Americans’ most sensitive personal information.

“A federal court has ordered that not to happen – at least for now. Even so, funneling the data into Grok, Musk’s xAI-created artificial intelligence system, which is already connected with the Musk-owned X, formerly known as Twitter, would create an unparalleled capability for predicting economic shifts, identifying government vulnerabilities and modeling voter behavior.

“That’s an enormous and alarming amount of information and power for any one person to have.”