A dangerous and absurd state of affairs

 

[Why is it dangerous and absurd? Let's start with] billionaire Elon Musk’s team that took control of the Treasury’s payment system; thus, essentially gaining access to the checkbook with which the United States handles about $6 trillion annually and to all the financial information of Americans and American businesses with it. Apparently, it did not stop there.

Ellen Knickmeyer of the Associated Press reported that two top security officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) tried to stop people associated with Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, from accessing classified information they did not have security clearance to see. The Trump administration put the officials on leave, and the DOGE team gained access to the information.

Vittoria Elliott of Wired has identified those associated with Musk’s takeover as six “engineers who are barely out of—and in at least one case, purportedly still in—college.” They are connected either to Musk or to his long-time associate Peter Thiel, who backed J.D. Vance’s Senate run eighteen months before he became Trump’s vice-presidential running mate. Their names are Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran, and they have little to no experience in government.

Public policy expert Dan Moynihan told reporter Elliott that the fact these people “are not really public officials” makes it hard for Congress to intervene. “So, this feels like a hostile takeover of the machinery of governments by the richest man in the world,” he said. Law professor Nick Bednar noted that “it is very unlikely” that the engineers “have the expertise to understand either the law or the administration needs that surround these agencies.”

After Musk’s team breached the USAID computers, cybersecurity specialist Matthew Garrett posted: “Random computers being plugged into federal networks is obviously terrifying in terms of what data they're deliberately accessing, but it's also terrifying because it implies controls are being disabled—unmanaged systems should never have access to this data. Who else has access to those systems?”

USAID receives foreign policy guidance from the State Department. Intelligence agencies must now assume U.S. intelligence systems are insecure.

Musk’s response was to post: “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.” Also last night, according to Sam Stein of The Bulwark, “the majority of staff in the legislative and public affairs bureau lost access to their emails, implying they’ve been put on admin leave although this was never communicated to them.”

Congress established USAID in 1961 to bring together the many different programs that were administering foreign aid. Focusing on long-term socioeconomic development, USAID has a budget of more than $50 billion, less than 1% of the U.S. annual budget. It is one of the largest aid agencies in the world.

Musk is unelected, and it appears that DOGE has no legal authority. As political scientist Seth Masket put it in tusk: “Elon Musk is not a federal employee, nor has he been appointed by the President nor approved by the Senate to have any leadership role in government.” The ‘Department of Government Efficiency,’ announced by Trump in a January 20th executive order, is not truly any sort of government department or agency, and even the executive order uses quotes in the title.

It’s perfectly fine to have a marketing gimmick like this, but DOGE does not have power over established government agencies, and Musk has no role in government. It does not matter that he is an ally of the President. Musk is a private citizen taking control of established government offices. That is not efficiency; that is a coup.”

DOGE has simply taken over government systems. Musk, using President Donald Trump’s name, is personally deciding what he thinks should be cut from the U.S. government.

Musk reposted a social media post from MAGA religious extremist General Mike Flynn, who resigned from his position as Trump’s national security advisor in 2017 after pleading guilty to secret conversations with a Russian agent—for which Trump pardoned him—and who publicly embraced the QAnon conspiracy theory. In today’s post, Flynn complained about “the ‘Lutheran’ faith” and, referring to federal grants provided to Lutheran Family Services and affiliated organizations, said, “this use of ‘religion’ as a money laundering operation must end.” Musk added: “The [DOGE] team is rapidly shutting down these illegal payments.”

In fact, this is money appropriated by Congress, and its payment is required by law. Republican lawmakers have pushed government subsidies and grants toward religious organizations for years, and Lutheran Social Services is one of the largest employers in South Dakota, where it operates senior living facilities.

South Dakota is the home of Senate majority leader John Thune, who has not been a strong Trump supporter, as well as Homeland Security secretary nominee Kristi Noem. The news that DOGE has taken over U.S. government computers is not the only bombshell this weekend.

Another is that Trump has declared a trade war with the top trading partners of the United States: Mexico, Canada, and China. Although his first administration negotiated the current trade agreement between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, on Saturday Trump broke the terms of that treaty.

He slapped tariffs of 25% on goods coming from Mexico and Canada, tariffs of 10% on Canadian energy, and tariffs of 10% on goods coming from China. He said he was doing so to force Mexico and Canada to do more about undocumented migration and drug trafficking, but while precursor chemicals to make fentanyl come from China and undocumented migrants come over the southern border with Mexico, Canada accounts for only about 1% of both. Further, Trump has diverted Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents combating drug trafficking to his immigration sweeps.

As soon as he took office, Trump designated Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, and on Friday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth responded that “all options will be on the table” when a Fox News Channel host asked if the military will strike within Mexico. Today Trump was clearer: he posted on social media that without U.S. trade—which Trump somehow thinks is a “massive subsidy”— “Canada ceases to exist as a viable Country. Harsh but true! Therefore, Canada should become our Cherished 51st State. Much lower taxes, and far better military protection for the people of Canada—AND NO TARIFFS!”

Trump inherited the best economy in the world from his predecessor, President Joe Biden, but on Friday, as soon as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Trump would levy the tariffs, the stock market plunged. Trump, who during his campaign insisted that tariffs would boost the economy, today said that Americans could feel “SOME PAIN” from them. He added “BUT WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AND IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID.” Tonight, stock market futures dropped 450 points before trading opens tomorrow.

Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum wrote, “We categorically reject the White House’s slander that the Mexican government has alliances with criminal organizations, as well as any intention of meddling in our territory,” and has promised retaliatory tariffs. China noted that it has been working with the U.S. to regulate precursor chemicals since 2019 and said it would sue the U.S. before the World Trade Organization.

Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau announced more than $100 billion in retaliatory 25% tariffs and then spoke directly to Americans. Echoing what economists have said all along, Trudeau warned that tariffs would cost jobs, raise prices, and limit the precious metals necessary for U.S. security. But then he turned from economics to principles.

“As President John F. Kennedy said many years ago,” Trudeau began, “geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends; economics has made us partners and necessity has made us allies.” He noted that “from the beaches of Normandy to the mountains of the Korean Peninsula, from the fields of Flanders to the streets of Kandahar,” Canadians “have “fought and died alongside you.”

“During the summer of 2005, when Hurricane Katrina ravaged your great city of New Orleans, or mere weeks ago when we sent water bombers to tackle the wildfires in California. During the day, the world stood still—Sept. 11, 2001—when we provided refuge to stranded passengers and planes, we were always there, standing with you, grieving with you, the American people.

“Together, we’ve built the most successful economic, military and security partnership the world has ever seen. A relationship that has been the envy of the world…. Unfortunately, the actions taken today by the White House split us apart instead of bringing us together.”

Trudeau said Canada’s response would “be far reaching and include everyday items such as American beer, wine and bourbon, fruits and fruit juices, including orange juice, along with vegetables, perfume, clothing and shoes.

It’ll include major consumer products like household appliances, furniture and sports equipment, and materials like lumber and plastics, along with much, much more. He assured Canadians: “[W]e are all in this together. The Canadian government, Canadian businesses, Canadian organized labor, Canadian civil society, Canada’s premiers, and tens of millions of Canadians from coast to coast to coast are aligned and united. This is Team Canada at its best.”

Canadian provincial leaders said they were removing alcohol from Republican-dominated states, and Canadian member of parliament Charlie Angus noted that the Liquor Control Board of Ontario buys more wine by dollar value than any other organization in the world and that Canada is the number one export market for Kentucky spirits. The Liquor Control Board of Ontario has stopped all purchases of American beer, wine, and spirits, turning instead to allies and local producers. Canada’s Irving Oil, which provides heating oil to New England, has already told customers that prices will reflect the tariffs.

In a riveting piece today, in his Thinking about…, scholar of authoritarianism Timothy Snyder wrote that “[t]he people who now dominate the executive branch of the government…are acting, quite deliberately, to destroy the nation.” “Think of the federal government as a car,” he wrote. “You might have thought that the election was like getting the car serviced. Instead, when you come into the shop, the mechanics, who somehow don’t look like mechanics, tell you that they have taken the parts of your car that work and sold them and kept the money. And that this was the most efficient thing to do. And that you should thank them.”

On Friday, James E. Dennehy of the FBI’s New York field office told his staff that they are “in a battle of our own, as good people are being walked out of the F.B.I. and others are being targeted because they did their jobs in accordance with the law and F.B.I. policy.” He vowed that he, anyway, is going to “dig in.”

—Heather Cox Richardson

Key Legal Provisions for Carrying Knives in Illinois

1. Types of Knives: Under 720 ILCS 5/24-1, certain knives are illegal to possess, manufacture, or sell. This includes switchblades and ballistic knives. Additionally, any knife with a blade longer than 3 inches may be considered a weapon if carried with unlawful intent.
2. Open vs. Concealed Carry: Illinois does not distinguish between open and concealed carry for knives. However, carrying a knife with a blade longer than 3 inches can lead to legal complications unless the individual can demonstrate a lawful purpose for carrying it (e.g., work-related reasons).
3. Local Ordinances: Municipalities in Illinois have the authority to enact stricter knife laws. For instance, the Chicago Municipal Code prohibits carrying any knife with a blade longer than 2.5 inches. Therefore, it is crucial to check local laws before carrying a knife in different areas.
4. Prohibited Locations: Carrying knives is strictly prohibited on school grounds, public transportation, courthouses, and other government-owned properties. Violating these restrictions can lead to serious legal consequences.

Legal Consequences

Violations of knife laws in Illinois can result in significant penalties:

• Possession of illegal knives is classified as a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to 12 months in jail and/or fines up to $2,500.
• Enhanced penalties apply if an illegal knife is found in restricted areas such as schools or public housing.

Special Considerations

• Minors: Specific laws apply to minors carrying knives. Under 105 ILCS 5/10-22.6, guardians of minors found carrying knives may face penalties.
• Intent Matters: The legality of carrying a knife can depend on the intent behind its possession. Knives under 3 inches are generally legal unless used unlawfully against another person.

Navigating knife laws in Illinois requires an understanding of both state statutes and local ordinances. Individuals should be aware of the specific regulations regarding knife types, lengths, and permissible locations to avoid legal issues. Staying informed about changes in legislation and consulting legal professionals, when necessary, can help ensure compliance and protect individual rights regarding knife ownership and carry in Illinois.

What are the penalties for violating knife laws in Illinois?

Violating knife laws in Illinois can lead to significant legal consequences. The penalties vary based on the type of violation and the knife involved:

Class A misdemeanor

Possessing or carrying a restricted knife, such as a switchblade or a knife with a blade longer than 3 inches, in a prohibited area can result in a Class A misdemeanor. 

This can carry a penalty of up to 364 days in jail and a fine of up to $2,500.

Additionally, the court may impose probation, conditional discharge, or supervision instead of jail time. Probation can last up to two years and may include conditions such as community service or restitution to any victims.

Supervision is not considered a conviction and typically does not involve jail time if the defendant complies with all conditions set by the court. 

If successfully completed, the charges may be dismissed, but the arrest record will remain unless expunged through a separate process.

Felony charges

In more severe cases, such as carrying a knife with unlawful intent or violating multiple knife laws, individuals can face felony charges.  Felony convictions can lead to longer imprisonment terms and higher fines.

Enforcement and legal support

Enforcement of these laws is carried out by local law enforcement officers who interpret the specifics of the regulations. It’s crucial to understand these laws to avoid violations. 

If you find yourself unsure about the legality of your knife or your carrying practices, contacting an attorney or local law enforcement for legal advice is recommended.

What are the concealed carry rules?

Illinois knife laws specify strict regulations for the concealed carry of certain types of knives. For instance, automatic knives, also known as switchblades, can only be carried by individuals with a valid Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) card. 

These knives, which open automatically by hand pressure applied to a button, are considered dangerous weapons, and carrying them without proper authorization lead to severe penalties.

Other types of knives, such as daggers, knives with a blade longer than 3 inches, and ballistic knives, are also restricted. Possessing and carrying these knives without the necessary permissions is a violation of Illinois law. 

How to avoid violations?

To avoid violating Illinois knife laws, it is essential to understand and strictly adhere to the restrictions in place. Here are some practical tips:

1. Obtain necessary permits: If you own an automatic knife or another restricted type of knife, ensure you have a valid FOID card.
2. Respect location restrictions: Avoid carrying knives in restricted areas such as schools, courthouses, and public buildings.
3. Stay informed: Laws can change. Keep yourself updated on Illinois knife laws by consulting reliable sources and seeking legal advice when necessary.

Conclusion

Understanding and complying with Illinois knife laws is crucial to avoid serious legal consequences. Restrictions on the types of knives, concealed carry rules, and location-based limitations are all important factors to consider for remaining compliant with the law. If you have any questions or uncertainties, do not hesitate to contact a legal expert or law enforcement officer for precise and tailored advice.

Sources:

• American Knife and Tool Institute 
• Illinois General Assembly
• CRIMINAL LAWYER ILLINOIS 

 

"MAGA Republicans in charge of the government have made it clear they intend to get rid of [Social Security, Medicaid, Dept. of Education] once and for all"

 

Shortly after 1:00 this morning, Vittoria Elliott, Dhruv Mehrotra, Leah Feiger, and Tim Marchman of Wired reported that, according to three of their sources, “[a] 25-year-old engineer named Marko Elez, who previously worked for two Elon Musk companies [SpaceX and X], has direct access to Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly all payments made by the US government.”

According to the reporters, Elez apparently has the privileges to write code on the programs at the Bureau of Fiscal Service that control more than 20% of the U.S. economy, including government payments of veterans’ benefits, Social Security benefits, and veterans’ pay. 

The admin privileges he has typically permit a user “to log in to servers through secure shell access, navigate the entire file system, change user permissions, and delete or modify critical files. That could allow someone to bypass the security measures of, and potentially cause irreversible changes to, the very systems they have access to.”

“If you would have asked me a week ago” if an outsider could’ve been given access to a government server, one federal IT worker told the Wired reporters, “I'd have told you that this kind of thing would never in a million years happen. But now, who the f*ck knows."

The reporters note that control of the Bureau of Fiscal Service computers could enable someone to cut off monies to specific agencies or even individuals. “Will DOGE cut funding to programs approved by Congress that Donald Trump decides he doesn’t like?” asked Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) yesterday. “What about cancer research? Food banks? School lunches? Veterans aid? Literacy programs? Small business loans?”

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo reported that his sources said that Elez and possibly others got full admin access to the Treasury computers on Friday, January 31, and that he—or they—have “already made extensive changes to the code base for the payment system.” 

They are leaning on existing staff in the agency for help, which those workers have provided reluctantly in hopes of keeping the entire system from crashing. Marshall reports those staffers are “freaking out.” The system is due to undergo a migration to another system this weekend; how the changes will interact with that long-planned migration is unclear.

The changes, Marshall’s sources tell him, “All seem to relate to creating new paths to block payments and possibly leave less visibility into what has been blocked.”

Both Wired and the New York Times reported yesterday that Musk’s team intends to cut government workers and to use artificial intelligence, or AI, to make budget cuts and to find waste and abuse in the federal government.

Today, Jason Koebler, Joseph Cox, and Emanuel Maiberg of 404 Media reported that they had obtained the audio of a meeting held Monday by Thomas Shedd for government technology workers. Shedd is a former Musk employee at Tesla who is now leading the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services (TTS), the team that is recoding the government programs.

At the meeting, Shedd told government workers that “things are going to get intense” as his team creates “AI coding agents” to write software that would, for example, change the way logging into the government systems works. Currently, that software cannot access any information about individuals; as the reporters note, login.gov currently assures users that it “does not affect or have any information related to the specific agency you are trying to access.”

But Shedd said they were working through how to change that login “to further identify individuals and detect and prevent fraud.”

When a government employee pointed out that the Privacy Act makes it illegal for agencies to share personal information without consent, Shedd appeared unfazed by the idea they were trying something illegal. “The idea would be that folks would give consent to help with the login flow, but again, that's an example of something that we have a vision, that needs [to be] worked on, and needs clarified [sic]. And if we hit a roadblock, then we hit a roadblock. But we still should push forward and see what we can do.”

A government employee told Koebler, Cox, and Maiberg that using AI coding agents is a major security risk. “Government software is concerned with things like foreign adversaries attempting to insert backdoors into government code. With code generated by AI, it seems possible that security vulnerabilities could be introduced unintentionally. Or could be introduced intentionally via an AI-related exploit that creates obfuscated code that includes vulnerabilities that might expose the data of American citizens or of national security importance.”

A blizzard of lawsuits has greeted Musk’s campaign and other Trump administration efforts to undermine Congress. Today, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Representative Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the minority leaders in their respective chambers, announced they were introducing legislation to stop Musk’s unlawful actions in the Treasury’s payment systems and to protect Americans, calling it “Stop the Steal,” a play on Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

This evening, Democratic lawmakers and hundreds of protesters rallied at the Treasury Department to take a stand against Musk’s hostile takeover of the U.S. Treasury payment system. “Nobody Elected Elon,” their signs read. “He has access to all our information, our Social Security numbers, the federal payment system,” Representative Maxwell Frost (D-FL) said. “What’s going to stop him from stealing taxpayer money?”

Tonight, the Washington Post noted that Musk’s actions “appear to violate federal law.” David Super of Georgetown Law School told journalists Jeff Stein, Dan Diamond, Faiz Siddiqui, Cat Zakrzewski, Hannah Natanson, and Jacqueline Alemany: “So many of these things are so wildly illegal that I think they’re playing a quantity game and assuming the system can’t react to all this illegality at once.”

Musk’s takeover of the U.S. government to override Congress and dictate what programs he considers worthwhile is a logical outcome of forty years of Republican rhetoric. After World War II, members of both political parties agreed that the government should regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, promote infrastructure, and protect civil rights. 

The idea was to use tax dollars to create national wealth. The government would hold the economic playing field level by protecting every American’s access to education, healthcare, transportation and communication, employment, and resources so that anyone could work hard and rise to prosperity.

Businessmen who opposed regulation and taxes tried to convince voters to abandon this system but had no luck. The liberal consensus— “liberal” because it used the government to protect individual freedom, and “consensus” because it enjoyed wide support—won the votes of members of both major political parties.

But those opposed to the liberal consensus gained traction after the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, decision declared segregation in the public schools unconstitutional. Three years later, in 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican, sent troops to help desegregate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. 

Those trying to tear apart the liberal consensus used the crisis to warn voters that the programs in place to help all Americans build the nation as they rose to prosperity were really an attempt to redistribute cash from white taxpayers to undeserving racial minorities, especially Black Americans. Such programs were, opponents insisted, a form of socialism, or even communism. That argument worked to undermine white support for the liberal consensus. Over the years, Republican voters increasingly abandoned the idea of using tax money to help Americans build wealth.

When majorities continued to support the liberal consensus, Republicans responded by suppressing the vote, rigging the system through gerrymandering, and flooding our political system with dark money and using right-wing media to push propaganda. 

Republicans came to believe that they were the only legitimate lawmakers in the nation; when Democrats won, the election must have been rigged. Even so, they were unable to destroy the post–World War II government completely because policies like the destruction of Social Security and Medicaid, or the elimination of the Department of Education, remained unpopular.

Now, MAGA Republicans in charge of the government have made it clear they intend to get rid of that government once and for all. 

Trump’s nominee to direct the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, was a key architect of Project 2025, which called for dramatically reducing the power of Congress and the United States civil service. Vought has referred to career civil servants as “villains” and called for ending funding for most government programs. “The stark reality in America is that we are in the late stages of a complete Marxist takeover of the country,” he said recently.

In the name of combatting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, the Trump administration is taking down websites of information paid for with tax dollars, slashing programs that advance health and science, ending investments in infrastructure, trying to end foreign aid, working to eliminate the Department of Education, and so on. 

Today the administration offered buyouts to all the people who work at the Central Intelligence Agency, saying that anyone who opposes Trump’s policies should leave. Today, Musk’s people entered the headquarters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which provides daily weather and wind predictions; cutting NOAA and privatizing its services is listed as a priority in Project 2025.

Stunningly, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced today that the U.S. has made a deal with El Salvador to send deportees of any nationality—including U.S. citizens, which would be wildly unconstitutional—for imprisonment in that nation’s 40,000-person Terrorism Confinement Center, for a fee that would pay for El Salvador’s prison system.

Tonight, the Senate confirmed Trump loyalist Pam Bondi as attorney general. Bondi is an election denier who refuses to say that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. As Matt Cohen of Democracy Docket noted, a coalition of more than 300 civil rights groups urged senators to vote against her confirmation because of her opposition to LGBTQ rights, immigrants’ rights, and reproductive rights, and her record of anti-voting activities. The vote was along party lines except for Senator John Fetterman (D-PA), who crossed over to vote in favor.

Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency is the logical outcome of the mentality that the government should not enable Americans to create wealth but rather should put cash in the pockets of a few elites. Far from representing a majority, Musk is unelected, and he is slashing through the government programs he opposes. With full control of both chambers of Congress, Republicans could cut those parts themselves, but such cuts would be too unpopular ever to pass. So, instead, Musk is single-handedly slashing through the government Americans have built over the past 90 years.

Now, MAGA voters are about to discover that the wide-ranging cuts he claims to be making to end diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs skewer them as well as their neighbors. Attracting white voters with racism was always a tool to end the liberal consensus that worked for everyone, and if Musk’s cuts stand, the U.S. is about to learn that lesson the hard way.

In yet another bombshell, after meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump told reporters tonight that the U.S. “will take over the Gaza Strip,” and suggested sending troops to make that happen. “We’ll own it,” he said. “We’re going to take over that piece, develop it and create thousands and thousands of jobs, and it will be something the entire Middle East can be proud of.” It could become “the Riviera of the Middle East,” he said.

Reaction has been swift and incredulous. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, called the plan “deranged” and “nuts.” Another Foreign Relations Committee member, Senator Chris Coons (D-DE), said he was “speechless,” adding: “That’s insane.” While MAGA representative Nancy Mace (R-SC) posted in support, “Let’s turn Gaza into Mar-a-Lago,” Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) told NBC News reporters Frank Thorp V and Raquel Coronell Uribe that there were “a few kinks in that slinky,” a reference to a spring toy that fails if it gets bent.

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) suggested that Trump was trying to distract people from “the real story—the billionaires seizing government to steal from regular people.”

—Heather Cox Richardson

 

The Logic of Destruction

 

What is a country? The way its people govern themselves. America exists because its people elect those who make and execute laws. The assumption of a democracy is that individuals have dignity and rights that they realize and protect by acting together.

The people who now dominate the executive branch of the government deny all of this, and are acting, quite deliberately, to destroy the nation. For them, only a few people, the very wealthy with a certain worldview, have rights, and the first among these is to dominate.

For them, there is no such thing as an America, or Americans, or democracy, or citizens, and they act accordingly. Now that the oligarchs and their clients are inside the federal government, they are moving, illegally and unconstitutionally, to take over its institutions.

The parts of the government that work to implement laws have been maligned for decades. Americans have been told that the people who provide them with services are conspirators within a “deep state.” We have been instructed that the billionaires are the heroes.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

All of this work was preparatory to the coup that is going on now. The federal government has immense capacity and control over trillions of dollars. That power was a cocreation of the American people. It belongs to them. The oligarchs around Trump are working now to take it for themselves.

Theirs is a logic of destruction. It is very hard to create a large, legitimate, functioning government. The oligarchs have no plan to govern. They will take what they can, and disable the rest. The destruction is the point. They don’t want to control the existing order. They want disorder in which their relative power will grow.

Think of the federal government as a car. You might have thought that the election was like getting the car serviced. Instead, when you come into the shop, the mechanics, who somehow don’t look like mechanics, tell you that they have taken the parts of your car that work and sold them and kept the money. And that this was the most efficient thing to do. And that you should thank them.

The gap between the oligarchs’ wealth and everyone else’s will grow. Knowing what they themselves will do and when, they will have bet against the stock market in advance of Trump’s deliberately destructive tariffs and will be ready to tell everyone to buy the crypto they already own. But that is just tomorrow and the day after.

In general, the economic collapse they plan is more like a reverse flood from the Book of Genesis, in which the righteous will all be submerged while the very worst ride Satan’s ark. The self-chosen few will ride out the forty days and forty nights. When the waters subside, they will be alone to dominate.

Trump’s tariffs (which are also likely illegal) are there to make us poor. Trump’s attacks on America’s closest friends, countries such as Canada and Denmark, are there to make enemies of countries where constitutionalism works and people are prosperous. As their country is destroyed, Americans must be denied the idea that anything else is possible.

Deportations are a spectacle to turn Americans against one another, to make us afraid, and to get us to see pain and camps as normal. They also create busy-work for law enforcement, locating the “criminals” in workplaces across the country, as the crime of the century takes place at the very center of power.

The best people in American federal law enforcement, national security, and national intelligence are being fired. The reasons given for this are DEI and trump-washing the past. Of course, if you fire everyone who was concerned in some way with the investigations of January 6th or of Russia, that will be much or even most of the FBI. Those are bad reasons, but the reality is worse: the aim is lawlessness: to get the police and the patriots out of the way.

In the logic of destruction, there is no need to rebuild afterwards. In this chaos, the oligarchs will tell us that there is no choice but to have a strong man in charge. It can be a befuddled Trump signing ever larger pieces of paper for the cameras, or a conniving Vance who, unlike Trump, has always known the plot. Or someone else.

After we are all poor and isolated, the logic goes, we will be consoled by the thought that there is at least a human being to whom we can appeal. We will settle for a kind of anthropological minimum, wishful contact with the strong man. As in Russia, pathetic video selfies sent to the Leader will be the extent of politics.

For the men currently pillaging the federal government, the data from those video selfies is more important than the people who will make them. The new world they imagine is not just anti-American but anti-human. The people are just data, means to the end of accumulating wealth.

They see themselves as the servants of the freedom of the chosen few, but in fact they are possessed, like millennia of tyrants before them, of fantastic dreams: they will live forever, they will go to Mars. None of that will happen; they will die here on Earth, with the rest of us, their only legacy, if we let it happen, one of ruins. They are god-level brain-rotted.

The attempt by the oligarchs to destroy our government is illegal, unconstitutional, and more than a little mad. The people in charge, though, are very intelligent politically, and have a plan. I describe it not because it must succeed but because it must be described so that we can make it fail. This will require clarity, and speed, and coalitions. I try to capture the mood in my little book On Tyranny. Here are a few ideas.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

If you voted Republican, and you care about your country, please act rather than rationalize. Unless you cast your ballot so that South African oligarchs could steal your data, your money, your country, and your future, make it known to your elected officials that you wanted something else. And get ready to protest with people with whom you otherwise disagree.

Almost everything that has happened during this attempted takeover is illegal. Lawsuits can be filed and courts can order those executive orders be halted. This is crucial work.

Much of what is happening, though, involves private individuals whose names are not even known, and who have no legal authority, wandering through government offices and issuing orders beyond even the questionable authority of executive orders. Their idea is that they will be immunized by their boldness. This must be proven wrong.

Some of this will reach the Supreme Court quickly. I am under no illusion that the majority of justices care about the rule of law. They know, however, that our belief in it makes their office something other than the undignified handmaiden of oligarchy. If they legalize the coup, they are irrelevant forever.

Individual Democrats in the Senate and House have legal and institutional tools to slow down the attempted oligarchical takeover. There should also be legislation. It might take a moment, but even Republican leaders might recognize that the Senate and House will no longer matter in a post-American oligarchy without citizens.

Trump should obviously be impeached. Either he has lost control, or he is using his power to do obviously illegal things. If Republicans have a sense of where this is going, there could be the votes for an impeachment and prosecution.

Those considering impeachment should also include Vance. He is closer to the relevant oligarchs than Trump, and more likely to be aware of the logic of destruction than he. The oligarchs have likely factored in, or perhaps even want, the impeachment and prosecution of Trump. Unlike Vance, Trump has charisma and followers and could theoretically resist them. He won’t; but he poses a hypothetical risk to the oligarchs that Vance does not.

Democrats who serve in state office as governors have a chance to profile themselves, or more importantly to profile an America that still works. Attorneys general in states have a chance to enforce state laws, which will no doubt have been broken.

The Democratic Party has a talented new chair. Democrats will need instruments of active opposition, such as a People’s Cabinet, in which prominent Democrats take responsibility for following government departments. It would be really helpful to have someone who can report to the press and the people what is happening inside Justice, Defense, Transportation, and the Treasury, and all the others, starting this week.

Federal workers should stay in office, if they can, for as long as they can. This is not political, but existential, for them and for all of us. They will have a better chance of getting jobs afterwards if they are fired. And the logic of their firing is to make the whole government fail. The more this can be slowed down, the longer the rest of us have to get traction.

And companies? As every CEO knows, the workings of markets depend upon the government creating a fair playing field. The ongoing takeover will make life impossible for all but a few companies. Can American companies responsibly pay taxes to a US Treasury controlled by their private competitors? Tesla paid no federal tax at all in 2024. Should other companies pay taxes that, for all they know, will just enrich Tesla’s owner?

Commentators should please stop using words such as “digital” and “progress” and “efficiency” and “vision” when describing this coup attempt. The plotting oligarchs have legacy money from an earlier era of software, which they are now seeking to leverage, using destructive political techniques, to destroy human institutions. That’s it. They are offering no future beyond acting out their midlife crises on the rest of us. It is demeaning to pretend that they represent something besides a logic of destruction.

As for the rest of us: Make sure you are talking to people and doing something. The logic of “move fast and break things,” like the logic of all coups, is to gain quick dramatic successes that deter and demoralize and create the impression of inevitability. Nothing is inevitable. Do not be alone and do not be dismayed. Find someone who is doing something you admire and join them.

What is a country? The way its people govern themselves. Sometimes self-government just means elections. And sometimes it means recognizing the deeper dignity and meaning of what it means to be a people. That means speaking up, standing out, and protesting. We can only be free together.

-Timothy Snyder

https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-logic-of-destruction

 

“God puts us exactly where we’re supposed to be” -Sean Duffy, Trump's Secretary of Transportation

 

Reality TV thrives on conflict, competition and humiliation—much like working for the Trump administration.

President Trump’s new Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy’s résumé includes roles on three reality shows: The Real World: Boston in 1997, Road Rules: All Stars in 1998, and Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Battle of the Seasons which aired in 2002.

In that last series, Duffy and his partner crushed the competition, winning challenges that included rounding up cows while riding horses and playing a version of musical chairs involving inner tubes? Sure.

The introductory voice-over for The Real World informed viewers they were watching “a true story” about a group of strangers from deliberately disparate backgrounds thrown together, to see what happens “when people stop being polite… and start getting real.”

But reality TV never gets real. It’s all manufactured. It’s all for show. Learning how to make a dress out of newspaper is not actually useful training for a dress designer as it appears on Project Runway.

And shearing sheep (as Duffy did on Road Rules) is not training for being responsible for more than 55,000 employees and a budget of some $110 billion to maintain and build infrastructure and enforce safety regulations across air, land, and sea.

Reality TV conflict is manufactured, too. It’s what excites an audience. Trump knows that from his years hosting The Apprentice; he exploits it at every twist and turn in his current “show.” Someone getting humiliated, fired or voted off the West Wing makes for good TV.

But in real life, when people crash in midair, they don’t come back.

The day after Duffy was sworn in, he found himself in a very tough spot. On Wednesday night, a Black Hawk helicopter carrying three members of the U.S. military crashed into a commuter jet carrying 64 people as the latter aircraft came into land at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington D.C. There were no survivors.

“This is not what I expected my first day on the job to be,” Duffy later took to social media to explain. But that’s the thing about real life. It doesn’t go according to a producer’s—or a president’s—plan. There’s no stopping the cameras and rewriting a key punchline. There are no second takes.

“God puts us exactly where we’re supposed to be,” Duffy continued in his social media post. Which, for him, meant back in the spotlight.

At a press conference Thursday kicked off by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, Duffy addressed the press and the nation. Using all those skills honed on reality TV—and later as an ESPN color commentator—he started with a statement that promised answers. (He also pronounced the word “pattern” twice as “patter-in.” Maybe it’s a Wisconsin thing?)

He continued, offering a distressed public and grieving family's insightful observations like, “Obviously, it is not standard to have aircraft collide. I want to be clear on that.”

It’s not currently standard, but it may become so if this reality TV version of American government continues. It’s one thing to clash with the competition on The Real World and storm out of the room when the argument gets heated.

But this week, we saw the possible consequences of Elon Musk calling for the resignation of the head of the Federal Aviation Administration. As soon as Trump took office on Jan. 20, FAA leader Michael Whitaker quit. Nine, days later, the first civilian aircraft crash on U.S. soil in 16 years occurred—right in Trump’s backyard.

This tragedy presents a challenge to Trump, too. First, he tried to blame diversity. Next, it was the helicopter’s military crew. And after he tried blaming the Biden administration, Pete Buttigieg pushed back.

“President Trump now oversees the military and the FAA. One of his first acts was to fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe,” the former Secretary of Transportation wrote.

Trump has also called for congressional investigations into the deadly crash—it would be nice if Secretary Duffy had to answer questions for 11 hours, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was grilled over Benghazi. In fact, since the death toll in the midair collision was 15 times higher than Benghazi, maybe Duffy should be grilled for 165 hours.

Still, the last person Trump would blame for this tragedy is himself because, unlike Harry Truman, the buck never stops at his desk.

Meanwhile, expect more tragedies. Trump’s regime is parroting Musk’s failed Twitter tactics, slashing funds for staff and oversight on the federal government. Failing to round up a cow is one thing on TV, but failing to enforce safety regulations across air, land, and sea travel is quite another.

That’s the reality. And it’s a deadly one.

-Nell Scovell, Daily Beast

Trump's War on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

 

Diversity, equity and inclusion policies are retreating nationwide, from the federal government to corporations around the country. President Donald Trump immediately upon taking office began rooting out diversity, equity and inclusion positions within the federal government by ending programs and removing DEI staff.

Meanwhile, the pressure is also ramping up against private companies to stop embracing DEI. Several major companies have announced they are cutting back or ending their DEI programs, including Meta, Walmart and McDonalds.

While companies are not cutting as aggressively as Trump, they are at least publicly pulling back from DEI goals and language. Target reportedly sent out a memo this week to that end.

“Many years of data, insights, listening and learning have been shaping this next chapter in our strategy,” the memo said. “And as a retailer that serves millions of consumers every day, we understand the importance of staying in step with the evolving external landscape, now and in the future – all in service of driving Target’s growth and winning together.”

Costco made headlines for pushing back on the trend of Trump and others, doubling down on their DEI work after shareholders voted nearly unanimously this week to keep the DEI policies in place.

Jeff Raike, who has served on Costco’s board since 2008, encouraged businesses to "maximize DEI efforts" in a column published earlier this month by Forbes. Raike blamed “opportunistic politicians” for trying to “frighten and divide” the nation on the issue.

Costco's board last week, ahead of the shareholder vote, urged investors in the company to reject calls to scale back DEI policies in the company.

"Our success at Costco Wholesale has been built on service to our critical stakeholders: employees, members, and suppliers. Our efforts around diversity, equity and inclusion follow our code of ethics: For our employees, these efforts are built around inclusion – having all of our employees feel valued and respected," the board wrote, according to Fox Business.

Conservative activist Robbie Starbuck, whose public campaigns against companies such as Lowe's, Ford, Molson Coors and others, led them to scale back DEI initiatives, said Costco should do the same or face consequences.

“I suggest conservative consumers find other places to spend their money if Costco is so dedicated to doubling down on DEI," Starbuck wrote on X. "If they’re smart, Costco will do right by their shareholders and change before we turn our attention to them.”

The pressure on private companies is increasing. Ten attorneys general sent a letter now putting pressure on the private sector to end the DEI practices.

The letter went to Bank of America, BlackRock, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley and asked for an accounting of their DEI practices, including whether they broke the law.

"There is, however, mounting concern that political objectives have, in some cases, influenced your decision-making at the expense of your statutory and contractual obligations,” reads the letter, which was signed by the attorneys general of Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Virginia.

“Specifically, you appear to have embraced race- and sex-based quotas and to have made business and investment decisions based not on maximizing shareholder and asset value, but in the furtherance of political agendas."

The anti-DEI effort has been bolstered by a 2023 Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action policies on college campuses. DEI can lead to hiring or promotion discrimination against white Americans, critics argue. For instance, internal documents at the Pentagon showed discrimination against white Americans for promotions.

“Banks and financial institutions are finally starting to realize that the ESG and DEI policies pushed by radical activist groups are bad for consumers and potentially violate the law,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement.

“Unlawful race- and sex-based quotas and so-called ‘green energy’ schemes will not be allowed to stand and I will continue to urge these organizations to uphold the legal obligations they owe to consumers and investors. Any institution found to be violating the law will be held accountable.”

Even before Trump took office, DEI’s corporate decline had begun with companies like Tractor Supply, John Deere and Amazon cutting back DEI programs. Some of those cuts, though, began after Trump won the election in November.

Critics say DEI has become a catch-all term for every liberal and progressive doctrine around race and gender. Until this week, those ideas were backed with federal funding across every federal agency and most of the largest corporations in the U.S.

Now, however, the conservative resistance to DEI has new power and focus on rooting out the DEI programs, which teach everything from white privilege to the litany of gender pronouns to the inherent racism of all white people and the U.S. as a whole.

Trump’s executive actions this week immediately put all DEI federal employees on paid leave with plans to fire all of them in the coming weeks. It also required essentially an audit of all federal DEI activities and DEI contractors, ceasing funding for them as well.

Trump sent a memo to the federal agencies later in the week saying he has seen initial reports that some federal employees are seeking to hide DEI efforts by rebranding or changing the language they are using.

Now, many companies are following suit. Whether this is a new reality or a temporary setback for DEI remains to be seen. "Corporate leaders who embrace discriminatory D.E.I. practices should be afraid, but they shouldn’t be confused,” said GianCarlo Canaparo, a legal expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation. 

“Trump’s order is clear: no organization doing business with the federal government may use discriminatory D.E.I. practices and those that do are subject to non-payment on their federal contracts, federal enforcement, and qui tam suits.

“And any corporation, nonprofit, university, or association subject to federal regulation that engages in D.E.I. discrimination will be identified, publicized, investigated, and punished according to the nation's colorblind civil rights laws,” he added.

-Casey Harper, The Center Square

Arrested Grief: Liberal America’s Moral Problem? by Kim C. Domenico

 

…I have often wondered why grief – the deep, cleansing kind – is so difficult to reach when, upon reaching it, tears spilling involuntarily down the cheeks, it feels so like the most priceless sweetness, as though one has reached a shore in a new land where all will be well; the arrival at a “homier” home than one has ever known.  

The problem is deep grief is not accessible using the ordinary logical thought processes by which we talk about sadness and grief without actually feeling it. So, if thinking doesn’t get you there, would it be amiss to conclude it’s the heart that hosts this “scene” of self-transcendence, entered only with difficulty, and only according to terms set by the heart in imagination?  

In other words, what’s mysterious to left-brain-oriented me, may be “child’s play” to the heart.  Although I share the problem with grief I’m discussing, I have been there.  And having been there, I know the rapture of grief, shown so movingly in the scene between Lisa and her mother at the end of Margaret.  The restoration of the truth of human connection, of love, of meaning. 

With grief not being given its due as a health requirement, our society is stuck in aggrievement. And what is aggrievement, with its potential for rage, resentment, projections, and plain indifference to the suffering of others – its shaky moral basis that wants to blame – but a derailment of the process of grief?  

What if this aborted grieving process is the way to restore the imagination of the heart, and with it, the truth of all-connected, now so endangered?  After all, though we wish success for ourselves and others we care about, success is not what binds people to one another.   We are bound by our wounds, failures, the in-common but under-acknowledged experiences that both threaten all meaning and – I’m asserting – make it possible.  

In some ways supreme among the horrors today that defy meaning is the ongoing genocide in Gaza; we know terrible suffering is being inflicted on children, and also that we are helpless to stop it. But keeping in mind the fact – and this is a fact substantiated by neuroscientific trauma research – that both the infliction of atrocity and the need to justify it are symptoms of trauma, we could say meaning – its retention or loss – is not entirely dependent upon ending or ameliorating a particular catastrophe. This is not to shrug and say what can one person do or call it “God’s will.”   

But the reality of trauma means the so-called good guys as well as the bad guys are all traumatized; all handling unconscious trauma in different ways, all adding up to keeping things the same, leaving the odds stacked against meaning – i.e., connection, love.  

But what if the “good guys,” us, opted for meaning, instead of accepting the reality we’re in as if there’s no other?  That is, the possibility for meaning remains, despite everything, in the individual human heart, in its capacity for transcendence.  And for transcendence, one must know one’s undeserved suffering. Meaning, that is, is in the hands of individuals who will seek it, even unto entering the darkness within oneself.

The experience of black Americans of inconceivable suffering during the Jim Crow era, theologian James Cone points out, gave meaning to the symbol of the cross that, in white churches, with white supremacy unchallenged, was in effect meaningless. That capacity to transform suffering into energizing belief fed and led the powerful civil rights movement. 

Not dogmatic belief, not necessarily Christian or other specific ideology, but experience of the transcendent allows the divine energy of all-connected unity to work on human beings. The results will be different – not everyone has the same genius in them, but moral vision, the truth of all-one, can be attained when suffering is not denied, and grief can reach its truth.

I do not expect America to alter its course by my speaking this way.  Suffering, as I’ve noted many times, doesn’t make a great lure.  But knowing what we now know about trauma, each of us has a basis for transcendence within, in personal darkness. Each one, in realizing one’s trauma, suffering undeserved, now has ground for seeing one’s life as a revolution, without ideology or hierarchy, overturning the American way of life that has been constituted in order to deny that very truth (for white people).

As I write about grief, into my mind come memories of that “grief shaman,” Robert Bly, who would weep unashamedly before an audience, over, for instance, the death of a friend such as he did for the poet Etheridge Knight. Not just a quick watering of the eyes and tremor in the voice, but full-out weeping, loss of control!  By now, the heart inside most of us could justifiably feel reproachful towards ego’s demand for stony control.  One can imagine the heart even saying, on those rare occasions when we experience that mystery of grief, what took you so long?   […]

Arrested Grief: Liberal America’s Moral Problem? Kim C. Domenico

CounterPunch