United States | News & Politics

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/39923404

If you think things are bad now, then, brace yourself: it is about to get a whole lot worse. If you are alarmed at the speed with which the Trump administration has set about dismantling every institution of American government and every pillar of the international order, you must understand that this is not just the initial burst of activity, the “shock and awe” phase after which things will settle down: if anything, the pace will continue to accelerate.

The world has never before been faced with such a threat. The United States has handed the nuclear codes to a madman, a criminal, a would-be dictator and a moron, all in the same person. Whatever the purpose to which he directs these powers – to impress his dictator friends, to further enrich himself and his cronies, to seize absolute power or just to watch the world burn – we must hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

https://archive.is/Ky9mH

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/26594714

A remarkable set of declarations from current and former employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau detail Acting Director Russ Vought’s scheme to illegally eliminate the agency, and the consequences for thousands of CFPB employees and millions of consumers left vulnerable to predatory financial scams.

The fourteen declarations, filed on Thursday in National Treasury Employees Union v. Vought, provide an unusually direct window into how the Trump administration sought to cripple an agency that has returned more than $21 billion to consumers over its lifespan. And the employees call out CFPB’s current chief operating officer, Adam Martinez, for lying in his declaration to the court that the agency is just going through a normal transition process in the transfer of political power.

CFPB has been under a “stop work” order since Vought took over the agency on an acting basis. No work has been performed and employees are on paid leave; the order was characterized as a work stoppage to get around federal employment laws limiting administrative leave to ten days in a calendar year. Seven outstanding enforcement cases were dismissed in the past week; the latest was a case against Trans Union.

One employee, who used the pseudonym “Alex Doe” for fear of retaliation, recounted personal experience of a February 13 meeting between CFPB leadership and the Office of Personnel Management, where a three-step process was discussed. First, all probationary and “term employees” (which have a fixed term of employment) would be fired, which occurred that day. Then, entire offices, divisions, and units would be let go, a culling of roughly 1,200 employees, which was supposed to happen the next day, on Valentine’s Day. Finally, the bureau would “reduce altogether” 60 to 90 days later.

According to another declaration, the intention was to fire everyone but five statutory positions named specifically in the Dodd-Frank Act, which established the agency. “One Senior Executive said that CFPB will become a ‘room at Treasury, White House, or Federal Reserve with five men and a phone in it,’ the declaration reads.

A second pseudonymous employee who attended the February 13 meeting declared that Martinez described the CFPB as in “wind down mode,” and that all “statutorily-required functions would be transferred to other agencies.” This is illegal without an act of Congress. That employee also described an email dated February 11, where the chief financial officer of CFPB, Jafnar Gueye, was described as discussing with the Federal Reserve how to return CFPB’s funds back to the central bank. (CFPB is funded entirely through the Federal Reserve.)

Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency began its cost-cutting efforts by dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, which spends about $22 billion per year, about 0.3 percent of overall federal spending. DOGE has since targeted agencies focused on children’s education, protecting the natural world, and food safety.

But after more than a month running roughshod through government, DOGE has made strikingly few cuts at the Pentagon, whose bloated budget tips the scales at around $850 billion — accounting for about 13 percent of federal spending.

NEW YORK (AP) — A grassroots organization is encouraging U.S. residents not to spend any money Friday as an act of “economic resistance” to protest what the group’s founder sees as the malign influence of billionaires, big corporations and both major political parties on the lives of working Americans.

The People’s Union USA calls the 24 hours of spending abstinence set to start at midnight an “economic blackout,” a term that has since been shared and debated on social media. The activist movement said it also plans to promote weeklong consumer boycotts of particular companies, including Walmart and Amazon.

Other activists, faith-based leaders and consumers already are organizing boycotts to protest companies that have scaled back their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and to oppose President Donald Trump’s moves to abolish all federal DEI programs and policies. Some faith leaders are encouraging their congregations to refrain from shopping at Target, one of the companies backing off DEI efforts, during the 40 days of Lent that begin Wednesday.

Today, Stand Up America Executive Director Christina Harvey issued the following statement marking the 74th anniversary of the ratification of the 22nd Amendment, which limits presidents to two terms.

“The Constitution is crystal clear: ‘No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.’ But Trump and his Republican allies in Congress have shown over the past six weeks how little respect they have for our Constitution and the rule of law.

“His talk of a third term isn’t a joke or a slip of the tongue. It’s a test to see how far he can go in his quest for unchecked power.

Certain Democrats remain inexplicably in denial about Biden and his brain leaking out of his ears during a live debate and even internal polling showing repeatedly he was almost certainly going to lose badly.

Former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre lambasted Democratic leadership for attacking Joe Biden like a “firing squad” at a Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics forum Wednesday, saying the party should have united behind the former president.

“I have never seen anything like that,” she said. “It was truly, truly unfortunate. And I think it hurt us more than folks realized to have done that.”

Jean-Pierre attended a discussion with spring IOP fellow Brittany Shepherd and Anoushka Chander ’25 — her first public event since leaving the White House in January.

Jean-Pierre stood by Biden’s achievements, his cognitive fitness, and his decision to run for re-election during the talk. She echoed statements from Michael C. Donilon — a senior advisor to Biden and a current IOP fellow — who defended the former president on the same stage just two weeks ago.

“I believe in what we were trying to get done,” Jean-Pierre said. “I would not have come back into the administration, I don’t think, for anybody else.”

And from Donilon's talk:

Michael C. Donilon, the chief strategist behind Joe Biden’s 2024 campaign, said Democratic leadership “lost its mind” when they ousted Biden from the party’s ticket, arguing he was their best chance at keeping the White House.

“The Democratic primary voters chose Joe Biden to be the nominee of the Democratic Party,” said Donilon, a spring fellow at the Institute of Politics. “The Democratic party leadership, and the biggest funders in America, didn’t.”

In a wide-ranging post mortem at the IOP Thursday evening, Donilon remained adamant that the former president would “still be the best” for the job – despite his poor performance in a June debate.

“Lots of people have terrible debates,” he said. “Usually, the party doesn’t lose its mind. But that’s what happened — it just melted down.”

Donilon, a member of Biden’s inner circle for over 40 years, denounced claims that the president’s acuity and judgment declined as an “impression” perpetuated by the media.

“It was getting written as this fact, ‘Oh, Biden was mentally impaired,’” Donilon said. “I don’t know how much time any of those people spent with him — I know how much time I spent with him. I know what I saw.”

Reminder the White House spent his second term limiting access to Biden, not showing him negative polling and negative stories, and denying there were any problems until he turned a question on abortion into incoherent mumbling about immigrants murdering women.

~~https://xcancel.com/JudiciaryGOP/status/1895211719255040092~~ edit: that tweet is now deleted, but the screenshot is real. archive here

No new bombshells in Justice Department’s release of Jeffrey Epstein files [AP]

Release of 'Epstein Files' sparks MAGA anger and disappointment [MSNBC]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/39831958

Established in 1937 by a pro-Nazi American textiles magnate, Wickliffe Draper, the Pioneer Fund had direct ties to Nazi eugenicists and senior officials in Hitler’s regime. It actively promoted Nazi ideology in the US by distributing Nazi propaganda films.

After the Second World War, the Pioneer Fund would go on to play a huge role in financing Nazi-inspired research at American universities by commissioning studies on scientific racism.

...

The ‘war on woke’ did not suddenly appear. It is an idea deeply rooted in a form of scientific racism that has been laundered into the mainstream over decades by the Pioneer Fund and right-wing activists connected with this group.

This nexus of ties to Pioneer Fund entities and ideology throws new light on how the Trump administration’s attacks on DEI are the fruit of a broader white supremacist endeavour inspired by Nazi-aligned ideology.

It also suggests that the increasing normalisation of the Nazi salute by Elon Musk, Steve Bannon, and others is not an accident either – but a signal; one we would do well not to ignore.