Still think this isn't a coup?:

The messages indicate that, under Elon Musk's leadership, DOGE is actively taking steps to make sure its communications and records are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, a records transparency law commonly used by journalists and lawyers to hold government accountable. Instead, DOGE is asserting that rather than reporting up through the Office of Management and Budget as the United States Digital Service did for years, it is reporting through the Executive Office of the President and to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. Under OMB, it was generally subject to FOIA. Under the White House Chief of Staff, records it creates are generally not subject to FOIA.

This would make DOGE a Presidential Records Act entity, meaning records it creates are not FOIAble until years after a president leaves office rather than a Federal Records Act entity, which would make its records FOIAble now. This is a very notable, but unsurprising move that federal records experts have been worried about since the issuance of Donald Trump's executive order renaming the United States Digital Service"an agency of federal tech workers that was formed under the Obama administration"to the United States DOGE Service. That executive order specifically states that the renamed entity "shall be established in the Executive Office of the President," and that the USDS administrator (Elon Musk) "shall report to the White House Chief of Staff."

"Why Does Musk Want USAID 'to Die'?"

Elon Musk's Enemy, USAID, Was Investigating Starlink's Contracts in Ukraine

The agency was in the midst of a probe into the billionaire's equipment at the time of Musk's assault.

I hope someone is keeping a list of all the Trump voters who are currently feeling or will soon feel "betrayed" by him.

Just Jack
@jack-e-smith.bsky.social
There are two immutable facts when it comes to Trump.

1. Every accusation is a confession

2. Every wild assertion is a distraction

Gaz-a-Lago is a distraction from the coup underway within our federal government, led by Oligarch Musk.
February 5, 2025 at 9:23 AM

Yes, it's really a coup:

Is It Really a Coup?

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

The hen house is full of thieves.
#69 | Posted by fortfisher

Even if true, that still doesn't justify putting someone in charge who is unelected and unaccountable to anyone and who has massive conflicts of interests of his own. IOW, the solution is worse than the problem.

You people still haven't learned. The average person doesn't care if wasteful spending is only a small portion of the aid money. The point is you have to pay tax and find out it's being wasted while at the same time always saying you need more tax money. You can't run a home like that you can't run a business like that and you can't run Federal, state and city government like that. People see things in their own areas that need fixing and it always a money problem, but stupid ---- is okay to waste money on. Stick with that you'll be a ---- stain in future politics.
#67 | Posted by fortfisher

That's all well and good, but why are so many people willing to trust Musk, an unelected offfical and one of the richest men in the world, to handle this task with no oversight and/or accountablility? It's not like Musk doesn't have is own agenda, conflicts of interest, etc. Nobody would run a successful home or business like this:

There is no precedent for a government official to have Mr. Musk's scale of conflicts of interest, which include domestic holdings and foreign connections such as business relationships in China. And there is no precedent for someone who is not a full-time employee to have such ability to reshape the federal work force.

The historian Douglas Brinkley described Mr. Musk as a "lone ranger" with limitless running room. He noted that the billionaire was operating "beyond scrutiny," saying: "There is not one single entity holding Musk accountable. It's a harbinger of the destruction of our basic institutions."

"$15 million for condoms to the Taliban through USAID."

Hmm, first it was $50 million for condoms in Gaza, and now it's $15 million for condoms to the Taliban?

FTA:

Much of our traditional media is failing us, more worried about sobriety and balance than identifying vast threats that require a little bit of dot connecting to name and frame. It is fulfilling Bannon's prophecy, overwhelmed by too many things to tell us what matters most.

It is not presenting what Musk is doing for what it is: a coup. Rather, it is describing it in procedural terms and then leaving it to critics to denounce. This is the old model of reporting: stating what one party says or does and then giving the other party a chance to respond. But a coup is an actual thing with an actual meaning. Our news outlets have no problem naming this thing when it happens in a country far away. We need to grow comfortable describing it here. It is happening here. It is now.

"Will the courts do anything about it?"

The courts have no enforcement power. That's why the Trump administration is moving to decapitate the FBI and DOJ.

"Musk is destroying the federal government and Trump is legalizing it."

Yes, this is not about cost-savings or remaking the federal governmnent. It's about destroying the federal government. Trump and Musk and their billionaire cronies want to take us back to the time of the robber barons and the Gilded Age. They want to destroy FDR's New Deal and everything that has come after it. They are off to a fabulous start:

Throughout now-president Donald Trump's 2024 campaign, it was clear that his support was coming from three very different factions whose only shared ideology was a determination to destroy the federal government. Now we are watching them do it.

The group that serves President Donald Trump is gutting the government both to get revenge against those who tried to hold him accountable before the law and to make sure he and his cronies will never again have to worry about legality.

Gal- The next step is Trump signing an EO killing the Department of Education.
Then it's on to an abortion drug ban.
#24 | Posted by Alexandrite

Yes, those will be the next public facing actions, but I think they may have already ignored the judges' rulings saying that they can't freeze federal funding across the board. I think they may be experimenting/practicing with shutting off certain funding streams.

Unfortunately this sounds plausible to me:

Jason Linkins @dceiver.bsky.social

can't help but think they're experimenting with the Blue State "off" switch

Lisa Desjardins
@LisaDNews
NEWS: Funding is shut off for some Head Start programs is Washington State and potentially elsewhere.

Joel Ryan with Washington State Head Start told me "programs are not getting the money. It feels like a rolling blackout".

Ryan said things at one point got better for Head Start following last week's chaotic funding/grant freeze.

But now it has again gotten worse.

"A lot of programs are getting error messages or sorry messages," when trying to access their funding/accounts, he said.

Without a fix soon, he told me, some Head Start programs will have to close for lack of funding for rent, payroll, etc.

Ryan is not sure if the Head Start funding blocks right now are intentional or due to Trump appointees struggling with operating the system, rolling back problems from last week.

The next step will be the Trump adminstration refusing to honor court rulings that go against them:

Musk has made sweeping and aggressive declarations about what else must change about the US government, indicating where he might strike next. He stated on Monday: "Activist judges must be removed from the bench or there is no justice[.]"

Bernie Sanders: "We are living in an unprecedented moment in American history. We are looking at a rapid growth of oligarchy. We are looking at a rapid growth of authoritarianism. And I fear we're looking at a rapid growth of kleptocracy as well."

From Josh Marshall:

Musk Cronies Dive Into Treasury Dept Payments Code Base

Overnight, Wired reported that, contrary to published reports that DOGE operatives at the Treasury Department are limited to "read only" access to department payment systems, this is not true. A 25-year-old DOGE operative named Marko Elez in fact has admin privileges on these critical systems, which directly control and pay out roughly 95% of payments made by the U.S. government, including Social Security checks, tax refunds and virtually all contract payments. I can independently confirm these details based on conversations going back to the weekend. I can further report that Elez not only has full access to these systems, he has already made extensive changes to the code base for this critical payment system.

And of course I meant unintended consequences.
You know, like when your "base" figures out they've been swindled.
#7 | Posted by LegallyYourDead

I meant that they have the backing of the Republicans in both Houses of Congress. I agree with you that I don't think they have the backing of the majority of the American people, including some who voted for Trump once his/their policies start to come to fruition. Project 2025 is not popular, which is why Trump had to lie about it:

Joyce White Vance
@joycewhitevance.bsky.social
1/ Virtually all of this activity is happening before there are Senate confirmed leaders in place in executive branch agencies, including at DOJ, HHS, and other places where major transformation is underway. That's unusual. New cabinet secretaries like to take a look at and understand...

2/ ...the operation before they make major changes. The changes we are seeing are not coming from new agency heads based on specific evaluation. They aren't Trump's ideas. We are watching the wholesale adoption of Project 2025, after Trump lied to the American people & distanced himself from it.

This won't backfire at all.
Nope, no intended consequences to see here, folks. These people are all geniuses.
#3 | Posted by LegallyYourDead

Trump is just the front man. The people behind his adminstration are the Heritage Foundation/Project 2025 authors. I wouldn't say they are geniuses, but they are have been planning this for a very long time, are very knowledgeable about how the government operates:

"A great deal of thought has gone into this effort already. The executive orders and sundry administrative directives and guidance that have been issued reflect a profound understanding of the federal government and exactly where the weak spots within the bureaucracy might lie."

They have the backing of both Houses of Congress as well as the Supreme Court, and they are ruthless. IMO, that makes them dangerous and not to be dismissed lightly.

"Lost me right there. Politics is a game. Governing, however, shouldn't be so much."

The sentence you object to is the next to the last one in the article. Did you read the article or just my quoted blurb? The article itself is about the ways the Trump administration is deftly manipulating the levers of power to both control and remake the way the governmnet operates. IOW, it's about how the Trump administration is governing.

FTA:

And what they want is very clear: to take full control of the federal government. Not in the way that typifies every change of administration but in a more extreme way designed to eradicate opposition, disempower federal authority, and cause federal bureaucrats to cower. It is an assault on basic governance.

A great deal of thought has gone into this effort already. The executive orders and sundry administrative directives and guidance that have been issued reflect a profound understanding of the federal government and exactly where the weak spots within the bureaucracy might lie. . . .

Were it not so dangerous to democratic norms, the efficiency of these early days would almost be admirable, in the same way that one might admire a well-run play by an opposing football team. But politics is not a game, and this nation's basic security and functioning are at risk. Those who oppose Trump's actions do not have an incompetent opponent; Trump's team is savvy and has been planning for this for years. They came ready.

#49 | Posted by Alexandrite
#51 | Posted by donnerboy

"First they came for the journalists. After that, we didn't know what happened."

I'm not a journalist, but I do depend on them to know the truth about what's going on.

"Trump is absolutely trying to usurp congress' power."

Yes, but Republicans don't care because they support Trump's policies but couldn't get them through Congress, so they'll let him do it by presidential EOs/fiat:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
@AOC
Trump is holding all the nation's hospitals and vital services hostage to seize power from Congress and hand it over to billionaires.

We must state the truth: this is a constitutional crisis. It's a massive, illegal power grab that the House and Senate have a sworn duty to stop.

The NY Judge said that anyone who read the Report would call what Trump did rape.
But that because of the exact language of the NY laws, he wasn't found guilty of that exact charge.
#44 | Posted by Corky

Exactly, Corky.

New York expands the legal definition of rape to include many forms of nonconsensual sexual contact
Politics Jan 30, 2024 7:28 PM EST
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) " New York will expand its legal definition of rape to include various forms of nonconsensual sexual contact, under a bill signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday.

The state's current limited definition was a factor in writer E. Jean Carroll's sexual abuse and defamation case against former President Donald Trump. The jury in the federal civil trial rejected the writer's claim last May that Trump had raped her in the 1990s, instead finding the former president responsible for a lesser degree of sexual abuse.

The current law defines rape as ------- penetration by a penis. The new law broadens the definition to include nonconsensual ----, oral, and ------- sexual contact. Highlighting Carroll's case at a bill signing ceremony in Albany, the Democratic governor said the new definition will make it easier for rape victims to bring cases forward to prosecute perpetrators. The law will apply to sexual assaults committed on or after Sept. 1.

"The problem is, rape is very difficult to prosecute," Hochul said. "Physical technicalities confuse jurors and humiliate survivors and create a legal gray area that defendants exploit."

In Carroll's case against Trump, which stemmed from an encounter at a Manhattan luxury department store, the judge later said that the jury's decision was based on "the narrow, technical meaning" of rape in New York penal law and that, in his ----ysis, the verdict did not mean that Carroll "failed to prove that Mr. Trump raped' her as many people commonly understand the word rape.'"

While various states define rape in different ways, every state criminalizes oral, ----, and ------- sexual contact that is nonconsensual, according to Sandi Johnson, a senior legislative policy counsel at Rape, Abuse, & ------ National Network. Prior to its new law, New York defined penetration of the vagina or other bodily orifices with anything other than a penis as "sexual abuse" rather than "rape."

Many other states continue to place unwanted oral or ---- sexual contact in a category other than rape.

Johnson said New York's new guidelines validate what has happened to survivors. Calling a criminal sexual act anything other than rape "kind of sanitizes it," she said.

At Tuesday's bill signing, state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who sponsored the legislation, said the new changes would also make it easier for members of the LGBTQ community to hold perpetrators of sex crimes accountable.

"We can't have our laws ignore the reality that so many New Yorkers, particularly LGBTQ New Yorkers, among others, have experienced," the Democrat said.

"Before today, many of those assaults wouldn't be able to be classified as rape in New York state," he said. "But now we fixed that language."

So sorry I got hit with auto-correct morons. Legally the man is not a rapist and their is precedent in civil courts that spells that out.
#41 | Posted by Bluewaffles

Trump would be considered a rapist now under NY state law. He wasn't when his case was litigated because at that time NY state law defined rape as intercourse; digital penetration was considered aggravated sexual abuse.

Then:
The New York Penal Code gives "sexual intercourse" its "ordinary meaning" which is penetration, however slight, of a vagina by a penis. Digital penetration and penetration by an object are not included in the definition. Thus, where penetration is digital, the charge would not be rape, but aggravated sexual abuse.

Now:
New York's "Rape is Rape" law, signed into effect on January 30, 2024, removed the requirement of penetration to be convicted of rape. This means that digital penetration is now considered rape under New York law.

The "Rape is Rape" law, also known as S.3161/A.3340, defines rape as any nonconsensual sexual contact, including -------, oral, and ---- penetration.

The law aims to better align New York's rape laws with the experiences of sexual assault survivors.
A conviction for digital penetration under New York law could result in up to 15 years in prison and registration as a sex offender.

Lack of consent is a key element of all criminal sexual acts in New York. Consent can be lacking due to force, threatened force, or incapacity.

According to Trump's press secretary, the federal freeze has not been rescinded:

Karoline Leavitt
@PressSec
This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze.

It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo.

Why? To end any confusion created by the court's injunction.

The President's EO's on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented.
.1:40 PM Jan 29, 2025