Kevin Roberts took over the presidency of the Heritage Foundation in 2021, and he shifted it from a conservative think tank to an organization devoted to "institutionalizing Trumpism." read more
The leader of conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation argued the Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity will reinforce a "second American Revolution," which he said would "remain bloodless if the left allows it to be." read more
The largest donor of the 2024 presidential campaign, by far, is Timothy Mellon, the reclusive billionaire and heir to the Mellon banking fortune. read more
Judd Legum: On Monday, six members of the Supreme Court granted Donald Trump--and every future president--broad criminal immunity. read more
"2. Executive Office of the President of the United States
Russ Vought"
Trump doesn't know the guy he held a special reception for?:
By this stage in the evening, more than a hundred people were crammed onto the Mar-a-Lago patio. They were a mix of wealthy political donors and allies of the former president and they had come to see Trump himself bless Russ Vought's organization, the Center for Renewing America.www.axios.com
Vought was a policy wonk who became one of Trump's most trusted officials. Before joining the Trump administration in 2017 as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget " and ultimately going on to run the agency " Vought had a long career in conservative policy circles.
That included a stint as executive director and budget director of the Republican Study Committee " the largest bloc of House conservatives " and as the policy director for the House Republican Conference.
Trump was helping raise money for Vought's CRA, which has been busily developing many of the policy and administrative plans that would likely form the foundation for a second-term Trump administration. . . .
Trump saved his kindest words that night for two individuals: Mark Meadows and Russ Vought. He praised their organizations and the important work they were doing.
During the past year, Vought's group has been developing plans that would benefit from Schedule F. And while the power rests largely on the fear factor to stifle civil service opposition to Trump, sources close to the former president said they still anticipate needing an alternate labor force of unprecedented scale " of perhaps as many as 10,000 vetted personnel " to give them the capacity to quickly replace "obstructionist" government officials with people committed to Trump and his "America First" agenda.
In other words, a new army of political partisans planted throughout the federal bureaucracy.
Section 2: The Common Defense
4. Department of Defense
Christopher Miller
Miller's tenure in the Trump administration began as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, confirmed by voice vote in the United States Senate on August 6, 2020. President Donald Trump named Miller acting defense secretary after firing Mark Esper on November 9, 2020, six days after the 2020 presidential election. Miller was accused of obstructing the transition to Joe Biden's administration by Biden staff, which Miller denied.
en.wikipedia.org
5. Department of Homeland Security
Ken Cuccinelli
Kenneth Thomas Cuccinelli II is an American lawyer and politician who served as the senior official performing the duties of the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security from 2019 to 2021.
en.wikipedia.org
And that only brings me up to Page 170 in the Project 2025 user manual. I also see Dr. Ben Carson wrote the section on Housing and Urban Development and Peter Navarro wrote the section on The Case for Fair Trade. Donald Trump is claiming he doesn't know who these people are? Please, is that supposed to be some kind of friggin' joke?
"I have no idea who is behind it."
Sure you do, Donnie, some of them are the very best people you picked to be in your adminstration:
Section 1:Taking the Reins of Government
1. White House Office
Rick Dearborn
Ricky "Rick" Allen Dearborn (born July 19, 1965[3]) is an American government official and lobbyist who served as the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Legislative, Intergovernmental Affairs and Implementation in the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump for less than a year from 2017 to 2018. Prior to this role, he was the executive director of Donald Trump's presidential transition team and served in various positions on the U.S. Senate staff.
en.wikipedia.org
2. Executive Office of the President of the United States
Russ Vought
Russell "Russ" Thurlow Vought (born March 26, 1976) is an American former government official who was the director of the Office of Management and Budget from July 2020 to January 2021. He was previously deputy director of the OMB from 2018 to 2020 and acting director from 2019 to 2020.
After Joe Biden was elected president, Biden and his transition team accused Vought of hindering the incoming administration's transition by refusing to allow incoming Biden officials to meet with OMB staff.
en.wikipedia.org
It turns out that on top of everything else, Walther is a liar who does vote:
capitolhunters
@capitolhunters
To everyone appalled by NYT's July 4 op-ed "Why I don't vote. And maybe you shouldn't either", note that 1) author Matthew Walther DID vote in both 2020 and 2022, and 2) he's an extremist Catholic graduate of Hillsdale College, part of the religious-right faction behind Jan 6. 1/
Walther voted in both 2020 and 2022. (His Michigan voting record was posted by Timothy Burke on Bluesky.) In fact Waltjer wrote an entire essay about voting. The NYT did not do the most basic fact-checking. Even an op-ed shouldn't be a lie. 2/
This account has written often about how Hillsdale was a driving force behind Jan 5. The "1776 Commission", chaired by Hillsdale president Larry Arnn, was the quid pro quo for support of Trump's coup--letting the religious right control US education. 3/
Hillsdale, which runs a network of for-profit charters, was all in for the coup. Three Hillsdale officers helped with the MI fake-elector scheme: its president (Arnn), general counsel, & DC Dean. Even the NYT covered it, though they omit key texts showing Arnn was in the loop. 4/
Hillsdale was a "feeder of staffers" for Trump. Hillsdale set his education agenda (via Betsy DeVos). In 2020 Hillsdale officials met with fake electors; Hillsdale graduates filed election-fraud lawsuits. The NYT article just scratches the surface. 5/
. . .
There's so much more on Hillsdale. The Prince/DeVos support. (It's Erik Prince's alma mater). The charter and vouchers scams. The tie to Moms for Liberty. This is who NYT editors think Americans should hear on July 4. Do we really trust these guys on what's good for democracy? 8/
x.com
Looks like the NYT is really jonesing for a 2nd Trump presidency.
This is the country we thought we lived in, but we were being played by Republicans for years [video at link]:
Republican Voters Against Trump
@AccountableGOP
Chief Justice John Roberts at his confirmation hearing: "No one is above the law under our system and that includes the president. The president is fully bound by the law." (Sept. 2005)
x.com
My now deceased friend said the same thing about Nazi Germany:
Shouan Zhoobin Riahi
@abogadojuanito
One thing that my parents, who lived through the collapse of the Shah's regime, always told me is that they were surprised with the speed and ferocity with which it happened. Things that seemed impossible one day were simply happening the next.
Wake up, America. Project 2025 is not a 5 year plan, or even a one year plan. It is a 180 day plan. Very, very quickly the administrative state as we have come to know it will be deconstructed, and things that are unthinkable now will be happening on a daily basis under the auspices of a corrupt president and with the blessings of a corrupt Supreme Court and a corrupt Congress should Republicans keep the House and take back the Senate:
The Authoritarian Playbook for 2025
How an authoritarian president will dismantle our democracy and what we can do to protect it
This report addresses the following topics on which he has made explicit promises and about which his allies have developed specific plans for federal government action:
Pardons to License Lawbreaking: During Trump's first term, he discovered that he could leverage the pardon power to induce witnesses against him into silence. In a second term, he has indicated he would further abuse pardons to incite political violence, incentivize lawbreaking for his benefit, and render himself above the law.
Directing Investigations Against Critics and Rivals: Retribution is the dominant theme of Trump's 2024 campaign, and his allies are making plans to eliminate the Department of Justice's traditional prosecutorial independence to give Trump greater personal control to direct law enforcement against his perceived opponents and insulate himself from accountability.
Regulatory Retaliation: In addition to steering prosecutorial discretion via the Department of Justice, Trump has vowed to consolidate and wield federal regulatory power to reward political loyalty and punish his critics, particularly those associated with the media. There are numerous reports of this regulatory retaliation happening during Trump's first term, and plans for a second include ways of removing those obstacles that limited opportunities for more.
Federal Law Enforcement Overreach: Trump's declaration that immigration is "poisoning the blood of our country" is a grim foreshadowing of how he will invoke the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime provision dating back to 1798. Once Trump has that power, he has also expressed his will to expand the footprint of federal law enforcement to police cities and shut down lawful protests.
Domestic Deployment of the Military: A central hallmark of American democracy is that the U.S. military not be used against American citizens. But Trump plans to abuse the Insurrection Act to order military force to quash dissent and target vulnerable communities.
www.authoritarianplaybook2025.org
If you don't see how recent Supreme Court rulings have been paving the way for a second Trump presidency to carry out Project 2025, then you haven't been paying attention.
#104 ok, I can agree with that. I got whiplash from the way the entire news media suddenly flipped the switch and decided to bury Biden alive, ALL of them in lockstep. I have NEVER seen anything like that, and it did make me wonder who is pulling the collective strings.
#115 | POSTED BY MIRANDA7
Yeah, I don't know about the media, but Democrats are doing it themselves. Remember when they threw Al Franken under the bus during the height of the #MeToo movement? Democrats go all wobbly and all or nothing and become their own worst enemy. Circular firing squad and all that.