This is all part of Trump/P2025's plan :to bend or break the bureaucracy to the presidential will":

The great challenge confronting a conservative President is the existential need for aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch to return power"including power currently held by the executive branch"to the American people. Success in meeting that challenge will require a rare combination of boldness and self-denial: boldness to bend or break the bureaucracy to the presidential will and self-denial to use the bureaucratic machine to send power away from Washington and back to America's families, faith communities, local governments, and states.

The cruelty is the point. So is the corruption.

FTA:

As Democrats and the public struggle to even keep up with what the Trump administration is doing to the nation, it's tempting to get caught up in the play-by-play. And although the details certainly are important, the single message must be this: Trump is trying to be a king or a dictator, and Project 2025 is his monarchical playbook.

In its first section, the "Mandate for Leadership" sets out Project 2025's overarching ideology: a theory of an all-powerful president, someone with authority more akin to that of a monarch than an elected democratic leader. The core section on this comes from Russell Vought, now the Trump-appointed director of the Office of Management and Budget, essentially the central nerve center of the federal government. The idea of agency or expert "independence""with independence rendered in scare quotes"is rejected. "The greatest challenge" ahead, Vought writes, is "aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch," which requires the "boldness to bend or break the bureaucracy to the presidential will."

If Trump has done one thing so far, it's break the federal bureaucracy.

I feel so much safer now. This will fix everything I'm sure:

Katherine Eban
@katherineeban.bsky.social

Scoop: As federal health agencies are gutted, Kyle Diamantas, a Florida attorney w/ a slim resume + no prior gov't experience, is the new head of food safety at @US_FDA. Turns out, he's Donald Trump Jr.'s hunting buddy,

America's Food Safety Is Now in the Hands of Don Jr.'s Hunting Buddy

As federal health agencies are gutted with abandon, a Florida attorney with a history of hunting with the president's son has been put in charge of food safety at the FDA, overseeing the nation's food supply, infant formula, and more.

FTA
"The FDA said it was first notified of an outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes linked to the product on Nov. 25 last year "with many ill people residing in long-term care facilities (LTCF) prior to illness onset."
Biden's FDA
Rine the diddler in 3...2...1..
#1 | Posted by lfthndthrds a

From the FDA:

According to CDC, this outbreak includes cases dating back to 2018, with 20 cases across 2024 and 2025, and is currently ongoing. Epidemiologic evidence in previous investigations were unable to identify a source of the outbreak. As of February 21, 2025, a total of 38 people infected with the outbreak strain of Listeria monocytogenes have been reported from 21 states. Of the 38 people for whom information is available, 37 people have been hospitalized. Eleven deaths have been reported. Of the 38 people for whom information is available, 34 (89%) reported living in long term care facilities or were hospitalized prior to becoming sick. Records reviewed from facilities indicated nutritional shakes were available to residents.

PS Trump is also trying to make it impossible to undo the damage he is causing should he be replaced by a Democratic president in 2028:

Salting the earth': Trump ends presidential management fellowships and federal executive boards
The move to kill a key pipeline for aspiring civil servants and regional agency councils reflects a desire to make it impossible to rebuild the federal bureaucracy, experts said.

We all knew Trump was lying when he said he didn't know anything about Project 2025 & here's the proof. This site shows the progress Trump & Musk have made meeting the goals of Project 2025 & also outlines where they plan to go. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say:

FTA:

Senior citizens, in particular, have been hit hard, with some unable to get out of their homes, said Palermo Church pastor Tammie Nipper on Wednesday night.

Roofs are creaking under the weight of snow.

Neighbors are helping neighbors and, in some cases, people are coming from neighboring towns, she said.

Palermo Town Supervisor Patricia Redhead said the amount of snow is unprecedented.

Acyn @acyn.bsky.social

AZ AG Kris Mayes: Let's talk about that visual of Elon Musk with the ridiculous chainsaw. I don't think he's ever actually used a chainsaw in his life. I don't know what that was"some lame attempt to make himself look manly.

The future is ugly and self inflicted
Posted by truthhurts

Well said.

I read that as a prediction and fear held by the public. Based on the recession that Delon Mrump is pushing us towards.
#13 | Posted by censored

Yes, I think you are right. We haven't had government failure or dictorial alliances yet either, but we are rapidly heading in those directions:

"Government failure, stock market crash, and dictatorial alliances are not popular."

FTA:

Impoundment refers to a president's decision to withhold funds that Congress has already allocated rather than executing the budget as mandated. The U.S. Constitution grants Congress exclusive power over federal spending, making impoundment a direct challenge to legislative authority. The key question before the courts is whether impoundment represents a legitimate executive function or an unconstitutional overreach that undermines the balance of power.

President Trump's impoundment strategy pushes into legally uncertain territory, where past presidents have hesitated to tread. Project 2025 promotes impoundment to weaken Congress and empower the executive branch. Proving once again that far from being a conservative document, Project 2025 is an extremist plan to disrupt constitutional checks and balances. . . .

The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, will likely decide the fate of Trump's impoundment push. While the Court has historically ruled against unilateral executive spending authority, recent decisions have favored broad presidential powers in areas like immigration and administrative rulemaking. . . .

If Trump successfully expands impoundment powers, the effects would be immediate. Recent court actions to halt Trump's NIH cuts could no longer occur going forward, giving the administration free rein. Federal agencies and public services could face sudden funding freezes, disrupting regulatory enforcement, social programs, and foreign aid. With Congress unable to override Trump's impoundments without a supermajority, its budgetary authority would be effectively neutralized.

Good article and so is this one by the same author:

Gangster Party
As gangsterism, it all makes sense.

Much of the ongoing confoundment with Donald Trump's governing style comes down to what metaphor you apply to him. Is he a wannabe strongman? Sure. A fascist? Of course. An autocrat, an authoritarian, an aspiring dictator? Yes, clearly, though there is no guarantee that he knows what those words mean. Leave those terms in the textbooks. There is a much more accurate way to describe who Donald Trump is: He is a gangster. He governs like a gangster. And if you think of him not as any variety of politician but rather as a gangster--who sits atop not a political party, but a gang--his actions make perfect sense.

If Trump was out to Bolster The Republican Party, he would only be slashing budgets in blue states and protecting red ones. Instead he is lashing out at everything, ignoring every rule. The humiliating ritual of forcing Republican allies to come and beg him to restore cuts he has already made is the point. This process reflects the success of the system that Trump wants: All control of all things in his own hands. Rules and laws--even the ones that Republicans traditionally like!--are impediments to his own control of all decisions. Therefore rules and laws must be smashed, discarded at a whim, openly violated, ignored. Do not search for some archaic form of ideological conservatism at work here. The goal of all this is not "remaking the government in a conservative image""it is "if you want anything, you have to ask me for it." The rules that governed how the government works are tossed out and replaced with "Trump's will." That's how mob bosses rule.

"stock market crash"

Should have just said, stock market dips/dives.

I think Graff is on to something with this approach, which is very well-executed:

Across the capital, the new regime accelerated its sweeping removals of government workers, evoking comparisons to the disastrous "De-Ba'athification" movement that the United States instituted in Iraq in 2003 that removed huge swaths of civil servants after the country's invasion. That move is now widely considered one of the greatest mistakes of the occupation, though it now appears that Musk and Trump are seeking equally disastrous results in the capital at home.

While traditionally a small number of political appointees turn over in a new presidential administration, Musk's coup has been followed by massive, disorganized, and chaotic firings at many government agencies and ministries. Last weekend, DOGE mercenaries actually blindly fired a large chunk of the agency that secures the country's vast nuclear weapon stockpiles before attempting to reverse their mistake.

Other firings appeared equally ill-conceived and executed"including the removal of veterans working on suicide crisis lines, public health staff combatting bird flu, and medical workers supporting the country's indigenous populations. Inexplicably, the mass removals also included more than 400 engineers, technicians, and personnel who help keep safe the nation's airspace, which has long been the envy of the world but under the Trump regime has already suffered a series of troubling incidents.

It's increasingly clear that the mass firings and reprisals are less a thoughtful exercise in management or efficiency gains and instead a wholesale effort to dismantle the long-respected administrative state's capability and regulatory structures have might hem in the ambitions and profits of the nation's oligarchy, which has been emboldened since November by Trump's surprise electoral victory. The country's banking regulators, now firmly in the regime's control, made clear in a series of actions this week that they would look the other way amid egregious abuses by the cryptocurrency industry, an electronic financial system favored by Musk and criminal groups.

PS I'm hoping this is true. I'm thinking it might be:

Timothy Snyder
@timothysnyder.bsky.social
Something is shifting. They are still breaking things and stealing things. And they will keep trying to break and to steal. But the propaganda magic around the oligarchical coup is fading. (1/2)

Nervous Musk, Trump, Vance have all been outclassed in public arguments these last few days. Government failure, stock market crash, and dictatorial alliances are not popular. People are starting to realize that there is no truth here beyond the desire for personal wealth and power. (2/2)

Relax, Trump has 4 years.
#8 | Posted by lfthndthrds

Sure, if he lives that long. Democrats need to take back the House in 2026:

Keith Boykin
@keithboykin.bsky.social

California Republican Kevin Kylie is booed as he announces the Trump administration is killing funding for high-speed rail project to connect Los Angeles and San Francisco. A new poll shows the majority of the state's residents support it.

Okay, so I had to look up praetorianism. Gift article at link:

Tom Nichols
@radiofreetom.bsky.social

None of this has anything to do with effectiveness, or "lethality," or promoting "warfighters," or any other buzzwords. It is praetorianism, plain and simple, and it is an assault on our military and our democracy.

A Friday-Night Massacre at the Pentagon

Trump's purge started with his firing of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top Navy officer, and the vice chief of the Air Force.

Trump apparently met Caine on a trip to Iraq in 2018. The president later recalled that first meeting during remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2019. He claimed that Caine"call sign "Razin" Caine"was insistent that ISIS could be defeated in a week if America committed enough force to the effort. Trump said that Caine then donned a MAGA cap, and said: "I love you, sir. I think you're great, sir. I'll kill for you, sir." Trump added that he told Caine he was not allowed to do that, "but they did it."

Democrats and the left are always obsessed with lifelong anger and societal divide. They thrive on it. As a result they are always pissed, homely and lonely. Just for fun do a poll of good looks in CONGRESS.
#35 | Posted by Robson

LOL You need to read this thread:

Vance Offers Advice to Young Men Suppressed by US Culture

There are two ways to balance a budget: decrease spending and/or increase taxes, especially on millionaires, billionaires and corporations. We know Trump, Musk and the GOP want to extend tax cuts to the wealthy. But guess what? There is no way for them to cut spending enough to balance the budget or bring down inflation, which isn't their goal anyway. Their real goal is to destroy the federal government, to demolish the administrative state, to undo the New Deal and to shrink the federal government so it can be drowned in a bathtub. Their real goal is to make the rich richer and the rest of us poorer and to destroy democracy in the process.

Musk runs the show. Trump's just the figurehead.
#2 | Posted by LauraMohr

I think it is more precise to say Musk is the unelected hatchet man who is carrying out the plans of Trump and Project 2025 to dismantle and privatize federal agencies:

Project 2025's plan to gut civil service with mass firing

Even as Trump tries to disavow the rightwing blueprint, both have similar plans to replace many federal employees

Speaking about federal employees last month, the former president said: "They're destroying this country. They're crooked people, they're dishonest people. They're going to be held accountable."

The corruption deepens:

Fred Wellman @fpwellman.bsky.social

Last night's Pentagon massacre is much more than realized. Not just firing the black CJCS and first woman CNO but all the senior JAG officers and hiring a man who just joined 3 different crypto firms tied to Kushner and Thiel as Chairman. I did a deep dive into it

This is the most dangerous move yet
The canary is gasping for air

It's all good because, you know, Trump won in a landside and has a mandate, so whatever he does must be very smart and right and exactly what voters wanted.

Wake up, America, before it's too late:

Robert Reich
@rbreich.bsky.social

Just a random reminder that trickle-down economics was invented by conservatives in the 1980s to justify massive tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. It's been nothing short of a disaster.

FTA:

I will be doing town meetings in Omaha, Nebraska, this Friday night and Iowa City, Iowa, on Saturday morning. Further, in the coming weeks and months, I and other progressives will be holding grassroots events from coast to coast.

Why, at this moment, are we doing town meetings around the country " especially in conservative areas? The answer is obvious.

Trumpism will not be defeated by politicians inside the DC beltway. It will only be defeated by millions of Americans, in every state in this country, coming together in a strong, grassroots movement which says no to oligarchy, no to authoritarianism, no to kleptocracy, no to massive cuts in programs that working people desperately need, no to huge tax breaks for the richest people in our country. And that's what these events are about.

Further, there are a number of congressional districts where Republicans won by only a small number of votes. With the Republican party in the House having only a three-vote majority we can defeat draconian, anti-working-class legislation if just two Republican members of Congress vote no. And they will vote no if we rally their constituents to demand that they vote no.