DL Open Thread: Monday, February 17, 2025

Fascism On The March.  Yo, Rethugs, ya wanna have Elon Musk rooting through your IRS files?  You might just be in luck:

Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service is seeking access to a heavily guarded Internal Revenue Service system that includes detailed financial information about every taxpayer, business and nonprofit in the country, according to three people familiar with the activities, sparking alarm within the tax agency.

Under pressure from the White House, the IRS is considering a memorandum of understanding that would give officials from DOGE — which stands for Department of Government Efficiency — broad access to tax-agency systems, property and datasets. Among them is the Integrated Data Retrieval System, or IDRS, which enables tax agency employees to access IRS accounts — including personal identification numbers — and bank information. It also lets them enter and adjust transaction data and automatically generate notices, collection documents and other records.

The news comes as roughly 150 million taxpayers prepare to file returns by the April 15 deadline. In his first term, Trumpopenly mused about sending IRS agents after political opponents, leaving agency officials on edge about the IRS’s independence.

Gee, wonder if anyone who has made charitable contributions to, say, Planned Parenthood or the ACLU just might be singled out.  Yep, we’re on that list with you.  You see, I’m not using the term ‘fascism’ lightly.

Trump Goes After His Enemies:

(Trump) has pulled protective details from former colleagues facing death threats from Iran. He has revoked or threatened to revoke the security clearances of President Biden, members of his administration and dozens of others. His administration has taken steps to target members of the media seen as unfriendly, taken the hatchet to entire agencies perceived as too liberal and fired or investigated government workers deemed disloyal.

Asked why he was going after the security clearances of Mr. Biden and others, Mr. Trump was characteristically blunt.

“There are people that we don’t respect,” he told reporters recently. “If there are people that we thought that were breaking the law, came very close to it, in previous years, we do it.”

Mr. Trump’s targeting of those he sees as disloyal is more intense and far-reaching than any that preceded it in American history, says Nicole Hemmer, an associate professor of history at Vanderbilt University who studies the presidency. Other presidents, such as John Adams, have attacked the press. Some, such as Andrew Jackson, have investigated previous administrations, claiming they were rooting out corruption. Richard M. Nixon’s penchant for going after his enemies cost him the White House.

But Mr. Trump’s efforts have extended beyond high-profile individuals and stretched down into the lower ranks of government and media.

“We’re in some uncharted waters,” Ms. Hemmer said. “It is the combination of the single-minded revenge focus, coupled with the unchecked use of executive power that makes this particularly dangerous.”

Smells like Fascism.

RFK Jr. Targets Your Anti-Depressants:

Within hours of officially getting the job, Kennedy released a statement detailing some of what he hopes to accomplish in his first few months in President Donald Trump’s administration—including looking into any “threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors,” or SSRIs.

This class of prescriptions, including drugs like Zoloft, Lexapro, and Prozac, is used by over 13% of American adults. While they can carry side effects and are not recommended for some patients, SSRIs are widely prescribed and have significantly decreased the prevalence of suicide, according to a study out of UCLA.

Kennedy has referred to people who take SSRIs as “addicts” and, during a 2023 livestream with his now colleague Elon Musk, falsely claimed that there is “tremendous circumstantial evidence” that individuals who take SSRIs are more likely to become school shooters.

Don’t worry, he has a plan:

“I’m going to create these wellness farms where they can go to get off of illegal drugs, off of opiates, but also illegal drugs, other psychiatric drugs,” he said, adding, “if they want to, to get off of SSRIs, to get off of benzos, to get off of Adderall, and to spend time as much time as they need—three or four years if they need it—to learn to get reparented, to reconnect with communities.” (Kennedy later said these farms should be available, but people wouldn’t be forced to attend.)

Oh. When will we see that line item in a federal budget? Word on the street is that he’s engaged BHL to award the contracts to the Wellness Bros.  Think I’ll get on drugs so that I can spend four years getting off drugs at the government’s expense at a wellness farm.  Hope the producers of ‘Severance’ will keep this in mind for their next Netflix venture.  I know a can’t-miss when I see one.

More Fascism coming tomorrow.

(Surveys other news. Finds nothing.)

OK, one more.  There simply cannot be a more overrated sporting event anywhere than the Daytona 500.  It kicks off the NASCAR season.  You know, like having the Super Bowl right after training camp.  Anyway, the formula is pretty much the same every year:  Rain interrupts, yesterday for something like 4 hours.  The cars ride basically nose to tail until The Big One (a crash that inevitably happens as the drivers get antsy) makes a winner out of the lucky one who avoids the Big One.

Well, yesterday, NASCAR and Fox made sure that the Big One was Trump, who rode around in his armored vehicle, nicknamed The Beast’, while the Fox color guy couldn’t get over ‘the great honor’ that Trump had bestowed on the racing fans.  Pure sycophancy.  How to make a bad sport worse.

What do you want to talk about?