DL Open Thread: Thursday, February 20, 2025
Fascism On The March. You didn’t think that Trump would comply with court orders to resume funding programs, did you?:
The Trump administration is systematically exploiting loopholes to effectively keep much of the president’s blanket spending freezes in place, accounts by officials and court filings show, despite restraining orders from judges who have told agencies to disregard the directives.
The administration’s strategy is to have political appointees embedded in various agencies invoke other legal authorities to pause spending, while posturing as if those officials had undertaken the efforts independent of President Trump’s original directives.
In short, critics say, administration officials are paying lip service to complying with the letter of the court orders while violating their spirit. The tactic shows how aggressively and nimbly the Trump administration is working to keep funds jammed up, and the complexity judges face if they want to compel the administration to unblock the money.
Trump guts IRS. Also, the $20 billion in cuts are projected to cost the Treasury around $46 billion. Mostly in tax savings to billionaires. Which is the point:
The reductions are expected to disproportionately hit those working in enforcement, partly because they represent a large share of those recently brought on board, which could hurt tax collections. The agency is also wary of reducing taxpayer-service personnel as millions of Americans started filing their taxes last month, and will continue to do so through April 15.
Getting rid of newer employees could hit the agency especially hard because it has long been plagued by high attrition rates and has a disproportionately older workforce. Nearly two-thirds of IRS employees are eligible to retire in the next six years.
Former IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig — who ran the agency during President Donald Trump’s first term — criticized the planned layoffs.
“An underfunded IRS significantly benefits unidentified, noncompliant taxpayers at the direct expense of compliant taxpayers,” he said, writing on LinkedIn.
It’s good to be King. Not to be laughed off.
Feckless Democrats Regret Supporting Some Trump Nominees. Shocking: Once confirmed, the nominees did stuff they said they weren’t going to do. Who could possibly have anticipated THAT?
Democratic voters also aren’t happy with the way their party is handling Trump. According to a Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday, 40% of Democrats approve of the way Democratic lawmakers are handling their job, while 49% disapprove. In March 2023, under President Joe Biden, congressional Democrats had an approval rating of 54 points among Democratic voters.
Serial Corporate Abuser Running Guantanamo Migrant Prisons. Anybody surprised?:
A corporate conglomerate now running the US government’s immigration detention center at the Guantánamo Bay naval base on a lucrative contract has been the subject of critical audits and a civil rights complaint over conditions at three other migrant lockups it has run within the US, documents reviewed by the Guardian show.
Akima, the Virginia-headquartered company running the Guantánamo Bay migrant lockup, has over 40 subsidiaries and more than 2,000 contracts with the US government. From IT maintenance to armed security, with work stretching from Saudi Arabia to Arizona, Akima provides government contracting services to dozens of federal agencies.
I’ve had enough Fascism for one day. Let’s search elsewhere.
The Education Philosophy Of Delaware’s New Secretary Of Education. No, she’s not gonna turn Delaware into San Diego (hey, I like San Diego, a lot):
More than a decade later, many in Delaware are hoping Marten – who last month was confirmed as the state’s new education secretary – could oversee another transformation using similar methods.
But Marten believes those hopes should be reined in, saying that “hope is not a viable strategy.” She also said she doesn’t believe in dropping “outside solutions” from San Diego onto Delaware to address this state’s struggles with reading and math.
“You can’t just do all these things that, ‘OK, well, those worked in San Diego. And now let’s tweak it for Delaware,” Marten said in an interview with Spotlight Delaware.
Instead, she’s calling for systematic changes for Delaware’s public schools, including adopting a new funding formula, investing in professional development for teachers, and addressing the non-academic needs of children, such as mental health concerns and hunger.
She also said she agrees with Gov. Matt Meyer’s position that the state needs to follow many of the recommendations from the American Institutes for Research, which most notably called on Delaware to massively increase its education spending by as much as $1 billion annually.
Come See Joe! Also available for Bar- and Bat-Mitzvahs. No charge, he’ll show up, doesn’t eat all that much.
What do you want to talk about?
Listen you have to take it easy on trump. he’s a victim of elder abuse. i’ve een it many times. an elderly individual who has lost their mental faculties are taken advantage of by con men with lines like “just sign here and i’ll take care of everything.” that is what is happening. imagine this was your grandpa. you’d want to take care of him and contact the proper authorities to help. you would just call, oh wait, there’s no one there to answer anymore
The United States total population has never been older than it is today. What if what we are seeing politically is a consequence of how elderly we have become?
One of our commenters is on target to cost the D’s the midterms?
Might be just a bit of an overstatement…
For someone who during the election claimed he never heard of Project 2025 he I’d doing a great job in its implementation.
They just put the shit in front of him, he signs it, chaos ensues.