DL Open Thread: Wednesday, January 29, 2025

I’ve delayed this long enough.  Here goes: We’re in the midst of an unprecedented attack on government safeguards that more or less stop us from sinking into oligarchy.  Or autocracy.  Label it howsoever you choose.

The press appears unable to even fully-grasp it, much less report on it.  The Democratic Party basically doesn’t exist.  I think the only thing that can stop it is Trumpian overreach.  Which is already happening.  But it’s not overreach if nobody, no institution, pulls it back.  I mean, not even public opinion matters much in an oligarchy.  The latest developments:

Trump Tries To Buy Out Federal Workforce.   Trump Eviscerates EEOC and National Labor Relations Board.  Trump Funding Freeze Causes Chaos.

Need I go on?  This is not normal.  Until it is normalized.  Which appears to be happening.  You looking for optimism?  You might have to look elsewhere.

Trump Nominees–The Anti-Qualified.  Qualified to destroy the institutions they have been chosen to lead.  And not just Gabbard and RFK Jr.  Hegseth certainly fills the bill.  Pam Biondi, too.  So many others:

In truth, it would be a relief if Kennedy and Gabbard were merely grossly unqualified. The deeper issue is that Kennedy and Gabbard are anti-qualified. The only conceivable reason to elevate them to the top of the United States’s public health apparatus and intelligence services is to destroy the agencies they have been selected to run.

Trump’s nominee to lead HHS believes the department used the COVID-19 pandemic to destroy American democracy—while Trump was still in office. Will any GOP senators ask him about his paranoid hatred for the department he’s nominated to lead? Will they ask if he still believes American democracy was destroyed during the pandemic?

GABBARD HAS A LONG HISTORY of attacking American intelligence agencies. She has argued that the intelligence community is part of a “shadow government pulling the strings” in the United States. She claimed that the “real power lies with the Deep State, Intel agencies, and propaganda media who got [Biden] elected.” She accused intelligence agencies of working with social media companies in an “unholy alliance” which “threatens to destroy what is left of our fragile democracy.” She added: “Dictatorships need to control the flow of information—and that’s what’s going on here.”

That’s what will happen here if she has any say in it.  As to RFK Jr., here’s some more sick stuff to keep yourself occupied.  No wonder Trump likes him.

Keep looking for positive stuff, but today isn’t looking like the day for it.  Let’s keep digging…

Musk Now Running The Office Of Personnel Management?

This is a paywalled article at Wired. But it makes a pretty good case that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is now basically being run at its highest levels by people installed by and working with Elon Musk. In other words, “DOGE” seems to be calling the shots at OPM, even though it’s run by people who aren’t even federal employees. Most of these people appear to come from Musk’s various companies. Wired declined to publish the names of two of the people because of their age. One graduated from high school last summer.

This afternoon OPM sent out an email to civilian government employees offering them “buy outs” if they resigned from their jobs in the next 10 days (by February 6th).  The legal basis of these “buy outs” is dubious at best – though we need to learn more about that. It also seems highly questionable under what authorization the administration is dramatically trimming the entire federal workforce without any congressional authority. That said, the spending freeze already takes the administration fairly brazenly outside of its constitutional authority. But the whole picture comes into clearly view if this is being run and planned by people reporting to Elon Musk. This is essentially what he did when he took over Twitter. 

Hmmm, aren’t there some cute panda stories somewhere?  Think I saw at least one.  Nope. Can’t do it.  My monthly songs are my diversion for the day.

Deportation=Disaster Escalation.  Make Rethugs own this:

Trump’s immigration crackdown could cause chaos for communities trying to rebuild after devastating wildfires and floods, as the vast majority of skilled disaster-restoration workers are immigrants, a leading expert has warned.

Republican and Democratic voters across the US are reeling from climate-fueled disasters, with thousands of homes and businesses destroyed and damaged by the ongoing fires in Los Angeles, as well as major hurricanes in Florida, Texas, North Carolina and Georgia last year.

In each place, recovery depends on restoration or resilience workers, who travel from disaster to disaster cleaning up and rebuilding American communities while facing hazards such as unstable buildings, ash and other toxins, and water-borne diseases.

“Like farm workers in the fields, immigrants are indispensable to fire, flood and hurricane recovery in the US. There is absolutely no rebuilding without them,” said Saket Soni, director of Resilience Force, a labor organization with almost 4,000 members, who are primarily immigrant workers.

“Mass deportations would completely upend the ongoing recovery in Florida, Louisiana and North Carolina from last year’s hurricanes. It would stall the rebuilding of LA after fires … and at this point, anyone anywhere is at risk of having their home impacted by a climate disaster. So everyone need these skilled workers.”

The disaster industry is growing in the US, as climate-fueled extreme weather events become more intense and destructive – and as rebuilding becomes more profitable.

Raise your hands if you think the pardoned MAGAts will take on these tasks.

Delaware Schools Should Be Safe Havens From Trump’s Immigrant Crackdown?  Well, yes.  The real question is:  Will They?:

From the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, his executive order on immigration enforcement has reignited fear and uncertainty among immigrant communities across the nation.

Under former President Joe Biden administration’s immigration policy, officers were not permitted to arrest migrants at what were called “sensitive locations” like churches or schools. The Trump administration swiftly reversed that policy and will now allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to access those locations. That’s raised concerns for immigrants, leaving students, families and educators grappling with the potential implications of federal agents targeting students.

Jennifer Nein, multilingual coordinator at North Georgetown Elementary in the IRSD, describes this feeling as eerily familiar. She recalls a time 20 years ago when immigration enforcement swept through southern Delaware, leaving similar scars on immigrant communities.

“Close to 20 years ago, they did a massive sweep in Georgetown … We had kids coming into school crying because their dad had been, you know, they’d come through the window in the middle of the night and their dad had been taken or we had kids going home and no parents at home,” she said. “I mostly work with kids in small groups so they feel very comfortable talking to us.”

“They’re telling us that they’re afraid that their parents are going to be taken. They’re scared, you can see it and I don’t know how to get them to focus on learning when these poor babies are just so worried about what’s going to happen to them,” she explained. “I mean their whole life literally could be just turned upside down.”

Matt Meyer has talked the talk.  Will he follow through?:

“I also want to make this absolutely clear: If the president or his administration or anyone try to take away your health care coverage or further restrict your reproductive rights or undermine our schools or try to come into our communities to harass folks who came to our country and our state in search of a better life, if they do these things, I will use every power you vested in me as governor to protect our residence, to protect our livelihoods, to protect our values,” Meyer said in his inaugural address. “That is my pledge to you.”

Phew.  I got through this.  Wonder how many readers will…

What do you want to talk about?