‘Promoting Diversity’ Is The New Red Scare

Funds Frozen, Purge Underway, Congress in Chaos

Everything, everywhere, all at once is indeed an overwhelming strategy. And the capitulation on actions that are blatantly illegal and/or unconstitutional by the opposition party in the legislative branch of government is astonishing. Congress is supposed to control the power of the purse, but a schoolyard bully has taken it away.

Yes, there is more Democrats could do, starting with making some collective noise, reassuring the victims of the executive branch actions, and doing everything they can to shut down their institution in protest. Dare the President to send his lackeys to defend him on Capitol Hill.

For the time being, we’ve been treated to press releases, one of which was read aloud by Sen. Chuck Schumer. Pennsylvania’s senior Senator, John Fetterman couldn’t bring himself to sign a performative resolution saying "Senate disapproves of any pardons for individuals who were found guilty of assaulting Capitol Police officers."

I get it that, within the realm of legislative action, Democrats should strategically focus on economics, in particular the budget bill(s). I get it that Trump is tossing out shiny objects to distract any potential opposition.

But at a minimum, the negation of the Congressional role as a check on the executive branch ought to be a big deal…the withholding of as much as three trillion dollars federal funds amounts to the executive branch telling congress that the president will do what it wants.

Just to make it clear, agency programs that could conceivably help people in a general sense (direct payments to individuals like social security are exempted, except that Medicare’s not paying this morning) will be on hold until the Office of Management and Budget has a chance to review mandated reports, starting on February 10th.

“The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve…” is what OMB will be looking for across the federal government. It won’t be a quick process, given that the transgressions described are not easily defined (Marxist equity) or don’t exist (green new deal).

Supposedly, the President does not have the power to impound Congressional appropriations made for a specified purpose by a government agency. 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘷. 𝘕𝘦𝘸 𝘠𝘰𝘳𝘬, 420 U.S. 35, 40 (1975)(finding President Nixon could not allot less than the statutory amount of funding than Congress allotted in the Federal Water Pollution Control Act). But the gamble here is that his actions will end up before the Supreme Court, which will overturn the previous ruling.

There is, of course, The Purge, in progress, along with the prospect of loyalty tests for parts of the Civil Service reclassified so they can be fired at will.

Adding “promotes diversity” to the list of egregious actions (foreign spy, stealing) that can trigger immediate termination, the President has set forth a method for enforcing ideological conformity in government. An email address has been set up to allow employees to rat each other out.

Investigating the Justice Department employees who handled the prosecutions of January 6th defendants is a ham handed attempt to intimidate those in other executive departments.

Trump could have fired the Inspector Generals by giving Congress 30 days notice of his reasons (whatever, the Senate GOP is essentially living on its knees), and he could have transferred prosecutors into minor roles like prosecuting misdemeanors in the District of Columbia. Instead he chose to proceed lawlessly, threatening anyone to tell him he can’t.

By Feb. 10, the OMB will likely be run by Russ Vought — one of the authors of Project 2025, and a man renowned for his determination to slash government spending.

Getting rid of employees and programs by any means necessary is only a short term goal. As to the long-term objective, Allison Gill (aka Mueller, She Wrote) has the answer:

• To me, the answer is obvious. He intends to sow chaos and break the agencies so he can privatize them - lining the pockets of his rich pals with the tax revenue savings through tax cuts for the wealthy, and driving the business of government into the arms of the CEOs and oligarchs. Private schools, private police, private prisons, private Veteran health care, private post office, private social security… the list goes on and on.

Oh, and the Great Purge apparently doesn’t stop with the federal bureaucracy. Trump announced yesterday that:

“If [US citizens] have been arrested many times, I want them out of our country. We’re gonna get approval to get them the hell out of our country. Let them be brought to a foreign land & maintained by others for a very small fee.”

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An essential part of authoritarian rule involves re-writing the truth, and Donald Trump, who’s always had a tenuous relationship with facts, is hard at it.

The latest and best example of Our New Reality occurred yesterday, as the President took to social media to announce:

The United States Military just entered the Great State of California and, under emergency powers, TURNED ON THE WATER flowing abundantly from the Pacific Northwest and beyond. The days of putting a Fake Environmental argument, over THE PEOPLE, are OVER. Enjoy the water, California!!!

California Department of Water Resources Statement.

Rewriting the reality includes the renaming of Mount Denali in Alaska* and the Gulf of Mexico**.

• *The Alaska legislature is sending a bi-partisan resolution to the White House asking that the change of name to Mount McKinley be reversed.

• **Google has already agreed to change the name of the gulf bordering southern US states to the Gulf of America.

The notion of adding Trump to Mount Rushmore keeps getting favorable attention from MAGA media outlets. Yesterday a Fox panel "gushed" over the idea. Word is that the Department of Defense is readying a move to revert the names of military bases back to their original Confederate designations.

Here’s a New York Post headline:

Movement grows to put Trump’s face on Mount Rushmore alongside Lincoln, Washington: ‘What are we waiting for?’

The administration’s power depends on convincing people to ignore reality and instead to believe in the fantasy world Trump dictates. I could go on forever about how this is impacting foreign policy, especially concerning trade with Latin America. Suffice it to say for now that China’s influence in our hemisphere will benefit as the US zigs and zags.

DeepSeek just proved Lina Khan right by Ryan Grim at Drop Site

• The social contract struck between the U.S. government and Silicon Valley—which the American people became an involuntary party to—was straightforward: We will let a handful of tech bros become unfathomably wealthy and in exchange they will build a tech industry that keeps America globally dominant. Instead, the tech bros broke the bargain. They took the money, but instead of continuing to innovate and compete, built monopolies to keep out competition—even getting the help of the U.S. national security state to block Chinese access to our tech. But they couldn’t keep out of the competition forever. Lina Khan was right. And now here we are.

• The downstream effects will be profound if the trajectory of a wealth transfer from the U.S. to China continues apace. It’s common to say that most people don’t own individual stocks, but that understates the exposure we all have to this scam. It’s in our IRAs or 401ks and the rise of those stocks made up nearly all of the growth of the stock market in recent years. And if China increasingly becomes the place to go work if you’re an ambitious researcher or developer, it’s not hard to see where that leads.

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We Only Have Ourselves: The How-Tos and DOs and DON’Ts of Mutual Aid by Kim Kelly at Lithub

• As crisis after crisis has continued to hit—from the epidemic of police violence and torture in prisons, to the increasing frequency of climate crisis-fueled natural disasters, to intensifying attacks on queer and trans people, immigrants, and just about everyone who doesn’t look or think like Mitch McConnell—mutual aid networks have been there to cushion the blow, and provide care for those who the system would rather see crushed.

• From the South Philadelphia Community Fridge folks keeping my neighborhood fed to the sprawling network of community groups that sprang into action after Hurricane Helene battered Asheville, NC to Mask Bloc LA’s lifesaving work getting thousands of masks out to vulnerable residents during the Los Angeles fires, mutual aid takes many shapes and forms—and it is an absolute necessity if we want to survive the challenges to come, and to build a better world.

• As we stare down the barrel of a second Trump presidency, there’s no better time to start educating ourselves for the coming conflicts. Hopefully, you’ve already gotten a head start, but just in case, I’ve put together some advice and some important texts for those who want to learn more about mutual aid and getting involved in your own community. In the words of Joe Hill, a great labor organizer who was taken too soon, “Don’t waste any time mourning. Organize!”

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Trump fires senior labor board official in ‘unprecedented and illegal’ move by Michael Sainato at The Guardian

• Donald Trump has fired a senior official at the top US labor watchdog, triggering a chorus of criticism from unions and in effect paralyzing the body until a replacement is confirmed.

• Gwynne Wilcox, a member and former chair of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), described her dismissal as “unprecedented and illegal” and pledged to challenge the move.

• Her removal leaves the board with only two members, and leaves it without a quorum of three members required to issue decisions, per a 2010 supreme court ruling.