The Chaos Circus and an Important “Why?”

Breaking things is easy, but it is harder to build them.

As the Trump administration implements much of the Project 2025 playbook, consequences that hurt real people are evident. Whether or not they are unintended is still subject to debate.

The uncertainty and fear coming from refugees and immigrants is clearly intended, though the new administration is just getting started. There will be much to say on this topic in the coming weeks, though Kate Morrisey at Beyond the Border has weighed in with a story about humans at Tijuana’s El Chaparral, a plaza where migrants wait to find out what is coming next for them.

The Trump administration has sent 500 marines on standby to help with California wildfires to the border instead, where border crossings are the lowest level they’ve been in over four years. More than fifty thousand people in the Los Angeles area are under evacuation orders as the Hughes fire burned through 15 square miles on Wednesday.

The administration’s executive orders at agencies dealing with science and medicine pose both short and long-term hazards for the populations they serve. Job opportunities relating to healthcare are frozen, and that order has been determined to include people already hired.

Nurses who’d relocated to take jobs at the Veterans Administration have taken to social media to plead their cases. Example:

• All healthcare provider job offers were rescinded as part of the freeze. We all found out yesterday, even those of us expecting to start our jobs as physicians or nurses next month no longer have an offer. Many already moved to get ready to start our new jobs serving the vets

Allison Gill –better known as the author of Mueller She Wrote– is a former VA employee who shared her prognosis in a guest column at The Contrarian:

• It appears policy changes are coming that will violate laws intended to protect Veteran Benefits. Project 2025 aims to slash benefits and privatize veteran healthcare, according to a Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute analysis. The VA’s use of private healthcare is known to face “huge cost overruns.”

• These benefits reductions could be part of the first sweeping budget reconciliation bill that also promises cuts to Medicaid, food stamps (which many active duty service members and veterans rely on), and climate proposals from President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.

Break out the leeches…. In addition to the hiring freeze, orders for Department of Health and Human Services agencies included a ban on outside communications and travel, along with cancelling all of its study sections—the independent review panels that approve federal grants for health research. The work of approximately 300,000 people at more than 2500 institutions will be grinding to a halt.

In 2023, UC San Diego's medical school received over $460 million in NIH grants providing financial aid to health professionals in training. The University has five principal investigators in the fields of arthritis, human cells, intelligent systems for precision oncology, infectious diseases, head and neck cancer receiving NIH funding.

• My husband is an NIH-funded scientist studying infectious diseases such as whooping cough, covid, & influenza. The current grant funding his salary runs out of money this summer; a delay in grant reviews means he won’t get a new grant funded before then. He’ll lose his job.

The pause on communications includes routine public health tools such as the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which last week included updates to the 2025 immunization schedule for seniors and others.

Also impacted are advisories (including the bird flu tracker) sent out to clinicians across the CDC’s health alert network about public health incidents and public health data releases from the National Center for Health Statistics.

When these measures will end is unclear. An official told the Washington Post that the Trump administration may need time to set up systems and that the request for a pause is more a reflection of a poorly executed transition process.

Another source says changes may come after hearings on the nomination of RFKjr to be HHS Secretary, adding [it’s] effectively a hostage situation for now, it would seem.

Feel safer yet?... CBS News reports that the Department of Homeland Security has terminated its advisory committees, wiping out decades of institutional experience and abruptly ending a sweeping investigation into the Chinese-linked hack of U.S. telecom companies.

• In a statement, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said the move "waved a white flag to Chinese hackers."

• "Disbanding the Cyber Safety Review Board while it's in the middle of investigating the most damaging breach of America's phone system in recent memory is a massive gift to the Chinese spies who targeted Trump, JD Vance and other top political figures," he added.

You’re on your own when Florida sinks… President Donald Trump sat for a chat with Sean Hannity last night, and suggested FEMA could soon be on the chopping block, promising a “big discussion” on the future of the agency.

“FEMA is going to be a whole big discussion very shortly because I’d rather see the states take care of their own problems,” Trump said. He added that “all it does is complicate everything.”

Earlier in the day, Cameron Hamilton was named as temporary FEMA administrator. He’s a former Navy SEAL who, as The New York Times notes, apparently has no work history of coordinating responses to natural disasters.

Democratic members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board were told to resign or be fired this week, effectively kneecapping one of the only independent watchdogs over government surveillance. This leaves one person (one seat is vacant), a Republican, on a board requiring three members to initiate an investigation.

The South has risen again… Finally, there are the orders relating to DEI. While offices in the area in federal agencies are closed and employees have been sent home on a leave of absence as a prelude to getting fired, there is much more to report.

Trump’s team has threatened federal employees with “adverse consequences” if they refuse to turn in colleagues who “defy orders to purge diversity, equity and inclusion efforts from their agencies.” There’s even a tip line for snitches.

The threats go beyond the Federal government. From the New York Times:

• The executive order instructs the federal government to look at private sector D.E.I. initiatives: Each federal agency, it says, will identify “up to nine potential civil compliance investigations” that could include publicly traded corporations, nonprofits and large foundations, among others.

Via Jordan Zakarin at Progress Report:

• Here’s what Andrew Ferguson, the new chair of the FTC (and thus somebody who really should have no opinions on DEI), wrote to his staff today:

  • DEI is a scourge on our institutions. It denies to all Americans the Constitution’s promise of equality before the law. It divides people into castes on the basis of immutable characteristics, and treats them as caste members rather than as individuals. It stokes tensions by elevating race and other immutable characteristics above merit and excellence. It promotes invidious discrimination. And it violates federal and natural law.

• If you want to know whether somebody is actually just racist, look for the term "natural law.”

I know it sounds far out, but… Here’s what you need to know about the “why” behind the tech bros enthusiasm for the Trump administration: It’s a religious quest. Technology is now God in their world, billionaires are its disciples in charge of the hierarchy needed to maintain the faith. This important analysis comes via Frame Lab’s Gil Duran:

• As I have written before, this belief system maintains many elements of the conservative belief system that cognitive scientist George Lakoff calls “Strict Father Morality.” It includes familiar hierarchies: men above women, whites above other races, wealthy above poor, and employers above employees. But it adds new dimensions: the technologically enhanced above the unenhanced, the algorithmically optimized above the naturally evolved – and the trillionaires above the billionaires above the millionaires above everyone else.

• The parallels with religious movements are too obvious to ignore. Where traditional faiths promise eternal life through spiritual salvation, this tech cult promises immortality through neural uploads, life extension, and the blood of literal sons. Where religions speak of ascending to heaven, Elon Musk preaches about humanity becoming “multi-planetary.” Where ancient faiths warned of demons and monsters, tech prophets warn of uncontrolled AI and biological threats. Where God sees all from on high, the all-knowing eye of technology sees all from networked machines.

• The language is tweaked, but the underlying structure remains remarkably consistent. Our would-be tech overlords have in mind a new order and hierarchy for human civilization, one created in their own image. To make it permanent, however, they must make it religious, because religion is a key software of civilization. Their new belief system must last thousands of years and erase all that came before it. It must overthrow the established order, with its sentimental attachments to reality and its analog currency engraved with “In God We Trust.” It must inspire humankind to abandon Creation itself – the Earth – for dead planets and the cold unknown. It must create a Catholicism without Christ and a Zionism without Israel. (See: Network State.)

Holy sacraments, Batman. These guys really are crazy.

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One voice begging for mercy by Melissa Ryan at Cntrl-Alt-Right-Delete

• Fear is a weapon Donald Trump wields expertly and with precision. Even Republicans know that crossing Trump might lead to MAGA foot soldiers coming for you. Starting with the 1,500 insurrectionists Trump just pardoned. Fear is also the reason, understandably, why you haven’t seen as many organized protests and direct actions against the incoming Administration. Trump wants all of us, to his opposition to his closest supporters to fear him and his power. This time around, he’s had incredible success creating that culture.

• Knowing all this, one can’t help but admire Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde for speaking truth to power -- right in power’s face. There’s no personal upside for her here. There is little to be gained other than being the enemy of the day in right-wing media and the threats and harassment she’s undoubtedly now receiving. Watching her explain her decision on CNN, I’m struck by her bravery and humility. All while clearly grappling with the moment herself.

• I hope this moment is a spark. That it inspires others to step up and find the bravery to do the right thing when called upon. I’ve made my peace with the fact that many will fall short, but I’m heartened knowing that even in our darkest hour, we live amongst people who will choose courage over fear and stand in solidarity with those who need it most.

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Poway City Attorney Accuses Councilmember of Harassment, Intimidation by Tigist Lane at Voice of San Diego

• Legal experts, including City Attorney Fenstermacher, have indicated that the threats and offer of vote trading could violate state laws.

• “From day one in office, Blain has trafficked in bribery, extortion, and intimidation. His actions aren’t just corrupt, they are a callus and calculated betrayal of the public’s trust,” Mayor Vaus told Voice of San Diego via email. “And while the felonies Blain appears to have committed, like vote-trading and bribery, are shocking enough— his use of police threats to intimidate constituents cross every line of decency.”

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GOP hit by amnesia ray from outer space, can’t remember January 6th by Jeff Tiedrich at everyone is entitled to my own opinion

• here’s a fun story: there was apparently some kind of effort by Donny’s people to weed out the most-violent of the insurrectionists and deny them pardons. Team Donny brought all the paperwork into the Oval Office and sat down to hash it out — but Team Donny forgot all about the part where presidenting is hard and Dear Leader has the attention span of a coked-up squirrel. Donny spent about seventeen seconds listening to them talk, and then basically got bored.

• In one of the first acts of his second administration, President Donald Trump pardoned nearly all of the January 6 criminals and new details reveal the spur-of-the-moment decision to release 1,500 people charged.

• “Trump just said: ‘F*** it: Release ‘em all,’” an adviser familiar with the discussions told the Axios.