#GeneralServicesAdministration

Sky DancingLazy Caturday Reads: The Fascist Takeover Is Progressing RapidlyGood Afternoon!! <a href="https://skydancingblog.com/johan-hendrik-caspar-kern/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"></a>By Johan Hendrik Caspar Kern The dismantling of the U.S. Government by Elon Musk and Donald Trump is beyond breathtaking. I put Musk’s name first because he appears to be the one who is issuing orders while Trump golfs or rants on social media. I couldn’t possibly discuss the damage in a blog post–there is just too much happening at once. We are watching a fascist takeover in real time. Meanwhile, the Democrats are doing nothing to stop it.From what I can tell, Trump/Musk have already destroyed the Justice Department and the FBI. Musk has taken control of the Treasury’s computer system that controls all government’s payments, including Social Security. They are working to get rid of as many federal employees as they can, either by firing them or convincing them to quit. They are purging websites of important public information. Soon, Trump plans to install tariffs that will cause serious inflation and damage relationships with our closest allies  Canada and Mexico.One thing I know for sure: this country will never be the same. I only hope we can stop it from becoming a dictatorship. If the Democrats remain supine, it may not be possible.Some important reads for today:Garrett Graff at Doomsday Scenario: <a href="https://www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/musk-s-junta-establishes-him-as-head-of-government" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Musk’s Junta Establishes Him as Head of Government</a>.<blockquote>I’ve long believed that the American media would be more clear-eyed about the rise and return of Donald Trump if it was happening overseas in a foreign country, where we’re used to foreign correspondents writing with more incisive authority. Having watched with growing alarm the developments of the last 24 and 36 hours in Washington, I thought I’d take a stab at just such a dispatch. Here’s a story that should be written this weekend: February 1, 2025 By William Boot WASHINGTON, D.C. — What started Thursday as a political purge of the internal security services accelerated Friday into a full-blown coup, as elite technical units aligned with media oligarch Elon Musk moved to seize key systems at the <a class="" href="https://wapo.st/40Ve0k9?utm_source=www.doomsdayscenario.co&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=musk-s-junta-establishes-him-as-head-of-government" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">national treasury</a>, block outside access to <a class="" href="https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-lackeys-general-services-administration/?utm_source=www.doomsdayscenario.co&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=musk-s-junta-establishes-him-as-head-of-government" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">federal personnel records</a>, and take offline <a class="" href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/federal-websites-temporarily-go-dark-order-comply-trump-dei-directive-rcna190244?utm_source=www.doomsdayscenario.co&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=musk-s-junta-establishes-him-as-head-of-government" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">governmental communication networks</a>. With rapidity that has stunned even longtime political observers, forces loyal to Musk’s junta have established him as the all-but undisputed unelected head of government in just a matter of days, unwinding the longtime democracy’s constitutional system and its proud nearly 250-year-old tradition of the rule of law. Having secured themselves in key ministries and in a building adjacent to the presidential office complex, Musk’s forces have begun issuing directives to civil service workers and forcing the resignation of officials deemed insufficiently loyal, like the <a class="" href="https://www.theverge.com/news/603113/faa-chief-musk-dc-plane-crash-crisis?utm_source=www.doomsdayscenario.co&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=musk-s-junta-establishes-him-as-head-of-government" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">head of the country’s aviation authority</a>.The G-7 country’s newly installed president, a mid-level oligarch named Donald Trump, appeared amid Musk’s moves to be increasingly merely a figurehead head of state. Trump is a convicted felon with a long record of family corruption and returned in power in late January after a four-year interlude promising retribution and retaliation against foreign opponents and a domestic “Deep State.” He had been charged with attempting to overthrow the peaceful transition of power that had previously removed him from office in 2021, but loyalist elements in the judiciary successfully blocked his prosecution and incarceration, easing his return to power.Over the last two weeks, loyalist presidential factions and Musk-backed teams have launched sweeping, illegal Stalin-esque purges of the national police forces and <a class="" href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-agents-on-jan-6-capitol-riot-trump-investigations-to-be-fired-sources-say/?utm_source=www.doomsdayscenario.co&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=musk-s-junta-establishes-him-as-head-of-government" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">prosecutors</a>, as well as offices known as <a class="" href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/usda-inspector-general-escorted-out-her-office-after-defying-white-house-2025-01-29/?utm_source=www.doomsdayscenario.co&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=musk-s-junta-establishes-him-as-head-of-government" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">inspectors-general</a>, who are typically responsible for investigating government corruption. While official numbers of the unprecedented ousters were kept secret, rumors swirled in the capital that the scores of career officials affected by the initial purges could rise into the <a class="" href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/31/politics/fbi-agents-who-investigated-january-6-fired/index.html?utm_source=www.doomsdayscenario.co&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=musk-s-junta-establishes-him-as-head-of-government" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">thousands</a> as political commissars continued to assess the backgrounds of members of the police forces. The mentally declining and aging head of state, who has long embraced conspiracist thinking, spent much of the week railing in <a class="" href="https://apnews.com/article/plane-crash-washington-dc-trump-dei-claims-3ac5486ec594d81e919e8ebbd9733869?utm_source=www.doomsdayscenario.co&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=musk-s-junta-establishes-him-as-head-of-government" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">bizarre public remarks</a> against the country’s oppressed racial and ethnic minorities, whom he blamed without evidence for causing a deadly plane crash across the river from the presidential mansion. Unfounded racist attacks on those minorities have been a key foundation of Trump’s unpredicted rise to political power from a career as a real estate magnate and reality TV host and date back to his first announcement that he would seek the presidency in 2015, when he railed against “rapists” being sent into the country from its southern neighbor. In one of his first moves upon returning to the presidency, he mobilized far-right paramilitary security forces to begin raids at <a class="" href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/migrants-can-now-be-arrested-at-churches-and-schools-after-trump-administration-throws-out-policies?utm_source=www.doomsdayscenario.co&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=musk-s-junta-establishes-him-as-head-of-government" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">churches, schools, and workplaces</a> to identify and remove racial minorities, including those who had long lived in harmony with the country’s white Christian majority. He also immediately moved to release from prison some 1,500 supporters who had participated in his unsuccessful 2021 insurrection, including members of violent far-right militias who promptly upon release swore fealty to him in any future civil unrest.Underscoring his apparent disconnection from reality, reports surfaced that the president had ordered military forces to <a class="" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/31/trump-california-water-00201909?utm_source=www.doomsdayscenario.co&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=musk-s-junta-establishes-him-as-head-of-government" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">unleash an environmental catastrophe</a> and flood regions of a separatist province known as California that is led by a high-profile political opponent. The order underscored how the military, which had resisted Trump’s unconstitutional power grabs in his first administration, was now led by a subservient defense minister, a favored TV personality with no experience in management who faced an embarrassing series of allegations about his drunken behavior in the workplace. </blockquote> The conclusion: <blockquote>Throughout the week’s fast-moving seizure of power—one that seems increasingly irreversible by the hour—neither loyalist nor opposition parliamentary leaders raised meaningful objection to the new regime or the unraveling of the country’s constitutional system of checks and balances. A few members of the geriatric legislature body offered scattered social media posts condemning the move, but parliament — where both houses are controlled by so-called “MAGA” members handpicked for their loyalty to the president — went home early for the weekend even as Musk’s forces spread through the capital streets.It was unclear what role, if any, Musk’s forces would allow parliament to have in the new governmental structure by the time it returned to the national assembly known as Capitol Hill.</blockquote> I hope you’ll read the whole piece at the Substack link.This story (which Dakinikat posted yesterday) is huge. Now there are new and even more dangerous developments (see additional stories on this below.)The Washington Post: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/01/31/elon-musk-treasury-department-payment-systems/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Senior U.S. official exits after rift with Musk allies over payment system</a>. <blockquote>The highest-ranking career official at the Treasury Department left the agency after a clash with allies of billionaire Elon Musk over access to sensitive payment systems, according to three people with knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private talks.David A. Lebryk, who served in <a class="" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/21/debt-ceiling-treasury-dave-lebryk/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">nonpolitical roles at Treasury for several decades</a>, announced his retirement Friday in an email to colleagues that was obtained by The Washington Post. President <a class="" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Donald Trump</a> named Lebryk acting secretary upon taking office last week. Lebryk had a dispute with Musk’s surrogates over access to the payment system the U.S. government uses to disburse trillions of dollars every year, the people said. The exact nature of the disagreement was not immediately clear, they said. <a href="https://skydancingblog.com/bettina-baldassari-2/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"></a>By Bettina Baldassari Officials affiliated with Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” have been asking since after the election for access to the system, the people said — requests that were reiterated more recently, including after Trump’s inauguration. Tom Krause, a Silicon Valley executive who has now been detailed to Treasury, is among those involved, the people said. Krause did not respond to requests for comment….When Scott Bessent was <a class="" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/27/bessent-confirmed-treasury-secretary/e088bbea-dd03-11ef-8889-d5c3924edafd_story.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">confirmed</a> as treasury secretary on Monday, Lebryk ceased to be the acting agency head. Trump administration officials placed Lebryk on administrative leave before he announced he would step down, two of the people said.Typically only a small number of career officials control Treasury’s payment systems. Run by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the sensitive systems control the flow of more than $6 trillion annually to households, businesses and more nationwide. Tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people across the country rely on the systems, which are responsible for distributing Social Security and Medicare benefits, salaries for federal personnel, payments to government contractors and grant recipients, and tax refunds, among tens of thousands of other functions. The clash reflects an intensifying battle between Musk and the federal bureaucracy as the Trump administration nears the conclusion of its second week. Musk has sought to exert sweeping control over the inner workings of the U.S. government, installing longtime surrogates at several agencies, including the Office of Personnel Management, which essentially handles federal human resources, and the General Services Administration, which manages real estate. (Musk was seen on Thursday visiting the GSA, according to two other people familiar with his whereabouts, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal matters. That visit was first reported by the New York Times.) His Department of Government Efficiency, originally conceived as a nongovernmental panel, has since replaced the U.S. Digital Service. </blockquote> More at the WaPo.Tim Reid at Reuters: <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musk-aides-lock-government-workers-out-computer-systems-us-agency-sources-say-2025-01-31/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Exclusive: Musk aides lock Office of Personnel Management workers out of computer systems</a>.<blockquote>Aides to Elon Musk charged with running the U.S. government human resources agency have locked career civil servants out of computer systems that contain the personal data of millions of federal employees, according to two agency officials.Since taking office 11 days ago, President <a class="" href="https://www.reuters.com/topic/person/donald-trump/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Donald Trump</a> has embarked on a massive government makeover, <a class="" href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trumps-plan-ease-firing-federal-workers-challenged-by-union-2025-01-29/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">firing and sidelining hundreds of civil servants</a> in his first steps toward <a class="" href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/what-trump-has-done-remake-us-government-so-far-2025-01-30/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">downsizing the bureaucracy and installing more loyalists</a>.Musk, the billionaire Tesla CEO and X owner tasked by Trump to slash the size of the 2.2 million-strong civilian government workforce, has moved swiftly to install allies at the agency known as the Office of Personnel Management.The two officials, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said some senior career employees at OPM have had their access revoked to some of the department’s data systems.The systems include a vast database called Enterprise Human Resources Integration, which contains dates of birth, Social Security numbers, appraisals, home addresses, pay grades and length of service of government workers, the officials said.“We have no visibility into what they are doing with the computer and data systems,” one of the officials said. “That is creating great concern. There is no oversight. It creates real cybersecurity and hacking implications.”Officials affected by the move can still log on and access functions such as email but can no longer see the massive datasets that cover every facet of the federal workforce.</blockquote>Greg Sargent at The New Republic: <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/191014/trump-elon-musk-treasury-purge" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Trump and Elon Musk Just Pulled Off Another Purge—and It’s a Scary One.</a><blockquote>President Donald Trump has granted Elon Musk unprecedented power to carry out his war on the “deep state.” The justification for this is supposed to be that the government is corrupted to its core precisely because it is stocked with unelected bureaucrats who are unaccountable to the people.Musk, goes this story, will employ his fearsome tech wizardry to root them out, restoring not just efficiency to government but also the democratic accountability that “deep state” denizens have snuffed out—supposedly a major cause of many of our social ills.The startling news that a top Treasury Department official is departing after a dispute with Musk shows how deeply wrong that story truly is—and why it’s actively dangerous. The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/01/31/elon-musk-treasury-department-payment-systems/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">reports</a> that David Lebryk, who has carried out senior nonpolitical roles at the department for decades, is leaving after officials on Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, sought access to Treasury’s payment system:<blockquote>Lebryk had a dispute with Musk’s surrogates over access to the payment system the U.S. government uses to disburse trillions of dollars every year, the people said. The exact nature of the disagreement was not immediately clear, they said.</blockquote>The news raises a complicated question: WTF??? Why is Musk’s DOGE trying to access payment systems inside the Treasury Department? It’s not clear what relevance this would have to his ostensible role, which is to search for savings and inefficiencies in government, not to directly influence whether previously authorized government obligations are honored. <a href="https://skydancingblog.com/cliffhanger-by-stefanie-roberti/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"></a>Cliffhanger, by Stefanie Roberti Another question: Did Trump directly authorize Musk to do this, or did he not? Either answer is bad. If Trump did, he may be authorizing an unelected billionaire to exert unprecedented control over the internal workings of government payment systems. If he did not, then Musk may be going rogue to an even greater extent than we thought….Former officials I spoke with were at a loss to explain why Musk would want such access. They noted that while we don’t yet know Musk’s motive, the move could potentially give DOGE the power to turn off all kinds of government payments in a targeted way. They said we now must establish if Musk is seeking to carry out what Trump tried via his federal funding freeze: Turn off government payments previously authorized by Congress. The White House rescinded the freeze after a national outcry, but Trump’s spokesperson <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5113776-white-house-press-secretary-spending-freeze/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">vowed</a> the hunt for spending to halt will continue. The former officials are asking: Is this Treasury power grab a way to execute that?“Anybody who would have access to these systems is in a position to turn off funding selectively,” said Michael Linden, a former OMB official <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/30/democrats-launch-group-hit-trump-tax-cuts-00201445" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">who is now director</a> of Families Over Billionaires, a group fighting Trump’s tax cuts for the rich. “The only reason Musk wants to get himself in there must be because he wants to turn some things off.”</blockquote>Read more at TNR. I got my Social Security check this month. Will I get one in March?More fascist takeover news:This is a long one by Mike Masnick at Techdirt: <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2025/01/31/elons-twitter-destruction-playbook-hits-the-us-government-and-its-even-more-dangerous/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Elon’s Twitter Destruction Playbook Hits The US Government, And It’s Even More Dangerous.</a><blockquote>Remember how Elon Musk destroyed Twitter by ripping apart its infrastructure without understanding it? Now imagine that same playbook applied to the federal government. It’s happening, and the stakes are exponentially higher. When reviewing Kate Conger and Ryan Mac’s book “Character Limit” last fall, I highlighted <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2024/09/17/twitters-pre-musk-plans-mirrored-elons-vision-until-he-abandoned-trashed-or-ignored-them/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">two devastating patterns in Musk’s management</a>: his authoritarian impulse to (<a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2023/09/12/the-batshit-crazy-story-of-the-day-elon-musk-decided-to-personally-rip-servers-out-of-a-sacramento-data-center/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">sometimes literally</a>) demolish systems without understanding them, and his tendency to replace existing, nuanced solutions with far worse alternatives (even when those older systems probably did require some level of reform). Those same patterns are now threatening the federal government’s basic functions.Let’s be crystal clear about what’s happening: A private citizen with zero Constitutional authority is effectively seizing control of critical government functions. The Constitution explicitly requires Senate confirmation for anyone wielding significant federal power — a requirement Musk has simply ignored as he installs his loyalists throughout the government while demanding access to basically all of the levers of power, and pushing out anyone who stands in his way.The parallel to Twitter is striking and terrifying. At Twitter, Musk’s “reform” strategy transformed a platform used by hundreds of millions for vital communication into his personal megaphone, hemorrhaging somewhere between 60-85% of its revenue in the process. But Twitter was just a private company. Now he’s applying the same destructive playbook to the federal government, where the stakes involve not just user experience or advertising dollars, but the basic functioning of American democracy.The constitutional violations here dwarf the Twitter debacle. Where Musk merely broke a social media platform through incompetence last time, he’s now breaking the actual mechanisms of governance —  and doing it with the same reckless playbook that turned Twitter into a ghost town. As Conger and Mac, who documented the Twitter disaster, point out, even the specific tactics are being recycled:<blockquote>The email landed in employees’ inboxes with the subject line: “Fork in the Road.” The message in the email was stark: Accept a sweeping set of workplace changes or resign.That was the note that millions of federal employees received around 5 p.m. on Tuesday. It echoed a similar message that thousands of workers at Twitter got from Elon Musk in late 2022 after he bought the company.[….]Mr. Musk, who also leads Tesla and SpaceX, has enlisted the help of a team of loyalists to assess agencies and make cuts, the same thing he did during the Twitter takeover.Steve Davis, the head of Mr. Musk’s tunneling startup, The Boring Company, helped oversee cost-cutting at Twitter and now leads DOGE. Brian Bjelde, a longtime human resources executive at SpaceX who also helped during the Twitter takeover, is now an adviser to the Office of Personnel Management.Michael Grimes, a top banker at Morgan Stanley who helped lead Mr. Musk’s Twitter acquisition, is expected to take a senior job at the Commerce Department.One of Mr. Musk’s software engineers at Tesla, Thomas Shedd, was named the head of “Technology Transformation Services” at the General Services Administration, which helps manage federal agencies. Mr. Shedd promptly employed a Musk tactic: asking for proof of engineers’ technical chops.Mr. Shedd asked for engineers to sign up for sessions in which they could share “a recent individual technical win,” according to an email sent to more than 700 employees on Tuesday night and viewed by The Times.</blockquote></blockquote> Read the rest at Techdirt.Zoe Schiffer at Wired: <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-lackeys-general-services-administration/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Elon Musk’s Friends Have Infiltrated Another Government Agency</a>.<blockquote>Elon Musk’s minions—from trusted sidekicks to random college students and former Musk company interns—have taken over the General Services Administration, a <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-government-tech-workers-gsa-tts/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">critical government agency</a> that manages federal offices and technology. Already, the team is attempting to use White House security credentials to gain unusual access to GSA tech, deploying a suite of new AI software, and recreating the office in X’s image, according to <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-lackeys-office-personnel-management-opm-neuralink-x-boring-stalin/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">leaked documents</a> obtained by WIRED. <a href="https://skydancingblog.com/otar-imerlishvili/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"></a>By Otar Imerlishvili Some of the same people who helped Musk take over Twitter more than two years ago are now registered as official GSA employees. Nicole Hollander, who slept in Twitter HQ as an unofficial member of Musk’s transition team, has high-level agency access and an official government email address, according to documents viewed by WIRED. Hollander’s husband, Steve Davis, also slept in the office. He has now taken on a leading role in Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Thomas Shedd, the recently installed director of the Technology Transformation Services within GSA, worked as a software engineer at Tesla for eight years. Edward Coristine, who previously interned at Neuralink, has been onboarded along with <a class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/harvard-senior-balances-college-ai-startup-productivity-enterprise-openai-coding-2024-8" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Ethan Shaotran</a>, a Harvard senior who is developing his own OpenAI-backed scheduling assistant and participated in an xAI hackathon.“I believe these people do not want to help the federal government provide services to the American people,” says a current GSA employee who asked not to be named, citing fears of retaliation. “They are acting like this is a takeover of a tech company.”The team appears to be carrying out Musk’s agenda: slashing the federal government as quickly as possible. They’re currently targeting a 50 percent reduction in spending for every office managed by the GSA, according to documents obtained by WIRED.There also appears to be an effort to use IT credentials from the Executive Office of the President to access GSA laptops and internal GSA infrastructure. Typically, access to agency systems requires workers to be employed at such agencies, sources say. While Musk’s team could be trying to obtain better laptops and equipment from GSA, sources fear that the mandate <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/doge-elon-musk/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">laid out in the DOGE executive order</a> would grant the body broad access to GSA systems and data. That includes sensitive procurement data, data internal to all the systems and services GSA offers, and internal monitoring software to surveil GSA employees as part of normal auditing and security processes.The access could give Musk’s proxies the ability to remote into laptops, listen in on meetings, read emails, among many other things, a former Biden official told WIRED on Friday.</blockquote>NPR: <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/01/31/nx-s1-5282274/trump-administration-purges-health-websites" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Trump administration purges websites across federal health agencies.</a><blockquote>At the direction of the Trump administration, the federal Department of Health and Human Services and its agencies are purging its websites of information and data on a broad array of topics — from adolescent health to LGBTQ+ rights to HIV.Several <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/healthy-youth/lgbtq-youth/index.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">webpages</a> from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/risk-factors/diabetes-risk-lgbtq.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">references</a> to LGBTQ+ health were no longer available. A <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/ocr/lgbtqi/index.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">page</a> from the HHS Office for Civil Rights outlining the rights of LGBTQ+ people in health care settings was also gone as of Friday. The website of the National Institutes of Health’s Office for Sexual & Gender Minority Research Office <a href="https://dpcpsi.nih.gov/sgmro" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">disappeared</a>. (Most of these pages could still be viewed through the <a href="http://archive.org/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Internet Archive</a>.)The changes at the CDC and NIH are examples of a broad push by the Trump administration on gender issues under an executive order titled “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government</a>.” That order directs agencies throughout the government to stop offering “gender identity” as a choice on government forms and to end funding of “gender ideology.”Another <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-and-wasteful-government-dei-programs-and-preferencing/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">order</a>, signed by Trump, takes aim at “diversity, equity, and inclusion” across the federal government.On Friday, however, many pages that did not seem related to “gender” or “diversity” had also been taken down, such as <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/about/atlasplus.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">AtlasPlus</a>, an interactive tool from CDC with surveillance data on HIV, viral hepatitis, STDs and TB. Also gone missing: a page with basic information about <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/testing/index.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">HIV testing</a>. The <a href="https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/place-health/php/svi/index.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index</a>, a tool that assesses community resilience in the event of natural disaster was also taken down.“The removal of HIV- and LGBTQ-related resources from the websites of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health agencies is deeply concerning and creates a dangerous gap in scientific information and data to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks,” the Infectious Disease Society of America said in a statement. “Access to this information is crucial for infectious diseases and HIV health care professionals who care for people with HIV and members of the LGBTQ community and is critical to efforts to end the HIV epidemic.”One striking example of the vanishing information: The CDC pulled down the website that houses data collected by the <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10156160/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">nation’s largest monitoring program</a> on health-related behaviors among high schoolers.Pages related to the CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health, which administers the program, were also unavailable.The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System tracks key metrics on nutrition, physical activity, tobacco and drug use, sexual behavior and other areas. The program was created 35 years ago and includes a national survey that researchers rely on to measure how behaviors influence health and design prevention measures.“It’s the way the nation understands adolescent health,” says <a href="https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/sociology/faculty/sr37988" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Stephen Russell</a>, a sociologist at the University of Texas at Austin who studies adolescent health. “The disappearance of that data is stunning.”</blockquote>Shane Harris at The Atlantic (published yesterday): <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/01/trump-fbi-revenge-firings/681538/?gift=HoRfrgrF5SCKopc-hfobxP4aJPfbiqptrE31ZTCGbn0&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">FBI Agents Are Stunned by the Scale of the Expected Trump Purge.</a><blockquote>This afternoon, FBI personnel braced for a retaliatory purge of the nation’s premiere law-enforcement agency, as President Donald Trump appeared ready to fire potentially hundreds of agents and officials who’d participated in investigations that led to criminal charges against him.A team that investigated Trump’s mishandling of classified documents was expected to be fired, four people familiar with the matter said. Trump has long fumed about that investigation, which involved a raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate that turned up hundreds of classified documents he had taken after he left the White House four years ago.David Sundberg, the head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, is also being fired, these people added. Sundberg is a career FBI agent with more than two decades of experience, and he oversees some of the bureau’s most sensitive cases related to national security and counterintelligence. Current and former officials told me they are worried that those investigations could stall, at least temporarily, if a large number of agents are suddenly removed. A spokesperson at the Washington Field Office declined to comment. <a href="https://skydancingblog.com/marcella-cooper-3/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"></a>By Marcella Cooper Trump’s retribution is not limited to those who investigated him personally. Administration officials are reviewing records to identify FBI personnel who participated in investigations of the January 6 assault on the Capitol by his supporters, people familiar with the matter told me. That could potentially involve hundreds if not thousands of agents, including those who interviewed and investigated rioters who were later prosecuted. Shortly after taking office, Trump pardoned about 1,500 of the rioters and commuted others’ sentences.There is no precedent for the mass termination of FBI personnel in this fashion. Current and former officials I spoke with had expected Trump to exact retribution for what he sees as unjust and even illegal efforts by the FBI and the Justice Department to investigate his conduct. But they were stunned by the scale of Trump’s anticipated purge, which is taking aim at senior leaders as well as working-level agents who do not set policy but follow the orders of their superiors.This afternoon, some FBI personnel frantically traded messages and rumors about others believed to be on Trump’s list, including special agents who run field offices across the country and were also involved in investigations of the former president.Trump’s efforts to root out his supposed enemies might not withstand a legal challenge. FBI agents do not choose the cases assigned to them, and they are protected by civil-service rules. The FBI Agents Association, a nonprofit organization that is not part of the U.S. government, said in a statement that the reports of Trump’s planned purge are “outrageous” and “fundamentally at odds with the law enforcement objectives outlined by President Trump and his support for FBI Agents.”The mass firings could imperil the nomination of Kash Patel, whom Trump wants to run the FBI in his administration. Just yesterday, Patel had assured senators during his confirmation hearing that the very kinds of politically motivated firings that appear to be in motion would not happen.</blockquote>This is a genuine emergency. Remember <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/books/review-hitlers-first-hundred-days-peter-fritzsche.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">it only took Hitler about a year and a half</a> to establish a dictatorship in Germany. Is anyone working to oppose Trump and Musk? It sure doesn’t seem like it.Robert Tait at The Guardian: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/31/trump-federal-workers-deep-state" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Trump’s revenge agenda has shocked officials who ‘didn’t think it was going to be this bad’, insiders say.</a> <blockquote>Federal government workers have been left “shell-shocked” by the upheaval wreaked by Donald Trump’s return to the presidency amid signs that he is bent on exacting revenge on a bureaucracy he considers to be a “deep state” that previously thwarted and persecuted him.Since being restored to the White House on 20 January, the president has gone on a revenge spree against high-profile figures who previously served him but earned his enmity by slighting or criticising him in public.He has cancelled <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/secret-service" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Secret Service</a> protection for three senior national security officials in his first presidency – John Bolton, the former national security adviser; Mike Pompeo, who was CIA director and secretary of state; and Brian Hook, a former assistant secretary of state – even though all are assassination targets on an Iranian government hit list.The same treatment has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/24/trump-fauci-security-protections" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">meted out to Anthony Fauci</a>, the infectious diseases expert who angered Trump after joining the White House taskforce tackling Covid-19 and who has also faced death threats.Trump has also fired high-profile figures from government roles on <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113864692804149616" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">his social media site</a> and stripped 51 former intelligence officials of their security clearances for doubting reports about Hunter Biden’s laptop as possible Russian disinformation….“The most common refrain I’m hearing from people who have left but are still talking to people on the inside is: ‘I knew it was going to be bad but I didn’t think it was going to be this bad,’” said Mark Bergman, a veteran Democratic lawyer who has been in contact with some of those who fear being targets of the retribution Trump repeatedly vowed on the campaign trail….</blockquote>A bit more:<blockquote>There are ominous signs that the spirit of retribution will continue – or get worse.Last week, in tactics more redolent of totalitarian regimes the United States has historically been at odds with, federal workers were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/22/us/politics/trump-order-discrimination-federal-hiring.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">warned</a> of “adverse consequences” if they failed to report their colleagues who refused to comply with the administration’s purge of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, or tried to sustain the programs with coded language.</blockquote>Elaine Godfrey at The Atlantic: <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/democrat-leadership-vacuum/681540/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Democrats Wonder Where Their Leaders Are.</a> <blockquote>The Democrats are angry. Well, at least some of them.For months, party activists have felt bitter about Kamala Harris’s election loss, and incensed at the leaders who first went along with Joe Biden’s decision to run again. They feel fresh outrage each time <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/17/us/politics/biden-age.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a new detail is revealed</a> about the then-81-year-old’s enfeeblement and its concealment by the advisers in charge. But right now, what’s making these Democrats angriest is that many of their elected leaders don’t seem angry at all. <a href="https://skydancingblog.com/2025/02/01/lazy-caturday-reads-the-fascist-takeover-is-progressing/monika-seidenbusch/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"></a>By Monika Seidenbusch “I assumed that we would be prepared to meet the moment, and I was wrong,” Shannon Watts, the founder of the gun-control group Moms Demand Action, told me. “It’s like they’ve shown up to a knife fight with a cheese stick.”For all the people in Watts’s camp, the party’s response to Donald Trump’s first 12 days in office has been maddening at best and demoralizing at worst. After Trump issued pardons or commutations for the January 6 rioters last week, including the ones who attacked police officers, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/26/democrats-approach-trump-quieter-00200606" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">no immediate chorus of anger</a> came from what is supposed to be the next generation of Democratic talent, including Maryland Governor Wes Moore, California Governor Gavin Newsom, and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, another 2028 hopeful, who is on tour selling a young-adult version of her autobiography, <a href="https://puck.news/democrats-are-struggling-to-find-a-message-against-trump/?utm_campaign=TheDailyCourant-LEADS(1/28/25)" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">has told interviewers</a>, “I am not out looking for fights. I am always looking to collaborate.”After Trump threatened Colombia with tariffs, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries attempted to reassure the confused and fearful rank and file with the reminder that “God is still on the throne,” which seemed a little like saying, “Jesus, take the wheel.” And people were baffled after the Democratic National Committee <a href="https://x.com/TheDemocrats/status/1884030630784078232" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">responded on X</a> to Trump’s first week in office by channeling a quainter time in American politics and dusting off an Obama-era slogan to accuse him of being “focused on Wall Street—not Main Street.” “Get new material!” one person suggested in the replies, a succinct summary of the other 1,700 comments.The limp messaging continued this week, after Trump’s administration on Monday issued a federal-funding freeze, including for cancer research and programs such as Meals on Wheels. The next day, Jeffries called for an emergency caucus meeting to hammer out a forceful “three-pronged counter-offensive.” But that emergency meeting would not actually take place until the following afternoon. (By the time lawmakers <a href="https://x.com/anniekarni/status/1884664489104093283" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">were dialing in</a>, the White House had already rescinded the order.) Jeffries’s Senate counterpart, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, scowling over his glasses, offered his own sleepy—and slightly unsettling—assessment of the moment: “I haven’t seen people so aroused in a very, very long time.”Some Democrats say they are hopeful that a new chair of the DNC, who will be elected today, will give the now-rudderless party a bit of direction—a way to harness all that arousal. The committee leads the party’s fundraising apparatus and coordinates with its sister organizations on Senate and House campaigns. But a chair can’t do much if the party’s own lawmakers aren’t willing to swap out the mozzarella for something a little sharper.</blockquote>I’m not holding my breath.More stories to check out:NBC News: <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-administration-forces-multiple-senior-fbi-officials-rcna190138" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Trump administration forces out multiple senior FBI officials and January 6 prosecutors.</a>NBC News: <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/pentagon-removes-major-media-outlets-nbc-news-dedicated-workstations-p-rcna190276" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pentagon removes major media outlets, including NBC News, from dedicated workstations in new ‘rotation program.’</a> Reuters: <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/crashed-us-army-black-hawk-unit-was-responsible-doomsday-readiness-2025-02-01/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Crashed US Army Black Hawk unit was responsible for doomsday readiness.</a>WTF? Politico: <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/01/panama-trump-confrontation-war-00201759" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">‘There will be many casualties’: Panama girds for war as Rubio opens talks.</a>Stephen Greenhouse at The Guardian: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/01/trump-executive-orders-constitution-law" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Trump’s disregard for US constitution ‘a blitzkrieg on the law’, legal experts say.</a>CNN: <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/01/politics/migrants-legal-status-trump-biden" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Trump prepares to revoke legal status for many migrants who arrived under Biden.</a>The Daily Beast: <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-orders-schools-to-ease-sexual-misconduct-rules/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Trump Orders Schools to Ease Sex Assault Rules.</a>AP: <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-chopra-consumer-financial-protection-bureau-47b6b39d0eff05ea0c9bca4eacf55b79" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Trump fires the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.</a>Things are getting really bad and are likely to get worse. Where are the Democrats? Where are the protests in the streets? Is it too late to save democracy? <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://skydancingblog.com/tag/democrats/" target="_blank">#Democrats</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://skydancingblog.com/tag/department-of-justice/" target="_blank">#DepartmentOfJustice</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://skydancingblog.com/tag/fascist-takeover/" target="_blank">#fascistTakeover</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://skydancingblog.com/tag/fbi/" target="_blank">#FBI</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://skydancingblog.com/tag/general-services-administration/" target="_blank">#GeneralServicesAdministration</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://skydancingblog.com/tag/government-payments-system/" target="_blank">#governmentPaymentsSystem</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://skydancingblog.com/tag/office-of-personnel-management/" target="_blank">#OfficeOfPersonnelManagement</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://skydancingblog.com/tag/purge-of-health-websites/" target="_blank">#purgeOfHealthWebsites</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://skydancingblog.com/tag/treasury-department/" target="_blank">#treasuryDepartment</a>

Recent searches

Search options

Administered by:

Server stats:

#generalservicesadministration