Elon Musk

‘A Complete Takeover’: New Trump Order Entrenches Musk-Led ‘Shadow Government’

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Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

Protesters rally against Elon Musk-led attacks on civil servants outside the U.S. Capitol on February 11, 2025 in Washington, D.C.
 (Photo: Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump’s latest executive order “gives Elon Musk, an unelected, hyper-partisan billionaire, unfettered authority over this country’s civil service,” warned one advocacy group.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order handing an Elon Musk-led commission sweeping power to oversee federal hiring across non-military departments, entrenching what’s been described as a “shadow government” spearheaded by an unelected billionaire.

The new order states that the leader of each non-military federal agency “shall develop a data-driven plan” in coordination with the Department of Government Efficiency( DOGE), an advisory body that has infiltrated departments across the U.S. government—and accessed highly sensitive data—as part of an unprecedented effort to gut spending and the federal workforce.

“This hiring plan shall include that new career appointment hiring decisions shall be made in consultation with the agency’s DOGE Team Lead, consistent with applicable law,” the order continues. “The agency shall not fill any vacancies for career appointments that the DOGE Team Lead assesses should not be filled, unless the Agency Head determines the positions should be filled.”

The order also instructs agency directors to prepare for “large-scale” cuts to the federal workforce.

“It’s a complete takeover of the federal government by Musk,” investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr wrote in response to the executive action.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office with Musk at his side, Trump on Tuesday called the order “very important” and attacked federal judges who “want to try and stop us,” alluding to court orders against DOGE’s attempt to access vital government systems.

Musk, who is leading DOGE while simultaneously heading companies that are benefiting directly from his work inside the Trump administration, insisted he’s not orchestrating a “hostile takeover” of the federal government, declaring that the public voted for “major government reform” and “they are going to get what they voted for.”

The mega-billionaire also falsely claimed DOGE has been transparent as it rampages through the federal government.

“In reality,” The Guardian noted, “Musk has taken great pains to conceal how DOGE has operated, starting with his own involvement in the project. Musk himself is a ‘special government employee,’ which the White House has said means his financial disclosure filing will not be made public. The DOGE team involves about 40 staffers, but the actual number is not known. Staffers have tried to keep their identities private and refused to give their last names to career officials at the agencies they were detailed to.”

Trump’s latest executive order (EO) is poised to supercharge the Musk-led assault on and total dismantling of federal agencies, from the U.S. Agency for International Development to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

“This new EO signed today appears to create DOGE as a shadow government across the entire federal government,” Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo wrote late Wednesday, adding that the order “seems to make Elon as head of DOGE functionally the president or perhaps something more like a prime minister.”

Skye Perryman, president and CEO of the advocacy group Democracy Forward, warned in a statement that “this latest attack on public service gives Elon Musk, an unelected, hyper-partisan billionaire, unfettered authority over this country’s civil service.”

“People and communities across the nation depend on a non-partisan, committed civil service,” said Perryman. “Democracy Forward will pursue all legal options available to protect our civil service and the American people from harms that would stem from this executive order.”

Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

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Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Continue Reading‘A Complete Takeover’: New Trump Order Entrenches Musk-Led ‘Shadow Government’

‘Extremely Dangerous Time’: Sanders Warns of Oligarchs’ War on Working Class

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Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) attends a Senate hearing on January 29, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

“Does anyone really think that the oligarchs give a damn about ordinary Americans?” the senator asked. “Trust me, they don’t.”

As U.S. President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk on Tuesday continued their effort to gut the federal government, Sen. Bernie Sanders warned that “the oligarchs, with their unlimited amounts of money, are waging a war on the working class of our country, and it is a war that they are intent on winning.”

A week after delivering a speech that sounded the alarm about “America’s dangerous movement toward oligarchy, authoritarianism, and kleptocracy,” Sanders (I-Vt.) took the Senate floor again to target the world’s three richest people—Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg—and the politicians who serve them.

“We are living in an extremely dangerous time,” the seantor said Tuesday. “Future generations will look back at this moment—what we do right now—and remember whether we had the courage to defend our democracy against the growing threats of oligarchy and authoritarianism.”

As chair of Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk’s targets have included the U.S. Agency for International Development, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Department of Education, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and a critical U.S. Treasury Department payment system. Reporting—and remarks from the billionaire—suggest that the agencies responsible for Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security are next.

“As we speak, right now, Elon Musk, the wealthiest man on the planet, is attempting to dismantle major agencies of the federal government which are designed to protect the needs of working families and the disadvantaged,” said Sanders. “These agencies were created by the U.S. Congress and it is Congress’ responsibility to maintain them, to reform them, or to end them. It is not Mr. Musk’s responsibility. What Mr. Musk is doing is patently illegal and unconstitutional—and must be ended.”

Sanders also detailed Trump and his allies’ attacks on the federal judiciary, which has delivered a series of blows to the Republican president’s agenda since he took office last month.

“Mr. Trump and his friends are not just trying to undermine two of the three pillars of our constitutional government—Congress and the courts—they are also going after the media, in a way that we have never seen in the modern history of this country,” the senator said. While recognizing that the media “makes mistakes every day,” he added that “I do hope that every member of Congress understands that you cannot have a functioning democracy, you cannot have a free flow of information, you cannot have the pursuit of truth, without an independent press.”

The senator also how the top three billionaires impact what information reaches people by buying news outlets and social media platforms—as Musk did with Twitter, which he rebranded X, and Bezos did with The Washington Post and Twitch. Zuckerberg, meanwhile, has made his money through Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.

“They will use the enormous media operations they own to deflect attention away from the impact of their policies while they ‘entertain us to death,'” Sanders warns. “They and their fellow oligarchs will continue within our corrupt campaign finance system to spend huge amounts of money to buy politicians in both major political parties.”

“Does anyone really think that the oligarchs give a damn about ordinary Americans?” he asked. “Trust me, they don’t.”

Sanders warned that “if we do not stop them, they will soon be going after the healthcare, nutrition, housing, and educational programs that protect the most vulnerable people in our country—all so that they can raise they money they need to provide huge tax breaks for themselves and for others billionaires. As modern-day kings who believe they have the absolute right to rule, they will sacrifice, without hesitation, the well-being of working people in order to protect their power and their privileges.”

However, he also stressed that “the worst fear of the ruling class of our country is that the American people—whether they are Black or white or Latino, whether they are urban or rural, whether they are young or old, gay or straight, whatever—the fear of the ruling class is that the American people come together to demand a government that represents all of us, not just the people on top.”

“The oligarch’s nightmare is that we will not allow ourselves to be divided up by race, religion, sexual orientation, or country of origin and will come together and have the courage to take them on,” he declared. “If we stand together, we’re gonna win this fight, and not only will we save American democracy, we’re gonna create the kind of nation that I think most of us know we should become.”

Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Continue Reading‘Extremely Dangerous Time’: Sanders Warns of Oligarchs’ War on Working Class

New Lawsuit Reveals Trump Quietly Fired Head of Office That Protects Whistleblowers

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Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Then-nominee for Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy Hampton Dellinger is questioned by the Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) on July 28, 2021. (Photo: Sen. John Kennedy/YouTube/screen grab)

“This illegal firing undermines the office that investigates whistleblower disclosures of wrongdoing and enforces the law meant to keep partisan politics out of the federal workforce,” wrote one watchdog group.

Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger, the head of an independent federal agency that protects whistleblowers, filed a lawsuit in federal court Monday alleging that U.S. President Donald Trump’s “purported” dismissal of him via email on Friday is unlawful and ignores for cause removal protections that Dellinger is entitled to.

Dellinger is one of a number of officials at independent federal agencies that Trump has moved to fire in recent weeks.

According to the complaint, Dellinger received an email from Sergio Gor, director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, on February 7, which read: “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as special counsel of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service[.]”

The complaint lists six defendants, including Gor, Trump, acting Special Counsel of the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) Karen Gorman (“upon the purported removal” of Dellinger, according to the complaint), Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Chief Operating Officer of the OSC Karl Kanmann, and Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought.

Dellinger is requesting that the court declare his firing unlawful and affirm that he is the head of the OSC.

The filing also asks the court to order that “Bessent, Gor, Kammann, and Vought may not place an acting special counsel in plaintiff Hampton Dellinger’s position, or otherwise recognize any other person as special counsel or as the agency head of the Office of Special Counsel.”

The watchdog group Project on Government Oversight called the move against Dellinger “illegal” and wrote on X on Monday that it “undermines the office that investigates whistleblower disclosures of wrongdoing and enforces the law meant to keep partisan politics out of the federal workforce.”

The OSC is both an investigative and prosecutorial agency whose main mission is to protect federal employees from “prohibited personnel practices”—in particular reprisals for whistleblowing. The office is different from the “special counsels” that the U.S. Department of Justice may appoint to prosecute cases in instances where they deem there may be a conflict of interest.

Dellinger was nominated to be the special counsel of the OSC by then-President Joe Biden in 2023 and was confirmed by the Senate to a five-year term that was set to expire in 2029.

The complaint cites federal statute, which mandates that “the special counsel may be removed by the president only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” Dellinger’s legal counsel argues that the email from Gor does not accuse Dellinger of “any inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance… nor could it.”

In late January, Trump fired National Labor Relations Board Member Gwynne Wilcox, who has since sued over her dismissal, as well as two Democratic members of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Federal Election Commission Commissioner and Chair Ellen Weintraub also said that Trump tried to remove her improperly.

The Trump administration also purged over a dozen inspectors generals who perform oversight duties at various federal agencies.

The filing also argues that the removal of these sorts of civil servants makes the work of the OSC all the more important.

“Congress authorized the OSC with a crucial investigative and oversight role to protect the integrity of the civil service in circumstances such as these,” wrote Dellinger’s lawyers.

“The recent spate of terminations of protected civil service employees under the new presidential administration has created controversies, both about the lawfulness of these actions and about potential retaliation against whistleblowers,” they added.

Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
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Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Continue ReadingNew Lawsuit Reveals Trump Quietly Fired Head of Office That Protects Whistleblowers

100+ Groups ‘Decry and Oppose’ Trump Push to Ethnically Cleanse Gaza

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Original article by Jessica Corbett republished form Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Displaced Palestinian children sit on a sand mound overlooking tents set up amid destroyed buildings in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on February 6, 2025.
 (Photo: Bashar Taleb/AFP via Getty Images)

“Palestine is not just an idea—it is a place. It is a homeland to the Palestinian people,” the coalition wrote.

A coalition of over 100 organizations on Monday forcefully denounced U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip of Palestinians and take over the coastal enclave recently decimated by an Israeli military campaign conducted with American weapons.

Led by A New Policy—a group founded by Biden administration officials who resigned in protest—and the Quaker organization Friends Committee on National Legislation, the coalition said that “we are deeply alarmed by President Trump’s recent statements, tracing them back to January 25, just days after the Republican returned to power.

“We, the undersigned organizations, decry and oppose any effort or initiative, and any calls for, the forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, and support the joint statement of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the Palestinian Authority, and the Arab League that similarly rejected any such steps, the coalition wrote, citing the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The letter highlights the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in the 1940s during the formation of the modern state of Israel, which Palestinians call the Nakba, Arabic for catastrophe; that since 2006, Gaza “has been in a state of siege,” with residents enduring repeated bombardment and restrictions on necessities; and that since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, they have faced what various experts have found to be a plausible case of genocide, with over 48,000 people killed.

“Through this all, the Palestinians in Gaza have stood with remarkable dignity and perseverance, insisting throughout the immense suffering and loss that they will never abandon their homeland,” the letter continues, echoing recent remarks from residents. “We are deeply concerned by clear statements of intent from Israeli government officials over the past year concerning the creation of new Israeli settlements within the Gaza Strip, which further reinforce the intent of ethnic cleansing.”

“The United States has no right to dictate to the Palestinian people in Gaza to leave, and direct other countries to participate in their displacement. We are also aware that even a temporary external displacement could be used by Israel to enact permanent exile,” the letter says. “While we agree that the short and medium-term humanitarian needs of the people of Gaza may be difficult to meet given the nearly complete destruction that Israel has wrought, if the necessary services cannot be provided in Gaza, the people of Gaza must be able to access them elsewhere within the historic borders of Palestine and must be able to return.”

The coalition also expressed alarm over “an uptick in settler violence” and deadly Israel Defense Forces operations in the illegally occupied West Bank, writing that “these actions are part and parcel of a strategy that seeks to make not just Gaza, but all Palestinian areas across historic Palestine, unlivable for the Palestinian people, and are thus contributory to a process of ethnic cleansing.”

“Palestine is not just an idea—it is a place. It is a homeland to the Palestinian people,” the groups stressed. “To participate in, facilitate, or endorse their removal from it would violate every precept of international law, devastate the rules-based international order that protects us all, do irreversible harm to America’s global influence, and be an act of unconscionable immorality.”

The letter concludes with a poem from Palestinian Mahmoud Darwish, who wrote:

My country is not a suitcase
I am not a traveler
I am the lover and the land is the beloved.
The archaeologist is busy analyzing stones.
In the rubble of legends he searches for his own eyes
to show
that I am a sightless vagrant on the road
with not one letter in civilization’s alphabet.
Meanwhile in my own time I plant my trees.
I sing of my love.

In addition to the coalition leaders, signatories to the letter include ActionAid USA, CodePink, Democracy for the Arab World Now, Demand Progress Education Fund, Democratic Socialists of America, IfNotNow Movement, Just Foreign Policy, Madre, National Iranian American Council, Oil Change International, Peace Action, Progressive Democrats of America, and September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, and U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights.

The letter came amid a fresh wave of alarm over Trump’s latest comments about Gaza and Palestinians, which aired Monday morning on “Fox & Friends.” He said: “We’ll build safe communities a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is. In the meantime, I would own this—think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land.”

Asked by Fox News‘ Bret Baier whether Palestinians would have the right to return to Gaza, the president said, “No, they wouldn’t.”

The letter also came as Hamas on Monday suspended its next planned release of hostages taken in October 2023, citing Israel’s deadly violations of a fragile cease-fire deal that took effect last month.

Original article by Jessica Corbett republished form Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.

Continue Reading100+ Groups ‘Decry and Oppose’ Trump Push to Ethnically Cleanse Gaza

Thousands protest against Trump’s war on immigrants after Ice raids: ‘Fight for our neighbors’

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/09/protests-trump-ice-raids-colorado

Protester gathered outside the Colorado state capital on 5 February. Photograph: Tyler Tomasello/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock

Protesters in Colorado express solidarity with the undocumented after dramatic raids throughout Denver

Thousands took to the streets on Wednesday and Saturday last week following a series of dramatic raids by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) throughout Denver as protesters expressed solidarity with the undocumented and rage at Donald Trump’s war on immigrants.

“We’re here to fight for our neighbors, to stand together and say no to the threats from the Trump administration,” Amanda Starks, a local artist at a rally on Saturday who’s been handing out literature to immigrants on their legal rights.

She added: “I think this is worse than in 2016, when we thought the GOP would stand up to Trump. Now they’re all Christian nationalist yes-men, and we’re up against something greater this time around. But it’s bringing this community together.”

The US president has taken a special interest in the historically immigrant-friendly state of Colorado, calling his deportation plan for alleged gang members Operation Aurora, named for the Denver suburb claimed by him and echoed by conservative media to have been “taken over” by the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua (TdA).

One of the executive orders signed on Trump’s first day in office was to cut funding and send a stop-work order to the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network (Rmian), a Colorado non-profit offering free legal services to the undocumented. Due to the large volume of those in need, Colorado has one of the lowest rates of legal representation for undocumented immigrants.

Then last week heavily armed Swat teams began storming apartment complexes around Denver and Aurora in the early hours of the morning – sometimes with a Fox News crew embedded with the teams – though with 30 arrests in all, only one gang member has been confirmed to be in custody.

…

Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/09/protests-trump-ice-raids-colorado

Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Continue ReadingThousands protest against Trump’s war on immigrants after Ice raids: ‘Fight for our neighbors’