The Trump administration is targeting climate organizations that received a Biden-era grant.
The FBI is moving to criminalize groups like Habitat for Humanity for receiving grants from the Environmental Protection Agency under the Biden administration.
Citibank revealed in a court filing Wednesday that it was told to freeze the groups’ bank accounts at the FBI’s request. The reason? The FBI alleges that the groups are involved in “possible criminal violations,” including “conspiracy to defraud the United States.”
“The FBI has told Citibank that recipients of EPA climate grants are being considered as potentially liable for fraud. That is, the Trump administration wants to criminalize work on climate science and impacts,” the @capitolhunters account wrote Wednesday on X. “An incoming administration not only cancels federal grants but declares recipients as criminals. All these grantees applied under government calls FOR ENVIRONMENTAL WORK, were reviewed and accepted. Trump wants to jail them.“
Neo-Fascist 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.
Then President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk pose for a photo during the UFC 309 event at Madison Square Garden on November 16, 2024 in New York City. (Photo: Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)
“If you think back at the last economic crashes… the rich were able to buy up assets on the cheap and emerged even wealthier and more powerful than before,” noted one progressive commentator.
Are U.S. President Donald Trump, top adviser Elon Musk, and allied oligarchs deliberately trying to tank the economy in order to line their own gilded pockets?
More and more observers from both sides of the political aisle are asking the question this week as the U.S. president implemented steep tariffs on some of the country’s biggest trade partners, threatened a global trade war, and is taking chainsaw to government spending and programs—policies that, while inflicting economic pain upon nearly everyone else, could dramatically boost their already stratospheric wealth.
Numerous observers have likened it to the ” disaster capitalism” examined in Naomi Klein’s seminal 2007 book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism—politicians and plutocrats exploit the chaos of natural or human-caused crises to push through unpopular policies like privatization and deregulation that harm the masses while boosting the wealth and power of the ruling class.
Economic alarm bells were already ringing before Trump’s 25% tariffs on most products from Canada and Mexico and an additional 10% on China—for a total of 20%—took effect on Tuesday, prompting retaliatory measures and threats of more to come.
Then, during his rambling joint address to Congress on Tuesday night, Trump threatened to impose reciprocal tariffs on every nation on Earth starting April 2 (because he “didn’t want to be accused of April Fools’ Day”) if those countries did not lower barriers to trade with the United States.
New York Times economic policy reporters Alan Rappeport and Ana Swanson called Trump’s sweeping tariffs “one of the biggest gambles of his presidency,” and a move “that risks undermining the United States economy.”
But what if that’s the whole point?
“I’ve been entertaining this theory a little bit more lately, because [Trump’s] economic moves seem so stupid and terrible and counterproductive without thinking that he is intentionally trying to cause harm,” progressive political commentator Krystal Ball—who also has a degree in economics and is a certified public accountant— said Tuesday on the social media site X.
Ball cited an X post by Saikat Chakrabarti, a progressive Democrat running for Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) House seat who worked on Wall Street for six years and helped found the online payment processing company Stripe, in which he accused Trump of “manufacturing a recession.”
“But it makes sense when you realize his goal is to create something like Russia where the economy is run by a few oligarchs loyal to him,” Chakrabarti added. “Creating that state is hard in a large, dynamic, powerful economy with too many actors who can oppose him. So he’s accelerating concentrating money and power into the hands of his loyalists while he crashes the rest out.”
It really is confusing why Trump would want to intentionally massively shrink the US economy. None of this is due to external circumstances – he is manufacturing a recession.
But it makes sense when you realize his goal is to create something like Russia where the economy is…
Responding to this, Ball asserted that “at this point, until proven otherwise, the primary actor in the government and the economy is actually Elon, so I think it makes sense to think of Elon’s incentives here and what he may actually want to accomplish.”
“If you think back at the last economic crashes—both in Covid and in the 2008 financial crash—while initially everyone suffered, including the rich, out of both, the rich were able to buy up assets on the cheap and emerged even wealthier and more powerful than before,” she noted.
“So in 2008, not only did they get their own custom bailout, but they were able to buy housing stock at absurdly low prices,” Ball recalled. “The rich got richer than ever, inequality skyrocketed, and the big banks got bigger than ever.”
“Same deal with the Covid-era recession,” she continued. “So, while again, everyone suffered initially, there was a huge bailout package which, yes, did benefit ordinary people, but if you look at who came out really on top… you could see people like Elon Musk, people like Jeff Bezos, people like Mark Zuckerberg getting far wealthier. Their net worths, which were already very high, skyrocketed beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.”
Indeed, as Common Dreams reported, 700 billionaires got $1.7 trillion richer during two years of pandemic. Between March 2020 and April 2022, Musk got 10 times richer, while Zuckerberg’s net worth more than tripled and Bezos’ grew by nearly $80 billion, according to Forbes.
“Here’s the other piece that’s worth thinking about as well,” Ball added. “Crash and crisis leads to governments and authoritarian leaders claiming more power for themselves. They can use the crisis and the emergency as a justification for taking on extraordinary powers and for taking extraordinary measures… measures that can be custom fit to primarily benefit oligarchs like Elon Musk.”
“So I don’t know guys, while we’re running around here going… ‘can’t they understand how this is going to be devastating for the economy,’ maybe they do understand,” she concluded, “and maybe that’s kind of the point.”
Neo-Fascist 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.
Would love the explainer on why they are pushing us into a (likely) recession
dizzy: While it is accepted that the filthy rich benefit from economic collapse I suspect that there might be a more deliberate action to benefit certain actors more directly.
I suggest that you compare to the experience of short-lived former Prime Minister Liz Truss in UK. She was also supported and followed the instruction of an established, influential think-tank. Powerful and wealthy Capitalists may have benefited directly from market reactions to their directed actions. I would look at hedge funds and similar actors associated with those respective think tanks. Is it the same actor dominating and directing both think-tanks? Was the Liz Truss experience an initial test run?
Demonstrators hold signs after U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) was blocked from entering the Environmental Protection Agency to meet with Department of Government Efficiency officials on February 6, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Al Drago/Getty Images)
“Musk has shown that he can and will destroy a federal agency in a single weekend,” said one advocate. “If his deranged antics are allowed to continue, we might never be able to fix the damage to America’s environment.”
A leading conservation group filed suit Monday to stop U.S. President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk from “gutting” over a dozen of the federal government’s environmental agencies and departments.
This isn’t the Center for Biological Diversity’s first lawsuit targeting Trump’s Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, but it is the first lawsuit in the country “challenging DOGE’s efforts to eviscerate the agencies charged with protecting the environment, natural resources, and wildlife,” according to a statement from the group.
The suit names as defendants the Environmental Protection Agency and departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Interior, and Transportation, as well as several entities under them: the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Federal Aviation Administration, Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and National Park Service.
“The world’s richest man has created an alternative power structure inside the federal government for the purpose of controlling spending and pushing out employees.”
“Elon Musk and his hacker minions are tearing apart the federal agencies that protect our public lands, keep our air and water clean, and conserve our most cherished wildlife. The public has every right to know why they’re waging this cruel war on our environment,” said Brett Hartl, the center’s government affairs director.
“Musk has shown that he can and will destroy a federal agency in a single weekend,” Hartl added. “If his deranged antics are allowed to continue, we might never be able to fix the damage to America’s environment.”
The suit alleges “a flagrant violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which requires transparency, open public participation, and balanced representation when the president or executive branch agencies establish or use nonfederal bodies for the purpose of seeking advice or recommendations.”
Trump’s executive order establishing DOGE directs all agencies to form teams, or what FACA calls advisory committees, controlled by Musk. The complaint argues that “defendants have failed to ensure that the DOGE teams comply with the balance and openness requirements of FACA.”
“Mr. Musk and other billionaire and tech executives working with DOGE stand to benefit personally and financially from the DOGE teams’ work, including by securing government contracts, slashing environmental rules that apply to their companies, and reducing the government’s regulatory capacity and authority, including by targeting specific agencies, statutes, and spending decisions that affect their businesses,” the filing warns.
The complaint notes recent reporting that “Musk is using his influence over the DOGE teams to rapidly consolidate control over large swaths of the federal government, sideline career officials, gain access to sensitive databases, and dismantle agencies and regulatory systems.”
“Since President Trump assumed office—and without any congressional approval—the world’s richest man has created an alternative power structure inside the federal government for the purpose of controlling spending and pushing out employees,” the document adds. “Meanwhile, Musk has been named as a special government employee, which subjects him to less stringent rules on ethics and financial disclosures regarding his role overseeing DOGE and the DOGE teams.”
The new case calling on the court to require compliance with FACA comes after the center filed another federal suit in Washington, D.C. last Thursday with the aim of using the Freedom of Information Act to unveil details about what Hartl said “should be called the Department of Government Evisceration.”
It also follows U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, launching a probe last month into Musk’s official title. The congressman demanded answers from the White House by this coming Thursday.
Neo-Fascist 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.
People participate in a “TeslaTakedown” protest against Elon Musk outside of a Tesla dealership in Irvine, California, March 1, 2025. (Photo: Frederic J. Brown / AFP)
“We need an alternative to watching things unravel from our couches,” said one of the organizers behind the protests.
Protests at Tesla showrooms and dealerships that are united by the slogan #TakedownTesla are picking up steam—with over 65 actions planned around the country and in Europe through the end of this week, and dozens scheduled for Saturday alone.
Tesla, billionaire Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company, has become a site of resistance in the growing movement against the GOP megadonor’s central role in the second Trump administration.
Since Trump’s inauguration, Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency have helped oversee punishing cuts to the federal workforce, infiltrated government agencies, and gained access to computer systems with sensitive personal information.
Because Musk is unelected, the protest movement urges people to make their voices heard as consumers—by selling their vehicles, getting rid of their stock in Tesla, and showing up to protest.
I went to the #TeslaTakedown protest in Ladera Heights and the Westside was there. I think it was a good turnout for a first protest that has no organizer and definitely has the potential to grow bigger. pic.twitter.com/vP2NVUAGNi
Already, protests have taken place in Devon, Pennsylvania; Berkley, California; Tucson, Arizona; Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. Signs at protests include messages likes “Musk is the Fraud” and “Tesla Funds Fascists,” in part a reference to Musk’s apparent Nazi salute during a post-inauguration celebration.
“No One Voted for This,” assert the organizing materials provided on the #TeslaTakedown website.
Actor and director Alex Winter, one of the core organizers behind the protests and the creator of the movement’s website, said that #TakedownTesla started on Bluesky between friends and activists and grew, according to Business Insider. It grew after Winter created the website to help centralize the effort.
“There have now been protests outside of Tesla locations in over 100 cities, and the movement is picking up speed and going global,” wrote Winter in a piece for Rolling Stone that was published on February 21.
“We need an alternative to watching things unravel from our couches, that inspires hope and shows that we still have the capacity to oppose those who want to tear the fabric of our society apart and extract their own benefit from the wreckage,” he continued.
Tesla’s stock experienced a bump after Trump’s election, but the company’s share price has plummeted more than 40% from it’s post-election peak in December, wiping out those gains. The tumbling of its stock meant that February was Tesla’s second-worst month on record, only eclipsed by the 37% loss the stock experienced in December 2022, according to Yahoo Finance.
On Monday, one observer shared a visual of Tesla’s stock declining and wrote “Turns out pissing off a good deal of the global population isn’t good for business,” along with #TeslaTakedown.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Donald Trump shows off a letter from King Charles that Keir Starmer has just handed him, Washington, 27 February 2025. Photograph: ABACA/REX/Shutterstock
We need a ‘coalition of the willing’ capable of bringing together those in Europe and the global south. Britain should facilitate that
There are only so many times Donald Trump can be offered a state and royal visit to temper his political tantrums. With his latest attacks on Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the halting of aid to Ukraine, it’s already clear that not even the offer of a bed for the night at Balmoral has worked.
The silver lining of the Trump experience over the past fortnight is hopefully that it leads to a more realistic appraisal not just of the implications of the re-election of this narcissistic, bullying, corporate thug, but an understanding of the role the US has played over generations. Trump and his gang members JD Vance and Elon Musk are just the ugliest of faces of the US global policy pursued for a century at least.
In 1992 Noam Chomsky published a bestselling booklet, What Uncle Sam Really Wants. A read of Chomsky may help Labour’s policymakers overcome their apparent naivety so worryingly displayed in the constant references to the special relationship between the UK and US.
Trump’s “America First” policy is simply a more blatant articulation of the role the US has pursued globally since at least the second world war.
…
There is an opening now for a much greater and more longer-sighted “coalition of the willing” capable of bringing together those in Europe and the global south to create the alliances and institutions needed to pursue the political and economic agenda that the US now resiles from.
This includes an economic cooperation agenda not based upon tariffs and protectionism for the wealthy, but one that is mutually beneficial and tackles both the grotesque inequalities between north and south and the common threat of the climate emergency.
…
Unwise and immoral plans to cut British overseas aid, undermining soft power, are a legacy of a sort, but how much better it would be to see our prime minister using our influence and heft to bring together all those who want to discuss and construct a world reordered without the malign influences of Trump and China. That really would be a place in history worth having.
Neo-Fascist 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.
