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February 01, 2025 12:49 AM UTC

Weekend Open Thread

  • 15 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“If you think you have it tough, read history books.”

–Bill Maher

Comments

15 thoughts on “Weekend Open Thread

  1. New DNC chair is Ken Martin.

    NPR has some details

    Democratic Underground has a summary of the NYTimes article and a link.

    Ken Martin Elected as New DNC Chair,

    “The Democratic Party is the party of working people, and it’s time to roll up our sleeves and outcompete everywhere, in every election, and at every level of government — and I look forward to working with this next generation of leadership to build a Party to unite America,” said DNC Chair Ken Martin. “Today’s elections mark a new chapter in DNC leadership, and Donald Trump and his billionaire allies are put on notice: we will hold them accountable for ripping off working families, and we will beat them at the ballot box.” 

     

    1. I'm sorry, Ken. You aren't going to get that chance. How long before people accept that Trump is playing "Putins" Playbook". He signaled long ago that he is expecting a 3rd term.

  2. Tariffs Designed to Distract from Project 2025

    Well, tariffs are destructive to our Allies and beneficial to our Enemies. Maybe that is also intentional. As Heather Cox-Richardson points out:

    As soon as he took office, Trump imposed a freeze on foreign aid except for military aid to Israel and Egypt, abruptly cutting off about $60 billion in funding—less than 1% of the U.S. budget—to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which provides humanitarian assistance to fight starvation and provide basic medical care for the globe’s most vulnerable and desperate populations. The outcry, both from those appalled that the U.S. would renege on its promises to provide food for children in war-torn countries and from those who recognize that the U.S. withdrawal from these popular programs would create a vacuum China is eager to fill, made Trump’s new secretary of state, Marco Rubio, say that “humanitarian programs” would be exempted from the freeze, but that appears either untrue or so complicated to negotiate that programs are shutting down anyway.

    Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) appears to be beside himself over this destruction. “Let me explain why the total destruction of USAID…matters so much,” he posted on social media. “China—where Musk makes his money—wants USAID destroyed. So does Russia. Trump and Musk are doing the bidding of Beijing and Moscow. Why?” “The U.S. is in full retreat from the world,” he wrote, and there is “[n]o good reason for it. The immediate consequences of this are cataclysmic. Malnourished babies who depend on U.S. aid will die. Anti-terrorism programs will shut down and our most deadly enemies will get stronger. Diseases that threaten the U.S. will go unabated and reach our shores faster. And China will fill the void. As developing countries will now ONLY be able to rely on China for help, they will cut more deals with Beijing to give them control of ports, critical mineral deposits, etc. U.S. power will shrink. U.S. jobs will be lost.” Murphy speculated that “billionaires like Musk who make $ in China” or “someone buying all that secret Trump meme coin” would benefit from deliberately sabotaging eighty years of U.S. goodwill on the international stage.

  3. Biggest CyberHack in US history: Musk in control of Federal Payment computers.

    Yes, you already know this. But, consider all the implications.

    Now, though, with Musk’s people at the computers that control the nation’s payment system, they can simply stop whatever payments they want to.

    Wyden continued by reminding Bessent that the press has reported that Musk has previously been “denied a high-level clearance to access the government’s most sensitive secrets. I am concerned that Musk’s enormous business operation in China—a country whose intelligence agencies have stolen vast amounts of sensitive data about Americans, including U.S. government employee data by hacking U.S. government systems—endangers U.S. cybersecurity and creates conflicts of interest that make his access to these systems a national security risk.”

    This afternoon, Wyden posted that he has been told that Bessent has given the Department of Government Efficiency full access to the system. “Social Security and Medicare benefits, grants, payments to government contractors, including those that compete directly with Musk's own companies. All of it.”

    Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo posted: “This is more or less like taking the gold from Fort Knox and putting it in Elons basement. Anyone who gets a check from soc sec or anything else[,] he can cut it off or see all y[ou]r personal and financial data.” Pundit Stuart Stevens called it “the most significant data leak in cyber history.”

    1. A little something I threw together this morning – as a former Federal-agency Service Chief, I know this drill….feel free to modify for your own use. 

      Aditi Hardikar
      Assistant Secretary for Management
      Senior Agency Official for Privacy
      Department of the Treasury
      Privacy@treasury.gov

      I am making a formal complaint to the Department of the Treasury's ("The Department") Assistant Secretary for Management and Chief Financial Officer that my rights under the Privacy Act of 1974 and Treasury Directive 25-08 have been violated by an unknown number of unauthorized individuals working for group known as the "Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)".

      This violation was revealed via media reports in several mainstream outlets, as well as multiple social media posts by Members of Congress and an individual named Elon Musk. Based on these reports it is highly likely, if not certain, that my individual financial information regarding my Federal retirement pay, VA Service-connected disability compensation and current and future tax payments to the Internal Revenue Service have all been unlawfully accessed and analyzed by this unauthorized group of individuals.

      Specifically, my Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and associated financial data has been viewed by this group of individuals working at the direction of Elon Musk (mentioned above), an individual without lawful authorization by any Federal statue or regulation to access said data. This includes "Internal Sharing," as these individuals are not "employees or contractors responsible for Treasury.gov maintenance and security as well as employees and contractors whose duties include responding to the particular complaint, feedback, or request received." And also "External Sharing," as The Department shall not "share personally identifiable information obtained on Treasury.gov with other federal agencies or other governmental or non-governmental organizations or individuals except as stated in this policy or as otherwise authorized or required by law" and these individuals are not "personnel and contractors who have a need to know the information to perform their official duties." Lastly, as individuals working for a private citizen, it is impossible for them to have completed the required privacy training mandated by Federal statue and Treasury Policy 25-08.

      These are all extremely serious violations of my privacy and require the full attention of The Department to immediately stop this unlawful access of my PII, as well as preserve evidence of the violations committed by this group of unauthorized individuals. Per the above-cited Treasury Directive, this also requires the activation of the Breach Risk Assessment Plan as well as a Breach Notification to all relevant Federal Agencies.

      I look forward to your prompt reply of my complaint.

      SSG Dan

      References:

      US Department of the Treasury Privacy Policy
      https://home.treasury.gov/subfooter/privacy-policy

      US Department of the Treasury Privacy Act
      https://home.treasury.gov/footer/privacy-act

      US Department of the Treasury Directive 25-08

      https://home.treasury.gov/about/general-information/orders-and-directives/td25-08

      News article "Elon Musk vows to cancel grants after gaining access to US Treasury payment system" http://www.ft.com accessed Feb 3 2025 1231PM CET
      https://www.ft.com/content/27ba0a6a-0d9b-4e08-8329-730b581c0481

       

       

       

       

       

       

  4. It seems to be a growing reality that time spent trying to affect the OD is misplaced. Elon Musk just got the keys to the Treasury. He has NO loyalty to this nation!!  Whoever cannot see this travesty, doesn't want to see it.

    1. If local elections were in even years, people like Coffman or his minions wouldn’t be in power. They take advantage of very low turnout, voter apathy and that old bored Republicans are really the ones that bother to show up. For Chaffee county for example (which used to be a purplish-red county), Democrats swept most county and muncipal races back in November. If local elections took place in odd years like 2023, that probably would of not happened. But I also acknowledge that local personalities and candidates can more easily sidestep partisan issues. Incumbency also does a lot of heavy lifting for hyperlocal candidates, even I made the mistake of voting for GOPers in my local muncipal elections back in 2021 and a little in 2023. 

  5. The tariffs thing is bad, I know this isn't a hot take or anything but recently got news that affects one of my favorite hobbies: reading graphic novels and comic. Many of those books are printed or imported from Canada and now they will be marked up like never before if even imported in the first place. Even when trying to escape from politics and enjoy hobbies, it arrives anyway. I hate this. I didn't like Biden but the peace of mind of just doing my own thing knowing I won't get screwed by simply liking to read or doing anything really was great. Pardon my language but fuck Trump and his enablers. They never cared about the economy or freedom.

  6. Looks like Musk may be preparing to implement his own idea of a “Final Solution”.  He really is turning into a classic Bond villian.

    White House puts USAID officials on leave after they refused Musk allies access. “USAID is a criminal organization,” he added. “Time for it to die.”’

    The Trump administration has removed two top security officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development, the world’s largest provider of food assistance, after they refused to let representatives of Elon Musk access restricted material. The move gives Musk and his allies control of the agency, which they have denigrated without evidence.

  7. "Musk's Little Green Men". Josh Marshall at TPM

    One of my and our central points of interest is the identity of these “Musk operatives” who are actually doing these things we’re hearing about throughout the federal and especially the top administrative agencies (OPM, OMB, GAO, etc.). … This article is a key read. Who are these guys? They’re generally between 19 and 24 years of age, often college dropouts who left to go into tech and various kinds of algorithmic financial trading, in most cases interns at Thiel’s or Musk’s companies, at least one “Thiel fellow.”

    In other words, hard right, techno-red-pilled bros, who now have access to things like your social security checks (whether you get them or not), your financial and, likely in some cases, medical records and at least the ability to shut down whole sections of the federal government at will by simply turning off their funding spigots. (Not good!) It sounds crazy and absurd to think that individual people could have that kind of power absent anything the law recognizes. But this is what it means when you’re this far up (or down, choose your metaphor) in the brain stem of the national government. This is what it means when you have access to the central Treasury Department payment network. You can simply turn off a spigot of funding. (I’ve now had it described to me precisely how you do it.) If you have that access, whether it’s legal or not isn’t relevant. The best analogy I can provide is that there’s some person at your bank who could just change a setting and suddenly all your checks and payments would be rejected and your funds would be frozen. Now imagine if “you” is NIH or USAID or … well, Social Security.

  8. Agricultural workers in north east Colorado are being disappeared, according to Project Promotora, which has a mission to aid ag workers and preserve the food supply.

    ICE, or people representing themselves as ice agents, are showing up at Walmart, on the roads that workers travel in the trailer parks they live in. And they are picking people up. Sometimes they have warrants for people who do have a criminal record. But this is not the bulk of who they’re picking up they’re just looking for undocumented folks.

    .

    These “ICe agents”  are driving in gray SUVs with Wyoming plates. They say they are ice agents. But the ad workers, the people that work, the dairies and the meat plants and pick the vegetables. Those folks are being terrorized. They won’t even go out of their houses to shop for fear of being taken away, so local churches like the Unitarian church are bringing them boxes of food. Call Project Protect Promotiora Network or the CIRC Rapid Response Networkif you want to help. 

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