William Lindsey :toad:
"'Coup' is the correct way to label the transformation of government we are living through. But with so much continuing normally, it’s easy to doubt what you’re seeing. ...
This isn’t a coup with tanks in the streets and mobs overrunning government offices. It’s a quieter coup, a billionaires’ coup."
~ Joyce Vance
William Lindsey :toad:
"What we are witnessing is an unconstitutional seizure of power unfolding so rapidly that, by design, the public and media cannot keep up. ...
Musk’s team now has the ability to halt a vast range of payments to individual Americans, federal agencies, government contractors, and countless others."
~ Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern
#Musk #Trump #coup #billionaires #EconomicElites
/2
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/02/elon-musk-power-grab-trump-coup.html
William Lindsey :toad:
"Of course it’s a coup. Miss the obvious, lose your republic. …
A coup is underway, against Americans as possessors of human rights and dignities, and against Americans as citizens of a democratic republic. Each hour this goes unrecognized makes the success of the coup more likely."
~ Timothy Snyder
William Lindsey :toad:
"Far from representing a majority, Musk is unelected, and he is slashing through the government programs he opposes. With full control of both chambers of Congress, Republicans could cut those parts themselves, but such cuts would be too unpopular ever to pass. So, instead, Musk is single-handedly slashing through the government Americans have built over the past 90 years."
William Lindsey :toad:
"MAGA Republicans in charge of the government have made it clear they intend to get rid of that government once and for all. ...
Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency is the logical outcome of the mentality that the government should not enable Americans to create wealth but rather should put cash in the pockets of a few elites."
~ Heather Cox Richardson
William Lindsey :toad:
(continued from /4):
"which directly control and pay out roughly 95% of payments made by the U.S. government, including Social Security checks, tax refunds and virtually all contract payments. ...
The changes that have been made all seem to relate to creating new paths to block payments and possibly leave less visibility into what has been blocked."
William Lindsey :toad:
“This is a test case of the rule of law. If they can destroy an agency without any act of Congress, bring the workers home, if that is done without a massive pushback, political and legal, and if Republicans go along with it, they’re basically saying, ‘You can do anything you want.’"
~ David Pepper
William Lindsey :toad:
"Overnight, Wired reported that, contrary to published reports that DOGE operatives at the Treasury Department are limited to 'read only' access to department payment systems, this is not true. A 25-year-old DOGE operative named Marko Elez in fact has admin privileges on these critical systems,"
~ Josh Marshall
#Musk #Trump #coup #billionaires #EconomicElites
/4
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/musk-cronies-dive-into-treasury-dept-payments-code-base
William Lindsey :toad:
"He has declared that he will use this authority to simply stop payments for government-funded groups and services that he [dis]likes. ...
While we debate the meaning of 'constitutional crisis' versus 'coup,' the thing is happening right before our eyes."
William Lindsey :toad:
Parker Molloy on why WIRED;s coverage is so important:
"When an unelected billionaire is seizing control of government agencies, we need reporters willing to show exactly how it's happening. We need outlets that will dig past the press releases and official statements to expose the actual machinery of this takeover. Most of all, we need journalism that isn't afraid to call things what they are."
#Musk #Trump #coup #billionaires #EconomicElites #media
/16
https://www.readtpa.com/p/when-it-comes-to-covering-musks-government
William Lindsey :toad:
"Musk's current actions — nullifying the rule of law, bypassing Congress, introducing financial instability — are aligned with prescriptions outlined in Project Russia [the Kremlin plan to collapse democracy], which include replacing democracy with a supranational monarchy led by an enlightened prince-king. Project Russia also includes plans to collapse the global economy, especially the dollar."
~ Dave Troy
#Musk #Trump #coup #billionaires #EconomicElites #Putin
/17
https://america2.news/america-under-attack-week-2-what-were-monitoring/
William Lindsey :toad:
"CIA: The CIA offered dubious deferred retirements to its entire workforce.
GSA: Trump and Musk have demanded the termination of the approximately 7,500 government office leases around the country.
NOAA: Doge staffers enter Noaa headquarters and incite reports of cuts and threats.
NSF: The National Science Foundation is planning to layoff from one-quarter to one-half of its staff."
~ David Kurtz
#Musk #Trump #coup #billionaires #EconomicElites
/15
https://morningmemo.talkingpointsmemo.com/p/a-full-blown-constitutional-crisis
William Lindsey :toad:
"At the same time that they are hoovering up this data, public data sources are being shut down.
More data for Musk, less for the public.
It is not just that they have access to data. Reports are saying that Musk employees can alter the code on the US payment system, and indeed have already done so without extensive testing."
William Lindsey :toad:
"You say: they shutdown USAID.
You mean: they illegally broke in to a secure facility over a weekend, hijacked sensitive data on vulnerable people and US businesses, destroyed property Americans paid for, cut off resources for hungry families, and fired Americans."
~ Loren DeJonge Schulman quoted by Greg Dworkin
William Lindsey :toad:
"At last count, Musk employees have control over sensitive student aid data, small business administration data, federal employee data (including data from job applicants), social security and tax refund data, and are seeking data from the Department of Labor (think the Bureau of Labor Statistics), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Data (weather data)."
~ Don Moynihan
#Musk #Trump #coup #billionaires #EconomicElites
/13
https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/meditations-in-an-emergency
William Lindsey :toad:
"Occupy the place, disrupt operations, get rid of everyone who knows what they are doing, bring your own lackeys, and tear everything down – starting with simply not paying for anything you, based on little more than grievance and a completely uninformed hunch, don’t think is cool."
William Lindsey :toad:
"Elon Musk is currently executing his own side coup that is distinct from both Project 2025 as well as the nativist crusade. If he is following a playbook, it might be similar to what he did when he took over Twitter in late 2022:"
~ Thomas Zimmer
#Musk #Trump #coup #billionaires #EconomicElites
/10
https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/maga-feeding-frenzy-has-caused-a
William Lindsey :toad:
"Friends,
It’s a coup. …
The choice right now is democracy or dictatorship (or if you’d rather use the term fascism, go right ahead). And we are sliding faster than I ever thought possible into the latter."
~ Robert Reich
#Musk #Trump #coup #billionaires #EconomicElites #media
/18
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/this-is-what-dictatorship-looks-like
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