#Benefits Of Data Protection Policy

[sublimecandysoul]

The Benefits Of Implementing A Data Protection Policy

[asgardian--angels]

**URGENT** HELP SAVE THE USGS BEE LAB!

PLEASE circulate this as widely as possible, as soon as possible.

Hi all, you may not know me but I am a native bee researcher in the eastern US. People like me work to study and protect the 3600 species of native bees in North America, many of which are in severe decline.

We just received devastating news, that unfortunately was not surprising. The Trump administration's proposed 2026 budget is set to defund most of the ecological research happening at the USGS, and that includes zeroing out the budget for the USGS Native Bee Inventory & Monitoring Lab.

Don't know them? Maybe you've seen stunning photos like this:

These gorgeous and evocative focus-stacked photos of native bees on black backgrounds - all of which are public domain - come from the USGS Bee Lab (here's their Flickr). Through these, they've helped bring the beauty and importance of native bees to the public's attention. Hundreds if not thousands of news articles, videos, and publications use these photos.

But that is just one tiny slice of what the USGS Bee Lab does for pollinator conservation. Its primary role is much bigger; they provide technical support, research collaborations, and financial & grant partnerships to federal and state agencies, academic institutions and researchers, and much more, so we can study, manage, and protect North America's wild pollinators. They conduct research of their own that has led to species rediscoveries, and produce invaluable resources that have greatly advanced our understanding of wild bees and our approaches to studying and conserving them. They also provide the essential and irreplaceable service of bee identification. For those who don't know, identifying bees is hard. Sometimes Really Hard. And this lab is one of just a handful of places in the entire country who can identify some of the toughest groups of bees, and who sit on the forefront of breakthroughs on taxonomy and identification that the rest of us in this field rely on. Without this service, agencies and researchers trying to survey and monitor bees in order to track population declines, manage land, and get policy changed are stuck with a lot of nameless bees, severely limiting the usefulness of that data.

Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of bee specimens pass through this lab annually, plus the thousands in permanent storage, from long-term monitoring efforts by state and federal agencies, and researchers like myself. They operate at a greater capacity than basically any other institution doing this kind of work. Few if any bee researchers in the eastern US, or even the country, have not benefitted from this lab's work, and those benefits are passed on to you through being able to protect pollinators and the services they provide both in agriculture and ecosystems.

This lab is headed up by scientist Sam Droege, who has dedicated decades of his life to this cause, and whom I consider not just a research partner but, humbly, a friend. I am utterly indebted to him for helping me get my start in this field, and for the support and kindness he has shown me and every other young professional who is passionate about pollinators. The Lab operates with an insanely small budget already, and a very limited staff, yet the impact they have is exponentially outsized. Losing the USGS Bee Lab would be a devastating blow to pollinator conservation in this country, at a time when native bee species are sitting on the precipice, and sustainable agriculture is non-negotiable for our future.

You can read more about the Bee Lab here. The Lab is not well-publicized, but it's a lifeline for the many dedicated people who work to try and protect pollinators and the environment at large.

SO WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Sam Droege has sent out a request for help, and has encouraged us to post on social media. This is what he wants you to do to help us save the Bee Lab.

This is verbatim:

What is Happening: ·       The USGS Bee Lab is at risk of being permanently closed due to cuts in the 2026 Federal Budget and looming federal RIF’s ·       Specifically, the Ecosystem Mission Area (EMA) budget, which funds the USGS Bee Lab and the Eastern Ecological Science center has been zeroed out ·       Thousands of layoffs to hit Interior, National Parks imminently - Government Executive What you can do ·       Write to your representatives, the White House, and the Department of the Interior that they should restore the funding for the USGS Bee Lab ·       Send digital or physical letters, write emails, post to social media What you should be highlighting: ·       Personal anecdotes about how the Bee Lab has impacted you or your organization ·       How important the research the Bee Lab is conducting is to your state Contact Information: 1.      Representatives: Find Your Representative | house.gov 2.      Senators: U.S. Senate: Contacting U.S. Senators 3.      White House: Contact Us – The White House 4.      Interior: feedback@ios.doi.gov Send a copy of the letter to droegesam@gmail.com Pass this email around.  Post your response to social media

IT'S OK if you are not a scientist and have not directly interacted with the Bee Lab. Have you seen the lab's photos? Are you concerned about native pollinator declines? Are you aware of any pollinator conservation initiatives or policies in your own state - those almost certainly have drawn, directly or indirectly, from work the Lab has done. Speak about American food production and agriculture, how the Lab's research and collaborations are essential to safeguarding pollination services (this might help reach across the aisle).

Sam urges that these letters, emails, phone calls, etc, must happen quickly - within the next couple days. This information went out on May 8th and that is the day I am posting this. So please, don't wait.

If 'save the bees' has ever meant anything to you, this is the agency that is playing one of the biggest roles in this country in making that happen. Please, contact your representatives, and pass this call to action along however you can. Thank you.

[yeah-yeah-beebiss-1]

y’know, the more i think about it, the more i realize that the knee-jerk “we need copyright law to protect The Artists from AI” reaction around AI illustration feels like the intellectual property equivalent of the ��temporarily embarrassed millionaire” mentality

you see people supporting policies that serve against their economic interests out of the delusion that the american dream is real and they’re ever going to be wealthy enough to benefit from those policies

in the same vein, i feel like some artists talk as if stronger copyright law enforcement would benefit them in light of the advent of AI illustration, when it exists solely to protect the interests of massive rights-holding conglomerates who have the capital required to actively utilize it

in other words, you are not lars ulrich, the current infrastructure will not protect you, and stronger copyright enforcement would let warner bros. call a drone strike on you for selling Our Flag Means Death fanart on etsy long, long before it would stop AI models from adding your art to their massive pool of reference data

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Trump can’t do ANYTHING for his base

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in PITTSBURGH on THURSDAY (May 15) at WHITE WHALE BOOKS, and in PDX on Jun 20 at BARNES AND NOBLE with BUNNIE HUANG. More tour dates (London, Manchester) here.

Trump's coalition includes a huge number of people who will suffer terribly from his policies, but who voted for him anyway. Trumpism requires that he find ways to keep those Christmas-voting turkeys happy, or at least distracted.

Trump's go-to move for keeping his base happy is inflicting pain on people they hate, like immigrants, racialized people, queers and women. That goes a long way, obviously: there's a kind of person who can be distracted from their own deteriorating material condition by the spectacle of cruel treatment for their enemies.

But Trumpism can't just run on sadism. There's a lot of people who enjoy the sadism, but not so much that it cancels out their own rage at their deteriorating personal conditions. Trump's main tactic is to blame the suffering of his base on the rest of us: "radical leftists," "wokeism" and other hobgoblins of the small-minded. That, too, has its limits – especially when Trump controls Congress, the courts, the senate and the White House. Obviously, Trump isn't above blaming his own people for being traitors (e.g., by sending a literal noose-bearing lynch mob after his own vice president), but there are limits to this, even for Trump. If all the power-brokers in Trump's coalitions are branded as disloyal, cowardly, or traitorous, Trump will have no one left to do the actual work of advancing his agenda.

Ultimately, keeping Trump's base happy requires providing some form of material benefit to that base. Every authoritarian has a version of this – like the cash handouts that Poland's former far-right government gave out:

https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/poland-model-promoting-family-values-cash-handouts

For Trump, this presents a problem: because he represents the interests of exploitation, extraction and looting, everything nice that he gives to everyday people in his base potentially gores the ox of someone who really matters to him. It's no surprise, for example, that he reversed Biden's price-cuts for Big Pharma's most expensive drugs – the cheaper drugs are for sick people, the less profitable they'll be for pharma companies:

https://www.levernews.com/trump-already-disarmed-the-war-on-drug-prices/

Luckily (for Trump), Biden's consumer protection and antitrust agencies teed up a long list of extremely good policies that would directly shift money from rich parasites to everyday people. For example, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau passed a rule that would make it very easy to find out which bank would charge you the least and pay you the most, and let you switch banks with one click:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/01/bankshot/#personal-financial-data-rights

It was a move that would have shifted $667m/year from banks to everyday people, every year, forever. But Trump's most important barons, like Elon Musk, hated the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau and insisted that it be shuttered, so that $667m/year will go to the banks after all – indeed, virtually all of the good things Biden's CFPB decreed the American public would enjoy henceforth have been destroyed. Sure, Trump would have liked to have taken credit for these, but the conflict between stolen valor and displeasing Shadow President Musk will always cash out in Musk's favor.

It's not just the CFPB. The FTC also set up a whole roster of ambitious projects to improve life for Americans. Some of these made the news in a big way, like the antitrust case against Meta:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/18/chatty-zucky/#is-you-taking-notes-on-a-criminal-fucking-conspiracy

Trump has lots of upsides from pursuing the Meta case. Everyone hates Meta products, including (especially) the people who are trapped using them because that's where their friends, family, communities, customers or audiences are. Breaking up Meta would be hugely popular with the American people. But also, once a court has convicted Meta of violating antitrust law, Trump can solicit favors – cash and favorable algorithmic treatment – from Meta in exchange for ordering his FTC to go easy on Meta in the "remedy phase," letting them off with a fine, rather than forcing them to spin out Whatsapp and Instagram:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/12/the-enemy-of-your-enemy/#is-your-enemy

But even if Trump lets Meta walk, there's plenty of great stuff Biden's FTC did that he could take credit for – policies that would help everyday people.

The most prominent of these is the FTC's "Click to Cancel" rule. It's a pretty simple rule: companies have to make it as easy to cancel a subscription as it was to sign up for it.

In other words, they can't do that thing – beloved of everything from the New York Times to every manosphere influencer's supplement business – where you can sign up for a subscription with one click, but you can't cancel unless you phone them, wait on hold, and beg them to let you off the hook.

Companies do this on purpose, because it's super profitable. Amazon executives carried on internal email threads where they straight up said that they'd deliberately made it confusingly easy to sign up for Prime and basically impossible to stop paying for it:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/03/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself/

This is a no-brainer. Companies make signing up for subscriptions into a greased slide, and they make canceling subscriptions into a greased pole.

No wonder, then, that when the FTC solicited public comments on a proposed "click to cancel" rule, they had no trouble building up the evidentiary record needed to pass the rule.

Now, Trump's FTC has announced that they are delaying enforcement of the rule until mid-July:

https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/10/ftc-delays-enforcement-of-click-to-cancel-rule/

This is the second time they've delayed enforcement (originally, the rule was supposed to go into effect in January). Trump FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson had no trouble getting the votes for the suspension, because he illegally fired the two Democratic Commissioners, Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter:

https://www.theverge.com/decoder-podcast-with-nilay-patel/657115/ftc-bedoya-slaughter-trump-fired-supreme-court-interview

Ferguson is proof that the FTC can't do anything material for Trump's base. Sure, he can set up a snitch-line so tht FTC employees can rat each other out for being "woke":

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/bedoya-statement-emergency-motion.pdf

This should be a slam dunk. It epitomizes the "unfair and deceptive" business practices Section 5 of the FTC Act empowers the agency to snuff out. The Trump admin is unwilling to gore the ox of out-and-out scammers, people who trick you into unkillable subscriptions. It seems that there's no material benefit that Trump's oligarch backers are willing to cede to working people. All they can offer is cruelty.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/12/greased-slide/#greased-pole

Image: Vis M (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Slide_at_Thenmala_deer_rehabilitation_center.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[dandelionsresilience]

Dandelion News - February 22-28

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735 or check out my Dandelion Doodles! (This month’s doodles will be a little delayed since I wasn’t able to work on them throughout the month)

1. City trees absorb much more carbon than expected

“[A new measurement technique shows that trees in LA absorb] up to 60% of daytime CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel combustion in spring and summer[….] Beyond offering shade and aesthetic value, these trees act as silent workhorses in the city’s climate resilience strategy[….]”

2. #AltGov: the secret network of federal workers resisting Doge from the inside

“Government employees fight the Trump administration’s chaos by organizing and publishing information on Bluesky[…. A group of government employees are] banding together to “expose harmful policies, defend public institutions and equip citizens with tools to push back against authoritarianism[….]””

3. An Ecuadorian hotspot shows how forests can claw back from destruction

“A December 2024 study described the recovery of ground birds and mammals like ocelots, and found their diversity and biomass in secondary forests was similar to those in old-growth forests after just 20 years. [… Some taxa recover] “earlier, some are later, but they all show a tendency to recover.””

4. Over 80 House Democrats demand Trump rescind gender-affirming care ban: 'We want trans kids to live'

“[89 House Democrats signed a letter stating,] "Trans young people, their parents and their doctors should be the ones making their health care decisions. No one should need to ask the President’s permission to access life-saving, evidence-based health care." "As Members of Congress, we stand united with trans young people and their families.”“

5. Boosting seafood production while protecting biodiversity

“A new study suggests that farming seafood from the ocean – known as mariculture – could be expanded to feed more people while reducing harm to marine biodiversity at the same time. […] “[… I]t’s not a foregone conclusion that the expansion of an industry is always going to have a proportionally negative impact on the environment[….]””

6. U.S. will spend up to $1 billion to combat bird flu, USDA secretary says

“The USDA will spend up to $500 million to provide free biosecurity audits to farms and $400 million to increase payment rates to farmers who need to kill their chickens due to bird flu[….] The USDA is exploring vaccines for chickens but is not yet authorizing their use[….]”

7. An Innovative Program Supporting the Protection of Irreplaceable Saline Lakes

“[… T]he program aims to provide comprehensive data on water availability and lake health, develop strategies to monitor and assess critical ecosystems, and identify knowledge gaps to guide future research and resource management.”

8. EU to unveil ​‘Clean Industrial Deal’ to cut CO2, boost energy security

“The bold plan aims to revitalize and decarbonize heavy industry, reduce reliance on gas, and make energy cheaper, cleaner, and more secure. […] By July, the EU said it will ​“simplify state aid rules” to ​“accelerate the roll-out of clean energy, deploy industrial decarbonisation and ensure sufficient capacity of clean-tech manufacturing” on the continent.”

9. Oyster Restoration Investments Net Positive Returns for Economy and Environment

“Researchers expect the restored oyster reefs to produce $38 million in ecosystem benefits through 2048. “This network protects nearly 350 million oysters[….]” [NOAA provided] $14.9 million to expand the sanctuary network to 500 acres by 2026 […] through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.”

10. Nations back $200 billion-a-year plan to reverse nature losses

“More than 140 countries adopted a strategy to mobilize hundreds of billions of dollars a year to help reverse dramatic losses in biodiversity[….] A finance strategy adopted to applause and tears from delegates, underpins "our collective capacity to sustain life on this planet," said Susana Muhamad[….]”

February 15-21 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Sign of the Day - Boston again… another great overpass banner sign there….

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

June 4, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Jun 04, 2025

Just hours after President Donald J. Trump posted on social media yesterday that “[b]ecause of Tariffs, our Economy is BOOMING!” a new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said the opposite. Founded in 1961, the OECD is a forum in which 38 market-based democracies cooperate to promote sustainable economic growth.

The OECD’s economic outlook reports that economic growth around the globe is slowing because of Trump’s trade war. It projects global growth slowing from 3.3% in 2024 to 2.9% in 2025 and 2026. That economic slowdown is concentrated primarily in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and China.

The OECD predicts that growth in the United States will decline from 2.8% in 2024 to 1.6% in 2025 and 1.5% in 2026.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released two analyses today of Trump’s policies that add more detail to that report. The CBO’s estimate for the effect of Trump’s current tariffs—which are unlikely to stay as they are—is that they will raise inflation and slow economic growth as consumers bear their costs. The CBO says it is hard to anticipate how the tariffs will change purchasing behavior, but it estimates that the tariffs will reduce the deficit by $2.8 trillion over ten years.

Also today, the CBO’s analysis of the Republicans’ “One Big, Beautiful Bill” is that it will add $2.4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade because the $1.2 trillion in spending cuts in the measure do not fully offset the $3.7 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. Republicans have met this CBO score with attacks on the CBO, but its estimate is in keeping with those of a wide range of economists and think tanks.

Taken together, these studies illustrate how Trump’s economic policies are designed to transfer wealth from consumers to the wealthy and corporations. From 1981 to 2021, American policies moved $50 trillion from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%. After Biden stopped that upward transfer, the Trump administration is restarting it again, on steroids.

Just how these policies are affecting Americans is no longer clear, though. Matt Grossman of the Wall Street Journal reported today that economists no longer trust the accuracy of the government’s inflation data. Officials from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which compiles a huge monthly survey of employment and costs, told economists that staffing shortages and a hiring freeze have forced them to cut back on their research and use less precise methods for figuring out price changes. Grossman reports that the bureau has also cut back on the number of places where it collects data and that the administration has gotten rid of committees of external experts that worked to improve government statistics.

There is more than money at stake in the administration’s policies. The administration's gutting of the government seeks to decimate the modern government that regulates business, provides a basic social safety net, promotes infrastructure, and protects civil rights and to replace it with a government that permits a few wealthy men to rule.

The CBO score for the Republicans’ omnibus bill projects that if it is enacted, 16 million people will lose access to healthcare insurance over the next decade in what is essentially an assault on the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The bill also dramatically cuts Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Plan (SNAP) benefits, clean energy credits, aid for student borrowers, benefits for federal workers, and consumer protection services, while requiring the sale of public natural resources.

These cuts continue those the administration has made since Trump took office, many of which fell under the hand of the “Department of Government Efficiency.” But, while billionaire Elon Musk was the figurehead for that group, it appears his main interest was in collecting data. His understudy, Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought, appears to have determined the direction of the cuts, which did not save money so much as decimate the parts of the government that the authors of Project 2025 wanted to destroy.

Vought was a key author of Project 2025, whose aim is to disrupt and destroy the United States government in order to center a Christian, heteronormative, male-dominated family as the primary element of society. To do so, the plan calls for destroying the administrative state, withdrawing the United States from global affairs, and ending environmental and business regulations.

Yesterday the White House asked Congress to cancel $9.4 billion in already-appropriated spending that the Department of Government Efficiency identified as wasteful, a procedure known as “rescission.” Trump aides say the money funds programs that promote what they consider inappropriate ideologies, including public media networks PBS and NPR; the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which provides food and basic medical care globally; and PEPFAR, the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief that was established under President George W. Bush to combat HIV/AIDS in more than 50 countries and is currently credited with saving about 26 million lives.

Vought appeared today before the House Appropriations Committee, where members scolded him for neglecting to provide a budget for the year, which they need to do their jobs. But Vought had plenty to say about the things he is doing. According to ProPublica’s Andy Kroll, he claimed that under Biden “every agency became a tool of the Left.” He said the White House will continue to ask for rescissions, but also noted that, as Project 2025 laid out, he does not believe that the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, which requires the executive branch to spend the money that Congress has appropriated, is constitutional, despite court decisions saying it is.

Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) told Vought: “Be honest, this is never about government efficiency. In fact, an efficient government, a government that capably serves the American people and proves good government is achievable is what you fear the most. You want a government so broken, so dysfunctional, so starved of resources, so full of incompetent political lackeys and bereft of experts and professionals that its departments and agencies cannot feasibly achieve the goals and the missions to which they are lawfully directed. Your goal is privatization, for the biggest companies to have unchecked power, for an economy that does not work for the middle class, for working and vulnerable families. You want the American people to have no one to turn to, but to the billionaires and the corporations this administration has put in charge. Waste, fraud, and abuse are not the targets of this administration. They are your primary objectives.”

The use of the government to impose evangelical beliefs on the country, even at the expense of lives, also appears to be an administration goal. Yesterday, the administration announced it is ending the Biden administration’s 2022 guidance to hospital emergency rooms that accept Medicare—which is virtually all of them—requiring that under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act they must perform an abortion in an emergency if the procedure is necessary to prevent a patient’s organ failure or severe hemorrhaging. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act requires emergency rooms to stabilize patients.

The Trump administration will no longer enforce that policy. Last year, an investigation by the Associated Press found that even when the Biden administration policy was being enforced, dozens of pregnant women, some of whom needed emergency abortions, were turned away from emergency rooms with advice to “let nature take its course.”

Finally tonight, in what seems likely to be an attempt to distract attention from the omnibus bill and all the controversy surrounding it, Trump banned Harvard from hosting foreign students. He also banned nationals from a dozen countries—Afghanistan, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen—from entering the United States, an echo of the travel ban of his first term that threw the country into chaos.

Trump justified his travel ban by citing the attack Sunday in Boulder, Colorado, on peaceful demonstrators marching to support Israeli hostages in Gaza. An Egyptian national who had overstayed a tourist visa hurled Molotov cocktails at the marchers, injuring 15 people.

Egypt is not on the list of countries whose nationals Trump has banned from the United States.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[rjzimmerman]

Grist doesn't have a paywall, so if you want to read this story, just do the click/tap routine on the caption. The story is long, informative and important. I never considered how integrated our food system has to be (and has been) and how destructive trump's approach is.

Excerpt from this Grist story:

Despite its widespread perception, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is involved in much more than farming. The federal agency, established in 1862, is made up of 29 subagencies and offices and just last year was staffed by nearly 100,000 employees. It has an annual budget of hundreds of billions of dollars. Altogether it administers funding, technical support, and regulations for: international trade, food assistance, forest and grasslands management, livestock rearing, global scientific research, economic data, land conservation, rural housing, disaster aid, water management, startup capital, crop insurance, food safety, and plant health. 

In just about 100 days, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins have significantly constrained that breadth of work. 

Since Trump’s inauguration, the inner workings of the agency have been in a constant state of flux — thousands of staffers were terminated only to be temporarily reinstated; entire programs have been stripped down; and a grant freeze crippled state, regional, and local food systems that rely on federal funding. 

What’s more, the USDA has broadly scrapped Biden-era equity and climate resilience scoring criteria from dozens of programs across multiple subagencies by banning language like “people of color” and “climate change,” and tightened eligibility requirements for food benefits. The agency has also announced the cancellation of environmental protections against logging to ramp up timber production, escalated trade tensions with Mexico, eradicated food safety processes like limiting salmonella levels in raw poultry, and begun rolling back worker protections in meat processing plants.  

In order to report on the full scope of the downstream impacts of these actions, Grist interviewed farmers, food businesses, and agricultural nonprofits across seven states about what the first 100 days of the administration has looked like for them. Nearly all of them told Grist that the agriculture department’s various funding cuts and decisions, as well as the moves to shrink its workforce capacity, have changed how much trust they have in the agency — and, by extension, the federal government. 

Food policy analysts and experts throughout the nation also told Grist that this swift transformation of the USDA is unprecedented.

“Multiple parts of our food systems are now under attack,” said Teon Hayes, a policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy. At the same time, food prices and overall costs of living are continuing to rise. The result, she fears, will be escalating hunger and poverty, which will “come at the expense of Black and brown communities, immigrants, and other historically marginalized groups.”

Elizabeth Lower-Basch, who served on the USDA Equity Commission during the Biden administration, called the decisions made by the USDA in the last 100 days “deeply disheartening” and “unprecedented, even when you compare it to the last Trump administration.” 

It is of significant consequence to note that the money being withheld from grant programs isn’t merely not being spent. Experts say the agency is taking support away from local and regional food systems while at the same time showering industrial agricultural operations with billions of dollars, eliminating nutrition safety nets, and rolling back environmental protections. How will this change the fabric of the nation’s food supply? 

As Rollins and Trump charge forward in undoing how the federal government has long supported those who grow and sell our food, and climate change continues to deepen inequities and vulnerabilities in that very supply chain, one thing is obvious: The USDA, and the communities that rely on it, won’t look the same once they’re done.

[accountability-movement]

I've compiled everything I could find on who is leading this coup and why. PLEASE READ!

Introduction

Democracies do not collapse overnight, nor do they always fall to military force. Sometimes, they erode from within, their institutions hollowed out by those who seek to replace democratic governance with personal power. In the United States, a systematic purge of career civil servants is underway, targeting those who simply followed the law under previous administrations. The president has declared his refusal to enforce laws he dislikes, and Congress stands by, enabling this erosion of democracy through inaction. Meanwhile, unelected billionaires, particularly in the tech sector, are consolidating their power, using economic dominance to exert unprecedented political control.

Those resisting this transformation are being removed from government, while those who facilitate it are rewarded with influence over critical federal functions. What we are witnessing is not just a shift in policy or ideology; it is an orchestrated attack on the foundational principles of democratic governance. The United States is shifting from a government by the people to one controlled by private interests, operating outside the constraints of law and accountability.

Meanwhile, the tech elite, with unprecedented access to the White House, are transforming their economic power into political domination. Elon Musk's associates have gained access to crucial government databases, controlling trillions in federal funds and personal data. Peter Thiel-backed firms are securing lucrative defense contracts, embedding themselves deep within national security structures. Social media executives and billionaire owned media channels have been manipulating discourse by selectively amplifying or suppressing political narratives that benefit their corporate interests, effectively shaping public opinion and policy decisions. This unprecedented infiltration is turning Silicon Valley’s economic dominance into direct political control, further eroding democratic governance.

Those brave enough to resist are being removed, while enablers are rewarded with expanded control over government functions. This is not just political maneuvering—we are witnessing the deliberate dismantling of constitutional democracy.

The difference between legitimate policy disagreements and what we are facing now is stark. Disagreeing on taxation or immigration policy is part of democratic debate. But refusing to enforce laws, purging civil servants for upholding legal mandates, and allowing private entities to seize control of government functions is not just politics—it is an outright attack on governance itself.

A Warning From Our Forefathers

Every American who has ever fought to preserve democracy—from the battlefields of Gettysburg to the beaches of Normandy—did so with the belief that future generations would safeguard the nation’s foundational principles. The sacrifices of these patriots were made to protect a government that serves the people, not one ruled by unchecked personal power.

James Madison wrote: "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."

George Washington said: "The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism."

Benjamin Franklin believed that: "In free governments, the rulers are the servants, and the people their superiors and sovereigns."

John Jay warned "The executive is the branch of power most interested in war and most prone to it; therefore, it must be restrained by the other branches."

Harry Truman warned "When even one American—who has done nothing wrong—is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril."

President Obama made it clear: "Democracy does not require uniformity. Our founders argued. They quarreled. They eventually compromised. They expected us to do the same."

Today, we are watching the systematic subversion of constitutional governance. Career officials are being forced out, government functions are being taken over by private individuals, and Congress is abandoning its responsibilities. These actions threaten everything our democracy stands for.

It is understandable that many hesitate to acknowledge what is happening. Accepting the reality of an ongoing coup is frightening. However, we must confront the facts: Donald Trump and Elon Musk are orchestrating a systematic takeover of the federal government, using illegal means to consolidate power. They are violating civil service protections, dismantling congressionally mandated agencies without authority, and purging public servants based on ideology rather than lawfulness.

This is an emergency that demands urgent action from every American who values democracy. The window for effective resistance narrows with each passing day.

The Transformation of Government into Private Power

The American Constitution is more than just a framework for governance—it is the greatest experiment in self-rule through law and reason rather than brute force. The Founders built a system designed to prevent any one individual from amassing unchecked power. They created a structure in which democratic institutions, not personal authority, would shape national decisions.

Now, we are watching as this system is methodically dismantled. The checks and balances that safeguard our democracy—civil service protections, congressional oversight, and institutional integrity—are being stripped away, not by revolution but by a calculated strategy of institutional capture.

Treasury Systems Seized: A 25-year-old Musk employee took control of the U.S. Treasury’s payment system, effectively managing $5.5 trillion in government spending—including IRS refunds, Medicare, and Social Security payments—without oversight. This also granted him and his colleagues access to our Social Security numbers and our tax records.

Federal Employee Purges: Musk and his allies have expanded their ideological purges into the CIA and FBI, removing officials who played roles in prosecuting January 6 rioters.

Agency Closures: Musk has moved to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, despite Congress controlling its funding.

Deportation Policies: Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced El Salvador’s offer to house deportees and imprisoned Americans in a "mega-prison." Its prison system has been widely criticized for torture, arbitrary detentions, and abuse. Outsourcing U.S. deportees and incarcerated citizens to a foreign prison with documented human rights violations could lead to severe mistreatment and loss of legal protections, setting a dangerous precedent for the U.S. justice system.

This is not theoretical—it is happening in real time. The government is being reshaped into a tool that benefits the wealthiest elite, at the expense of democracy itself.

The Role of "Unhumans" and the Justification for Authoritarianism

A key element of this takeover is the ideological justification found in the book Unhumans: The Secret History of Communist Revolutions by Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec. This book, endorsed by figures such as JD Vance, Steve Bannon, Donald Trump Jr., and Tucker Carlson, openly dehumanizes the political left, labeling them as "unhuman" and advocating for their removal from society.

JD Vance, our vice-president, endorsed Unhumans, stating:

"In the past, communists marched in the streets waving red flags. Today, they march through HR, college campuses, and courtrooms to wage lawfare against good, honest people. In Unhumans, Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec reveal their plans and show us what to do to fight back."

The book explicitly praises authoritarian leaders like Francisco Franco and Augusto Pinochet for their suppression of leftist movements and suggests that similar measures may be necessary.

The Tactics They Advocate

Unhumans lays out a clear strategy for eliminating democratic opposition:

Public Humiliation and Ridicule – Use shame, disgrace, and harassment to undermine political opponents.

Creation of Blacklists – Target individuals in academia, media, and government to be exposed and removed from positions of influence.

Rejection of Democratic Processes – Suggest alternative means to securing power beyond elections.

Advocacy for Capital Punishment – Argue for executing political opponents as seen in historical authoritarian regimes.

Promotion of Righteous Violence – Justify the use of force against "unhumans."

Support for Vigilantism – Encourage private action outside legal channels to target opposition.

Suppression of Opposing Ideologies – Use censorship and coercion to silence dissent.

Encouragement of Political Persecution – Employ legal and extralegal methods to eliminate political threats.

The Butterfly Revolution: How Big Tech Will Dismantle Our Democracy

The term "Butterfly Revolution" has recently been associated with a proposed strategy to dismantle the U.S. government and replace it with a corporate-style autocracy. This concept is linked to Curtis Yarvin, a political theorist known for advocating the replacement of democratic institutions with a CEO-led governance model. 

The plan envisions a "reboot" of the American government, discarding democratic institutions in favor of a system that mirrors a techno-monarchy, where technology leaders hold significant power.

Here are the 7 Major Steps the Butterfly Revolution recommends to dismantle democracy:

Step 1: Campaign on Autocracy: They tell the public democracy is broken and that the only way forward is strongman rule. Trump, Vance, and their billionaire backers openly reject democracy and promise to “take power back” from voters, courts, and Congress. Thiel, Musk, and others have publicly stated their opposition to democracy. Trump’s “Freedom Cities” and Yarvin’s “Patchwork” plan both envision corporate city-states run by billionaire CEOs instead of elected officials. 

Step 2: Purge the Bureaucracy: They fire or replace government workers with loyalists to eliminate checks and balances. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has already embedded agents inside federal agencies, giving him direct power over government operations. DOGE is modeled after Yarvin’s RAGE (Rapid Administrative Government Euthanasia)—designed to gut the administrative state and centralize power. Federal workers who resist are fired, replaced, or silenced.

Step 3: Ignore the Courts: They treat the judiciary as irrelevant—refusing to obey rulings that block their agenda. Musk and Vance have already dismissed federal judges’ rulings against DOGE’s actions. JD Vance has publicly questioned whether the courts have any authority over the executive branch. Once the courts are powerless, the rule of law collapses. 

Step 4: Co-Opt the Congress: They bully, buy, or bypass lawmakers to eliminate legislative oversight. Thiel and his allies have poured billions into Trump’s campaign and other far-right candidates to ensure that Congress is filled with loyalists. If Congress resists, the executive circumvents them with executive orders and corporate-backed policymaking (via Musk’s DOGE). Once Congress stops being an independent check, democracy is over. 

Step 5: Centralize Police and Power: They replace local law enforcement with federalized, AI-driven policing. AI and surveillance tech—controlled by these billionaires—will enforce their rule instead of independent law enforcement. Federal police powers will be centralized under the executive branch—meaning they answer to Musk, Vance, and Trump, not local governments. Dissent will be criminalized—protests, strikes, and opposition groups will be labeled as threats to “national security.” 

Step 6: Shut Down Elite Media and Academic Institutions: They discredit, defund, and dismantle independent sources of knowledge. Musk already controls Twitter/X, which has become a propaganda machine. Media outlets that criticize the coup will be bought out, shut down, or discredited. Universities will face funding cuts and ideological purges—professors who resist will be fired or censored. Once they control the flow of information, resistance becomes much harder. 

Step 7: Turn Out the People: They mobilize a loyalist base to enforce their rule on the streets. Far-right militias, online extremists, and billionaire-backed “populist” groups will be used to intimidate opponents. Election protests, media boycotts, and AI-powered propaganda will keep the public divided and disoriented. The government will claim they have “the people” on their side—even as they suppress millions. 

The Endgame: Technofascism and Corporate Rule: Once these seven steps are complete, America will no longer be a democracy. Corporate overlords will own the government, manipulate elections, control the police, and rule through AI and surveillance. 

The coup is already in motion. 

What Has Been Done So Far?

Defiance of the Constitution:

Trump is overriding laws and Constitutional protections through executive orders that were designed to safeguard our democracy. Trump is openly bypassing Congress, ignoring judicial rulings, and using executive power to centralize control.

His attack on the 14th Amendment is an attack on American citizens. The 14th Amendment guarantees equal protection under the law, yet Trump is targeting marginalized communities, including immigrants, intersex, and transgender people—denying them rights that our Constitution guarantees.

He is erasing women’s contributions from history. Trump has ordered NASA to purge all mentions of women in leadership from its official websites, an obvious attempt to rewrite history and diminish women’s role in science and government.

He is silencing vital public health information. Trump has removed critical medical data from CDC websites, limiting public access to life-saving health information. Why is the government restricting access to medical knowledge?

He is using the presidency to promote Christian supremacy. Executive orders are being signed to fund Christian nationalist task forces with taxpayer money, in direct violation of the First Amendment’s separation of church and state. 

Elon Musk now has control over critical government software. He has direct access to Social Security numbers, tax records, and federal databases. This means he can train AI on every American’s personal data and manipulate government operations behind the scenes.

This jeopardizes our elections. If Musk controls the infrastructure, how can we ever trust that an election is fair again? Who is watching him?

Our entire government software may already be compromised. We do not know what Musk or his allies are doing behind closed doors, nor who they may sell this access to. Our entire digital infrastructure needs to be rewritten before it’s too late.

 Federal employees are being bullied and purged. Trump’s executive orders and Musk’s direct interference have created chaos, resulting in the wrongful firings of dedicated public servants and the deaths of innocent people in disasters like recent plane crashes. Trump shifted the blame to DEI policies, refusing to take responsibility for the consequences of reckless governance.

This Is About the 1% vs. the Rest of Us

This is not about left vs. right—this is about the wealthiest elite seizing control over our government at the expense of everyone else. Trump, Musk, and their billionaire allies are consolidating power, eroding democracy, and rigging the system to serve the ultra-rich while stripping rights away from ordinary people.

What Needs to Be Done NOW

Trump must be impeached before he further dismantles our institutions. 

Elon Musk must be investigated and held accountable for his control over government systems and potential data breaches. 

Congress must act immediately to stop this authoritarian takeover before it’s too late.

This is an organized corporate coup led by the wealthiest 1%, turning America into a billionaire-controlled dictatorship. The time for action is now.

What Can Be Done?

This is not a time for passive observation—action is required. Here’s what you can do:

Support Reliable Sources – Identify and follow media outlets committed to factual reporting.

Speak Out Against Broken Norms – Call out violations of democratic principles.

Organize Locally – Get involved with pro-democracy groups.

Attend Community Meetings – School boards and city councils are where grassroots power begins.

Contact Your Representatives – Demand accountability from lawmakers on appointees and legislation.

Here are some other resources to fight this coup and to gain more information:

“Dark Gothic MAGA” by Blonde Politics on YouTube breaks down podcasts, web seminars, and talks by wealthy elites where they talk about using this administration to achieve their agenda. It explains what the Butterfly Revolution is and how they plan on using it.

The ACLU – Is taking legal action against authoritarianism.

Contact your Senators! https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm

GET INVOLVED! The more people that understand what’s going on, the better. Tell your neighbors, your coworkers, your friends, family, and your local and state representatives. The only way to stop this is together!

The time to act is now. Start small, but do not stop. Democracy depends on the vigilance and engagement of its people. If we fail to resist this moment, we may not get another chance.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

Long Covid, the constellation of long-term health effects caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection, is a significant global health crisis affecting at least 400 million individuals worldwide, with a cost of $ 1 trillion, equivalent to 1% of the global Gross Domestic Product. Long Covid can affect nearly every organ system resulting in various symptoms including fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, post-exertional malaise, autonomic dysfunction, and chronic conditions including new onset diabetes, cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal and neurologic disorders. Long Covid can affect people across the lifespan and across age, race and ethnicity, and baseline health status.

Chinese scientists were among the first to report Long Covid in people who survived the acute phase of Covid-19. However, these early seminal Chinese studies on Long Covid were exclusively from Wuhan – where the pandemic originated. Because of China’s zero Covid policies, infection rates plummeted quickly in Wuhan and were very low and sporadic outside of Wuhan for much of 2020, 2021, and 2022. However, China relaxed its zero Covid policies at the end of 2022 which led to explosion of cases – hundreds of millions of Chinese got infected with SARS-CoV-2 in the weeks and months following the lifting of zero Covid policies.

Now a report by Qin and colleagues provides insights into the colossal scale of Long Covid that resulted from those infections. Their large-scale survey of 74,075 Chinese participants, one of the largest studies of its kind and the first from China, shows that approximately 10%–30% of survey participants reported experiencing Long Covid symptoms such as fatigue, memory decline, decreased exercise ability, and brain fog. The features of Long Covid in China mirror those observed in studies conducted in other parts of the world. This underscores the consistency of Long Covid features across national borders, cultures and healthcare settings.

Interestingly, the authors show that despite having milder acute symptoms during reinfection, participants who experienced multiple infections were more likely to experience various Long Covid symptoms with greater severity. The authors show that having two infections is risk factor for many long-term Covid symptoms, and the risk increased exponentially when the number of infections exceeded two. These new data on Long Covid risk after reinfection are remarkably consistent with prior studies.

Another critical insight from the study is the protective role of Covid-19 vaccines in reducing the incidence and severity of Long Covid. The data shows that vaccination, particularly with multiple booster shots, significantly decreases the risk of developing long-term symptoms. These findings are consistent with other studies showing that vaccines reduce the risk of Long Covid. Despite this, Covid-19 vaccine policies in much of the world consider effectiveness of vaccines in reducing risks of hospitalization and death during the acute phase of SARS-CoV-2 infection (which are most evident in older adults and people with comorbidities) and ignore their protective effect on Long Covid – a condition that affects people across the lifespan including young adults and children. Consequently, restrictive vaccine policies exclude children, young and healthy adults who may benefit from the beneficial effects of vaccine on Long Covid. Vaccine policies must holistically consider the benefit profile of Covid-19 vaccines including their effects in lowering the risk of Long Covid.

Looking forward, there are several key areas where Long Covid research must focus. There is an urgent need for comprehensive—and globally coordinated—Long Covid research strategy to understand the biological mechanisms, develop diagnostics, test therapeutics, characterize the long-term epidemiology and clinical course, evaluate health care delivery, and assess the impacts of Long Covid on patients, care givers, health systems, economies and societies.

Equally important are policies to prevent Long Covid; support impacted individuals and their care givers; and ensure access, quality and equity of care. Policies are also needed to promote public awareness and facilitate professional training for health care providers.

China, with its rich scientific history, is poised to contribute significantly to solving the puzzle of Long Covid. The international community must come together to identify areas of synergies in research, share data, resources, and expertise to accelerate progress on Long Covid. This includes fostering partnerships between governments, academic institutions, and the private sector, as well as engaging with patient advocacy groups to ensure that research is aligned with the needs and experiences of those affected by Long Covid.

The study by Qin and colleagues offers the first comprehensive view of the state of Long Covid in China. The findings are both sobering and illuminating. Long Covid is clearly a serious public health challenge in China, as it is globally. These insights underscore the urgent need for a coordinated international response to address this significant and growing crisis. The stakes are high. Yet, throughout history, humanity has risen to the challenge of solving complex problems. We must now face Long Covid with the same resolve, ingenuity, and collaborative spirit that have driven our greatest achievements.

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

Okay, so if you've been anywhere online recently, you may have come across Elon Musk bringing up the issue of grooming gangs that happened over a decade ago in the UK.

And as you can guess, it's a lot of misinformation, and I partly wanted to fact check it in a post out of anger but the other part didn't want to give the "Musk Manufactured News Agenda" oxygen.

However, I just came out of an online town hall on Zeteo (I'd really recommend subscribing to them) with Medhi Hasan and Nazir Afzal - who led the prosecutions for the grooming gangs and continues prosecuting people for this to this day - and I made some notes and I might as well share them:

For all Elon, his ilk and now the Tories calls for a national inquiry on this, we've already had one and several local enquiries as well. The inquiry done for Rotherham was completed in 2013, and the inquiry done on child sex abuse nationwide was completed in 2022.

Not only were the Tories in power when those inquiries were completed, the Tories also decided to implement none of the recommendations made in these reports.

Liz Truss is sat on Twitter talking about how shameful it is that the government are not doing anything, but that second report was completed before she lost to the lettuce.

Boris Johnson called these inquiries a waste of money.

Afzal gave evidence 14 years ago to the government and asked for research to be completed on why men in Muslim and/or Pakistani communities were committing these crimes and no research was completed.

As is, however, 88% of sex offending is committed by white men according to Afzal.

Also, data about ethnicities has not been consistently collected by police. This is once again something Afzal made recommendations on 10 years ago that has not been implemented.

Overall, we've had inquiries on this and the Tories did nothing with the results of them.

Neither Afzal nor David Greenwood (the solicitor for many of the victims) believe another inquiry is needed. They feel it is time to act on the past inquiries.

Hasan did ask Afzal about David Greenwood reporting seeing evidence of police collusion with the grooming gangs. Though Afzal didn't confirm that and rather blamed the failings on incompetence, he did say that if any inquiry is needed, it would be a police inquiry to investigate these claims.

On another note, Keir Starmer did not block prosecution of Jimmy Savile. Alison Levitt's 2013 report exonerates him.

Further, Afzal talked about how he and Keir Starmer had to change policy when it came to CSA and implemented many changes.

Afzal made it very clear that Keir Starmer has not done any of the things he's been accused of, especially not some kind of collusion with the gangs.

Afzal himself has had the same accusations levelled at him. About a decade ago, his home was attacked by the far right who believed him being a British-Pakistani Muslim on the side of prosecution meant that he was there to protect the perpetrators. It was only safe for his children to go to school in taxis.

At one point, Afzal said something along the lines of "These people are as far from Islam as you can imagine." in regards to the perpetrators.

The idea that this was brown men targeting white girls was put to bed by Afzal and Hasan during it. While brown girls are 3 times less likely to come forward, there were many brown victims.

Also talking about coming forward, in speaking with victims, Afzal found that many of the victims were not believed due to classism. Working class girls were routinely not believed by police or local prosecutors.

Elon has spoke a lot recently about Tommy Robinson, aka Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, and how he should be freed. Jordan Peterson called him a political prisoner and Elon's father compared him to Nelson Mandela. Afzal rightfully pointed out that Stephen nearly ruined two different trials for this with his antics that were considered jury intimidation. The only person who benefited from Stephen's action was him and his bottom line.

Afzal spoke a lot about the victims and how no one is speaking about them or caring about them. He mentioned how focussing on the race of the perpetrators only undermines the victims. I think it's a very important point.

Further, Afzal has spent a lot of this week speaking to the victims of these grooming gangs who have been finding themselves triggered by Elon's antics. Many of them feel like the recovery they've made so far has been pulled out from under them. These people have PTSD and Elon has triggered them as he acts with callous disregard.

TL/DR: We've had national inquiries on this topic and it's the Tories who have decided not to act on them, we do not need more and what Elon is doing is hurting the victims of the crimes he claims to care about.

[political-us]

The potential conflict of interest with Kash Patel owning shares in Shein while serving as FBI Director arises from the fact that Shein, a Chinese-founded fast fashion company, has faced U.S. government scrutiny over issues like forced labor, trade practices, and data security. Here’s why this could be problematic:

1. The FBI Investigates Foreign Influence & Economic Crimes: The FBI plays a key role in investigating foreign companies that pose national security risks, including companies linked to China. Shein has been accused of using forced labor in its supply chain and violating U.S. trade laws. If an investigation into Shein arose, Patel could interfere, delay, or deprioritize it to protect his financial interest.

2. Access to Sensitive Government Information: As FBI Director, Patel would have access to classified intelligence regarding Chinese businesses, cyber threats, and economic espionage. If Shein were under investigation, he could tip off the company or influence decision-making in a way that benefits his investment.

3. Government Policy & Business Regulation: The FBI collaborates with other agencies like the DOJ and FTC to enforce trade laws. Patel could use his position to influence policy decisions that affect Shein, such as lobbying against potential import bans or trade restrictions that could hurt the company’s business.

4. Public Trust & Ethics: High-ranking officials are expected to avoid conflicts that could compromise public trust in their decision-making. Even if Patel took no direct action, simply owning a stake in Shein while leading the FBI could create the appearance of bias, leading to concerns about fairness in law enforcement.

[mariacallous]

Anyone who has spent even 15 minutes on TikTok over the past two months will have stumbled across more than one creator talking about Project 2025, a nearly thousand-page policy blueprint from the Heritage Foundation that outlines a radical overhaul of the government under a second Trump administration. Some of the plan’s most alarming elements—including severely restricting abortion and rolling back the rights of LGBTQ+ people—have already become major talking points in the presidential race.

But according to a new analysis from the Technology Oversight Project, Project 2025 includes hefty handouts and deregulation for big business, and the tech industry is no exception. The plan would roll back environmental regulation to the benefit of the AI and crypto industries, quash labor rights, and scrap whole regulatory agencies, handing a massive win to big companies and billionaires—including many of Trump’s own supporters in tech and Silicon Valley.

“Their desire to eliminate whole agencies that are the enforcers of antitrust, of consumer protection is a huge, huge gift to the tech industry in general,” says Sacha Haworth, executive director at the Tech Oversight Project.

One of the most drastic proposals in Project 2025 suggests abolishing the Federal Reserve altogether, which would allow banks to back their money using cryptocurrencies, if they so choose. And though some conservatives have railed against the dominance of Big Tech, Project 2025 also suggests that a second Trump administration could abolish the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which currently has the power to enforce antitrust laws.

Project 2025 would also drastically shrink the role of the National Labor Relations Board, the independent agency that protects employees’ ability to organize and enforces fair labor practices. This could have a major knock on effect for tech companies: In January, Musk’s SpaceX filed a lawsuit in a Texas federal court claiming that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was unconstitutional after the agency said the company had illegally fired eight employees who sent a letter to the company’s board saying that Musk was a “distraction and embarrassment.” Last week, a Texas judge ruled that the structure of the NLRB—which includes a director that can’t be fired by the president—was unconstitutional, and experts believe the case may wind its way to the Supreme Court.

This proposal from Project 2025 could help quash the nascent unionization efforts within the tech sector, says Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Technology Innovation. “Tech, of course, relies a lot on independent contractors,” says West. “They have a lot of jobs that don't offer benefits. It's really an important part of the tech sector. And this document seems to reward those types of business.”

For emerging technologies like AI and crypto, a rollback in environmental regulations proposed by Project 2025 would mean that companies would not be accountable for the massive energy and environmental costs associated with bitcoin mining and running and cooling the data centers that make AI possible. “The tech industry can then backtrack on emission pledges, especially given that they are all in on developing AI technology,” says Haworth.

The Republican Party’s official platform for the 2024 elections is even more explicit, promising to roll back the Biden administration’s early efforts to ensure AI safety and “defend the right to mine Bitcoin.”

All of these changes would conveniently benefit some of Trump’s most vocal and important backers in Silicon Valley. Trump’s running mate, Republican senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, has long had connections to the tech industry, particularly through his former employer, billionaire founder of Palantir and longtime Trump backer Peter Thiel. (Thiel’s venture capital firm, Founder’s Fund, invested $200 million in crypto earlier this year.)

Thiel is one of several other Silicon Valley heavyweights who have recently thrown their support behind Trump. In the past month, Elon Musk and David Sacks have both been vocal about backing the former president. Venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, whose firm a16z has invested in several crypto and AI startups, have also said they will be donating to the Trump campaign.

“They see this as their chance to prevent future regulation,” says Haworth. “They are buying the ability to avoid oversight.”

Reporting from Bloomberg found that sections of Project 2025 were written by people who have worked or lobbied for companies like Meta, Amazon, and undisclosed bitcoin companies. Both Trump and independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have courted donors in the crypto space, and in May, the Trump campaign announced it would accept donations in cryptocurrency.

But Project 2025 wouldn’t necessarily favor all tech companies. In the document, the authors accuse Big Tech companies of attempting “to drive diverse political viewpoints from the digital town square.” The plan supports legislation that would eliminate the immunities granted to social media platforms by Section 230, which protects companies from being legally held responsible for user-generated content on their sites, and pushes for “anti-discrimination” policies that “prohibit discrimination against core political viewpoints.”

It would also seek to impose transparency rules on social platforms, saying that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) “could require these platforms to provide greater specificity regarding their terms of service, and it could hold them accountable by prohibiting actions that are inconsistent with those plain and particular terms.”

And despite Trump’s own promise to bring back TikTok, Project 2025 suggests the administration “ban all Chinese social media apps such as TikTok and WeChat, which pose significant national security risks and expose American consumers to data and identity theft.”

West says the plan is full of contradictions when it comes to its approach to regulation. It’s also, he says, notably soft on industries where tech billionaires and venture capitalists have put a significant amount of money, namely AI and cryptocurrency. “Project 2025 is not just to be a policy statement, but to be a fundraising vehicle,” he says. “So, I think the money angle is important in terms of helping to resolve some of the seemingly inconsistencies in the regulatory approach.”

It remains to be seen how impactful Project 2025 could be on a future Republican administration. On Tuesday, Paul Dans, the director of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, stepped down. Though Trump himself has sought to distance himself from the plan, reporting from the Wall Street Journal indicates that while the project may be lower profile, it’s not going away. Instead, the Heritage Foundation is shifting its focus to making a list of conservative personnel who could be hired into a Republican administration to execute the party’s vision.

[holy-politics-batman]

How Peter Duton has consistently Voted in parliament

Spoiler: He hates you Not everything is terrible, but holy shit it gets bad and a lot of it is bad (Source at the bottom)

Voted for:

A citizenship test

A plebiscite on the carbon pricing mechanism (Remove the tax on carbon)

A same-sex marriage plebiscite (plebiscite means to get rid of)

An Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC)

Carbon Farming Initiative Amendment Bill 2014

Charging postgraduate research students fees

Civil celebrants having the right to refuse to marry same-sex couples

Compensating victims of overseas terrorism since the September 11 attack

Decreasing availability of welfare payments

Deregulating undergraduate university fees (Removing any restrictions on the amount that universities can charge students for tuition)

Drug testing welfare recipients

Getting rid of Sunday and public holiday penalty rates

Greater control over items brought into immigration detention centres

Having a referendum on whether to create an Indigenous Voice to Parliament (To be fair he also did recently have a trantrum because he didn't want to stand infrount of the Aboriginal flag, so)

Increasing eligibility requirements for Australian citizenship

Government administered paid parental leave

Increasing indexation of HECS-HELP debts (HECS-HELP is basically student loans)

Increasing state and territory environmental approval powers

Increasing the cost of humanities degrees (Humanities include: History, Geography, Philosophy, Religion, Citizenship, Economics, Business, ect)

Increasing the price of subsidised medicine

Prioritising religious freedom

Privatising government-owned assets

Putting welfare payments onto cashless debit cards (or indue cards) on a temporary basis as a trial

Recognising local government in the Constitution

Reducing the corporate tax rate

Senate electoral reform

Stopping people who arrive by boat from ever coming to Australia

Temporary Exclusion Orders

Temporary protection visas

The territories being able to legalise euthanasia

Turning back asylum boats when possible

A combined Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia

Banning mobiles and other devices in immigration detention

Increasing scrutiny of unions

Implementing refugee and protection conventions

Putting welfare payments onto cashless debit cards (or indue cards) on an ongoing basis

Privatising certain government services

Voluntary student union fees

Increasing funding for road infrastructure

Increasing the initial tax rate for working holiday makers to 19%

Increasing the Medicare Levy to pay for the National Disability Insurance Scheme

Making more water from Murray-Darling Basin available to use

The Coalition's new schools funding policy ("Gonski 2.0")

The Intervention in the Northern Territory

Voted against:

A carbon price

A minerals resource rent tax

A Royal Commission into Violence and Abuse against People with Disability

A transition plan for coal workers

Banning pay secrecy clauses

Capping gas prices

Carbon farming

Considering legislation to create a federal anti-corruption commission (procedural)

Considering motions on Gaza (2023-24) (procedural)

Criminalising wage theft

Decreasing the private health insurance rebate

Doctor-initiated medical transfers for asylum seekers

Ending illegal logging

Ending immigration detention on Manus Island

Extending government benefits to same-sex couples

Federal action on public housing

Federal government action on animal & plant extinctions

Increasing availability of abortion drugs

Increasing consumer protections

Increasing funding for university education

Increasing housing affordability

Increasing investment in renewable energy

Increasing legal protections for LGBTI people

Increasing marine conservation

Increasing penalties for breach of data

Increasing political transparency

Increasing protection of Australia's fresh water

Increasing restrictions on gambling

Increasing scrutiny of asylum seeker management

Increasing support for the Australian film and TV industry

Increasing support for the Australian shipping industry

Increasing the diversity of media ownership

Increasing trade unions' powers in the workplace

Increasing transparency of big business by making information public

Market-led approaches to protecting biodiversity

Net zero emissions by 2035

Re-approving/ re-registering agvet chemicals (Agvet chemicals protect crops and livestock)

Removing children from immigration detention

Reproductive bodily autonomy

Requiring every native title claimant to sign land use agreements

Restricting donations to political parties

Restricting foreign ownership

Same-sex marriage equality

Stem cell research

Stopping tax avoidance or aggressive tax minimisation

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA)

The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme

The Paris Climate Agreement

Tobacco plain packaging

Transgender rights

Treating the COVID vaccine rollout as a matter of urgency

Mix

Reducing tax concessions for high socio-economic status

Increasing competition in bulk wheat export

Mostly Yes

Speeding things along in Parliament (procedural)

Unconventional gas mining

A character test for Australian visas

Increasing or removing the Government debt limit

Regional processing of asylum seekers

Mostly No

Increasing the age pension

Net zero emissions by 2050

Suspending the rules to allow a vote to happen (procedural)

Vehicle efficiency standards

Increasing support for rural and regional Australia

Letting all MPs or Senators speak in Parliament (procedural)

Source

https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/representatives/dickson/peter_dutton

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The New Yorker :: @NewYorker [An advance look at Barry Blitt’s “Left to Their Own Devices,” the cover for next week’s issue.]

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 28, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Mar 29, 2025

“Another wipeout walloped Wall Street Friday,” Stan Choe of the Associated Press wrote today. The S&P 500 had one of its worst days in two years, dropping 2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 715 points, losing 1.7% of its value. The Nasdaq Composite fell 2.7%. On Tuesday, news dropped that the administration’s blanket firings and wildly shifting tariff policies have dropped consumer confidence to a low it has not hit since January 2021. Today’s stock market tumble started after the Commerce Department released data showing that consumer prices are rising faster than economists expected.

AIG chief international economist James Knightley said: “We are moving in the wrong direction and the concern is that tariffs threaten higher prices, which means the inflation prints are going to remain hot.” Business leaders like lower interest rates, which reduce borrowing costs and make it cheaper to finance business initiatives, but with rising inflation, the Federal Reserve will be less likely to cut interest rates.

Makena Kelly of Wired reported today that billionaire Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) is planning to move the computer system of the Social Security Administration (SSA) off the old programming language it uses, COBOL, to a new system. In 2017, the SSA estimated that such a migration would take about five years. DOGE is planning for the migration to take just a few months, using artificial intelligence to complete the change.

Experts have expressed concern. Dan Hon, who runs a technology strategy company that helps the government modernize its services, told Kelly: “If you weren’t worried about a whole bunch of people not getting benefits or getting the wrong benefits, or getting the wrong entitlements, or having to wait ages, then sure go ahead.” More than 65 million Americans currently receive Social Security benefits. Today Representative Don Beyer (D-VA) recorded himself calling the SSA and being told by a recording that the wait times were more than two hours and that he should call back. And then the system hung up on him.

Musk told the Fox News Channel today that he plans to step down from DOGE in May, apparently at the end of the 130-day cap for the “special government employee” designation that enables him to avoid financial disclosures. In February, White House staffers suggested Musk would stay despite the limit.

Today the State Department told Congress it is shutting down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) altogether by July 1. Whatever agency functions the administration approves will move into the State Department. Founded by President John F. Kennedy and enjoying bipartisan support, USAID administers programs for global health, disaster relief, long-term economic development, education, environmental protection, and democracy. It is widely perceived to be a key element of U.S. “soft power.”

USAID was created by Congress, and its funds are appropriated by Congress. Congress and the courts have established that the executive branch—the branch of government overseen by the president—cannot kill an agency Congress has created and cannot withhold appropriations Congress has made. The authors of Project 2025 want to challenge that principle and consolidate government power in the hands of the president. It appears they have chosen USAID as the test case.

As Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shatters science and health agencies, the nation’s top vaccine regulator, Dr. Peter Marks, submitted his resignation today after being given the choice to resign or be fired. Dan Diamond of the Washington Post noted that Marks has been at the Food and Drug Administration since 2012 and has been at the head of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research since 2016.

In his resignation letter, Diamond says, Marks expressed his deep concern over the ongoing measles outbreak in the Southwest—now more than 450 cases—and warned that the outbreak “reminds us of what happens when confidence in well-established science underlying public health and well-being is undermined.” Marks said that although he was willing to work with Kennedy on his plan to review vaccine safety, “it has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies.”

On Tuesday, news broke that Kennedy has tapped anti-vaccine activist David Geier to lead a study looking to link autism to vaccines, although that alleged link has been heavily studied and thoroughly debunked. Infectious disease journalist Helen Branswell notes that Geier does not have a medical degree and was disciplined in Maryland for practicing medicine without a license.

British investigative journalist Brian Deer, who has written about the hoax that vaccines cause autism, told Branswell: “If you want an independent source,… [you] wouldn’t go to somebody with no qualifications and a long track record of impropriety and incompetence.” But, he said, “[i]f you wanted to get in anybody off the street who would come up with the result that Kennedy would like to see, this would be your man.”

Tara Copp of the Associated Press reported today that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has done some targeted staffing, too. His younger brother Phil Hegseth is traveling to the Indo-Pacific with the secretary in his role at the Pentagon as a liaison and senior advisor to the Department of Homeland Security. Hegseth also employed his brother when he ran the nonprofit Concerned Veterans for America, where the younger Hegseth’s salary was $108,000 for his media work. Copp notes that a 1967 law “prohibits government officials from hiring, promoting or recommending relatives to any civilian position over which they exercise control.”

Hegseth and his colleagues are still in the hot seat for uploading the military’s attack plans against the Houthis in Yemen to Signal, an unsecure commercially available messaging app. Yesterday, Nancy A. Youssef, Alexander Ward, and Michael R. Gordon of the Wall Street Journal reported that National Security Advisor Mike Waltz identified a Houthi missile expert whose identity Israel had provided from a human source in Yemen, angering Israeli officials.

Americans, especially those with ties to the military, aren’t happy either. Military, the leading news website for service members, veterans, and their families, titled a story about the scandal “‘Different spanks for different ranks’: Hegseth’s Signal scandal would put regular troops in the brig.” Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt of the New York Times reported that the story had “angered and bewildered” fighter pilots, who say “they can no longer be certain that the Pentagon is focused on their safety when they strap into cockpits.”

At a raucous town hall held today by Republican representative Victoria Spartz (R-IN), the crowd booed Spartz loudly when she said she would not call for the resignations of Waltz, Hegseth, and the rest of the people on the group chat.

All the mayhem created by the administration has created enough backlash that the White House appears concerned about upcoming special elections on April 1. One is for the seat in Florida’s District 6 that Waltz vacated when he became national security advisor. In 2024, Trump won that district by 30 points, and Republicans considered their candidate, state senator Randy Fine, whom Trump has strongly endorsed, to be such a shoo-in that he barely campaigned. His website features pictures of him with Trump but has only bullet points to explain his stand on issues.

Democrat Josh Weil, a middle-school math teacher who has outraised Fine by almost 10 to one, is polling within the margin of error for a victory in a contest where even a 10- to 15-point loss would show a dramatic collapse in Republican support. Weil has tied Fine to Musk’s unpopular DOGE and to the president, as well as to cuts to Social Security and Medicaid.

Trump is now personally campaigning for Fine and for the Republican candidate to fill the seat vacated by former representative Matt Gaetz in Florida District 1. There, Democratic candidate Gay Valimont is running against Republican Jimmy Patronis in a district that elected Trump with about 68% of the vote. Like Fine, Patronis is strongly backed by Trump and wants more cuts to the federal government; Gay is a former state leader for Moms Demand Action and focuses on healthcare and veterans’ services. She has criticized DOGE’s cuts to VA hospitals. Like Weil, she has significantly outraised her opponent.

Republicans are concerned enough about holding the seats that billionaire Elon Musk, who poured more than $291 million into the 2024 election to help Republicans, has begun to contribute to Republicans in Florida. On Tuesday he spent more than $10,000 apiece for texting services for the Florida candidates.

Musk has contributed far more than that—more than $20 million—to the April 1 election for a ten-year seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Trump loyalist Brad Schimel is running against circuit court judge Susan Crawford in a contest that has national significance. Wisconsin is evenly split between the parties, but when Republicans control the legislature and the supreme court, they suppress voting and heavily gerrymander the state in their favor. When liberals hold the majority on the court, they ease election rules and uphold fair maps. Currently, the state gerrymander gives Republicans 75% of the state’s seats in the U.S. House of Representatives although voting in 2024 was virtually dead even. The makeup of the court could well determine the congressional districts of Wisconsin through 2041, through the redistricting that will take place after the 2030 census.

Musk has told voters that if Crawford wins, “then the Democrats will attempt to redraw the districts and cause Wisconsin to lose two Republican seats.” Not only has Musk said he is going to Wisconsin to speak before the election, but also he is handing out checks to voters who sign a petition against “activist judges,” a suggestion that it would not be fair to unskew the Republican gerrymander. Last night, Musk advertised a contest that would award two voters a million dollars each, with the condition that the winners had to have already voted.

This morning, Wisconsin Democrats issued a press release noting that Musk had “committed a blatant felony,” directly violating the Wisconsin law that prohibits offering anyone anything worth more than $1 to get them to “vote or refrain from voting.” Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler said that if Schimel “does not immediately call on Musk to end this criminal activity, we can only assume he is complicit.”

Musk deleted the tweet and then, eliminating the language that said people had to have voted, posted that he would give the checks to spokespeople for his petition. Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul sued to stop Musk “from any further promotion of the million-dollar gifts” and “from making any payments to Wisconsin electors to vote.” “The Wisconsin Department of Justice is committed to ensuring that elections in Wisconsin are safe, secure, free, and fair,” Kaul said in a statement. “We are aware of the offer recently posted by Elon Musk to award a million dollars to two people at an event in Wisconsin this weekend. Based on our understanding of applicable Wisconsin law, we intend to take legal action today to seek a court order to stop this from happening.”

MeidasTouch reposted Musk’s offer to “personally hand over two checks for a million dollars each in appreciation for you taking the time to vote” and noted: “No matter what side of the aisle you are on, you should be appalled that a billionaire thinks he has the right to buy elections like this.” Former chair of the Ohio Democratic Party David Pepper posted: “Have some pride, America. We are so much better than this guy thinks we are.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[flieslikeamoron]

Proposed Rule Change will Suppress ACA Enrollment and Limit Healthcare for Transgender Americans

I kept thinking I would see a post that I could just reblog, but I haven't and the comment period for this one ends April 11. So here is my attempt to summarize. The Trump Admin is proposing rule changes for the ACA (Marketplace Heath Insurance). They claim it's to address the issue of improper sign ups and fraud, which is a real problem of brokers who have signed people up or changed their healthcare plans without their knowledge. In this proposal they're inflating the probable fraud numbers exponentially through some study done by a conservative thinktank, but I looked it up and through August of last year there were 275K consumer complaints about people experiencing sign ups or changes without their knowledge, so it is happening. But rather than focus on increasing security for the sign up process so brokers can't access customer files without consent or on higher punishments for brokers caught doing this or any other measures that would address the actual fraud issue, they're using it as a smokescreen to undermine the ACA by taking measures that would lower enrollment and also to target their favorite scapegoats: immigrants, transgender folks, and the poor.

Here's the proposed rule change. It's file code CMS-9884-P. (Use the code if you do want to leave a comment.)  

Federal Register: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Marketplace Integrity and Affordability

My attempt to summarize is under the cut. And here are some other summary links and articles. If anyone within actual healthcare circles or government circles or trans/immigrant advocacy circles has resources or data that can be used to dispute what they're putting forward or comment templates or anything, please share them.

FOCUSED ON THE ANTI-TRANS STUFF: Trump Admin Moves to Prevent ACA Plans From Being Required to Cover Gender-Affirming Care | Them

IMMIGRANTS AND GENERAL ATTACK ON ACA: Trump admin takes aim at Obamacare - POLITICO

DETAILED SUMMARY OF HOW INSURANCE MARKETPLACE WILL BE AFFECTED CMS’s ACA Marketplace Integrity and Affordability Proposed Rule – What it may mean for Health Plans

MORE GENERAL (AKA SHORTER SUMMARIES) Trump Administration’s ACA Rule Could Limit Access to Coverage

Proposed rule would bring sweeping changes to Marketplace enrollment, eligibility

It's like a 300 page proposal and I don't have any legal background so that's why I was hoping I would see a post made by someone better qualified, but here are a few things that I thought were objectionable. Feel free to point it out if I get anything wrong.

1. They want to shorten the enrollment period. So basically it would be 45 days instead of 75 (Nov. 1 to Dec. 15 instead of Nov. 1 to Jan. 15). This will cut down on legitimate enrollment because it affects all eligible enrollees and is not a targeted measure to address specifically fraudulent enrollments.

2. The proposed change will exclude DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) immigrants from being able to enroll in marketplace insurance or access premium tax credits etc. They're already barred from this in 19 states, but it will make the ban nationwide. This is basically undoing a rule the Biden HHS dept made in May of 2024 that allowed DACA immigrants to be eligible for marketplace healthcare. Before that they were not considered to be "lawfully present" as defined by the ACA. The Trump HHS doesn't argue that the benefits put forward by the previous HHS to support the inclusion of DACA recipients were incorrect, only that the residents are not "lawfully present. Here's the quote: To support the DACA Rule, HHS stated that the policy would increase insurance coverage, reduce delays in care, improve the ACA's risk pool, and make DACA recipients more productive members of society. However, these benefits the agency previously noted do not mean that DACA recipients should be considered to have met the “lawfully present” standard that Congress set in order to enroll in a QHP through an Exchange, to be eligible for PTC, APTC, CSRs, and to enroll in a BHP in States that elect to operate a BHP.

3. Removing the special enrollment period for people 150% below poverty level. So right now if your income status changes and you drop 150% below the poverty level, you're able to sign up for insurance in the marketplace outside the normal enrollment period. This would make it so people have to wait for the once a year normal enrollment period (which again, they're also shortening.)  They're using the fraud excuse and I don't have data on whether there actually is a disproportionate amount of fraudulent signups happening during special enrollment periods. But remember the actual fraud issue is happening through brokers and third parties making unauthorized changes. The bulk of these "improper" sign ups are not happening because individuals are signing up improperly themselves or abusing the special enrollment periods.

4. Prohibiting individual and small group plans from covering “sex-trait modification” (gender-affirming care) as an essential health benefit. An insurer can still voluntarily cover gender-affirming care, but it could not be as part of an EHB. This would ensure federal premium subsidies could not be used to offset the cost of that portion of the coverage. Just a blatant attack on trans people and an attempt to limit gender affirming care. They even include a section where they say they're seeking comment on whether they should define an explicit exception for "conditions like precocious puberty, or therapy subsequent to a traumatic injury, where items and services that are also used for sex-trait modification may be appropriate." So it's very clear this is about transgender people specifically being denied gender affirming care and not about the treatment methods themselves. They also mention Trump's executive orders aimed at trans people in the proposal. They're really not being subtle or trying to hide what they're doing here. The article I linked above also says that a lot of non-marketplace insurers use the EHB list to guide the coverage they provide, so this could possibly have a wider effect than just on marketplace insurance.

5. There are some things that are at least nominally directed at addressing fraud but they're directed at individuals and create administrative barriers that will lower enrollment. So for example, there are changes targeted toward things like certifying individual income eligibility that treat the fraud issue as if it's about individuals defrauding the government instead of an issue of brokers making unauthorized changes or doing unauthorized signups. The changes all basically make it harder to enroll or to roll over enrollment year to year so these things will create additional administrative barriers to enrolling in coverage and will result in lower legitimate enrollment. This article that I also linked above has a good breakdown of all of these changes. 

6. Increased maximum out of pocket limits just for funsies I guess.  

In conclusion, they estimate themselves in the proposal that these changes will result in enrollment dropping by 750K to 2 million. I don't know if that estimate is correct or if they're lowballing, but by their own admission the proposal will lower enrollment and increase the number of uninsured Americans. More uninsured Americans means an increased financial burden on individual Americans, on hospitals and on municipalities. And ultimately higher premiums and worse healthcare for everyone. In their impact statement they say they think most of the unenrolled will be "improper" enrollments but they're also like... Or they could be eligible enrollees  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

"Taken together, the provisions of this rule are expected to address errors and improper enrollments, which means that as presented in the preceding paragraphs, we would expect approximately 750,000 to 2,000,000 individuals to lose coverage as a result of this rule, if all provisions are finalized as proposed. This range may overestimate the actual number of individuals impacted, as we believe that this range includes many individuals improperly enrolled by agents, brokers, and web-brokers without their knowledge or consent, as well enrollees with multiple forms of coverage. Likewise, this range may underestimate the actual number of individuals impacted, as eligible enrollees may lose coverage as a result of the administrative burdens imposed by the provisions of this rule. 

An individual who loses coverage may be required to incur additional expense to obtain coverage or may go uninsured. An increase in the rate of uninsurance may impose greater burdens on the health care system through strain on emergency departments, additional costs to the Federal Government and to States to provide limited Medicaid coverage for the treatment of an emergency medical condition, and cause an overall reduction to labor productivity."

Anyway, I think they figured out the last time that going directly at repealing the ACA is hard so this seems like an attempt to undermine it by impacting enrollment instead. While also trying to exclude the scapegoat groups they hate from federally funded healthcare (and perhaps as a first step to making it harder to access gender affirming care across the board.) 

Here's that link again if you want to comment. The comment period closes on April 11. Federal Register :: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Marketplace Integrity and Affordability Remember to put the code in your comment. CMS-9884-P

[beardedmrbean]

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefit theft has become a pervasive issue in several states, with some of the most vulnerable families being left without vital food benefits.

Why It Matters

Some 40 million Americans receive SNAP benefits, which are loaded onto electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards that can be used at approved retailers and select online stores. But they are vulnerable to fraud tactics as cards can be skimmed or cloned, something several states are trying to combat.

However, the problem is getting worse: Fraudulent SNAP transactions increased by 55 percent between the final quarter of fiscal year 2024 and the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service.

What To Know

New York is by far the state with the most reported SNAP benefit thefts, with 151,000 claims made between 2023 and March 2025, totaling more than $80 million lost by SNAP users.

Second to the Empire State is California, with almost 86,000 claims and $38 million down the drain. In third place is Maryland, with 63,800 fraud instances and $24 million lost to criminal schemes.

On the other end of the spectrum, Wyoming has the least number of claims made to the USDA in the same time period, with only nine instances of reported stolen benefits. South Dakota and North Dakota have similarly low numbers—23 and 27, respectively. Meanwhile, Idaho, Vermont and Montana all have fewer than 100 reported thefts.

In New York, law enforcement recently uncovered a $66 million criminal scheme involving a USDA employee. In Ohio, three Columbus residents were recently charged in connection with a $600,000 SNAP theft.

Tackling the Issue

Lawmakers in several states are taking steps to combat SNAP fraud. In New York, the state Senate has passed a bill requiring EBT cards to be equipped with EMV chips—technology commonly used in credit and debit cards to make them harder to clone or steal.

The USDA has also vowed to crack down on SNAP benefit theft, announcing in April that it had taken part in "targeted benefit fraud" operations in California.

In 2024, the USDA ended its policy of reimbursing stolen SNAP benefits. Congress did not approve funding to continue the reimbursements in the budget resolution passed in December. As a result, the USDA announced that states may choose to replace stolen benefits using their own funds in the absence of federal funds.

Some lawmakers are working to fill this gap. In April, Democratic Representative Al Green of Texas introduced the SNAP Secure Act of 2025, which proposes restoring federal funding to reimburse SNAP benefit recipients who are victims of fraud or theft. A similar bill has been introduced by Republican Representative Zach Nunn of Iowa.

What People Are Saying

A Department of Agriculture spokesperson previously told Newsweek: "SNAP is a vital nutrition safety net for low-income Americans. When benefits are stolen, SNAP participants' ability to feed their families is threatened. USDA will continue to leverage every resource and authority that remains at its disposal to combat all forms of SNAP fraud and abuse."

Representative Al Green, a Democrat from Texas, said in a statement in April: "I intend to turn this legislation into a modified amendment to the next appropriations bill. If accepted, this legislation would ensure that those who have had their SNAP benefits stolen will be able to feed themselves and their families."

What Happens Next

To protect your SNAP benefits, the USDA recommends these tips:

Use a strong PIN: Avoid easy combinations, such as 1234 or 1111.

Keep your info private: Never share your PIN or card number outside your household. Cover the keypad when entering your PIN.

Watch for scams: SNAP officials will never call or text asking for your PIN or card number.

Update your PIN often: Change it monthly, ideally just before your benefits are added.

Monitor your account: Check for charges you don't recognize. If you see any, change your PIN immediately and report it.

Report theft: If you suspect card skimming or stolen benefits, contact your local SNAP office right away.