#Efficient Project Execution

[y-eontan]

when the code just ~works~

[modernmarketingmethods]

Project Management Consulting Services Aren’t Optional - They’re Essential

In today’s fast-evolving business world, success is determined not only by strategy but by execution. You might have the right idea, the right market, and the right timing — but without expert project execution, even the best business plans can fail. This is why project management consulting services are no longer optional. They are essential.

As projects grow in complexity, involve cross-functional teams, and operate under tight deadlines and budget constraints, organizations can no longer afford to take a trial-and-error approach. Professional project management consultancy services offer structure, efficiency, and expertise that lead to predictable outcomes. From startups to large enterprises, businesses that integrate expert consulting into their project delivery model experience better success rates, improved ROI, and stronger internal capabilities.

Here’s why these services have become mission-critical for organizations across industries.

1. Turning Ideas Into Actionable Plans

Many projects fail because they are built on loose plans or vague deliverables. Project management consulting services specialize in transforming ideas into structured, actionable project plans. Consultants use established methodologies to define scope, break down objectives, assign responsibilities, and establish timelines.

This level of planning ensures that all team members know their roles and that leadership can track progress with clarity.

2. Ensuring Strategic Alignment

Projects that are misaligned with overall business goals often waste valuable time and resources. Project management consultancy services ensure that each project aligns with long-term business objectives. They assess how the outcomes of the project will contribute to growth, operational efficiency, innovation, or customer satisfaction.

Strategic alignment keeps projects relevant, timely, and impactful.

3. Enabling Predictable and Efficient Delivery

In today’s competitive markets, delivering late or over budget can cause irreparable harm. Project management consulting services bring the discipline needed to deliver projects on time, within budget, and with high quality. Through proactive scheduling, milestone tracking, and dependency management, they ensure seamless execution from start to finish.

This predictability builds stakeholder trust and strengthens your company’s market reputation.

4. Enhancing Risk Management Capabilities

Every project carries a certain degree of risk. These could include shifting market demands, unexpected cost increases, or technical failures. Project management consultancy services bring robust risk management frameworks that help identify, assess, and mitigate potential threats before they impact the project.

Having a plan B — and sometimes even a plan C — reduces vulnerability and increases confidence in the project’s success.

5. Optimizing Resources and Reducing Waste

Inefficient resource allocation leads to burnout, bottlenecks, and budget issues. Consultants from project management consulting services help organizations use their human, technological, and financial resources more effectively. They analyze capacity, assign appropriate workloads, and balance competing demands so nothing gets wasted or overlooked.

This results in better productivity and a healthier bottom line.

6. Providing Unbiased Oversight

Sometimes internal project managers may be too close to a situation or lack the authority to make tough decisions. Project management consultancy services provide an objective, external viewpoint. They bring unbiased decision-making, resolve conflicts impartially, and offer honest progress assessments based on data and experience.

This kind of oversight helps businesses stay grounded in reality, even when things get complex.

7. Improving Stakeholder Communication

Transparent and consistent communication is essential to keep stakeholders informed and engaged. Project management consulting services establish communication protocols, reporting structures, and meeting cadences that keep everyone in the loop. This includes leadership teams, department heads, vendors, and clients.

Good communication leads to better collaboration, quicker approvals, and smoother project delivery.

8. Introducing Best Practices and Proven Frameworks

Experienced consultants bring with them a wealth of knowledge, tools, and frameworks such as Agile, Waterfall, Lean, or hybrid models. These aren’t just buzzwords — they are carefully selected practices tailored to fit your specific industry and project needs. Project management consultancy services implement these frameworks to improve project efficiency and scalability.

This helps teams adapt quickly, resolve issues faster, and deliver results more consistently.

9. Empowering Internal Teams for the Future

The benefits of project management consulting services do not stop at project completion. Many consultants coach internal teams, transfer knowledge, and help businesses build their own project management competencies. This creates long-term value by enhancing the organization’s ability to manage future initiatives independently and successfully.

10. Delivering Competitive Advantage

In today’s market, being able to execute better than your competitors is a significant advantage. Whether you're launching a product faster, integrating new technology, or expanding into new markets, project management consultancy services give you the tools, experience, and support to stay ahead.

They allow your business to move with confidence, supported by proven systems and expert guidance.

Final Thoughts

Successful execution is no longer a luxury — it is a necessity. Companies that consistently deliver high-impact projects with precision and clarity gain trust, market share, and long-term profitability. Those that rely on informal systems, outdated tools, or inexperienced teams face delays, losses, and reputational damage.

Project management consulting services and project management consultancy services are no longer optional enhancements. They are essential components of a high-performing organization. Whether you’re facing a high-stakes transformation or running a portfolio of strategic initiatives, investing in expert guidance is the smartest move you can make.

[inartconstructions]

The Benefits of Turnkey Interior Design Streamline Your Home Makeover

In the realm of modern interior design, turnkey solutions represent the pinnacle of convenience and sophistication. Turnkey interior design is a comprehensive service that delivers a fully completed and functional space with minimal involvement from the client. This all-encompassing approach is particularly advantageous for those seeking a seamless transition from concept to completion without the stress of managing multiple contractors or design decisions.

What Is Turnkey Interior Design?

Turnkey interior design refers to a service model where the designer manages every aspect of a project from inception to final execution. This includes planning, design, procurement, installation, and final styling. Essentially, it is a one-stop-shop solution that provides a complete, ready-to-use space. Clients benefit from a streamlined process and a cohesive design that reflects their personal style and preferences.

Key Benefits of Turnkey Interior Design

Streamlined Process: With turnkey solutions, clients avoid the hassle of coordinating between different vendors and contractors. The designer handles all aspects of the project, ensuring a smoother workflow and adherence to deadlines.

Time Efficiency: A turnkey approach saves significant time as it consolidates various stages of the design process into a single, efficient package. This is ideal for busy individuals or businesses looking to minimize downtime during renovations.

Consistent Aesthetic: Turnkey designers ensure a unified aesthetic by overseeing every detail of the design. This results in a harmonious and professionally executed space that aligns with the client’s vision.

Cost-Effective: While turnkey solutions may appear more expensive initially, they often prove cost-effective in the long run. The holistic approach can minimize unforeseen expenses and provide clear budgeting from the start.

The Turnkey Interior Design Process

1. Initial Consultation

The journey begins with an initial consultation, where the designer meets with the client to discuss their needs, preferences, and budget. This phase is crucial for understanding the client's vision and setting the project’s direction.

2. Concept Development

Following the consultation, the designer creates a detailed design concept that includes layout plans, material selections, color schemes, and furniture choices. This concept serves as the blueprint for the entire project.

3. Design Finalization

Once the client approves the initial concept, the designer moves on to finalizing the design. This involves detailed drawings, selecting specific products, and finalizing contracts with suppliers and contractors.

4. Procurement and Scheduling

With the design in place, the designer handles procurement of all necessary materials, furnishings, and fixtures. They also schedule the installation process, coordinating with various trades to ensure timely completion.

5. Installation and Execution

The installation phase involves the actual implementation of the design. This includes setting up furniture, arranging decor, and ensuring all elements are installed according to the design specifications.

6. Final Styling and Touch-Ups

Once the main installation is complete, the designer performs final styling and touch-ups to ensure the space looks polished and ready for use. This includes arranging accessories, artwork, and any last-minute adjustments.

Choosing the Right Turnkey Interior Designer

Selecting a qualified turnkey interior designer is crucial to the success of the project. Here are some pointers to help you make the best decision:

Experience and Expertise: Look for designers with a proven track record in turnkey projects. Their experience will be invaluable in managing the complexities of the design process.

Portfolio Review: Examine the designer’s portfolio to assess their style and the quality of their work. Ensure their aesthetic aligns with your vision for the space.

Client Testimonials: Seek feedback from previous clients to gauge the designer’s reliability, communication skills, and overall performance.

Budget Alignment: Discuss your budget upfront and ensure the designer can deliver a solution within your financial constraints. Transparent pricing and clear agreements are essential.

Communication Skills: Effective communication is key to a successful project. Choose a designer who listens to your needs and provides regular updates throughout the process.

Trends in Turnkey Interior Design

Sustainable Design

Sustainability is a growing trend in interior design. Turnkey designers are increasingly incorporating eco-friendly materials, energy-efficient appliances, and sustainable practices into their projects.

Smart Home Integration

Smart home technology integration is starting to become a typical component. Turnkey solutions often include automated lighting, climate control, and security systems, enhancing both convenience and energy efficiency.

Personalization

Personalization is at the forefront of modern design. Turnkey designers are focusing on creating spaces that reflect the unique personalities and lifestyles of their clients, ensuring a more meaningful and engaging environment.

Conclusion

Turnkey interior design offers a comprehensive and efficient solution for transforming spaces with minimal client involvement. By managing every aspect of the project, from initial concept to final execution, turnkey designers deliver a seamless experience and a beautifully cohesive result. Whether for residential or commercial spaces, turnkey solutions provide convenience, consistency, and a high level of professionalism.

For those looking to revamp their environment with minimal hassle, turnkey interior design is an excellent choice that combines expertise, efficiency, and elegance.

[cyber-soul-smartz]

21st Century Project Execution: Mastering the Critical Phase

Discover how modern project management techniques and innovative technologies can transform your projects! Dive into our latest article for expert insights and practical tips. Don't miss out—subscribe now to stay updated with cutting-edge strategies!

[wilwheaton]

WIRED has identified six young men—all apparently between the ages of 19 and 24, according to public databases, their online presences, and other records—who have little to no government experience and are now playing critical roles in Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project, tasked by executive order with “modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” The engineers all hold nebulous job titles within DOGE, and at least one appears to be working as a volunteer. The engineers are Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran. None have responded to requests for comment from WIRED. Representatives from OPM, GSA, and DOGE did not respond to requests for comment.

The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk's Government Takeover

This is insane. These children can’t even rent a car.

Why aren’t Democrats at Defcon 1? Honestly. I don’t understand why this is happening and there isn’t a loud and forceful response from the opposition. Schumer is droning on about the price of tomatoes, while these unvetted kids are installing root kits, for fuck’s sake.

[e-the-village-cryptid]

A brief bullet-point list of the executive orders Trump signed yesterday. The tiktok thing is a distraction. If you are in the US, please read this. It will take less than 5 minutes. Gift article so no paywall

Some of the items on that list:

Freeze federal hiring except for military and immigration enforcement.

Bar asylum for people newly arriving at the southern border; declare migrant crossings at the southern border to be a national emergency; suspend the entire Refugee Admissions Program.

Terminate DEI initiatives across the federal government.

Recognize only two sexes; remove protections for transgender people in federal prisons.

Withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, the pact among almost all nations to fight climate change.

Declare a national energy emergency, a first in U.S. history, which could unlock new powers to suspend certain environmental rules or expedite permitting of certain mining projects.

Try to undo Biden’s ban on offshore drilling for 625 million acres of federal waters; undo Biden-era tailpipe pollution regulations and other energy-efficiency, fossil fuel, and pollution regulations.

Open the Alaska wilderness to more oil and gas drilling.

Eliminate environmental justice programs across the government, which are aimed at protecting poor communities from excess pollution.

Withdraw from the World Health Organization.

Ensure that states carrying out the death penalty have a “sufficient supply” of lethal injection drugs.

Create the Department of Government Efficiency with Elon Musk in charge.

[kunasthiast]

bathroom meetings

you were finally in the tub.

bubbles everywhere. hair piled up. candle lit. mood set was divine. perfect silence. peace. it was your me time. after a ridiculous week that felt like being hit repeatedly with a spreadsheet and then lit on fire, the only thing you wanted was solitude and maybe for your skin to absorb enough lavender oil to knock you out for twelve hours.

sukuna had been in full corporate tyrant mode the past few days. buried in meetings. constantly yelling into headsets like he was declaring war (he might’ve been).

there were moments you’d pass by the home office and hear him through the closed doors: “i said quarterly projections, not emotional projections. are you fucking with me?”

in that same low, terrifying voice he used when he was threatening that random guy on the street who once slapped your head thinking you were his friend. and obviously, that’s the tone that meant someone’s career was about to combust.

not that sukuna had been ignoring you, though. there were still sleepy kisses in the morning. half-asleep cuddles at night. coffee mug swaps between meetings. the quiet, steady kind of love. but you missed him. his annoying, smug, feral ass. just a little.  

so when the bathroom door creaked open mid-bath, you didn’t even flinch. you just knew. and yep, there he was.

dragging in his entire goddamn office chair. into the fucking bathroom.

yes, a literal, high-backed, leather executive monstrosity. the one he always dramatically called ‘the only chair that respects my spine.’ he wheeled it in like he was about to conduct a strategy meeting in your bubble sanctuary. and then he parked it casually beside the sink, facing you.    

you blinked at him from your lavender-scented cocoon of suds, “what the hell, babe… are you serious right now?”

“hi, baby,” he said, already settling into the seat like this was perfectly reasonable. “i wanna spend time with you. so i brought my chair.”

“…in the bathroom?”

“yeah, got a problem with it? you’re hot. the lighting’s warm. the air smells like that purple crap you love. it’s a vibe. this is my happy place.”

you stared at him. “you brought your chair.”

“‘course I did,” he said, already opening his laptop (he fucking brought one) and clicking away like this was just another thursday. “i’m swamped. figured i could do my stupid shit and look at you. productivity. efficiency. serotonin. and dopamine. win-win.”

you squinted at him. he never used that many words to justify something unless he was spiraling. which meant that he’s fucking really drained for today – an oddity. sukuna never gets drained. he had the chaotic stamina of a toddler with an espresso machine. weird visual, but whatever. 

“you just wanted to watch me and pretend it was multitasking.” you teased.

“baby, i don’t need to pretend to watch you,” sukuna replied without shame, eyes flicking down over your shoulders, lingering for a breath too long. “i’m your husband. it’s practically in the vows.”

you groaned and slid lower into the bubbles. “you’re so annoying. you have zero concept of personal space.”

“bold of you to say when i was balls deep in you last week,” he muttered, eyes back on the laptop screen.

you rolled your eyes. “rude. that was emotional love-making, actually.”

“you cried after,” he added helpfully, with a teasing grin this time, looking at you.

“i was overstimulated and exhausted!”

“from all the love,” he said, voice dropping slightly as he winked. “you looked so fuckin’ pretty like that, by the way. all whimpery and soft. should’ve taken a photo. mental health purposes.” he then turned back to his laptop and continued doing whatever shit he was doing like he hadn’t just shattered your dignity. 

“god, you’re insufferable,” you sighed, watching him lean back and spread his legs like he owned the damn place (he does). shirtless. and just in his boxers. basically, a menace in soft lighting.

“only for you,” he said, then paused, dragging his eyes down again. his fingers slowed on the keyboard. “you always sit like that in the tub when you want me to look.”

you froze slightly. “‘kuna, i’m literally just bathing.”

“uh-huh. with your knees poking out of the bubbles like that. water dripping down your collarbone. are we pretending you’re not trying to make me fail this report?”

you stared him down. “you’ve been shirtless all day. i haven’t said a word.”

“you bit me earlier. for no reason.”

“you were walking around with a pen in your mouth like a chew toy!”

he grinned and stretched out in the chair, legs wide, muscles relaxed. “ohhh, my bad, madame la professeur. je m’excuse.” his voice dipped, teasing. “would you prefer I recite conjugations again?” 

you choked on a laugh, bubbles shifting. “no... baby, stop. i don’t wanna heart it,” you said as you covered your ears.

“sweetheart, you threatened to drown me with a beret when i said ‘voulez-vous coucher avec moi’ in class.”

“because you said it in front of the TA! and winked at me after saying that, who does that?”

“me, obviously. and now look at us,” he gestured vaguely between the two of you, “still conjugating. still undressing with language.”

“gross.”

“grammatical,” he corrected smugly.

“anyway,” you huffed, “this was supposed to be sacred alone time.”

“correction,” he said, typing, “this is now sacred us time.”

“i can’t believe this is what my marriage looks like.”

he looked up again, glasses low on his nose. hair messy from a full day of stress-yanking (not love-making). dark eyes locked onto you like you were another report he was ready to manhandle. “consider me your emotional support office chair. i’m quiet. i click keys. i’m shirtless. it’s a wellness experience, brat.”

you gave him a deadpan look. “remind me again why you’re still doing reports when you own the entire damn company?”

“because my exec team is full of morons and apparently need their daddy to babysit the fucking budget.” he muttered, his eyes back on the screen.

“… so you really say that in meetings? ‘don’t worry, daddy’s here with the spreadsheets’?”

he gave you a withering look. “baby, don’t make me come over there and show you why they call me that.”

you sat up straighter, mock-scandalized. “you are not turning my bath into a boardroom kink.”

“oh, please,” he snorted. “you’d let me reorganize your filing system if i said that it in that voice.”

 “try me,” you puffed your cheeks and threatened, “i will throw a loofah at you. and for the record, ‘kuna? this is ambush. i was having sacred time, you bulldozer.”

“and yet… you married me.”

“temporarily lost judgment.”

“five-year lapse?”

you rolled your eyes in annoyance. “shut up. you’re ridiculous.”

“correct. and in love.” he said easily, shifting the laptop onto his other lap. and you let out a soft laugh at that because you know it’s true. 

for a moment, he didn’t say anything. just watched you, still half-soaked in warm light and bubbles. his eyes lingered, not with hunger and mischief, but with something softer. like he was memorizing. or making sure you’re here.

“you good, babe?” you asked.

he blinked, like coming back from wherever his head has gone. “yep, just…” he shrugged. “you’re the best part of the day, baby. seriously though, i missed you,” he said voice quieter now, like it didn’t just knock the air out of your lungs.

you blinked and froze a little. not because he said it, but because of how soft he said it. you rolled your eyes again, but your heart was already melting. “i’ve been busy. you’ve been busy. it’s fine.”

“it’s not fine,” he said, not looking up from the screen. “i like working. but i like you more. well, love. whatever, you know.”

that... shut you up a little. for a whole minute, even. you stared at him as candlelights softened the hard lines of his face. he was typing again, brows furrowed, but his jaw was tight.

“… okay, damn. for someone who threatened brad from finance with a stapler, that’s surprisingly romantic, ‘kuna.” you said quietly.

he cracked a small smile. “brad’s an idiot. you, on the other hand, are my peace.”

you were silent for a second and sighed out relief you’ve been wanting to let out for the past week. “well, you’re a clingy little bitch.”

“only for you, baby,” he said without missing a beat. then he smirked and cocked his head, eyes sliding over your shoulder, chest, legs – all barely hidden under the bubbles. 

“also, this bath is really doing things to my productivity levels. like, negative productivity. you gonna stand up at some point or do i have to pretend i dropped something in your bathwater?” he added, clearly back to his cocky self.

you threw the loofah at him. he caught it one-handed. “you’re such a menace.”

“only for you, brat,” he repeated again, softer this time. then added, “also, your left boob’s out. always a ten out of ten.”

“get out.”

“i just got comfortable,” he grinned. “and again… i’m your husband. my perving is legally protected.”

––

a/n: lol i went thru a writing slump last month and i can't think of anything – and thank heavens i've maxxed out my scrolling that i was able to come out of that coping (from a failed subject and delayed grad) lol so here's another husband!sukuna just bc and this ain't proofread

[mostlysignssomeportents]

All bets are off

When unions are outlawed, only outlaws will have unions. Unions don't owe their existence to labor laws that protect organizing activities. Rather, labor laws exist because once-illegal unions were formed in the teeth of violent suppression, and those unions demanded – and got – labor law.

Bosses have hated unions since the start, and they've really hated laws protecting workers. Dress this up in whatever self-serving rationale you want – "the freedom to contract," or "meritocracy" – it all cashes out to this: when workers bargain collectively, value that would otherwise go to investors and executives goes to the workers.

I'm not just talking about wages here, either. If an employer is forced – by a union, or by a labor law that only exists because of union militancy – to operate a safe workplace, they have to spend money on things like fire suppression, PPE, and paid breaks to avoid repetitive strain injuries. In the absence of some force that corrals bosses into providing these safety measures, they can use that money to pay themselves, and externalize the cost of on-the-job injuries to their workers.

The cost and price of a good or service is the tangible expression of power. It is a matter of politics, not economics. If consumer protection agencies demand that companies provide safe, well-manufactured goods, if there are prohibitions on price-fixing and profiteering, then value shifts from the corporation to its customers.

Now, if labor has few rights and consumers have many rights, then bosses can pass their consumer-side losses on to their workers. This is the Walmart story, the Amazon story: cheap goods paid for with low wages and dangerous working conditions. Likewise, if consumer rights are weak but labor rights are strong, then bosses can pass their costs onto their customers, continuing to take high profits by charging more. This is the story of local gig-work ordinances like NYC's, which guaranteed a minimum wage to delivery drivers – restaurateurs responded by demanding the right to add a surcharge to their bills:

https://table.skift.com/2018/06/22/nyc-surcharge-debate/

But if labor and consumer groups act in solidarity, then they can operate as a bloc and bosses and investors have to eat shit. Back in 2017, the pilots' union for American Airlines forced their bosses into a raise. Wall Street freaked out and tanked AA's stock. Analysts for big banks were outraged. Citi's Kevin Crissey summed up the situation perfectly, in a fuming memo: "This is frustrating. Labor is being paid first again. Shareholders get leftovers":

https://www.vox.com/new-money/2017/4/29/15471634/american-airlines-raise

Limiting the wealth of the investor class also limits their power, because money translates pretty directly into political power. This sets up a virtuous cycle: the less money the investor class has to spend on political projects, the more space there is for consumer- and labor-protection laws to be enacted and enforced. As labor and consumer law gets more stringent, the share of the national income going to people who make things, and people who use the things they make, goes up – and the share going to people who own things goes down.

Seen this way, it's obvious that prices and wages are a political matter, not an "economic" one. Orthodox economists maintain the pretense that they practice a kind of physics of money, discovering the "natural," "empirical" way that prices and wages move. They dress this up with mumbo-jumbo like the "efficient market hypothesis," "price discovery," "public choice," and that old favorite, "trickle-down theory." Strip away the doublespeak and it boils down to this: "Actually, your boss is right. He does deserve more of the value than you do":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/09/low-wage-100/#executive-excess

Even if you've been suckered by the lie that bosses have a legal "fiduciary duty" to maximize shareholder returns (this is a myth, by the way – no such law exists), it doesn't follow that customers or workers share that fiduciary duty. As a customer, you are not legally obliged to arrange your affairs to maximize the dividends paid by to investors in your corporate landlord or by the merchants you patronize. As a worker, you are under no legal obligation to consider shareholders' interests when you bargain for wages, benefits and working conditions.

The "fiduciary duty" lie is another instance of politics masquerading as economics: even if bosses bargain for as big a slice of the pie as they can get, the size of that slice is determined by the relative power of bosses, customers and workers.

This is why bosses hate unions. It's why the scab presidency of Donald Trump has waged all-out war on unions. Trump just effectively shuttered the National Labor Relations Board, unilaterally halting its enforcement actions and investigations. He also illegally fired one of the Democratic NLRB board members, leaving the agency with too few board members to take any new actions, meaning that no unions can be recognized – indeed, the NLRB can't do anything – for the foreseeable future:

https://www.npr.org/2025/01/28/nx-s1-5277103/nlrb-trump-wilcox-abruzzo-democrats-labor

Trump also fired the NLRB's outstanding General Counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, who was one of the stars of the Biden administration, who promulgated rules that decisively tilted the balance in favor of labor:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

Trump is playing Grinch here – he's descended upon Whoville to take all the Christmas decorations, in the belief that these are the source of Christmas. But the Grinch was wrong (and so is Trump): Christmas was in the heart of the Whos, and the tinsel and baubles were the expression of that Christmas spirit. Likewise, labor rights come from labor organizing, not the other way around.

Labor rights were enshrined in federal law in 1935, with the National Labor Relations Act. Bosses hated – and hate – the NLRA. 12 years later, they passed the Taft-Hartley Act, which substantially gutted the NLRA. Most notably, Taft-Hartley bans "sympathy strikes" – when unions walk out in support of one another. Sympathy strikes are a hugely powerful way for workers to claim value away from bosses and investors, which is why bosses got rid of them.

But even then, bosses who were honest with themselves would admit that they preferred life under the NLRA to life before it. Remember: labor militancy created the NLRA, not the other way around. When workers didn't have the legal means to organize, they organized by illegal means. When they didn't have legal ways of striking, they struck illegally. The result was pitched battles, even bloodbaths, as cops beat and even killed labor organizers. Bosses hired thugs who committed mass murder – literally. In 1913, strikebreakers working for the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company started a stampede during a union Christmas party that killed 73 people, including many copper miners' children:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Hall_disaster

Workers didn't take this lying down. Violence was met with violence. Bombs went off outside factories and stately mansions. There was gunfire and arson. Bosses had to hire armed guards to escort them as they scurried between their estates and their fancy parties and their executive offices. The country was in a state of near-perpetual chaos.

The NLRA created a set of rules for labor/boss negotiations – rules that helped workers claim a bigger slice of the pie without blood in the streets. But the NLRA also had benefits for bosses: unions were obliged to play by its rules, if they wanted to reap its benefits. The NLRA didn't just put a ceiling over boss power – it also put a ceiling over worker militancy. Von Clausewitz says that "war is politics by other means," which implies that politics are war by other means. The alternative to politics isn't capitulation, it's war.

Trump has torn up the rules to the labor game, but that doesn't mean the game ends. That just means there are no rules.

The labor movement has many great organizer/writers, but few can match the incredible Jane McAlevey, who died of cancer last summer (rest in power). In her classic A Collective Bargain, McAlevey describes her organizer training, from a tradition that went back to the days before the National Labor Relations Act:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

McAlevey was very clear that labor law owes its existence to union power, not the other way around. She explains very clearly that union organizers invented labor law after they invented unions, and that unions can (and indeed, must) exist separately from government agencies that are charged with protecting labor law. But she goes farther: in Collective Bargain, McAlevey describes how the 2019 LA Teachers' Strike didn't just win all the wage and benefits demands of the teachers, but also got the school district to promise to put a park or playground near every school in the system, and got a ban on ICE agents harassing parents at the school gates.

This wildly successful strike forged bonds among teachers, and between teachers and their communities. These teachers went on to run a political get-out-the-vote campaign in the 2020 elections and elected two Democratic reps to Congress and secured the Dems' majority. McAlevey contrasted the active way good unions involve workers as participants with the thin, anemic way that the Democratic Party engages with supporters – solely by asking them for money in a stream of frothing, clickbait text messages. As McAlevey wrote, "Workplace democracy is a training ground for true national democracy."

Militant labor doesn't just protect labor rights – it protects human rights. Remember: MLK, Jr was assassinated while campaigning for union janitors in Memphis. LA teachers ended ICE sweeps at the school gates. Librarian unions are leading the fight against book bans.

The good news is that public opinion has swung wildly in favor of unions over the past decade. More people want to join unions than at any time in generations. More people support unions that at any time in generations.

The bad news is that union leadership fucking suuuuuuuucks. As Hamilton Nolan writes, union bosses are sitting on vast, heretofore unseen warchests of cash, and they just experienced a four-year period of governmental support for unions unheard of since the Carter administration, and they did fuck all with that opportunity:

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/confirmed-unions-squandered-the-biden

Big unions have effectively stopped trying to organize new workers, even when workers beg them for help forming a union. Union organizing budgets are so small as to be indistinguishable from zero. Despite the record number of workers who want to be in a union, the number of workers who are in a union actually fell during the Biden years.

Indeed, some union bosses actually campaigned for Trump, a notorious scab. Teamsters boss Sean O'Brien spoke at the fucking RNC, a political favor that Trump repaid by killing the NLRB and every labor enforcement action and investigation in the country. Nice one, O'Brien. See you in hell:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/08/teamster-union-trump/679513/

Union bosses squandered a historical opportunity to build countervailing power. Now, Trump's stormtroopers are rounding up workers with the goal of illegally deporting them. Fascism is on the rise. Labor and fascism are archenemies. Organized labor has always been the biggest threat to fascism, every time it has reared its head. That's why fascists target unions first. Union bosses cost us an organized force that could effectively defend our friends and neighbors from Trump's deportation stormtroopers:

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-01-28-trumps-lawbreaking-also-aimed-at-workers/

Not every union boss is a scab like O'Brien. Shawn Fain, head of the UAW, won an historic strike against all three of the Big Three automakers, and made sure that the new contracts all ran out in 2028, and called on other unions to do the same, so that the country could have a general strike in 2028 without violating the Taft-Hartley Act (Fain was operating on the now-dead assumption that unions had to play by the rules):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/11/rip-jane-mcalevey/#organize

A general strike isn't just a strike for workers' rights. Under Trump, a general strike is a strike against Trumpism and all its horrors: kids in cages, forced birth, trans erasure, climate accelerationism – the whole fucking thing.

A general strike would build the worker power to occupy the Democratic Party and force it to stand up for the American people against oligarchy, rather than meekly capitulating to fascism (and fundraising), which is all they know how to do anymore:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/10/smoke-filled-room-where-it-happens/#dinosaurs

But before we can occupy the Dems, we have to occupy the unions. We need union bosses who are committed to signing up every worker who wants workplace democracy, and unionizing every workplace in spite of the NLRB, not with its help. We need to go back to our roots, when there were no rules.

That's the world Trump made. We need to make him regret that decision.

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/2025/01/29/which-side-are-you-on/#strike-three-yer-out

[retailor]

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[reasonsforhope]

Holy crap, I didn't think Biden would be able to get the Climate Corps established without Congress. This is SUCH fantastic news.

--

"After being thwarted by Congress, President Joe Biden will use his executive authority to create a New Deal-style American Climate Corps that will serve as a major green jobs training program.

In an announcement Wednesday, the White House said the program will employ more than 20,000 young adults who will build trails, plant trees, help install solar panels and do other work to boost conservation and help prevent catastrophic wildfires.

The climate corps had been proposed in early versions of the sweeping climate law approved last year but was jettisoned amid strong opposition from Republicans and concerns about cost.

Democrats and environmental advocacy groups never gave up on the plan and pushed Biden in recent weeks to issue an executive order authorizing what the White House now calls the American Climate Corps.

“After years of demonstrating and fighting for a Climate Corps, we turned a generational rallying cry into a real jobs program that will put a new generation to work stopping the climate crisis,” said Varshini Prakash, executive director of the Sunrise Movement, an environmental group that has led the push for a climate corps.

With the new corps “and the historic climate investments won by our broader movement, the path towards a Green New Deal is beginning to become visible,” Prakash said...

...Environmental activists hailed the new jobs program, which is modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps, created in the 1930s by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, as part of the New Deal...

Lawmakers Weigh In

More than 50 Democratic lawmakers, including Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, had also encouraged Biden to create a climate corps, saying in a letter on Monday that “the climate crisis demands a whole-of-government response at an unprecedented scale.”

The lawmakers cited deadly heat waves in the Southwest and across the nation, as well as dangerous floods in New England and devastating wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui, among recent examples of climate-related disasters.

Democrats called creation of the climate corps “historic” and the first step toward fulfilling the vision of the Green New Deal.

“Today President Biden listened to the (environmental) movement, and he delivered with an American Climate Corps,” a beaming Markey said at a celebratory news conference outside the Capitol.

“We are starting to turn the green dream into a green reality,” added Ocasio-Cortez, who co-sponsored the Green New Deal legislation with Markey four years ago.

“You all are changing the world,” she told young activists.

Program Details and Grant Deadlines

The initiative will provide job training and service opportunities to work on a wide range of projects, including restoring coastal wetlands to protect communities from storm surges and flooding; clean energy projects such as wind and solar power; managing forests to prevent catastrophic wildfires; and energy efficient solutions to cut energy bills for consumers, the White House said.

Creation of the climate corps comes as the Environmental Protection Agency launches a $4.6 billion grant competition for states, municipalities and tribes to cut climate pollution and advance environmental justice. The Climate Pollution Reduction Grants are funded by the 2022 climate law and are intended to drive community-driven solutions to slow climate change.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan said the grants will help “communities so they can chart their own paths toward the clean energy future.”

The deadline for states and municipalities to apply is April 1, with grants expected in late 2024. Tribes and territories must apply by May 1, with grants expected by early 2025."

-via Boston.com, September 21, 2023

[felassan]

IGN: "Key Dragon Age developers have announced they are leaving BioWare after the developer restructured to focus on the next Mass Effect." Michael Douse, publishing director of Larian Studios: "*laid off I wrote more but then deleted it because I’m not about to ruin a long weekend. Something something $30 billion corporation operating for decades unable to provide the necessary economic foundation from which to support a big RPG. But again, I deleted it. It is possible not to layoff large parts of your development teams between or after projects. Critically, retaining that institutional knowledge is key for the next. It’s often used as an excuse to ‘trim fat’ and to an extent I understand that under financial pressure, but doesn’t that just highlight how needless the aggressive efficiency of giant corporations is? I’d understand it if they were pumping out hit after hit - perhaps you could argue it’s working - but clearly the aggressive streamlining (layoffs) aren’t. It’s *nothing but cost cutting* in the most brutal sense. It’s *always* people lower down the food chain that suffer, when it’s *clearly* strategy higher up the food chain that’s causing the problem. On a pirate ship, they’d toss the captain overboard. Video games companies should be run like pirate ships. The delta between VC and unemployed game developer is fascinating because where one falls upwards the other in parallel velocity tumbles downwards. You can tank an entire multi-billion dollar initiative and head upwards, while an incredibly talented artist, engineer, QA, etc can head into poverty. I don’t have LinkedIn btw 😬 Just in case any of this annoys you, just imagine I meant the exact opposite of it and you’re the best. Have a great weekend ✌️ "[source]

Michael Douse: "To make it absolutely clear, what I hate about the way layoffs are carried out is that they are done *before* decision makers know what do do with a studio, and not as a result of figuring out a direction. This is consistently true. It is a short term cost saving measure at a huge human expense that doesn’t solve a long term problem. (A lack of a viable strategic direction defined at an executive level). You can probably figure it out if you trust your developers instead of firing them. On a positive note, I’m seeing a slight shift in this direction. In the low-stakes arena of remasters and remakes, but they are the foundation of something bigger." [source]

[mariacallous]

WASHINGTON ― More than 5,000 people got their jobs back at the U.S. Department of Agriculture this month after a government employee oversight board concluded they had been illegally fired by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

The decision by that panel, the Merit Systems Protection Board, came after it restored the jobs of six other federal employees who had been similarly fired by DOGE.

Meanwhile, this month, a federal judge blocked DOGE from firing the president of a small federal agency, the U.S. African Development Foundation, in a lawsuit that provides the clearest details yet on how DOGE operates and how it may be routinely breaking the law.

All of these legal challenges came from the same group, a well-funded progressive legal organization, Democracy Forward.

At a time when the flood of litigation against President Donald Trump’s early actions is nearly impossible to keep up with ― his administration has already been hit with more than 130 legal challenges in the span of two months ― Democracy Forward has emerged as a leading legal organization that’s been slowing, if not stopping, some of Trump’s recklessness through the courts.

The group doesn’t just stand out for the number of lawsuits it’s been filing, which include more than 28 legal actions and 67 investigations since Trump was sworn in. Democracy Forward has shown it can move quickly to step in amid Trump’s chaotic, and often illegal, efforts to dismantle entire agencies, freeze federal spending, and fire thousands of federal employees. It has intervened on behalf of individual people, unions, nonprofit groups, health care professionals, educators, veterans groups and religious groups.

And importantly, it’s been winning.

On Saturday, Democracy Forward and the American Civil Liberties Union challenged Trump’s expansion of war time powers to deport immigrants using the centuries-old Alien Enemies Act. Within hours, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order preventing Trump from removing some people through this act ― and later that day, broadened the scope of his order to cover all immigrants in danger of removal under the act.

In another case brought by Democracy Forward, a federal judge last week reaffirmed the court’s nationwide preliminary injunction (i.e., a temporary court order to preserve the status quo) that halted Trump’s efforts to arbitrarily terminate federal grants relating to diversity, equity and inclusion, and accessibility programs. The judge reaffirmed that not only can Trump not do that, but that this temporary halt applies to all agencies in the executive branch.

The group also secured the first and only nationwide order preventing Trump from imposing a sweeping freeze on trillions of dollars in federal spending, blocked a Trump administration policy enabling immigration enforcement officers to indiscriminately raid houses of worship, and this week prompted a federal judge to slam the Trump administration’s defense of DOGE and grant a request by labor and economic organizations to get more details about the Elon Musk-led entity unlawfully accessing sensitive data at federal agencies.

The evidence the Trump administration put forward to avoid more transparency into DOGE’s operations “is not the panacea they hoped it would be,” this judge concluded.

A big reason this organization has been so adept at countering Trump in court is because it spent the last 18 months gaming out legal strategies for responding to countless policy plans laid out in Project 2025, the far-right policy blueprint that the Heritage Foundation put together in preparation for a second Trump presidency.

Democracy Forward staff indexed the entire 900-page policy playbook, broke it down into different categories, put it in a spreadsheet and meticulously laid out what legal actions they should prepare to take based on how the Trump administration was likely to proceed with various policies, whether it be through executive orders, statutes or regulations.

They also coordinated with more than 450 civil society groups and state attorneys general to prepare for different scenarios where certain groups would be impacted by Project 2025 policies, and figured out when they should team up to defend the rule of law.

Trump tried to distance himself from Project 2025 on the campaign trail because lots of its plans are extreme and unpopular. But the policy guidebook was put together by former Trump administration officials and staunch allies, so it’s not surprising to see the president now moving aggressively to enact some of its proposals, like purging tens of thousands of federal workers for political reasons or abolishing the Department of Education.

In fact, late Thursday, Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the education department. Minutes later, Democracy Forward announced it would see him in court.

“Trump’s playbook is a known playbook,” Skye Perryman, Democracy Forward’s president and CEO, told HuffPost in an interview. “The Heritage Foundation wrote it down: Project 2025. We never believed it was a talking point or hyperbole. It is the greatest threat to democracy since the Civil War.”

Democracy Forward also prepared for a second Trump presidency by gathering materials from his first administration to review what legal actions and litigation he previously pursued, whether they be related to his executive orders, immigration cases, impoundment or challenges to executive orders issued by former President Joe Biden.

The president has done some unexpected things in his second term, like tapping Musk to oversee DOGE and letting him gain access to millions of Americans’ personal data. But Perryman said her organization was primed to respond to something chaotic, and in the case of DOGE, they sued on day one.

“This is like basic stuff,” she said.

“They do not play within the rules. There is opportunity in their lawlessness,” Perryman said. “They make a lot of legal foibles.”

Democracy Forward currently represents the American Federation of Teachers in two lawsuits, one that aims to halt DOGE’s seizure of millions of people’s sensitive data from the Social Security Administration, and another challenging a new Department of Education policy threatening to withhold federal money from schools teaching accurate history about slavery and diversity.

AFT, which has more than 1.8 million members, had been preparing to fight Trump’s executive order to dissolve the Department of Education when the department unexpectedly announced a new policy of stripping federal funds from schools that support diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, said Daniel McNeil, general counsel at AFT. So the teachers’ group asked Democracy Forward if they wanted to team up to fight that, too.

“They already had something ready to go,” McNeil said. “It took working through the entire weekend to get it done, but they weren’t fazed at all by the fact that something else happened.”

AFT is working with other legal groups suing the Trump administration, he said, and they’re also doing good work. What’s unique about Democracy Forward’s model, though, is that they have their own attorneys doing the litigating versus hiring outside firms, and they have experts on staff, like someone who previously worked in the general counsel’s office at the Department of Education. They’ve also just been anticipating specific legal fights, he said.

“Of all the groups that were warning about Project 2025, they were systematically planning for the legal fight in the event that Trump were elected,” said McNeil. “For months in advance, they were thinking in a way that was like, ‘How do we challenge an executive order that does X? Who is the right party to challenge if Y happens?’ I think that’s what makes them different.”

Democracy Forward first launched in 2017, in response to what it described as the first Trump administration’s “unprecedented” threats to democracy and the rule of law. By 2019, it had sued his administration more than 100 times and chalked up several wins, including forcing the administration to collect pay data from employers based on race, gender and ethnicity, and forcing the FDA to regulate e-cigarettes.

Both Democracy Forward and its nonprofit counterpart, Democracy Forward Foundation, are chaired by Marc Elias, who served as general counsel for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. The nonprofit is funded entirely by individual donors and philanthropic institutions. Its major donors include the Sandler Foundation, which gave $16 million from 2018 to 2023, and the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, which gave $5.6 million from 2021 to 2023.

Democracy Forward was operating with a budget of about $12.4 million in 2023, the most recent year its tax filings are available.

The organization has been hiring up for Trump’s second term. Last month, it brought on more litigators, public affairs specialists and operations personnel ― several of whom are seasoned former federal staffers from agencies that Democracy Forward will likely be seeing in court amid its lawsuits against the Trump administration, including the Justice Department, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Interior Department.

One of its newest hires, Joel McElvain, was the acting deputy general counsel at HHS, where he was responsible for legal advice on all matters relating to Medicare and Medicaid statutes and the Affordable Care Act. Another recent hire, Michael Waldman, was special counsel at the Department of Veterans Affairs, where he advised the secretary on oversight matters and managed the department’s responses to congressional inquiries.

Shawn Phetteplace of Main Street Alliance, a network of roughly 30,000 small business owners that support left-of-center policies, has worked with Democracy Forward for years and is currently represented by them in three cases against the Trump administration. One case relates to the Office of Management and Budget’s freeze on billions of dollars on Jan. 27 in congressional approved federal grants being disbursed.

This funding freeze resulted in multiple small business owners having their money cut off, to the point where they weren’t sure if they could continue to operate, said Phetteplace. Within hours of OMB announcing its new directive, Democracy Forward requested a temporary restraining order in federal court. A judge granted that order on Feb. 3, and by Feb. 25, the judge granted a preliminary injunction, blocking the nationwide freeze from taking effect, for now.

“They keep winning,” Phetteplace said of Democracy Forward. “For our members, this isn’t theoretical. This is whether or not they stay in business.”

He chalks up some of the group’s success to the public-facing push it makes on the cases it’s fighting. He gave the example of Main Street Alliance members reaching out to the group to talk about how their businesses were hurt by Trump’s policies, and then how litigation has helped them. Democracy Forward has been incorporating those stories into its public statements as it moves forward with various lawsuits.

“They understand that it is really important to shape the public narrative around the issue and educate the public about the stakes,” he said. “That helps them make a stronger case.”

To be sure, Democracy Forward has faced setbacks in stemming Trump’s chaos, and that’s due to at least some of its victories being temporary. Last month, it filed emergency litigation in response to Trump’s plans to unilaterally defund the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a financial watchdog agency. Their quick legal action resulted in the administration backing off its plans, instead agreeing to wait until a related case was heard in court.

A federal judge has since heard that case ― and this week denied the plaintiffs’ request to halt the administration’s plans for CFPB.

Temporary wins are still wins. When a judge issues a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction, it immediately blocks an action and buys time. Preliminary injunctions in particular can drag on for a long time. Democracy Forward and other groups have already demonstrated that collectively taking these legal steps has a real effect on slowing Trump’s unlawful, everywhere-all-at-once approach to dismantling the federal government.

Democracy Forward chalked up another temporary, but significant, victory in one of its cases late on Thursday: A federal judge blocked DOGE workers from accessing Social Security systems, calling the Musk-led efforts at this agency a “fishing expedition.”

“This is a major win for working people and retirees across the country,” said Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, one of the plaintiffs in the case. “This decision will not only force them to delete any data they have currently saved, but it will also block them from further sharing, accessing or disclosing our Social Security information.”

Some Trump allies are mad at the success that Democracy Forward and other groups have found in the courts, particularly in cases where judges have issued nationwide injunctions halting some of the president’s actions. In a nonsensical show of fealty to Trump, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) on Thursday vowed to introduce legislation to prevent U.S. district court judges from issuing nationwide injunctions ― something that is, in fact, their jobs.

“That is not a power that I think district courts have,” Hawley, a Yale Law School alum who knows better, claimed on The Charlie Kirk Show, a far-right podcast. “Either the Supreme Court needs to intervene and make clear there’s only one court that can issue rules for the whole country … and/or, if they won’t do that, Congress needs to legislate and make clear that district courts do not have the ability to issue these kinds of injunctions.”

For her part, Perryman said one reason it’s important to slow things down in the courts is because it creates transparency on what Trump is actually doing. Doing so gives Americans a better understanding of the illegality of his actions, she said, and forces his administration to keep answering for what it’s doing.

“Understand that chaos is part of the strategy,” she said.

“Every day in litigation, what we see in this administration is they back off,” Perryman added. “Because really, the purpose is to see what they can do quickly. They don’t hold great conviction. There is opportunity in that.”

[robertreich]

Project 2025: The MAGA Plan to Take Your Freedom 

A second Trump term would be more dangerous than the first — in part because of something called Project 2025, a plan to extend Trump’s grip into every part of your life.

Trump’s gross incompetence in his first term wasn’t all bad. It kept some of his most extreme goals out of reach. That’s why his inner circle, including more than 20 officials from his first term, have written a step-by-step playbook to make a second term brutally efficient.

At nearly a thousand pages, it’s longer than most Stephen King novels, and a lot scarier. The Associated Press wasn’t kidding when they called it “a plan to dismantle the US government and replace it with Trump’s vision,”

Project 2025 is a road map to ban abortion, give greedy corporate oligarchs everything they want, and strip Americans of our most basic freedoms — all without needing any support from Congress.

There’s more to it than I can get into, but here are three things I want you to know.

#1 How would Project 2025 work?

Every nonpartisan government agency would be turned into an arm of the MAGA agenda.

Some of the worst things Trump reportedly tried to do as president — like having the military  shoot protesters or seize voting machines to overturn the election  — were only stopped because sensible leaders in the military or the professional civil service refused to go along with it.

In a second term, there would be no sensible leaders in the military or professional civil service because Trump would fire anyone more loyal to the Constitution than to him.

Trump started the process in October 2020 with an executive order that would have let him fire tens of thousands of civil servants and replace them with MAGA henchmen. I’m talking about traditionally non-political positions, like scientists at scientific agencies and accountants at the IRS.

Trump could not act on the executive order then because he lost the election. If he wins now, he’s pledged to pick up where he left off and go further…

TRUMP: …making every executive branch employee fireable by the President of the United States.

#2 Project 2025 is about controlling Americans’ lives & bodies

Restricting abortion is such a big part of Project 2025 that the word “abortion” appears 198 times in the plan.

Trump largely made good on his campaign promise to ban abortion.

Thanks to Trump’s Supreme Court justices, 1 in 3 American women of childbearing age live in states with abortion bans. Project 2025 would make that even worse, without needing new laws from Congress.

Page 458 of the playbook calls for a MAGA-controlled FDA to reject medical science and reverse approval of the medications used in 63% of all abortions, effectively banning them.

Page 455 plans “abortion surveillance” and the creation of a registry that could put people who cross state lines to get an abortion at risk of prosecution.

Another way around Congress is to enforce arcane laws that are still technically on the books. Page 562 plans for a MAGA-controlled Justice Department to enforce the Comstock Act of 1873, which bans the mailing of “anything designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion.” This could be used to block the shipment of any medications or medical instruments needed for abortions.

But Project 2025’s control of American families goes even further. It plans for government agencies to define life as beginning at conception — a position at odds with the process used for in vitro fertilization.

Page 451 declares that “Families comprised of a married mother, father, and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society,” thereby stigmatizing single parents, same-sex couples, unmarried coparents, and childless couples.

Project 2025 even takes a stand against adoption, declaring on p. 489 that “all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them.”

#3 Project 2025 would turn America into a police state.

Maybe you live in a blue city or state, where you think plans like arresting teachers and librarians over banned books (which is on p. 5) could never happen. Well, guess again.

Trump has said one of the big things he’d do differently in a second term is override mayors and governors to take over local law enforcement.

Page 553 lays out how to do this, and even plans for Trump’s Justice Department to prosecute district attorneys he disagrees with.

Immigration enforcement is to be conducted like a war, with the military deployed within the U.S., and millions of undocumented immigrants rounded up and placed into newly constructed holding camps. This is outlined starting on p. 139.

Members of the Project 2025 team also reportedly told the Washington Post about plans to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy the military against anti-Trump protests.

There is much more to Project 2025. There are more than a hundred pages of anti-environmental policies that would help Trump make good on what he reportedly promised to do for oil executives if they contribute a billion dollars to his reelection. It would make drilling and mining a top national priority while killing clean energy projects, barring the EPA from regulating carbon emissions, and replacing all government climate scientists with climate deniers.

There are even cartoonishly cruel plans like slaughtering wild horses. Yes, that’s really in there on p. 528.

I thought I understood the stakes of this election, but reading this plan… Well, it gave me chills. If Trump gets the chance to put this plan into place, he will. The country it would turn America into would be hard for any of us to recognize.

[batboyblog]

Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #28

July 19-26 2024

The EPA announced the award of $4.3 billion in Climate Pollution Reduction Grants. The grants support community-driven solutions to fight climate change, and accelerate America’s clean energy transition. The grants will go to 25 projects across 30 states, and one tribal community. When combined the projects will reduce greenhouse gas pollution by as much as 971 million metric tons of CO2, roughly the output of 5 million American homes over 25 years. Major projects include $396 million for Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection as it tries to curb greenhouse gas emissions from industrial production, and $500 million for transportation and freight decarbonization at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

The Biden-Harris Administration announced a plan to phase out the federal government's use of single use plastics. The plan calls for the federal government to stop using single use plastics in food service operations, events, and packaging by 2027, and from all federal operations by 2035. The US government is the single largest employer in the country and the world’s largest purchaser of goods and services. Its move away from plastics will redefine the global market.

The White House hosted a summit on super pollutants with the goals of better measuring them and dramatically reducing them. Roughly half of today's climate change is caused by so called super pollutants, methane, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and nitrous oxide (N2O). Public-private partnerships between NOAA and United Airlines, The State Department and NASA, and the non-profit Carbon Mapper Coalition will all help collect important data on these pollutants. While private firms announced with the White House plans that by early next year will reduce overall U.S. industrial emissions of nitrous oxide by over 50% from 2020 numbers. The summit also highlighted the EPA's new rule to reduce methane from oil and gas by 80%.

The EPA announced $325 million in grants for climate justice. The Community Change Grants Program, powered by President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act will ultimately bring $2 billion dollars to disadvantaged communities and help them combat climate change. Some of the projects funded in this first round of grant were: $20 million for Midwest Tribal Energy Resources Association, which will help weatherize and energy efficiency upgrade homes for 35 tribes in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, $14 million to install onsite wastewater treatment systems throughout 17 Black Belt counties in Alabama, and $14 million to urban forestry, expanding tree canopy in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

The Department of Interior approved 3 new solar projects on public land. The 3 projects, two in Nevada and one in Arizona, once finished could generate enough to power 2 million homes. This comes on top of DoI already having beaten its goal of 25 gigawatts of clean energy projects by the end of 2025, in April 2024. This is all part of President Biden’s goal of creating a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035. 

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pledged $667 million to global Pandemic Fund. The fund set up in 2022 seeks to support Pandemic prevention, and readiness in low income nations who can't do it on their own. At the G20 meeting Yellen pushed other nations of the 20 largest economies to double their pledges to the $2 billion dollar fund. Yellen highlighted the importance of the fund by saying "President Biden and I believe that a fully-resourced Pandemic Fund will enable us to better prevent, prepare for, and respond to pandemics – protecting Americans and people around the world from the devastating human and economic costs of infectious disease threats,"

The Departments of the Interior and Commerce today announced a $240 million investment in tribal fisheries in the Pacific Northwest. This is in line with an Executive Order President Biden signed in 2023 during the White House Tribal Nations Summit to mpower Tribal sovereignty and self-determination. An initial $54 million for hatchery maintenance and modernization will be made available for 27 tribes in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. The rest will be invested in longer term fishery projects in the coming years.

The IRS announced that thanks to funding from President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, it'll be able to digitize much of its operations. This means tax payers will be able to retrieve all their tax related information from one source, including Wage & Income, Account, Record of Account, and Return transcripts, using on-line Individual Online Account.

The IRS also announced that New Jersey will be joining the direct file program in 2025. The direct file program ran as a pilot in 12 states in 2024, allowing tax-payers in those states to file simple tax returns using a free online filing tool directly with the IRS. In 2024 140,000 Americans were able to file this way, they collectively saved $5.6 million in tax preparation fees, claiming $90 million in returns. The average American spends $270 and 13 hours filing their taxes. More than a million people in New Jersey alone will qualify for direct file next year. Oregon opted to join last month. Republicans in Congress lead by Congressmen Adrian Smith of Nebraska and Chuck Edwards of North Carolina have put forward legislation to do away with direct file.

Bonus: American law enforcement arrested co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada. El Mayo co-founded the cartel in the 1980s along side Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán. Since El Chapo's incarceration in the United States in 2019, El Mayo has been sole head of the Sinaloa Cartel. Authorities also arrested El Chapo's son, Joaquin Guzman Lopez. The Sinaloa Cartel has been a major player in the cross border drug trade, and has often used extreme violence to further their aims.

[yey56]

HARLEY SAWYER X PSYCHOLOGIST READER

Before everything:

Both Harley and (Y/N) had worked on the Playtime company before actually getting to know each other. They've seen each other, rarely, but sometimes in corridors or around the compound in general

When Sawyer had to visit the orphanage to observe the development of the children, sometimes you would be there. At first he took you for another bleeding heart, just as the rest of the caretakers. Then he learned you were a psychologist, at that time you were just that but he could see something in your gaze, something analytical, something that brushed a deep rooted curiosity.

He was curious. Harley didn't right away ask you or even approached you, he had more important things to do, but whenever he needed to go to Home Sweet Home, he would stare a little bit longer than needed trying to find that look of yours. The look that said that you were observing not admiring.

Later on, you were promoted by Elliot Ludwig himself as head psychologist of the company and or course, you were granted executive access.

Now you had knowledge of the deeper and darker secrets of the factory and of course you were expected to participate.

The first person you started talking with was Leith Pierre. The head of innovation and the head psychologist were two positions that complemented each other well because of the need of better, newer and more effective designs on toys and staff management.

You always worked closely to the innovation team, giving ideas and offering advice that would make the toys and the company more appealing.

But it was later, when the Bigger Bodies initiative was presented that you started working with Harley more often. The experiments needed mental stability so they wouldn't pose a threat to other stuff and to children. And of course to work efficiently.

At first he hated the compassion and empathy you showed the toys. How you were an ear to listen, to validate and to advice. To help them navigate the change. To see the light at the end of the tunnel.

But he was somewhat wrong in his opinion about you. When you talked to him about them you gave him a full report of the experiments mental weakness and where to improve so they could be more controlable, manageable.

You, just as him, were searching for control and while he imposed it over the experiments; you made them let you in. Where he found walls that delayed his work, you found a door of which you had the key.

That's when he understood why you looked at them that way. You were analysing your surroundings. Already strategizing a way to crack them open.

Of course you sometimes showed some preference over certain experiments, everyone is entitled to a whim, and even though you really seemed to have certain care for certain toys, that never stopped you so there was no problem.

You were made to adapt. You needed to adapt. Every toy was different, every kid had a different world in their head's. You were more than willing to explore it and conquer it.

Even though somewhere deep in you felt a little sad for the situation of the kids. You've made yourself be able to chose what to feel at any given moment, therefore you would be able to just ignore it for your own good.

No project would ever get done if you just felt bad for pushing the boundaries. The limits where what draw the line between mediocre and greatness.

This project was everything to you. Any reminder of the moral compass you might thought to have was thrown away in order to satisfy your need to unravel the human, and not so human mind after pushing the boundaries of life.

And the same way Harley noticed your true intentions by pure analytical view, you noticed his.

Harley, as much as he hated was still very much human and as the human he was he had his outbursts. He was an easy man to anger.

When you started to get more confortable with each other, he would sometimes just start ranting about everything that annoyed him that week. You knew showing him empty compassion or useless words would not suffice so, true to yourself you adapted to him recognising what he needed at that moment.

That's what always startled him about you. You were damn good at your job. You knew what he needed, you knew what was needed and you did it with little to no error.

Sometimes he would hear you mumbling to yourself about the development of some experiments or about how Leith was fucking up the designs. To repetitive, to traditional, to boring, to unchild-like.....

Just as you listened when he ranted about what bothered him, he listened to your speeches about how the designs would only decrease the sells and you quoting some psychological studies that discredited whatever the design of the toy was. Sometimes it was the colors that weren't lively enough or didn't combine well; other times it was the unfriendly shape of the toy....

You, just as him didn't like when others did your job (even though it was needed because you cannot be everywhere) because you though that they could never do it as good as you.

He would listen to you talking about child psychology. Talking about how the other psychologist were not handling well the experiments. Sometimes you would joke about them buying their titles or something like that.

(Y/N): "Harley, I swear, I think this idiots bought their titles online because there is no way that someone is that fucking dumb on purpose."

Harley: "I differ, we have Pierre as an example."

Both you and Sawyer basically isolated yourselfs on the deeper laboratories. The executives were noticing this too but since you both were very stubborn people, no one could convince you to stop.

Leith started requesting Ludwig to call you out because whether he liked it or not, your advice in the innovation and marketing department actually helped a lot the company and your absence was taking a toll on the finances.

Once a week you would go up to give Leith your design and give him a very detailed explanation of why this design was the most effective and the one that the public would like the most.

This bothered Harley because he had gotten so used to you that now he was almost unbearable to work with any other specialist or psychologists.

Eventually they all quit or just presented a formal complaint to Ludwig.

Headcannons:

Your fingers are almost always covered in blue ink or in pencil dust due to your reports, notes and designs.

Harley and (Y/N) have, accidentally, switched glasses once or twice and since they have different affections (Harley doesn't see well near and you don't see well far) you basically have a moment of confusion before realising that it's not your glasses.

Leith and (Y/N) actually got along well at the start. But (Y/N)'s obsession on the projects made her very self centered, only worried about feeding her curiosity.

When bigger bodies started, Harley was 39 and (Y/N) 37 while Leith was already 43.

Since (Y/N) stopped taking care of herself so much, the white hairs in her head became more visible after starting the Bigger Bodies initiative.

The kids usually liked (Y/N) a lot because she always treated them as people and not like idiot kids. They basically view them as little adults with less knowledge about the world. That's it.

Harley gets somewhat irritated when (Y/N) is not much time in the laboratory or in the interviews with him because she just starts a new obsession over a project. (Mommy long legs, poppy, Doey, Catnap, Piannosaurius etc.)

Okey people, sorry for not writing but I'm in finals so I want to pass. I've made some drawing.

⚠️⚠️SPOILER PART 5 ⚠️⚠️

(Part 5 in process)

I wanted to give more depth to (Y/N)

-Unedited fanfic-