Kennedy Library closes abruptly; Politico, February 18, 2025

KELLY GARRITY and SEB STARCEVIC, Politico; Kennedy Library closes abruptly

[Kip Currier: The chaos is the point.

Remember what Steve Bannon said: Flood the zone with ****]

[Excerpt]

"The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum closed abruptly Tuesday afternoon amid a flurry of mass firings at federal agencies across the government.

The effort to slash the federal workforce spearheaded by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency hit the Boston-based intuition Thursday afternoon, when the National Archives passed down an order telling leadership to terminate probationary employees, former Rep. Joe Kennedy III said Tuesday evening...

The closure, which began at 2 p.m. Tuesday, isn’t expected to last long. According to a statement from the National Archives, the library “will be open tomorrow, and the National Archives staff looks forward to welcoming guests, visitors, and researchers.”"

Elon Musk ridiculed a blind person on X. Then a mob went to work.; The Washington Post, February 18, 2025

Pranshu Verma, The Washington Post ; Elon Musk ridiculed a blind person on X. Then a mob went to work

[Kip Currier: Elon Musk repeatedly shows us exactly who and what he is: the richest person on the planet and a man who is to be pitied for the severe impoverishment of character, decency, and ethical principles from which he suffers.

We can't easily counter the hate speech, disinformation, and chaos that are the democracy-damaging byproducts of this wannabe-Bond-villain's amoral philosophical approach to life. But we can support the brave souls whom Musk and his minions ruthlessly target with their cyberbullying and scare tactics.

Thanks to all those willing to stand up for the rule of law, fairness, accountability, truth, service to those in need, and human dignity.]

[Excerpt]

"Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette works at the Project on Government Oversight,a nonpartisan watchdog group focused on reducing bureaucratic waste. He also happens to be blind. So when he criticized Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service in testimony on Capitol Hill last week, Musk unleashed an online attack Hedtler-Gaudette described as “surreal” in its juvenile bigotry.

First, Musk retweeted a post on X noting that the “blind director of watchdog group funded by George Soros testifies that he does not see widespread evidence of government waste” and added two laughing/crying emojis. The tweet garnered more than 21 million views, and sparked dozens of hateful messages to Hedtler-Gaudette’s account...

Digital rights experts say the situation has created an unprecedented imbalance in power. Musk’s massive online following, his ownership of a social media platform where he can dictate content moderation rules, and his position heading a government entity with access to private data, give him a unique ability to threaten those who question him and chill dissenting speech."

As Musk reshapes the government, some ask: Where are the guardrails?; The Washington Post, February 16, 2025

Lisa Rein , The Washington Post; As Musk reshapes the government, some ask: Where are the guardrails?

"Some dismissed civil servants are preparing lawsuits against the administration, citing the guardrails that Congress erected to protect their jobs. Legal experts are closely watching to find out if they will survive."

USAID fought apartheid. Musk is killing it; The Ink, February 3, 2025

The Ink; USAID fought apartheid. Musk is killing it

"As we speak, an unelected billionaire, born in South Africa, is staging an unconstitutional coup in the United States, shutting down an agency that happened to fight the apartheid regime he and his family thrived under as rich whites.

Now take a moment and read that again.

This is not a drill. All the drills are behind us now.

The billionaire, of course, is Elon Musk, who decided in recent days to disembowel USAID, the nation’s primary agency for foreign aid, an indispensable tool of diplomacy and the exercise of soft power, and one of the largest aid providers on the planet. Musk is reportedly (and by his own claims) overseeing the dismissal of security staff, followed by the apparent firings of 600 USAID employees over the weekend, and, more generally, his project to carry out Trump’s wish to destroy the agency. This is, of course, illegal and unconstitutional, as only Congress — certainly not an unelected consultant without even an appointment — can wind down an agency...

Which raises the question: What did USAID ever do to Elon Musk?...

USAID, it turns out, was important in bringing about the end of apartheid in South Africa. And, in an inversion of today’s anti-congressional coup, that work by the agency came about because Congress actually overrode former President Reagan’s veto of aid and asserted its leadership role in the making of U.S. law, in this case the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act (CAAA)."

‘In a real sense, US democracy has died’: how Trump is emulating Hungary’s Orbán; The Guardian, February 7, 2025

David Smith in Washington, The Guardian; ‘In a real sense, US democracy has died’: how Trump is emulating Hungary’s Orbán

"pitiless crackdown on on illegal immigration. A hardline approach to law and order. A purge of “gender ideology” and “wokeness” from the nation’s schools. Erosions of academic freedom, judicial independence and the free press. An alliance with Christian nationalism. An assault on democratic institutions.

The “electoral autocracy” that is Viktor Orbán’s Hungary has been long revered by Donald Trump and his “Make America Great Again” (Maga) movement. Now admiration is turning into emulation. In the early weeks of Trump’s second term as US president, analysts say, there are alarming signs that the Orbánisation of America has begun.

With the tech billionaire Elon Musk at his side, Trump has moved with astonishing velocity to fire critics, punish media, reward allies, gut the federal government, exploit presidential immunity and test the limits of his authority. Many of their actions have been unconstitutional and illegal. With Congress impotent, only the federal courts have slowed them down."

Pay Attention to the FBI; The Atlantic, February 6, 2025

 Hanna Rosin, The Atlantic; Pay Attention to the FBI

"In this episode of Radio Atlantic, we discuss where Trump and Musk seem to be headed and the obstacles they are likely to encounter in the future. What happens when Trump starts to face challenges from courts? What happens when Musk goes after programs that Americans depend on, particularly those who voted for Trump? What new political alliances might emerge from the wreckage? We talk with staff writer Jonathan Chait, who covers politics. And we also talk with Shane Harris, who covers national security, about Trump’s campaign to purge the FBI of agents who worked on cases related to the insurrection at the Capitol.

“I think that will send a clear message to FBI personnel that there are whole categories of people and therefore potential criminal activity that they should not touch, because it gets into the president, his influence, his circle of friends,” Harris says. “I think that is just a potentially ruinous development for the rule of law in the United States.”"

Can Musk Be Stopped?: A high profile lawsuit by Public Citizen takes aim at the DOGE takeover at Treasury., Status Kuo, February 5, 2025

JAY KUO , The Status Kuo; Can Musk Be Stopped?: A high profile lawsuit by Public Citizen takes aim at the DOGE takeover at Treasury.

"There’s a lot of activity by both Trump and his co-president Elon Musk these days, and it can feel overwhelming. Every time we turn around, there’s some new horror. (Wait, Trump wants the U.S. to take over Gaza?!)

Our natural inclination when bombarded with so much is to curl up, cover our heads and hope it ends soon. Rather than give in to this impulse, however, I want to help chart a path through. To do that, we need to prioritize among the many assaults upon our system and understand clearly what is being done and how we can help.

I don’t want to sugarcoat this. To my mind, the greatest threat right now is this: Elon Musk and his goons have taken over critical payment systems at the Treasury Department. This is a DEFCON 1 moment for our government. An unaccountable private citizen, who is also the world’s richest man acting under authority of a would-be dictator, apparently has admin—not just read-only—access to the very lifeline of our Republic: the money.

With such access, Musk has effective control over trillions of dollars of payments each year, and he could terminate some or even all of these at the flip of a switch. This includes our entire social safety net of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps. This puts tens of millions of American who rely on government support at great risk. Already he is threatening to selectively determine which programs are “wasteful” and cut off the money to them.

Yes, this is illegal. Yes, someone needs to stop it. But how?

Many lawsuits have been filed against DOGE, but I’m watching one closely. It’s by Public Citizen, filed on behalf of three plaintiffs: the Alliance for Retired Americans, the American Federation of Government Employees and the Service Employees International Union. The suit alleges that the personal and private financial information of the plaintiffs’ members was illegally accessed by young Musketeer coders over the weekend.

The Public Citizen lawsuit names as defendants the Treasury, its Secretary, and the Bureau of Fiscal Services, which granted access and even admin rights to Musk’s team. This is smart. The lawsuit goes after these defendants in particular because, if ordered by a court, they are the ones that have the power to revoke the access they granted earlier to DOGE.

When I first heard about the lawsuit, the first question I had was, “What’s the legal hook?” By this I mean, what specific laws were broken, and under what statute or law would a court have the power to step in with an injunction?

That’s what I want to cover today. It’s important that we’re all on the same page about our rights as recipients of federal money and payers of federal taxes, and how Musk and DOGE have violated those rights and must be brought to heel."

Who Will Stop Elon Musk’s Coup?; The Nation, February 3, 2025

JEET HEER , The Nation; Who Will Stop Elon Musk’s Coup?

"This is a remarkable power grab on Musk’s part, because he’s a private citizen who is still overseeing his vast fortune even as he claims authority to unilaterally slash government funding. Further, Musk is doing this on behalf of DOGE, which The New York Times accurately describes as “the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.” In fact, DOGE is not a real department authorized by Congress but merely the fiat creation of an executive order signed by Trump. DOGE is an advisory group that is usurping power the Constitution grants to Congress alone. Last week, Trump issued a memo to freeze federal funding for government programs such as Medicaid and SNAP, only to retreat in the face of both popular protest and an adverse court decision. Under the Constitution, Congress alone has the power of the purse, while the president is obligated to “faithfully execute the laws.” Trump’s attempt to arrogate the power to not spend money already allocated by Congress thus constitutes “impoundment”—a practice forbidden by long-standing practices and court decisions.

Waleed Shahid, a Democratic Party strategist and member of The Nation’s editorial board, distilled with bracing clarity the breathtaking scope of Musk’s power grab:

Not with tanks in the streets or militias at government buildings, but with spreadsheets, executive orders, and a network of loyalists embedded in the federal bureaucracy. In just the past few days, Musk’s hand-picked agents have seized control of Treasury’s 6 trillion payment system, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and the General Services Administration (GSA)—institutions that, together, function as the central nervous system of the U.S. government…. In any other country, experts would call it state capture, a textbook coup. 

Because Musk and his DOGE minions have strong-armed their way into the offices of the Treasury, OPM, GSA, and USAID, they have access to an astonishing body of public data. Musk can, for example, find the Social Security number of any American citizen and also what funds (if any) they receive from the government.

Musk is currently targeting mainstream Protestant churches involved in immigration resettlement. On X, the social media site he owns, Musk went after Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, DC, who delivered a sermon calling for compassion to immigrants at a service Trump attended. Musk retweeted a claim that Episcopal Migration Ministries received $53 million for immigration resettlement and said, “She’s on the take.” There is a strong element of political theater in this smearing of Budde, as in Musk’s attack on the Lutheran church. Government funding of social programs run by religious organizations is a long-standing practice and already a matter of public record. But Musk is trying to create the illusion that he’s uncovered a deeply buried government secret.

What’s scandalous is Musk’s nebulous status as both a private citizen and presidential crony, which has allowed him access to data that that can easily be abused. Coming from Silicon Valley, Musk knows that data is power. Now, he has access to the full data set of the federal government, which he is both hoarding to himself and preventing the public from seeing (many government websites have already been shuttered, allegedly as a temporary measure during the Trump/Musk riorganizzazione, including those with public health information and Census data).

Most disturbingly, Musk and his DOGE team have no proper congressional authorization." 

Elon Musk’s Power Grab Is Lawless, Dangerous, and—Yes—a Coup; Slate, February 4, 2025

DAHLIA LITHWICK AND MARK JOSEPH STERN, Slate;  Elon Musk’s Power Grab Is Lawless, Dangerous, and—Yes—a Coup

"The federal government is currently under relentless and unlawful assault by a man no one elected to lead it. With Donald Trump’s blessing and enabling, Elon Musk and his confederates have laid siege to the executive branch in an onslaught whose appalling and far-reaching consequences have barely begun to be reported, much less understood. Musk’s team is tearing through federal agencies at a shocking clip, gaining access to classified material, private personal information, and payment systems that distribute trillions of dollars every year, all in alleged breach of the law. The richest person in the world, who works for no recognizable government entity and answers to nobody, apparently believes he has unilateral authority to withhold duly appropriated funds, violate basic security protocols protecting state secrets, and abolish a global agency in direct contravention of Congress’ explicit command. He is reportedly leading a purge of the federal workforce, persecuting life-saving charities, and pushing outprincipled civil servants who stand in the way of his rampage."

MUSK, TRUMP PROSECUTOR TARGETING PEOPLE WHO DIVULGE IDENTITIES OF DOGE STAFF; Rolling Stone, February 3, 2025

MILES KLEE , Rolling Stone; MUSK, TRUMP PROSECUTOR TARGETING PEOPLE WHO DIVULGE IDENTITIES OF DOGE STAFF

"As a cabal of Elon Musk flunkies works around the clock to infiltrate and sabotage various federal agencies on behalf of President Donald Trump, the world’s richest man — just named a special government employee — is warning along with Washington allies that the consequences for publicly naming these staffers may be severe.

On Sunday, with Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) seizing control of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the billionaire vowing to eliminate it altogether, Wired reported the identities of six software engineers with jobs in his wrecking crew. They span in age from 19 to their mid-twenties and have minimal government experience (if any), though most have connections to either Musk or his onetime PayPal colleague Peter Thiel, another right-wing Silicon Valley billionaire whose data analytics firm Palantir holds valuable U.S. defense contracts. They are Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran.

These young men have been involved in Musk’s sweeping efforts to gain access to the communication systems, personnel files, and other sensitive information at agencies including USAID, the Treasury Department, the Office of Personnel Management, the General Services Administration, and the Small Business Administration, in certain cases freezing employees out of their work accounts and putting others on leave... 

Musk, who professes to champion free speech but has typically clamped down on content shared via his social media platform X if he doesn’t want it publicly disseminated, has already moved to silence those who share the names of DOGE team members carrying out his orders to wrest control of the levers of federal spending."

Elon Musk Installs Illegal Server to Seize All Federal Workers’ Data; The New Republic, February 3, 2025

Hafiz Rashid, The New Republic; Elon Musk Installs Illegal Server to Seize All Federal Workers’ Data

"Elon Musk has taken control of government employees’ private data by having his cronies illegally install a commercial server at the Office of Personnel Management.

Musk and his handpicked associates at the fake “Department of Government Efficiency” are using their ill-gotten access to control federal databases containing Social Security numbers, home addresses, medical histories, and other sensitive personal information, according to journalists Caleb Ecarma and Judd Legum at Musk Watch."

The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk’s Government Takeover; Wired, February 2, 2025

 Vittoria Elliott, Wired; The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk’s Government Takeover

"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 six men are one part of the broader project of Musk allies assuming key government positions. Already, Musk’s lackeys—including more senior staff from xAI, Tesla, and the Boring Company—have taken control of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and General Services Administration (GSA), and have gained access to the Treasury Department’s payment system, potentially allowing him access to a vast range of sensitive information about tens of millions of citizens, businesses, and more. On Sunday, CNN reported that DOGE personnel attempted to improperly access classified information and security systems at the US Agency for International Development and that top USAID security officials who thwarted the attempt were subsequently put on leave. The Associated Press reported that DOGE personnel had indeed accessed classified material."

Our job is to be truthful not neutral’: Christiane Amanpour on Trump, tech and and fighting for the truth; The Observer, via The Guardian, January 25, 2025

Tim Adams, The Observer via The Guardian; Our job is to be truthful not neutral’: Christiane Amanpour on Trump, tech and and fighting for the truth

"Amanpour works to a trusted formula: “Our job is to be truthful, not neutral,” she says. When we speak, the news is full of the malign influence of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg on the global conversation.

As someone who originally owed her lucrative journalistic career to a billionaire, the “visionary” – her word – CNN founder Ted Turner, Amanpour is fully aware that rich men have always seen news as a business opportunity. Social media oligarchs, however, want to pocket the billions with none of the attendant responsibilities. Never a doom scroller, she sees Mark Zuckerberg’s utterly shameless decision to remove all factchecking from his Meta platforms as a drastic escalation of that policy.

“Of course, not everybody’s going to agree on everything and nor should they,” she says. “But unless we can agree that the sky outside is blue and the grass is green, we have no chance. What is overtaking the public square is that every single fact is now the subject of accusations of lies or bias. Zuckerberg enabling totally permissive commentary is another arrow in the heart of truth.”"

Ethics watchdog issues conflict of interest warning to Musk’s Doge agency; The Guardian, January 23, 2025

David Smith, The Guardian ; Ethics watchdog issues conflict of interest warning to Musk’s Doge agency

"A leading ethics watchdog has issued warnings to Donald Trump’s billionaire ally Elon Musk and the “department of government efficiency” (Doge), an agency Trump has stated he will create, claiming its use of encrypted messaging apps potentially violates the Federal Records Act (FRA).

American Oversight, which uses litigation to obtain public records and expose government misconduct, argues that Musk’s leadership of Doge raises “significant ethical concerns about potential conflicts of interest”, given his business empire and the substantial impact that Doge could have on federal agencies.

The warnings stem from reports that members of Doge, which aims to carry out dramatic cuts to the US government, are using the encrypted messaging app Signal with an auto-delete feature, which could hinder the preservation of official records."

Elon Musk is becoming a one-man rogue state – it’s time we reined him in; The Guardian, December 20, 2024

 Alexander Hurst, The Guardian; Elon Musk is becoming a one-man rogue state – it’s time we reined him in

"Elon Musk is, more or less, a rogue state. His intentions are self-serving and nefarious, and his nation-state level resources allow him to flout the law with impunity...

The sheer immorality of any one person possessing so much wealth is obvious to most people with basic amounts of empathy. But when it comes to Musk and the other 14 people worth more than $100bn, the morality of it is almost a secondary concern. Their individual wealth is a society-distorting threat to democracy in the same way that economics has always recognised monopolies to be dangerous to a functional market...

Plutocracy is not enough, though, because nothing is ever enough for the handful of men who have everything. Musk’s new obsessions (beyond the validation and human affection that he mistakenly believes he will find on social media) are attacking public servants, slashing social spending and going after the most vulnerable...

When rogue states behave this way – election interference, active disinformation campaigns, social media manipulation – other states call them out, or even impose sanctions. Musk is not simply a private citizen with an opinion and a large following. His sheer wealth, his control of X, and his new position within the US government place him in a different category...

Soon it will be the EU’s turn. What the union owes its citizens is not to play nice or mete out a meek slap on the wrist over the various alleged legalviolations by Musk and X that are under investigation, it’s to firmly and intently show that even interplanetary amounts of wealth don’t mean impunity, and that some things – like democracy – are not for sale."

From Bannon to Musk: The decade that made misinformation the new normal; EL PAÍS, November 25, 2024

 JAVIER SALAS, EL PAÍS ; From Bannon to Musk: The decade that made misinformation the new normal

"The key insight came from researcher Kate Starbird of the University of Washington, who explained: “Misinformation is not a piece of content. It is a strategy.”"

‘We live in a climate of fear’: graphic novelist’s Elon Musk book can’t find UK or US publisher; The Guardian, November 23, 2024

David Barnett , The Guardian; ‘We live in a climate of fear’: graphic novelist’s Elon Musk book can’t find UK or US publisher

"A biography by a British graphic novelist of Elon Musk is struggling to find an English-language publisher due to feared “legal consequences”.

Elon Musk: Investigation into a New Master of the World is the latest graphic novel by Darryl Cunningham, from West Yorkshire. Cunningham, 64, has written and illustrated seven nonfiction books on topics ranging from the 2008 global economic meltdown (Supercrash), to Russian leader Vladimir Putin (subtitled The Rise of a Dictator)...

“Delcourt had lawyers go over every single word and picture to make sure there were no problems. I didn’t use any information that hadn’t been published elsewhere, much of it from the book by Musk’s own mother, Maye.

“But it looks like we live in a climate of fear where the worst people have immense power, and because of this there’s a tendency for the individuals, institutions, businesses and the state to run for cover.”

Cunningham praised Delcourt, who also put out the French edition of his book on Putin, for “having the courage” to publish the book...

Cunningham said: “Knowing what I know about the man, my conclusion is that it’s incredible that such a mediocre figure can amass such wealth, but it was ever thus.”"

Is this (finally) the end for X? Delicate Musk-Trump relationship and growing rivals spell trouble for platform; The Guardian, November 17, 2024

Siân Boyle , The Guardian; Is this (finally) the end for X? Delicate Musk-Trump relationship and growing rivals spell trouble for platform

"As recently as 2022, Musk tweeted that “for Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally.” He tweeted that “Trump would be 82 at end of his term, which is too old to be chief executive of anything, let alone the United States of America.”

Months later, when Musk bought Twitter for $44bn, he fired content moderators and charged for account verification, which meant people could buy influence. Twitter was rebranded to X, shed millions of users and reinstated Trumps’s account, suspended after the White House insurrection in January 2021.

The proliferation on X of alt-right diatribe, hate speech and bots, as well as Musk’s own clash with the UK government during the riots in August, have led to mounting disquiet among X users. The Guardian and Observer announced last week that their presence on the site was now untenable and they would no longer post. Stephen King, the author, left, saying it had become “too toxic”. Oscar-winners Barbra Streisand and Jamie Lee Curtis have departed the platform.

“X has become effectively Truth Social premium,” said Mark Carrigan, author of Social Media for Academics, referring to Trump’s hard-right social media platform. And the talk in technology circles is that Trump’s Truth Social could be folded into X.

If that happens, whose interests take priority? Would Musk suppress criticism of the authoritarian governments he does business with, or promote it? In the Donald and Elon media show, who is the puppet or paymaster?

“If that happens, it will be the ultimate amplification machine for Trump’s ideas – a political super-app masquerading as social media,” said James Kirkham of Iconic, which advises brands including Uber and EA Sports on digital strategies. “Forget Facebook or Fox News; the true heart of the GOP’s digital strategy could be X.”"