Traitor Watch - The 45 & 47 Thread

[Dekafox]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2025/03/05/trump-close-education-department-executive-order/

Trump to issue an EO Thurs directing his newly confirmed education secy to close the dept she now leads, 2 people familiar said.


A draft of the executive order that circulated on Wed recognizes that Trump does not have the power to shutter the Education Dept. It would take an act of Congress & 60 yes votes in the Senate, which is unlikely given Republicans hold only 53 seats.

Rather, the ExecutiveOrder calls on Trump’s Education Secy Linda McMahon [former professional wrestling promoter] to “take all necessary steps” to facilitate the closure of the dept “to the maximum extent appropriate & permitted by law.”


Officials including McMahon have suggested that might include trying to shift some of the agency’s functions to other parts of government, but that also would face legal hurdles, as the agency’s major programs are assigned, by law, to the Education Dept.

More likely is a continuation of what has already begun at the agency: deep cuts to staff, programs & grants. The Education Dept has already warned of a “very significant” reduction in force, or RIF, in the short term.

The draft was labeled “pre-decisional.” One person familiar with the matter confirmed that the draft was legitimate but cautioned that its details could change before it is issued. The Trump White House declined to comment.

The Education Dept administers federal grant programs, including the $18.4B TitleI program that provides supplemental funding to high-poverty K-12 #schools, as well as the $15.5B program that helps cover the cost of education for students with disabilities. The dept also oversees the $1.6T federal StudentLoan program & sets rules for what colleges must do to participate.

The Executive Order is cast as returning power over education to states & local communities, as Trump has repeatedly promised to do. It does not recognize that K12 schools, as well as public universities & colleges, are ALREADY controlled almost entirely by states & local communities. The federal government, by law, may not control school curriculum.

While Trump suggests the federal govt is doing too much on education, he also demands that it do more. The ExecutiveOrder is expected to amplify Trump’s call for schools to excise *illegal discrimination* in the *guise* of diversity, equity & inclusion programs or risk losing federal funding, which accounts for about 10% of K12 public school dollars & a significant share of higher education funding.

The funding thing may not be the leverage he thinks it is if it looks like they're only going to be doing the minimum they can now (per this EO) anyways.

 

[Axaday]

The same 24 news networks that have bent the knee, kissed trumps ring, and are owned by the biggest donators to trumps campaign? The same news networks that spent two years convincing the american public that biden had dementia and that trump was perfectly vital and healthy?

Yes

 

[Dekafox]

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/06/trump-cabinet-musk-025093

President Donald Trump convened his Cabinet in person on Thursday to deliver a message: You’re in charge of your departments, not Elon Musk.

According to two administration officials, Trump told top members of his administration that Musk was empowered to make recommendations to the departments but not to issue unilateral decisions on staffing and policy. Musk was also in the room.

 

[Pale Rider]

FB friend:

Centrists can f**k right off when they try to act surprised that the GOP is treating Russia as a friend and Canada as an enemy. Republicans have laying the groundwork for this for years, and not just Trump: it's been all of them.

Their social-conservative platform is virtually identical to Putin's rhetoric in Russia, while they have been mocking and insulting Canada's relatively liberal policies since the Bush administration. Their constant insulting and belittling of Justin Trudeau has been going on for the entire length of his tenure, while their admiration for Putin has been obvious for at least as long.

Anyone who acts surprised at this "sudden pivot" is either an idiot or a liar.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Your facebook friend hasn't been paying much attention to the republicans, have they? Republicans are both idiots and liars. They are both.

 

[The Mighty Mollusk]

Not all of them are idiots. Some of them are doing it all on purpose.

 

[Axaday]

Admiring Putin himself is actually very unusual among Republicans. They don't say that is okay. They say Trump isn't doing it.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

It was unusual, for sure. I remember when comedians told me I was supposed to find it funny that Republicans were still taking Russia so seriously, like we were still in the Cold War. I am not proud of the Obama years.

But I also remember the small chorus of Republicans who heckled Obama with that "At least Putin's a strong leader" crap. So this is not something that just showed up in 2016.

 

[G.B.Blackrock]

I didn't bother watching. But I did see a clip of Rep Greene being ordered to stand down and then removed. Anyone else catch Donald's face while that was happening? The sheer amount of smug satisfaction? hug, he probably had more of an erection than he's had in a goddamn decade.

That kind of protest does nothing but feed him. I think a better tactic in the future would be to simply not show up or turn your back. Deliberately ignore him, dismiss him, act as if he's not even there. And watch him lose his ******* mind.

As I understood it, several Democrats did do exactly that. The GOP simply gave their seats to T fans, so there'd be no empty seats to make T look bad. I might wonder if it simply needed more Democrats to do the same, but imagine that no shortage of T fans were available, and they'd probably still find a way to make it look to the nation like the Democrats are the bad ones.

 

[The Mighty Mollusk]

They should've all showed up, waited until he started talking, then walked out en masse without a word. It would've driven him right up the wall.

 

[Dekafox]

https://bsky.app/profile/davelevitan.bsky.social/post/3ljsejpjx7b2u

 

[Dekafox]

Knightsbridge Research, Ltd. (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image President Trump EO Establishes Bitcoin & Other Crypto Reserve On March 6, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile, as announced by White House crypto czar David Sacks on X at on March...

infosec.exchange

President Trump EO Establishes Bitcoin & Other Crypto Reserve

On March 6, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile, as announced by White House crypto czar David Sacks on X at on March 7, 2025. The reserve will hold approximately 200,000 bitcoins currently held by the federal government, obtained through criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings, without additional taxpayer costs, and will not sell these assets, treating Bitcoin as a "digital Fort Knox" for long-term value storage.

The order also directs a full audit of government digital asset holdings and authorizes the Treasury and Commerce Secretaries to develop budget-neutral strategies for acquiring more Bitcoin, while establishing a stockpile for other forfeited digital assets like Ethereum and XRP, managed by the Treasury Department.

Using only seized crypto is actually a smart way to go about this grift, if they are going to go through with it one way or the other, as it costs the rest of us nothing and makes use of something the government already had lying around, so to speak.

 

[Axaday]

If no one believes the government MIGHT sell it, its value disappears.

 

[Rhinox]

Knightsbridge Research, Ltd. (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image President Trump EO Establishes Bitcoin & Other Crypto Reserve On March 6, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile, as announced by White House crypto czar David Sacks on X at on March...

infosec.exchange

Using only seized crypto is actually a smart way to go about this grift, if they are going to go through with it one way or the other, as it costs the rest of us nothing and makes use of something the government already had lying around, so to speak.

*sigh
If we're going to do this, I begrudgingly admit this would probably be the best way to go about it. At the same time, I remain firmly against this as I do still believe crypto at all levels to be a scam, regardless of original intent.
Even if it wasn't Trump, whose penchant for scamming isn't well documented, I'd be skeptical.

 

[Paladin]

it's one thing to watch the destruction of every major social safety net & societal norm; it's another to watch it being done but SUCH ******* IDIOTS.

Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen.bsky.social)

The US military has removed photos of the B-29 bomber “Enola Gay” — which dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan — apparently because it contains the word “gay,” which violates their new anti-DEI rules...

bsky.app

 

[CoffeeHorse]

For anyone who's been wondering what it's like living in Florida, this is it.

 

[Pale Rider]

With sweltering humidity?

 

[CoffeeHorse]

And undisguised reptiles.

 

[KidTDragon]

But enough about Rick Scott...

 

[Paladin]

when you've lost FOX on the economy issue...

Fox News Suddenly Starts Panicking about Trump’s Economy: “Weakening!”

Yes, they’re still blaming Joe Biden, but the talking heads at Fox are getting awfully nervous that President Trump might be on the verge of sending the economy into a tailspin.

newrepublic.com