The people who are now in charge of the Office of Personnel Management haven¡¯t been scrubbing the metadata on their PDFs, and have exposed the original authors of the guidance they¡¯re publishing. Two have links to the Heritage Foundation and its Project 2025.

Noah Peters is the author of the OPM Acting Director Charles Ezell¡¯s January 27 memo (archive) providing guidance on the ¡°Restoring Accountability To Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce¡± executive order, which is being described as the ¡°Schedule F¡± order because it effectively reinstates that policy under a new name (¡°Schedule Policy/Career¡±). Schedule F, now Schedule Policy/Career, is an effort to enable Trump to purge civil servants and replace them with loyalists. Peters also authored the January 20 memo (archive) from Ezell, which exploits loopholes to bypass limits on political appointments. [...]

James Sherk was the true author of the joint Office of Management and Budget and OPM memo (archive) on return to office implementation plans. The guidance in the memo echoes a November 20, 2024 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy outlining their ¡°Doge Plan¡±, where they wrote: ¡°Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome¡±. [...] Sherk also authored the joint OMB and OPM memo (archive) providing guidance on the federal civilian hiring freeze ¡ª another effort towards the goal of slashing the size of the federal workforce.

advocacy groups representing non-profits and small businesses filed a similar case in Washington, D.C. federal court, arguing the freeze "will have a devastating impact on hundreds of thousands of grant recipients."

That lawsuit asked a court to halt the freeze, which was set to take effect at 5 p.m. ET (2200 GMT) on Tuesday.

The groups -- National Council of Nonprofits, the American Public Health Association, Main Street Alliance and SAGE -- said in the lawsuit (PDF) that OMB lacked authority to unilaterally terminate all federal financial assistance programs across the government.

Dear Colleagues:

As COE shared last night, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has ordered a pause to the disbursement and obligation of federal funds, to go into effect at TODAY at 5:00 p.m. ET. This means that the G6 system for drawdowns will not be available after 5:00 p.m. ET tonight.

Given the immediacy of this action, COE advises TRIO grantees to take the actions below.

First, if a lack of funds would cause your institution to limit TRIO services, investigate with your business office the possibility of drawing down funds this afternoon in order to prevent this lag. As agencies are directed to provide a report to OMB by Monday, February 10 indicating whether federal grant programs are in compliance with recently issued Executive Orders, grantees may wish to draw down funds to allow for operations at least through that date.

Second, and just as important, TRIO grantees MUST contact their House Representative and both U.S. Senators to let them know how this action is affecting your students and families. (For ease in contacting your legislators, use this tool on the COE website. Be sure to "Edit Message" before sending so you can directly address the concern at hand. A sample message is available here.)

Finally, we invite you to join COE's Board of Directors for a special Government Relations Committee Meeting on Friday, January 31 at 1:00 p.m. ET. Please click here to register for this meeting.

As always, thank you for your ardent support of TRIO programs and students.

Enhanced standards of conduct: The federal workforce should be comprised of employees who are reliable, loyal, trustworthy, and who strive for excellence in their daily work. Employees will be subject to enhanced standards of suitability and conduct as we move forward. Employees who engage in unlawful behavior or other misconduct will be prioritized for appropriate investigation and discipline, including termination.

This is also a 50% of America is evil moment. Because the Trump voters are fine with this.

[W]hy that makes so many Americans want to induce pain and suffering on people like me.

Executive coups fall within the broader democratic backsliding or ¡°autocratization¡± scholarly concepts, but have so far largely escaped careful analysis. After a brief lull, presidential coups are now back. Scholars differ on the specifics of how to define and count these coups, yet it is clear that a wide variety of countries have suffered from them as of late.

There have been nine executive coups over the past decade, according to the Cline Center at the University of Illinois. They define self-coups, or auto-coups, as ¡°coups where the existing chief executive takes extreme measures to eliminate, or render powerless, other components of the government (legislature, judiciary, etc.).¡± Critically, these efforts must be irregular (extra-legal) and short-term. They also include situations ¡°where the chief executive simply assumes extraordinary powers.¡±

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Tillis personally assured Danielle Hegseth in a call on Jan. 19, witnessed by two other people, that if she signed the statement testifying that she believed her former brother-in-law Pete Hegseth has an alcohol abuse problem and was abusive to his second wife, it would carry weight, and potentially move three votes¡ªhis own, along with the votes of Sens. Susan Collins (R., Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska), those people said.

On Friday, Tillis became the 50th senator to vote ¡°yes¡± on Hegseth, clinching his confirmation to lead the Pentagon...

In a statement issued immediately after the vote Friday night, Danielle Hegseth said that she was promised a week earlier that her statement, on the record, would corroborate other accusations and make a difference in key votes. She didn¡¯t say who promised her this. ¡°But in the end, it did not,¡± she said. ¡°What happened today will make women who have experienced abuse and mistreatment even less forthcoming.¡±

Danielle Hegseth¡¯s sworn statement, made under penalty of perjury, accused Pete Hegseth of alcohol abuse and erratic behavior, and said his ex-wife, Samantha Hegseth, told her that she once hid from Hegseth in a closet because she feared for her personal safety. In a redacted portion, the statement also alleges that Samantha told Danielle that Pete Hegseth had allegedly ¡°grabbed her groin without consent.¡±

"News outlets reported on clarifying statements from the Department of Education today indicating that no Pell grants, federal student loans, or funding for federal work study would be paused or delayed as a part of this effort."

I think this is a travesty. I¡¯m disgusted. We have a gerontocracy. Now, I know that age can often confer wisdom, and I¡¯m all in favor of that. But America is a relatively young country¡ªthe median age is 39. AOC is 35.

On the other hand, look at the Senate. The five youngest U.S. senators¡ªnow I realize we¡¯re talking about the House and not the Senate¡ªbut out of the five youngest senators, four of them are Republicans. Republicans are beating us at reaching out to young people.

There was a huge swing among young voters toward Republicans. Why? Because so many young people get their news, not from traditional media¡ªwhere Democrats spend all their money¡ªbut from alternative platforms. Democratic consultants, who run the campaigns, make their money by taking a commission from placing ads on traditional television. Meanwhile, Republicans invest in media operations.

The biggest example is Twitter. Elon Musk bought it, tweaked the algorithm, and spent $44 billion to do it. But Musk has made almost $200 billion since Trump was elected. Twitter cost him $44 billion, and he put $277 million into Trump¡¯s campaign or into getting Trump elected. Seems like a pretty good investment.

And here we have Democrats saying, ¡°Yeah, let¡¯s put the 74-year-old guy with throat cancer in charge of one of the most powerful committees in Congress.¡± This is the committee where you can speak out, make waves, and get lots of publicity. Instead, the Democrats put this guy in charge.

A new study by Channel 4 in England, reported in The Times, found:

¡°Most young people are in favour of turning the UK into a dictatorship, according to a ¡®deeply worrying¡¯ study, which has revealed an acceptance of authoritarianism and radicalism among Generation Z.

¡°Fifty-two per cent of Gen Z ¡ª people aged between 13 and 27 ¡ª said they thought ¡®the UK would be a better place if a strong leader was in charge who does not have to bother with parliament and elections.¡¯

¡°Thirty-three per cent suggested the UK would be better off ¡®if the army was in charge.¡¯¡±

Where did they get these ideas? From social media, it turns out, including the feeds of accused racists, misogynists, and neofascists like ¡°Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson,¡± who were ¡°trusted¡± by 42 percent of British young men.

Fifty-eight percent said they trusted social media posts more than traditional news sources. And 45 percent believe women have gained too many rights, echoing Tate¡¯s argument that, as young British men told Channel 4, ¡°We have gone so far in promoting women¡¯s equality that we are discriminating against men.¡±

Here in America, the percentage of young men who believe women have acquired too much power has increased from 32% to 45% in just five years, while fully 52% say they trust what they read or see on social media.[1,2,3]

The plan for this wasn¡¯t a secret; it was laid out in a 1971 memo by tobacco lawyer Lewis Powell, who Richard Nixon put on the Supreme Court in 1972 where he could participate in putting the plan into action ¡ª as he did with the Buckley and Bellotti decisions (Powell wrote the latter) legalizing political bribery by saying ¡°money is free speech¡± and ¡°corporations are persons.¡±

It began the corruption of the American government by the Reagan administration.

But the details of the GOP¡¯s efforts ¡ª which Democrats and wealthy Democratic donors should begin to emulate now if our republic is to survive ¡ª are rarely discussed. Here¡¯s what they did, in outline, and how Democrats can fight back.

First, Republicans realized that public opinion drives everything, so they set out to seize as much control over the instrument that drives public opinion as they could: the media.

Second, they realized that the Senate was the power-based linchpin for control of the legislative branch and the key to controlling both the Executive and Judicial branches because only the Senate confirms presidential cabinet positions and federal judges.

If they controlled the Senate much of the time and occasionally got a Republican president, they could also easily stack both the federal judiciary and the Supreme Court.

To control the Senate, they knew, they had to control a majority of the states. And that came back to controlling public opinion through the media, particularly in low-population or largely rural states where media could be bought or coopted cheaply.

To first influence public opinion, back in the 1970s-1990s era, billionaires associated with the GOP built a whole series of institutions whose sole purpose was to influence public opinion in ways that comported with the billionaire¡¯s oligarchic agenda.

They crank out policy papers, write op-eds for newspapers and websites, engage in social media, and provide ¡°expert¡± guests for TV, radio, NPR, and podcasts. Another major function is to ¡°educate¡± and lobby Republican elected officials about policy and nominees to executive and judicial positions.

Those include:
¡ª Cato Institute
¡ª Mercatus Center at George Mason University
¡ª Americans for Prosperity
¡ª Heritage Foundation
¡ª Manhattan Institute
¡ª American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
¡ª Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI)
¡ª DonorsTrust
¡ª Independent Women's Forum (IWF)
¡ª Federalist Society
¡ª Judicial Crisis Network (Now Concord Fund)
¡ª Republican State Leadership Committee
¡ª Alliance Defending Freedom
¡ª Marble Freedom Trust
¡ª 85 Fund (Formerly Judicial Education Project)

They also created the State Policy Network, which funds and guides a network of state-based think tanks in every state in America. They similarly influence political discussion through interactions with the media by publishing papers, participating in social media, and lobbying/educating Republican governors, state representatives, and senators. (At the end of this article is a list of them.)

There is no similar infrastructure on the left because no lefty billionaires ever set out to create one.

The greed embraced by Republican politicians ¡ª and the billionaires and CEOs who fund them ¡ª is why average Americans can¡¯t have nice things. It¡¯s why we and our children must walk the tightrope of life without the same safety net other countries ¡ª from Canada to Costa Rica, France to Taiwan ¡ª offer their citizens.

One centerpiece of that program is dozens of never-before-published videos created for Project 2025¡¯s Presidential Administration Academy. The vast majority of these videos ¡ª 23 in all, totaling more than 14 hours of content ¡ª were provided to ProPublica and Documented by a person who had access to them.

The Project 2025 videos coach future appointees on everything from the nuts and bolts of governing to how to outwit bureaucrats. There are strategies for avoiding embarrassing Freedom of Information Act disclosures and ensuring that conservative policies aren¡¯t struck down by ¡°left-wing judges.¡± Some of the content is routine advice that any incoming political appointee might be told. Other segments of the training offer guidance on radically changing how the federal government works and what it does.

Former Sanders, Fetterman campaign consultants start new firm aimed at winning back working-class voters

A group of Democratic strategists who worked for some of the biggest unorthodox names in liberal politics is launching a new firm.

The consultants who helped guide Bernie Sanders¡¯ 2016 presidential campaign and the winning Senate bids for John Fetterman and Ruben Gallego are branding their new company Fight Agency.

They said they¡¯re aiming to elect more nontraditional candidates with a populist, anti-establishment streak. They¡¯re even open to fielding left-leaning independents who eschew the Democratic Party label altogether.

The kickoff of the company is the latest sign that Democrats are rethinking their approach to elections after President Donald Trump won for a second time with working-class voters of all stripes, once the bedrock of their party¡¯s base.

Two years ago, I lived through a coup in Sri Lanka. It was stupid. The minority party threw chili powder at everyone in Parliament and took over by farce. Math, however, requires a majority and the courts kicked them out. They gave in. We¡¯d been protesting for weeks and yay, we won.

No.

I didn¡¯t know it at the time, but we had already lost. No one knew ¡ª but oh my God, what we lost. The legitimate government came back but it was divided and weak. We were divided and weak. We were vulnerable.
...
What is a coup? It¡¯s literally a blow, a strike. Someone hitting your normal processes of government, trying to knock them over. The blow doesn¡¯t have to succeed. It still wounds. In our case it was occupying Parliament without a majority. In yours it¡¯s denying the President-Elect after an election. [Oh wait, now you¡¯ve attacked your Congress as well]. Whether it fails or not, deep structural damage is done. At the time, however, it just feels dumb.

Frankly, I expected more epaulets and tanks, but this is all you get. A bunch of dumbasses throwing chili powder. Someone at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, next to a dildo shop. What a fucking stupid century. This is what our coups look like.

As a recovering coup victim to another, let me tell you this. The first step is simply accepting that you¡¯ve been coup¡¯d. This is hard and your media or Wikipedia may never figure this out (WTF does constitutional crisis mean? Is murder an existential crisis?), but it¡¯s nonetheless true. The US system is weird, but people voted for a change of power. One person is refusing to accept the people¡¯s will. He¡¯s taking power that doesn¡¯t belong to him. That¡¯s a coup.
...
I have lived through a coup. It felt like what you¡¯re feeling now. Like watching something stupid and just waiting for it to go away. But it doesn¡¯t go away. You can forget about it, but it doesn¡¯t go away.

There¡¯s a ticking bomb at the heart of your democracy now. Your government, the very idea of governance is fatally wounded. Chaos has been planted at its heart. I don¡¯t know what this chaos will grow into, but I can promise you this. It won¡¯t be good.

January 29, 2025

M-25-14

MEMORANDUM FOR HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES

FROM: Matthew J. Vaeth, Acting Director, Office of Management and Budget

SUBJECT: Rescission of M-25-13

         OMB Memorandum M-25-13 is rescinded. If you have questions about implementing the President's Executive Orders, please contact your agency General Counsel.

This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze.

It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo.

Why? To end any confusion created by the court's injunction.

The President's EO's on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented.

However, [Judge] McConnell acknowledged that the administration¡¯s action Wednesday may complicate his efforts to issue an order blocking the policy. He has asked the states to propose language for an order.

In implementing President Trump¡¯s Executive Orders, OMB issued guidance requesting that agencies temporarily pause, to the extent permitted by law, grant, loan or federal financial assistance programs that are implicated by the President¡¯s Executive Orders.

Any program not implicated by the President¡¯s Executive Orders is not subject to the pause.

The Executive Orders listed in the guidance are:
Protecting the American People Against Invasion
Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid
Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements
Unleashing American Energy
Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing
Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government
Enforcing the Hyde Amendment