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DOGE loses its biggest advocate as Musk exits Washington

Politico

DOGE loses its biggest advocate as Musk exits Washington

Sophia Cai, Rachael Bade and Paul McLeary – April 23, 2025

Elon Musk’s claim that his job in Washington is “mostly done” may calm Tesla shareholders — but his departure could sap the Department of Government Efficiency of its disruptive energy even as it continues to make major cuts to the federal workforce.

In an effort to reassure rattled Tesla shareholders after a bruising first-quarter earnings call, Musk told investors this week that his around-the-clock involvement in DOGE will soon be scaled back to just a day or two per week.

The message to the markets was clear: Musk is refocusing on his companies. But his public exit from Washington also leaves DOGE without a clear driver, potentially defanging a group that spent the first 100 days of Trump’s second term tearing through agencies with nearly unlimited momentum. Without Musk’s constant hovering around President Donald Trump, DOGE may not have the same firepower it once did and agency heads could now have more authority to run their agencies and implement cost-cutting efforts at their own speed.

For months, Musk’s physical presence at the White House and attendance at Cabinet meetings served as both sword and shield — giving cover to DOGE staffers, intimidating holdouts, and demanding that the operation move forward at a breakneck speed. “It is rare to have a Cabinet-level secretary pushing for you operationally and politically,” said a Trump official, who, like others in this report, was granted anonymity to speak freely.

And for a long time, a lot of people in the White House weren’t sure how to talk to Musk when DOGE took drastic actions like demanding the “five things” emails from federal employees justifying their jobs or moving to make cuts so deep that they could hurt Trump politically, such as reductions to the Social Security Administration’s operations or firing veterans. White House officials felt that only Trump could say no to Musk.

“How do you tell the world’s richest man to stop and get in line?” a different White House official said last month.

But when Musk takes a step back, the same reluctance to counter the billionaire tech mogul will not extend to DOGE staff, many of whom are now embedded across agencies and serve at the pleasure of agency heads. Already, senior White House officials have taken steps to curb DOGE’s reach, leading the charge to get Musk to drop his goal of cutting $1 trillion to only $150 billion for fear of cutting too close to the bone.

In terms of day to day operations, insiders say Musk’s reduced involvement won’t dramatically alter how DOGE operates at least on paper. “This won’t be a big change from the current situation,” one senior Trump administration official close to the effort said, “because Musk is doing a lot already and [DOGE staff] already try to catch him at specific times.”

The operation that Musk has built has now burrowed into nearly every corner of the executive branch, with most DOGE staffers serving at agencies as political appointees without a time limit on their employment. Others are based out of the General Services Administration, now a DOGE nerve center led by software entrepreneur and Musk ally Stephen Ehikian, continuing a quiet but steady purge of small, independent agencies. (Just this week, it began shutting down the 300-person Millenium Challenge Corporation.)

Musk’s lieutenants, Antonio Gracias and Steve Davis, remain involved in leading the initiative, giving pointers to DOGE staff embedded across agencies as they continue to help execute the reductions in force, an ongoing months-long process.

DOGE’s original mandate — reduce waste and fraud — has since extended far beyond simply cost-cutting. DOGE has been heavily involved in other Trump administration priorities, like immigration data collection for mass deportation planning, Trump’s shipbuilding agenda, and even the implementation of $5 million per piece “Gold Card” visas, according to five people familiar with DOGE’s movements.

Still, Musk’s public pullback will come as relief to some Cabinet officials who have had tensions with the billionaire and DOGE around the personnel cuts.

Indeed, senior administration officials were not surprised by Musk’s announcement on the Tesla call. One, who is a big fan of Musk, said it’s become increasingly clear in recent days that the tech tycoon is souring on Washington. His frustration with the lack of control is palpable, the person said — as he’s used to getting his way and making the final calls with his businesses.

Instead, Musk has seen his influence waning and has been brought to heel by other Cabinet secretaries and people in the White House in recent months, as the insistence on coordinating their efforts has slowed his break-neck speed.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrangled control back from DOGE last week by firing DOGE staffer Gavin Kliger and installing a new IRS commissioner last week. IRS firings which were expected to begin last week and go out on a biweekly basis still have not materialized.

That most recent run-in with Bessent in the White House, first reported by Axios, has only seemed to make him more Washington wary, the senior officials mentioned above added.

At the Department of Defense, Secretary Pete Hegseth has publicly praised DOGE’s work but expressed unease privately about early plans to potentially cut tens of thousands of civilian personnel, one person familiar with the private conversations said. DOGE staffers have been in the building for weeks and have set up shop in the Navy’s offices, where they’re taking a new look at the service’s troubled shipbuilding efforts and preparing recommendations for what new programs the service should cut and which it should keep developing, according to a second official.

When asked to respond, a senior defense official said that Hegseth is “leading several initiatives to meet the president’s intent, to include removing DEI from the department and reviewing fitness and training standards across the services,” among other things.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy struck a defiant tone earlier this month during a visit to the FAA Tech Center in New Jersey: “When I think of DOGE cutting things, I don’t know about that elsewhere, but we actually build things here,” he said. “You can’t cut your way to a new road. You can’t cut your way to a new bridge. You can’t cut your way into a new air traffic control system.”

Even as Musk promises to scale back his involvement, there are no signs that he’ll completely disengage. Far from it — White House officials say he and Trump have such a strong personal friendship that he’s expected to be in Washington at least once a week.

At his other companies, he had a habit of requesting and attending weekly meetings for ongoing projects, weighing in with his ideas and granular feedback. He attended weekly brainstorming sessions for Tesla’s Optimus robot and received weekly updates on America PAC’s voter contact metrics during the presidential campaign.

“I think I’ll continue to spend a day or two per week on government matters for as long as the president would like me to do and as long as it is useful,” Musk said on the earnings call.

Make Russia Medieval Again! How Putin is seeking to remold society, with a little help from Ivan the Terrible

The Conversation

Make Russia Medieval Again! How Putin is seeking to remold society, with a little help from Ivan the Terrible

Dina Khapaeva, Georgia Institute of Technology – April 22, 2025

Russian President Vladimir Putin has draped himself in old-fashioned, medieval conceptions of Russian history to add symbolic weight to his authoritarian government. <a href=
Russian President Vladimir Putin has draped himself in old-fashioned, medieval conceptions of Russian history to add symbolic weight to his authoritarian government. AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko

Beginning in September 2025, Russian middle and high school students will be handed a new textbook titled “My Family.”

Published in March 2025, the textbook’s co-author Nina Ostanina, chair of the State Duma Committee for the Protection of the Family, claims that it will teach students “traditional moral values” that will improve “the demographic situation in the country” as part of a “Family Studies” course that was rolled out in the 2024-2025 school year.

But some of those lessons for modern living come from a less-than-modern source. Among the materials borrowed from in “My Family” is the 16th century “Domostroi” – a collection of rules for maintaining patriarchal domestic order. It was written, supposedly, by Sylvester, a monk-tutor of czar Ivan the Terrible.

Unsurprisingly, some teachings from “Domostroi” seem out-of-keeping with today’s sensibilities. For example, it states that it is the right of a father to coerce, if needed by force, his household – at the time, this would refer to both relatives and slaves – in accordance with Orthodox dogmas.

“Husbands should teach their wives with love and exemplary instruction,” reads one of the Domostroi quotations repeated in the textbook.

“Wives ask their husbands about strict order, how to save their souls, please God and their husbands, arrange their home well, and submit to their husbands in all matters; and what the husband orders, they should agree with love and carry out according to his commands,” reads another extract

A painting shows an old man with a beard and a seated man.
Czar Ivan the Terrible and the priest Sylvester. Wikimedia Commons

The use of “Domostroi” in the textbook both references the past while evoking the current government’s politics of decriminalizing family violence. A 2017 law, for example, removed nonaggravated “battery of close persons” from the list of criminal offenses.

It also fits a wider pattern. As a scholar of historical memory, I have observed that references to the Russian Middle Ages are part of the Kremlin’s broader politics of using the medieval past to justify current agendas, something I have termed “political neomedievalism.”

Indeed, President Vladimir Putin’s government is actively prioritizing initiatives that use medieval Russia as a model for the country’s future. In doing so, the Kremlin unites a long-nurtured dream of the Russian far right with a broader quest for the fulfillment of Russian imperial ambitions.

Whitewashing Ivan the Terrible

In February 2025, just a month before “My Family” was published, the government of Russia’s Vologda region – home to over 1 million people – established nongovernmental organization called “The Oprichnina.”

The organization is tasked with “fostering Russian identity” and “developing the moral education of youth.”

But the group’s name evokes the first reign of brutal state terror in Russian history. The Oprichnina was a state policy unleashed by Ivan the Terrible from 1565 to 1572 to establish his unrestrained power over the country. The oprichniks were Ivan’s personal guard, who attached a dog’s head and a broom to their saddles to show that they were the czar’s “dogs” who swept treason away.

Chroniclers and foreign travelers left accounts of the sadistic tortures and mass executions that were conducted with Ivan’s participation. The oprichniks raped and dismembered women, flayed or boiled men alive and burned children. In this frenzy of violence, they slaughtered many thousands of innocent people.

Ivan’s reign led to a period known as the “Time of Troubles,” marked by famine and military defeat. Some scholars estimate that by its end, Russia lost nearly two-thirds of its population.

The depiction of a man in medieval attire.
Ivan IV, czar of Russia from 1547 to 1584, known as Ivan the Terrible. Rischgitz/Getty Images

Throughout Russian history, Ivan the Terrible – who among his other crimes murdered his eldest son and had the head of Russian Orthodox Church strangled for dissent – was remembered as a repulsive tyrant.

However, since the mid-2000s, when the Russian government under Putin took an increasingly authoritarian turn, Ivan and his terror have undergone a state-driven process of reevalution.

The Kremlin and its far-right proxies now paint Ivan as a great statesman and devout Russian Orthodox Christian who laid the foundations of the Russian Empire.

Prior to that alteration of Russian historical memory, only one other Russian head of state had held Ivan in such high esteem: Josef Stalin.

Even so, no public monuments to Ivan existed until 2016, when Putin’s officials unveiled the first of three bronze statues dedicated to the terrible czar. Yet, the cinematic propaganda outmatched the commemorations of Ivan in stone. By my count, from 2009 to 2022, 12 state-sponsored films and TV series paying tribute to Ivan the Terrible and his rule aired in prime time on Russian TV channels.

Russian revisionism

The post-Soviet rehabilitation of Ivan the Terrible goes back to the writings of Ivan Snychov, the metropolitan, or high ranking bishop, of Saint Petersburg and Ladoga. His book, “The Autocracy of the Spirit,” published in 1994, gave rise to a fundamentalist sect known as “Tsarebozhie,” or neo-Oprichnina. Tsarebozhie calls for a return to an autocratic monarchy, a society of orders and the canonization of all Russian czars. The belief that Russian state power is “sacred” – a central dogma of the sect – was reaffirmed on April 18, 2025, by Alexander Kharichev, an official in Putin’s Presidential Administration, in an article that has been likened to an instruction manual for the “builder of Putinism.”

The canonization of Ivan the Terrible specifically is a top priority for members of this sect. And while the Russian Orthodox Church has yet to canonize Ivan, Tsarebozhie have garnered significant support from Russian priests, politicians and laypersons alike. Their efforts sit alongside Putin’s yearslong push to give public support for Ivan. Not by chance, Putin’s minister of foreign affairs, Sergei Lavrov, reportedly named Ivan the Terrible among one of Putin’s three “most trusted advisers.”

In Snychov’s worldview, Russians are a messianic people, part of an imperial nation that is uniquely responsible for preventing Satan’s domination of the world. In his explicitly antisemitic pseudo-history of Russia, the Oprichnina is described as a “saintly monastic order” led by a “pious tsar.”

Since the 1930s, when Stalin used Ivan to justify his own repressions, Ivan and Stalin – the Oprichnina and Stalinism – became historical doubles. The whitewashing of Ivan by the Kremlin goes hand in hand with Putin’s rehabilitation of Stalin as commander in chief of the Soviet Union’s victory in World War II.

Promoting the cult of the “Great Patriotic War” – as the Second World War has officially been called since the Soviet period – has been central to Putin’s militarization of Russian society and part of the propaganda effort to foster support for the invasion of Ukraine. The remorse for the loss of empire and desire to restore it underlies Moscow’s discourse over the past two decades.

Medieval threat to democracy

The rhetoric of absolving Stalinism goes hand in hand with popularizing the state’s version of the Russian Middle Ages through public media channels.

Putin’s neomedieval politics have adopted the Russian far-right belief that the country should return to the traditions of medieval Rus, as it existed before the Westernization reforms undertaken by Peter the Great in the early 18th century.

Over the past 15 years, Russian TV viewers have received an average of two state-funded movies per month, advertising the benefits of Russian medieval society and praising Russian medieval warlords.

This use of Russian historical memory has allowed Putin to normalize his use of state violence abroad and at home and mobilize support for his suppression of the opposition. The major goal of political neomedievalism is to legitimize huge social and economic inequalities in post-Soviet society as a part of Russia’s national heritage.

To serve the purpose of undermining the rule of law and democratic freedoms, as my research demonstrates, the Kremlin and its proxies have promoted the Russian Middle Ages – with its theocratic monarchy, society of estates, slavery, serfdom and repression – as a state-sponsored alternative to democracy.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Dina Khapaeva, Georgia Institute of Technology

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Dina Khapaeva does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Citizenship voting requirement in SAVE Act has no basis in the Constitution – and ignores precedent that only states decide who gets to vote

The Conversation

Citizenship voting requirement in SAVE Act has no basis in the Constitution – and ignores precedent that only states decide who gets to vote

John J. Martin, University of Virginia – April 22, 2025

People stand in line to vote in Santa Monica, Calif., on Nov. 5, 2024. <a href=
People stand in line to vote in Santa Monica, Calif., on Nov. 5, 2024. Apu Gomes/Getty Images

The Republican-led House of Representatives passed on April 10, 2025, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act – or SAVE Act. The bill would make voting harder for tens of millions of Americans.

The SAVE Act would require anyone registering to vote in federal elections to first “provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship” in person, like a passport or birth certificate.

The House already passed an identical bill in July 2024, also along partisan lines, with the GOP largely supporting the legislation. At that time, the Senate killed the bill. With a now GOP-controlled Senate, and a Republican in the White House, the SAVE Act could become law before 2025 ends.

Voting rights experts and advocacy organizations have detailed how the legislation could suppress voting. In part, they say it would particularly create barriers in low-income and minority communities. People in such communities often lack the forms of ID acceptable under the SAVE Act for a variety of reasons, including socioeconomic factors.

As of now, at least 9% of voting-age American citizens – approximately 21 million people – do not even have driver’s licenses, let alone proof of citizenship. In spite of this, many legislators support the bill as a means of eliminating noncitizen voting in elections.

As a legal scholar who studies, among other things, foreign interference in elections, I find considerations about the potential effects of the SAVE Act important, especially given how rare it is that a noncitizen actually votes in federal elections.

Yet, it is equally crucial to consider a more fundamental question: is the SAVE Act even constitutional?

Two people stand behind large white voting machines that say 'Mecklenburg County Board of Elections' on them.
Voters cast their ballot in Charlotte, N.C., on Nov. 5, 2024. Peter Zay/Anadolu via Getty Images
How the SAVE Act could change voting requirements

The SAVE Act would forbid state election officials from registering an individual to vote in federal elections unless this person “provides documentary proof of United States citizenship.”

Acceptable forms of proof for voter registration would include a REAL ID that demonstrates U.S. citizenship – most of which do not – as well as a U.S. passport or a U.S. military identification card.

So, should the SAVE Act become law, if a person turns 18 or moves between states and wishes to register to vote in federal elections in their new home, they would likely be turned away if they do not have any such documents readily available. At best, they could still fill out a registration form, but would need to mail in acceptable proof of citizenship.

For married people with changed last names, among others, questions remain about whether birth certificates could even count as acceptable proof of citizenship for them.

The Constitution says little about voting rights

Despite the national conversation the SAVE Act has sparked, it is unclear whether Congress even has the power to enact it. This is the key constitutional question.

The U.S. Constitution imposes no citizenship requirement when it comes to voting. The original text of the Constitution, in fact, said very little about the right to vote. It was not until legislators passed subsequent amendments, starting after the Civil War up through the 1970s, that the Constitution even explicitly prohibited voting laws that discriminate on account of race, sex or age.

Aside from these amendments, the Constitution is largely silent about who gets to vote.

Who, then, gets to decide whether someone is qualified to vote? No matter the election, the answer is always the same – the states.

Indeed, by constitutional design, the states are tasked with setting voter-eligibility requirements – a product of our federalist system. For state and local elections, the 10th Amendment grants states the power to regulate their internal elections as they see fit.

States also get to decide who may vote in federal elections, which include both presidential and congressional elections.

When it comes to presidential elections, for instance, states have – as I have previously written – exclusive power under the Constitution’s Electors Clause to decide how to conduct presidential elections within their borders, including who gets to vote in them.

The states wield similar authority for congressional elections. Namely, according to Article I of the Constitution and the Constitution’s 17th Amendment, if someone can vote in their state’s legislative elections, they are entitled to vote in its congressional elections, too.

Conversely, the Constitution provides Congress zero authority to govern voter-eligibility requirements in federal elections. Indeed, in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling on the Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council case, the court asserted that nothing in the Constitution “lends itself to the view that voting qualifications in federal elections are to be set by Congress.”

Is the SAVE Act constitutional?

The SAVE Act presents a constitutional dilemma. By requiring individuals to show documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register for federal elections, the SAVE Act is implicitly saying that someone must be a U.S. citizen to vote in federal elections.

In other words, Congress would be instituting a qualification to vote, a power that the Constitution leaves exclusively to the states.

Indeed, while all states currently limit voting rights to citizens, legal noncitizen voting is not without precedent. As multiple scholars have noted, at least 19 states extended voting rights to free male “inhabitants,” including noncitizens, starting from our country’s founding up to and throughout the 19th century.

Today, over 20 municipalities across the country, as well as the District of Columbia, allow permanent noncitizen residents to vote in local elections.

Any state these days could similarly extend the right to vote in state and federal elections to permanent noncitizen residents. This is within their constitutional prerogative. And if this were to happen, there could be a conflict between that state’s voter-eligibility laws and the SAVE Act.

Normally, when state and federal laws conflict, the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause mandates that federal law prevails.

Yet, in this instance, where Congress has no actual authority to implement voter qualifications, the SAVE Act would seem to have no constitutional leg on which to stand.

Reconciling the SAVE Act with the Constitution

So, why have 108 U.S. representatives sponsored a bill that likely exceeds Congress’s powers?

Politics, of course, plays some role here. Namely, noncitizen voting is a major concern among Republican politicians and voters. Every SAVE Act cosponsor is Republican, as were all but four of the 220 U.S. representatives who voted to pass it.

When it comes to the constitutionality of the SAVE Act, though, proponents simply assert that Congress is acting within its purview.

Specifically, many proponents have cited the Constitution’s Elections Clause, which gives Congress the power to regulate the “Times, Places and Manner” of congressional elections, as support for that assertion. Sen. Mike Lee, for example, explicitly referenced the Elections Clause when defending the SAVE Act earlier in 2025.

But the Elections Clause only grants Congress authority to regulate election procedures, not voter qualifications. The Supreme Court explicitly stated this in the Inter Tribal Council ruling.

Congress can, for instance, require states to adopt a uniform federal voter registration form, and even include a citizenship question on said form. What it cannot do, however, is implement a non-negotiable mandate that effectively tells the states they can never allow any noncitizen to vote in a federal election.

For now, the SAVE Act is simply legislation. Should the Senate pass it, President Donald Trump will almost assuredly sign it into law, given, among other factors, his March 2025 executive order that says prospective voters need to show proof of citizenship before they register to vote in federal elections. Once that happens, the courts will have to reckon with the SAVE Act’s legitimacy within the country’s constitutional design.

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DOGE isn’t saving much money. So what is Elon Musk really up to?

Business Insider

DOGE isn’t saving much money. So what is Elon Musk really up to?

Adam Rogers – April 21, 2025

If Elon Musk’s effort to remake the federal government was ever really about “waste, fraud, and abuse,” those DOGE days are over. His quasi-agency has made huge and unprecedented changes to what the federal government does. But ask an economist, historian, or political scientist why, or what it all means, and you’ll get a sad-sounding laugh in response.

One thing is clear: There were never many savings to be found. Last year, Musk predicted he could cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. (That was always going to be tough, mathematically, given that the government’s entire discretionary budget is $1.7 trillion.) In January, Musk revised his estimate down to $1 trillion. Earlier this month, he revised the revision down to $150 billion.

On the other hand, DOGE has been very good at reducing the number of people who work for the government — as many as 216,000 federal employees and contractors are already out, with more dismissals in the works. Musk has gutted or eliminated agencies that prevent disease, protect us from pandemics, provide aid to our allies, ensure the safety of our food and medicines, and safeguard Americans against toxic chemicals. Every one of those efforts is a proven multiplier of our tax money — every dollar we spend on them redounds to the US economy. Which means that even if Musk succeeds at slashing government spending, he’ll actually be adding to the federal deficit: DOGE cuts to the Internal Revenue Service alone are estimated to cost America some $500 billion in lost tax revenue every year.

So if DOGE isn’t saving us money, what’s the reason for all the cuts? It can’t be motivated by the cliché that “government should be run like a business.” No successful business runs on the kind of bedlam being sown by Musk. What, in short, is going on here?

Here are four possible explanations for what DOGE is actually up to. Maybe none of them are right. Or perhaps they’re all accurate, to varying degrees. But one thing is certain: Each of them provides a more plausible insight into what DOGE is doing than the official explanation of saving taxpayers money.

(1) It’s an “exit” plan

For the past decade and a half, rich guys in Silicon Valley have been trying to leave it all behind — government regulation, wokeist diversity efforts, naysaying journalists, even the Earth itself. Broadly speaking, they call this idea “exit.” In a 2009 blog post, the influential investor Peter Thiel declared that it was time for tech entrepreneurs to abandon the concept of democracy and start their own city-states. A companion piece to that post — written by Patri Friedman, grandchild of the free-market economist Milton Friedman — peddled the idea of “seasteads,” floating cities in the ocean, beyond the jurisdiction of any nation. Musk, meanwhile, launched a company devoted to taking a select sliver of humanity to Mars, and the Exit crowd went all in on cryptocurrencies — money without a pesky state attached.

In a book published in 2022, the venture capitalist Balaji Srinivasan laid out a blueprint for Exit. “Technology has enabled us to start new companies, new communities, and new currencies,” his website declared. “But can we use it to start new cities, or even new countries? This book explains how to build the successor to the nation state, a concept we call the network state.”

In a sense, DOGE is serving as a sort of advance guard for Exit. It’s cutting away every government function that isn’t useful to a future network state (stuff that protects the vulnerable and supports the needy) while retaining the resources needed to found Exit-style cities (the blockchain, census data, border control). Casey Lynch, a geographer at the University of Girona who studies Exit politics, says that’s in line with how Exiteers think: “The only things the government should be doing are administrative functions necessary to maintain the market. And the only kinds of government services that are necessary are those related to things like upholding financial transactions, fighting identity theft, and protecting property rights.”

This, in essence, is the new Exit: Don’t secede from the government — absorb the government, digest it, and excrete a new one. A few groups have even met with the Trump administration to get his support for launching what they’re calling “Freedom Cities.” Like a Thiel-backed prototype in Honduras, these enclaves would be economically autonomous zones, free from government limits on Exit passion projects like longevity treatments or nuclear fusion research. Srinivasan has proposed making the area around Musk’s SpaceX facility in Texas into one, and other folks have proposed building one in Greenland — after it’s acquired by the United States, of course. The move is supported by Ken Howery, a college pal of Thiel’s who is Trump’s nominee to serve as ambassador to Denmark.

(2) It’s techno-libertarianism for all

Traditional libertarians believe that people and markets function just fine — better, even — with minimal government oversight. That’s what Ronald Reagan’s cowboy-inflected individualism was all about: shrinking government and letting the markets do as they wanted. But Reagan was careful to leave untouched two cornerstones of federal governance: Social Security, to protect against dissent from within, and a hefty nuclear arsenal, to guard against threats from without.

Silicon Valley libertarianism scraps the social safety net and the nukes. It’s closer to the venture investor Mark Andreessen’s vision of “techno-optimism,” where digital technologies and unfettered markets solve every human problem. It’s not just having Amazon replace the post office, or bitcoin taking the place of banks — it’s “deleting” regulations across all of government, no matter how critical they are to America’s health and safety and financial well-being.

In this explanation, DOGE is attempting to turn back the clock to the regulation-free excesses of the Gilded Age. In the 1910s and 1920s, America was dominated by industrial oligarchs, plagued by race and class struggles, and free from laws that kept food safe and the air and water clean. It took a spectacular market crash, and a Great Depression, to usher in the modern age of federal oversight.

DOGE effectively wants to return America to the days before the New Deal, when industrialists could do as they pleased. Musk, in fact, has called for a “wholesale, spring cleaning” of all federal regulation. “If it’s not possible now, it’ll never be possible,” he said during a midnight call in February. “This is our shot. This is the best hand of cards we’re ever going to have. And if we don’t take advantage of this best hand of cards, it’s never going to happen, so we’re going to do it.”

Perhaps that techno-libertarian vision — of a digitized world without government — is the entire point of DOGE. “You strip government down to remove all the parts of it that are resisting you,” says David Lewis, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University, “and rebuild it in a way that makes it, in your view, more efficient and responsive to you.” That’s actually more authoritarian than libertarian. But it does make government smaller — and weaker. And the weaker government is, the more the powerful can call the shots.

(3) It’s a heist

Tyler Cowen, a leading thinker on the right, has criticized what he calls “the libertarian vice.” Libertarians love it, he says, when the state fails — even if the private sector can’t or won’t step in to fix things.

But what if Musk’s libertarian vice is actually plain old greed? Consider some of the specific agencies DOGE has slashed. Why cut NASA, a broadly popular and relatively inexpensive operation? Well, without NASA to launch rockets, it would be left to private companies like SpaceX to get stuff into outer space. The same is true of DOGE’s cuts to the Office of Vehicle Automation Safety, which has ordered dozens of Tesla recalls and delayed the rollout of self-driving software. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee have collected a dozen examples of DOGE targeting agencies that are trying to regulate Musk. One thing DOGE hasn’t gone after? SpaceX’s contracts for military space launches — jobs worth $5.9 billion to the world’s richest man.

Elon Musk holds a chainsaw during an appearance at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference.
DOGE is a Tech-ish Chainsaw Massacre. But with the very real pain comes no perceivable gain.Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Musk isn’t the only Silicon Valley beneficiary of DOGE’s assault. The IRS is turning to Palantir, the security and data company cofounded by Peter Thiel, to assemble all its data into one giant, easily surveilled bucket. The company is also handling the data back end for ICE’s planned mass deportations. The Justice Department, meanwhile, is disbanding its team of lawyers responsible for going after cryptocurrency crime. So maybe DOGE is just an inside job — a case of technologists using their access to Donald Trump to loot the Treasury and line their own pockets.

(4) It’s a confederacy of dunces

Maybe DOGE is just really, really bad at its job. I mean, why would anyone cause this much chaos for so little demonstrable gain?

“It is tempting to think there is some strategy behind it,” says Zachary Liscow, a Yale professor who served as chief economist of the Office of Management and Budget during the Biden administration. “But these are just not competent people. They often don’t have a plan, or it’s often not well thought out.”

There’s certainly a lot of evidence that DOGE is incompetent. It’s staffed by a bunch of kids from Musk’s world who bring virtually no experience in either government or business to the job. Its reports on the cuts it’s making have been hysterically inaccurate. It has cut things it didn’t know it was cutting — like the agency responsible for making sure nuclear reactors don’t melt down — and then scrambled to restore them after the fact. And by grinding away at the government’s ability to do anything, it’s introduced a crippling level of turmoil and uncertainty to America, both at home and abroad. “It’s definitely making us less effective,” says Liscow.

And that’s the bottom line, really, when it comes to DOGE. At a basic level, Musk’s assault on the federal government represents a rejection of modernity itself. “You can’t do modern life without modern regulation,” says Lewis, the political scientist. “Transportation systems, energy systems, waste systems, internet systems — all of those things require government interventions and monitoring to work effectively.” If Musk makes good on his promise to pull the plug on every regulation in sight, the world as we know it would effectively shut down.

I said this sounded like the Gilded Age, but in some ways DOGE is turning the clock back even further. Before the Civil War, the federal government was far weaker and more diffuse than it is today. Individual states competed over tariffs and railroads and lots of other stuff we now think of as national functions. Companies could employ children at starvation wages, dump whatever they wanted into America’s streams and rivers, and sell quack remedies that were more likely to kill you than cure you. That’s roughly where a DOGE-denuded federal government puts us. Forget 1920 — think 1850.

Musk seems to think America’s administrative infrastructure is bureaucratic frippery. To him, just having it is wasteful. “There are more federal agencies than there are years since the establishment of the United States,” Musk observed during an interview with Tucker Carlson. “Which means that we’ve created more than one federal agency per year, on average. That seems crazy.” Carlson responded by pulling his “That’s insane!” face for the camera, as if Musk had just invented arithmetic.

But that math is not math. Times, as they say, change. Look at all the things we depend on today that weren’t even fathomable at the nation’s founding: cars and planes and polystyrene and aspirin and the internet and high fructose corn syrup and phones and recorded music and electricity. We’ve created way more technological marvels than federal agencies. A National Transportation Safety Board is a small price to pay for the wonders of intercontinental flight.

And it isn’t just that the world is more complicated than it was in 1776 or 1850 or 1920. It’s that most of the advances we enjoy today were, in one way or another, created because of government, not in spite of it. An enduring and reliable state — one that invests in innovation, ensures economic stability, and makes sure everyone plays by the rules — is literally what makes technological progress possible. Musk can’t take the government all the way back to the 18th century, even if he’d like to. But if he makes good on his promises with DOGE, America’s future may end up looking a lot more like its past.

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The Pentagon’s newly resigned spokesperson predicts Trump will fire Pete Hegseth after a ‘full-blown meltdown’ of a month

Business Insider

The Pentagon’s newly resigned spokesperson predicts Trump will fire Pete Hegseth after a ‘full-blown meltdown’ of a month

Matthew Loh – April 21, 2025

  • The Pentagon’s former top spokesperson says Pete Hegseth likely won’t last long in his role.
  • John Ullyot wrote that the Pentagon has been distracted by a month of “endless drama” after Signalgate.
  • Ullyot said he supports Hegseth, but that Trump “deserves better” from his Cabinet.

John Ullyot, who until recently was a top Pentagon spokesperson, says Pete Hegseth’s time as defense secretary is likely running out.

In a scathing opinion piece published by Politico on Sunday evening, Ullyot suggested that President Donald Trump may consider dismissing Hegseth as the Pentagon grapples with a string of public affairs crises.

“President Donald Trump has a strong record of holding his top officials to account. Given that, it’s hard to see Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth remaining in his role for much longer,” Ullyot wrote.

Ullyot has vocally backed Hegseth, writing in another piece in December that the veteran and former Fox News host was “well qualified for the job” of leading the Defense Department. Even when he stepped down from the Pentagon earlier this week, Ullyot said he supported his old boss.

He continued to praise Hegseth in his op-ed. “I value his friendship and am grateful for his giving me the opportunity to serve,” Ullyot wrote.

“Yet even strong backers of the secretary like me must admit: The last month has been a full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon — and it’s becoming a real problem for the administration,” he added.

A ‘Month From Hell’

Ullyot’s criticism comes after his tenure leading Defense Department public affairs at the start of the Trump administration. He oversaw the Pentagon’s mandate to remove DEI images and its reassignment of its media office spaces, booting outlets such as The New York Times and NBC in favor of right-leaning outlets like Breitbart.

However, in February, Ullyot’s role as chief spokesperson was taken over by Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s current press secretary. Ullyot eventually resigned on Wednesday, saying he told Hegseth when he was hired that he “was not interested in being number two to anyone in public affairs.”

In his op-ed days later, he described the Pentagon’s recent struggles as a “Month from Hell” that began with Signalgate — The Atlantic’s bombshell report in March that its chief editor was mistakenly added to a Signal group discussing US strikes.

Ullyot wrote that Hegseth’s initial response was a disaster.

“Nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that,” Hegseth had told reporters. The Atlantic followed up by publishing details of F/A-18 strikes Hegseth sent to the chat.

“This was a violation of PR rule number one — get the bad news out right away,” Ullyot wrote of Hegseth’s comment to the press.

Other, separate reports soon piled on top of Signalgate, and Ullyot wrote that it’s likely more will continue to emerge.

“Unfortunately, after a terrible month, the Pentagon focus is no longer on warfighting, but on endless drama,” Ullyot wrote.

These included reports that Hegseth had brought his wife to sensitive meetings with foreign counterparts and that the Pentagon was set to give Elon Musk a top-secret briefing. Three of Hegseth’s top aides were also reportedly fired this week amid an investigation into leaks, while the secretary’s chief of staff has resigned.

On Sunday, The New York Times reported that Hegseth had also put sensitive information about US strikes in a second Signal chat that included his wife and brother. The Times’ report was based on four anonymous sources.

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and his wife Jennifer Rauchet arrive for President Donald Trump's address to a joint session of Congress.
The Times reported that Jennifer Rauchet, Pete Hegseth’s wife, was among the people in a Signal chat that contained details of F/A-18 strikes.ALEX WROBLEWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

In a statement to Business Insider, Parnell, the Pentagon’s current spokesperson, called the report “garbage” and praised Hegseth’s office as becoming more efficient. “There was no classified information in any Signal chat, no matter how many ways they try to write the story,” he said.

Still, Ullyot wrote that all of these crises combined mean Hegseth would likely lose his job.

“In short, the building is in disarray under Hegseth’s leadership,” Ullyot wrote.

He wrote that Trump had previously dismissed other Cabinet members whom Ullyot respected, including Jim Mattis, Rex Tillerson, and Mark Esper.

The former Pentagon spokesperson ended his opinion piece by suggesting that a similar firing of Hegseth would benefit Trump.

“The president deserves better than the current mishegoss at the Pentagon,” he wrote. “Given his record of holding prior Cabinet leaders accountable, many in the secretary’s own inner circle will applaud quietly if Trump chooses to do the same in short order at the top of the Defense Department.”

Can voters use Real ID to satisfy SAVE Act voting rules, as Byron Daniels said?

Austin American Statesman

Can voters use Real ID to satisfy SAVE Act voting rules, as Byron Daniels said?

Grace Abels – April 21, 2025

Even Rep. Byron Donalds' state of Florida does not show citizenship on its Real ID driver's licenses, so they wouldn't provide the proof of citizenship that would be needed to register to vote under the proposed SAVE Act.
Even Rep. Byron Donalds’ state of Florida does not show citizenship on its Real ID driver’s licenses, so they wouldn’t provide the proof of citizenship that would be needed to register to vote under the proposed SAVE Act.

Byron Donald’s Statement: Under the SAVE Act, “as long as you have a Real ID … it should be easy for you to register to vote.”

Responding to concerns about a bill that would require proof of citizenship to vote, some Republicans have said an eligible voter needs only a Real ID.

But in 44 states, that’s not a solution.

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, passed the U.S. House on April 10 by a 220-208 vote. A priority of House Speaker Mike Johnson and President Donald Trump, it would require in-person proof of citizenship, such as a U.S. passport or a combination of a driver’s license and birth certificate, to register to vote.Republicans say the SAVE Act — which has a high 60-vote hurdle to clear in the Senate — is necessary to ensure that noncitizens don’t vote in U.S. elections. Federal laws already prohibit noncitizens from voting in federal elections, and cases of noncitizens voting are extremely rare.

Democrats denounced the bill as a threat to voting rights, criticizing the required paperwork as burdensome; about half of Americans don’t have passports, for example. Republicans accused Democrats of exaggerating the burden.

“To the people who are concerned about married women being able to register (to vote) there’s this thing in the United States, every state does it now, called Real ID,” said Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., in an April 10 NewsNation interview. “As long as you have a Real ID, which virtually every American has to have today, it should be easy for you to register to vote.”

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and several social media users made similar statements about Real IDs allowing people to travel and vote.

Real IDs are federally compliant, state-issued driver’s licenses or identification cards that require documentation including a Social Security card and proof of citizenship or legal immigration status to obtain. Congress passed a 2005 law requiring state-issued IDs to meet federal minimum security standards following a 9/11 Commission recommendation.

A Real ID card is typically marked with a black or gold star. About 56% of American IDs were Real ID compliant in January 2024, but many people are rushing to get Real IDs before a May 7 deadline after which a non-Real ID driver’s license, for example, won’t be sufficient to board domestic flights. (Some states, such as Illinois, are saying “Real ID can wait” because of high demand.)

However, not every Real ID meets SAVE Act requirements to prove citizenship. The SAVE Act accepts only Real IDs that indicate whether a person is a citizen, which most do not.

Further, Real IDs can be issued to noncitizens with lawful status, including permanent residence, temporary protected status, refugees, asylum applicants and people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, the Homeland Security Department’s website says.

Five states — Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont and Washington — offer a version of Real ID that indicates whether a person is a U.S. citizen, called an enhanced driver’s license. These licenses are offered at an additional fee, so not every Real ID in those states is compliant with the SAVE Act. Homeland Security officials have been working since 2008 to bring the enhanced ID program to all states.

Another state, Idaho, in 2023 began offering IDs with an optional citizenship marker, although it’s unclear whether all are Real ID compliant.

Byron Donalds
Byron Donalds

Roughly 14% of the U.S. population lives in those six states. Florida, where Donalds is running for governor, does not show citizenship on its Real ID.

PolitiFact found no evidence that the remaining states issue Real IDs that comply with the citizenship proof required by the SAVE Act.

Thirty-six states already have some form of voter ID law requiring identity verification at the polls, but the SAVE Act would implement hurdles in every state at an earlier step — voter registration. For most states, that is new terrain.

“There is only one state in the U.S., Arizona, that has experience with proof-of-citizenship to register to vote,” said Lori Minnite, a Rutgers University political science professor and expert on voter fraud.

For state and local elections, Arizona accepts state IDs as proof of citizenship after comparing the driver’s license number to existing information in its Department of Transportation database. The physical IDs are no different than those issued to noncitizens. It is unclear whether such an ID, only distinguishable from a noncitizen ID when referenced against internal state data, would count as “indicating” citizenship under the SAVE Act.

The SAVE Act’s author, Central Texas GOP Rep. Chip Roy acknowledged in a recent hearing that only a few states offer compliant licenses, and he hoped more would follow: “We believe, right, that the structure is put in place now that allow — I think there’s at least five states that do have the citizenship status as part of the Real ID — encourage more states to do so, right? That would be part of the goal here.”

In 2023, Ohio passed a law to offer enhanced driver’s licenses, but it is not yet accepting applications. Iowa and Montana are considering bills to add a citizenship marker on IDs.

Neither Donalds nor Roy responded to requests for comment.

Beyond Real ID, other ways to verify identity pose challenges

For the majority of Americans who don’t live in Idaho or one of the few states with enhanced IDs, the SAVE Act says they can prove citizenship with a valid U.S. passport; a military ID card and a military service record showing place of birth; or a government issued photo-ID that shows place of birth.Those documents, or a Real ID that indicates citizenship, are the only ones that can prove citizenship on their own under the bill. Without one of those, a person must show a driver’s license or identification along with another document showing birthplace, such as a birth certificate, naturalization certificate, consular report of birth abroad or final adoption decree.

All documents must be presented in person.

Any mismatch between documents and someone’s current identification cards could disrupt voter registration. Mismatches are common for people who change their names following marriage.

In the same hearing, Roy said the SAVE Act would not affect people currently registered to vote.

He added: “If they have an intervening event or if the states want to clean the rolls, people would come forward to register to demonstrate their citizenship so we could convert our system over some reasonable time to a citizenship-based registration system.”

Jonathan Diaz, director of voting, advocacy and partnerships at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan organization that supports voting rights, said he believes the SAVE Act would apply to any updates to current registration or reregistration.

As prominent Democrats warned that the bill would make voting harder for millions of married women, SAVE Act supporters said the bill addresses the needs of people with name changes by leaving it up to the states to decide what documentation would be required to resolve document discrepancies. It directs each state to “establish a process under which an applicant can provide such additional documentation” to establish citizenship if the person’s documents don’t include matching information.

Minnite called this language ambiguous: “Could a married woman who does not have a passport and who changed her name use a marriage certificate to prove her citizenship? The SAVE Act is not clear.”Diaz said, “Different states could have different standards and different degrees of proof needed, which will be really hard for voters to navigate.”

PolitiFact’s ruling

Donalds said under the SAVE Act, “as long as you have a Real ID … it should be easy for you to register to vote.” Most Real IDs are not compliant with the citizenship proof required under the SAVE Act. PolitiFact identified just six states that offer Real IDs that show citizenship, and five of them require an additional fee for that.

People in the remaining 44 states would need other forms of documentation to register to vote under the SAVE Act, such as a U.S. passport, a military service ID and record, or a birth certificate with a driver’s license.

Donalds’ statement has an element of truth because in a handful of states, people have access to Real IDs that would be sufficient to register to vote under the SAVE Act. But he ignores critical facts that would give a different impression, so we rate the statement Mostly False.

PolitiFact staff researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

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Musk’s DOGE Goons Hit With a Major Blow in Bid to Raid Social Security Secrets

The Daily Beast

Musk’s DOGE Goons Hit With a Major Blow in Bid to Raid Social Security Secrets

Tom Sanders – April 18, 2025

Elon Musk departs the U.S. Capitol Building on March 5, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik / Getty Images

Elon Musk’s DOGE efforts to burrow into the private data of millions of Americans has been thwarted after a judge issued a temporary injunction banning the billionaire’s goons from getting “unfettered access” to Social Security servers.

The case, brought against DOGE by two labor unions and an advocacy group for retirees, accused the Musk lackeys of accessing sensitive personal information in a way that could cause “irreparable harm” to individuals if mishandled.

Government attorneys argued that the way DOGE accesses private information does not deviate significantly from Social Security Administration (SSA) employees, who are routinely allowed to search its databases.

But plaintiffs argued the way DOGE employees have acted signals a “sea change” in how the agency handles sensitive data, which includes information on mental health, children, physical disabilities, and “issues that are not only sensitive but might carry a stigma.”

Granting DOGE unfettered access to this information is a privacy violation that “causes an objectively reasonable unease,” argued Alethea Anne Swift, an attorney for the legal group Democracy Forward, which filed the lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander, who is overseeing the case, agreed with the plaintiffs that DOGE had failed to demonstrate why it needed “unprecedented, unfettered access” to SSA servers, and issued a temporary injunction against the agency extending a ban on them from accessing personal information.

Demonstrators gathered in front of the Social Security administration building to protest DOGE's attempts to cut social security(Photo by Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu via Getty Images) / Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu via Getty Images
Demonstrators gathered in front of the Social Security administration building to protest DOGE’s attempts to cut social security(Photo by Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu via Getty Images) / Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu via Getty ImagesMore

The ruling follows a temporary restraining order previously imposed by Hollander in March that was set to expire Thursday.

The judge asked, “What it is we’re doing that needs all of that information?” DOGE argued it was necessary to root out instances of Social Security fraud.

Hollander asked whether the sensitive data could be anonymized, which government attorneys argued was technically possible but would significantly slow down their cost-cutting efforts.

Delivering her order, Hollander said the injunction was necessary to protect against privacy violations and that the plaintiffs would likely be victorious in any further claims brought against DOGE.

“For some 90 years, SSA has been guided by the foundational principle of an expectation of privacy with respect to its records. This case exposes a wide fissure in the foundation,” she wrote in her 145-page ruling, Reuters reports.

A judge ruled that allowing DOGE access to Social Security servers was a violation of privacy (Photo by Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu via Getty Images) / Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu via Getty Images
A judge ruled that allowing DOGE access to Social Security servers was a violation of privacy (Photo by Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu via Getty Images) / Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu via Getty Images

Justice Department attorney Bradley Humphreys responded by telling the court that the ruling was starting to “feel like a policy disagreement.”

But Hollander admonished him, saying, “I do take offense at your comment because I’m just trying to understand the system.”

The ruling was met with cheers outside the courthouse, where demonstrators had gathered to protest what they say is an overreach of DOGE’s authority that threatened the future of Social Security benefits, according to CBS.

Democracy Forward said the injunction marked an important step in its case, with president Skye Perryman calling the ruling “a significant relief for the millions of people who depend on the Social Security Administration to safeguard their most personal and sensitive information.”

The Daily Beast: DOGE Goon Accused of Screaming at Federal Workers on 36-Hour Shift

trump’s America becoming putin’s russia, Scientists flee the fascist regime: Nearly 300 scientists apply for French academic program amid Trump cuts in U.S.

NPR – National

Nearly 300 scientists apply for French academic program amid Trump cuts in U.S.

Alana Wise – April 18, 2025

Students, researchers and demonstrators rally during a protest against the Trump administration's funding cuts on research, health and higher education at the University of California Los Angeles on April 8.

Students, researchers and demonstrators rally during a protest against the Trump administration’s funding cuts on research, health and higher education at the University of California Los Angeles on April 8.Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images

More than 2,500 scientists fled russia after putin invaded Ukraine.

A French university courting U.S.-based academics said it has already received nearly 300 applications for researchers seeking “refugee status” amid President Trump’s elimination of funding for several scientific programs.

Last month, Aix-Marseille University, one of the country’s oldest and largest universities, announced it was accepting applications for its Safe Place For Science program, which it said offers “a safe and stimulating environment for scientists wishing to pursue their research in complete freedom.”

This week, Aix-Marseille said it had received 298 applications, and 242 of them are eligible and currently up for review. Of the eligible applicants, 135 are American, 45 have a dual nationality, 17 are French and 45 are from other countries, the university said.Sponsor Message

“I am pleased that this request for the creation of scientific refugee status has found both media and political traction,” university President Éric Berton said in a statement.

The public research university said there is an even split between male and female applicants, with backgrounds from various prestigious U.S. institutions including Johns Hopkins University, NASA, the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Yale and Stanford. About 20 Americans will be accepted into the program to begin in June.

“We at Aix-Marseille University are convinced that mobilization to address the challenges facing scientific research must be collective in France and Europe,” Berton said.

The Trump administration has prioritized aggressive spending cuts and federal workforce reduction, leading to a battle for America’s best and brightest.

Already, for example, universities and medical research facilities are set to lose billions in federal funding under the National Institutes of Health. And rollbacks on federal diversity, equity and inclusion programs have compromised research ranging from climate change to biomedical research.

Aix-Marseille is not the only European institution hoping to capitalize on America’s brain drain.

Last month, France’s CentraleSupélec announced a $3.2 million grant to help finance American research that had been halted in the states. And Netherlands Minister of Education, Culture and Science Eppo Bruins wrote in a letter to parliament that he requested to set up a fund aimed at bringing top international scientists to the Netherlands.

There is some evidence that these entreaties are reaching curious ears.

Last month in the journal Nature, more than 1,200 respondents identifying as scientists cited Trump’s funding cuts as reasons they were considering moving to Canada or Europe.

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It’s obvious, trump and musk hate Veterans who work for the Federal Government: Thousands of federal workers would be easier to fire under Trump rule change

NPR – Politics

Thousands of federal workers would be easier to fire under Trump rule change

Shannon Bond – April 18, 2025

President Trump speaks in the Oval Office on Friday.

President Trump speaks in the Oval Office on Friday.Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

The Trump administration is moving forward with efforts to make it easier to fire some federal workers from their jobs, as part of its push to both shrink the federal government and exert more control over it.

On Friday the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) proposed a rule reclassifying tens of thousands of career civil servants as “at-will” employees, the White House announced in a statement. Removing civil service protections would make workers easier to fire.

The White House said the proposed rule would address “unaccountable, policy-determining federal employees who put their own interests ahead of the American people’s.”

President Trump and his allies, including billionaire Elon Musk, have said they want to “dismantle government bureaucracy,” which they criticize as a “deep state,” and root out what Trump has called “rogue bureaucrats.” They’ve claimed, without presenting evidence, that the government is rife with corrupt employees and non-existent workers. Trump has long argued that his administration should have greater flexibility in appointing people who will faithfully carry out his agenda and firing those who won’t.

“If these government workers refuse to advance the policy interests of the President, or are engaging in corrupt behavior, they should no longer have a job,” Trump wrote in a post about the proposed rule on his Truth Social platform on Friday.

The effort to strip civil service protections from some workers began on Trump’s first day back in office, with an executive order reinstating an order Trump signed at the end of his first term, in 2020. (That order was rescinded by then-President Biden days after he took office.) The latest Trump order creates a new category of political appointees in the federal workforce, originally called Schedule F.

OPM estimates 50,000 positions, or about 2% of federal workers, will be reclassified under the new rule, which renames Schedule F as Schedule Policy/Career. According to the White House statement, it would apply to “career employees with important policy-determining, policy-making, policy-advocating, or confidential duties.” It said once OPM issues its final rule, another executive order would actually reclassify specific positions as Schedule Policy/Career.

“This rule empowers federal agencies to swiftly remove employees in policy-influencing roles for poor performance, misconduct, corruption, or subversion of Presidential directives, without lengthy procedural hurdles,” the White House statement said.

It added that Schedule Policy/Career jobs “are not required to personally or politically support the President, but must faithfully implement the law and the administration’s policies.” They will continue to be filled by “existing nonpartisan, merit-based hiring processes,” the White House said.

The American Federation of Government Employees has sued the administration to protect civil service workers, and in a statement Friday its president, Everett Kelley, said that this latest action “will erode the government’s merit-based hiring system and undermine the professional civil service that Americans rely on.”

Friday’s proposed rule comes as Trump continues making sweeping changes to the federal government, shuttering some agencies and moving ahead with mass firings.

Trump has also ousted other government employees he sees as insufficiently loyal, including firing more than a dozen Justice Department officials who worked on federal criminal investigations into him.

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‘Military junk’ to be dug up from Florida residents’ yards amid cancer cluster scare

Independent

‘Military junk’ to be dug up from Florida residents’ yards amid cancer cluster scare

James Liddell – April 17, 2025

The site near Patrick Air Force Base, which was previously a naval base during World War II, is believed to be littered with hazardous waste (USAF)
The site near Patrick Air Force Base, which was previously a naval base during World War II, is believed to be littered with hazardous waste (USAF)

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has digging up the yards of a small beachside Florida neighborhood that was a dumping ground of military junk from World War II.

For decades, residents of South Patrick Shores in Brevard County have tied a myriad of health conditions to the area, potentially stemming from an old military base. The area is at the center of a suspected cancer cluster.

Before homes began to be built in the early 1950s, the area was a military landfill near the Banana River Naval Air Station, where Patrick Space Force Base is now located.

Hazardous waste—ranging from ammunition and unexploded ordnance to chemicals and fuels—is believed to be buried underground on the land just south of Cape Canaveral.

Two years ago, the corps scanned yards in a 52-acre portion of South Patrick Shores with ground-penetrating radars as part of a $5.8 million project to look for military waste. More than 300 homes lie on the site.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is set to begin digging in yards in South Patrick Shores (WKMG/YouTube)
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is set to begin digging in yards in South Patrick Shores (WKMG/YouTube)

This week, the Army’s engineering branch resumed its excavation efforts to dig at 10 test pits across the neighborhood, aiming to unearth long-hidden hazards that may be present. The ten pits will be dug by April 25.

Brad Tompa, who is leading the clean-up operation, told county commissioners last week that South Patrick Shores was an “uncontrolled dump.”

For homeowners who have given permission, the Corps will dig trenches approximately eight feet deep and eight feet long and begin sampling the soil for any contaminants that may have accumulated.

The initial phase of the investigation is anticipated to take six months, pending findings.

Brevard County Commissioner Katie Delaney alleged that residents who had dug items from their own yards had severe side effects, potentially stemming from the items found.

Sandra Sullivan, who in 2018 said she found lead, bullets, and a partially full oil barrel in her yard, said she became “sick.”

“I know it’s made me sick,” she told News 6 on Tuesday. “Every time I dug up something, between eight days and seven weeks, I would have symptoms.”

Photograph of Banana River Naval Air Station in 1943 before it became Patrick Air Force Base (U.S. Navy)
Photograph of Banana River Naval Air Station in 1943 before it became Patrick Air Force Base (U.S. Navy)

A 2019 report from the Florida Department of Health found higher rates of certain types of cancers—including bladder cancer and leukemia—in South Patrick Shores than in other parts of the country. The state health department was unable to confirm the cause.

The overall incidence of cancer in the community does not appear to be elevated.

The pattern of Hodgkin’s disease, a type of cancer that affects the lymphatic system, reportedly first emerged in South Patrick Shores in 1967, when 24-year-old Larry Crockett found out he had cancer. By 1982, five of Crockett’s neighbors were diagnosed with the same cancer.

According to a 1991 report by the Tampa Bay Times, eight people in a 10-block area near the toxic waste sites had been diagnosed with the rare cancer. Five of them had died.

“It’s not a fluke,” one resident diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease a decade earlier told the paper. At the time, a spokesperson for Patrick Air Force Base said there was “no known link.”

A health assessment was conducted in 1992 in the area after residents reported an increase in the number of cases of Hodgkin’s disease.

The report, still on the Florida DOH website, suggested that residents believed it stemmed from contamination linked to a radar cluster at the military base and the testing of DDT, which was used in WWII to limit the spread of insect-borne diseases.

Residents were also concerned about the rate of Lou Gehrig’s disease, which affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, and psychiatric illness in the area.

The Independent has contacted the Florida Department of Health and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for more information.

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