Author Archives: Mary Turck

In a Valentine’s Day Massacre, the Trump/Musk regime sent mass firing notices to tens of thousands of federal employees across the country, effective over the weekend. The firings had nothing to do with performance, nothing to do with merit, nothing to do with efficiency. Their common characteristic was cruelty. 

Those fired were “on probation.” That means a one- or two-year period after hiring or after transfer from one position to another or one agency to another. During this probationary period, civil service protection against firing does not apply. That’s the only reason for these firings: the Trump/Musk/DOGE machine COULD fire people, and so they did. 

Don’t bother reading this unless you eat food. 

The head of the Food and Drug Administration’s food safety division just resigned. He said that the Trump/Musk firings in his division and the RFK, Jr. threats to dissolve it made his work impossible. His work, and that of the fired FDA employees isn’t important unless you eat food. 

Republicans in the House and Senate continue to uncritically support the Trump/Musk dismantling of government. They own the unfolding disaster that is the Trump/Musk administration.

Musk and his DOGE team decided that the most efficient way to save money was to fire every “probationary” federal employee. Working their way from department to department, they sent a fusillade of termination emails. 

On Valentine’s Day, they realized they had screwed up, big-time. 

Republicans in the House and Senate continue to uncritically support the Trump/Musk dismantling of government. Among the latest moves: unpublishing OSHA workplace safety pages. 

Why? Some idiot in Musk’s DOGE decided that any publication containing the words “diverse” or “diversity” or “gender” should be trashed. That’s part of their war on DEI: diversity, equity, and inclusion. Among the pages they trashed: 

Republicans in the House and Senate continue to uncritically support the Trump/Musk dismantling of government. They own the unfolding disaster that is the Trump/Musk administration.

One of Trump’s first moves in office was to fire the head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and all the members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee. TSA Administrator David Pekoske was appointed by Trump in his first term and reappointed to a second five-year term by President Biden. 

Now, only a few weeks after the disastrous January 29 collision between an Army helicopter and a passenger plane, the Trump/Musk administration fired several hundred probationary employees at the Federal Aviation Administration. 

Trump’s illegal orders set the United States on a path to dictatorship. You and I and everyone who cares about our democracy must block that path now. 

On January 27, the Trump administration issued an edict freezing public spending. That shut down Medicaid reimbursement portals in all 50 states on January 28. Other health funding, housing assistance, and Head Start funding were affected as well. 

This shutdown is totally illegal. The Constitution gives Congress the power to allocate funding. Congress did that. Trump has NO authority to change the Congressional funding decision. 

We have three branches of government. Each of them has certain responsibilities under the Constitution. We do not have a king or a dictator who can make his own rules.

*Updated 1/13/2025

Kleptocracy is government by thieves—corrupt politicians who use the government to get rich(er) with tactics including kickbacks, bribes, sweetheart contracts, and more. 

You might think that the über-rich don’t need to use government positions and influence because they already have money. Then we wouldn’t have to worry about the 13 billionaires named to high-ranking government positions in the incoming Republican administration. Unfortunately, people with the most power, influence, and money know better than anyone how use these assets to get more of the same.

Update: “Major donors to Donald Trump’s inaugural committee are having to contribute twice as much to get direct access to him and vice-president-elect JD Vance at private events around the swearing-in ceremony compared with the first inauguration, according to fundraising materials.” [The Guardian]

Trump’s cabinet has an estimated combined net worth of more than $7 billion, even without counting Elon Musk’s personal fortune of more than $400 billion. Biden’s cabinet, in contrast, has a combined net worth of $118 million. Not paupers, but nowhere near the Trump cabinet totals. 

Conflicts of interest abound. 

Kakistocracy means government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state. Trump’s cabinet and ambassadorial appointments exemplify that disaster. Pete Hegseth is a prime example, but there are many others. 

Hegseth, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, lacks any experience in managing a large organization. The Defense Department has a budget of $849 billion and nearly three million employees. Hegseth’s primary “qualifications” appear to be about five years of deployment as a member of the Minnesota National Guard and unsuccessful stints as the head of three political organizations. 

The battle over extending government funding to March played out as a battle between Republicans, with House Speaker Mike Johnson, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump as the big players, and power as the game. When a government shutdown was averted, most people breathed a sigh of relief and turned away. Underneath the surface, however, there was a lot more going on than an intra-party squabble.  Follow the money.

“Only the AfD can save Germany,” Musk wrote on Twitter around 2 a.m. on December 20. The Alternativ für Deutschland—is the far-right German party considered neo-Nazi by many in Germany. While the AfD is still a legal party in Germany, its neo-Nazi credentials are clear: 

[CNN Business] “The AfD, which has recently seen its popularity swell, has touted populist and anti-immigrant ‘Germany first’ positions. But the party has also been accused of resurrecting Nazi-era ideology and slogans. In May, a judge ruled that Germany’s domestic intelligence agency could continue to keep the the AfD under surveillance for the alleged threat it poses to German democracy, rejecting a challenge by the party.

“Its youth arm, the Young Alternative (JA), has been designated by German authorities as a ‘confirmed extremist’ organization. The party’s lead candidate in the eastern German state of Thuringia, Björn Höcke, was convicted earlier this year after breaking German laws against uttering Nazi slogans in public.” 

Musk said that he knows the party’s policies have been criticized as extreme, but they “don’t sound extremist. Maybe I’m missing something.”