Until they wised-up and changed the lyrics of the Gilligan’s Island theme song at the beginning of Season 2, to also mention “the Professor and Mary Ann”, the song originally referred to only those two (of just seven!) castaways as simply “and the rest”. While the nation has understandably been focused on Trump and Musk’s almost complete shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and Elon’s DOGE Bros’ takeover of the computer payment system at U.S. Treasury that cuts checks for about 95% of payments made by the nation each year (about $6 trillion worth), the shutdowns, pauses and freezes at other critical, if smaller or lesser well-known agencies, has felt a bit like “and the rest.” On today’s BradCast, we focus on…well, the Professor and Maryanne for a bit…along with the other Castaways as well. [Audio link to full show follows below.]
Tortured TV metaphor aside, we’re joined today by award-winning, best-selling investigative journalist and author DAVID DAYEN, Executive Editor of The American Prospect, to discuss a few government agencies that Donald Trump has pretty much completely put out of business for the moment, maybe permanently, and completely unlawfully.
This week, Dayen reported at TAP about Trump’s takeover of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), created in 2011 in response to the Great Recession. It is the only federal agency specifically focused on protecting consumers. It was the brain-child of Elizabeth Warren during the Obama Administration, before she became a U.S. Senator, and it actually holds major banks and other huge corporations financially responsible to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars for ripping off Americans. No wonder the Republicans have been trying to shut it down since its inception. Now, as we discuss today, it appears they have done so. Unlawfully.
In late November, Elon Musk posted on Twitter/X: “Delete CFPB. There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies.” In fact, the CFPB doesn’t duplicate the work of any other federal agency. But the small, independent Bureau very well might have made it more difficult for Musk to take advantage of suckers on X with a new payment app he is rolling out.
Trump’s newly-minuted U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — who allowed the DOGE Bros into the agency’s computer payment system — is also serving as Acting head of the CFPB. “The first thing Bessent did is he said, ‘Put a pause on all litigation, all enforcement, all rule-making, and all communications,'” at CFPB, Dayen explains today. “They’ve basically turned the agency into a ghost town.” Employees there tell him they are still able to do things like examine data and work on reports. But they just can’t publish them or act on anything “that can protect consumers in real time.”
We also discuss how Trump has effectively shut down the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with his unlawful removal of one of its Commissioners (who is now suing). Without her there, the Board which adjudicates union elections, worker rights and investigates labor law violations, no longer has a quorum to do any of that. “So it’s a free pass for companies who don’t want any consequences for union busting behavior to just continue to do it, appeal everything into a netherworld that half-exists and half-doesn’t now,” Dayen says.
All of this is illegal, of course. But Trump’s captured DoJ certainly isn’t going to do anything about it. Will the courts? As you know, SCOTUS has been captured and corrupted as well.
Dayen tells me he is also very concerned about whatever the DOGE Bros are doing inside of the nation’s payment system at Treasury. Shortly after my conversation today with him, however, the news broke that Musk’s lead Bros inside of Treasury’s computer system, 25-year old Marko Elez, had resigned after a series of racist posts were discovered from a Twitter/X account that he deleted in December. If you’re wondering if those posts are somehow out-of-context or written years ago, just last July he Tweeted: “Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool.” So, yeah.
Also today, we discuss some of the very serious and under-reported concerns regarding the H5N1 bird flu above and beyond what it is doing to spike the price of eggs on grocery store shelves. The virus appears to be both quickly spreading AND mutating. Unfortunately, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) are also effectively handcuffed by the Trump Administration in what they are allowed to study any communicate to the public about it. Not that Trump that we have reason to worry about Trump’s leadership during a deadly pandemic or anything.
Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with more news on the DOGE Bros’ ongoing infiltration and attack on the U.S. Government and our Constitutional order, such as over at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), where they have reportedly now descended, after the disgraced “scientist” who helped facilitate Trump’s fake hurricane in Alabama years ago (remember “SharpieGate”?) has now been tapped to run the entire agency. In addition to producing critical climate and data on our oceans, the agency also houses the National Weather Service, which Project 2025 calls for privatizing. Sadly, she has even more today. Though we do close on an amusing note!…
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
|
“While the nation has understandably been focused on …” – Brad
As Brad indicates, the realm of media chatter at the moment is the realm of “Accountability” (When Accountability Is A Plague – 6).
Which is just one more realm endangered by extinction.
Oh, man.
On today’s Stephanie Miller Show on Free Speech TV, she said repeatedly that Musk and his tech-terrorists have the nuclear codes. Man.
https://www.stephaniemiller.com/
https://freespeech.org/watch-live/
From Cory Doctorow on another journalist from The American Prospect to add to Brad’s interview with DAVID DAYEN:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/07/broccoli-hair-brownshirts/
“The Fagin figure leading Elon Musk’s merry band of pubescent sovereignty pickpockets”: Maureen Tkacik on the monstrous corporate raider running DOGE.
While we truly live in an age of ascendant monsters who have hijacked our country, our economy, and our imaginations, there is one consolation: the small cohort of brilliant, driven writers who have these monsters’ number, and will share it with us. Writers like Maureen Tkacik:
But for me, it was Tkacik – as usual – in the pages of The American Prospect who pulled it all together in a way that finally made it make sense, transforming the blitzkreig Muskian chaos into a recognizable playbook. While most of the coverage of Musk’s wrecking crew has focused on the broccoli-haired Gen Z brownshirts who are wilding through the server rooms at giant, critical government agencies, Tkacik homes in on their boss, Tom Krause, whom she memorably dubs “the Fagin figure leading Elon Musk’s merry band of pubescent sovereignty pickpockets” (I told you she was a great writer!):
https://prospect.org/power/2025-02-06-private-equity-hatchet-man-leading-lost-boys-of-doge/
Musk and his tech terrorists should be stopped from entering another government department, as what he is doing with our data, our kids data may be worse than we are imagining.
I am sorry to relay this, but, if this post could heighten urgency around this data coup, then it would be worth it, disturbing as it is:
Quoting parts of two posts:
https://bsky.app/profile/jim-stewartson.bsky.social/post/3lhouynpd5k2r
Jim Stewartson
DOGE employee Edward Coristine was a member of this group of Satanic National Socialist (Nazism) pedophiles called 764 that “target, groom, extort and cause physical and psychological harm to victims as young as 10.â€
Any more questions about what’s going on here?
He has access to YOUR data.
………….
I’m guessing, our kids’ data too.
I clicked link after it posted, and article is not on server.
Perhaps, following Jim Stewartson on sky social at his address is easier.
@jim-stewartson.bsky.social
@jim-stewartson.bsky.social
Pardon me. I created a useless hyperlink with a Blue sky user name, in above post. Sorry to make so many mistakes.