It’s like a bank heist and the bank is America

My Sunday movie was The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, an unusual documentary of an unusual person. Mats Steen of Oslo, Norway had Duchenne, a muscle disease. His muscles got progressively weaker. It first showed up about age 2. By late elementary school he was in a wheelchair. He made it to 25. At age 9 he started gaming, his parents allowed it because there was so much else he could not do. But they became alarmed at how much time he played games, sometimes 12 hours a day. At age 17 he started playing World of Warcraft. He created an avatar he named Ibelin, who was big and muscular, all the things he wasn’t in real life. He joined the Starlight community. This was his escape from the prison of his body. He also started writing a blog, Musings of Life, talking about being disabled. By this time he needed special controllers so he could operate his computer with just twitches of his fingers. When he died his parents posted a notice on his blog. They were astonished at the large number of replies from his online community describing what Ibelin had done for them and how much he meant to them. Mom and Dad knew nothing of it. World of Warcraft has detailed archives of what its characters do. From that an animator was able to reconstruct scenes of Ibelin’s interactions with other characters. Instead of text boxes actors gave voice to the characters. Mats’ father thought his son would not be able to love and not have friends. But in Starlight he did. In addition he became quite supportive of other characters and the real people behind them. He became a sort of counselor. One example was a woman he befriended who admitted her autistic son refused to engage with life. Ibelin suggested talking to him within Starlight. That worked. The movie producers visited the mother and son and were able to get their side of the story. When Mats joined Starlight he was just 17. He had some growing up to do. And Starlight helped him do it. This is a beautiful movie of a man who embraced a community and made a big difference in many lives. I highly recommend it. Over the decades I have read science fiction stories in which a person in real life visits or lives in an online world (many much more immersive than our technology can manage right now). Out of those many stories there were some where the person went to the virtual world to escape the physical limitations of their real world. And here’s a real life story of that being done. Most of the stories I read were about what had gone wrong in the virtual world, not about what could go so right. Alex Samuels of Daily Kos reported:

Employees at several federal agencies were ordered Friday to remove their pronouns from any email signatures and grant applications, according to internal memos obtained by ABC News. The memos cited two of President Donald Trump’s Day 1 executive orders, both of which sought to curb diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in the federal government. One of the executive orders described DEI initiatives in the federal government as “illegal and immoral” and “radical and wasteful.” Of course, this isn’t true, and it’s clear that DEI is becoming a GOP scapegoat that’s fundamentally built on bigotry.

Also, the CDC website is being scrubbed for certain phrases, such as “environmental justice,” “LGBT,” and “transgender.” Info about trans youth wellbeing are already gone. Emily Singer of Kos reported that Sean Duffy, the new guy in charge of the Department of Transportation, has issued a memo that says the DOT will “give preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average” as it funds money for commuter rail and bus transit. Duffy gives a reason, something about “restoring commonsense governance and merit-based policies at USDOT” and “eliminating excessive regulations.” But it doesn’t sound commonsense at all, there is no merit, and he seems to be trading one set of regulations for another. And adding a big dose of the far right obsession over babies. Want your road fixed? Have a baby. Alix Breeden of Kos wrote the nasty guy is expanding his empire into financial services. No, I would never take financial advice from anyone associated with him – this is a guy who bankrupted casinos.

Jessica Tillipman, an anti-corruption and government ethics professor at George Washington University, explained to Daily Kos last week that there are no laws stopping a president from profiting off of the people he was elected to serve. Laws were never made to prevent this type of behavior because past presidents typically acted in good faith. “We've always relied on this system of norms,” she explained. “I think people were pretty surprised to see how few restrictions there were on what a president could do because we hadn't seen this before.”

Oliver Willis of Kos reported:

The Washington Post reports that David A. Lebryk, the highest-ranking career official at the Treasury Department, is quitting after a clash with Musk’s underlings. DOGE has reportedly been pressuring Lebryk for access to the agency’s payment system, which is used to pay out trillions of dollars on behalf of the government. More than $6 trillion dollars flows through the system in question, which administers payments for vital functions like Social Security and Medicare benefits, tax refunds, payments to contractors, and federal salaries, among others. “It’s like a bank heist and the bank is America,” a source within the federal government told reporter Marisa Kabas, in response to the Treasury Department incident.

A reminder: the Department of Government Efficiency is not officially part of the government and has no official power. Yeah, this is as nasty and dangerous as it sounds. No one not employed by the Treasury department and with specific authorization should be anywhere near those computers. And this isn’t the only illegal meddling DOGE has been attempting lately. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted several people commenting on this story, though most say the same general thing. I will quote Seth Masket of Tusk:

It’s hard to know just how destructive this will be in the long run, but for now, this is arguably the most troubling development in a day of extremely troubling developments. Elon Musk appears to be trying to do to the federal government what he did at Twitter/X: massively disrupt its functioning and drive out experienced employees not on board with his transformations and his personality cult. After a week of trying to push civil servants out of jobs all over the federal government, Musk set his sights Friday on the U.S. Treasury’s payment systems.

Dworkin also included a tweet from Fred Wellman. The nasty guy spouted all kinds of strange theories about why California water sources couldn’t keep up with firefighter needs with the recent Los Angeles fires (correct reason: no water system could have kept up with that size fire). So the nasty guy signed an executive order taking over the California water system, whatever that means. Or maybe this is what it means. Wellman tweeted:

Remember how Trump said he "sent the military in and opened up the water flow" in CA? It appears he forced the Army Corps to just drain reservoirs into recently flooded farmland without telling local farmers or leaders. “In 25 years, I’ve never seen anything like this. I was given no explanation at all.” Rumors are that local Republicans are panicked over this screwing of their constituents. Nothing but chaos meddling in local water management from the White House.

Wellman provided a link to SJV Water, which is where the quote came from. An important question – how did all those Musk people get into the federal building and get access to the payment system? Singer answered that allegedly new Secretary of the Treasury let them in.

A group of unions representing federal employees filed a lawsuit on Monday against Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, alleging that he illegally allowed billionaire Elon Musk and his army of unqualified Department of Government Efficiency bros to access sensitive personal information in violation of the Privacy Act of 1974. The lawsuit is in response to a Washington Post report, which said that Musk forced out the top career Treasury official in charge of overseeing trillions of dollars of government payments so that DOGE aides could access the payment systems. Those systems are responsible for handling trillions of dollars of tax revenue, as well as disbursing payments for Social Security and Medicare benefits, tax refunds, government grants, and more.

Mark Sumner, a Kos staff emeritus, discussed what a coup looks like.

There’s also a type of coup known as an "autocoup" or a "self coup." That's what's happening in the United States right now. Right. Now. In a self coup, the government isn't displaced by some new faction or overturned by rebellion. Instead, the people already in charge of the government expand their power. That can come in the form of refusing to leave after losing an election, refusing to hold new elections, or simply usurping powers that should belong to other portions of the government and putting them under the control of the coup leaders. ... Musk and his team are not only violating laws protecting the privacy of workers and citizens, they are interfering with the operation of programs and agencies authorized, not by executive order, but by law. Their actions are illegal. ... Resisting a self coup is even more difficult. The people who are violating the law and grasping for ever more power are the ones who already hold the capital, already control the military, and already have friends and allies in the legislature.

Standing up to this type of coup takes bravery, because it may mean losing freedom or life. That bravery is sorely lacking. Delaying the challenge only gives the despot time to increase his power. Then removing gets more difficult and costly. The time to defeat a coup is before it starts, which we missed in November. After that the best time is while it is still in progress.

To that end, Democratic leaders should be calling for the arrest of Elon Musk and the removal of his team from government offices; drafting articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; and blocking all Senate votes until action has been taken to restore the executive to its lawful functions. All of that represents a huge risk. But none of it carries the price of refusing to act.

xaxnar of the Kos community noticed a few things about what’s going on that reminded him of something else. A few of the things mentioned: + Entire divisions shut down + Purge of leaders, replaced by loyalists. + Assets set up for looting + PR nonsense that it’s all to increase efficiency + A sense that no one can stop it

This is what it looks like when vulture capitalists descend on a company and loot it. This is a hostile takeover — applied to government. This is what they truly mean when they refer to running government like a business.

In another pundit roundup Chitown Kev quoted Heather Cox Richardson of her Letters From an American Substack:

I’m going to start tonight by stating the obvious: the Republicans control both chambers of Congress: the House of Representatives and the Senate. They also control the White House and the Supreme Court. If they wanted to get rid of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), for example, they could introduce a bill, debate it, pass it, and send it on to President Trump for his signature. And there would be very little the Democrats could do to stop that change. But they are not doing that. Instead, they are permitting unelected billionaire Elon Musk, whose investment of $290 million in Trump and other Republican candidates in the 2024 election apparently has bought him freedom to run the government, to override Congress and enact whatever his own policies are by rooting around in government agencies and cancelling those programs that he, personally, dislikes. [...] ...permitting a private citizen to override the will of our representatives in Congress destroys the U.S. Constitution. It also makes Congress itself superfluous. And it takes the minority rule Republicans have come to embrace to the logical end of putting government power in the hands of one man.

In the comments, a couple memes posted by exlrrp. The first is by Brendanmcp:

I really am having difficulty wrapping my mind around the fact that a bunch of losers hired by a billionaire, none of whom were elected, are using the guise of a fake government agency to loot our government of money and information, and none of them have been arrested yet.

The other is by Father James Martin:

In its simplest terms, the apparent demise of USAID is the result of the world’s richest man ending a program that helps millions of poor people. You don’t need a Ph.D in moral theology to see why this is an evil. You can just read Jesus’s parables on the rich and the poor.

NoFortunateSon of the Kos community wrote about the phrase that is becoming more well known: F--- Around and Find Out. It means if you do something stupid you will face the consequences. But, as I’ve noted before, the finding out part – the facing the consequences – probably won’t happen to most of those who voted for the nasty guy (yeah, others are already finding out). First some history. For the last three Republican presidents – Bush I, Bush II, and the nasty guy – mismanaged the economy and it was significantly worse when they left the Oval Office. They were followed by Democrats who worked hard to restore the economy. And in all three cases two years later they returned Congress to Republicans, hampering the economic restoration. An example from elsewhere: Berlin was reduced to rubble before citizens questioned the Nazis. Then consider that since cruelty is the point of MAGA, a large number of them are anticipating enjoying the consequences. Add to that the miserable condition of the US news industry. A lot of people get their news through social media algorithms. We know how biased they are. So a great number of MAGA voters will see the price of eggs rise and may notice disappearing neighbors. In that sense they will find out. But, because the state of media, they will not find out that the nasty guy and Musk are the cause. Instead, they will hear the causes that we’re already hearing – those price rises are because of DEI, Biden, or Democrats. Sarah Longwell tweeted:

In two weeks Trump has: -Released the J6 prisoners who violently assaulted cops to overturn an election. -Started a trade war with allies, but gave China a light touch. -Turned over the entire government to the unelected billionaire who ruined this platform—including the Treasury payment system. -Nominated the most unqualified cabinet in modern history, several of whom are actual national security risks. -Blamed a horrific crash on DEI without any evidence. -Added billions to his personal wealth by launching a scam crypto meme. -Purged the FBI of anyone who worked on the J6 investigations. -Randomly wasted a bunch of water in CA and nearly flooded out farmers just so he could act like he was turning on water for the state. What’d I miss?

Hmm... a nickname for Musk... Caligula?

A moment of beauty and that by itself is enough

I went to Ann Arbor last evening to attend an orchestral concert, something I haven’t done in three years. This time it wasn’t my beloved Detroit Symphony Orchestra (which I’ve been watching online). Instead, it was the visiting Brno Philharmonic from Czechia. This orchestra was started by Leos Janacek when he was in his 20s. He didn’t blossom into a national and world renown composer until his 50s or so. Naturally, the Brno orchestra specializes in Janacek’s music. In this concert they drew on the musical forces of the University of Michigan to perform two of Janacek’s works that need those extra forces. The first was Sinfonietta, which uses an extra dozen trumpets for the opening and closing fanfares. Alas, they sounded like college students. The second was the Glagolitic Mass, which uses the text of the Catholic Mass, but in Old Slavonic rather than Latin. This featured the University Choral Union. I mentioned all this partly because before the concert there was a pre-concert talk of the Society of Disobedient Listeners, led by Doyle Armbrust. Usually, pre-concert talks are about the music to be played. This one did that only a bit. Armbrust posed the question: Does music have the power to change the world? He included a poll, accessible to people with cell phones, with options “yes” (about 60%), “It’s complicated” (about 30%), and “no” (about 10%). Armbrust asked one of those who answered no to give their reasoning. The answer was essentially: Hasn’t yet. If it could it would have already done so. As a rebuttal Armbrust mentioned Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, in which Israelis and Arabs sat next to each other, read the same music, and used the same pencils. This orchestra was the inspiration for the movie Crescendo I saw and wrote about back in 2020. The chance of creating something of beauty with your enemy beside you does make a difference. But Armbrust, with the help of a musician or two, came around to saying we make music because it is the right thing to do. We make music because it is a moment of beauty and that by itself is enough. A few weeks ago my friend and debate partner went to a section of Ann Arbor near the university for lunch. Before then we had discussed choice of restaurant. I had suggested Madras Masala. He countered with Red Hawk, and I agreed. The way to the restaurant was blocked by traffic and a fire truck. Our chosen parking structure was closed. A block in one direction was closed off with police tape. So we endured more traffic and went to another structure. Yesterday I thought to go to Madras Masala before the concert, but Google Maps said it was out of business. I walked past it yesterday and saw why – the fire truck we saw a few weeks ago were there because that morning Madras Masala had burned to the ground. Earlier this week Mark Sumner of Daily Kos wondered if Russia’s big winter offensive against Ukraine was already fizzling out. To explain what is going on Sumner turned to video games, in particular the original version of Warcraft that came out in 1994. One of the innovations of the game was the tower defense. The human was to defend a particular part of the map against attacking orcs. That turned out to be fairly easy – place defensive weapons along the attack route and the orcs would be taken down as fast as they appeared. The plan worked no matter how many waves of orcs appeared as long as the weapons lasted – and the orcs kept attacking the same way each time. Russia seems to be playing the role of orcs quite well. That also explains why Ukraine has been sitting outside Kreminna for several weeks. If one method of attack doesn’t work they don’t keep trying that one method of attack. Starcraft, a much more recent game, also features characters that try to attack through sheer numbers. Here they’re called “zergs.” And Russian human wave attacks against Bakhmut, which still hasn’t fallen, are known as “zerg attacks.” FlannelGuy of the Kos community wrote that Minnesota has passed legislation moving the state’s energy to be 100% carbon free by 2040. In drafting the new law the state’s major utilities got on board. The law requires power companies to reach 55% renewables and 90% carbon free by 2035. The carbon free category includes nuclear and hydroelectric as well as renewables. All this sounds great (though maybe not fast enough). But North Dakota doesn’t think so and they plan to sue. They like their coal and they export about half their electricity to Minnesota. Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos quoted David Rothkopf of the Daily Beast speaking of the nasty guy:

As the late great poet Maya Angelou might have said had she thought it was necessary, “When someone shows you over and over and over again that they are a traitor, believe them.” For further, completely appropriate emphasis, she might have elaborated: “When someone shows you over and over and over again, for their entire lives, in business and in government, that they are not only traitors, but corrupt, ignorant, pathologically dishonest, coup-plotting, racist, misogynist traitors, then seriously, I’m not kidding about this, believe them!”

To mark 90 year since Hitler came to power on January 30, 1933 Charles Jay of the Kos community reviewed his rise (as told by the BBC series Rise of the Nazis) and compared some events to what has happened in America over the last few years. Jay also quoted Richard Evans, an expert on the Third Reich, as in this description of Hitler’s campaign in July 1932:

Hitler realizes that if he tells a very simple message it doesn’t matter if they are true or not. The point is that you have to keep repeating them, keep hammering them in. Make Germany great again. Restore the economy. They are empty slogans but they are carrying a message that although vague is very powerful.

Jay added:

Just substitute “America” for “Germany” and you’ve got a pretty good description of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Conservative politicians Kurt von Schelicher and Franz von Papen had repeated opportunities to end the Nazi threat and didn’t. They were too focused on their own political interests and seeing the left as the enemy. In the same way Moscow Mitch had opportunities to take down the nasty guy and didn’t and for the same reasons. President Paul von Hindenburg had the power to appoint and remove the chancellor, He appointed Hitler to the role, thinking he could control Hitler. Hindenburg was wrong. Barely Speaker McCarthy made deals with far right members, perhaps thinking he could control them. We don’t know the outcome of that yet. Hitler’s first attempt at power was the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. The January 6 attack on the Capitol seems to be a more successful attempt to seize power. It’s immediate goals haven’t been realized, but Hitler went to jail – briefly – and key insurrectionists in America still sit in Congress. Jewish lawyer Hans Litten tried to tie Hitler to the street violence of the Storm Troopers. In court Hitler denied it, saying the Storm Troopers were a rogue unit. The Proud Boys trial is going on now and some of the Boys intend to subpoena the nasty guy so he could come and deny he had anything to do with them. Litten saw the legal system increasingly Nazified and closing in on him. In 1938 he hanged himself in Dachau. Jay concluded:

Nazism was about the ruthless pursuit of power by sowing hatred and division, finding scapegoats to blame for real economic problems, undermining free and fair elections, and exacting revenge on political opponents. Just consider what extremist MAGA Republicans have already done and say they’d like to do if they ever get full control of the federal government. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has already turned his state into a testing ground for an American-style brand of fascism.

I add: Biden had a masterful week. But the danger isn’t gone. Many insurrectionists are in Congress. And their funders are still handing out big checks.