Issues You May Know, 14 February 2025.
A list of things you might want to know about - or write your reps about.
đ Do Not Buy Day - FEBRUARY 28th 2025
Mondays with Mccormick begins in Scranton Pennsylvania.
Fox56 - Over 100 people gathered to protest outside Senator McCormick's Scranton Office by Samantha Durante Mon, February 10th 2025 âI printed out Project 2025, all 900 and something pages. I started skimming through it and even though my whole background has been a conservative Republican, it gave me a pit in my stomach. A conservative Republican believes in the constitution and Project 2025 is all about destroying the constitution," said Jeff Grisewood, a protester from Berwick.
This is a nod to the âTuesdays with Toomeyâ that went on at various offices in Pennsylvania during Pat Toomeyâs term which preceded John Fetterman.
Seen in videos and photos published on Fox56 and the Times-Tribune, people were holding signs with messages including: âsecure our social security our moneyâ and âAmericans canât afford Americaâ and âdemocracy not criminalityâ and âyou work for us not Elonâ and âtrans lives matterâ and âyour dutyâs to us not Muskâ and âkeep Elon Musk out of our walletsâ and âitâs Musk or usâ and âI am the face of DEI.â and âstop deadly trump cutsâ and âdo not privatize social securityâ and âif our democracy offends you Iâll help you packâ and âwe are the peopleâ and âstop project 2025â.
DOGE employee's past cyber breach and hacker gang activity.
Teen on Muskâs DOGE Team Graduated from âThe Comâ â Krebs on Security - February 7, 2025 Rivage largely stopped posting messages on Com channels after that. Wired reports that Coristine subsequently spent three months last summer working at Neuralink, Elon Muskâs brain implant startup. The trouble with all this is that even if someone sincerely intends to exit The Com after years of consorting with cybercriminals, they are often still subject to personal attacks, harassment and hacking long after they have left the scene. Thatâs because a huge part of Com culture involves harassing, swatting and hacking other members of the community. These internecine attacks are often for financial gain, but just as frequently they are perpetrated by cybercrime groups to exact retribution from or assert dominance over rival gangs. Experts say it is extremely difficult for former members of violent street gangs to gain a security clearance needed to view sensitive or classified information held by the U.S. government. Thatâs because ex-gang members are highly susceptible to extortion and coercion from current members of the same gang, and that alone presents an unacceptable security risk for intelligence agencies. And make no mistake: The Com is the English-language cybercriminal hacking equivalent of a violent street gang. KrebsOnSecurity has published numerous stories detailing how feuds within the community periodically spill over into real-world violence. When Coristineâs name surfaced in Wiredâs report this week, members of The Com immediately took notice. (emphasis added)
The New Republic - Muskâs DOGE Teen Minion Was Once Fired for Leaking Company Secrets Edward Coristine is getting a stunning level of access to the federal government as one of Elon Muskâs DOGE cronies. He was previously fired for posting company secrets on Discord. Malcolm Ferguson / February 7, 2025 Shocking: The 19-year old DOGE goon with a questionable rĂ©sumĂ© who goes by âbig ballsâ online was fired from his last real gig for leaking company information online. Bloomberg is reporting that Edward Coristine was fired from cybersecurity firm Path Network in 2022 for âleaking internal information to the competitors.â Now Coristine has access to the most sensitive internal information there is, the federal governmentâs, and he has no confirmed clearance that legitimizes that access. âI can confirm that Edward Coristineâs brief contract was terminated after the conclusion of an internal investigation into the leaking of proprietary company information that coincided with his tenure,â a spokesperson for Path Network told Bloomberg on Thursday. âI had access to every single machine,â Coristine wrote on Discord just weeks after being fired. But he swore he ânever exploited it because itâs just not me.â He also posted that he had done ânothing contractually wrongâ at Path Network. The comments were made in a Discord channel dedicated to one of Pathâs competitor companies.
Strange choice of inexperienced employees for an elite forensic accounting operation looking for fraud and waste. There are actual forensic accountants. Ironically the auditors already employed by the federal government have probably been fired or pushed aside. At some point one must question whether that's a feature not a bug
My letter to reps:
Iâm not ok with this âbig ballsâ youth with ties to some cybercriminal gang having access to my OPM, IRS, CFPB, or Social Security files. Iâve frozen my credit with the credit bureaus but what are you doing to make sure the pii of all Americans doesnât turn up on the dark web? If this dog group was really trying to uncover fraud and waste they wouldn't have inexperienced hatter hackers rooting around, they'd have top tier forensic accountants and HR professionals on their team. Seems pretty obvious this could be some kind of simplistic data brokering operation. We already have a serious problem with scammers overseas targeting Americans with pig butchering schemes and identity theft and foreign interest in sensitive data as evidenced by the salt typhoon breaches. I am perplexed about why Congress isnât raising hell about this. And is Donald Trump just senile or something that he's just letting this happen or is he really on board with it?
Please feel free to copy or repurpose the contents of my letter for your own letters to reps.
It's an attempt at regime change to corporate monarchy.
Tech Billionairesâ Shocking Plot for Rural America More Perfect Union Sep 4, 2024 Tech billionaires are waging a hostile takeover of rural Northern California. They want to build their own private city in Solano County, and theyâre crushing farmers with lawsuits to do it. Local activists delayed them last month, but the fight has just begun.
Blonde Politics | The Silly Serious â Nov 13, 2024 A look into how the tech leaders may be using the new administration to achieve their own agenda. Looking specifically at Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Marc Andressen, Ben Horotwitz, Brian Armstrong, and David Sacks as well as their relationship with figures like JD Vance, Balaji Srinivasan, and Curtis Yarvin. There is a focused discussion on how a shaping of the government might take place based on convergences between the ideas of Yarvin, who influences the tech libertarian right, and Project 2025, who have authored a playbook exclusively for President Trump to help with his transition to power.
The Guardian - Progressive Democrats accuse Trump and Musk of âa plutocratic coupâ Lawmakers point to shutting of USAid and accessing federal payment system as markings of âconstitutional crisisâ Joan E Greve in Washington Mon 3 Feb 2025 Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat of New York, described the intervention of Musk, who spent more than $290m on the 2024 election, as a âfive alarm fireâ and a âgrave threat to national securityâ. âThis is a plutocratic coup. If you want the power, run for office and be chosen by the people,â Ocasio-Cortez said in a social media post. âShort of that, this is an exercise in vigilantism.â
Gray Mirror - A conversation about monarchy "Now and for the foreseeable future, any election is either plenary or nugatory." Mar 12, 2024 Yet the entire transition must remain orderly. Is there a huge difference between life in the public and private sectors? One big company is going out of businessâanother is being founded. No one is being dragged away and shot. It is not the 20th century. At most a week of Covid-style lockdown should be enough to secure the new regimeânot only are the Americans of today, especially the blue-state ones, no Minutemen, but unlike most historical urban populations they do not even know how to be a mob. Today, civilian numbers are as irrelevant to contests of force as in the 13th century. 21st-century Americans are a civilized people. We do not chimp. Letâs go through some critical steps in a real 21st-century regime change. Here is what a real âunitary executiveâ would do if he was a real âdictator on the first day.â Libs: if you are used to squeaking fearfully about far-right conservatives, this very reasonable and if anything mild program will make your prostate gland quiver.
Tech tycoon guru reveals the Accusation in a Mirror of conservative pandemic rhetoric. Curtis Yarvin is reportedly a guru to tech tycoons and their acolytes like JD Vance, and he articulated that the aristocrat revolution should involve pandemic-type measures. Chloe Humbert Oct 21, 2024
Trickle down economics - the trick tycoons just canât pull off. The âbringing the jobsâ stuff is insulting people into early graves, but the power consumption inequality may be what finishes off a lot of humans. Chloe Humbert Dec 30, 2024
CFPB was setting right decades of wrongs, but Elon Musk decided it all belongs to him.
Springtime for Scammers Financial predation now has friends in high places Paul Krugman Feb 11, 2025 But why create a new agency to limit these abuses? Donât we already have bank regulators? Yes, but these regulators are primarily focused on securing the stability of the financial system. Protecting consumers from fraud is at best an afterthought. Warrenâs insight was that protecting consumers required creating a separate agency with its own institutional imperatives. And she was right: By any reasonable standard, CFPB has been an outstanding success story. Why, then, rush to shutter the agency? By the way, this action, like much of what the Trump administration is doing, is almost surely illegal. It probably also wonât surprise you to learn that DOGE appears to have illegally been given access to much of the agencyâs data. Well, itâs illuminating to read the section on abolishing CFPB in Project 2025âs Mandate for Leadership.
My letter to reps:
My credit was ruined for years because of less than $500 worth of medical bills, some which were paid, just staying on my credit report. It ruined my credit for years of my life. CFPB made a rule against this. And now Elon Musk, the tycoon running the government, decided to end that. I can't even describe the depths of my anger about this and at the elected politicians allowing this to happen. It's disgusting. How can elected representatives claim to represent the people and do this? It's an outrage. CFPB has been making rules to stop bad actors ripping us off in the financial system. Who gains by supporting rip-offs of the American people exactly? I'm sure we'll find out since I heard that Elon Musk fired all the CFPB employees investigating big tech violations. Whoâs representing the ordinary folks? Sure sounds like the tycoon thatâs running things at central government doge is working for himself.
Please feel free to copy or repurpose the contents of my letter for your own letters to reps.
Trumpâs biggest corruption yet Robert Reich Feb 11, 2025 Last weekend, the Trump-Musk regime shuttered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The federal government is no longer protecting consumers of financial products. Trump-Musk ordered all work to stop at the CFPB. Its X account was deleted and its homepage unplugged. CFPB employees who went to the building Sunday to retrieve things they needed to work remotely were turned away by security. Keep connecting the dots. The shutting of the CFPB was welcomed by the crypto crowd, including Musk, and by those issuing Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, such as Trump. Besides his financial interest in crypto, Musk has stated publicly heâs seeking to create an âeverything appâ that could be used for all financial transactions. Mark Zuckerberg and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen are aiming for the same thing.
The Gulf of America refers to the poverty abyss threatened upon Americans by Elon Musk.
'I'm 100% Certain,' Says Top Dem, That Musk 'Looking for an Excuse to Cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid' "We have one simple message," said another lawmaker: "Keep your hands off." Jessica Corbett Feb 11, 2025 Common Dreams Further fueling fears of DOGE-led attacks, Musk wrote on his social media platform X earlier Tuesday: "At this point, I am 100% certain that the magnitude of the fraud in federal entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Disability, etc) exceeds the combined sum of every private scam you've ever heard by FAR. It's not even close." To this message, Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas), fired back: "At this point I'm 100% certain that Elon Musk is looking for an excuse to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to pay for tax cuts for billionaires. Fire Elon Musk." In response to Semafor's reporting last week, Social Security Works, an advocacy group, warned that Trump was "empowering Elon Musk to play Russian roulette with our earned benefits."
Elon Musk is threatening to cut (or perhaps sabotage) Social Security and send American seniors into a perpetual poverty pit, while a senile Donald Trump sits around renaming shit on maps because it amuses him.
Dispatches From A Collapsing State | Jared Yates Sexton The Mad King: Trump, the Tech Barons, and the Murder of Liberal Democracy We're standing in the crossroads of something very large and very dangerous. Feb 11, 2025 We have a puppet president. A figurehead who commands the adoration and slavish devotion of tens of millions of people on behalf of the wealth and oligarchical classes that fund, enrich, and direct him. Thereâs a reason he sounds like he doesnât know what heâs talking about. He doesnât. Heâs fed a continuous diet of talking points littered with items of praise and familiar phrases. (...) The real power here is with Google. Because the tech monopolies have thoroughly taken control of information and levers of experience, itâs not a problem for them to simply relabel a map. What they get, in return, is the favor of the President of the United States. Itâs a transaction. And, within the emerging oligarchical frame, this is all that matters.
My letter to reps:
Donald Trump is busy pointlessly renaming stuff on the map while Elon Musk says Social Security is going to be cut. I thought Social Security was not being touched. What are you doing to protect Social Security from Elon Musk?
Please feel free to copy or repurpose the contents of my letter for your own letters to reps.
The government buying cybertrucks would be some outrageous bullshit.
It's outrageous that they're going to cut cancer research funding but do some boondoggle buying defective products from the walking conflict of interest at the White House.
My letter to reps:
No to the government buying cybertrucks. It's outrageous that they're going to cut cancer research funding but do some boondoggle buying defective products from the walking conflict of interest at the White House. I've been complaining for years now that Elon Musk shouldn't have any government contracts at all. In this case I'm immediately concerned about the safety of government workers who would need to go in those contraptions, and also I don't think this is a good value for the money under any circumstances no matter who it is.
Please feel free to copy or repurpose the contents of my letter for your own letters to reps.
Of course Trudeau is right that Trump is serious about wanting to take over Canada.
Trudeau heard on hot mic saying Trump's plan to annex Canada "a real thing" Global News Feb 7, 2025
Trudeau calls Trumpâs Canada takeover threat âa real thingâ CBC News: The National Feb 7, 2025
Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau recorded on hot mic: "I suggest that not only does the Trump administration know how many critical minerals we have but that may be even why they keep talking about absorbing us and making us the 51st state. Theyâre very aware of our resources, of what we have, and they very much want to be able to benefit from those. But Mr. Trump has it in mind that one of the easiest ways of doing that is absorbing our country. And it is a real thing.
Trump has been pressuring to take over Ukraine resources in exchange for military aid. Denmark is preparing for a potential Greenland invasion. Even Democratic Party Senator John Fetterman has mentioned he's open to that and compared it to the Louisiana Purchase. Why shouldn't any of these people take this seriously? We look like a power hungry imperialist nation who ushered into power a mad king bent on, if not global domination, then global wreaking havoc, and is seen as a senile puppet for a tycoon oligarch that looks almost too silly to be a James Bond movie villain yet more nauseating, and with less entertaining minions, and is part of a truly dystopian billionaire nation controlling project.
My letter to reps:
I'm not interested in tense relations with the country to the north, and any talk of annexing or invading Canada is inappropriate and doesn't reflect my interests as an American, and I don't believe anyone who voted for anyone is interested in a war with Canada in any way.
Please feel free to copy or repurpose the contents of my letter for your own letters to reps.
I asked to have "program that provides a direct benefit to people" defined.
I think we need to find out from all these reps in congress what specifically these words mean, because we know that people say things and everyone has a different idea about what it means. There are not that many "direct benefits" from the government because so much has actually been privatized and outsourced. So I wrote to my member of congress in the US House of Representatives to ask about the meaning of "direct benefits" after reading that in that executive order in footnotes 1 and 2, because I was seeing reports and hearing stories that medicaid and head start portals were down.
This is the relevant excerpt from the reply I received giving an answer:
Office of Rep. Robert Bresnahan Feb 10, 2025, 11:51âŻAM : To be clear, any program not implicated by the Presidentâs Executive Orders and any program that provides direct benefits to constituents would not have been affected. This means that services such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, funds for small businesses and farmers, Pell grants, Head Start, rental assistance, and other similar programs would not have been paused. However due to public confusion as well as various legal challenges in response, OMB rescinded its original memo on January 29, 2025. Additionally, on January 28 and January 31, 2025, two separate Federal judges issued injunctions against the funding freeze, one of which was extended on February 3. I understand there may still be confusion around the state of different federal programs. I want to assure you my office is working with different agencies to ensure that constituents in Northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA) are still getting the benefits they are entitled to. If you believe you are not receiving benefits you deserve due to effects of the above actions, I encourage you to please reach out to my office, and my team will be happy to assist you in navigating available resources. Rest assured, NEPA is always my first priority.
Schools don't have to overturn ADA compliance or enact racist policies based on White House central government DEI edicts.
That isn't the American way things work, but people elected to school boards may not be familiar with Schoolhouse Rock. So I took a prompt from People for the American Way to write my school board just in case.
My letter to school board members:
The Trump executive orders can't legally change any law regarding civil rights and nothing issued from the White House requires any changes to school or district policies or practices. These confusing, irrational, and rudely worded orders are however probably causing a lot of stress for parents and families, and probably the kids too, and that's wrong. Schools should NOT be places with toxic atmospheres that traumatize kids, that should be obvious. You have my support in our community to protect our schools so they are a welcoming place for all students and everyone has safe access to education with all rights honored.
Please feel free to copy or repurpose the contents of my letter for your own letters to reps.
The wording of the response I got from the president of the school board makes it clear that they do believe these "anti-DEI" edicts from the White House can overturn, for example, ADA law.
Ty Holmes in an email Feb 2, 2025, 12:26âŻPM: "Regarding DEI and recent executive orders, we recognize that these matters are still unfolding at the federal level. At this time, I do not believe there is an immediate impact on our district. However, as clarity emerges through the legal and governmental process, we will continue to navigate any changes with thoughtfulness and a focus on our students' and staff members well-being."
What are they even saying? This is pretty scary that our local Scranton School District has a school board director that seems to be anticipating Trump putting the stops on Section 504, and who knows what else. And what's this about the staff member well-being I have to wonder. This response raises far more questions than answers. It seriously undermines my trust in the ability of the Scranton School Board to adhere to actual laws, and not just go along with whatever comes out of the "central government" to do targeted harm.
ACLU - ReNika Moore, January 24, 2025 The Supreme Courtâs decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Harvard left colleges and universities with several pathways to advance educational equity. The decision had no bearing on K-12 education, where schools must continue to identify and address barriers to equitable learning environments. At a minimum, schools are required to comply with federal and state civil rights laws that ensure educational opportunities are provided on an equal basis. This means reviewing policies and practices to ensure they donât unnecessarily limit opportunities based on race or other protected characteristics. Schools must also work to foster a climate where all students can access and thrive in their educational pursuits. Now, more than ever, educational institutions must resist intimidation and reaffirm their commitment to identifying and removing barriers to equal opportunity. Programs labeled as DEIA encompass a broad range of lawful initiatives that create fairer workplaces and schools. The executive orders attempt to conflate these lawful efforts with discrimination, weaponizing enforcement to bully institutions into abandoning critical programs and taking steps to try to eliminate protections against discrimination by government contractors. However, no court has declared DEIA efforts inherently illegal, and President Trump cannot override decades of legal precedent.
If you think that Trump's central government discriminatory chaos edicts aren't going to affect your blue enclaves because they're not legal, I suggest you think again. Scranton is a blue city in a blue county in northeastern Pennsylvania, with a Dem governor in PA, and local Dem reps in the state government and a mayor who worked on Dem political campaigns including the Obama campaign and worked in the Obama administration. And Ty Holmes is the first Black Scranton School District School Board Director.
More info on the Scranton School Director:
OPINION: Chris Kelly Opinion: Want a Scranton School Board seat? Take the DeNaples challenge Chris Kelly, The Times-Tribune, Scranton, Pa. Wed, April 28, 2021 at 8:17 AM EDT "I expected it, but it's sad because you don't get to serve 25 years if you have questionable morals," Holmes told me in a telephone interview on Tuesday. "If people don't take that into consideration because of who I'm married to or what their perception of someone is that automatically I'm a corrupt person, that's ridiculous." Holmes' wife Margie â a teacher at Bancroft Elementary â is Louis DeNaples' niece, which makes "Uncle Louie" Holmes' actual uncle â by marriage. To some, this connection is disqualifying. These critics affix "the Scarlet D" to Holmes and dismiss him outright as the latest in a decadeslong line of corrupt flunkies DeNaples has installed in positions of power to do his bidding at public expense.
Iâve heard from another school board member.
Tom Borthwick: âIâm with you. Whatâs right is right, period.â
He reports that the district has a fair and solid policy. Itâs a relief to hear an actual solid statement toward fairness from someone in a position of leadership.
The Bucks County Beacon Letters: When Bucks County School Districts Actually Need to Allow ICE Agents Inside Schools, The Importance of Pennsylvaniaâs 2025 Judicial Elections Bucks County Beacon readers sound off. | February 1, 2025 Presidential Executive Orders and Memos do not legally and constitutionally countermand laws that already protect undocumented students in Pennsylvania. The federal law Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) of 1974 prohibits disclosure of a studentâs personally identifiable information without parental consent to anyone with very few exceptions including ICE agents, unless a judicial order or a lawfully issued subpoena is presented to school officials. In addition, the 1982 Supreme Court case Plyler v. Doe, affirms that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees all school age children a free appropriate public education regardless of immigration status.