<[Event "MetroWest CC March 99"] [Site "Natick Mass"]
[Date "1999.03.02"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Penta, Jeff"]
[Black "Johnson, Joel"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "B04"]
[WhiteElo "1837"]
[BlackElo "2227"]

<[Event "Conn Championship"] [Site "Middletown Conn"]
[Date "1999.04.17"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Coupet, Pascal"]
[Black "Shure, Gary"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B22"]
[WhiteElo "2361"]
[BlackElo "2202"]
[Source "Terrie DB"]

<[Event "First Boston Futurity"] [Site "Boston Mass"]
[Date "1981.04.??"]
[EventDate "1981"]
[Round "2"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Thibault, James"]
[Black "Dymond, David"]
[ECO "C77"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "Thursday Night Swiss"] [Site "Burlington VT"]
[Date "1997.01.??"]
[EventDate "1997"]
[Round "?"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Falzarano, James"]
[Black "McGrath, William"]
[ECO "E81"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<In 2022, the Pentagon proudly announced a committee on diversity and inclusion, with a marine veteran and senior director at Tesla, serving as a member. The same person, who spent nearly six years at Tesla, also helped push Elon Musk to make Juneteenth a company-wide holiday. But Musk is a notorious recipient of lucrative government contracts and changes with the winds of presidential administrations.

Now in 2025, as a “special government employee” heading up the “department of government efficiency” (Doge), Musk is going to war with those kinds of government diversity and inclusion programs and slashing whatever he sees as a “waste” of public coffers.

But legal resistance is mounting, as Doge faces countless lawsuits alleging everything from privacy concerns to free speech violations, which all leads to one important question: is any of this even legal?

Laurence Tribe, one of the nation’s leading and preeminent constitutional scholars and a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, has already argued that much of Trump’s blitzkrieg of executive orders on the day of his inauguration disregards the US constitution. He told the Guardian he saw Musk’s actions as furthering that culture.

On whether Doge and Musk can legally have this much power over an array of government departments, Tribe was emphatic: “NO.”

Musk has applied a buckshot method across the government, offering CIA agents walking papers while appraising the Department of Education – all at the same time.

Tribe said the lack of guardrails being placed on Doge’s maverick initiatives, raises “both” questions of illegality and ethical wrongdoing that can be challenged in court. As for Musk’s status as a federal contractor (such as his StarLink work with the Pentagon) and now a government employee, Tribe sees it as “absolutely” a legal conflict of interest.

Musk is certainly facing roadblocks: protests at the buildings of USAid – another target of Doge he called a “radical-left political psy op” on X – have brought in hundreds and attracted broader Democratic backlash. But Doge continues unabated, honoring Trump’s campaign promise to rid the federal government of the “woke” Biden era.

On Wednesday, Senator Bernie Sanders went further, telling CNN: “What Musk is doing is illegal and unconstitutional.”

Sanders explained how outright deleting an agency like USAid, which was itself a creation of Congress, requires congressional approval.

“You can’t do it unilaterally,” he said.

But with a Republican supreme court supermajority that almost always sides with the Trump administration, any of these lawsuits that do end up being tested in the highest US court risks rulings in favor of Musk and Doge. Many of these Doge-related lawsuits will go on for months and be heard by benches stacked with Trump appointees from his first presidency. Musk has also begun publicly chastising lower court judges who go against the spirit of the administration....>

<....Doge, nonetheless, will continue to be sued.

It took only minutes after Trump was sworn in for a Maryland-based public interest law firm to file a 30-page lawsuit alleging Musk’s Doge should be considered a “federal advisory committee”, which makes it subject to government transparency laws and public scrutiny, which includes note keeping and meeting records, as required by law.

So far, Musk has reportedly employed a team of very young programmers who brazenly took control of the treasury department payment system, which gave them access to the addresses, social security numbers and bank account information of Americans.

Tribe says that act alone raises, “serious issues of privacy”. Doge is indeed already facing legal action for that treasury fiasco, with a judge approving a temporary hold on Doge from fully accessing the payment system, while another judge ordered a freeze on the deadline for federal workers to accept a buyout.

Ultimately, the only real guardrails on Musk and Doge will be in the hands of the courts. Even if Doge is found to be violating labor laws, national security statutes or constitutional rights – cases will inevitably be gummed up in the legal process, which could allow enough time for some of these federal workers to relent and take buyouts.

“Obviously what Musk is doing is illegal,” said Ed Ongweso Jr, a senior researcher at Security in Context, an international project of scholars housed at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “And on some level it boils down to the world’s richest man – a child of apartheid who surrounds himself with sycophantic phrenologists – trying to consolidate control over as much of the state apparatus as possible.”

Ongweso has been following the rise of the tech-bro class and its cozying up to presidential administrations. Musk’s Doge takeover is the latest iteration.

“For years, both parties have fetishized Silicon Valley to varying degrees, eagerly swallowing the sector’s gibberish about making governance efficient via algorithmic rule via privatization,” he said.

Ongweso pointed out that Musk is a veteran of the mass layoff and knows they come with lawsuits. But it hasn’t stopped him before.

At Tesla’s Fremont, California, plant a Black former employee was awarded $3.2m in a racial harassment case, while the plant itself has been sued multiple times on racial discrimination and labor law grounds.

“Learning that a key Doge staffer was a skull measuring eugenicist should come as no surprise given the rampant racism (slurs, swastikas, a hanging noose, etc) at Musk’s Fremont Tesla factory,” he said.

And when it comes to laying off workers, Musk has the same recycled playbook.

“He’s been sued for failing to provide advance notice for 2024 mass layoffs at Tesla and for 2022 Twitter layoffs that were a transparent attempt to get out of severance pay,” explained Ongweso.

“It’s obvious lawsuits aren’t a deterrent for the world’s richest man – why would he stop mass layoffs, slashing and burning operations, or recruiting racists when it’s worked out so well for him that he’s now in firm control of America’s administrative state?”>

<[Event "14th World Open"] [Site "Philadelphia PA"]
[Date "1986.07.??"]
[EventDate "1986"]
[Round "?"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Gruenfeld, Yehuda"]
[Black "Sax, Gyula"]
[ECO "B81"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "14th World Open"] [Site "Philadelphia PA"]
[Date "1986.07.??"]
[EventDate "1986"]
[Round "?"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Bonin, Jay"]
[Black "Djuric, Stefan"]
[ECO "D41"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<The White House shut out the Associated Press from an event because the news organization declined to update its style guide to change the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America."

Donald Trump announced in his inaugural address that he would change the name of the body of water between Florida and Texas and then signed an executive order instructing government agencies to reflect his preference, and the White House warned the venerable AP nonprofit news service that it would be banned from an Oval Office event if its reporting did not use the term.

“It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish AP for its independent journalism,” said Julie Pace, the AP's executive editor. “Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment.”

Google and other non-government entities have changed the name on its data and other materials, but the White House turned away an AP reporter from an executive order signing Tuesday afternoon, and social media users reacted with shock and alarm at the apparent example of prior restraint – a government action that prohibits expression before it occurs.

"Woke White House bans AP from event over deadnaming the Gulf of Mexico," said Alejandra Caraballo, an instructor at the Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic.

"This is a flat-out, clear-cut violation of the First Amendment," posted conservative attorney George Conway.

"Prior restraint from the White House, a direct and blatant affront to the First Amendment," said Jeff Domingues, an editor for S&P Global.

"A prior restraint AND compelled speech. Neat," added Christopher Terry, a University of Minnesota professor of media law. "I guess we're taking First Amendment violations up to 11."

"What if -- and I'm just spitballing here -- other major news organizations stopped attending Oval Office events out of solidarity with the AP, whose excellent reporting we and they have depended upon for decades?" said journalist Bill Grueskin. "Look up the confessional that begins with 'First they came for ...'"

"The AP must refuse this but more importantly the rest of the White House Correspondents Association should back them," agreed Kevin Kruse, a historian. "Boycott the press briefings until they relent, and if they refuse, walk out. There is no real use to them in any case. Trump craves attention. Deny him that and he’ll cave.">

<The short-term dangers of Elon Musk’s power grab in the new Trump administration increase by the day. Already his loyalists at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency have seized access to the government’s payment system — for decades the province of nonpolitical civil servants — and helped push unilateral shutdowns of congressionally authorized agencies. Unvetted engineers from his and his friends’ companies are pulling on purse strings at everything from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to the State Department. And the use of “deferred resignations” and other efforts to encourage federal workforce attrition are straight out of the playbook Musk used after he purchased Twitter in 2022.

Various lawsuits are underway to block these efforts, but whatever happens, Musk’s prominence must change how Democrats approach not just 2026 and 2028, but politics for the foreseeable future.

Musk’s political standing has become increasingly central to his net worth.

Decades of widening inequality and decreasing campaign finance regulation have reached their natural conclusion: Oligarchs like Musk can and will destabilize the democratic system to preserve their influence. Unless Democrats wish to unilaterally disarm, they have no choice but to face the billionaires head on and break their power.

Musk is not the first billionaire to exert influence over politicians, but never in American history have we seen wealth of this size so dependent on one individual’s political influence. SpaceX already has billions in government contracts, and it was tangling with multiple government regulators before the new administration took over. DOGE’s use of artificial intelligence, as New York magazine technology columnist John Herrman points out, is a golden opportunity for Musk’s xAI to catch up to competitors like OpenAI, which Musk is now hoping to purchase. His cheerleading for shuttering the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau comes less than two weeks after X announced a deal with Visa to provide its users peer-to-peer payments services — which are regulated by the CFPB.

And speaking of X, Musk’s political standing has become increasingly central to his net worth. Despite his public claims that slashing X’s staff was a great success, the site’s value collapsed 70% to 80%. “Our user growth is stagnant, revenue is unimpressive, and we’re barely breaking even,” Musk wrote to X’s staff in a January email, according to The Wall Street Journal. But suddenly, advertisers are signaling plans to return to the site, and already one government agency (the National Transportation Safety Bureau) has moved all its updates to X.

Likewise, Tesla’s stock skyrocketed after the 2024 election, despite its underwhelming fourth quarter’s continuing into early 2025. While other highly visible brands make every effort to avoid ticking off one entire side of the political divide, Musk has only doubled down on antagonizing liberal customers — the demographic more likely to buy electric vehicles — not just in the United States, but around the world. With Tesla shares and options making up 60% of his net worth, preserving his political influence is essential to keeping that share price up....>

<....In short, Musk does not just want Republicans and MAGA to remain in power. He needs them in power and loyal to him — forever. The world’s richest man is committed to single-party governance going forward. He is both considerably younger than Donald Trump and far better resourced.

Any Democratic platform, then, must have a plan to confront and diminish Musk’s power.

In the near term, as Liberal Currents’ Adam Gurri suggests, “any state government that can be persuaded that they ought to step in where the federal executive government has abandoned its duty and punish Musk for breaking crucial laws should seize any assets he has there.”

On Capitol Hill, Democrats can refuse to make a government funding deal so long as an unelected billionaire is interfering with the government for his own benefit. And they should hammer away at the message that Trump is selling out the government to oligarchs like Musk.

Voters did not ask for this — a recent YouGov poll found that just 26% of Republicans want Musk to have “a lot” of influence — and opposition will surely only grow if Musk’s pre-election prediction of “temporary hardship” comes to pass.

But even if the country makes it through this constitutional crisis and Democrats regain power in upcoming elections, the fight is not over. Musk will not quietly back down. The conditions that permitted one man to yank the puppet strings of government staffers and GOP lawmakers alike will still be in place.

Any Democratic platform, then, must have a plan to confront and diminish Musk’s power. That includes lessening income and wealth inequality, breaking up big corporations and overhauling our campaign finance system to reduce the power of money in politics. The last in particular may run into opposition from the Supreme Court, but it is a stand worth taking. The oligarchs do not want Democrats in power again. The party must respond in kind.>

This content a problem, <fredthefrontrunner>? Who ya got coming outta the NCAA men's hoops next month? Do you think anyone but your worthless self gives a rat-f*** about your evil views?

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc...