Author: Kevin Drum

This would be something:

This may or may not happen, or the draft EO might get watered down. But the possibility that anybody is even thinking this is alarming as hell.

And why? What grudge does Trump hold against the entire medical research community? Is this just part of the whole "Fauci is a murderer" thing? Or the more general "tyrants forced us to wear masks" thing? Or the FDA approving the deadliest vaccine ever created?

Or is this a personal Trump vendetta that I'm not up to speed on?

Either way, if there's any truth to this it would be unbelievably destructive. The MAGA crew is getting more harebrained every day.

Good news and bad news this morning. The DOGEbros have been banned from accessing Treasury's payment systems:

Judge Engelmayer ordered any such official who had been granted access to the systems since Jan. 20 to “destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from the Treasury Department’s records and systems.” He also restricted the Trump administration from granting access to those categories of officials.

Elon won't like this. On the other hand, he still has access to Department of Labor data for now:

In his ruling, federal Judge John D. Bates found that the five federal employee unions that alleged Elon Musk's cost-cutting team sought to illegally access highly sensitive data, including medical records, failed to establish standing.

But USAID is getting a reprieve:

In an order late Friday, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols -- a Trump appointee -- issued a temporary restraining that prevents Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency from placing the employees on administrative leave as had been planned. The judge also ordered the reinstatement of some 500 USAID workers who had already been put on administrative leave and ordered that no USAID employees should be evacuated from their host countries before Feb. 14 at 11:59 p.m.

At some point these cases are all going to turn on fundamental questions of legality. USAID, for example, was established and funded by Congress. It's just flatly illegal for Trump to unilaterally shut it down. The same is true for the CFPB. And letting a bunch of guys root around in private government data for no reason they're willing to explain—that's almost certainly illegal too.

In the end, almost all this stuff will end up being halted. The only question remaining is whether Musk and Trump will obey court orders. If they don't, the Supreme Court is going to slap them down hard. Regardless of how they feel on the merits, they won't stand for defying the judiciary.

Somebody asked Donald Trump today why Elon Musk's crew of techbros needs access to private information about Americans:

Trump suggested that he has given the tech billionaire free rein and appeared blase about the details. Asked why Doge needs access to treasury payment systems including Americans’ social security numbers, home addresses and bank accounts, he replied: “Well, it doesn’t, but they get it very easily. We don’t have very good security in our country.”

Treasury's security is fine. But if the president orders them to give DOGE unlimited access, then of course that's what they get.

Musk won't tell anyone what he's up to, and it's obvious that Trump doesn't know either. If DOGE is dicking around with stuff they don't need, and Trump doesn't care, then who does?

I can barely walk to the kitchen without prompting a lengthy attack of uncontrollable shakes and gasping for breath. This is worse than it was a week ago, and if it doesn't resolve soon I'm heading back to the hospital.

For now, though, it means I can't wander around to take pictures of the cats. I can only sit in my chair and wait for them to come to me. Which they do. This is Charlie popping his head up and trying to decide if he wants to jump in my lap. He didn't, which I suppose is all just as well.

What's going on here?

Several U.S. military branches are pausing training related to the prevention of sexual assault in order to comply with one of President Trump’s executive orders related to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

A directive issued by Marine Corps headquarters on Tuesday “asked the fleet to PAUSE on all [Sexual Assault Prevention and Reporting] training due to recent changes within the White House to remove diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) from all federal policies,” according to an email obtained by The Times.

There's been a lot of stuff like this that's been getting deep-sixed even though it has nothing to do with DEI programs. There are two possible explanations:

• Everyone is living in fear of Elon and Donald, so they're taking no chances. Anything even remotely related to non-white-males is getting axed.
• Lots of people have been wanting to get rid of this stuff for a long time and they're using DEI as an excuse to do it.

I don't know which it is, but an awful lot of programs that merely mention gay people or Black people are being halted. If that's really what Donald Trump wants, OK. But it sure isn't what he wrote in his anti-DEI executive order.

The first jobs numbers of 2025 are out. The American economy gained 143,000 jobs last month. We need 90,000 new jobs just to keep up with population growth, which means that net job growth clocked in at 53,000 jobs. The headline unemployment rate dropped slightly to 4.0%.

This is obviously a fairly weak jobs report, but at the same time the participation rate is up; the employment-population ratio is up; and the unemployment rate is down. So it's not all bad.

Hum de hum:

A key DOGE staff member who gained access to the Treasury Department’s central-payments system resigned Thursday after he was linked to a deleted social-media account that advocated racism and eugenics.

....“Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,” the account posted in July, according to the Journal’s review of archived posts. “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” the account wrote on X in September.

Well, mistakes happen, amirite? But this dude is gone now because obviously Donald Trump doesn't put up with—

President Trump has nominated Anthony J. Tata, a retired brigadier general with a history of Islamophobic and other inflammatory comments, to a senior Pentagon post in charge of jobs and deployments.

This is the second time Mr. Trump has nominated Mr. Tata, who once called former President Barack Obama a “terrorist leader,” to a senior job in the Defense Department that requires Senate approval.

Maybe Trump just really likes white people after all. Still, a guy who's exterminating DEI, trying to ethnically cleanse Gaza, and cutting off funds to South Africa for being mean to whites, should take a wee bit more care about who he pals around with.

It's time for another episode of "What Republicans Believe":

Give or take a bit, about 10% of Democrats believe each of these things.

A pair of painted terrapins at the LA Zoo.

The latest:

1. Panama says Trump is full of shit and it hasn't agreed to let US warships transit the canal for free.
2. A judge has paused Trump's offer to federal workers to resign their jobs and still be paid through September.
3. Another judge has issued a nationwide injunction against Trump's attempt to do away with birthright citizenship.
4. Trump's effort to freeze federal spending was shot down last week.
5. A judge has ordered the Treasury Department not to share sensitive data with Elon Musk's DOGE operatives.
6. Greenland remains a part of Denmark.
7. Trump has backed down over his tariff threats against Canada and Mexico.
8. He's made himself a laughingstock over his proposal for US ownership of Gaza.
9. ICE arrests of illegal immigrants are barely higher than in the past. As of February 1, ICE appears to have stopped releasing daily arrest counts.

None of this is to say that Trump hasn't done plenty of damage. USAID is in shambles. Perceived enemies have been fired all over the place. Gender-affirming care has been torched. Millions of acre feet of water in California have been dumped into the ground. J6 rioters were all pardoned.

Nonetheless, there's more bark than bite in Trump's actions, many of which have been halted or pared back now that court actions are being ramped up. Also, Trump has already run through most of the low-hanging fruit that he can accomplish via executive orders. It starts getting harder now.