Fossil-Fueled Stormfronts

At least 14 Americans are dead from a fossil-fueled storm that raged through the Southeast with torrential rains and tornadoes. Floods in Kentucky swept eleven to their deaths, including a mother and her 7-year-old child. A levee break submerged the entire town of Rives, Tenn. In response, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy—whose nomination was backed by 24 Democrats—took Air Force One to parade around the Daytona 500, in a neo-fascist celebration of fossil fuels.

“Net zero 2050 is a sinister goal,” Secretary of Energy Chris Wright—who was confirmed by every Republican senator and eight Democrats, including Energy ranking member Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.)—told the neo-fascist Alliance for Responsible Citizenship on Monday. “This is not energy transition, this is lunacy.”

Representatives of BP, Koch Industries, Valero Energy, Energy Transfer and other fossil fuel producers are attending the ethno-nationalist conference in London.

Over the weekend the White House directed the Internal Revenue Service to give radicalized neo-Nazi Musk acolyte Gavin Klinger full access to its taxpayer database, and Social Security Administration acting commissioner Michelle King resigned rather than give DOGE access to the Social Security database. Today, Musk employee Thomas Shedd demanded root access to Notify.gov, which would give him access to millions of Americans’ personal information. Another federal employee has already resigned rather than comply.

Tomorrow at 11 am, international experts with Climate Action Against Disinformation will hold a webinar on techno-feudalism: the global Big Tech and Big Carbon alliance promoting disinformation to further their dangerously anti-democratic, anti-human agenda.

Hirings and Firings

Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger remains unfired, as a panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to remove the restraining order keeping him in his office as the nation’s protector of federal whistleblowers. Trump’s acting solicitor general, Sarah M. Harris, has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Last Thursday, Senate Republicans fell in line to favorably report insurrectionist Kash Patel for FBI director out of committee, and to confirm Tulsi Gabbard to be Director of National Intelligence and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, with only former leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) defecting. Then 19 Democrats joined the GOP to confirm xenophobic climate denier Brooke Rollins to be Secretary of Agriculture. The GOP invoked cloture on centimillionaire Kelly Loeffler to run the Small Business Administration and billionaire Howard Lutnick to be Secretary of Commerce, with their confirmation votes scheduled under a unanimous consent agreement for today.

Also last Thursday, the Trump-Musk illegal mass firings of “probationary” federal employees began. (In many cases, the probationary status is a technicality due to a promotion in the last two years.) This morning, many of the fired employees gathered at the Dirksen Senate Building cafeteria to begin their job search, starting with a search for any senators with spines.

Under the newly minted Secretary Kennedy, over 3,600 HHS employees were illegally fired, including staffers in the Food and Drug Administration (primarily those responsible for reviewing the safety of food, medical devices and tobacco products), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 750 employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (which is no longer reporting flu data to the World Health Organization), 1,000 employees at the National Institutes of Health (whose leaders are also leaving), and the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (which oversees pandemic stockpiles).

Tomorrow, as part of the Save Our Services national day of action, HHS employees are rallying at HHS headquarters at noon to protest the Trump-Musk attacks on public health. The rally is supported by the Federal Unionists Network, Higher Education Labor United (HELU), University of Maryland Graduate Labor Union, George Washington University Graduate Workers Union (GWU2), John Hopkins PRO-UAW, and NIH Fellows United. In the afternoon, protesters will march on the SpaceX DC headquarters.

Under the newly minted Secretary Rollins, thousands of USDA employees, including 3,400 in the U.S. Forest Service, Farm Service Agency, agricultural scientists, and 1,200 in the Natural Resources Conservation Services were illegally fired. A spokesperson told Agri-Pulse:

Trump officials aren’t waiting for Senate-confirmed agency leadership to conduct the illegal purge, however. Twenty percent of SBA staff were laid off this weekend, and mass layoffs are expected today at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the main agency in the Department of Commerce.

The nomination hearing for Lori Chavez-DeRemer to be Secretary of Labor was postponed by a week to this Wednesday, officially due to the snowstorm. Her nomination is jeopardized by Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) opposition to her because of her past support of the pro-labor PRO Act, which would mean she would need Democratic support to advance. Committee Democrats Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Andy Kim (D-N.J.) are firmly opposed to all Trump nominees because of his flagrant lawlessness, but Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) are publicly considering supporting Chavez-DeRemer.

Also on Wednesday is the nomination hearing of Paul Lawrence to be Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Over 1000 Veterans Affairs employees were hit by the illegal mass layoffs last week.

On Thursday, a snow storm may clip Washington D.C. Since Senate Democrats are failing to put up significant resistance, that may be the only thing that slows down the nomination hearings and votes scheduled for then:

• At 9:30 am, Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee holds a hearing with nominee Steven Bradbury to be Deputy Secretary of Transportation. Bradbury, the author of memos supporting the use of torture during the George W. Bush presidency, was narrowly confirmed as general counsel for the Department of Transportation in Trump’s first term. Mass illegal layoffs began at the Department of Transportation last week, including hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration employees.

• At 10 am, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is scheduled to interview nominees Troy Edgar and Dan Bishop to be Deputy Secretary, Department of Homeland Security, and Deputy Director, Office of Management and Budget, respectively. Edgar, the former mayor of Los Alamitos, “led his city to defy California’s sanctuary law.” Bishop is the North Carolina legislator who was the author of the notorious anti-transgender “bathroom bill.” Mass illegal layoffs began at DHS, including FEMA, CISA, and USCIS last week.

• A time has not been announced for the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee vote on the nomination of Linda McMahon to be Secretary of Education. McMahon supports Trump’s plan to eliminate the Department of Education. Mass illegal layoffs began at the department last week.
  

Other Hearings

On Wednesday at 10 am, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee holds a hearing on federal environmental review and permitting processes. During the Biden administration, we saw a bipartisan assault on environmental rules in the name of “permit reform.” It will be worth watching how Democrats, now led by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) engage with the topic during this crisis of unchecked executive aggrandizement. The witnesses are construction industry lobbyists Leah Pilconis, and Carl Harris, right-wing “clean” energy lobbyist Jeremy Harrell, anti-environmental labor lobbyist Brent Booker of LiUNA, and Nicole Pavia, of the industry-backed Clean Air Task Force.

On Thursday at 10 am, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a Sinophobic hearing entitled “Research Security Risks Posed by Foreign Nationals from Countries of Risk Working at the Department of Energy’s National Laboratories and Necessary Mitigation Steps.” The witnesses include former Biden DOE science official Geraldine Richmond, former Trump DOE science official Paul Dabbar, and hawkish Chinese “technology acquisition” analyst Anna Puglisi.