Here It Comes

Bill would end 'no-fault' divorce for some Indiana couples

The bill would require a witness or the couple to convince the judge of the "irretrievable breakdown" of the marriage, if the couple has children together.

INDIANAPOLIS — A bill that would end "no-fault" divorce for couples with children in Indiana has been sent to the house judiciary committee, as part of the 2025 Indiana Legislative Session.

House Bill 1684 says that if someone sites "irretrievable breakdown" of the marriage as the grounds for divorce, and the couple has one or more children, they need to prove the breakdown. They can do that in one of two ways:

Having a witness testify that the marriage is irretrievably broken
Both parties convince the judge the marriage is irretrievably broken

• The bill also specifies who can be a witness:
• Officiant of the marriage
• Signed witness to the marriage
• Parent or sibling of either party
• Friend who has known a party for at least 60 days
• Religious leader with knowledge of the marriage
• Licensed counselor with knowledge of the marriage
• The bill also says the witness cannot be someone who "has received any form of compensation for acting as a witness at the final hearing."

The bill's author, Rep. Timothy Wesco (R-District 21), who represents parts of Mishawaka and Elkhart in northern Indiana, posted his reasoning for the bill on social media.

Domestic violence victim advocates worried

The bill has received pushback from advocates for domestic violence victims, who fear that some victims could be trapped in abusive relationships because they were not believed.

"HB 1684 is a terrible idea," said Kelly McBride, executive director of the Domestic Violence Prevention Network. "Victims of domestic violence are not believed when they come forward so many times, especially within the court systems this is going to have people not come forward, have victims not come forward to say what is happening in their home."

McBride says that most victims do not end up calling the police or going to the hospital before trying to leave the abusive relationship. Often, victims of domestic violence are in real, physical danger from the partner they are trying to leave.

"If you are fleeing a domestic violence relationship and you need to go into hiding, that will make it impossible to do that," McBride said. "If you have children and you need to go to the Julian Center, I'm not sure what that looks like, right? I mean, we don't really know the full repercussions of what this entails at this point. It's very challenging and scary."

McBride says she doubts Wesco considered the domestic violence implications when he wrote the bill.

"I don't think they put any thought into this other than how can we keep couples married in a traditional household with children because that's what the belief is to make a healthy community; it's absurd," McBride said. "Healthy communities do not rely on somebody who's being abused to stay in a marriage — that is just more learned behavior by the child, who is going to grow up and become a victim or a perpetrator themselves."

McBride says this isn't just an issue for women. Many men are also victims of domestic violence. It impacts:

• 1 in 3 women
• 1 in 7 men
• 1 in 5 people

McBride said is very difficult for anyone to come forward to talk about domestic violence, but men can face a special stigma.

"Especially for men, there is so much shame from coming forward," McBride said. "We need to be as supportive a community as possible and not a punitive community. This (HB 1684) is punitive."

McBride also says that forcing a couple to stay together, especially if there is domestic violence, does more harm to children than good.

"Children who witness domestic violence, the trauma changes their brains," McBride said. "They are more susceptible to addiction, depression and anxiety. They are more likely to become perpetrators or victims themselves. They grow up thinking this is OK and normal."

DVPN sends counselors into schools around central Indiana to help teach teens healthy dating habits and sees the impact firsthand.

"One of the things we've heard from our instructors is that the kids will talk to them after class," McBride said. "They'll say 'but that's how I've grown up, and you're saying that's not OK.' It's brand new information to them."

Domestic violence resources

Domestic violence is a pattern of behaviors used by a partner to maintain power and control over another partner in a relationship, according to The National Domestic Violence Hotline. Abuse can be physical, but it can also appear in several other ways.

If you or someone you love is in a relationship that may involve abuse, there is help available. Here are some resources with people to talk to and places to turn to for assistance:

The National Domestic Violence Hotline, call 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) or follow the link to live chat with someone.

Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence, this resource helps you find a shelter near you and find help, including domestic violence programs, batterers’ intervention programs and housing and eviction assistance.

Julian Center is the largest organization supporting victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and other life crises in Indiana. Call the 24-hour Crisis Line at 317-920-9320.

Spelling It Out

Cruelty is the point,

the whole point,

and nothing but the point.

And once they're done with "them",

they'll be coming for you.

Is This Infighting?

No, not really. Nobody is arguing the actual policy points - although there are some differences - they're only arguing about how hard they should push the thing.

Translating: 

"We plan on doing every shitty thing the Dems say we're planning to do, but we know we need to dial back the stridency in public so the unwashed hoards of idiots we need to vote for this pile of dog shit will be less frightened by it."

Project 2025 ex-director condemns Heritage president’s ‘violent rhetoric’

Paul Dans, who led the project until July, also called on JD Vance to withdraw his foreword for Heritage President Kevin Roberts’s book.

The former director of the right-wing policy and personnel blueprint known as Project 2025 is condemning what he sees as “violent rhetoric” from Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts and calling on Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance to retract the foreword he wrote for Roberts’s book.

“If we’re going to ask the left to tone it down, we have to do our part as well,” Paul Dans, who led Project 2025 until July, said in an interview. “There’s no place for this sort of violent rhetoric and bellicose taunting, especially in light of the fact that President Trump has now been subject to not one but two assassination attempts.”

Roberts, who took over Washington’s preeminent conservative think tank in 2021, declared a “second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless, if the left allows it to be,” during an appearance on a pro-Trump podcast in July, before a gunman attempted to assassinate Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania. That same month, Roberts started marketing his book, whose cover proposed “Burning Down Washington” and featured an image of a match.

Roberts declined to be interviewed. Heritage spokesman Noah Weinrich said Roberts’s remark on the podcast was meant to warn of left-wing violence. “Any attempt to mischaracterize Dr. Roberts’s comments as supportive of violence is grotesque and completely contrary to the observation he was making,” he said.

Roberts used similar language in online promotional materials for his book. In early versions of the text reviewed by The Washington Post, Roberts called for “a political revolution” to “overthrow today’s incarnation of the ruling class,” argued that the nation “must be destroyed and replaced,” and supported the elimination of institutions including the Ivy League, the FBI, Fairfax County Public Schools and the Boy Scouts.

Dans and Roberts disagreed over the direction of Project 2025, a collaboration among more than 100 right-wing groups that was convened by Heritage and run by Dans. Dans blames Roberts for much of the backlash that the effort has received. He said he warned Roberts against provocative media interviews and hyperbolic language, especially after the Trump campaign repeatedly disavowed Project 2025 and warned participants to stop talking to reporters about plans for a second Trump administration. Over the summer, Democrats turned Project 2025 into a byword for Trump’s second-term agenda and argued that voters should oppose it.

“There’s really no place for this level of rhetoric, let alone from the head of an august think tank,” Dans said. “And by doing that, he’s essentially besmirched the professional reputations of everyone involved in Project 2025.”

A lawyer representing Heritage dismissed Dans’s criticisms and suggested he is motivated by a dispute with his former employer. Dans declined to comment on the circumstances of his departure.

After a gunman opened fire at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, wounding the former president and killing one attendee, the promotional text for Roberts’s book was revised to soften some of the most inflammatory phrases. Gone was a reference to overthrowing the ruling class; the revolution was specified as “peaceful”; and Fairfax County schools and the Boy Scouts were spared. The subtitle changed from “Burning Down Washington” to “Taking Back Washington,” and the match disappeared from the cover.

In August, Roberts said he would delay the book’s publication, originally scheduled for September, until after the election.

“Dr. Roberts initially was using a rhetorical turn of phrase to emphasize the need for certain aspects of the federal government to be restored to a citizen-centered balance, rather than being the captive of a small minority from the Left,” Weinrich said of the changes. “However, following the slanderous media coverage of Project 2025, Dr. Roberts did not want to allow the same voices to attribute false allegations of violence to his book as well.”

Roberts’s book includes a foreword by Vance, whom Roberts has described as a friend. Dans said Vance should distance himself from Roberts by withdrawing his foreword for the book. A spokesman for Vance declined to comment.

The notoriety surrounding Project 2025 has been a fundraising boon for Heritage, helping the foundation collect a record $150 million in 2023, according to the group’s public disclosures. Although Heritage publicly promoted Project 2025 as a $22 million initiative, its actual budget was less than $2 million, according to people familiar with the figures. Weinrich said $22 million reflected the annual spending across all Heritage departments and events to support the project, not only the budget for the project’s dedicated staff, and only 1.1 percent of the foundation’s 2023 fundraising was specifically directed to Project 2025.

“Project 2025 was and is an all-of-Heritage effort,” he said.

Trump has repeatedly expressed frustration with Heritage and other think tanks, such as the America First Policy Institute and the Center for Renewing America, that he viewed as raising money off him. Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation especially drew the wrath of Trump and his advisers because of their ongoing self-promotion amid intensifying Democratic attacks.

“Project 2025 is radioactive to the Trump-Vance transition,” said Howard Lutnick, a billionaire investor who is co-chair of the official transition. “Zero. Total ban. Radioactive. Any of those words, feel free to pick them.”

Dans reiterated that Trump was never involved in Project 2025. He called it ironic that the project has become a political liability for him, because Roberts initially supported Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump’s rival in the GOP nominating contest. The Heritage Foundation unveiled Project 2025’s 900-page book of policy proposals at a 2023 conference that featured DeSantis as the marquee speaker. Trump was not invited to that event. He has participated in other Heritage Foundation gatherings and took a private flight with Roberts to a summit in 2022.

In August 2023, Roberts attended the DeSantis campaign’s after-party at the first Republican presidential debate. He contributed $1,246.97 to DeSantis’s campaign. (Roberts and his wife have also donated to Trump.) Several Heritage staffers, including Roberts’s personal press secretary, left to work for DeSantis. Once the Florida governor dropped out of the race in January, Roberts quickly shifted emphasis, presenting Heritage’s work as “institutionalizing Trumpism.”

Weinrich stressed Heritage’s nonprofit status, which restricts partisan activities, to deny that the foundation favored candidates or coordinated with campaigns. “Heritage did not raise money in the name of staffing a second Trump administration,” he said.

Roberts’s ties to DeSantis were part of the reason that Trump’s campaign rebuked Project 2025 in public statements in November and December. Dans said he wished Trump’s advisers had weighed in privately. But he insisted he never heard from them, disputing previous reporting that said Trump co-campaign manager Susie Wiles complained to him and other Heritage leaders. The public admonitions served to draw more attention to the controversy, he said, and invite further Democratic attacks.

“We took the instruction, as we had before, to lay low,” Dans said. “But in the case of Kevin, he didn’t.”

Roberts’s continuing publicity efforts gave Democrats an opportunity to tie Project 2025, and by extension Trump, to more controversial positions supported by some Heritage employees but not by the Project 2025 policy book or the Trump campaign. Some articles and social media posts from Heritage have advocated stricter abortion bans than Trump has and cuts to Social Security. Dans said he warned others at Heritage to remove statements that were contrary to Trump’s position and would embolden Democrats to claim Trump would cut Social Security.

Roberts’s book also departed from Trump’s positions by criticizing in vitro fertilization and contraception, according to an advance copy obtained by the liberal group Media Matters.

“Heritage cannot and does not take direction from any political campaign,” Weinrich said. “Dr. Roberts was not seeking publicity: We were speaking regularly to other conservative leaders and supporters who desperately wanted — and still want — a plan for governance.”

Roberts has showed no sign of changing course because of the blowback.

“We allowed the radical left to define the brand Project 2025,” Roberts said at the New York Times Climate Forward conference on Sept. 25. “We should have — figuratively speaking — punched back. Lesson learned.”

A Song

Project 2025 meets Schoolhouse Rock

Project 2025

A list of shitty things Trump plans to do if elected in 2024.

Most every drop of lunacy in this clip gets space in Project 2025, Agenda 47, been parroted by House Republicans & some have been on the Republican fantasy list since the Bush years.

Crazy is who they are & what enables him.#DemCast #DemVoice1 #wtpBLUE pic.twitter.com/eG3C5YEWkb

— Scorched Earth Dem (@progavalanche) September 15, 2024

Today's Vic

Agenda 47 (aka: Project 2025) advocates rounding up brown people for expulsion. 

But I think it's pretty plain to anybody who cares to look - it's not possible to force other countries to take them in. 

The Trumpsters know this.

So it would seem they intend to deliberately create that particular problem, which has always meant that somebody is angling for some kind of "final solution".

Of course, we won't just immediately start to eliminate them - not when there's big money to be made in the meantime from hiring them out as "contract labor".

Hacking Immigration Law, LLC

Searchable Project 2025

25and.me

ex: I asked it for Democracy, Healthcare, Medicare, and Social Security

( ⇧ scan me ⇧ )

Democracy
Project 2025 will...

• concentrate power in the executive branch by advocating for expanding presidential power over agencies, including independent agencies, and for making it easier to fire civil servants. This could concentrate power in the executive branch and make it harder for Congress and the courts to check presidential power. [43] [825]
• weaken independent agencies like the Federal Reserve and the FCC and propose to bring them under greater political control. This could undermine the agencies' ability to act impartially and make decisions based on expertise rather than political pressure. [731] [845]
• make it easier for the President to fire government workers who are not political appointees. This would give the President more power over the people who work for the government and make it harder for them to do their jobs without worrying about being fired for political reasons. [80]
• allow religious organizations to discriminate against people they don't agree with. This would violate the rights of people who are discriminated against. [586]
• allow the government to use taxpayer money to support religious organizations. This would violate the separation of church and state. [261] [481]
• advance a conservative agenda, including by selectively enforcing laws and prioritizing funding for certain groups. This could undermine the principle of impartial government and create a two-tiered system of justice. [545]
• dismantle the administrative state, which, while often inefficient and bureaucratic, is also a key mechanism for implementing laws passed by Congress and protecting the public interest. Weakening these agencies could lead to less accountability and weaker enforcement of laws, particularly in areas like environmental protection, consumer safety, and worker rights. [6]

Healthcare
Project 2025 will...

• reform U.S. healthcare into a free market mostly regulated by states. This means patients will need to develop more healthcare expertise, rural areas may be underserved, low-income and vulnerable populations may be underserved, sicker patients may pay more, the system may be ill-equipped to handle public health emergencies, and it could lead to an overall decline in quality and safety standards. [450]
• reform the Affordable Care Act. This could lead to loss of coverage, reduced consumer protections and an increased financial burden for Americans. [469]
• reduce funding for public health by splitting the CDC and reducing its funding. This could weaken the nation's ability to respond to public health emergencies and address critical health issues. [452]
• prevent the CDC from advising that school children should be masked or vaccinated, saying such decisions should be left to parents and medical providers. This could lead to increased disease outbreaks and a resurgence of preventable diseases like measles and whooping cough. [454]
• tax employers on workplace benefits that exceed $12,000 per worker annually. This would lead to employers cutting back on these benefits and workers paying more taxes, and would be damaging for millions of families who rely on one working adult's employer-provided health insurance to cover dependents, such as children. [697]

If this tax was enacted, we estimate that just based on health insurance benefits in 2022 alone: (1) More than 15 million workers would have seen their benefits taxed. (2) Their taxes would have risen by more than $12 billion if employers shifted away from benefits to other forms of taxable compensation. [link]

Medicare
Project 2025 will...

• eliminate the Medicare Shared Savings Program. This program helps to lower the cost of Medicare, and getting rid of it will likely mean that Medicare will cost more. [465]
• repeal the Inflation Reduction Act. This law lowers the cost of prescription drugs for people on Medicare, and getting rid of it will likely mean that prescription drugs will cost more. [465]
• reduce the government share in the catastrophic tier of Medicare Part D. This means that people on Medicare will have to pay more for their prescription drugs. [465]
• repeal the drug price negotiation program in Medicare. This program lowers the cost of prescription drugs, and getting rid of it will likely mean that prescription drugs will cost more. [465]
• restructure 340B drug subsidies toward beneficiaries rather than hospitals. This program helps hospitals provide lower-cost drugs to low-income patients, and changing it could mean that those patients will have to pay more for their medications. [465]
• push more of the 33 million people enrolled in Original Medicare towards Medicare Advantage by making it the "default enrollment option". Medicare Advantage plans can require prior authorizations, making it harder for patients to access care, and they can restrict enrollees' choices of physicians and hospitals. [465]

Social Security
The Project 2025 document does not cover this topic. But here are relevant resources:

House Republican budget calls for raising the retirement age for Social Security

NBC News

The House Republican Study Committee Budget Proposes Harsh Changes to Social Security

The Center for American Progress

Days After Trump Calls for Social Security Cuts, Congressional Republicans Release Plan to Slash Benefits by $1.5 Trillion

Social Security Works

House Republican Budget Plans Would Cut Social Security Benefits

House Committee on the Budget

The Heritage Foundation is gunning for your Social Security

Media Matters for America

Social Security Administration funding cuts a disservice to Americans

The Hill

Let's See That Again

Inside Project 2025’s Secret Training Videos

by Andy Kroll, ProPublica, and Nick Surgey,

Reporting Highlights

• Deep State Battle: Project 2025’s plan to train an army of political appointees who could fight the so-called deep state on behalf of a future Trump administration remains on track.
• New Videos: Dozens of never-before-published videos created for Project 2025 were provided to ProPublica and Documented by a person who had access to them.
• Advice Given: “If the American people elect a conservative president, his administration will have to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere.”

Project 2025, the controversial playbook and policy agenda for a right-wing presidential administration, has lost its director and faced scathing criticism from both Democratic groups and former President Donald Trump. But Project 2025’s plan to train an army of political appointees who could battle against the so-called deep state government bureaucracy on behalf of a future Trump administration remains on track.

One centerpiece of that program is dozens of never-before-published videos created for Project 2025’s Presidential Administration Academy. The vast majority of these videos — 23 in all, totaling more than 14 hours of content — were provided to ProPublica and Documented by a person who had access to them.

The Project 2025 videos coach future appointees on everything from the nuts and bolts of governing to how to outwit bureaucrats. There are strategies for avoiding embarrassing Freedom of Information Act disclosures and ensuring that conservative policies aren’t struck down by “left-wing judges.” Some of the content is routine advice that any incoming political appointee might be told. Other segments of the training offer guidance on radically changing how the federal government works and what it does.

In one video, Bethany Kozma, a conservative activist and former deputy chief of staff at the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Trump administration, downplays the seriousness of climate change and says the movement to combat it is really part of a ploy to “control people.”

“If the American people elect a conservative president, his administration will have to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere,” Kozma says.

In the same video, Kozma calls the idea of gender fluidity “evil.” Another speaker, Katie Sullivan, who was an acting assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice under Trump, takes aim at executive actions by the administration of President Joe Biden that created gender adviser positions throughout the federal government. The goal, Biden wrote in one order, was to “advance equal rights and opportunities, regardless of gender or gender identity.”

Sullivan says, “That position has to be eradicated, as well as all the task forces, the removal of all the equity plans from all the websites, and a complete rework of the language in internal and external policy documents and grant applications.”

Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, falsely saying that he knew nothing about it and had “no idea who is behind it.” In fact, he flew on a private jet with Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, which leads Project 2025. And in a 2022 speech at a Heritage Foundation event, Trump said, “This is a great group and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America.”

A review of the training videos shows that 29 of the 36 speakers have worked for Trump in some capacity — on his 2016-17 transition team, in the administration or on his 2024 reelection campaign. The videos appear to have been recorded before the resignation two weeks ago of Paul Dans, the leader of the 2025 project, and they are referenced on the project’s website. The Heritage Foundation said in a statement at the time of Dans’ resignation that it would end Project 2025’s policy-related work, but that its “collective efforts to build a personnel apparatus for policymakers of all levels — federal, state, and local — will continue.”

The Heritage Foundation and most of the people who appear in the videos cited in this story did not respond to ProPublica’s repeated requests for comment. Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign who features in one of the videos, said, “As our campaign leadership and President Trump have repeatedly stated, Agenda 47 is the only official policy agenda from our campaign.”

Project 2025’s 887-page “Mandate for Leadership” document lays out a vast array of policy and governance proposals, including eliminating the Department of Education, slashing Medicaid, reclassifying tens of thousands of career civil servants so they could be more easily fired and replaced, giving the president greater power to control the DOJ and further restricting abortion access.

Democrats and liberal groups have criticized the project’s policy agenda as “extreme” and “authoritarian” while pointing out the many connections between Trump and the hundreds of people who contributed to the project.

“Trump’s attempts to distance himself from Project 2025 have always been disingenuous,” said Noah Bookbinder, president of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “The discovery that the vast majority of speakers in Project 2025 training videos are alumni of the Trump administration or have other close ties to Trump’s political operation is unsurprising further evidence of the close connection there.”

Several speakers in the videos acknowledge that the Trump administration was slowed by staffing challenges and the inexperience of its political appointees, and they offer lessons learned from their stumbles. Some of the advice appears at odds with conservative dogma, including a suggestion that the next administration may need to expand key government agencies to achieve the larger goal of slashing federal regulations.

Rick Dearborn, who helped lead Trump’s 2016 transition team and later served in the Trump White House as deputy chief of staff, recalled in one video how “tough” it was to find people to fill all of the key positions in the early days of the administration.

The personnel part of Project 2025 is “so important to the next president,” Dearborn says. “Establishing all of this, providing the expertise, looking at a database of folks that can be part of the administration, talking to you like we are right now about what is a transition about, why do I want to be engaged in it, what would my role be — that’s a luxury that we didn’t have,” referring to a database of potential political appointees.

Dan Huff, a former legal adviser in the White House Presidential Personnel Office under Trump, says in another video that future appointees should be prepared to enact significant changes in American government and be ready to face blowback when they do.

“If you’re not on board with helping implement a dramatic course correction because you’re afraid it’ll damage your future employment prospects, it’ll harm you socially — look, I get it,” Huff says. “That’s a real danger. It’s a real thing. But please: Do us all a favor and sit this one out.”

“Eradicate Climate Change References”

The project’s experts outline regulatory and policy changes that future political appointees should prepare for in a Republican administration.

One video, titled “Hidden Meanings: The Monsters in the Attic,” is a 50-minute discussion of supposed left-wing code words and biased language that future appointees should be aware of and root out. In that video, Kozma says that U.S. intelligence agencies have named climate change as an increasingly dire threat to global stability, which, she says, illustrates how the issue “has infiltrated every part of the federal government.”

She then tells viewers that she sees climate change as merely a cover to engage in population control. “I think about the people who don’t want you to have children because of the” — here she makes air-quotes — “impact on the environment.” She adds, “This is part of their ultimate goal to control people.”

Later in the video, Katie Sullivan, the former acting assistant attorney general under Trump, advocates for removing so-called critical race theory from public education without saying how the federal government would accomplish that. (Elementary and secondary education curricula are typically set at the state and local level, not by the federal government.)

“The noxious tenets of critical race theory and gender ideology should be excised from curriculum in every single public school in this country,” Sullivan says. (Reached by phone, Sullivan told ProPublica to contact her press representative and hung up. A representative did not respond.)

In a different video, David Burton, an economic policy expert at the Heritage Foundation, discusses the importance of an obscure yet influential agency called the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. The Trump administration used OIRA to help roll back regulations on economic, fiscal and environmental issues. Under Biden, OIRA took a more aggressive stance in helping review and shape new regulations, which included efforts to combat housing discrimination, ban the sale of so-called ghost guns and set new renewable fuel targets.

Burton, in the Project 2025 video, urges future political appointees to work in OIRA and argues that the office should “increase its staffing levels considerably” in service of the conservative goal of reining in the so-called administrative state, namely the federal agencies that craft and issue new regulations.

“Fifty people are not enough to adequately police the regulatory actions of the entire federal government,” Burton says. “OIRA is one of the few government agencies that limits the regulatory ambitions of other agencies.” (Burton confirmed in a brief interview that he appeared in the video and endorsed expanding OIRA’s staffing levels.)

Expanding the federal workforce — even an office tasked with scrutinizing regulations — would seem to cut against the conservative movement’s long-standing goal of shrinking government. For anyone confused by Project 2025’s insistence that a conservative president should fill all appointee slots and potentially grow certain functions, Spencer Chretien, a former Trump White House aide who is now Project 2025’s associate director, addresses the tension in one video.

“Some on the right even say that we, because we believe in small government, should just lead by example and not fill certain political positions,” Chretien says. “I suggest that it would be almost impossible to bring any conservative change to America if the president did that.”

A Trump Government-in-Waiting

The speakers in the Project 2025 videos are careful not to explicitly side with Trump or talk about what a future Trump administration might do. They instead refer to a future “conservative president” or “conservative administration.”

But the links between the speakers in the videos and Trump are many. Most of those served Trump during his administration, working at the White House, the National Security Council, NASA, the Office of Management and Budget, USAID and the departments of Justice, Interior, State, Homeland Security, Transportation and Health and Human Services. Another speaker has worked in the Senate office of J.D. Vance, Trump’s 2024 running mate.

Sullivan, the former DOJ acting assistant attorney general in charge of the department’s Office of Justice Programs, which oversees billions in grant funding, appears in three different videos. Leavitt, who is in a training video titled “The Art of Professionalism,” worked in the White House press office during Trump’s first presidency and is now the national press secretary for his reelection campaign.

A consistent theme in the advice and testimonials offered by these Trump alums is that Project 2025 trainees should expect a hostile reception if they go to work in the federal government. Kozma, the former USAID deputy chief of staff, says in one video that “many” of her fellow Trump appointees experienced “persecution” during their time in government.

In a video titled “The Political Appointee’s Survival Guide,” Max Primorac, a former deputy administrator at USAID during the Trump administration, warns viewers that Washington is a place that “does not share your conservative values,” and that new hires will find that “there’s so much hostility to basic traditional values.”

In the same video, Kristen Eichamer, a former deputy press secretary at the Trump-era NASA, says that the media pushed false narratives about then-President Trump and people who worked in his administration. “Being defamed on Twitter is almost a badge of honor in the Trump administration,” she says.

Outthinking “the Left”

The videos also offer less overtly political tutorials for future appointees, covering everything from how a regulation gets made to working with the media, the mechanics of a presidential transition process to obtaining a security clearance, and best practices for time management.

One recurring theme in the videos is how the next Republican administration can avoid the mistakes of the first Trump presidency. In one video, Roger Severino, the former director of the Office of Civil Rights in the Trump-era Department of Health and Human Services, explains that failure to meticulously follow federal procedure led to courts delaying or throwing out certain regulatory efforts on technical grounds.

Severino, who is also a longtime leader in the anti-abortion movement, goes on to walk viewers through the ins and outs of procedural law and says that they should prepare for “the left” to use every tool possible to derail the next conservative president. “This is a game of 3D chess,” Severino says. “You have to be always anticipating what the left is going to do to try to throw sand in the gears and trip you up and block your rule.” (In an email, Severino said he would forward ProPublica’s interview request to Heritage’s spokespeople, who did not respond.)

Operating under the assumption that some career employees might seek to thwart a future conservative president’s agenda, some of the advice pertains to how political appointees can avoid being derailed or bogged down by the government bureaucrats who work with them.

Sullivan urges viewers to “empower your political staff,” limit access to appointees’ calendars and leave out career staff from early meetings with more senior agency officials. “You are making it clear to career staff that your political appointees are in charge,” Sullivan says.

Other tips from the videos include scrubbing personal social media accounts of any content that’s “damaging, vulgar or contradict the policies you are there to implement” well before the new administration begins, as Kozma put it.

Alexei Woltornist, a former assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, encourages future appointees to bypass mainstream news outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post. Instead, they should focus on conservative media outlets because those are the only outlets conservative voters trust.

“The American people who vote for a conservative presidential administration, they’re not reading The New York Times, they’re not reading The Washington Post,” Woltornist says. “To the contrary, if those outlets publish something, they’re going to assume it’s false. So the only way to reach them with any voice of credibility is through working with conservative media outlets.”

And in a video about oversight and investigations, a group of conservative investigators advise future appointees on how to avoid creating a paper trail of sensitive communications that could be obtained by congressional committees or outside groups under the Freedom of Information Act.

“If you need to resolve something, if you can do it, it’s probably better to walk down the hall, buttonhole a guy and say, ‘Hey, what are we going to do here?’ Talk through the decision,” says Tom Jones, a former Senate investigator who now runs the American Accountability Foundation.

Jones adds that it’s possible that agency lawyers could cite exemptions in the public-records law to prevent the release of certain documents. But appointees are best served, he argues, if they don’t put important communications in writing in the first place.

“You’re probably better off,” Jones says, “going down to the canteen, getting a cup of coffee, talking it through and making the decision, as opposed to sending him an email and creating a thread that Accountable.US or one of those other groups is going to come back and seek.”

I'm Sure It's Just A Coincidence

Reminder:

Kevin Roberts (current head of the wingnut American Heritage Foundation) was forced out of his position as Executive Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi, after provoking fury by claiming that women in the advertising industry lacked ambition and were not held back by sexism.

I'll leave it at that, and trust in good people to see these assholes for the assholes they are.

Project 2025 Director Steps Down From Heritage Foundation

Paul Dans, the director of Project 2025, has stepped down from the Heritage Foundation, its president said Tuesday.

Kevin Roberts, the Heritage Foundation's president, confirmed Dans' resignation in a statement to Newsweek.

"Under Paul Dans' leadership, Project 2025 has completed exactly what it set out to do: bringing together over 110 leading conservative organizations to create a unified conservative vision, motivated to devolve power from the unelected administrative state, and returning it to the people. This tool was built for any future administration to use," Roberts wrote.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), The Daily Beast's Roger Sollenberger wrote: "NEWS: Project 2025 director Paul Dans has stepped down at Heritage Foundation after pressure from Trump campaign leadership, ongoing power rift over staffing control for potential second Trump admin, per internal email. This suggests Project 2025 will likely shut down."

The Context

Project 2025 is a 900-page document created by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that presents policy proposals for a future GOP administration.

Its policies include overhauling the federal bureaucracy, reversing many of the Biden administration's climate policies, rolling back abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, and changes to education standards, including the Head Start early education program. If implemented, critics say, the proposals would remake the federal government by replacing federal workers with Republican loyalists.

The proposals have drawn fire from Democratic critics and given Vice President Kamala Harris and her party an opportunity to win over young voters who disagree with the plans. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has sought to distance himself from Project 2025.

Newsweek reached out to the Heritage Foundation via telephone and email on Tuesday for comment.

What We Know

The project's policy drafting had as its deadline the Democratic and Republican conventions this summer, Roberts told Newsweek in his statement.

"When we began Project 2025 in April 2022, we set a timeline for the project to conclude its policy drafting after the two-party conventions this year, and we are sticking to that timeline," he wrote.

Roberts went on: "Paul, who built the project from scratch and bravely led this endeavor over the past two years, will be departing the team and moving up to the front where the fight remains. We are extremely grateful for his and everyone's work on Project 2025 and dedication to saving America."

Sollenberger said Dans' resignation "isn't ideological" and "doesn't mean Project 2025's goals and policies are rejected."

It was unclear exactly what prompted Dans to step down.

The Heritage Foundation's website lists Dans as the director of Project 2025, known formally as the 2024 Presidential Transition Project. In the position, he was responsible for organizing policy and personnel recommendations for the next presidential administration.

He previously served as the chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in the Trump administration. He was also the office's White House liaison.

Trump has previously said he has "nothing" to do with Project 2025. Meanwhile, polls suggest the project is unpopular with voters.

Views

The news of Dans' resignation drew reactions on X (formerly Twitter).

"Don't worry, we ain't gonna forget that Team Trump wrote Project 2025," posted Representative Maxwell Frost, a Florida Democrat.

Amanda Carpenter, a writer and editor for Project Democracy, responded, "So the Trump campaign is saying it is not connected to Project 2025 but got the director of Project 2025 fired because of the blowback it is having on his campaign. Gotcha."

What's Next

Roberts offered some insight into the future of Project 2025 in his statement.

"Our collective efforts to build a personnel apparatus for policymakers of all levels—federal, state, and local—will continue," he wrote.

Project 2025

It doesn't sound like The Wall Street Journal is fully on board with this thing - not the way I thought they might be anyway.

Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street fucking Journal seems to be a bit squishy on it.

Curious to see where this goes.

Jessica Craven

... is my new internet crush.

It Bears Repeating

Here's the full set that I posted about a few days ago.

"We need to do better than this."

PROJECT 2025

• Prosecute political rivals
• Fire 50,000 federal employees & replace them with MAGA loyalists
• Remove America from NATO
• Pardon himself and Jan 6 insurrectionists
• Slash DOJ budget
• Dismantle the FBI and DHS
• Eliminate Dept of Commerce
• Sharply reduce EPA regulations to favor Fossil Fuels
• End the independence of federal agencies such as FCC and FTC
• Tax cuts
• Tariffs
• Abolish the Dept of Education
• Cut funding for climate research
• Reform NIH along conservative principles
• Reject abortion as health care
• Eliminate the Affordable Care Act's coverage of emergency contraception
• Infuse the government with elements of Christianity
• Criminalize pornography
• Remove legal protections against discrimination based on sexual or gender identity
• Terminate DEI programs and Affirmative Action
• Immediately deploy the military for domestic law enforcement
• Direct the DOJ to pursue Donald Trump's adversaries by invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807
• Arrest, detain, and deport undocumented immigrants
• Capital punishment and the speedy "finality" of such sentences

Project director, Paul Dans, explained that Project 2025 is "systematically preparing to march into office and bring a new army of aligned, trained, and essentially weaponized conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state."

Dans admitted it was "counterintuitive" to recruit so many to join the government to shrink it, but pointed out the need for a future president to "regain control" of the government. Although the project does not promote a specific presidential candidate, many contributors have close ties to Trump and his 2024 campaign.

Extreme & Explicit