What’s up Russ Vought’s sleeve next?
TPM’s Josh Marshall issued a series of whatever-they’re-calleds on Bluesky last night that merit a closer look and more validation. There doesn’t seem to be anything new on this at TPM this morning, so….
2/ Keep those caveats in mind. I relay these takeaways essentially as heads ups of things to look out for. In the retribution dept the reorg permanently downsizes the US Embassy in Canada to a sub-skeleton crew. “no more than 10 consular officers” etc. Similarly drastic cuts to all other personnel.
3/ It appears to essentially abolish what we now know as the foreign service. Immediately ends the foreign service exam. Institutes new system based on things like “demonstrated charisma”, “verbal authenticity”, “alignment with President’s foreign policy vision”, et al.
4/ Embeds DOGE-centric scrutiny of all spending; ends generalist global rotation in favor of four regional corps for the world – says new statute will be needed for that but start now anyway; dramatically reduces staff of Dept at home and abroad; shuts down several pages worth of offices at State.
5/ Bureau of Humanitarian Affairs inherits whatever is left of USAID. There’s a lot more there but those are some toplines.
I’ve got a couple of retired FSOs nearby who will be interested to hear that there is talk (likely from Project 2025 mastermind Russ Vought) of zeroing out their beloved diplomatic corps and friends still in its employ.
Scarecrow: I haven’t got a brain… only straw.
Dorothy: How can you talk if you haven’t got a brain?
Scarecrow: I don’t know… But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking… don’t they?
A commenter notes that Trump lacks the authority to kill off the Foreign Service. But then Trump does an awful lot of things he doesn’t have the authority to do, doesn’t he?
Marshall replies:
There has already been an awful lot of coloring outside the guardrails by the Trump 2.0 administration. So much so that a 7-2 U.S. Supreme Court majority felt the need to put the ol’ quaheedus on Trump-Miller-Bondi efforts to spirit away yet another batch of non-citizen(?) detainees to Nayib Bukele’s “CECOT holiday resort” without so much as a “But Judge, they’ve got the wrong man.”
Suddenly, Justice Samuel Alito (joined by Clarence Thomas) is concerned that his colleagues on SCOTUS are not following established procedures in ordering Donald Trump to stop violating established procedures.
Alito complains that “issuing an order at midnight” to stop Trump 2.0 from jetting its Venezuelan prisoners out of reach of constitutional “due process” protections was both unnecessary and inappropriate. It sure as hell would have been appropriate if the prisoner in question was Thomas billionaire benefactor Harlan Crow, don’t you think?
It seems our would-be monarch was peeved at the “UnSupreme Court” majority. A showdown is surely coming.
As OldDudeFella observes, “Our country is already being run by criminals.”
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