Daily Digest: Trump’s latest controversy: the moment he insulted the South African president to his face

According to Reuters, [South African President Cyril] Ramaphosa expected to mend diplomatic relations with the United States, after the Trump Administration decided to cut humanitarian aid, expelled the South African ambassador and offered refuge to white Afrikaners.

Instead, the US President confronted the South African leader with claims of white genocide and illegal land expropriations, which have been described by Reuters as patently false.

The BBC reports that Trump showed Ramaphosa a video, depicting several crosses along a road. The US President claimed that those were the burial sites of of murdered white farmers in South Africa.

According to the BBC, the video appears to be from a 2020 protest over a murdered farming couple in the Kwazulu-Natal province, with the crosses representing murdered farmers over the years.

Trumpian diplomacy = fake videos! Henry Kissinger would be so impressed! Not!

This White House is just a friggin’ joke!

https://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/other/trump-s-latest-controversy-the-moment-he-insulted-the-south-african-president-to-his-face/ss-AA1Fh8rR

Daily Beast: Tiny Agency That Stood Up to DOGE Gets Its Building Back

 small federal agency forced out of its headquarters by the Trump administration has regained control of its building after a federal judge declared the DOGE takeover “null and void.”

U.S. Institute of Peace acting president George Moose reentered his Washington office on Wednesday for the first time since March, when he and many other agency leaders were booted out by DOGE staffers who declared them “unnecessary.”

“We are now back in the building and we intend to resume our stewardship and custodianship,” Moose told reporters in an impromptu briefing outside the USIP building. “It is not just the platform from which we’ve been doing our work—it is a symbol of the aspirations and the intent of the American people to be seen and to be peacemakers in the world.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/small-agency-that-stood-up-to-doge-gets-its-building-back

Boing Boing: Trump Administration shilling for Elon Musk

Using the power of the US taxpayer for Elon Musk’s sake, the US State Department demands that Starlink be given access to markets across Africa if those nations want to receive aid.

Corruption, anyone? How much more obvious can it be?

Newsweek: White House rips federal judge who said Trump admin violated court order

White House press secretary Karoline [Bimbo #1] Leavitt tore into a federal judge on Thursday who accused the Trump administration of “unquestionably” violating a court order to provide “meaningful” due process to people who are targeted for deportation.

During Thursday’s White House press briefing, [Bimbo #1] Leavitt described Murphy as a “liberal activist district court judge” from Boston who “is trying to force the President of the United States to bring these monsters back to our country.”

While she spoke, a screen behind [Bimbo #1] Leavitt displayed photos of the deportees the White House says were on the flight and Leavitt rattled through a list of crimes the men are accused of or have been convicted of committing.

Your photos and rants are irrelevant, Karoline [Bimbo #1] Leavitt. Our constitution guarantees certain inalienable rights, including due process, to everyone in this country including immigrants, legal or not, whether a nattering fool like you agrees with it or not.

https://www.newsweek.com/karoline-leavitt-judge-brian-murphy-press-briefing-2075992

CBS News: RFK Jr. releases report on childhood chronic disease. Here’s what to know.

The White House’s “Make America Healthy Again” or “MAHA” commission, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has published its first report on what it says are four leading drivers of childhood chronic disease. 

“The report is the product of a consensual process, and it represents a collaborative effort of all the agencies and the White House. And it represents a consensus that is probably the strongest and most radical consensus by a government agency in history about the state of America’s health,” Kennedy told reporters in a call ahead of its release.

Who’s going to take advice on our children’s health from a moron who takes his grandchildren swimming in a sewage-contaminated creek where swimming is banned for public health reasons? A moron who’s had brain worms likely because he eats bush meat and road kill?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rfk-jr-maha-report-childhood-chronic-disease

Business Insider: A judge blocks Trump’s plans to abolish the Department of Education, fire workers, and transfer student loans

  • President Trump signed an executive order Thursday seeking to dismantle the Department of Education.
  • The department has faced opposition since its initial establishment — and prompt closure — in 1867.
  • Concerns of government overreach and unnecessary spending have fueled opponents throughout history.

President Trump signed an executive order to start eliminating the Department of Education on Thursday, though he needs congressional approval before it can actually shutter.

Meanwhile King Donald and his sycophants are not above abusing the Department of Education as a bully pulpit to harass universities to support their anti-diversity and anti-transgender agendas.

https://www.businessinsider.com/judge-blocks-trump-plan-to-shut-down-department-of-education-2025-5

Esquire: Trump’s Harvard Vendetta Just Sunk to a Ridiculous New Low

Watching a grifter who once ran his own fraudulent “university” try to devalue the institution would be funny if it weren’t so grotesque and tragic.

At this point, it’s just 300-plus years of institutional power against a jumped-up toddler who wants things his way and is willing to break them just so they’ll fit in his pocket. From The New York Times:

The Trump administration on Thursday halted Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students, taking aim at a crucial funding source for the nation’s oldest and wealthiest college in a major escalation in the administration’s efforts to pressure the elite school to fall in line with the president’s agenda. The administration notified Harvard about the decision after a back-and-forth in recent days over the legality of a sprawling records request as part of the Department of Homeland Security’s investigation, according to three people with knowledge of the negotiations.

The “sprawling records request” came from Secretary Kristi (Habeas? I hardly knew him!) [Bimbo #2] Noem of the Department of Homeland Security, which is wearing an even browner shirt than it wore at its creation. 

Of course, overseas, Harvard is one of America’s great selling points, certainly a more effective one than the current president of the United States, who’s done more damage to American prestige around the world than the Vietnam War ever did. A Harvard degree, especially at the graduate level, is still a valuable commodity, and to watch a grifter who once ran his own fraudulent “university” trying to devalue it would be funny if it weren’t so grotesque and tragic.

I, too, have mocked Harvard for its hubris and its conspicuous presence in America’s elites. It’s fun and, up until now, it has been harmless fun at that. But at least Harvard has earned its pride over three damn centuries of achievement. The president seeking to destroy it is a vainglorious bully dripping with fake and fraudulent gold. There is no other side to take except to hope Harvard stands for what it’s always said it stands for.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a64855916/harvard-university-trump-kristi-noem-international-students-funding

ABC News: New Social Security chief tells staff he had to Google the job when he was offered it

ABC News obtained audio of Frank Bisignano’s staff meeting with managers.

The newly sworn-in head of the Social Security Administration told agency staff this week that when he was first offered the job in the Trump administration, he wasn’t familiar with the position and had to look it up online.

Frank Bisignano, a former Wall Street executive, said during a town hall with Social Security managers from around the country on Wednesday that he wasn’t seeking a position in the Trump administration when he received a call about leading the SSA.

“So, I get a phone call and it’s about Social Security. And I’m really, I’m really not, I swear I’m not looking for a job,” Bisignano said, according to an audio recording of the meeting obtained by ABC News. “And I’m like, ‘Well, what am I going to do?’ So, I’m Googling Social Security. You know, one of my great skills, I’m one of the great Googlers on the East Coast.”

“I’m like, ‘What the heck’s the commissioner of Social Security?'” said Bisignano, who now oversees one of the largest federal agencies that’s responsible for distributing retirement, disability, and survivor benefits to more than 70 million Americans.

“A former Wall Street executive”, once the head of a major financial services firm, has to use Google to find out what the Commissioner of Social Security does? He seems relatively harmless compared to F’Elon Musk and his band of DOGE stooges, but I’m still not impressed.

I’ll bet I’m a lot better with Google than he is. Am I qualified for the job? 😀

https://abcnews.go.com/US/new-head-social-security-hired-wall-street-tells/story?id=122075152

Law & Crime: ‘We say enough’: Whistleblower lawyer targeted by Trump asks judge to speed up proceedings so he can get back to work

Prominent national security attorney Mark Zaid has filed a preliminary injunction request to restore his security clearance that the Trump administration revoked.

In late March, President Donald Trump rescinded the security clearance of Zaid and other well-known lawyers, politicians, and officials. Zaid sued the Trump administration in early May over this revocation, arguing the president’s executive order represented “dangerous, unconstitutional retaliation.”

“We say enough of Trump taking away security clearances out of retaliation & with no basis,” attorney Norman Eisen added on social media, along with a photo of the motion.

Washington Post: Disney World suspends Venezuelan workers who lost legal status

Almost four dozen Venezuelan workers who had temporary protected status have been put on leave by Disney after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to strip them of legal protections

The Walt Disney Co. became the first major employer to confirm it is distancing itself from Venezuelan employees with temporary protections, after the Supreme Court upheld the Trump administration’s termination of their legal status.

Disney notified 45 “cast members” who are Venezuelan workers who lost their temporary protected status (TPS) that they are on leave without pay following the high court’s ruling.

It is such a disgrace to see legitimate refugees treated in this manner.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/05/23/disney-venezuelans-immigration-tps/a49469fe-37f8-11f0-9c9e-0db2d748bea7_story.html