Tag Archives: Washington

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

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 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.”

Tiny Agency That Stood Up to DOGE Gets Its Building Back
The U.S. Institute of Peace regained control of its headquarters after it was forced out by DOGE in March.

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

Boing Boing: Trump Administration shilling for Elon Musk

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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?

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.
Trump Administration shilling for Elon Musk

MSNBC: Judge says Trump administration violated court order with South Sudan deportation flight

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It’s the latest instance of a judge calling out the administration’s law-breaking.

A federal judge on Wednesday said the Trump administration violated a court order when it put a group of migrants on a plane to war-torn South Sudan without giving them a proper chance to challenge their removal. It’s the latest example of the administration breaking the law in carrying out Donald Trump’s agenda.

U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Massachusetts last month had ordered the government to apply those safeguards before sending people to countries they aren’t from, or so-called third countries. Murphy said at a Wednesday hearing that the administration had “unquestionably” violated his order with Tuesday’s flight. The Biden appointee raised the possibility of contempt but didn’t make a final decision about that at the hearing.

Murphy had issued a separate order on Tuesday for the government to “maintain custody and control of class members currently being removed to South Sudan or to any other third country, to ensure the practical feasibility of return if the Court finds that such removals were unlawful.”

… a federal appeals court judge wrote Monday, “As is becoming far too common, we are confronted again with the efforts of the Executive Branch to set aside the rule of law in pursuit of its goals.” The judge continued, “It is the duty of courts to stand as a bulwark against the political tides that seek to override constitutional protections and fundamental principles of law, even in the name of noble ends like public safety.”

https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/south-sudan-trump-violated-court-order-rcna208308

MSNBC: Democrats grill RFK Jr. over ‘devastating’ funding cuts at fiery hearing

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Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., warned HHS’ proposed budget for 2026 would “leave America sicker and weaker.”

In her opening statement, Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, the top Democrat on the subcommittee, noted that under the proposed budget, NIH funds would be cut by nearly $18 billion compared with the previous fiscal year.

“That would have a devastating impact on research into lifesaving cures and treatments,” Baldwin said, warning it would set “back medical innovations by decades.”

Baldwin said that while the hearing was meant to focus on next year’s budget, the proposal provided insight into what Kennedy was doing at the agency now, in fiscal year 2025. Since Donald Trump returned to the White House, HHS has cut more than 20,000 jobs and slashed billions of dollars for scientific research as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s effort to reduce the federal budget.

Baldwin questioned the secretary over the department’s withholding funds that were already appropriated by Congress, including thousands of dollars in grants for research on rare diseases, Alzheimer’s and cancer. “We’re not abandoning any lifesaving research,” Kennedy answered. “We’ve cut administrators, we’re cutting waste, we’re cutting duplicative programs.”

The senator also pressed Kennedy about the proposed cuts to NIH and asked whether the lack of funding would slow the development of treatments and cures. “We are the sickest country in the world, so that money has not been well-spent,” Kennedy replied.

Keep in mind that this is a Secretary of Health and Human Services who had brain worms, eats bush meat and road kill, and takes his grandchildren swimming in a creek polluted with raw sewage. And he’s lecturing us on health?

https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/rfk-jr-contentious-congressional-hearing-funding-cuts-rcna208070

New York Times: Energized by Kennedy, Texas ‘Mad Moms’ Are Chipping Away at Vaccine Mandates

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A measles outbreak in the state has not stopped “medical freedom” activists from pushing forward with their goal. They now have an influential ally in Washington: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Rebecca Hardy and Michelle Evans helped found Texans for Vaccine Choice with a group of like-minded women in 2015, as measles was spreading in California. They defeated legislation tightening Texas school vaccine requirements, and helped oust the lawmaker who wrote it, earning a catchy nickname: “mad moms in minivans.”

Now, as a measles outbreak that began in West Texas spreads to other parts of the country, the “mad moms” have a slew of new allies. The 2024 elections ushered in a wave of freshman Republicans who back their goal of making all vaccinations voluntary. But no ally may be as influential as the one they gained in Washington: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s most prominent vaccine skeptic.

Yes, concerned mothers who want only the “best” for your children, you should always seek medical guidance from the brainworm-infested roadkill-eating Health Secretary, who recently took his grandkids swimming in a sewage-infested creek that was off-limits to public swimming for obvious reasons.

Energized by RFK Jr., Texas ‘Mad Moms’ Are Chipping Away at Vaccine Mandates
A measles outbreak in the state has not stopped “medical freedom” activists from pushing forward with their goal. They now have an influential ally in Washington: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Bloomberg: Iran’s Khamenei Brands Trump a Liar in Escalation of Rhetoric

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“Some of the remarks made during the US president’s trip to the region aren’t even worth responding to,” Khamenei said. “The level of the statements is so low that they are a source of shame for the speaker and a source of shame for the American people.”

Even the world’s worst ogre gets one right every now & then!

https://archive.is/IUjpG#selection-1509.0-1509.254

MarketWatch: Millions of Americans may lose health insurance under GOP tax plan. Here’s who will be affected most.

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The plan would represent the largest cut to Medicaid ever

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill could lead to at least 8.6 million Americans losing health coverage, with the majority expected to lose Medicaid. Most affected would be low-income adults without dependents, earning a bit more than a poverty income of $15,650 for a single person.

Go for it, suckers! Mid-terms are coming, and they will come with a vengeance!

?url=httpswww.marketwatch.comstorymillions-of-americans-may-lose-health-insurance-under-gop-tax-plan-heres-who-will-be-affected-most-bd965669

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/millions-of-americans-may-lose-health-insurance-under-gop-tax-plan-heres-who-will-be-affected-most-bd965669

National Security Journal: NATO Is Now Dead

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NATO, in its current form, is depicted as a “corpse,” its strategic effectiveness undermined by decades of European defense underfunding (“free-riding”) and US strategic overstretch.

-Most member states fail to meet spending commitments, rendering the alliance a hollow shell, a reality starkly exposed by the war in Ukraine where the US carries the primary burden.

-President Trump’s approach is seen not as the cause of NATO’s decline but as a catalyst for a necessary reckoning, forcing Europe to confront its defense responsibilities.

-A fundamental reset towards a European-led security framework, with US support rather than dominance, is essential for future relevance.

NATO Is Now Dead
President Trump’s approach is seen not as the cause of NATO’s decline but as a catalyst for a necessary reckoning, forcing Europe to confront its defense responsibilities.
NATO Is Now Dead

New York Times: Trump Family Bitcoin Company Announces Plan to Go Public

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American Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency firm co-founded by Eric Trump, said it was merging with a company traded on the Nasdaq, the latest expansion of the family’s investments in crypto.

More profiteering on the coattails of our Grifter-in-Chief:

American Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency firm co-founded by Eric Trump, announced on Monday that it would become publicly traded, the latest expansion of the Trump family’s investments across the crypto industry.

The company, which focuses on Bitcoin mining, is set to merge with Gryphon Digital Mining Inc., a firm that is already traded on the Nasdaq. Mr. Trump, the president’s middle son, is listed as one of the founders and a member of the company’s management team.

American Bitcoin was started in late March, when Mr. Trump and his older brother, Donald Trump Jr., announced that they were joining forces with a Bitcoin mining firm called Hut 8. Bitcoin mining is a vital branch of the crypto industry, in which major companies, many of them publicly traded, run energy-guzzling data centers to process Bitcoin transactions.

…

The business is one facet of an increasingly broad array of Trump family crypto ventures that have alarmed government ethics experts. President Trump and his sons have started a crypto firm called World Liberty Financial that offers its own digital coin. And working with a separate set of business partners, the Trump family has marketed the digital currency $TRUMP — a type of crypto called a memecoin that is typically treated more as a novelty investment than an actual currency.

At the same time, President Trump has taken steps to advance the crypto world’s interests in Washington, ending a Biden-era enforcement campaign against crypto companies and backing legislation supported by the industry.

In an investor presentation posted on its website, American Bitcoin aggressively promoted its connection with the Trump family, featuring a large photograph of Eric Trump near the beginning. A message next to the photo describes the company’s ambitions and links the firm to the domestic crypto industry in ways that echo the president’s messaging.

“Crypto is the future,” the message reads. “America must lead the way. American Bitcoin will set the standard.”

Among a list of key figures in the business, the presentation describes Eric Trump as a “strategic amplifier” who “drives brand equity and institutional visibility through unparalleled network reach.”

https://archive.is/dl1mG#selection-731.0-766.0

Alternet: Trump admin resurrects a dissenting argument that already went before the Supreme Court — in 1898

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For more than 150 years, people who were born within U.S. territory automatically received citizenship – regardless of their parents’ immigration status.

President Donald Trump’s January 2025 executive order on birthright citizenship – stating that children born in the U.S. to parents who are not in the country legally, or who are not permanent residents, cannot receive citizenship – threatens to upend this precedent.

The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on the case on May 14, 2025.

This comes after federal judges in three cases that took place in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington banned Trump’s order from going into effect, determining that the president cannot change or limit the Constitution by executive order.

Birthright citizenship been obvious to anyone with half a brain for a century and a half. King Donald just isn’t that bright.

https://www.alternet.org/birthright-citizen