The DOJ has been investigating Texas AG Ken Paxton since 2020 on allegations that he misused his position to help a political donor. Under Trump, a Paxton ally, the yearslong investigation could come to an end.
uspolitics
This Icebreaker Has Design Problems and a History of Failure. It’s America’s Latest Military Vessel.
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The builder of the icebreaker Aiviq has given more than $7 million to political campaigns, parties and committees since 2012. Under pressure from Congress, the Coast Guard purchased the vessel late last year.
As we enter a new phase in American politics, we’re reaffirming our commitment to facts, journalism and open discourse. Our values have not changed.
Our managing editor @csullivan explains more.
https://about.flipboard.com/inside-flipboard/flipboards-commitment-to-facts-for-a-new-political-era/
#USPolitics #Trump #TrumpAdministration #Flipboard #USNews #Misinformation #Disinformation #Facts
The people who are now in charge of the Office of Personnel Management apparently don’t know how to scrub PDF metadata, and have exposed the original authors of the guidance they’re publishing. Two have links to the Heritage Foundation and its Project 2025.
Noah Peters is the author of the OPM Acting Director Charles Ezell’s January 27 memo (archive) providing guidance on the “Restoring Accountability To Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce” executive order, which is being described as the “Schedule F” order because it effectively reinstates that policy under a new name (“Schedule Policy/Career”). Peters also authored the January 20 memo (archive) from Ezell, which exploits loopholes to bypass limits on political appointments. Both of these memos are clear steps towards achieving a primary goal of Project 2025: to expand President Trump’s power, and to replace career civil servants with Trump loyalists.
As far back as 2023, The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 was recommending Peters for a position in Trump’s second administration. Peters had previously been appointed by Trump in 2019 as the Solicitor at the Federal Labor Relations Authority, where he “aided and defended Trump appointees’ anti-union FLRA policies that went against decades of the agency’s own precedents” according to Court Accountability Action and State Democracy Defenders Action.4 Peters returned to private practice in 2022, but recently quietly updated his LinkedIn profile to reflect a new title of “Senior Advisor” to the Office of Personnel Management. This appointment does not appear to have been announced anywhere else.
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Texas’ understaffed agricultural, restaurant and elder care sectors rely on workers who are undocumented.
“If you got serious about applying [E-Verify], you would create even worse problems” with labor shortages, said a former GOP state lawmaker.
#News #Immigration #Texas #Labor #Business #Law #USPolitics #GOP
Haymarket Books has made 10 key antifascist ebooks #free to download.
“Wherever each of us live, work, and are in community: the time is now to build power and fight back, together.”
https://www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/517-ten-free-ebooks-for-getting-free
The Nicaraguans who keep Wisconsin’s dairy farms, restaurants and factories working are sending home their most prized possessions, bracing for potential mass deportations.
“We don’t have much, but what we do have is important.”
“People Will Die”: The Trump Administration Said It Lifted Its Ban on Lifesaving Humanitarian Aid. That’s Not True.
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Organizations that provide vital care for desperate and vulnerable people around the world have been forced to halt operations, turn away patients and lay off staff. “I’ve never seen anything that scares me as much as this,” one doctor said.
#News #Trump #USPolitics #Palestine #Sudan #Ukraine #Yemen #Humanitarian #Aid
A 22-year-old Wisconsin man died of a severe asthma attack because he couldn't afford the price of his inhaler, which was no longer covered by his insurance.
This young man was murdered by the for-profit healthcare system in the United States.
#OptumRx #UnitedHealthcare #Greed #USpolitics #LuigiMangione #CEO
All of this - every single word.
#USpolitics #FeloniousTrump #Musk https://social.treehouse.systems/@AnarchoNinaAnalyzes/113936666412285502
an unelected billionaire storming into US agencies, installing his unqualified and unapproved lackeys, purging civil servants, seizing access to sensitive data and payments, unilaterally eliminating federal agencies: fine
identifying the lackeys: illegal
The blitz of Trump's immigration executive orders has continued, so fast and sweeping that it’s been hard to keep up, much less gauge their potential impact.
ProPublica and The Texas Tribune explain the most consequential changes he made on Day 1.
#News #Trump #Immigration #Immigrants #USPolitics #WhiteHouse
ProPublica has identified three lawyers with elite establishment credentials who’ve joined the DOGE effort. Two of their names haven’t been previously reported as working for the Elon Musk-led initiative.
Here’s what we know about them: https://www.propublica.org/article/elon-musk-doge-lawyers-supreme-court?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post
#News #Law #SupremeCourt #SCOTUS #DOGE #ElonMusk #Musk #USPolitics
Among the data used by Cambridge Analytica to profile gun owners in the database: income, debt, religious affiliation, whether they liked the paintings of Thomas Kinkade and whether the underwear women had purchased was plus size or petite.
#News #Data #Privacy #Technology #Guns #Tech #USPolitics #Trump
The Courts Blocked Trump’s Federal Funding Freeze. Agencies Are Withholding Money Anyway.
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Agencies continue to suspend funding, despite multiple court orders blocking the federal freeze. Experts say the Trump administration’s actions set the stage for challenges to Congress’ authority — and the limits of the presidency.
#News #Law #Trump #Congress #Government #USPolitics #Funding
President Donald Trump has given Elon Musk sweeping authority to overhaul the U.S. government bureaucracy and its operations around the globe.
ProPublica confirmed the identities and roles of more than 20 key people affiliated with Musk.
How Trump’s Federal Funding and Hiring Freezes Are Leaving America Vulnerable to Catastrophic Wildfire
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Uncertainty over funding and hiring stemming from the president’s executive orders has limited wildfire training and postponed work to reduce flammable vegetation. It has also led some firefighters to leave the force, their colleagues said.
#News #Wildfires #Trump #USPolitics #Climate #Biodiversity #Environment
ProPublica has identified nine additional Musk-affiliated staffers. A former staffer at Boring Company now has an official role at DOGE in the Executive Office of the President. A former X employee now works in the General Services Administration.
A proposed regulation would have denied disability benefits to at least 830,000 older blue-collar workers.
But after reporting from ProPublica and others, the Trump administration has killed the plan.
#News #Disability #SocialSecurity #Trump #USPolitics #Government
Trump Official Destroying USAID Secretly Met With Christian Nationalists Abroad in Defiance of U.S. Policy
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Now one of the most powerful people in the U.S. government, Peter Marocco’s turbulent tenure during the first Trump administration sheds light on his current efforts to dismantle the American foreign aid system from the inside out.
At least 200 Afghan Americans in the U.S. military have relatives who applied for refugee status only to be blocked by Trump’s refugee ban.
“We serve this country because it protected us, but now it is abandoning my sister,” said one soldier.
The Trump Administration Keeps Citing an Untrue Stat as It Targets Federal Workers
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A “survey of our niche audience for our niche audience” was the source for the claim that only 6% of federal employees are working full time in their offices. The number isn’t true. Why do the Trump administration and elected officials keep relying on it?
https://www.propublica.org/article/federal-employees-work-from-home-trump-myth?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post
While Elon Musk and his underlings demand budget cuts and layoffs across the federal government, funding for the agency they operate — the Department of Government Efficiency — has soared to some $40 million, ProPublica found.
Lawmakers Call for Probe of How Firm Tied to Kristi Noem Got Piece of $220 Million DHS Ad Contracts
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The demands for an investigation come after a ProPublica story revealed that the Noem-connected Strategy Group was secretly a subcontractor on the ad campaign.
https://www.propublica.org/article/kristi-noem-dhs-strategy-group-senate-probe?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post
ICE Sent 600 Immigrant Kids to Detention in Federal Shelters This Year. It’s a New Record.
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Under a zero tolerance policy, the first Trump administration separated immigrant children from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border. New data suggests separations are happening all over the country, often after little more than a traffic stop.
https://www.propublica.org/article/ice-detentions-immigrant-kids-family-separations?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post
#News #ICE #Immigration #Children #Family #Trump #USPolitics