USA News and Discussions

[Vakanai]

The Bidens want back in

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-bi ... rcna196956

So far, Biden's overture seems to have fallen flat. Democrats find themselves adrift, casting about for a compelling messenger.

bernie

Problem with Bernie is it would force the liberal party to actually, you know, pursue economic equality and progressivism by standing up to our rising oligarch class, and they're sadly just not willing to do that.

[firestar464]

Hopefully Schumer's angered Dems and primary voters enough.

[weatheriscool]

US tourism industry faces drop-off as immigration agenda deters travellers

Source: Guardian

Even before the most recent spate of detentions, forecast visits to the country this year had been revised downward from a projected 5% rise to a 9% decrease by Tourism Economics, an industry monitoring group, which cited “polarising Trump Administration policies and rhetoric”, particularly around tariffs.

It predicted that the drop-off would lead to a $64bn shortfall in the US tourist trade.

“There’s been a dramatic shift in our outlook,” said Adam Sacks, the president of Tourism Economics, told the Washington Post. “You’re looking at a much weaker economic engine than what otherwise would’ve been, not just because of tariffs, but the rhetoric and condescending tone around it.”

The decline has been most pronounced from neighbouring Canada, which Trump has menaced with crippling tariffs and repeatedly threatened to annex outright. The number of Canadians returning by road from the US fell by 23% in February, year on year, while air traffic fell 13% on a year earlier, according to Canadian government statistics.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... on-arrests

[weatheriscool]

The Bidens want back in

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-bi ... rcna196956

So far, Biden's overture seems to have fallen flat. Democrats find themselves adrift, casting about for a compelling messenger.

bernie

Problem with Bernie is it would force the liberal party to actually, you know, pursue economic equality and progressivism by standing up to our rising oligarch class, and they're sadly just not willing to do that.

And a large part of that is focusing on the American worker instead of letting corporations use cheap illegal labor. They'd have to stop illegal immigration and punish companies that don't follow labor laws. There's a reason why people vote for trump and this is a big part of it...Don't get me wrong, Trump is a loserterian that hates government and this shit is all about letting the rich do what ever the f*ck they wish but his campaign message is quite the opposite.

[firestar464]

Improve processing for asylum seekers+ fix wealth inequality

[weatheriscool]

IRS Predicts DOGE Lost Half a Trillion Dollars for the USA

Source: Talking Points Memo

March 22, 2025 8:30 p.m.

The Post reports today that the IRS’s internal projections estimate that the DOGE-driven disruptions to the IRS since the inauguration are on track to have reduced tax receipts by more than $500 billion by April 15th.

This, to be clear, is not a final tally. It’s not April 15th yet. It’s a projection based on historical data, the number of people who’ve filed, paid owed amounts of tax etc.

It’s worth taking a moment to put this number into some context in case half a trillion dollars doesn’t do it for you.

Non-defense discretionary spending is the cost to fund the US government once you take out mandatory spending (mostly Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid) and the cost of the US military. For 2023 that number was $917 billion. So that’s most of the stuff we think of as the government, apart from those payment programs and the military.

Read more: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/ir ... or-the-usa

[firestar464]

The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans

https://archive.ph/5RXO0

[firestar464]

Rolling Stone: Dems Slam Trump Intel Chiefs to Their Faces Over Group Chat Fiasco

https://archive.ph/2cNtM

[firestar464]

[firestar464]

Trump on war plans group chat: ‘It’s just something that can happen’

https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... an-happen/

[firestar464]

Supreme Court upholds Biden regulations on 'ghost gun' kits

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/suprem ... rcna180991

[firestar464]

Here Are the Attack Plans That Trump’s Advisers Shared on Signal

https://archive.ph/iod9d

[weatheriscool]

Trump Administration Abruptly Cuts Billions From State Health Services
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/26/heal ... -cuts.html

No paywall link
https://archive.li/WlgYB

The Department of Health and Human Services has abruptly canceled more than $12 billion in federal grants to states that were being used for tracking infectious diseases, mental health services, addiction treatment and other urgent health issues.

The cuts are likely to further hamstring state health departments, which are already underfunded and struggling with competing demands from chronic diseases, resurgent infections like syphilis and emerging threats like bird flu.

State health departments began receiving notices on Monday evening that the funds, which were allocated during the Covid-19 pandemic, were being terminated, effective immediately.
“No additional activities can be conducted, and no additional costs may be incurred, as it relates to these funds,” the notices said.

For some, the effect was immediate.

In Lubbock, Texas, public health officials have received orders to stop work supported by three grants that helped fund the response to the widening measles outbreak there, according to Katherine Wells, the city’s director of public health.

[weatheriscool]

Trump administration spending freeze will remain blocked, US appeals court says

(Reuters) -A court order blocking President Donald Trump's freeze on trillions of dollars in government financial assistance will remain in place for now, a federal appeals court said on Wednesday.

The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit leaves in place a lower court order blocking Trump's freeze on $3 trillion in federal grants, loans and other financial aid while the government appeals.

The ruling by the court in Boston is the first time an appeals court has weighed in on the legal merits of the spending freeze, one of several marquee Trump policies held up by litigation.

U.S. District Judge John McConnell issued an injunction blocking the freeze on March 6, saying the Trump administration had overstepped its authority.

In its 48-page decision Wednesday, a panel of three appeals court judges unanimously rejected the administration’s argument that McConnell's ruling was too broad.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-admini ... 02897.html

[firestar464]

Social Security Administration curtails in-person requirement to prove identity

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2025/03 ... 743038652/

[firestar464]

What is ICE doing in Houston? Everything we know about deportation operations across the region

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/h ... 215955.php

Republicans move to defund, dismantle Corporation for Public Broadcasting

https://san.com/cc/republicans-move-to- ... adcasting/

Democrats made a joke of some of the accusations against PBS and its iconic shows like Sesame Street.

“The American people want to know: is Elmo now, or has he ever been a member of the communist party of the United States. Yes or no,” Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., asked Kerger.

“No,” Kerger said.

“Are you sure Ms. Kerger because he’s obviously a red,” Garcia responded sarcastically.

“He also has a very dangerous message about sharing and helping each other. He’s indoctrinating our kids that sharing is caring,” Garcia continued. “[Republicans] and [Greene] should drop this attempt to silence media voices they don’t like.”

[firestar464]

[weatheriscool]

DOGE Plans to Rebuild SSA Codebase In Months, Risking Benefits and System Collapse

Source: Wired

Social Security systems contain tens of millions of lines of code written in COBOL, an archaic programming language. Safely rewriting that code would take years—DOGE wants it done in months.

The so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is starting to put together a team to migrate the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) computer systems entirely off one of its oldest programming languages in a matter of months, potentially putting the integrity of the system—and the benefits on which tens of millions of Americans rely—at risk.

The project is being organized by Elon Musk lieutenant Steve Davis, multiple sources who were not given permission to talk to the media tell WIRED, and aims to migrate all SSA systems off COBOL, one of the first common business-oriented programming languages, and onto a more modern replacement like Java within a scheduled tight timeframe of a few months.

Under any circumstances, a migration of this size and scale would be a massive undertaking, experts tell WIRED, but the expedited deadline runs the risk of obstructing payments to the more than 65 million people in the US currently receiving Social Security benefits.

“Of course one of the big risks is not underpayment or overpayment per se but [it’s also] not paying someone at all and not knowing about it. The invisible errors and omissions,” an SSA technologist tells WIRED.

Read more: https://www.wired.com/story/doge-rebuil ... -benefits/

[firestar464]

The Cut- A Disturbing Advance in Fetal Personhood

https://archive.ph/5bvqW

[wjfox]