USA News and Discussions

[weatheriscool]

In a two-page memo, the Office of Management and Budget ordered all federal agencies to temporarily suspend payments.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/2 ... b-00200891

One week in, the Trump administration is broadening its assault on the functions of government and shifting control of the federal purse strings further away from members of Congress.

President Donald Trump’s budget office on Monday ordered a total freeze on “all federal financial assistance” that could be targeted under his previous executive orders that pausing funding for a wide range of priorities – from domestic infrastructure and energy projects to diversity-related programs and foreign aid.

In a two-page memo obtained by POLITICO, the Office of Management and Budget announced all federal agencies would be forced to temporarily suspend payments, while making clear that Social Security and Medicare would not be affected.

“The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve,” according to the memo, which three people authenticated.

[weatheriscool]

Medicaid Payment System Turned Off

January 28, 2025 at 2:33 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 4 Comments

https://politicalwire.com/2025/01/28/me ... urned-off/

"SNIP...........

Medicaid reimbursement portals were down Tuesday in all 50 states on the heels of a funding freeze ordered by the Trump administration of federal grants and loans, CNBC reports.

[weatheriscool]

Judge pauses Trump funding freeze order until Feb. 3

A federal judge on Tuesday paused until next week the implementation of a Trump administration order that would have frozen the issuance of federal grants and loans.

Judge Loren AliKhan’s ruling during a hearing conducted on Zoom came just minutes before the freezing order was set to take effect at 5 p.m. ET.

AliKhan said her administrative stay of the order would expire at 5 p.m. on Monday unless she decides to grant a temporary restraining order as requested by plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging the Trump administration’s action.

The judge scheduled a hearing for Monday morning for arguments on the requested TRO in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/28/trump-m ... aused.html

[weatheriscool]

Trump Guts Key Aviation Safety Committee, Fires Heads Of TSA, Coast Guard

President Donald Trump moved quickly to remake the Department of Homeland Security Tuesday, firing the heads of the Transportation Security Administration and Coast Guard before their terms are up and eliminated all the members of a key aviation security advisory group.


The aviation security committee, which was mandated by Congress after the 1988 PanAm 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, will technically continue to exist but it won’t have any members to carry out the work of examining safety issues at airlines and airports.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-av ... fc12780c73

[wjfox]

[caltrek]

Trump’s Impoundment Effort May be on Its Way to Being Declared Unconstitutional
by Ian Millhiser
January 31, 2025

Introduction:

(Vox) On Friday afternoon, a federal judge in Rhode Island temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s attempt to halt a simply enormous amount of domestic federal spending. Chief Judge John McConnell Jr., who issued the order, is the second federal judge to do so.

McConnell’s order is significant not only because it puts a second court order between the Trump White House and its proposed spending cuts, but because of who McConnell cites to justify his decision: Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Republican appointed to the Supreme Court by Trump in his first term. That citation suggests Trump’s effort may be on its way to being declared unconstitutional before the Supreme Court, once this legal challenge reaches the justices.

Additional extract:

The theory that the president can simply cut off federal spending that has been appropriated by Congress is known as “impoundment,” and has long been considered unconstitutional by judges and legal scholars across the political spectrum.

Still, the current Supreme Court has a 6-3 Republican supermajority. And all six of those Republicans ruled over the summer that Trump has broad immunity from prosecution for crimes he commits using the powers of the presidency. So it’s not entirely clear whether these Republican justices will follow the consensus view.

McConnell’s order, however, quotes from a 2013 opinion by then-federal appellate Judge Kavanaugh, which rejects the idea of impoundment and even cites a 1969 Department of Justice memo written by future Chief Justice William Rehnquist that reads: “It is in our view extremely difficult to formulate a constitutional theory to justify a refusal by the President to comply with a congressional directive to spend.”

The article notes that an opinion written by Justice Roberts while he was a lawyer written in the Reagan White House expressed sentiments similar to those expressed by Judge Kavanaugh.

Read more here: https://www.vox.com/scotus/397820/supr ... oundment

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

[Vakanai]

The cruelty is, once again, the point...

[weatheriscool]

[wjfox]

This is just insane.

What possible justification...?

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Republicans move to repeal lead limits imposed by Biden-era rules

Mon 3 Feb 2025 17.07 GMT

Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration are attempting to repeal the Biden administration’s groundbreaking rules that require all the country’s lead pipes to be replaced over the next 13 years and lower the limit on lead in water.

Environmentalists expressed alarm about the moves, which, if successful, would in effect prohibit the government from ever requiring lead line replacement in the future, or lowering lead limits.

The Trump administration is also working to kill a recently implemented ban on TCE, a compound that is among the most toxic and common water pollutants, and particularly a risk on military bases.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... sure-rules

[Vakanai]

This is just insane.

What possible justification...?

1. No money spent on citizens, more saved for the oligarchy.
2. Make the water unsafe it will negatively impact poor people - a sick populace is easier to control than a healthy one.

If you remove any moral or ethical considerations out of the equation like Trump and the oligarchs and authoritarians have, there's no good reason to help us and more profit not to.

[weatheriscool]

Pam Bondi confirmed as attorney general in 54-46 vote

Source: CBS News

Washington -- The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Pam Bondi as attorney general, installing a key ally of President Trump's to take the helm of the Justice Department.

Bondi's nomination for attorney general was approved by the upper chamber 54 to 46, with one Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, joining all Republicans in voting to confirm her. She will take over as the nation's top law enforcement officer as Mr. Trump has pledged to end what he calls the weaponization of the Justice Department and threatened to target his critics.

During her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month, Bondi said she would "not politicize" the department and said "justice will be administered evenhandedly throughout this country."

"If confirmed, I will work to restore confidence and integrity to the Department of Justice and each of its components," she said. "Under my watch, the partisanship, the weaponization, will be gone. America will have one tier of justice for all."

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pam-bondi- ... y-general/

[weatheriscool]

This is just insane.

What possible justification...?

1. No money spent on citizens, more saved for the oligarchy.
2. Make the water unsafe it will negatively impact poor people - a sick populace is easier to control than a healthy one.

If you remove any moral or ethical considerations out of the equation like Trump and the oligarchs and authoritarians have, there's no good reason to help us and more profit not to.

The goal is the 18th century. That is what these idiot government asssholes want...All under the rule of the elites and rich.

1780's to be correct.

[firestar464]

Pam Bondi confirmed as attorney general in 54-46 vote

Source: CBS News

Washington -- The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Pam Bondi as attorney general, installing a key ally of President Trump's to take the helm of the Justice Department.

Bondi's nomination for attorney general was approved by the upper chamber 54 to 46, with one Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, joining all Republicans in voting to confirm her. She will take over as the nation's top law enforcement officer as Mr. Trump has pledged to end what he calls the weaponization of the Justice Department and threatened to target his critics.

During her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month, Bondi said she would "not politicize" the department and said "justice will be administered evenhandedly throughout this country."

"If confirmed, I will work to restore confidence and integrity to the Department of Justice and each of its components," she said. "Under my watch, the partisanship, the weaponization, will be gone. America will have one tier of justice for all."

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pam-bondi- ... y-general/

common Fetterman L

[wjfox]

[caltrek]

Honestly this might be the one thing that prevents mass deportation.

This was regarding the H1B visa program. Here is more on that to include the H2B visa program:

https://www.federalregister.gov/documen ... -the-h-2b

Summary

(Federal Register) DHS (Department of Homeland Security), in consultation with DOL (Department of Labor), is exercising time-limited Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 authority and increasing the total number of noncitizens who may receive an H-2B nonimmigrant visa by up to 64,716 for the entirety of FY 2025. These supplemental visas will be distributed in four allocations throughout the fiscal year. This rule reserves 20,000 of these visas for nationals of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Haiti, Colombia, Ecuador, or Costa Rica. All visas will be available only to businesses that are suffering or will suffer impending irreparable harm, as attested by the employer. In addition, DHS is again providing temporary portability flexibility.

caltrek's comment: This action was taken near the end of the Biden administration, but if the actions around the H1B are any indication they may very well be allowed to let stand or even expanded under the Trump administration.

[weatheriscool]

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

13 States To Sue Over DOGE Access To Government Payment Systems Containing Personal Data

Source: HuffPost

Democratic attorneys general in several states vowed Thursday to file a lawsuit to stop Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing federal payment systems containing Americans’ sensitive personal information.

Thirteen attorneys general, including New York’s Letitia James, said in a statement that they were taking action “in defense of our Constitution, our right to privacy, and the essential funding that individuals and communities nationwide are counting on.”

“As the richest man in the world, Elon Musk is not used to being told ‘no,’ but in our country, no one is above the law,” the statement said. “The President does not have the power to give away our private information to anyone he chooses, and he cannot cut federal payments approved by Congress.”

-snip-

Government officials and labor unions have been among those raising concerns about DOGE’s involvement with the payment system for the federal government, saying it could lead to security risks or missed payments for programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/treasury ... e29cef?rh8