A Project 2025 Mastermind Now Holds the Reins of the Federal Bureaucracy by Isabela Dias
February 6, 2025
Introduction:
(Mother Jones) On Thursday evening, the US Senate voted to confirm Russell Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), a key arm of the executive branch in charge of the federal budget and agency regulations. Vought will officially return to his old job, which—as I wrote in a profile of him published last year—he sees as being the “keeper of ‘commander’s intent’” in a war to upend the federal bureaucracy.
The 53-47 vote to confirm Vought came after Democrats held the Senate floor in an overnight marathon to protest the nomination. One after another, they excoriated Trump’s pick to be head of OMB, perhaps more than any other controversial appointee.
“Of all the harmful nominees, of all the extremists that Donald Trump has elevated, of all the hard-right ideologies who have come before the Senate,” Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York said, “none of them hold a candle to Russell Vought. He is far and away the most dangerous to the American people.”
He added: “Most people have never heard of Russell Vought before, but make no mistake about it, my fellow Americans: he is the most important piece of the puzzle in Donald Trump’s second term. He will be the quarterback of White House policy.”
Describing Vought as the “godfather of the ultra-right,” Schumer called him “Project 2025 incarnate.”
Trump Administration Plans for Federal Contracts Stir Worries Across Kentucky February 10, 2025
Introduction:
(Kentucky Lattern)From farmers who have installed fencing for rotational grazing to medical researchers running million dollar laboratories, Kentuckians are worried about Trump administration disruptions to federal contract payments.
University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto on Monday said a decision announced late Friday by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) “will cost UK tens of millions of dollars annually and will hit our local and state economies.”
The NIH slashed payments to research grant recipients for so-called indirect costs such as equipment, administration and other overhead expenses. A federal judge on Monday issued a restraining order temporarily blocking the NIH plan in 22 states but not Kentucky.
Capilouto said the new policy would affect UK research in cancer, heart disease, children’s health, Alzheimer’s and opioid use disorder.
In a message sent campuswide, Capilouto said UK”s “government relations team is in Washington again this week, meeting with our congressional delegation and others to communicate how fundamentally important and serious this issue is to our community and all those we serve through discovery and healing.”
caltrek's comment: Well, sacrifices must be made so that taxes on the rich can be cut so that they can commission the building of more luxury yachts, bid up the sales price of McMansions, and bid up the costs of collector art.
As I (and others) predicted, a second Trump term will see the administration defying court orders. At the head of this judicial system is a Supreme Court that aided and abetted Trump almost every step of the way. Now, they are about to be rendered irrelevant, at least until when and if the people come to their rescue.
Judge Says Trump Admin Is Violating Order to Halt Funding Freeze by Jessica Corbett
February 10, 2025
Introduction:
(Common Dreams)U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. on Monday demanded that the Trump administration comply with his earlier order to halt a freeze on federal funding that's being challenged in multiple court cases.
McConnell, appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island by former Democratic President Barack Obama, is responsible for the case brought by Democratic attorneys general of the District of Columbia and 22 states. He is one of two judges who have issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the administration's attempted freeze.
A week after McConnell granted the TRO, the attorneys general on Friday filed a motion for enforcement of it, telling the judge that "plaintiff states and entities within the plaintiff states continue to be denied access to federal funds" and "these denials continue to cause immediate irreparable harm," putting "jobs, lives, and the social fabric of life" at risk.
Although the Trump administration claimed that it had engaged in "good-faith, diligent efforts to comply with the injunction" and called for the motion to be dismissed, McConnell wrote Monday that "the states have presented evidence in this motion that the defendants in some cases have continued to improperly freeze federal funds and refused to resume disbursement."
"The defendants now plea that they are just trying to root out fraud," the judge noted in a five-page order. "But the freezes in effect now were a result of the broad categorical order, not a specific finding of possible fraud. The broad categorical and sweeping freeze of federal funds is, as the court found, likely unconstitutional and has caused and continues to cause irreparable harm to a vast portion of this country. These pauses in funding violate the plain text of the TRO."
Ignoring Court Orders Would Make Trump a King by Pema Levy and Kierra Butler
February 12, 2025
Introduction:
(Mother Jones) There are already dozens of lawsuits across the country aimed at halting Elon Musk’s assault on the government and other illegal actions pushed by President Donald Trump’s new administration.
“If the President really did this… I just don’t see how that’s not a dictatorship.”
These include challenges to the structure of Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, to his use of a private server at the Office of Personnel Management, to his alleged access to the nation’s most sensitive payment systems, and his dismantling of the US Agency for International Development. There are challenges to Trump’s firings of civil servants, inspectors general, and independent agency commissioners, as well as his executive orders targeting birthright citizenship and the rights of trangender individuals. There are suits challenging Trump’s unconstitutional attempt to withhold funds appropriated by Congress, and others seeking to protect career FBI agents who investigated January 6.
As the cases progress, and judges have issued orders halting overreach on the part of Musk and Trump, a growing chorus on the right are urging them to ignore the courts. For constitutional and government scholars, this would be a fundamental step from democracy toward autocracy.
“If the President really did this as a categorical matter—’I’m just going to ignore any order I don’t like’—that’s basically the end,” says Martin Redish, a constitutional law professor at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law. “I just don’t see how that’s not a dictatorship. Let’s put it this way: at least the adjective in the phrase ‘constitutional democracy’ would be lost.”
Mainstream conservative thinkers agree that defying court orders would cross a constitutional Rubicon. “If the administration openly defies a court order, then I think we are in a different situation,” warned Yuval Levin, a public policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute, in an interview on Ezra Klein’s New York Times podcast where he largely argued against the conclusion that Trump and Musk are engaged in illegal or unconstitutional conduct.
Budget Committee makes $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, Food Stamps, and other social programs
“In the dead of night, House Republicans just passed out of budget committee a radical budget that will make close to a trillion dollars of social spending cuts to Medicaid and Food Stamps and other social programs.”
Trump officials fired nuclear staff not realizing they oversee the country’s weapons stockpile, sources say
Updated 8:41 PM EST, Fri February 14, 2025
Trump administration officials fired more than 300 staffers Thursday night at the National Nuclear Security Administration — the agency tasked with managing the nation’s nuclear stockpile — as part of broader Energy Department layoffs, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.
Sources told CNN the officials did not seem to know this agency oversees America’s nuclear weapons.
[...]
“Congress is freaking out because it appears DOE didn’t really realize NNSA oversees the nuclear stockpile,” one source said. “The nuclear deterrent is the backbone of American security and stability – period. For there to be any even very small holes poked even in the maintenance of that deterrent should be extremely frightening to people.”
'There's Power in Fighting Back': Court Battle Halts Purge of Consumer Agency by Jessica Corbett
February 14, 2025
Introduction:
(Common Dreams) A federal judge in Washington, D.C. announced Friday that the Trump administration has agreed to halt its mass firings at a consumer protection agency, refrain from defunding it, and retain "vast troves" of data while a legal battle plays out.
The National Treasury Employees Union, Public Citizen Litigation Group, and Gupta Wessler LLP sued on Thursday, after employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) began getting termination notices earlier this week as part of Republican President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk's purge of the federal workforce.
Reuters reported that "in court on Friday afternoon, union representatives had said they believed the government was planning to eviscerate the CFPB, possibly as soon as the same day, beginning the process of dismissing all remaining staff, canceling the agency's lease, and returning its funds to the Federal Reserve."
In a brief order, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson explained that under a deal reached at the Friday conference, the agency and acting Director Russell Vought "shall not terminate any CFPB employee, except for cause related to the specific employee's performance or conduct" nor "issue any notice of reduction-in-force to any CFPB employee."
Federal Mortgage Insurer to Lay Off Nearly Half Its Workforce
Source: Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance
The Trump administration is planning to lay off at least 40% of the workers at the federal agency that provides mortgage insurance on loans for people who otherwise wouldn’t qualify for one, according to two sources familiar with the agency’s plans.
Federal officials are preparing to cut employees at the Federal Housing Administration, the office that helps certain homebuyers secure a loan if they can’t afford a down payment or have below-average credit scores, the sources said. It also protects lenders against losses on those loans. The FHA is one of the largest mortgage insurers in the world and has insured more than 40 million home loans since 1934, according to the agency’s website.
The Trump administration cut thousands of employees in recent days, after President Donald Trump directed agency heads to do so. He told officials to focus on firing workers who “perform functions not mandated by statute,” including “diversity, equity and inclusion programs.”
The US Department of Housing and Urban Development, the parent agency for the FHA, plans to discharge 50% of its workforce, Bloomberg Law previously reported.
