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Post by iamkristinl16 on Feb 7, 2025 17:45:25 GMT
Well, I'm shocked too. Because T has been telling us for 10 years what his plans are (aided by Steve Bannon) and you guys bought it all, no questions asked. It is shocking to me that you guys turned your back on our American ethos for an administration full of garbage people, of know-nothings, of bigots, of greedy losers. Elections have consequences. I'm concerned, but not like a Susan Collins concerned--more like scared shitless. The new administration has been working nonstop to make our country less safe from the first days. You MAGAs continue to float along in your rosy alternative reality and nothing's gonna wake you up until the consequences of your actions start to affect you or those you love personally. Do I want Ebola in this country? Hell no. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, R or D. But you guys are busy hollowing out USAID, stupidly not realizing the complexities of running a government program, and what the ultimate result is going to be. It's not going to be tomorrow or even next month, but the effects of hollowing out USAID, the FBI, the CIA, the FAA, the NIH, etc. etc. etc. will have negative consequences for years. Your actions will have rained down consequences on us all, and we'll all be the worse for it. NO! Just no! You have no clue about me politically or my views on anything. Your comment is a direct reflection on your soul-to wish such a monstrous disease on this country shows us the monster within you. I view you as worse than any politician, Trump and his sidekicks included. At their worst they would not gleefully wish Ebola on this country! Are you seriously taking her comment seriously? I took that as angry sarcasm. As she said, she (and many more of us) are angry and scared about what is happening. I appreciate your posts as a different perspective, but you seem to live in a polyanna-ish place where you ignore the bad things that are happening and try to see it as good. I don't think you wish harm on people, even those who you are happy that they are getting their funding cut off in Africa, but I do think you and many others need to really look at the big picture here. |
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Just T
Drama Llama
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Post by Just T on Feb 7, 2025 17:52:54 GMT
Remember when thousands of people lost their jobs because they refused the “mandated” covid vaccine, and most were ineligible for unemployment benefits? I do. How many of them were suddenly unemployed and underinsured? It was quite a disaster for some families. I doubt anyone in the biden administration had considered the economic effects of having so many people suddenly unemployed and uninsured. I have zero sympathy. So you have sympathy and outrage for the people who lose their jobs who are democrats, but if they voted for Trump, then those people who lose their jobs must suffer. Hypocrite much? So...do you not think it is a bit hypocritical to be outraged by people who lost their job under Biden because they wouldn't take the covid vaccine, yet have no sympathy for those who are losing jobs now under your beloved Trump? And for the record, I did not in any way agree with Biden forcing people to get the vaccine or lose their jobs. I thought it was wrong, and I did feel bad for people who lost their jobs. I feel bad for all the thousands of people who have lost their jobs in the past two weeks as well as those who will lose their jobs in the future under Trump, too. I feel for anyone who suddenly finds themselves unemployed. You must be a real cold-hearted person to have zero sympathy for people who are losing their jobs. |
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Post by Merge on Feb 7, 2025 19:14:02 GMT
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Post by hopemax on Feb 7, 2025 20:11:04 GMT
I can't find it, but before I went to sleep I was reading a Bluesky thread from someone who worked with USAID, explaining the supply chain and how it benefited Americans.
Farmers: Not only the sales themselves. But with the government purchasing soy & grain, the market price for soy & grain is higher than it would be without that investment.
Truckers: Transport the product domestically.
US Airlines: Transport product from the US around the world.
There were more steps, but those are the three I remember.
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Feb 7, 2025 20:34:12 GMT
Shows how much pres Musk and FF know
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Post by aj2hall on Feb 7, 2025 21:07:33 GMT
Well, I'm shocked too. Because T has been telling us for 10 years what his plans are (aided by Steve Bannon) and you guys bought it all, no questions asked. It is shocking to me that you guys turned your back on our American ethos for an administration full of garbage people, of know-nothings, of bigots, of greedy losers. Elections have consequences. I'm concerned, but not like a Susan Collins concerned--more like scared shitless. The new administration has been working nonstop to make our country less safe from the first days. You MAGAs continue to float along in your rosy alternative reality and nothing's gonna wake you up until the consequences of your actions start to affect you or those you love personally. Do I want Ebola in this country? Hell no. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, R or D. But you guys are busy hollowing out USAID, stupidly not realizing the complexities of running a government program, and what the ultimate result is going to be. It's not going to be tomorrow or even next month, but the effects of hollowing out USAID, the FBI, the CIA, the FAA, the NIH, etc. etc. etc. will have negative consequences for years. Your actions will have rained down consequences on us all, and we'll all be the worse for it. NO! Just no! You have no clue about me politically or my views on anything. Your comment is a direct reflection on your soul-to wish such a monstrous disease on this country shows us the monster within you. I view you as worse than any politician, Trump and his sidekicks included. At their worst they would not gleefully wish Ebola on this country! I think her post was angry sarcasm, too. I don’t think she was literally wishing Ebola on anyone. Trump and Musk are monsters. They are gleefully consolidating power in the executive branch in many illegal, unconstitutional ways. They only care about money and power. They do not care about everyday Americans and will not care if Ebola spreads to the US because they stopped funding USAID. Trump did not care about the millions of Americans who died of Covid. Trump, Musk and the Republican politicians who are enabling them are the real monsters. Your previous post supported dropping USAID, taking money away from starving children, stopping medical care, stopping clean drinking water programs etc. All for a tiny tax break that will not get passed on to middle class Americans. Earlier, I responded respectfully to your post, but your post was monstrous, heartless, selfish and cruel. How is your post OK but not hers? |
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Post by crimsoncat05 on Feb 7, 2025 21:11:19 GMT
Shows how much pres Musk and FF know .. I never thought Dump was much of a 'big picture' type of thinker... but Musk, supposedly *actually* being a successful businessman, I would have thought HE was at least more a big picture guy. I guess not. (then again, I guess it depends on what the 'big picture' is that Musk is going after. And it does NOT seem like it's a successful USA / world economy. so... I guess maybe he IS looking at *A* big picture after all- just not the same one.) |
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Post by aj2hall on Feb 7, 2025 21:31:14 GMT
Regarding the misinformation about Politico heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-6-2025
MAGA is amplifying right-wing lies. Today, influencers—including Musk—claimed that USAID secretly bankrolled Politico, claiming that the media site had taken $8 million from USAID. In fact, that sum was not an annual grant, but rather years of subscriptions from across the government to Politico Pro, a pricey subscription service for data and legislative analyses for lobbyists and government officials. “Politico…has never taken a cent of government subsidies or state funding,” said the chief executive officer of its parent company. “eople are paying for… [Politico Pro] because they need the service,” he said. “It’s not subsidies, it’s capitalism.” When Representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO) joined the chorus parroting the lie, fact-checkers noted that her office is a subscriber: it paid $7,150 for a yearlong subscription starting last January. |
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Post by aj2hall on Feb 7, 2025 21:36:01 GMT
The fact that our enemies and authoritarian leaders are cheering on Trump and Musk for dissolving USAID is an indication that it’s a terrible plan with far reaching consequences. heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-6-2025The assault against the United States Agency for International Development is tangled in foreign power struggles, too. Andrew Duehren, Alan Rappeport and Theodore Schleifer of the New York Times reported today that while Trump administration officials claimed they were conducting a general review of the Treasury Department’s payments system when they sought access to it, emails show that the plan all along was to freeze payments to USAID.
Daniel Wu of the Washington Post noted today that the destruction of USAID will take billions of dollars from American farmers, as well as other businesses, and Paul Sonne of the New York Times reported today that authoritarian leaders, including those of Russia, Hungary, and El Salvador are cheering on Musk’s boast that he was “feeding USAID into the wood chipper.” USAID funding was less than 1% of the U.S. budget and focused on humanitarian assistance and healthcare for underserved populations. But it also promoted democracy. It has monitored elections in Russia, documenting extensive voting irregularities there. With the U.S. abandoning foreign aid, China can step in to fill the void. |
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dawnnikol
Prolific Pea
'A life without books is a life not lived.' Jay Kristoff
Posts: 9,460
Sept 21, 2015 18:39:25 GMT
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Post by dawnnikol on Feb 7, 2025 23:26:26 GMT
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Post by aj2hall on Feb 8, 2025 1:21:28 GMT
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Feb 8, 2025 1:45:24 GMT
Ah ha....FF objects taking land but FF wants to take Gaza, Greenland and Panama... Goes with the Musk vindictiveness toward USAID!! President Donald Trump has largely hobbled the U.S. refugee resettlement program since retaking office last month — but he gave one group of people special consideration for resettlement. On Friday, Trump signed an executive order condemning South Africa's new land expropriation law, which was designed to address the ongoing harms wrought on the country by the racist apartheid regime. The law, noted The Associated Press, "allows the government to take land in specific instances where it is not being used, or where it would be in the public interest if it is redistributed." *** Tech billionaire Elon Musk, a close adviser and benefactor to the president, notably immigrated to the U.S. from South Africa and is outspoken against the land policy. But Trump's mention of "violent attacks" on white farmers also echoes years of him, and others on the American right including Tucker Carlson, pushing white nationalist conspiracy theories that there is a plot to ethnically cleanse white people from that country. *** White Afrikaners getting to jump in line while Venezuelans are getting their TPS status revoked… Hard to think of a clearer picture!" wrote Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee email and text deputy director George Clark. "When Donald Trump ceases all refugee resettlement, but makes an explicit exemption for white supremacists, it’s time the press call him what he is: an avowed racist," wrote Democratic strategist Matt McDermott. www.rawstory.com/apartheid/ |
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Post by aj2hall on Feb 8, 2025 1:56:21 GMT
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Post by aj2hall on Feb 8, 2025 2:10:29 GMT
A little hope that not all of the Trump appointed judges are loyal to him and corrupt. It’s so blatantly obvious, even a Trump appointed judge recognizes that Trump & Musk do not have the power or authority to fire USAiD workers. Hopefully, it’s not too little, too late www.nytimes.com/live/2025/02/07/us/trump-administration-updates#judge-will-freeze-elements-of-trump-plan-to-shut-down-usaid
A federal judge on Friday said he would order the Trump administration to halt for now some elements of its attempt to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Judge Carl Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, a 2019 Trump appointee, said he would issue a temporary restraining order pausing the imminent administrative leave of 2,200 U.S.A.I.D. employees and a plan to withdraw nearly all of the agency’s overseas workers within 30 days.
He was ruling on a lawsuit filed on behalf of the largest union representing federal workers and the union that represents foreign service officers. Judge Nichols said the unions had established that the employees affected by the leave and withdrawal orders would suffer “irreparable harm.”
Judge Nichols said the ordered pause would be brief and allow for further, “expedited” arguments to determine the legality of the administration’s actions, but did not immediately schedule another hearing. He added that he was still considering whether to order the reinstatement of 500 agency employees already on administrative leave. |
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Post by aj2hall on Feb 8, 2025 17:04:03 GMT
The extent of the damage caused by Trump and Musk is unimaginable and horrific. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/08/world/africa/usaid-africa-trump-musk.html‘We Are in Disbelief’: Africa Reels as U.S. Aid Agency Is Dismantled
The collapse of U.S.A.I.D. at the hands of President Trump and Elon Musk is already leaving gaping holes in vital health care and other services that millions of Africans rely on for their survival.
For decades, sub-Saharan Africa was a singular focus of American foreign aid. The continent received over $8 billion a year, money that was used to feed starving children, supply lifesaving drugs and provide wartime humanitarian assistance.
In a few short weeks, President Trump and the South African-born billionaire Elon Musk have burned much of that work to the ground, vowing to completely gut the U.S. Agency for International Development.
As the true scale of the fallout comes into view, African governments are wondering how to fill gaping holes left in vital services, like health care and education, that until recent weeks were funded by the United States. Aid groups and United Nations bodies that feed the starving or house refugees have seen their budgets slashed in half, or worse.
By far the greatest price is being paid by ordinary Africans, millions of whom rely on American aid for their survival. But the consequences are also reverberating across an aid sector that, for better or worse, has been a pillar of Western engagement with Africa for over six decades. With the collapse of U.S.A.I.D., that entire model is badly shaken.
In Kenya alone, at least 40,000 health care workers will lose their jobs, U.S.A.I.D. officials say. On Friday, several U.N. agencies that depend on American funding began to furlough part of their staff. The United States also provides most of the funding for two large refugee camps in northern Kenya that house 700,000 people from at least 19 countries.
Ethiopia’s health ministry has fired 5,000 health care professionals who had been recruited under American funding, according to an official notification obtained by The New York Times.
The most pressing challenge for many governments is not to replace the American staff members or money, but to save American-built health systems that are rapidly crumbling to the ground, said Ken O. Opalo, a Kenyan political scientist at Georgetown University in Washington
Kenya, for instance, has enough drugs to treat people with H.I.V. for over a year, Mr. Opalo said. “But the nurses and doctors to treat them are being let go, and the clinics are closing.”
Announcements by Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and acting head of U.S.A.I.D., that emergency food and lifesaving aid would be exempted from the administration’s cuts were initially welcomed by employees. But, officials said, it turned out to be largely a mirage. Despite the promise of waivers, many have found it impossible to obtain one. |
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Post by aj2hall on Feb 9, 2025 16:18:55 GMT
heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-7-2024-144Senator Angus King (I-ME) looked at USAID and said: “The Constitution does not give to the President or his designee the power to extinguish a statutorily established agency. I can think of no greater violation of the strictures of the Constitution or usurpation of the power of this body. None. I can think of none. Shouldn't this be a red line?”
Trump’s “executive order freezing funding…selectively, for programs the administration doesn't like or understand” is, King said, “a fundamental violation of the whole idea of the Constitution, the separation of powers.” King said his “office is hearing calls every day, we can hardly handle the volume. This again, to underline, is a frontal assault of our power, your power, the power to decide where public funds should be spent. Isn't this an obvious red line? Isn't this an obvious limit?”
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Post by aj2hall on Feb 9, 2025 16:24:38 GMT
Some of the disinformation on USAID is coming from Russia and is being amplified by Trump and Musk. There are so many red flags about the dismantling of USAID and so many reasons why it’s a terrible idea, unconstitutional, illegal, immoral, inhumane and cruel. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/business/usaid-conspiracy-theories-disinformation.html?smid=url-share
Falsehoods Fuel the Right-Wing Crusade Against U.S.A.I.D.
As the Trump administration works to dismantle the aid agency, right-wing influencers have flooded the internet with falsehoods about its work.
The video falsely claiming that the United States Agency for International Development paid Ben Stiller, Angelina Jolie and other actors millions of dollars to travel to Ukraine appeared to be a clip from E!News, though it never appeared on the entertainment channel.
In fact, the video first surfaced on X in a post from an account that researchers have said spreads Russian disinformation.
Within hours it drew the attention of Elon Musk, who reposted it. So did President Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr
On Sunday Mr. Musk called it “a criminal organization,” without explaining the basis for such an accusation.
“He’s exploiting ignorance about the way government works, and the lack of oversight over anything he’s doing,” said Mike Rothschild, a disinformation researcher and author of “Jewish Space Lasers,” a book about conspiracy theories. “All of it is incredibly dangerous, and happening right in front of us.”
The flurry of attacks also underscored once again how much Republican views have increasingly converged with propaganda emanating from the Kremlin or with narratives aligned with its international goals, especially on Mr. Musk’s platform. The false video about the celebrities appeared to be the work of an influence campaign that has produced dozens of similar fakes about Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub.
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Feb 10, 2025 4:40:58 GMT
How quickly they abandon their support.... youtu.be/BDW5puscZW0?si=Y2O0GpDChKqDIcLdPresident Donald Trump's national security advisor Mike Waltz was put on the defensive Sunday about a government agency he once supported. Waltz appeared on "Meet The Press" where host Kristen Welker asked about the impact of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) slashing USAID's staff of 10,000 down to mere hundreds. *** Welker continued, "You know...you used to support parts of USAID's mission. As a member of Congress, you sponsored legislation for USAID to expand girls' access to education worldwide, which you said was, quote, 'Essential to our national security.' Is foreign aid vital to the nation's national security?" www.rawstory.com/trump-mike-waltz-usaid/ |
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cindosha
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,118
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Post by cindosha on Feb 10, 2025 13:28:07 GMT
Remember when thousands of people lost their jobs because they refused the “mandated” covid vaccine, and most were ineligible for unemployment benefits? I do. How many of them were suddenly unemployed and underinsured? It was quite a disaster for some families. I doubt anyone in the biden administration had considered the economic effects of having so many people suddenly unemployed and uninsured. I have zero sympathy. So you have sympathy and outrage for the people who lose their jobs who are democrats, but if they voted for Trump, then those people who lose their jobs must suffer. Hypocrite much? So...do you not think it is a bit hypocritical to be outraged by people who lost their job under Biden because they wouldn't take the covid vaccine, yet have no sympathy for those who are losing jobs now under your beloved Trump? And for the record, I did not in any way agree with Biden forcing people to get the vaccine or lose their jobs. I thought it was wrong, and I did feel bad for people who lost their jobs. I feel bad for all the thousands of people who have lost their jobs in the past two weeks as well as those who will lose their jobs in the future under Trump, too. I feel for anyone who suddenly finds themselves unemployed. You must be a real cold-hearted person to have zero sympathy for people who are losing their jobs. I guess you didn’t catch the irony. The cold hearted people were the ones here reveling with unbridled glee in the firing of thousands who lost their jobs because they didn’t need and wouldn’t take an experimental vax. Many of those fired for not taking the vax were essential workers and military. Many of the ones losing their jobs now are part of an unessential and bloated federal workforce. Big difference. |
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Post by aj2hall on Feb 10, 2025 21:15:06 GMT
I guess your definition of essential and mine are different. In my opinion, health care workers, engineers and other people providing clean drinking water, medicine and health care are essential. As are the employees at the IRS that process your taxes, people in the social security administration that process payments, health care workers at the VA, postal carriers, air traffic controllers, TSA agents etc. Career civil servants are not the deep state, evil or anything else Trump & Fox News claim. They are hard working Americans, many of whom took a lower paying job in the government to help people. Perhaps intentionally, you're missing the bigger point that Trump and Musk do not have the authority to just stop funding programs that were approved by Congress. heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-30-2025?utm_source=publication-searchIt seems that Musk and the technology billionaires want to smash the government to enable their futuristic visions, and Christian Nationalists like Russell Vought want to smash it to replace it with religious rule. Trump wants to smash it for money and power. But in the first two weeks of the new administration, their enthusiasm for breaking things has produced what Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo—even before today’s frantic attempt to blame Democrats for the air tragedy—called “a fairly epic face plant.”
heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-28-2025?utm_source=publication-search
On Monday, January 27, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued to agency heads guidance for how to implement what was, in Trump’s first term, known as “Schedule F,” a plan to replace the nonpartisan civil servant system established in 1883 with people loyal to Trump. As soon as he took office, former president Joe Biden rescinded Schedule F, but it has come back in Trump’s second term as “Schedule Policy/Career.”
The plan strips tens of thousands of federal workers of their civil service protections. Don Kettl of the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy told Erich Wagner of Government Executive that the new rules say “the responsibility of people in the executive branch is to do what the president says, as he decides it should be done, and anyone who doesn't is subject to firing…. It’s a flat-out assertion of presidential authority under Article II [of the Constitution] that I’ve never seen put quite so broadly.”
Today, the Trump administration sent an email blast titled “Fork in the Road” to federal workers offering to let them resign and keep their pay until September, a transparent attempt to clear places for loyalists. Judd Legum of Popular Information noted that this sure looked like Elon Musk was “spiking the ball,” as this was the same subject line he sent to Twitter employees when he bought the company. Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo looked at the buyout proposal and noted that “zero legal authority exists to do this.”
Last night, legal commentator Joyce White Vance detailed the Trump administration’s attacks on the independence of the Department of Justice. On Monday, Trump’s acting attorney general fired more than a dozen lawyers who worked on the criminal prosecutions of now-president Trump, after reassigning many more. In a statement, an official for the department said that the acting attorney general “does not trust these officials to assist in faithfully implementing the President’s agenda.” In a masterpiece of gaslighting, the statement added: “This action is consistent with the mission of ending the weaponization of government.”
Vance points out that “n administration can’t fire career federal prosecutors based on their perceived political loyalties.” She continues: “The real witch hunt is here. And it’s a warning to all other federal employees to mind their loyalty if they want to keep their jobs. That’s the point. Trump knows he can’t lawfully fire these people in this manner. He wants to make the point that he’s willing to do it, in hopes others will stay in line.”
While strafing the independent civil service, the Justice Department, and the military, the administration is also working to strengthen the hand of the president. Over the weekend, Trump openly broke a law passed by Congress in 2022 to limit his ability to fire inspectors general, and when met with shrugs by Republican enablers, the administration moved to bigger power grabs.
Georgetown University Law Center professor Josh Chafetz wrote: “There is simply no plausible argument that the president has the constitutional authority to refuse to spend appropriated funds because he doesn’t like how the money is being spent…. And it's hard to think of anything more destructive of our constitutional order than a claim that a president can either spend funds that have not been appropriated or refuse to spend funds that have.”
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Post by iamkristinl16 on Feb 10, 2025 21:18:07 GMT
So...do you not think it is a bit hypocritical to be outraged by people who lost their job under Biden because they wouldn't take the covid vaccine, yet have no sympathy for those who are losing jobs now under your beloved Trump? And for the record, I did not in any way agree with Biden forcing people to get the vaccine or lose their jobs. I thought it was wrong, and I did feel bad for people who lost their jobs. I feel bad for all the thousands of people who have lost their jobs in the past two weeks as well as those who will lose their jobs in the future under Trump, too. I feel for anyone who suddenly finds themselves unemployed. You must be a real cold-hearted person to have zero sympathy for people who are losing their jobs. I guess you didn’t catch the irony. The cold hearted people were the ones here reveling with unbridled glee in the firing of thousands who lost their jobs because they didn’t need and wouldn’t take an experimental vax. Many of those fired for not taking the vax were essential workers and military. Many of the ones losing their jobs now are part of an unessential and bloated federal workforce. Big difference. Who was gleeful about people losing their jobs for not taking Covid vaccines? Even if you agree with the mandate, I don’t know many people who were happy about the whole situation. |
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Post by aj2hall on Feb 10, 2025 21:29:05 GMT
Once again, in court, Trump and his lawyers don’t have actual facts to back up his claims. www.politico.com/news/2025/02/07/judge-blocks-trump-administration-plan-usaid-workers-leave-00203205Nichols noted that despite Trump’s claim of massive “corruption and fraud” in the agency, government lawyers had no support for that argument in court. Aside from that assertion, the judge said, the administration was unable to explain “what harm would befall the government if it could not immediately place on administrative leave the more than 2000 employees in question.”heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-9-2025Right now, the Republicans hold control of the House of Representatives, the Senate, the presidency, and the Supreme Court. They have the power to change any laws they want to change according to the formula Americans have used since 1789 when the Constitution went into effect.
But they are not doing that. Instead, officials in the Trump administration, as well as billionaire Elon Musk— who put $290 million into electing Trump and Republicans, and whose actual role in the government remains unclear— are making unilateral changes to programs established by Congress. Through executive orders and announcements from Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” they have sidelined Congress, and Republicans are largely mum about the seizure of their power.
The Republicans have the power to make the changes they want through the exercise of their constitutional power, but they are not doing so. This seems in part because Trump and his MAGA supporters want to establish the idea that the president cannot be checked. And this dovetails with the fact they are fully aware that most Americans oppose their plans. Voters were so opposed to the plan outlined in Project 2025—the plan now in operation—that Trump ran from it during the campaign. Popular support for Musk’s participation in the government has plummeted as well. A poll from The Economist/YouGov released February 5 says that only 13% of adult Americans want him to have “a lot” of influence, while 96% of respondents said that jobs and the economy were important to them and 41% said they thought the economy was getting worse.
Trump’s MAGA Republicans know they cannot get the extreme changes they wanted through Congress, so they are, instead, dictating them. And Musk began his focus at the Treasury, establishing control over the payment system that manages the money American taxpayers pay to our government.
Musk and MAGA officials claim they are combating waste and fraud, but in fact, when Judge Carl Nichols stopped Trump from shutting down USAID, he specifically said that government lawyers had offered no support for that argument in court. Indeed, the U.S. government already has the Government Accountability Office (GAO), an independent, nonpartisan agency that audits, evaluates and investigates government programs for Congress. In 2023 the GAO returned about $84 for every $1 invested in it, in addition to suggesting improvements across the government.
Musk and Trump appear to be concentrating the extraordinary wealth of the American people, along with the power that wealth brings, into their own hands, for their own ends. |
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Feb 11, 2025 2:29:41 GMT
Sounds just like the 60 cases that were presented to fight against the 2020 election. No evidence yet again!!! |
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Feb 11, 2025 2:49:34 GMT
What gall they have!! Making misrepresentation to a court!!! Not little ones either. If any one of u did that, we would be looking out through bars!!! President Donald Trump's Justice Department admitted to making multiple factual misrepresentations to a federal judge overseeing the legal battle over his authority to dismantle the U.S. Agency for Internal Development, reported Politico's Kyle Cheney. Trump, bolstered by his ally and benefactor, tech billionaire Elon Musk, has moved to suspend most of the staff of the critical foreign aid agency, and bring what's left of it under the umbrella of the State Department — which was immediately challenged in court as USAID is an agency authorized by Congress. Yet in a new filing in federal court, Justice Department attorneys conceded two major false claims previously stated during the dispute."DOJ acknowledges making two significant errors during a court hearing last week on efforts to dismantle USAID," noted Cheney. First, "It said only 500 employees had been placed on leave. Actual number was 2,140," and secondly, they said "only future contracts were stopped. Existing contracts were also stopped."www.rawstory.com/trump-doj-2671129288/ |
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Post by iamkristinl16 on Feb 11, 2025 3:57:09 GMT
I don’t agree with anything that they are doing with usaid, but the least they could do is give a notice and make sure all of the food and supplies that have already been paid for were able to be disbursed. What good does it do to have food and medicine rotting in ports?
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Post by aj2hall on Feb 11, 2025 4:25:55 GMT
I don’t agree with anything that they are doing with usaid, but the least they could do is give a notice and make sure all of the food and supplies that have already been paid for were able to be disbursed. What good does it do to have food and medicine rotting in ports? Trump & Musk are claiming their intention is to eliminate waste - wasting resources that have already been purchased is the exact opposite of that. |
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Post by aj2hall on Feb 11, 2025 4:34:31 GMT
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/08/us/politics/usaid-funding-trump-fact-check.html
According to a 2024 analysis by the Congressional Research Service, about two-thirds of U.S.A.I.D.’s funding from fiscal year 2013 to fiscal year 2022 went to project-based assistance, about 19 percent toward contributions to public international organizations like the World Food Program and the International Committee of the Red Cross and 1.9 percent in contributions to the budgets of foreign governments. About 7.7 percent was spent on administrative costs.
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Post by aj2hall on Mar 4, 2025 12:22:03 GMT
heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/march-3-2025On Sunday, Nicholas Enrich, the acting assistant administrator for global health at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) released a series of memos he and other senior career officials had written, recording in detail how the cuts to “lifesaving humanitarian assistance” at the agency will lead to “preventable death” and make the U.S. less safe. The cuts will “no doubt result in preventable death, destabilization, and threats to national security on a massive scale,” one memo read.
Enrich estimated that without USAID intervention, more than 16 million pregnant women and more than 11 million newborns would not get medical care; more than 14 million children would not get care for pneumonia and diarrhea (among the top causes of preventable deaths for children under the age of 5); 200,000 children would be paralyzed with polio; and 1 million children would not be treated for severe acute malnutrition. There would be an additional 12.5 million or more cases of malaria this year, meaning 71,000 to 166,000 deaths; a 28–32% increase in tuberculosis; as many as 775 million cases of avian flu; 2.3 million additional deaths a year in children who could not be vaccinated against diseases; additional cases of Ebola and mpox. The higher rates of illness will take a toll on economic development in developing countries, and both the diseases and the economic stagnation will spill over into the United States.
Although Secretary of State Marco Rubio promised to create a system for waivers to protect that lifesaving aid, the cuts appear random and the system for reversing them remains unworkable. The programs remain shuttered. Enrich blamed "political leadership at USAID, the Department of State, and DOGE, who have created and continue to create intentional and/or unintentional obstacles that have wholly prevented implementation."
On Sunday, Enrich sent another memo to staff, thanking them for their work and telling them he had been placed on “administrative leave, effective immediately.”
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Post by aj2hall on Mar 5, 2025 19:26:17 GMT
This is surprising but good news. I'm not sure this is the final word, though www.nytimes.com/live/2025/03/05/us/trump-news#foreign-aid-supreme-court-trumpThe Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected President Trump’s emergency request to freeze nearly $2 billion in foreign aid in a closely divided decision indicating that the justices will subject his efforts to reshape the government to close scrutiny.
The court’s brief order was unsigned, which is typical when the justices act on emergency applications. It said only that the trial judge, who had ordered the government to resume payments, “should clarify what obligations the government must fulfill.”
But the ruling represented one of the court’s first moves in response to the flurry of litigation filed in response to Mr. Trump’s efforts to slash government spending and take complete control of the executive branch. The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the three liberal members to form a majority. |
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Mar 6, 2025 0:21:25 GMT
UPDATE:
Explanation of the SCOTUS ruling, they sent the case back to the district judge to make a decision of how, IF or when the payments are to be made.
This is what I think I heard and could be wrong....
Alito in his awful dissent stated that no monies were to be released or paid.
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ORIGINAL POST:
As far as I know once the SCOTUS makes a ruling it is final.
Had they wanted to just delay it would be pending a decision...
Of course we have had the discussion about enforcement..
ETA: Speaks oh so well, not, for those who dissented . Good christians who use their religion to make their decisions on abortion, birth control etc... taking away womens' rights!!!
Pro-birth, let those moms and babies die, starve, suffer diseases, some deadly...
Ebola is coming here.
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