The OFFICIAL "This Country Is A Flaming Bag Of Shit And Fuck You Bitches That Voted For Trump" Thread

[Mad Genius]

US stock market loses $4 trillion in value as Trump plows ahead on tariffs​

By Lewis Krauskopf and Saqib Iqbal Ahmed
March 10, 20256:10 PM CDTUpdated 42 min ago






Monday's major selloff followed a weekend interview with President Donald Trump in which he would not rule out the possibility of a U.S. recession.



Wall Street ends sharply lower as recession fears loom

• Summary
• Companies

• S&P 500 down over 8% from Feb 19 all-time high
• Nasdaq confirmed 10% correction from its Dec peak last week
• S&P 500 P/E moderates but still high vs historical average
• Delta Air Lines cuts forecast on growing economic uncertainty
• Tesla loses more than $125 bln in value in one day

NEW YORK, March 10 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s tariffs have spooked investors, with fears of an economic downturn driving a stock market sell-off that has wiped out $4 trillion from the S&P 500’s peak last month, when Wall Street was cheering much of Trump's agenda.
A barrage of new Trump policies has increased uncertainty for businesses, consumers and investors, notably back-and-forth tariff moves against major trading partners like Canada, Mexico and China.
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"We've seen clearly a big sentiment shift," said Ayako Yoshioka, senior investment strategist at Wealth Enhancement. "A lot of what has worked is not working now."
The stock market selloff deepened on Monday. The benchmark S&P 500 (.SPX), opens new tab fell 2.7%, its biggest daily drop of the year. The Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC), opens new tab slid 4%, its largest one-day decline since September 2022.
The S&P 500 on Monday closed down 8.6% from its February 19 record high, shedding over $4 trillion in market value since then and nearing a 10% decline that would represent a correction for the index. The tech-heavy Nasdaq ended Thursday down more than 10% from its December high.
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Trump over the weekend declined to predict whether the U.S. could face a recession as investors worried about the impact of his trade policy.
"The amount of uncertainty that has been created by the tariff wars with regard to Canada, Mexico and Europe, is causing boards and C-suites to reconsider the pathway forward," Peter Orszag, CEO of Lazard, speaking at the CERAWeek conference in Houston.
"People can understand ongoing tensions with China, but the Canada, Mexico, and Europe part is confusing. Unless that gets resolved over the next month or so, this could do real damage to the economic prospects of the US and M&A activity," Orszag said.
Delta Air Lines (DAL.N), opens new tab on Monday slashed its first-quarter profit estimates by half, sending its shares down 14% in aftermarket action. CEO Ed Bastian blamed heightened U.S. economic uncertainty.

Investors are also watching whether lawmakers can pass a funding bill to avert a partial federal government shutdown. A U.S. report on inflation looms on Wednesday.
"The Trump administration seems a little more accepting of the idea that they're OK with the market falling, and they're potentially even OK with a recession in order to exact their broader goals," said Ross Mayfield, investment strategist at Baird. "I think that's a big wake up call for Wall Street."

The percentage of total corporate equities and mutual fund shares that are owned by the bottom 50% of the U.S. population, ranked by wealth, stands at about 1%, while the same measure for the top 10% of the population by wealth stood at 87%, according to Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis data as of July 2024.
The S&P 500 tallied back-to-back gains of over 20% in 2023 and 2024, led by megacap technology and tech-related stocks such as Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab and Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab that have struggled so far in 2025, dragging major indexes.
On Monday, the S&P 500's technology sector (.SPLRCT), opens new tab dropped 4.3%, while Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab and Nvidia both fell about 5%. Tesla tumbled 15%, shedding about $125 billion in value.

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., February 12, 2025. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
Other risk assets were also punished, with bitcoin dropping 5%.
Some defensive areas of the market held up better, with the utilities sector (.SPLRCU), opens new tab logging a 1% daily gain. Safe-haven U.S. government debt saw more demand, with benchmark 10-year Treasury yields, which move inversely to prices, down to about 4.22%.

INVESTOR UNEASE​

The S&P 500 has given up all gains recorded since Trump's November 5 election, and it is down nearly 3% in that time. Hedge funds reduced exposure to stocks on Friday at the largest amount in more than two years, according to a Goldman Sachs note released on Monday.
Investors had expressed optimism that Trump's expected pro-growth agenda including tax cuts and deregulation would benefit stocks, but uncertainty over tariffs and other changes including federal workforce cuts, has dampened sentiment.
"It was the overwhelming consensus that everything was going to be this great environment once President Trump came into office," said Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading.
"Every time you have structural change you're going to have uncertainty and you're going to have friction," O'Rourke said. "It's understandable people are starting to be a little concerned and starting to take profits."
Even with the recent selloff, stock market valuations remain significantly above historic averages. The S&P 500 as of Friday was at just above 21 times earnings estimates for the next year, compared to its long-term average forward P/E of 15.8, according to LSEG Datastream.
"Many people have been worried about elevated valuations among U.S. equities for some time and looking for the catalyst for a market correction," said Dan Coatsworth, investment analyst at AJ Bell. "A combination of concerns about a trade war, geopolitical tensions and an uncertain economic outlook could be that catalyst."

Bar chart showing The percentage of total corporate equities and mutual fund shares that are owned by people of different wealth.
Investors' equity positioning has fallen in recent weeks, dipping to slightly underweight for the first time since briefly hitting that level in August, Deutsche Bank analysts said in a note on Friday.
A further retreat to the bottom of the historic range for equities weighting, as seen during Trump's U.S.-China trade war in 2018-2019, could drag the S&P 500 to as low as 5,300, or down another 5.5% from current levels, they added.
In another sign of growing investor unease, the Cboe Volatility index (.VIX), opens new tab on Monday reached its highest closing level since August.
The administration is "still trying to figure out how to define a win politically, economically, and what is the right timeframe," said Edward Al-Hussainy, senior interest rate and currency analyst at Columbia Threadneedle Investments. "And until they do that, it's going to be like this every week."
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Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf; additional reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed, Davide Barbuscia and Caroline Valetkevitch in New York and Lisa Pauline Mattackal and Manya Saini in Bengaluru; editing by Megan Davies, Christina Fincher, Cynthia Osterman and David Gregorio

 

[Mad Genius]

 

[Mad Genius]

Tulsi Gabbard pulls security clearances for top Biden officials and those who went after Trump​

In addition to former Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan, clearances were also revoked for the New York AG and the Manhattan DA.

Tulsi Gabbard testifies at her confirmation hearing to be director of national intelligence before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Jan. 30.Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images file

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March 10, 2025, 7:39 PM CDT
By Dan De Luce
National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard said Monday she has stripped security clearances from dozens of former national security officials, the Manhattan district attorney who secured a felony conviction against Donald Trump and a lawyer who represented a government whistleblower who triggered the first impeachment case against Trump.
The decision is the latest example of the Trump administration’s unprecedented use of security clearances to go after perceived political opponents.

Gabbard’s move, announced on X, followed up on an executive order Trump issued shortly after his inauguration to a second term as president in January, which called for security clearances to be revoked for 49 former national security officials. The ex-officials signed a letter more than four years ago suggesting Russia might have played a role in amplifying allegations about Biden’s son Hunter as part of a wider effort to influence the outcome of the 2020 election.
In his executive order, Trump accused the letter’s signers of “misleading and inappropriate political coordination” with Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.
Trump’s order also called on the director of national intelligence to review the security clearances of others in and outside government who engaged in “inappropriate activity” related to the letter. The former senior officials have repeatedly denied Trump’s claim.
Gabbard said she had revoked security clearances and barred access to classified information for Antony Blinken, the secretary of state in the Biden administration; Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser; and Lisa Monaco, who oversaw prosecutions against Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
In keeping with a previous vow by Trump, Gabbard said the daily intelligence briefing for the president would not be shared with Biden.
Traditionally, the presidential daily briefing has been shared with former presidents, but Biden suspended the practice for Trump.
Gabbard also canceled the security clearance for New York Attorney General Letitia James, who won a civil fraud judgment against Trump last year. In that case, a judge found that Trump defrauded banks by inflating his net worth in financial statements. Gabbard also revoked the security clearance of Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who secured a conviction against Trump over a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to an adult film actor who said the two had sex.
Under Gabbard’s action, Mark Zaid, a lawyer who has represented whistleblowers in the intelligence community for years, was stripped of his security clearance. Zaid represented an intelligence officer who filed a whistleblower complaint to Congress in 2019 over a phone call during Trump’s first term, in which he appeared to press Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to take actions to help Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign. The complaint prompted an impeachment inquiry in the House. Trump was formally impeached by the House and acquitted by the Senate.

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Zaid said that under the law, he was entitled to due process over his security clearance.
“Not surprisingly, as I would expect in an authoritarian state, I have received none. It is patently obvious this action is nothing but petty retaliation because I represent my clients effectively in holding the Trump Administration accountable for its actions,” Zaid said in an email.
Zaid has had a security clearance for nearly 25 years, he said. During Trump’s first term, the Trump administration granted Zaid a higher-level top-secret clearance for a whistleblower case involving a Department of Homeland Security case, he said.
Kevin Carroll, who has represented intelligence officers suing the government, said the move against Zaid could force whistleblowers to look for other, riskier ways to call attention to their concerns.
“We shouldn’t want whistleblowers in the intelligence community going to Julian Assange,” Carroll said, referring to the founder of WikiLeaks. “We should want them going to security cleared lawyers such as Mark Zaid.”
A former national security official said the decision will hamper the Trump administration as it contends with an array of global threats, because it will be deprived of consulting with its predecessors who may have insights to share.
“It doesn’t impact the people who had clearances. It impacts the people in the government who might need to consult with them,” the former official said. “They won’t have the benefit of reaching out to former senior officials who have dealt with serious ongoing threats.”
Trump said last week he is scrapping clearances for attorneys at the prominent Washington law firm of Covington & Burling. The firm, which employs lawyers who worked for previous Democratic presidents, had assisted former special counsel Jack Smith, who led prosecutions against Trump over his handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
After Trump won re-election last year, both cases were dismissed. The Justice Department’s policy bars prosecuting a sitting president.
Dan De Luce
Dan De Luce is a reporter for the NBC News Investigative Unit.
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[Mad Genius]

Republican glee over Musk and DOGE is a smoke screen for failed budget policy | Opinion​

President Donald Trump and the GOP spent much of his speech to Congress singing the praises of Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency. The applause from Congress makes sense.​

President Donald Trump and the GOP spent much of his speech to Congress last week singing the praises of Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency. The applause from Congress makes sense. Because while Musk isn't saving taxpayers much money, he is saving our elected leaders from doing their jobs.
I like the idea of DOGE in theory, but theory is quite different from reality. Originally, DOGE was pitched as an advisory council that would recommend spending cuts to Congress, and lawmakers would then actually cut spending within their powers.
The reality is that the commission functions with Musk having full authority to run around flipping switches without making any significant impact on the budget deficit.

But much as the Republican Party wants to claim that Musk is saving the country, DOGE is not the vessel through which America will balance a budget. Congress is – even if its members don't seem to know that yet.

Republicans cheer minor DOGE cuts while they worsen the deficit​

The real beauty of DOGE for congressional Republicans is that they can take credit for “cutting spending” while Congress worsens America’s finances at the same time.
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Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has suggested that DOGE present Congress with a $500 billion spending rescission package. That would require Musk and his advisers to follow the proper blueprint, proposing spending cuts that Congress then reviews and passes.

Opinion: Elon Musk's AI chatbot says a 'Russian asset' delivered the State of the Union
Such a process could be quite helpful for Congress and only requires a majority to pass in a way that cannot be filibustered.
Instead, congressional Republicans seem inclined to keep taking credit for DOGE’s spending cuts without actually putting in any effort to curb spending themselves. The House actually just passed a budget resolution that, despite $2 trillion in spending cuts, increases the budget deficit by as much as $3 trillion over the next decade.

Meanwhile, DOGE claims that $105 billion has been saved so far, but only $8.8 billion accounted for through its “wall of receipts.”
Outside reviews claim the savings is as little as just $2.5 billion.
Even if the DOGE topline number is to be taken at face value, $105 billion marks just 5.7% of 2024’s $1.83 trillion budget deficit.

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The cuts from DOGE won’t come anywhere close to compensating for the decreases in revenue that come as a result of the renewal of Trump’s tax cuts, the key motivation for the GOP spending packages structure. If the Senate passes the budget resolution, which has Trump’s approval, Republicans will have increased the deficit despite the aggressive cuts from Musk.
Opinion: Trump's speech was all about dodging responsibility for the economy he's crashing

Still, the GOP loves these cuts because they grab headlines and distract voters.
The United States spends money on ridiculous things, and those programs should be cut. But Congress cannot pretend that Musk is going to balance the budget himself, especially when lawmakers are making the problem worse.

Republicans love DOGE because they don't have to do their job​

As much as Trump claims he wants to balance the budget, no serious attempt to do so has even begun. Republicans will continue to take credit for Musk slashing spending on admittedly ridiculous but relatively small dollar projects.
All the while, the reality is that Congress stands by idly at times, and at other times makes the federal deficit even worse.
The typical voter doesn’t actually care about runaway spending, so long as it's on programs they approve of. This is why you only hear Republican voters complain about spending when the GOP is not in power or as a justification for spending cuts when Republicans are in power.

The GOP isn’t interested in bettering America’s finances. Republican leaders are only interested in claiming that they’re doing so, and DOGE gives Congress an excuse to continue slacking off.
Republicans can pat themselves on the back as much as they want, but it's all smoke and mirrors. Congress is doing nothing to solve the problem of the budget deficit. In fact, they’re making it worse. Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.

 

[Mad Genius]

Administrative judge who called on colleagues to ‘resist’ Trump’s ‘illegal mandates’ becomes federal worker folk hero​

BYClaire Savage and The Associated Press
March 10, 2025 at 5:29 AM CDT

Karen Ortiz, an administrative judge at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, poses for photos, on Feb. 26, 2025, in New York.
Julia Demaree Nikhinson—AP

To billionaire Elon Musk and his cost-cutting team at the Department of Government Efficiency, Karen Ortiz may just be one of many faceless bureaucrats. But to some of her colleagues, she is giving a voice to those who feel they can’t speak out.

Ortiz is an administrative judge at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — the federal agency in charge of enforcing U.S. workplace anti-discrimination laws that has undergone tumultuous change since President Donald Trump took office. Like millions of other federal employees, Ortiz opened an ominous email on Jan. 28 titled “Fork in the Road” giving them the option to resign from their positions as part of the government’s cost-cutting measures directed by Trump and carried out by DOGE under Musk, an unelected official.

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Her alarm grew when her supervisor directed administrative judges in her New York district office to pause all their current LGBTQ+ cases and send them to Washington for further review in order to comply with Trump’s executive order declaring that the government would recognize only two “immutable” sexes — male and female.
Ortiz decried management’s lack of action in response to the directive, which she said was antithetical to the EEOC’s mission, and called upon some 185 colleagues in an email to “resist” complying with “illegal mandates.” But that email was “mysteriously” deleted, she said.
The next day, after yet another frustrating “Fork in the Road” update, Ortiz decided to go big, emailing the EEOC’s acting chair Andrea Lucas directly and copying more than 1,000 colleagues with the subject line, “A Spoon is Better than a Fork.” In it, Ortiz questioned Lucas’s fitness to serve as acting chair, “much less hold a license to practice law.”
“I know I take a great personal risk in sending out this message. But, at the end of the day, my actions align with what the EEOC was charged with doing under the law,” Ortiz wrote. “I will not compromise my ethics and my duty to uphold the law. I will not cower to bullying and intimidation.”
Ortiz is just one person, but her email represents a larger pushback against the Trump administration’s sweeping changes to federal agencies amid an environment of confusion, anger and chaos. It is also Ortiz’s way of taking a stand against the leadership of a civil rights agency that last month moved to dismiss seven of its own cases representing transgender workers, marking a major departure from its prior interpretation of the law.

Right after sending her mass email, Ortiz said she received a few supportive responses from colleagues — and one calling her unprofessional. Within an hour, though, the message disappeared and she lost her ability to send any further emails.
But it still made it onto the internet. The email was recirculated on Bluesky and it received more than 10,000 “upvotes” on Reddit after someone posted it with the comment, “Wow I wish I had that courage.”
“AN AMERICAN HERO,” one Reddit user deemed Ortiz, a sentiment that was seconded by more than 2,000 upvoters. “Who is this freedom fighter bringing on the fire?” wrote another.
The EEOC did not feel the same way. The agency revoked her email privileges for about a week and issued her a written reprimand for “discourteous conduct.”
Contacted by The AP, a spokesperson for the EEOC said: “We will refrain from commenting on internal communications and personnel matters. However, we would note that the agency has a long-standing policy prohibiting unauthorized all-employee emails, and all employees were reminded of that policy recently.”
A month later, Ortiz has no regrets.

“It was not really planned out, it was just from the heart,” the 53-year-old told The Associated Press in an interview, adding that partisan politics have nothing to do with her objections and that the public deserves the EEOC’s protection, including transgender workers. “This is how I feel and I’m not pulling any punches. And I will stand by what I wrote every day of the week, all day on Sunday.”

Ortiz said she never intended for her email to go beyond the EEOC, describing it as a “love letter” to her colleagues. But, she added, “I hope that it lights a fire under people.”
Ortiz said she has received “a ton” of support privately in the month since sending her email, including a thank-you letter from a California retiree telling her to “keep the faith.” Open support among her EEOC colleagues beyond Reddit and Bluesky, however, has proven more elusive.
“I think people are just really scared,” she said.
William Resh, a University of Southern California Sol Price School of Public Policy professor who studies how administrative structure and political environments affect civil servants, weighed in on why federal workers may choose to say nothing even if they feel their mission is being undermined.
“We can talk pie in the sky, mission orientation and all these other things. But at the end of the day, people have a paycheck to bring home, and food to put on a table and a rent to pay,” Resh said.
The more immediate danger, he said, is the threat to one’s livelihood, or inviting a manager’s ire.
“And so then that’s where you get this kind of muted response on behalf of federal employees, that you don’t see a lot of people speaking out within these positions because they don’t want to lose their job,” Resh said. “Who would?”

Richard LeClear, a U.S. Air Force veteran and EEOC staffer who is retiring early at 64 to avoid serving under the Trump administration, said Ortiz’s email was “spot on,” but added that other colleagues who agreed with her may fear speaking out themselves.
“Retaliation is a very real thing,” LeClear said.
Ortiz, who has been a federal employee for 14 years and at the EEOC for six, said she isn’t naive about the potential fallout. She has hired attorneys, and maintains that her actions are protected whistleblower activity. As of Friday, she still had a job but she is not a lifetime appointee and is aware that her health care, pension and source of income could all be at risk.
Ortiz is nonetheless steadfast: “If they fire me, I’ll find another avenue to do this kind of work, and I’ll be okay. They will have to physically march me out of the office.”
Many of Ortiz’s colleagues have children to support and protect, which puts them in a more difficult position than her to speak out, Ortiz acknowledged. She said her legal education and American citizenship also put her in a position to be able to make change.
Her parents, who came to the United States from Puerto Rico in the 1950s with limited English skills, ingrained in her the value of standing up for others. Their firsthand experience with the Civil Rights Movement, and her own experience growing up in mostly white spaces in Garden City on Long Island, primed Ortiz to defend herself and others.
“It’s in my DNA,” she said. “I will use every shred of privilege that I have to lean into this.”

Ortiz received her undergraduate degree at Columbia University, and her law degree at Fordham University. She knew she wanted to become a judge ever since her high school mock trial as a Supreme Court justice.
Civil rights has been a throughline in her career, and Ortiz said she was “super excited” when she landed her job at the EEOC.
“This is how I wanted to finish up my career,” she said. “We’ll see if that happens.”

 

[Mad Genius]

Natasha Lennard
March 10 2025, 10:39 a.m.

If Trump Can Deport Mahmoud Khalil, Freedom of Speech Is Dead​

Student negotiator Mahmoud Khalil on the Columbia University campus in New York at a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on April 29, 2024. Photo: Ted Shaffrey/AP Photo
Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate and green card holder, was an active participant in a political movement on his campus. The political movement called for the university to divest from arms companies and from a state deemed by the International Court of Justice to plausibly be committing genocide. Khalil has not been charged with a crime, let alone convicted. His role in the movement was that of negotiator and mediator with the school’s administration — that is, engaging in speech.
But Khalil is Palestinian, and the movement in question is for Palestinian freedom and against Israel’s eliminationist assault on Gaza. So, as of Saturday night, Khalil, a legal permanent resident, is being held without charge at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, detention center. His attorney and his wife — a U.S. citizen who is eight months pregnant — were unable to find Khalil in the sprawling ICE carceral system for over 24 hours.
On Saturday night, Department of Homeland Security agents descended on Khalil’s apartment, a Columbia University-owned property near the school’s Manhattan campus. Khalil called his attorney, Amy Greer, who spoke with the agents on the phone. First, they reportedly said they were acting on State Department orders to revoke the graduate’s student visa. The attorney told them that Khalil has a green card, which Khalil’s wife produced as proof. Then, according to reports, the agent told Greer that they were revoking Khalil’s green card. The agents threatened Khalil’s pregnant wife with arrest too, and then took her husband away.
“We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported,” wrote U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on X on Sunday, linking to The Associated Press’s coverage of Khalil’s arrest.
There is no going back from this point: President Donald Trump’s administration is trying to deport a man solely for his First Amendment-protected activity, without due process. By all existing legal standards, this is illegal and unconstitutional: a violation of First Amendment protections, and the Fifth Amendment-protected right to due process. If Khalil’s green card is revoked and he is deported, no one can have any confidence in legal and constitutional protections as a line of defense against arbitrary state violence and punishment. Khalil’s arrest marks an extraordinary fascist escalation.

​

It is all the more vile that Khalil has been targeted for engaging in protected protest activity calling for an end to the U.S.-backed slaughter of his people. The Trump administration has consistently framed all pro-Palestine, anti-Zionist activists as Hamas supporters. It is worth stressing, though, that even if a protester did express support or sympathy for Hamas in a public speech, or on social media (and I’m not saying Khalil did), such expression is also protected by the First Amendment, a protection extended to citizens and noncitizens alike. This is settled constitutional law: The Supreme Court’s decision in Texas v. Johnson in 1989, for example, reaffirmed the principle that the First Amendment protects even the most controversial and provocative forms of speech.
Some of the only activity not protected by the First Amendment in this regard is material support for a group designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the government. What counts as “material support” has a strict legal standard — even expressing support or sympathy for a foreign terrorist organization is not included in that standard.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told Zeteo’s Prem Thakker that Khalil was arrested because he “led activities aligned to Hamas.” The claim is yet another outrageous affront to First Amendment protections, which robustly include political speech and a whole host of protest activities.
Khalil has not been charged with material support for terrorism, nor any other crime. Under law, green cards cannot be summarily revoked; grounds for removal require criminal convictions for specific crimes including assault or theft, or proof of visa fraud. Green card holders facing removal are, under law, given the chance to appeal. They are not simply removed. I repeat “under law,” because Khalil’s case threatens to make that very designation irrelevant.

Related​

The Columbia Network Pushing Behind the Scenes to Deport and Arrest Student Protesters​

The Trump administration has made a series of threats to revoke the visas of students and others involved in Palestine solidarity protests, which it consistently describes as “pro-Hamas.” Following on from President Joe Biden’s administration, Trump’s regime is committed to the dangerous conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism, as a way to demonize — and criminalize — criticism of Israel. In a fact sheet accompanying the president’s executive order mendaciously titled “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism,” Trump threatened to “quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses.”
While still a senator, Rubio recommended the use of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which gives the secretary of state the power to revoke visas from foreigners deemed to be a threat. The very same law was used to enact racist immigrant quotas, and as a red scare weapon to deport or refuse entry to leftists like Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and Nobel Prize-winning Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez, among others. The law has been amended numerous times since, in efforts to limit its authoritarian and racist uses. With the 1990 Immigration Act, for example, Congress prohibited as grounds for excluding immigrants from the U.S. “advocacy or publication of communist or other subversive views or materials.” Stated plainly: It’s illegal under congressional statute and the Constitution to remove someone from the country due to political speech.

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Rubio’s own comments show he seeks to revive the Immigration and Nationality Act’s most harmful form. Just one week after Hamas’s October 7 attack, Rubio invoked the law in a Fox News interview as grounds for deporting pro-Palestine protesters, and posted on X: “Cancel the visa of every foreign national out there supporting Hamas and get them out of America.” Now Rubio is secretary of state and committing in words and deeds to his illegal deportation agenda.
There’s little use in simply pointing to the law, even the Constitution, to oppose these authoritarians. Republicans are well versed in forging new legal realities through force and violence. Legal protections cannot be assumed; they need fighting for, or they simply will not hold. Establishment Democrats and institutions like Columbia University have helped bring us to this grim watershed moment. Every institution that treated support for Palestinian lives and condemnation of Israel’s genocidal war as antisemitic and terroristic laid the ground for Trump’s wholesale attack on basic speech rights.


Read our complete coverage

Israel’s War on Gaza​

Palestine solidarity activists and anti-colonial thinkers have long made clear that a government willing to prosecute a genocidal war abroad, as the U.S. has, has no problem enacting exclusionary, discriminatory violence at home. This is not new; these are the inherent contradictions of a purported democracy engaged in colonial domination. It should not take the illegal detention of another Palestinian to expose this, but here we are.

“Who’s next? Citizens?”

“This is unacceptable. Deporting legal residents solely for expressing their political opinions is a violation of free speech rights,” wrote Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash. “Who’s next? Citizens?”
For those of you with any investment in the protection of basic rights and legal protections — in the defense of any shred of democracy against authoritarian rule — the fight to free Khalil and maintain his legal status is your fight too.
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[Mad Genius]

Filed under: NO FUCKING SHIT, SHERLOCK!!

Americans worry Trump too closely aligned with Russia, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds​

By Jason Lange
March 13, 202511:43 AM CDTUpdated 6 hours ago

U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Russia's President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, July 16, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

• Summary

• Poll shows Americans uneasy with Trump's Russia alignment
• Republicans divided on Trump's territorial expansion plans
• Americans don't see expansionism as a priority

WASHINGTON, March 13 (Reuters) - More than half of Americans, including one in four Republicans, think President Donald Trump is "too closely aligned" with Russia, as he radically realigns U.S. foreign policy, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows.
The two-day poll completed on Wednesday also found little appetite among Americans for Trump's expansionist agenda, as the Republican president talks of acquiring Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal.
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Some 56% of respondents, including 89% of Democrats and 27% of Republicans, agreed with a statement that Trump was too close to Moscow. Overall, 40% of respondents disagreed with that statement and 4% did not answer the question.
Trump has turned American foreign policy on its head since starting his second term as U.S. president in January, including berating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a televised meeting as uncommitted to peace with Russia, America's Cold War foe.
His administration has since proposed a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia that the Kremlin has responded to coolly.
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America's pivot on Russia, under a president who has in the past expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, has jolted U.S. allies, fueling discussion in Europe over where U.S. allies there need to plan their own defenses without counting on help from the United States.
Trump has argued that his stance is necessary to bring an end to the war, which he pledged during last year's presidential election campaign to accomplish on his first day in office. The Reuters/Ipsos poll also showed many Americans back a key plank to his more transactional approach to aiding Ukraine.
Nearly half - or 44% - of respondents in the poll said they support Trump's plan of "conditioning U.S. military support for Ukraine on the U.S. getting a share of Ukraine's mineral wealth." Two-thirds of Republicans backed the idea, as did one in five Democrats.

Overall, Trump's approval rating has held steady for the past few weeks at 44% -- higher than either he or Democratic President Joe Biden enjoyed over most of their last terms in office.

LITTLE APPETITE FOR EXPANSION​

The poll showed that Americans had little interest in Trump's stated goals of expanding U.S. territory, as he eyes Greenland, talks of making Canada the 51st state, discusses retaking control of the Panama Canal and floats leveling and redeveloping Gaza -- potentially displacing the 2.1 million Palestinians living there.
Asked which of a list of issues Trump should prioritize, just 1% of respondents picked expanding U.S. territory, compared to 61% who picked fighting inflation and 13% who said he should focus on shrinking the size of the federal government.

Stacked bar chart with results of a poll showing Americans oppose Trump's plans to expand US territory more often than they support them.
Just 17% of respondents, including 26% of Republicans, supported Trump's goal of absorbing Canada. Some 21% of respondents, including 34% of Republicans, supported the idea of taking over Gaza to bring peace to the Middle East.

Many experts have deemed Trump's Gaza proposal unworkable, and human rights groups have said it would amount to ethnic cleansing.
Trump has somewhat stronger backing on his goals of taking over Greenland and the Panama Canal. Sixty-five percent of Republicans in the Reuters/Ipsos survey said they agreed with a statement that "the U.S. should take control of the Panama Canal to protect its economy." Some 89% of Democrats disagreed.

Some 45% of Republicans agreed with a statement that the U.S. should "take control of Greenland so the U.S. military can better guard the country," while 88% of Democrats disagreed.
Denmark has said Greenland, a self-governing part of its kingdom, is not for sale but Trump has suggested he would impose tariffs if it resists his efforts to acquire the island. Trump has called strategically located Greenland vital to U.S. national security.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll, which was conducted online and nationwide, surveyed 1,422 U.S. adults and has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

 

[Mad Genius]

Republicans are a nasty bunch of MFs, man. Can't believe some of y'all voted for this bullshit.

EMERGENCY DOCKET​

Trump asks Supreme Court to step in on birthright citizenship​

By Amy Howe
on Mar 13, 2025 at 4:37 pm

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Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris came to the court on Thursday afternoon. (Katie Barlow)
The Trump administration on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to allow it to enforce an executive order signed by President Donald Trump ending birthright citizenship – the guarantee of citizenship to virtually anyone born in the United States. In a trio of near-identical filings by Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris, the administration urged the justices to partially block preliminary injunctions, issued by federal district judges in Seattle, Maryland, and Massachusetts, that bar the government from implementing Trump’s executive order anywhere in the country.

Harris contended that the kind of nationwide (sometimes described as “universal”) injunctions issued in the three cases “transgress constitutional limits on courts’ powers” and “compromise the Executive Branch’s ability to carry out its functions.” “This Court,” she wrote, “should declare that enough is enough before district courts’ burgeoning reliance on universal injunctions becomes further entrenched.”

Harris instead urged the justices to strictly limit the district judges’ orders to block the enforcement of the order only to a much smaller group: the individual plaintiffs in the three cases, the specific members of the groups challenging the order who are identified in a complaint, and – if the court agrees that states have a legal right to challenge the order – residents of those states. At the very least, she added, the federal government should be able to take “internal steps to implement” the executive order while the litigation continues, even if it cannot enforce it.

Birthright citizenship was explicitly added to the Constitution in 1868 when the 14th Amendment was adopted following the Civil War. That amendment provides that “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” The United States is one of roughly 30 countries, including neighboring Canada and Mexico, that offer automatic citizenship to everyone born there.

Under Trump’s executive order, which was originally slated to go into effect 30 days after he signed it, children born in the United States are not automatically entitled to citizenship if their parents are in this country either illegally or temporarily.

In a hearing in late January, Senior U.S. District Judge John Coughenour of the Western District of Washington, a Ronald Reagan appointee, called the executive order “blatantly unconstitutional” and temporarily barred the government from implementing the order for 14 days. At a hearing on Feb. 6, Coughenour extended that ban, calling birthright citizenship a “fundamental constitutional right.”

A federal appeals court in San Francisco turned down Trump’s plea to put Coughenour’s injunction on hold except with regard to the individual plaintiffs while its appeal moves forward.

Judge Danielle Forrest, a Trump appointee, explained in a six-page concurring opinion that although the case had properly been fast-tracked, the Trump administration had not shown that this was the kind of “emergency that requires an immediate answer.” It was not enough, Forrest indicated, that Coughenour’s injunction temporarily prevents the government from implementing the executive order. “It is routine,” she wrote, “for both executive and legislative policies to be challenged in court, particularly where a new policy is a significant shift from prior understanding and practice.”

Echoing some of the criticism of the Supreme Court’s use of its emergency docket, Forrest also suggested that the highly expedited schedule cautioned against granting the government’s request right now. She contended that “quick decision-making risks eroding public confidence. Judges are charged to reach their decisions apart from ideology or political preference. When we decide issues of significant public importance and political controversy hours after we finish reading the final brief, we should not be surprised if the public questions whether we are politicians in disguise.”

In Maryland, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman issued a separate order on Feb. 5 that prohibited the Trump administration from enforcing the Jan. 20 executive order while a lawsuit brought there by immigrants’ rights groups and several pregnant women moves forward. Boardman, a Biden appointee, observed at the end of a hearing that “no court in the country has ever endorsed the president’s interpretation. This court will not be the first.”

A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit rejected the government’s request to partly block Boardman’s ruling. Judge Paul Niemeyer dissented from that decision, calling the Trump administration’s plea a “modest motion.”

And in Massachusetts, U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin issued a nationwide injunction in a case brought by a group of 18 states, the District of Columbia, and San Francisco. Sorokin reasoned that a more limited injunction, applying only to the states challenging the executive order, would be “inadequate” because of the prospect that pregnant women living in one state could cross state lines to give birth in another. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit declined to partially pause Sorokin’s ruling.

In three largely identical filings submitted on Thursday, Harris urged the justices to “correct the district court’s massive remedial foul.” During the last few years, several justices – including Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh – have criticized nationwide or universal injunctions and urged their colleagues to weigh in on their legality.

In January, the Biden administration asked the justices to weigh in on the propriety of nationwide injunctions as part of an emergency appeal seeking permission to enforce a federal anti-money-laundering law while the government’s appeal moves forward. The justices agreed to block a ruling by a federal district judge that had barred the government from enforcing the law throughout the United States, but they did not address the question of nationwide injunctions.

In that case, Gorsuch wrote a separate opinion in which he indicated that he would have resolved the injunction question “definitively.”

Harris also contended that the states challenging the executive order do not have a legal right, known as standing, to bring their lawsuits. The states, she argued, “simply cannot assert citizenship rights on behalf of individuals,” and they themselves are not harmed by the order, which “does not require” them “to do or refrain from anything, much less” expose them to any punishments.

Harris characterized the district courts’ orders in the three birthright citizenship cases as “part of a broader trend.” Since Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, she complained, “district courts have repeatedly issued orders that superintend the internal operations of the Executive Branch by prohibiting the formulation of new policies.” But “[y]ears of experience have shown that the Executive Branch cannot properly perform its functions if any judge anywhere can enjoin every presidential action everywhere. The sooner universal injunctions are ‘eliminated root and branch,’” she concluded, “the better.”

 

[Mad Genius]

The Office That Investigates Disparities in Veterans’ Care Is Being “Liquidated”​

The closure effectively hobbles the VA’s efforts to investigate and eliminate long-standing racial inequities that the department itself has acknowledged. “The consequences will be dire, wide-reaching and deadly,” an advocate for Black veterans said.​

---

by Vernal Coleman
March 11, 2025, 4:40 p.m. EDT

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The Trump administration has shut down a unit of the Department of Veterans Affairs created under President Joe Biden to address disparities in how the federal government provides disability compensation to military service members.
The closure of the Veterans Benefits Administration’s Office of Equity Assurance effectively hobbles internal efforts at the VA to investigate and eliminate long-standing racial inequities the department itself has acknowledged.
The office was eliminated as part of the Trump administration’s purge of programs broadly aimed at addressing diversity, equity or inclusion, according to emails obtained by ProPublica. But several VA sources said that the office was not exclusively focused on race, and that it takes on cases for a range of veterans to ensure no one is denied proper benefits — including for reasons of age, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation and geographic location.
Rep. Mark Takano, a California Democrat, criticized the Trump administration’s action as “excessive” and “reckless.”
“The closure of the OEA will undoubtedly have disastrous effects on the care we offer veterans,” Takano, former chair and now ranking member of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, said in a statement to ProPublica. “This office was making it easier for minority veterans to access care and benefits. Its closure will directly impact the care and benefits received by minority veterans.”

What We’re Watching​

During Donald Trump’s second presidency, ProPublica will focus on the areas most in need of scrutiny. Here are some of the issues our reporters will be watching — and how to get in touch with them securely.

Learn more about our reporting team. We will continue to share our areas of interest as the news develops.

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We’re trying something new. Was it helpful?
Richard Brookshire, co-founder of the Black Veterans Project, a nonprofit focused on rectifying discrimination faced by Black veterans, echoed Takano’s concerns.
“It’s a first step toward gutting the second-largest agency in our federal government,” he said. “The consequences will be dire, wide-reaching and deadly.”
VA spokesperson Peter Kasperowicz declined to say whether the agency would continue to study racial disparities. But he emphasized in a statement that newly installed VA Secretary Douglas Collins “treats all veterans and beneficiaries fairly and equally, so the Office of Equity Assurance is no longer needed.”
He added: “The money saved by closing the office will be redirected to improve health care, benefits and services for Veterans, all of whom we treat fairly and equally. VA will always fulfill its duty to provide veterans, families, caregivers and survivors the health care and benefits they have earned. That is a promise.”
The VA grew significantly under the Biden administration, with tens of thousands of employees added to beef up capacity in conjunction with the passage of the PACT Act. The 2022 law expanded health care and benefits for an estimated 3.5 million veterans exposed to toxic substances from burn pits and other chemicals.
The Biden administration also created the OEA and several other initiatives to help analyze and rectify discrimination in the delivery of health care, benefits and other services. Those moves were seen as a direct response to long-standing complaints by minority veterans.
The closure of the OEA is just one of several disruptive staff cuts at the VA in recent weeks. Around 2,400 VA employees have lost their positions since the Trump administration began slashing the federal workforce, with significantly more firings to come.
The department currently employs around 470,000 workers. Kasperowicz said that the administration plans would shed nearly 15% of its workforce, dropping the total to roughly 398,000.
Workers assigned to the OEA were informed on Feb. 14 via email that their positions were terminated immediately and that the office was being “liquidated.” The notices were sent to nearly all of the office’s employees, effectively dissolving the unit, sources familiar with the firings told ProPublica.
The administration reversed at least some of the terminations later that month, according to correspondence obtained by ProPublica. Workers who were attached to the OEA have now been placed on administrative leave pending a possible reassignment within the VA or another federal department, according to sources familiar with the department who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
“But even if they are reassigned, it won’t be to the OEA,” said one official familiar with the moves. “It’s definitely gone.”
Black veterans and their advocates have long complained of a divide in how claims are handled. An ongoing suit filed by the National Veterans Council for Legal Redress against the government gave the suspicions new life.
The group’s case was bolstered by data unearthed through Freedom of Information Act requests from the Black Veterans Project, which found that the VA was far more likely to reject applications for service-related disabilities by Black veterans than their white counterparts.
Attorneys for the federal government asked the judge overseeing the suit to dismiss the claims, stating that only the VA secretary has jurisdiction to decide disputes over award benefits and that the court lacks the jurisdiction to hear them.
A 2023 U.S. Government Accountability Office report also concluded that there were disparities. It found that the department approved compensation applications for service-related disabilities like hearing loss, impaired limb movement and post-traumatic stress by Black veterans at lower rates than veterans of other races.
The report found that between 2010 and 2020 the approval rate for benefit applications made by White male veterans was 3% to 22% higher than Black male veterans for the selected medical conditions.
The OEA’s demise is just one part of an ongoing rollback of the racial equity programs the Trump administration has called “radical and wasteful.”


Curious How Trump’s Cost Cutting Could Affect Your National Park Visit? You Might Not Get a Straight Answer.
Since Trump entered office, a webpage detailing the VA’s work to address equity and diversity appears to have been scrubbed from its website. In January, the administration fired the heads of internal advisory groups formed to address the concerns and needs of minority and female veterans.
One of those groups, the Center for Minority Veterans, worked in conjunction with the OEA to address racial disparities in disability compensation. Between 2013 and 2018, the advisory group raised its concerns over the Black veterans’ lower rate of claims approval to VA leadership five times, according to the National Veterans Council for Legal Redress suit.
Mariela Roca, a former Republican congressional hopeful, took over as director of the advisory group last week. It’s unclear what specific strategies the group will pursue to advance the needs and concerns of minority veterans under new leadership. Roca did not respond to a request for comment.

 

[Mad Genius]

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Parents Sue Trump Administration for Allegedly Sabotaging Education Department’s Civil Rights Division​

Demonstrators outside the Department of Education in Washington protest layoffs at the agency. Credit:Jason Andrew for ProPublica
Trump AdministrationThe lawsuit claims that decimating the agency’s Office for Civil Rights will leave it unable to address issues of discrimination at school — violating the equal protection clause of the Fifth Amendment.

---

by Jennifer Smith Richards and Jodi S. CohenMarch 14, 2025, 9:40 a.m. EDT


Saying the Trump administration is sabotaging civil rights enforcement by the Department of Education, a federal lawsuit filed Friday morning seeks to stop the president and Secretary Linda McMahon from carrying out the mass firing of civil rights investigators and lawyers.
Two parents and the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, a national disability rights group, jointly filed the lawsuit. It alleges that decimating the department’s Office for Civil Rights will leave the agency unable to handle the public’s complaints of discrimination at school. That, they said, would violate the equal protection clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The complaint comes three days after the Education Department notified about 1,300 employees — including the entire staff in seven of the 12 regional civil rights offices — that they are being fired, and the day after a group of 21 Democratic attorneys general sued McMahon and the president. That lawsuit alleges the Trump administration does not have the authority to circumvent Congress to effectively shutter the department.
The complaint filed on Friday argues that the “OCR has abdicated its responsibility to enforce civil rights protections” and that the administration has made a “decision to sabotage” the Education Department’s civil rights functions. That, the lawsuit alleges, overrides Congress’ authority. It names the Education Department, McMahon and the acting head of OCR, Craig Trainor.
“Through a series of press releases, policy statements, and executive orders, the administration has made clear its contempt for the civil rights of marginalized students,” the lawsuit says.

What We’re Watching​

During Donald Trump’s second presidency, ProPublica will focus on the areas most in need of scrutiny. Here are some of the issues our reporters will be watching — and how to get in touch with them securely.

The parents’ lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It asks the court to declare the “decimation” of the OCR unlawful and seeks an injunction to compel the office to “process OCR complaints promptly and equitably.”
A Department of Education spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But the department has said it would still meet its legal obligations.
The lawsuit brought by the attorneys general was filed in federal court in Massachusetts. It alleges the firings are “so severe and extreme that it incapacitates components of the Department responsible for performing functions mandated by statute.” It cites the closing of the seven regional OCR outposts as an example.
Each year, the OCR investigates thousands of allegations of discrimination in schools based on disability, race and gender and is one of the federal government’s largest civil rights units. At last count there were about 550 OCR employees; at least 243 union-represented employees were laid off Tuesday.
The administration plans to close OCR locations in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco. Offices will remain in Atlanta, Denver, Kansas City, Seattle and Washington, D.C.
The lawsuit brought by the parents and advocacy group reveals concerns by students and families who have pending complaints that, under President Donald Trump, are not being investigated. There also are concerns that new complaints won’t get investigated if they don’t fall under one of the president’s priorities: curbing antisemitism, ending participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports and combating alleged discrimination against white students.
After Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20, the administration implemented a monthlong freeze on the agency’s civil rights work. Although OCR investigators were prohibited from working on their assigned discrimination cases, the Trump administration launched a new “End DEI Portal” meant only to collect complaints about diversity, equity and inclusion in schools. It has said it is trying to shrink the size of government, including the Education Department, which Trump has called a “big con job.”
Trump’s actions so far have led many to wonder “if there is a real and meaningful complaint investigation process existing at the moment,” said Johnathan Smith, an attorney at the National Center for Youth Law, which represents the plaintiffs. Smith is a former deputy assistant attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.
“They are putting the thumb on the scale of who the winners and losers are before they do the investigation, and that is deeply problematic from a law enforcement perspective,” Smith said.
The lawsuit is perhaps the most substantive legal effort to require the Education Department to enforce civil rights since 1970, when the NAACP sued the agency for allowing segregation to continue. That lawsuit resulted in repeated overhauling of the OCR and 20 years of judicial oversight, with the goal of ensuring that the division fairly investigated and enforced discrimination claims.
Students and families turn to the OCR after they feel their concerns have not been addressed by their schools or colleges. Both individuals named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit are parents of students whose civil rights complaints were being investigated — until Trump took office.
One of the plaintiffs, Alabama parent Nikki S. Carter, has three students and is an advocate for students with disabilities in her community. Carter is Black. According to the lawsuit, Carter filed a complaint with OCR in 2022 alleging discrimination on the basis of race after her children’s school district, the Demopolis City Schools, twice banned Carter from school district property.



When reached by ProPublica, the district superintendent said he’s not aware of the lawsuit or the civil rights complaint and could not comment; he is new to the district.
The district has said it barred Carter after a confrontation with a white staff member. But Carter has said that a white parent who had a similar confrontation wasn’t banned, leading her to believe that the district punished her because of her advocacy. She said it prevented her from attending parent-teacher conferences and other school events.
The other parent, identified by the initials A.W., filed a complaint with OCR alleging their child’s school failed to respond properly to sexual assault and harassment by a classmate.
Investigations of both families’ discrimination complaints have stopped under the new OCR leadership, according to the lawsuit.

 

[Mad Genius]

‘The people hold the power’: Grassroots anti-Trump resistance outshines lawmakers
YouTube video by MSNBC

‪Chris Hayes‬ ‪@chrislhayes.bsky.social‬
·
No kings. Not ever. youtu.be/VZk4hhSPMG0?...

 

[bdquest9]

“But Kamala locked up a lot of black men”. Funny how once Inauguration Day came they got their pay and are quiet. More proof of the misinformation campaign that was bought and paid for on this board and other platforms.

 

[Mad Genius]

Trump wipes out 7 agencies at once​

by Bill Addis
Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)
Saturday, March 15, 2025 at 5:29:00p CDT
85
Comments
85 New

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Seven agencies at once in an executive order to reduce the the minimum required by law, which can be one person.
It's called: "Continuing The Reduction Of The Federal Bureaucracy." The agencies affected are:

1. Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. 2025 budget $45 million.
2. United States Agency for Global Media. 2025 budget $950 million.
3. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the Smithsonian Institution. 2024 budget $16.1 million.
4. Institute for Museum and Library Services. 2025 budget $280 million.
5. United States Interagency Council for Homelessness. 2025 budget $4.3 million.
6. Community Development Financial Institutions Fund 2025 budget $325 million.
7. Minority Business Development Agency. 2025 Budget $80 million.

Maybe I was being too confident in the one person left.
"...the non-statutory components and functions of the following governmental entities shall be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, and such entities shall reduce their performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law."
The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service website basically says, "Oops!, there's an executive order, we probably aren't going to be able to help you."
They are a small agency that's been around since 1947, designed to prevent work stoppages and labor disputes. This shutdown sounds pretty stupid right off the bat. It helps both businesses and labor. I guess it's helping the labor part that Trump doesn't like. Going through their rules and regulations would probably be fruitless. 1947, that's Harry Truman. Maybe Trump is just not that wild about Harry (song reference).
The United States Agency for Global Media is a very important one. Seeing how this is the parent Agency for Voice of America and other interagencies, and Trump has put Kari Lake as the head of Voice of America, I think it's just the word Global that tics him off. He may not even know what he's doing on this one.
In September of last year they signed a lease for a new building that would house much more of them.
Here's a chart that shows their function and how many pieces there are.
Here's a link to the full resolution chart.

I truly don't believe anyone knows what they're doing in this case. It has to be a mistake. They've got 427 million listeners, viewers and internet users as their audience. That's just the ones they know about. What we don't know is how many people there are in countries that are repressive and depend on getting real news, like Russia, Iran, North Korea, China and other regimes. Our enemies call these agencies propaganda, because they've been doing a good job providing accurate news.
Voice of America has been around since 1942 when it began broadcasting to combat Nazi propaganda. They've even got the first broadcast that originated in New York, was picked up in London, and relayed into Germany. "Ever since then, VOA has served the world with a consistent message of truth, hope, and inspiration." Now, it broadcasts in 50 languages with an audience of 354 million people all by itself.
Please tell me DOGE has just made a temporary mistake they'll claw back.
The Woodrow Wilson International Institute for Scholars in the Smithsonian Institution is housed in the Ronald Reagan building and International Trade Center on a 30-year rent-free lease. It's a public-private partnership with only one-third of its funds coming from the federal government. It's a think tank covering a wide range of topics and programs. To Trump, with international in its name, it must be globalist, so it must be shut down. It's also a 501(c) 3 organization. Trump just hates people who can think because he doesn't.
The Institute of Museum and Library Services supports education, economic, and cultural activities locally, which impacts national advancement globally. There's that new MAGA curse word: Global. Everything should be America First. Isolationism is what makes every war worse to win. Whether it be by military or education or advancements of any kind. IMLS supports museums and libraries and archives in all 50 states and territories.
The United States Interagency Council on the Homeless has 18 government partner agencies along with the White House Faith Office. Trump hates homeless people. To him, they're just garbage in parks and vacant lots and the streets. He just strong-armed Mayor Bowser of Washington, D.C., to get rid of a number of homeless sites. I don't need to explain. Its name says all that needs to be.
Community Development Financial Institutions Fund is exactly what it sounds like. It's part of the Treasury Department, and it helps small communities that don't have access to funding options. For every dollar the CDFI invests, there is a $10 reciprocal investment by private sources. Because treasury funds are being invested, Secretary of the Treasury Bessent thinks it should be shut down. Once again, stupidity reigns. The money isn't just passed out. There are small dollar loans that normally have a high interest rate. They guarantee bonds. They spur housing development. Training programs and more. The return on the investment is all the good it does.
The Minority Business Development Agency has to be shut down because it doesn't work for white people. In 2023, they found $1.5 billion of other people's money to be invested. They helped minorities get $3.8 billion in contracts. They generated 19,000 new jobs through their efforts. Can't have those uppity minorities make it up the rungs of the ladder to success. All this agency cost was in personnel as part of the Department of Commerce.
The impact of all these small agencies and the U.S. Agency for Global Media disappearing is more than can be imagined because of what the personnel do. If the agencies rekindle, these people may have moved on permanently. You can't just instantaneously have a person gain a skill set.
Stop the world, I want to get off. Every day, the ridiculous agency personnel firings jeopardize the functioning of the agency left behind. One of the worst examples is getting rid of IRS agents. The very people that collect the money that runs the government.
These seven agencies all have a right to exist. The money they get generates education, resources, and community stability. Trim $2 billion from the Pentagon budget, and you're done with financing and then some.
I'm concerned for all of them, but the U.S. Agency for Global Media is the worst cost cutting idea yet. I suppose it's looked at like USAID. Cutting both are mistakes. Two agencies that create good will around the world.