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At Justice Department, Trump Calls CNN And MSNBC 'Illegal'

At Justice Department, Trump Calls CNN And MSNBC 'Illegal'

President Donald Trump, just 54 days into his second term, declared himself “the chief law enforcement officer in our country” and labeled two major news organizations, CNN and MSNBC, as “illegal,” while further denouncing their coverage as “illegal.” His remarks Thursday afternoon were delivered to officials at the Department of Justice, in an appearance that shattered a decades-old norm designed to insulate the department from political interference—a safeguard established in response to President Richard Nixon’s abuses of power. Trump’s statements have drawn sharp criticism for their authoritarian tone and direct attack on press freedom, sparking alarm.

“I believe that CNN and MSNDC,” said Trump (video below), using his own derogatory twist on MSNBC’s name, “who literally write 97.6 percent bad about me, are political arms of the Democrat Party. And in my opinion, they’re really corrupt and they’re illegal. What they do is illegal.”

Trump also “rallied against the press,” in general, “claiming they are influencing judges and, without any evidence, claiming the media works in coordination with political campaigns, which is not allowed in the news industry,” The Hillreported.

It has been widely reported that during his first term in office, Fox News host Sean Hannity spoke with Trump “nearly every weeknight.”

“These networks and these newspapers are really no different than a highly paid political operative. And it has to stop, it has to be illegal, it’s influencing judges and it’s really, eh, changing law and it just cannot be legal. I don’t believe it’s legal and they do it in total coordination with each other,” the President alleged.

Trump’s remarks were just a part of a speech that lasted more than one hour, during which he “delivered an insult-laden speech that shattered the traditional notion of DOJ independence,” as Politicoreported. During those remarks, Trump also “labeled his courtroom opponents ‘scum,’ judges ‘corrupt’ and the prosecutors who investigated him ‘deranged.'”

“With the DOJ logo directly behind him, Trump called for his legal tormentors to be sent to prison.”

It is not the first time the President, who is a convicted felon, has declared MSNBC “illegal.”

Last month, when MSNBC host Joy Reid left the news network, Trump unleashed a torrent of hatred.

“Lowlife Chairman of ‘Concast,’ Brian Roberts, the owner of Ratings Challenged NBC and MSDNC, has finally gotten the nerve up to fire one of the least talented people in television, the mentally obnoxious racist, Joy Reid,” Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform. “Based on her ratings, which were virtually non-existent, she should have been ‘canned’ long ago, along with everyone else who works there. Also thrown out was Alex Wagner, the sub on the seriously failing Rachel Maddow show. Rachel rarely shows up because she knows there’s nobody watching, and she also knows that she’s got less television persona than virtually anyone on television except, perhaps, Joy Reid.”

Trump’s Friday afternoon assault on the media was swiftly criticized.

“This is what a dictator sounds like,” wrote U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI).

“Journalism is legal,” declared award-winning investigative journalist Lindsay Beyerstein. “Criticizing the president is legal. Being a Democrat is legal. Nothing Donald Trump is ranting about here is a crime and he’s disgracing himself and the Department of Justice by talking this way.”

Journalist Matt O’Brien observed, “Trump wants to get rid of freedom of speech because he wants to be a dictator. And unlike his first term, he now has a government full of fascists who are eager to make that a reality.”

Marlow Stern, adjunct assistant professor of journalism at Columbia Journalism School wrote: “sounds like putin.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning political columnist Kyle Whitmire wrote simply: “Enemy of the Constitution.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

New Quinnipiac Poll Shows Majority Reject Trump On Key Issues

New Quinnipiac Poll Shows Majority Reject Trump On Key Issues

Barely more than 50 days into his second term, President Donald Trump appears to be failing in the eyes of a majority of American voters on nearly every major issue — from the economy to immigration to the war in Ukraine to trade to his handling of the federal workforce and more —according to a new poll released Thursday by the highly-respected Quinnipiac University.

"A noticeable uptick of discontent can be seen over President Trump's handling of a range of issues: from Ukraine to the economy to the federal workforce," Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy said in a statement.

A majority of Americans, 53 percent, disapprove of the president's performance overall, with just 42 percent approving. That's a significant swing (11 points) on the disapproval side from Quinnipiac's January 29 poll, which found 46 percent percent of Americans approved of the new president's performance, and 42 percent disapproved.

Fox News host Jessica Tarlov gave an overview of the poll's results, telling viewers (video below), "So basically, he is underwater on everything."

On one of the most strongly-negative questions, 60 percent of voters oppose President Trump's plan to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. Just one in three support it. Another major negative is Trump's position on trade with Canada: 58 percent of voters disapprove of his handling of that issue, just 36 percent approve. That is closely followed by trade with Mexico (56 percent disapprove).

Historically, the economy has been one of Trump's strongest approval areas. That is no longer the case.

A majority of voters, 54 percent disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy — just 41 percent approve.

"In the Quinnipiac poll released today, one percent of voters describe the state of the America’s economy as excellent. That’s not a typo," observed Democratic strategist Matt McDermott.

On that topic, Quinnipiac reported, a whopping "76 percent describe it as either not so good (45 percent) or poor (31 percent)."

According to Quinnipiac's numbers, voters thought President Joe Biden's economy was better in his last full month (December) than they think President Trump's is now.

Quinnipiac University's December 2024 poll found 34 percent described the economy "as either excellent (three percent) or good (31 percent) and 64 percent described it as either not so good (31 percent) or poor (33 percent)."

Immigration, also once a strong area for Trump, no longer is.

Nearly half of voters, 49 percent, disapprove of Trump's handling of immigration issues, while 46 percent approve.

Other negatives include his handling of the Russia - Ukraine war (55 percent disapprove), the federal workforce (also 55 percent disapprove), foreign policy (53 percent disapprove,) and the military (48 percent disapprove).

Nor did Trump's Oval Office dressing down of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky go over well with the American voter.

"Fifty-eight percent of voters disapprove of the way President Trump handled the recent meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House, while 35 percent approve."

Trump's overall approval rating (42 percent) is actually one point below what voters gave President Zelenskyy (43 percent).

Meanwhile, six in ten voters (61 percent) think Trump is not hard enough on Russia, while half (50 percent) think he is too tough on Ukraine.

In fact, the only issue where Trump's overall favorable outweighed his unfavorable rating is trade with China, which has not made many headlines recently. On that issue, 46 percent approve, 44 percent disapprove, a narrow margin.

But even in areas not directly tied to Trump's approval rating, voters oppose the President's position, at least in part.

"More than half of voters (57 percent) think that children who have not received standard vaccinations should not be allowed to attend schools and childcare facilities, while 35 percent think that children who have not received standard vaccinations should be allowed to attend schools and childcare facilities," Quinnipiac found.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Donald Trump Zelensky

Trump's Coziness With Russia Will 'Immediately' Cost Ukrainian Lives

In the week since Donald Trump and JD Vance launched a two-on-one televised attack on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the American president, his administration, and his allies have escalated actions that undermine—and even endanger—Ukraine and its people on multiple fronts, leading critics to denounced President Trump’s “betrayal.”

Trump and his administration reportedly will be targeting Ukrainian refugees in the U.S., and have already crippled a key military tool vital to Ukraine’s defense, halted weapons shipments, and ordered a top Pentagon agency to suspend operations and planning against Russia’s cyber offensives. Trump’s close allies reportedly are looking to back Zelenskyy’s political opponents in Ukraine. Critics—and even Russian state propagandists—say these moves send an unmistakable signal to the world: the United States has “switched sides” in Vladimir Putin’s illegal war against Ukraine.

“The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov recently declared, as MSNBC reported Tuesday. “This largely aligns with our vision.”

President Trump “was asked for his reaction after the Kremlin said the White House was largely aligned with Moscow. He didn’t answer — but he didn’t have to,” observed MSNBC’s Steve Benen.

Reuters is reporting that the Trump administration will move to revoke the legal protected status of 240,000 Ukrainians who fled the Russian invasion to come to the United States. These refugees, under a Biden administration program, were required to pay fees, be fully vetted, and have proof of a sponsor and financial means.

“The move, expected as soon as April, would be a stunning reversal of the welcome Ukrainians received under President Joe Biden’s administration,” according to Reuters, which noted that at least some could be put on a fast track to deportation.

While Reuters reports its sources say the plan was in place before President Donald Trump’s and Vice President. JD Vance’s Oval Office blowup, it also comes amid moves that appear to put the Trump administration on the side of Russia and President Vladimir Putin.

Earlier this week, President Trump ordered a suspension of critical intelligence sharing with Ukraine, a move that is “expected to cripple Kyiv’s ability to target Russian forces,”The Wall Street Journalreported.

The Trump administration also “suspended weapons shipments to Ukraine earlier this week,” after the “contentious Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky,” the Journal reported. Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe, “said Trump, after that meeting, had also ‘asked for a pause’ of intelligence sharing.”

For years, the CIA and other U.S. Intelligence agencies “have forged deep ties with Ukrainian counterparts,” according to the Journal. Now, that has changed.

“We have taken a step back and are pausing and reviewing all aspects of this relationship,” Trump National Security Advisor Mike Waltz told reporters Wednesday.

Trump’s decision to halt intelligence sharing “will cost civilian lives almost immediately, dismayed Ukrainians said Thursday,” NBC News reported. The President’s decision also came as European leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “convened a summit in Brussels as they attempt to cope with an upended landscape in which the Trump administration appears to be treating them with hostility while seemingly warming to the Kremlin.”

In another escalation against Ukraine and an apparent move toward Russia, on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News that the war in Ukraine is “a proxy war between nuclear powers – the United States, helping Ukraine, and Russia – and it needs to come to an end.”

Reuters reported that the Kremlin “said on Thursday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s view that the Ukraine conflict is a proxy war between the United States and Russia is in line with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s own assessment.”

On Thursday, Politico Europe exclusively reported that “senior members of Donald Trump’s entourage have held secret discussions with some of Kyiv’s top political opponents to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, just as Washington aligns with Moscow in seeking to lever the Ukrainian president out of his job.”

“The discussions centered on whether Ukraine could hold quick presidential elections. These are being delayed in line with the country’s constitution because Ukraine remains under martial law. Critics of holding elections say they could be chaotic and play into Russia’s hands, with so many potential voters serving on the front lines or living abroad as refugees.”

Politico notes that while the Trump administration denies interfering in Ukraine’s domestic politics, “the behavior of Trump and his officials suggests quite the opposite. Trump has accused Zelenskyy of being a ‘dictator without elections,’ and hinted he would not be ‘around very long’ if he didn’t do a deal with Russia. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has falsely accused Kyiv of canceling the election.”

University of Copenhagen award-winning professor of political science, Marlene Wind, blasted the news.

“This is just appalling. Is Trump secretly planning a coup in Kyiv by replacing @ZelenskyyUa with a pro-Russian politician?” she asked.

Bartłomiej Gajos, a historian of Russia and the Soviet Union, asked: “Is it official US policy to seek regime change in Ukraine? That would be my question to the administration if I were a journalist.”

Meanwhile, critics are also condemning Secretary Rubio’s remarks—with some calling them Russian talking points. And President Trump’s decision to target the nearly quarter-million Ukrainian refugees in the U.S. is also being denounced.

Critics Sound the Alarm

“This is nasty, heartless, un-American and dangerous,” declared veteran and veterans’ activist Paul Rieckhoff. “It’s sending innocent civilians back into a war zone to die. These are women and children and seniors. The latest move to deepen Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine. And American values. He continues to drive the knife deeper into the back of Ukraine. And NATO. Putin is celebrating. And the Statue of Liberty is weeping. Congress must exhaust every option to block this. I’d expect Canada or another good nation to step up to accept these Ukrainians. As America continues to fail and fall. And become more isolated and less safe.”

“Hold on,” said the Wall Street Journal’s chief foreign affairs correspondent Yaroslav Trofimo, “didn’t President Trump just say that half of Ukraine is flattened and that his main motivation is care for innocent Ukrainian lives?”

The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser remarked, “How to see this as anything other than a betrayal of people who fled for their lives? The US welcomed them… and now we’re throwing them out, and switching sides in Putin’s war.”

Last week, Glasser wrote: “the United States of America has switched sides in the war between Russia and Ukraine. The country is no longer on the side of Ukraine.”

Late Thursday morning Glasser posted video of a French lawmaker, calling it a “Powerful speech about Trump’s betrayal of the democratic world.”

“My question watching this — where is the American version?” she asked. “Why hasn’t US’s own opposition to Trump been able to speak out with such clarity and force? Tempus fugit.”

Jesuit priest James Martin, a New York Times best-selling author, and editor-at-large of America magazine, responding to the news Ukrainian refugees may lose protections and be deported, wrote simply: “‘I was a stranger and you did not welcome me’ (Mt 25).”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson

Republican Party Warns Members And Senators: No More Town Halls!

Following a wave of humiliating viral videos capturing congressional Republicans being berated by their own outraged constituents at town halls nationwide, GOP lawmakers are now being told to stop holding such events altogether.

Last month, Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-CA) "tried asking for unity at his 'community coffee' event," but "his audience had screamed, cussed and called him a Nazi," The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday. "The crowd was furious that Obernolte had defended the Trump administration’s mass firings of federal workers. They yelled when he said he was glad billionaire Elon Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, was 'looking at all of the waste' in the federal budget."

"And in reference to Trump, they shouted: 'No king! No king! No king!'"

This week, President Donald Trump, without providing any proof or evidence, claimed that voters caught on camera confronting their elected representatives at town halls—largely in outrage over the mass termination of tens of thousands of government employees and the cancellation of critical, life-saving programs, under the eye of Musk and his DOGE team—were actually "paid" operatives and suggested they were Democratic shills. His allegation has been swiftly echoed by numerous Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and their MAGA supporters.

On Tuesday, in a closed-door meeting among House Republicans, Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC), the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), "very dramatically told members to put down their phones and listen," reportedThe Wall Street Journal's Olivia Beavers.

"He said no one should be doing town halls. Likened it to 2017, [he] said the protests at town halls and district offices are going to get even worse. Another congresswoman got up and complained that they’ve been picketing at her house and targeting her kid, this source says." Beavers noted that Hudson meant in-person town halls.

Democratic House Judiciary Committee chief counsel Joshua Breisblatt went even further: "this has hardcore 2010 vibes..." he remarked, appearing to refer to the Tea Party's anti-Obamacare town halls.

Punchbowl News co-founder Jake Sherman added that Rep. Hudson "told Republicans they should be doing tele town halls instead of in person town halls. He said it is a more efficient way to reach constituents. And he said Dems will send someone to an in-person event to get a viral clip."

Hudson "said Democratic activists are hijacking town halls to organize, drowning out constituents with real issues. He said virtual events could reach thousands of constituents."

That claim targeting Democrats does not appear to align with numerous viral videos with millions of views on social media platforms, like this one, which has been viewed nearly 5 million times on just one social media platform in just three days:

Sherman also reported that it was Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-C) who "said that people are harassing her children at her house."

"Hudson said the paid resistance people are out there like in 2017,” The Daily Beast's Juliegrace Brufke added.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) responded to the 2017 comment: "Republicans think pissed off voters showing up at their town halls are 'paid resistance.' Did the 'paid resistance' cause them to lose 41 seats in the House the next year, too?"

The Bulwark's Sam Stein reported that some House Democrats said if Republicans won't do in-person town halls, they will hold them — in Republican districts.

Bipartisan criticism came swiftly.

"If you don't have the courage to face your constituents -- the majority of whom just voted for you -- you certainly don't have the courage to stand up for your country," charged Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL). "Cowardice is the opposite of leadership. And it's all the @GOP has."

Five-term Republican former Rep. Justin Amash blasted his former colleagues: "If you can’t handle contentious town hall meetings, then you shouldn’t be in Congress. Who cares if a questioner has an agenda? An honest legislator doesn’t fear these exchanges. They always represent an opportunity to persuade constituents, even if you can’t sway the questioner."

Although not a member of Congress, Minnesota Democratic Governor Tim Walz, the former vice presidential nominee, offered to hold town halls himself.

"If your Republican representative won’t meet with you because their agenda is so unpopular, maybe a Democrat will. Hell, maybe I will. If your congressman refuses to meet, I’ll come host an event in their district to help local Democrats beat ‘em," he vowed.

Vox senior politics correspondent Andrew Prokop remarked, "House GOP advised to hide from their constituents rather than try to publicly defend the Trump/Musk agenda."

Democratic strategist Matt Corridoni added, “'Stop talking to your constituents' is one hell of a message."

Town halls are a rich tradition in America, as University of Texas political science professor Mark Hand wrote in 2023:

"The first town halls in America were mini governments, not Q&A sessions—and we don’t really know where they came from. Today, when a representative goes back to their district, it’s mostly listening and responding carefully to constituent concerns. But the first town hall meetings in Massachusetts in the 1630s were experiments in community-level direct democracy, a tradition that continues today in some Massachusetts towns," he wrote.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

'I'm -- We Are The Federal Law"' Sputters Trump As He Threatens Maine Governor

'I'm -- We Are The Federal Law"' Sputters Trump As He Threatens Maine Governor

Just 48 hours after declaring himself “king,” President Donald Trump, in a highly public display, launched a verbal attack on Maine Democratic Governor Janet Mills over his stance on transgender girls in sports. He threatened to cut all federal funding — literally defund the entire state — and vowed to end her political career, in what is being called a “terse” exchange.

“The president directly threatened Mills over the state’s refusal to comply with a recent executive order that would bar transgender athletes from competing on women’s sports teams,” NBC affiliate NewsCenter Maine reports.

Speaking to a bipartisan group of governors at the White House, Trump asked Governor Mills (video below) if her state would not “comply” with his executive order.

“Is Maine here? Is the governor of Maine here? Are you not going to comply with it?”

“I’m complying with state and federal laws,” Mills replied.

“Well, I’m — we are the federal law,” Trump angrily shot back. “Well you’d better do it. You better do it, because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t. And by the way, your population, even though it’s somewhat liberal, although I did very well there, your population doesn’t want men playing in women’s sports. So you’d better comply, because otherwise you’re not getting any — any — federal funding.”

“See you in court,” Mills responded.

“Good, I’ll see you in court. I look forward to that,” Trump said. “That should be a real easy one. And enjoy your life after governor, ’cause I don’t think you’ll be in elected politics.”

Governor Mills later released a statement.

“If the President attempts to unilaterally deprive Maine school children of the benefit of Federal funding, my Administration and the Attorney General will take all appropriate and necessary legal action to restore that funding and the academic opportunity it provides. The State of Maine will not be intimidated by the President’s threats.”

Critics are slamming the president.

“An incredibly revealing exchange, but especially a window into Trump’s view when he says ‘We are the federal law.’ As opposed to, you know, actual laws (& constitutional provisions) that authorize and limit what he can do,” noted CNN senior political analyst Ronald Brownstein.

“L’etat c’est moi as Louis XIV might (or not) have said,” Brownstein added, which loosely translates into “I am the state,” or, “I myself am the nation.”

“Not so easy to cosplay as a king when you aren’t hiding behind a phone screen,” Human Rights Campaign national press secretary Brandon Wolf commented.

“The distance between the most benign possible interpretation of Trump’s public statements and clear autocracy has narrowed to the width of a hairline fracture. Yet Republicans continue to insist that what he ACTUALLY meant was something totally cool and not autocratic,” observed veteran Democratic political strategist Tom Bonier.

“THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT. Right in the White House, Maine Gov Janet Mills goes toe to toe with Trump. Wow,” remarked veteran journalist turned media critic Jennifer Schulze.

Democratic former Washington governor Jay Inslee applauded the Maine governor: “Governor Janet Mills has brought thousands of heat pumps to Maine and now has brought some righteous heat to Donald Trump. Way to bring the heater Janet!”

Trump has signed at least four executive orders threatening the civil rights of transgender people in America.

Watch the video below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Bobby Lied: Violating Senate Commitments, RFK Jr. Seeks To Thwart Vaccines

Bobby Lied: Violating Senate Commitments, RFK Jr. Seeks To Thwart Vaccines

One week after being sworn into office, President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is reportedly preparing to make significant changes to the vaccine approval process—actions that critics say violate the “commitment” he made to several Republican senators. These assurances, senators claim, were key conditions for their votes to confirm the Kennedy, an attorney known for his “role in legitimizing anti-vaccine activism.”

Secretary Kennedy “is preparing to remove members of the outside committees that advise the federal government on vaccine approvals and other key public health decisions, according to two people familiar with the planning,” Politico reported Thursday. “Kennedy plans to replace members who he perceives to have conflicts of interest, as part of a widespread effort to minimize what he’s criticized as undue industry influence over the nation’s health agencies.”

The apparent most likely target is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which “plays a key role in setting vaccine policy. Kennedy and his top aides are also scrutinizing a host of other outside panels, including those that advise the Food and Drug Administration,” according to Politico.

In anticipation of this possibility, before leaving office, President Joe Biden and his HHS Secretary, Xavier Becerra, “approved the appointments of eight new candidates” to ACIP, STAT News reported in January. The medical news outlet called it “a burst of activity within a matter of a few months that could, in theory, make it more difficult for the Trump administration to shape the panel with its own appointees.”

But experts believe that “any attempt to protect the status quo at the ACIP will prove to have been futile. People who sit on this committee have at-will appointments,” they noted.

Multiple news outlets on Thursday reported that ACIP’s first scheduled meeting of the year, slated for next week, has now been postposed, a development raising concerns.

Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a noted virologist, responded on social media to the rescheduling, remarking: “This is how RFK Jr will administratively destroy vaccination programs.”

U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy is a Louisiana Republican and a medical doctor who “co-founded the Greater Baton Rouge Community Clinic, a clinic providing free dental and health care to the working uninsured,” his Senate bio reads. “Bill also created a private-public partnership to vaccinate 36,000 greater Baton Rouge area children against Hepatitis B at no cost to the schools or parents. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Bill led a group of health care volunteers to convert an abandoned K-Mart building into an emergency health care facility, providing basic health care to hurricane evacuees.”

Politico reports that the assurances RFK Jr. “provided helped clinch his confirmation, after Senate HELP Committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said he received commitments that changes would not be made to the CDC’s vaccine committee.”

On February 4, standing on the floor of the Senate, Dr. Cassidy delivered a speech detailing those commitments.

“After seeing patients die from vaccine preventable diseases, I dedicated much of my time to vaccine research and immunization programs. Personally witnessing the safety monitoring, and the effectiveness of immunization. But simply, vaccines save lives,” Cassidy said (archived).

“This is the context that informed me when considering Robert F. Kennedy Jr as the nominee to be Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services,” Cassidy continued, explaining why he was choosing to vote to confirm RFK Jr. “Regarding vaccines, Mr. Kennedy has been insistent that he just wants good science and to ensure safety. But on this topic, the science is good, the science is credible. Vaccines save lives. They are safe. They do not cause autism. There are multiple studies that show this. They are a crucial part of our nation’s public health response.”

Crucially, Senator Cassidy said that Kennedy “committed that he would work within the current vaccine approval and safety monitoring systems, and not establish parallel systems. If confirmed, he will maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices [ACIP] without changes.”

Cassidy was not the only Republican who voted to confirm Kennedy based on commitments he personally made to them.

Defending her vote to confirm Kennedy, widely recognized as one of the least qualified among all of President Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees, U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) issued a lengthy statement repeatedly explaining that RFK Jr. had made “commitments” to her, personally, that were sufficiently satisfying to earn her vote — despite his lengthy reported history of anti-vaccine activism, his statement that, in his opinion, “There’s no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective,” and what has been recorded as his documented history of promoting conspiracy theories.

“I continue to have concerns about Mr. Kennedy’s views on vaccines and his selective interpretation of scientific studies, which initially caused my misgivings about his nomination,” declared Senator Murkowski. “Vaccines have saved millions of lives, and I sought assurance that, as HHS Secretary, he would do nothing to make it difficult for people to take vaccines or discourage vaccination efforts. He has made numerous commitments to me and my colleagues, promising to work with Congress to ensure public access to information and to base vaccine recommendations on data-driven, evidence-based, and medically sound research. These commitments are important to me and, on balance, provide assurance for my vote.”

One week ago CNN’s Manu Raju reported, “Asked Lisa Murkowski if she trusts RFK Jr on vaccines, and she said: ‘We are going to hold him accountable and that’s how we will get the trust.'”

Thursday afternoon, the nonprofit Protect Our Care, issued a statement strongly criticizing Senator Cassidy.

“Just one week in, RFK Jr. has already begun enacting some of the most radical parts of his conspiracy theory-filled agenda, breaking promises he made to on-the-fence Senators during his confirmation process. Coverage confirms that RFK Jr. will be removing members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee after canceling a critical meeting on vaccine approvals,” the group charged.

“RFK Jr. played Bill Cassidy like a fiddle,” the group’s president, Brad Woodhouse, added. “It hasn’t even been a week and he is already breaking his promises. After saying anything to on-the-fence senators to get confirmed, RFK Jr. is now showing his true colors as the anti-science, anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist he always has been. The consequences of RFK Jr.’s broken promises, which were always bull—, will be more sick and dead Americans, including children, and Senator Cassidy and his colleagues who bought what Kennedy was selling will bear responsibility.”

Earlier this week, the Associated Press reported on another commitment RFK Jr. made to Senator Cassidy, one he appears to be preparing to rescind.

“To earn the vote he needed to become the nation’s top health official, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made a special promise to a U.S. senator: He would not change the nation’s current vaccination schedule,” the AP reported. “But on Tuesday, speaking for the first time to thousands of U.S. Health and Human Services agency employees, he vowed to investigate the childhood vaccine schedule that prevents measles, polio and other dangerous diseases.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

White House Says Musk Won't File Public Financial Disclosure

White House Says Musk Won't File Public Financial Disclosure

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt insists President Donald Trump’s Director of the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk, is complying with all federal laws. The Trump administration is under growing pressure to release Musk’s financial disclosure form and any conflict of interest waiver the President may have signed, if there is one.

The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, who wrote the best-selling book, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, made a rare appearance inside the White House press briefing room on Wednesday to challenge Musk’s actions.

“You talked about the transparency with DOGE and Elon Musk,” Haberman reminded Leavitt. “There is a conflict of interest law in place that says that people who have personal interests can’t interact with government entities that could touch on those. Has President Trump signed a waiver for Elon Musk, does such a thing and exist, if it does, will you guys release it in the interest of transparency that he’s committed to?”

“I have not seen the law that you are referring to,” Leavitt was quick to respond. “What I can tell you is that Elon Musk is, I’ve confirmed before, is a special government employee. He is filing the proper financial disclosure. And he is complying with all applicable federal laws.”

“As you also heard, Elon addressed this directly yesterday in the alleged conflict of interest, and he said everything he’s doing is very public, and if you all perceive a conflict of interest, you’re welcome to bring that up.”

“And as the president said, if he feels like Elon is engaging in something that’s a conflict of interest, he will tell Elon not to do that,” she claimed. “Elon also said yesterday that before he moves forward with anything, he consults with the president of the United States. So, um, we’re very confident with the ethics and the guardrails that have been put in place here.”

On Tuesday during his Oval Office press conference, Elon Musk told reporters that there is no conflict of interest.

Musk’s SpaceX reportedly received a $38.8 million contract from NASA this week.

CNN on Tuesday reported that Musk has not filed and will not file a public financial disclosure form.

“Musk, speaking in the Oval Office, sought to underscore his belief that ‘transparency is what builds trust,’ and insisted that all of his team’s efforts were being made public on DOGE’s social media accounts and website,” CNN reported. “But he also seemed to chafe at some of the scrutiny he was receiving, likening it to a ‘daily proctology exam.'”

“Earlier in the day, a White House official said Musk would not need to file a public financial disclosure, allowing the world’s richest man to skirt public scrutiny of his potential conflicts. Musk’s various companies have billions of dollars in government contracts.”

“As an unpaid special government employee who is not a commission officer, he will file a confidential financial disclosure report per the norm,” a White House official told CNN, the news outlet reported.

“We wouldn’t let him” have a conflict of interest or a lack of transparency, President Trump assured reporters Tuesday.

But the New York Times on Tuesday reported that the White House had not responded to its request “for a copy of the waiver, a document that is required under federal law to be released. Ethics waivers are typically drafted based on conflicts identified through a financial disclosure filing, so it is possible that no waiver has been prepared yet.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Federal Judge Angrily Orders Trump To Restore Health Agency Websites

Federal Judge Angrily Orders Trump To Restore Health Agency Websites

A federal judge has directed harsh criticism at the Trump administration for removing countless public health web pages and websites, ordering them restored by midnight, and suggesting their deletion may have risked violating federal law.

U.S. District Judge John Bates, a George W. Bush appointee, “ordered federal health agencies Tuesday to restore pages they removed from their websites last month to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order on ‘gender ideology and extremism,’ saying the decision to pull them down could be detrimental to public health,” Politico reported. The order extends to the CDC, HHS, and the FDA.

“In his opinion,” Politico added, “Bates said the agencies’ decisions to take down certain webpages ‘likely’ constitute an ‘order’ that’s reviewable under federal administrative law.”

The Trump administration’s claims that the removal was necessary to review their contents and amounted to mere “maintenance” were not arguments the judge appeared willing to accept. Judge Bates instead denounced the “widespread disruption that defendants’ abrupt removal of these critical healthcare materials has caused.”

Bates blasted the Trump administration, writing, “it bears emphasizing who ultimately bears the harm of defendants’ actions: everyday Americans, and most acutely, underprivileged Americans, seeking healthcare. These individuals rely on the care of doctors… If those doctors cannot provide these individuals the care they need (and deserve) within the scheduled and often limited time frame, there is a chance that some individuals will not receive treatment, including for severe, life-threatening conditions. The public thus has a strong interest in avoiding these serious injuries to the public health.”

In his opinion granting Doctors for America a temporary stay, Bates offered several examples of “irreparable harm” the government’s actions have already caused.

Doctors for America “has shown its members are already suffering such harm. To start, [one doctor] serves the students of ‘one of the most underserved high schools in Chicago.'”

“In this work, she ‘regularly’ relies on CDC’s resources on sexually transmitted diseases (‘STDs’)… The harm she has suffered since CDC removed those pages is neither hypothetical nor far off. The high school ‘recently had an outbreak of Chlamydia,’ and now that she is ‘[w]ithout t[he] crucial CDC resources,’ she is ‘not able to do [her] job to help address this urgent situation.'”

Bates also cited a statement from a leading physicians’ group, and wrote that “the lost materials are more than ‘academic references—they are vital for real-time clinical decision-making in hospitals, clinics and emergency departments across the country.'”

“Without them, health care providers and researchers are left ‘without up-to-date recommendations on managing infectious diseases, public health threats, essential preventive care and chronic conditions.'”

Politico reports Doctors for America had sued “the Office of Personnel Management, the CDC, the FDA and HHS last week, claiming the missing information ‘deprives’ doctors and researchers of ready access to data that’s critical to treating patients and addressing public health emergencies.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Russ Vought

Senate Democrats Will Filibuster Christian Nationalist Vought's Nomination

Senate Democrats are uniting to block — or at least delay — the confirmation process for Russ Vought, the self-described “Christian nationalist” architect of Project 2025, as President Donald Trump’s nominee for Director of the Office of Management and Budget. To push back against his confirmation, they plan to hold the Senate floor starting Wednesday afternoon, vowing to speak “all night.”

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), who has urged Democrats use their power to stall Trump’s agenda, announced that “more than 35 United States senators on the Democratic side” will “take the floor for 30 hours.”

“Russ Vought is the main author of Project 2025,” Schatz said. “He’s the guy that established this federal funding freeze. He is the architect of the dismantling of our federal government, harming us with Medicaid portals shut down, with Head Start shut down, with agencies illegally stormed and the servers being seized. We’ve got to fight back and we’re united, all 47 Democrats in opposition to Russ Vought’s nomination.”

“If confirmed, Russ Vought may be the most important man that no one’s ever heard of,” declared Senator Schatz on the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon.

Vought has been getting some attention in the press.

“In times past, Vought — who famously asked ‘Is There Anything Actually Wrong With ‘Christian Nationalism?’’ in Newsweek in 2021 — would have been seen, and dismissed, as an over-the-top extremist well outside the boundaries of mainstream politics,” wrote Thomas B. Edsall in a New York Times opinion column on Tuesday. “Today, he is a lauded Trump loyalist on the verge of his second tour of duty with the president, in one of the most powerful posts in the federal government.”

“In Vought’s vision of the apocalyptic battle for the soul of America,” Edsall continued, “Democrats are ‘increasingly evil.’ The federal work force, in turn, is the enemy that must be forced into submission. ‘When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains,’ Vought, who is 48, declared last year. ‘We want to put them in trauma.’ ”

Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune plans to have Vought confirmed this week.

Last month during Vought’s confirmation hearing, Senate Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member Gary Peters (D-MI) told him that when he ran OMB during President Trump’s first term, “you consistently ignored laws passed by Congress that directed how taxpayer dollars should be spent.”

“In 2020, an investigation by the Government Accountability Office found that OMB, under your leadership, broke the law eight times.”

Peters said Vought “inappropriately delayed disaster relief funding for Puerto Rico following the devastation of Hurricane Maria,” and “knowingly delayed getting critical resources to communities following a disaster even after Congress passed a law specifically requiring the funds be disbursed on time.”

He also, Peters charged, “pushed for” replacing “nearly 50,000 nonpartisan, career civil servants with appointees whose only qualification was their political loyalty.”

Senate Democratic Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray has called Vought “incredibly alarming,” and one of Trump’s “anti-abortion extremists.” She noted that Vought was “the lead author of Project 2025, which called for ripping away birth control, allowing states to nigh women, lifesaving emergency care, and effectively banning all abortion nationwide.”

“He has said he wants abolition of abortion in the United States,” Murray added. “In other words, a national abortion ban without any exceptions, even in the cases of rape or when a mother’s life is at risk.”

“Vought has called to outlaw medication abortion, block funding, for Planned Parenthood, and advocated for President Trump to appoint a new special assistant in the White House to coordinate anti-abortion policies across government.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

'You Will Have Blood On Your Hands': Cassidy Ripped For RFK Jr. Vote

'You Will Have Blood On Your Hands': Cassidy Ripped For RFK Jr. Vote

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a physician with a record of working to help the uninsured and underinsured, on Tuesday voted in committee to confirm anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to become President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services. Kennedy, an attorney and not a physician, has never managed an enterprise anywhere near the scale of the $1.6 trillion department that encompasses over a dozen vital agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The final floor vote on Kennedy’s HHS nomination is expected to come next week.

Directly or indirectly, HHS’s decisions touch every human being in the United States.

Senator Cassidy had hinted, some believed, as The New York Times had reported, that he would vote against confirming Kennedy, after he posted a biblical passage on courage to social media this weekend:



Cassidy’s vote has been seen as pivotal for Kennedy’s confirmation.

Kennedy has been labeled a conspiracy theorist who “continues to push the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism,” the BBC reported. He has said: “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective.” He also has spent years advocating against vaccines, and has a financial interest in having vaccines perceived as dangerous, and has a financial stake in anti-vaccine lawsuits.

“Kennedy has not only gained a public following for his outlandish claims, he has also made a lot of money broadcasting them. And he could stand to make more from his anti-vaccine crusade as America’s top health official — the kind of brazen self-dealing that’s become all but normalized in Trump’s America,” Vox‘s Dylan Scott reported.

Despite Kennedy’s history, however, Senator Cassidy on Tuesday told Americans that if confirmed, RFK Jr. and he “will meet regularly,” and the HHS Secretary would meet quarterly with the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. And he said Kennedy committed to giving the HELP Committee 30-day notice if he wants to change vaccine monitoring programs.

“These commitments, and my expectation that we can have a great working relationship to make America healthy again, is the basis of my support,” Cassidy announced (video below).

On social media media Cassidy added: “I’ve had very intense conversations with Bobby and the White House over the weekend and even this morning. I want to thank VP JD specifically for his honest counsel. With the serious commitments I’ve received from the administration and the opportunity to make progress on the issues we agree on like healthy foods and a pro-American agenda, I will vote yes.”

Backlash against Cassidy has been swift.

“Having very intense conversations with a liar is not a good way to discover the truth,” wroteThe Atlantic’s James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds.

“You are a coward,” charged Fred Wellman, an Army veteran of 22 years who served four combat tours, and is now a political consultant and the host of the podcast “On Democracy.” “What did they threaten you with? This Administration never keeps promises. Why are you such a spineless fraud? Just disgraceful. You’ve gotten your footnote in the history books as a weak man who surrendered when challenged. Nobody remembers the cowards.”

“Our Republican Party has fully turned into the soulless United Russia party and act identical to the communist politburo,” observed Olga Lautman, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and an expert on Russian intelligence.

“Rarely does somebody get to flush two essential oaths, Hippocratic and Constitutional, down the toilet at once. May history remember you for this accomplishment,” noted former Obama and Biden administrations official Jesse Lee.

“You’re a doctor who just voted for an anti-vax conspiracy theorist. You’ve made children less safe. You’ve made Americans less safe. This is your legacy,” declared political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen.

“Disgusting. I feel for anyone who had him as a Doctor—or a Senator. Kennedy is the most unqualified, disqualified, radical and ridiculous nominee for this role in history. Anyone who votes for him has no integrity,” wrote veterans’ activist Paul Reickhoff.

“You are a moral coward. When children die because they are unvaccinated for measles and polio, you will bear responsibility. When people die from a pandemic because the CDC has been hollowed out, you will have blood on your hands. Shame,” saidThe Atlantic’s Dr. Norman Ornstein, a political scientist and emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

Watch the video below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Elon Musk

How Musk And Trump Undermined Air Safety Before Fatal Crash

As the nation begins to grapple with and mourn what reportedly are more than 60 deaths from a late Wednesday night mid-air collision over Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, some are also grappling with the response from President Donald Trump.

“No one is believed to have survived the midair collision between an American Airlines jet plane and a US Army Black Hawk helicopter last night in the Washington, DC, area, the fire chief said Thursday. President Donald Trump is expected to address the tragedy this morning at the White House Briefing Room,” CNN reported.

The White House put out a statement from President Trump just before 11 PM Wednesday that read: “I have been fully briefed on the terrible accident which just took place at Reagan National Airport. May God Bless their souls. Thank you for the incredible work being done by our first responders. I am monitoring the situation and will provide more details as they arise.”

But just after midnight, on his Truth Social website, Donald Trump shared this message.

“The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport. The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time. It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!”

Critics are blasting Trump for his Truth Social post.

HuffPost White House correspondent S.V. Dáte posted screenshots of both statements and commented: “What people in the WH want you to think the president thinks,” and, “What the president actually thinks.”

“One of the paradoxes of Trump’s conception of the presidency: he somehow requires absolute and unchecked power, but also seems to think of himself as a passive, tut-tutting observer when the government over which he has that absolute power fails in any way,” observedNew York Times opinion columnist Lydia Polgreen, in response to Trump’s social media post. Polgreen is a co-author of the recent Times piece, “Trump Is at His Absolute Worst in a Crisis.”

Amy McGrath, a former Marine fighter pilot and former Democratic political candidate responded to Trump’s remarks: “This is not what our president should be doing or saying right now.”

“The President is asking rhetorical questions about what federal gov’t aircraft was doing, as if someone else should have the answers. This is his responsibility. If he doesn’t know the answers, it’s because he and his unqualified DoD & DoT appointees are incompetent,” declared attorney Max Kennerly.

Bloomberg columnist Matthew Yglesias added: “One of Trump’s weirdest bits from Covid was constantly acting like someone else was the president and he’s just a prominent guy raising questions about what the government is doing.”

Others pointed to Trump’s recent actions.

“First aviation disaster in US since 2009 and if it had been under Biden,” Moe Davis, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, attorney, educator, politician, and former administrative law judge wrote. He add that Trump “would yell incompetence and say wouldn’t happen if he was President.”

Davis also noted that the head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was “pushed out” by Elon Musk, and that “Trump killed” the Aviation Safety Committee, “fired” the head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and “froze air traffic control hiring.”

On Thursday,The Daily Beast reported, “The Federal Aviation Administration’s leader stepped down on Jan. 20, months after Elon Musk demanded that he quit,” and noted that the “move by Michael Whitaker means the FAA has no Senate-confirmed leader for one of the biggest crises in its history because he quit before Donald Trump took office.”

Back in September, Musk tweeted that Whitaker “needs to resign.”

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

The AP explained that the “aviation security committee, which was mandated by Congress after the 1988 PanAm 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, will technically continue to exist but it won’t have any members to carry out the work of examining safety issues at airlines and airports. Before Tuesday, the group included representatives of all the key groups in the industry — including the airlines and major unions — as well as members of a group associated with the victims of the PanAm 103 bombing. The vast majority of the group’s recommendations were adopted over the years.”

Stephanie Bernstein, whose husband was killed in the bombing and served on the committee, told the AP, “I naively thought, ‘oh they’re not going to do anything in the new administration, to put security at risk — aviation security at risk.’ But I’m not so sure.”

Shannon Watts, a speaker, organizer, and anti-gun violence activist wrote: “Dems should call for immediate hearings on what caused tonight’s plane crash, including the impact of the removal of FAA safety protocols and personnel.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Karoline Leavitt

White House Chaos: Budget Memo Rescinded But Spending 'Freeze' Continues

The White House is making clear that even though the Trump budget office has rescinded its highly confusing and controversial memo declaring a massive and widespread freeze on possibly trillions of federal funding dollars, the actual funding freeze itself is still in effect and will be “rigorously implemented.” The rescission of the memo reportedly was merely a tactic to “get around” a court injunction.

“This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze,” wrote White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Wednesday afternoon, after celebrations from the left, believing the memo’s rescission meant the policy was also rescinded. “It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo. Why? To end any confusion created by the court’s injunction. The President’s EO’s on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented.”

A federal court had placed a temporary, partial “stay,” or pause, on the OMB memo.

“This is just more confusion and chaos,” New York State Attorney General Letitia James said in response to Leavitt. “We will be in court this afternoon.”

“On the White House rescinding the memo,” reported CBS News senior White House reporter Jennifer Jacobs, “aides say it is not an end to the intended freeze of federal funding that clashes with Trump’s worldviews. It’s meant to get around the court injunction.”

“Bingo," Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), one of the more vocal critics of the Trump White House, responded. “Crisis is deepening, not abating. They are trying to ignore the court order.”

“The funding shutdown is still in place. They are just doing it without the piece of paper,” he added.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) added, “So they reversed the memo and then sent out this? Chaos.”

Fox News Senior White House Correspondent Jacqui Heinrich reported on the White House’s apparent reasoning, telling viewers Wednesday afternoon, “Karoline Leavitt said in the briefing that this [OMB memo] was targeted at things like the $50 million that went to, uh, she said, condoms in Gaza. Initiatives like that are still subject to this freeze, anything that’s impacted by those executive orders, there were, I think, seven listed in the memo, but in the interim, the OMB has pulled back that memo itself, because that barred communication between OMB and agency heads and what, in fact, was impacted.”

The OMB memo specifically noted programs like the “Green New Deal” would be frozen, even though the Green New Deal was never fully passed or signed into law.

The White House’s claims about $50 million being sent to Gaza for condoms — repeated on live television Wednesday afternoon by President Donald Trump in a signing ceremony of the Laken Riley Act — also appears to be false.

“According to a comprehensive report issued in September by the US Agency for International Development (USAid), not a penny of the $60.8m in contraceptive and condom shipments funded by the US in the past year went to Gaza,” The Guardian reported Tuesday. “In fact, the accounting shows, there were no condoms sent to any part of the Middle East, and just one small shipment, $45,680 in oral and injectable contraceptives, was sent to the region, all of it distributed to the government of Jordan.”

“As Dan Evon of the non-profit News Literacy Project points out: ‘It’s also worth noting that this is not a Biden program. Trump, too, spent funds on sending contraceptives around the globe. In 2019, about $40m was spent on contraceptives by the Trump administration.’”

Watch the video below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Stephen Miller

Is Funding Freeze A 'Media Hoax' -- Or A 'Gift To Terrorists'?

Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s White House deputy chief of staff, is under fire after appearing repeatedly to attempt to whitewash the Office of Management and Budget memo that ordered a funding freeze on “all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.”

The OMB memo, which was not publicly rolled out but rather discovered by journalist Marisa Kabas, appears to have led to the shuttering on Tuesday of the Medicaid portals in all 50 states. There were also reports that in addition to the Medicaid portal, the portal for SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program formerly known as “food stamps,” also went down on Tuesday, along with other sources or recipients of federal funding.

Miller declared that the massive nationwide concern and confusion were a media creation.

“I can’t help it if left-wing media outlets published a fake news story that caused confusion,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper. The confusion, Miller insisted, was a “false story” that was “created by the media.”

Later on Tuesday Miller doubled down, declaring on social media, “Welcome to the first dumb media hoax of 2025. OMB ordered a review of funding to NGOs, foreign governments and large discretionary contracts. It explicitly excluded all aid and benefit programs. Leftwing media outright lied and some people fell for the hoax.”

OMB was forced to issue an explainer Tuesday after media outlets accurately reported what the OMB memo stated. But some say that the FAQ was an opportunity for OMB to backtrack after massive, nationwide anger, fear, and confusion — which was somewhat quieted after a federal judge issued a temporary partial pause on the OMB memo.

Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI) responded to Miller’s remarks, writing: “They are back-tracking because we spoke up. Good. But make no mistake: their OMB memo ordered a freeze of *all* grants. The Medicaid and SNAP portals went dark. Head Start providers couldn’t draw funds. This was not a coincidence. It was their plan. And they screwed up bigly.”

Despite Miller’s repeated claims that the memo was clear and did not affect a wide array of federally-funded programs, The Boston Globe reported that “Children’s Friend, a Head Start program in Rhode Island, said it was unable to draw down $500,000 for this week’s payroll,” and “Open Door Health, an LGBTQ+ health clinic, said it could not access its federal funds on Tuesday.”

Rep. Magaziner also posted a list of organizations that he says are being blocked from receiving funding by the Trump Department of Homeland Security. “This is a gift to terrorists and our adversaries across the world. Trump needs to stop this madness and resume funding now,” Magaziner, the Homeland Security Ranking Member for Counterterrorism, wrote:

Outrage at Miller’s remarks calling the massive public upset and confusion over OMB’s memo a “dumb media hoax” was extensive.

“Completely false. Your first lie of the year. Payment Management Services (PMS), through which states get Medicaid funds from the federal government, had a banner saying payments were stopped because of Trump’s order. Stop lying,” wrote MSNBC columnist Rotimi Adeoye, whose bio says he is a former congressional aide and advisor for the ACLU Voting Rights Project.

“Sure there are dumb media hoaxes but if you accidentally turn off Medicaid people notice,” observed Matt Stoller, a political commentator, author, and the research director of the American Economic Liberties Project.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

John Fetterman

Fetterman Flatters Trump But Denies Rumors He Will Join Republicans

Sen.John Fetterman’s complex relationship with President Donald Trump has raised many eyebrows on the left, with some Democrats worrying he could switch sides, giving Senate Republicans a greater advantage in their current narrow majority.

Fetterman, the senior senator from Pennsylvania, was the first Senate Democrat to join Trump’s Truth Social website and the first Democratic Senator to visit Trump at Mar-a-Lago after the 2024 election.

“President Trump invited me to meet, and I accepted. I’m the Senator for all Pennsylvanians— not just Democrats in Pennsylvania,” Fetterman declared, Reuters reported.

He was also the first Democratic Senator to call for President Joe Biden to pardon Trump.

“The Trump hush money and Hunter Biden cases were both bullshit, and pardons are appropriate,” Fetterman wrote in his first Truth Social post, the UK’s The Timesreported last month. “Weaponising the judiciary for blatant, partisan gain diminishes the collective faith in our institutions and sows further division.”

On Monday, he became the last Senate Democrat to sign on to a resolution condemning Trump’s pardons of over 1500 people convicted of crimes related to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and the insurrection.

According to the Associated Press, “Fetterman has warmed to Trump so much that some in his party are quietly disavowing the man they supported in 2022, when the Pennsylvanian easily won a three-candidate primary and survived a stroke amid a high-pressure campaign to become the only Democrat to flip a Republican Senate seat that year.”

And he’s embraced Trump’s proposed Greenland grab, calling it “a responsible conversation.”

On Monday, Fetterman rejected the party switching rumors, declaring those who suggest he has made a “rightward” move are wrong: “it’s just happened not to be true.”

“I’ve been record too, saying, I am not gonna become a Republican, you know, although maybe some people might be happy on one side, but I would make a pretty terrible Republican because, you know, pro-choice, pro-really strong immigration pro-LGBTQ, uh, you know, just pretty, like, I don’t think I’d be a good fit, so I’m not gonna change my party.”

“I can’t keep chasing down every last thing that’s online, because they’re just happen not to be true and just look at my votes, look at the things that I haven’t changed,” Fetterman insisted.

Watch below or at this link:

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Russian President Vladimir Putin

'Ask Russia': Trump Abandons Promise He Will End War In Ukraine

One of President Donald Trump’s several broken campaign promises was highlighted by a question Thursday as he spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he refused to say if Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine would be over in a year.

On the campaign trail, Trump infamously vowed that he would end the war, started by Russian President Vladimir Putin, within “24 hours,” and at one point he suggested he would end it if re-elected — even before being sworn in as president.“I would fix that within 24 hours, and if I win, before I get into the office, I will have that war settled. 100% sure,” Trump said on Fox News in March 2024, according to HuffPost.

“Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, shortly after we win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled — we’re going to get it settled and stop the death,” Trump adamantly told supporters in June 2024.“If I’m president, I will have that war settled in one day, 24 hours,” Trump said again just months later, at a CNN town hall in May 2023, as TIME reported. “It will be over. It will be absolutely over.”

But on Thursday, Trump had a very different response.

“Mr. President, when you’re back here in Davos next year, will there be then a peace agreement with Ukraine and Russia by then?” World Economic Forum President and CEO Borge Brende asked Trump, who appeared virtually (video below).Recently, Trump has used his social media platform to levy threats of levying tariffs against Russia if Putin does not end the war. It is unclear if the incoming Trump administration has done more than that.

“Responding to the threat of harsher sanctions, the Kremlin said it remains ‘ready for an equal dialogue, a mutually respectful dialogue,'” the BBC reported Thursday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, reportedly said, “We’re waiting for signals that are yet to arrive.”BBC reports, “He added that Russia sees nothing new in Donald Trump’s threats to impose sanctions.”

“He likes these methods, at least he liked them during his first presidency,” Peskov said.

On Wednesday, Trump had written a lengthy missive pleading with and threatening Putin to end the war.“I’m not looking to hurt Russia. I love the Russian people, and always had a very good relationship with President Putin – and this despite the Radical Left’s Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX,” Trump claimed. “We must never forget that Russia helped us win the Second World War, losing almost 60,000,000 lives in the process. All of that being said, I’m going to do Russia, whose Economy is failing, and President Putin, a very big FAVOR. Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE. If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries.”

“Let’s get this war, which never would have started if I were President, over with! We can do it the easy way, or the hard way – and the easy way is always better. It’s time to “MAKE A DEAL.” NO MORE LIVES SHOULD BE LOST!!!”

Watch the video below or at this link.

'Saved By God' -- But Trump Doesn't Touch Bible As He Takes Oath

'Saved By God' -- But Trump Doesn't Touch Bible As He Takes Oath

During his presidential swearing-in inaugural ceremony, Donald Trump several times invoked God, while inexplicably not placing his hand on either of the two Bibles Melania Trump held at his side.

“I was saved by God to make America great again,” Trump told the former presidents, lawmakers, and billionaires in attendance at the Capitol Rotunda. “We are one people, one family, and one glorious nation under God,” Trump also declared, adding, “We will not forget our God.”

Many, including the deputy chief of staff to a Democratic Congressman, noted that Trump did not place his hand on the Bible. And while not a constitutional requirement, it was a striking anomaly.

Also reporting Trump not being sworn in with a hand on the Bible, the New York Postnoted, “Trump used both a family Bible and the so-called Lincoln Bible, which was sworn on by the 16th president in 1861 as well as Barack Obama in 2009 and 2013.”

“Instead,” the Post reported, “Trump stood with his left arm down by his side as he raised his right hand for the oath of office.”

Few presidents have skipped the hand-on-the-Bible portion of the swearing in.

President John Quincy Adams in 1825 reportedly used a law book instead of a Bible, according to PBS.

“In 1901, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was hastily sworn in after the assassination of President Wil­liam McKinley,” notes Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “Roosevelt had rushed to Buffalo, where McKinley had been shot by an anarchist named Leon Czolgosz. Roosevelt took the oath of office at the home of a friend, and no Bible was used during the private ceremony.”

In 1963, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, “believed it was best for a reeling nation to know that a president was in place immediately. As Johnson was preparing to take the oath of office aboard Air Force One, a Bible was not available. Kennedy’s personal Roman Catholic missal was found in his living quarters,” according toThe Washington Post.

But this may be the first time a president has been sworn in with a Bible by his side yet without putting their hand on it.

Watch the video below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Trump Announces Three Aging 'Ambassadors To Hollywood'

Trump Announces Three Aging 'Ambassadors To Hollywood'

Donald Trump has announced about 100 nominations to his administration that require Senate confirmation, from cabinet secretaries to ambassadors to foreign countries, but on Thursday the President-elect announced the “nomination” of three more “ambassadors” — to Hollywood.

“It is my honor to announce Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone, to be Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California,” Trump declared on social media. “They will serve as Special Envoys to me for the purpose of bringing Hollywood, which has lost much business over the last four years to Foreign Countries, BACK—BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE! These three very talented people will be my eyes and ears, and I will get done what they suggest. It will again be, like The United States of America itself, The Golden Age of Hollywood!”

Calling it a “seemingly unprecedented role,” Politico reports, “Voight, Gibson and Stallone have been vocal supporters of Trump in recent years.”

The three will not require Senate confirmation, as there is no official role of Ambassador to Hollywood.

“Trump has long had deep ties within the entertainment industry. His pick for envoy to the United Kingdom is his old producer from ‘The Apprentice,’ Mark Burnett.”

The Chicago Tribune noted that “Trump’s decision to select the actors as his chosen ‘ambassadors’ underscores his preoccupations with the 80s and 90s, when he was a rising tabloid star in New York, and Gibson and Stallone were among the biggest movie stars in the world.”

“Stallone is a frequent guest at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club and introduced him at a gala in November shortly after the election,” the Tribune reported. But the paper noted, the “decision also reflects Trump’s willingness to overlook his supporters’ most controversial statements.”

“Gibson’s reputation has been altered in Hollywood since 2006, he went on an antisemitic rant while being arrested for allegedly driving under the influence. But he’s also continued to work in mainstream movies and directed the upcoming Wahlberg thriller ‘Flight Risk.'”

“Voight is a longtime Trump supporter who has called Trump the greatest president since Lincoln,” the Tribune added.

But while some mocked the very idea of “ambassadors” to Hollywood, some political observers see a different motivations.

“If you’re to believe Trump, a task force comprised of three men with an average age of 77 is precisely what Hollywood needs to reclaim its glory days,” reported Vanity Fair‘s Chris Murphy.

“There is no reason to think that Trump genuinely wants to help the U.S. film industry, which has rejected and mocked him since he entered politics,” writes New York Magazine “Intelligencer” senior editor Margaret Hartmann, who described the appointments as “trolling Hollywood.”

She also notes that “there’s the underlying idea that Trump needs to appoint ambassadors to Hollywood, like it’s not part of the United States. He underscores this by calling it a ‘great but very troubled place.’ Referring to Hollywood as a location, not just an industry, and describing it as ‘troubled’ make it impossible not to think of the wildfires.”

Hartmann also says, “it’s not clear what it means to be Trump’s ‘eyes and ears’ in the film industry, unless he’s trying to conjure fears about another Red Scare.”

Others have made suggestions about American culture.

“It means that just like in the Third Reich with the Nazis, MAGA is hyperfocused on gaining control of culture. You can’t control people unless you control culture. Like I said, Hollywood is about to FO [find out],” declared political analyst Rachel Bitecofer.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported, “while some have welcomed the picks,” of Stallone, Voight, and Gibson, “others, such as departing President Joe Biden have warned of an emerging ‘oligarchy’ in the US.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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