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9:00 AM ET, January 29, 2025

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 Top Items: 
NBC News:
Trump administration will offer all 2 million federal workers a buyout to resign  —  An email is set to go out to federal workers beginning Tuesday.  —  President Donald Trump's administration is set to offer every single federal worker the chance to take a “deferred resignation” …
RELATED:
Axios:
Scoop: Trump offering buyouts to all federal workers, source says … We're five years past COVID and just 6 percent of federal employees work full-time in office.  That is unacceptable," a senior administration official tells Axios.
Daniel Barnes / NBC News:
D.C. federal judge temporarily blocks Trump plan to pause federal aid spending  —  The order from Judge Loren AliKhan runs through next Monday, when further arguments in the case are scheduled.  —  Trump administration freezes nearly all federal grants and loans
Associated Press:
Trump offering federal workers buyouts with about 8 months' pay in effort to shrink government  —  The Trump administration announced Tuesday that it is offering buyouts to all federal employees who opt to leave their jobs by next week — an unprecedented move to shrink the U.S. government at breakneck speed.
Washington Post:
White House incentivizes federal workers to resign
Discussion: Business Insider
Vittoria Elliott / Wired:
Elon Musk Lackeys Have Taken Over the Office of Personnel Management  —  Sources tell WIRED that the OPM's top layers of management now include individuals linked to xAI, Neuralink, the Boring Company, and Palantir.  One expert found the takeover reminiscent of Stalin.
RELATED:
Don Moynihan / Can We Still Govern?:
Compelling Mass Civil Servant Resignations Will Create Chaos
Discussion: Townhall
Erik De La Garza / Raw Story:
Trump is holding hospitals ‘hostage’ in brazen ‘power grab’: AOC  —  Progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) unloaded on President Donald Trump in an escalation of the brewing Democratic opposition to the new administration as it unleashes a barrage of new executive orders.
Discussion: New Republic and Twitchy
RELATED:
Dan Mangan / CNBC:
White House says Medicaid portal ‘will be back online shortly’ after Trump funding freeze blamed
Jennifer Bendery / HuffPost:
‘A 5 Alarm F-ing Fire’: Trump's Federal Funding Freeze Is Jolting Some Dems Into Fight Mode
Discussion: The Hill and CNN
Popular Information:
New Trump memo claims authority to ignore Congress
Associated Press:
Federal judge temporarily blocks Trump administration freeze on federal grants and loans
New York Times:   Which Federal Programs Are Under Scrutiny? The Budget Office Named 2,600 of Them.
Punchbowl News:   1/29/25 ☀️ AM:  —  Dems were in the dumps - until Trump helped them out
The White House:
Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation  —  By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:  —  Section 1.  Policy and Purpose.  Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming …
RELATED:
New York Times:
Trump's Order on Transgender Troops Will Likely Ban Their Service, Again  —  In an executive order issued Monday night, the president said transgender service members “cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary” for the military.  —  Hours after President Trump signed …
Fox News:
Pentagon pulling Gen. Milley's security detail and clearance ‘immediately,’ may face demotion in retirement  —  EXCLUSIVE: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will announce he is “immediately pulling” retired Gen. Mark Milley's personal security detail and security clearance, multiple senior administration officials tell Fox News.
RELATED:
Washington Post:   Hegseth takes action against Trump foe Mark Milley
Washington Post:
Trump moves to fire members of EEOC and NLRB, breaking with precedent  —  The dismissals target two independent agencies that oversee large swaths of U.S. workers, employers and labor unions.  —  President Donald Trump has moved to fire Democratic members of two independent federal commissions …
RELATED:
David Corn / Mother Jones:
SCOOP: RFK Jr. Secretly Recorded Second Wife During Divorce and Acknowledged Being “Polygamous”  —  One recording might have violated state law.  It was part of a messy saga that ended with her suicide.  —  In the early 2010s, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went through a contentious divorce with his second wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy.
Matthew Yglesias / Slow Boring:
Throw Biden under the bus  —  Sleepy Joe landed us in this mess with bad, selfish decisions  —  When Joe Biden stepped aside in favor of Kamala Harris, the overwhelming majority of Democrats praised him for the decision and painted an overall flattering portrait of Biden's presidency and his career.
RELATED:
Shane Goldmacher / New York Times:   Powerless, Democrats Debate Just How Deep in the Wilderness They Are
Apoorva Mandavilli / New York Times:
State Department Permits Distribution of H.I.V. Medications to Resume — for Now  —  Experts fear a resurgence of infections in low-income countries if the ban were to continue.  The waiver remains in place, while officials review foreign aid programs.  —  The Trump administration …
RELATED:
Joan Westenberg / The Index:
Trump's PEPFAR Shutdown is White Supremacy in Action
Discussion: NPR
Sheryl Gay Stolberg / New York Times:
RFK Jr., Trump's Pick for Health Secretary, Faces First Senate Confirmation Hearing  —  Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies in confirmation hearings before the Senate's Finance Committee on Wednesday, and will appear Thursday before the health committee.  —  Robert F. Kennedy Jr. …
RELATED:
Julia Ainsley / NBC News:
Trump administration may pull money from TSA, Coast Guard to help ICE afford costly deportations  —  The average cost to ICE to deport a single person during the Biden administration was about $10,500, sources told NBC News.  —  Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, the principal agency tasked …
Financial Times:
OpenAI says it has evidence China's DeepSeek used its model to train competitor  —  White House AI tsar David Sacks raises possibility of alleged intellectual property theft  —  OpenAI says it has found evidence that Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek used the US company's proprietary models …
Reuters:
Americans sour on some of Trump's early moves, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds  —  Americans have a dim view of some of President Donald Trump's early barrage of executive orders, including his attempt to do away with so-called birthright citizenship and his decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
Discussion: Baltimore Sun
Paul Krugman / The Contrarian:
Departing the New York Times  —  As many people reading this know, last month I retired from my position as an opinion writer at the New York Times—a job I had done for 25 years.  Despite the encomiums issued by the Times, it was not a happy departure.  If you check out my Substack …
Washington Post:
Caroline Kennedy warns of ‘predator’ RFK Jr. in searing letter, video  —  The former ambassador urged senators to reject Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s nomination for health secretary, questioning his ethics and views on vaccines.  —  Caroline Kennedy warned senators Tuesday about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. …
RELATED:
Associated Press:
Caroline Kennedy warns senators that cousin RFK Jr. is a ‘predator’
STAT:
STAT+: Private emails show RFK Jr. making false claims about Covid-19 shots, linking vaccines to autism  —  On the eve of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s confirmation hearings, his physician niece has shared a trove of private emails in the hopes of derailing his nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
Discussion: New York Post
Rachel Ulatowski / The Mary Sue:
'Biden's Book Ban Hoax': Department of Education claims book bans are a ‘hoax’ and dismisses all complaints  —  The fear that book bans would worsen under Donald Trump's presidency has become a reality.  The Department of Education announced it is dismissing book ban complaints as a hoax …
David R. Lurie / Public Notice:
Trump's chaos governance failed once.  He's trying it again.  —  He's breaking eggs while ignoring their price. … ✈️ ⛈️ 🚁  —  Pundits spent the past week expressing wonderment at how Donald Trump has lumbered back into the White House with a massive show of dominance and power.
Amanda Marcotte / Salon:
“Trump is trying to collapse our economy”: War on “woke” revealed as a war on all Americans  —  Christian nationalists behind the spending shutdown aim to punish everyone, not just imaginary Marxists  —  Initially, the most striking detail in the White House Office of Management and Budget memo …
Punchbowl News:
The best commute to Washington belongs to Jim Justice  —  Most days before the Senate starts its day, a privately-owned Cessna Citation V jet lands at Washington Reagan National Airport.  —  And most evenings, after the chamber is done with its business, the same jet takes off for Greenbrier Valley Airport in Lewisburg, W.Va.
Brianne Pfannenstiel / Des Moines Register:
Iowa Democrats flip Senate seat in special election to cut into Republican majority  —  Iowa Democrats have flipped a state Senate seat vacated earlier this year by Chris Cournoyer, who resigned to become the state's new lieutenant governor.  —  Democrat Mike Zimmer has defeated Republican Kate Whittington …
Discussion: Iowa Starting Line
 
 
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 More Items: 
Ashley Parker / The Atlantic:
You're So Vain, You Probably Think Kash Patel Hates You
Luke Broadwater / New York Times:
Trump's ‘Flood the Zone’ Strategy Leaves Opponents Gasping in Outrage
Discussion: Raw Story
 Earlier Items: 
Umar Shakir / The Verge:
FCC chair says landlords can force bulk internet service on residents
Wall Street Journal:
Tulsi Gabbard, Edward Snowden and Intelligence
Discussion: Washington Post and Raw Story
Alan Feuer / New York Times:
Pardoned Jan. 6 Rioter Is Sought for Charges of Soliciting Minor
Discussion: Tampa Bay Times and The Guardian
Associated Press:
Some Trump voters are skeptical of his opening moves to embrace fellow billionaires
Jennifer Elias / CNBC:
Google reclassifies U.S. as ‘sensitive country’ alongside China, Russia after Trump's ‘Gulf of America’ comments
Ilya Somin / Reason:
Trump's Attempt to Usurp Congress's Spending Power
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Reuters:
CBS, Nickelodeon, and other Paramount channels will be unavailable on YouTube TV after February 13, as the two companies failed to reach a contract renewal

Alexandra Bruell / Wall Street Journal:
The Atlantic, Politico, Vox and others sue Cohere, alleging it used copyrighted works to train its LLM and shared versions of entire articles without permission

Anna Betts / The Guardian:
In a letter to the White House, AP Executive Editor Julie Pace called the move to block its journalists from events “a clear violation of the First Amendment”

 
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