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12:45 PM ET, February 18, 2025

memeorandum

 Top Items: 
Sarah N. Lynch / Reuters:
Senior U.S. prosecutor resigns, citing demands to open probe into Biden-era contract  —  The top federal prosecutor who supervised criminal cases at the Washington, D.C. U.S. Attorney's office resigned on Tuesday, citing what she described as an improper demand by officials appointed …
RELATED:
CNN:
Head of Justice Department's Washington, DC, criminal division quits  —  The head of the criminal division within the DC US Attorney's Office has left her post, according to four sources.  —  The sudden departure of Justice Department veteran Denise Cheung comes a day after President Donald …
Washington Post:
High-ranking D.C. federal prosecutor resigns in protest  —  The leader of the criminal division has stepped down following a dispute over freezing Biden-era environmental grants.  —  The head of the criminal division in the U.S. attorney's office in D.C. resigned Tuesday morning after declining …
Discussion: CBS News and Semafor
Washington Post:
Top Social Security official exits after clash with Musk's DOGE over data  —  Yet another top career staffer is leaving the administration amid a disagreement over a request by Elon Musk's team for sensitive government information.
RELATED:
Kyle Cheney / Politico:
Who's in charge of DOGE?  Not Elon Musk, White House says  —  A Trump administration personnel official says Musk has “no actual or formal authority to make government decisions.”  —  Elon Musk is not the leader of DOGE — the mysterious Trump administration operation overseeing an effort to break and remake the federal bureaucracy.
Associated Press:
Social Security head steps down over DOGE access of recipient information, sources say  —  The Social Security Administration's acting commissioner has stepped down from her role at the agency over Department of Government Efficiency requests to access Social Security recipient information …
emptywheel:
Why Elon Musk Can't Run DOGE [sic] Anymore  —  Yesterday, Judge Tanya Chutkan had a Presidents Day hearing on a lawsuit challenging DOGE's actions.  While she reportedly seemed inclined not to grant an emergency restraining order, she did order the government to provide her with two pieces of information …
The Bulwark:   Staying Patriotic in Trump's America
The Contrarian:
The American surrender to Putin  —  Is Trump's policy America first or America alone?  —  Defending Democracy  —  The president of the United States called Vladimir Putin on Feb. 12.  The White House characterized the call as the beginning of a negotiation to end the war in Ukraine.
Discussion: Yahoo News, Reuters and Politico
RELATED:
New York Times:
Under Trump's Mass Deportation Plan, Some Migrants Are Being Sent to Panama  —  Migrants deported from the United States are being held at the Decapolis Hotel Panama in Panama City.  The deportees come from Afghanistan, Iran, China and other nations.  —  They arrived at the United States border …
Discussion: Reason and New York Post
New York Times:
C.I.A. Expands Secret Drone Flights Over Mexico  —  The covert program, begun during the Biden administration and stepped up by President Trump, is hunting for the location of fentanyl labs.  —  The United States has stepped up secret drone flights over Mexico to hunt for fentanyl labs …
RELATED:
CNN:
CIA flying covert drone missions into Mexico to spy on drug cartels
Discussion: Raw Story
Mark Hertling / The Bulwark:
Marco Rubio Is Walking into a Trap  —  I'M AN ETERNAL OPTIMIST.  But my gut, informed by a career spent studying and implementing American foreign policy, tells me this week will not go well.  Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
RELATED:
Associated Press:
Russia and the US agree to work towards improving ties and ending the Ukraine war in landmark talks
Lauren Aratani / The Guardian:
A quarter of US shoppers have dumped favorite stores over political stances  —  A new poll also found that four in 10 Americans have shifted spending to align with moral views in recent months  —  Americans are changing their shopping habits and even dumping their favorite stores in a backlash …
Bryan Metzger / Business Insider:
Some Republicans are pushing back on DOGE as firings hit their home states  — Some Republicans are beginning to speak up against DOGE-led cuts to federal jobs.  — It tends to happen when those cuts impact their home states.  — They've made sure to emphasize their support for government efficiency as they've spoken out.
Discussion: Politico
RELATED:
Politico:
GOP flinches at Musk cuts
Discussion: Jacobin
CNN:
Hamas says it will release bodies of four hostages, including Bibas children, on Thursday and six living hostages on Saturday  —  Hamas on Tuesday said that it will release the dead bodies of four Israeli hostages on Thursday, including the two youngest people held by the group, Kfir and Ariel Bibas.
Remy Tumin / New York Times:
Delta Plane Overturns at Toronto Airport While Landing  —  The airport said on social media that emergency teams were responding and that all passengers and crew were accounted for.  —  A Delta Air Lines flight arriving at Toronto Pearson Airport from Minneapolis appears to have overturned …
Caleb Ecarma / Musk Watch:
Meta removes Facebook ad criticizing Musk  —  Meta removed an advertisement earlier this month criticizing Elon Musk's use of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to seize Americans' private information.  “A single individual now controls sensitive U.S. data, risking our national security.
Rebecca Traister / New York Magazine:
Wokeness Is Not to Blame for Trump  —  How a misdiagnosis of the 2024 election has calcified into self-defeating conventional wisdom.  —  In the midst of chaos and cataclysm, it's rare to find agreement across partisan divides, but in the months since Donald Trump won his second presidential election …
The Daily Beast:
Trump Wants Kennedy Center to Lavish MAGA Artists With Honors  —  President Donald Trump wants to lavish his personal friends with Kennedy Center Honors, after parachuting himself into the hot seat at the cultural mecca.  Earlier this month, Trump, who reportedly also privately railed …
Discussion: Wall Street Journal
Andrew Solender / Axios:
Scoop: Dems prep for Trump legal meltdown … Democrats are meeting with state attorneys general, top lawyers, litigation firms, constitutional experts and advocacy organizations, multiple top lawmakers told Axios.  — “Looking into all the implications and all the strategies …
Discussion: Washington Examiner and The Nation
Sheryl Gay Stolberg / New York Times:
Trump Cuts Target Next Generation of Scientists and Public Health Leaders  —  A core group of so-called disease detectives, who track outbreaks, was apparently spared.  But other young researchers are out of jobs.  —  The notices came all weekend, landing in the inboxes of federal scientists …
Reuters:
Exclusive: FDA staff reviewing Musk's Neuralink were included in DOGE employee firings, sources say  —  U.S. Food and Drug Administration employees reviewing Elon Musk's brain implant company Neuralink were fired over the weekend as part of a broader purge of the federal workforce, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter.
Discussion: STAT and Raw Story
Jill Lawrence / The Bulwark:
Seven Myths Shattered by Trump 2.0 (and One True Thing)  —  THE PAST FEW WEEKS have been a master class in myth-busting, starting with the fantasy that the government should be run like a business and the corollary delusion that winning candidates don't follow through on their campaign agendas.
Amanda Marcotte / Salon:
“His mission is to eradicate ‘woke Jesus’”: How money, lies and religion are abused to gut democracy  —  Journalist Katherine Stewart's “Money, Lies, and God” takes readers into Trump's movement to end America  —  Money, God and lies: These are the three pillars of the movement that led …
Discussion: Raw Story
Washington Post:
Trump's firings strike the nation's health agencies  —  Many of those terminated worked on issues critical to consumers, from improving health care to regulating food packaging to responding to infectious-disease outbreaks.  —  The nation's health agencies were upended over the weekend by a confusing …
Discussion: New Republic
David Gilbert / Wired:
No, 150-Year-Olds Aren't Collecting Social Security Benefits  —  Elon Musk claims to have found rampant fraud in the Social Security Administration.  There's a much simpler explanation.  —  Elon Musk has repeatedly claimed that his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) …
Rolling Stone:
FAA Employees Say Trump and Musk's Purge Is a ‘Threat’ to Air Safety  —  After firing hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration employees, the Trump administration is now attempting to downplay safety concerns  —  Donald Trump and Elon Musk fired hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration …
Paul Krugman:
Making Microbes Great Again  —  The Texas measles outbreak is just the beginning  —  I'm almost certain that I had measles as a child.  My memories are a bit vague, and unfortunately my parents, who would surely have remembered the incident, have passed on.
Ashleigh Fields / The Hill:
NY Democrats demand RFK Jr. restore cuts to 9/11 survivor program  —  New York Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand wrote a Monday letter to newly minted Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., urging him to reverse recent cuts to the Centers for Disease Control …
Jory Heckman / Federal News Network:
DeJoy announces plans to step down as USPS postmaster general  —  DeJoy told the USPS Board of Governors to begin the process of searching for a new postmaster general.  DeJoy took office in June 2020.  —  Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is planning to step down from his role …
 
 
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 More Items: 
Laura Snapes / The Guardian:
Placebo frontman Brian Molko charged with calling Meloni ‘fascist’ and ‘racist’
Discussion: Consequence and Daily Mail
New Republic:
Trump-Musk Threats Darken as Their Anger at Enemies Takes Ominous Turn
Bill Mahoney / Politico:
Cuomo loses attempt to block probe into his $5M pandemic book deal
Derek Thompson / The Atlantic:
How COVID Pushed a Generation of Young People to the Right
Andrew Prokop / Vox:
Why Trump's second term agenda is so wildly different from his first
Abdallah Fayyad / Vox:
What comes after the DEI backlash?
Discussion: Washington Examiner and Forbes
 Earlier Items: 
Catherine Rampell / Washington Post:
The GOP is pushing a false choice
Discussion: The Hill
Don Moynihan / Can We Still Govern?:
The Personalist Presidency  —  Right now, so many things are happening so quickly that it is hard to keep up.
Timothy L. O'Brien / Bloomberg:
Trump Isn't Playacting When He Invokes Napoleon
Rebecca Falconer / Axios:
Musk is not a DOGE employee and “has no actual or formal authority,” WH says
Governor Kathy Hochul:
Statement from Governor Kathy Hochul
Sunjeev Bery / The Intercept:
This Is the Way to Stop Elon Musk
Discussion: Raw Story
 

 
From Techmeme:

Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says that President Trump believes the US has the resources and workforce to build iPhones in the US

Ben Weiss / Fortune:
Internal memo: the US DOJ disbands the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Unit, established by Biden in 2021, as the agency is “not a digital assets regulator”

The Information:
Source: Instagram is working on an iPad app, and Adam Mosseri told staff to be willing to assume more “risk” to take advantage of a TikTok US ban or disruption
 
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