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6:30 PM ET, February 22, 2025

memeorandum

 Top Items: 
Lisa Rein / Washington Post:
New Social Security chief was being investigated when Musk team tapped him  —  Leland Dudek, a data analyst working in a small anti-fraud office, was suspected of sharing unauthorized access to information with representatives of Musk's U.S. DOGE Service.  Now he's the acting Social Security commissioner.
RELATED:
Eli Hager / ProPublica:
Anxiety Mounts Among Social Security Recipients as DOGE Troops Settle In
Discussion: HuffPost and The Independent
Greg Sargent / New Republic:
Trump's Own Pollster Just Hit Him with Very Bad News—and a Warning  —  As you watch President Donald Trump and Elon Musk recklessly attempt to destroy the federal government like a pair of toddlers picking legs off a spider, it seems as if Republicans have decided public opinion no longer constrains them in the least.
RELATED:
Akayla Gardner / Bloomberg:
Trump Tells CPAC His Goal Is a ‘Lasting’ Republican Majority
Asawin Suebsaeng / Rolling Stone:
CPAC 2025: Conservative Elites Celebrate Trump as America Self-Immolates
Paul Kane / Washington Post:
Congress ignores looming shutdown to focus on tax cuts, agency layoffs
Discussion: Forbes and Politico
Donato Paolo Mancini / Bloomberg:
Meloni, Privately Startled by Trump, Avoids Criticism of US
Discussion: Reuters
Jessie Blaeser / Politico:
DOGE shared its receipts — and some of them don't match  —  “Everyone is very well-aware they're repeating the wrong numbers,” said one manager at a company on DOGE's list of cuts.  —  Elon Musk promised to deliver a “maximally transparent” government efficiency program.
Discussion: Raw Story, Mediaite and New Republic
RELATED:
Washington Post:
Musk's DOGE says it has saved $55 billion.  Not so fast.  —  A Washington Post analysis found that hundreds of the canceled contracts DOGE listed represent savings of $0 each.  —  Elon Musk's U.S. DOGE Service claimed this week to have saved an estimated $55 billion through a combination of layoffs …
Discussion: PolitiFact and New Republic
New York Times:
DOGE's Only Public Ledger Is Riddled With Mistakes
Discussion: Wall Street Journal and Kevin Drum
Helene Cooper / New York Times:
Trump's Firing of Gen. Charles Q. Brown May Have Roots in George Floyd Protests  —  A four-minute video appears to have been a turning point for the president and Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the ousted Joint Chiefs chairman.  —  For the second time, the killing of George Floyd by a police officer …
RELATED:
Frances Vinall / Washington Post:
Who is Dan Caine, Trump's pick as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?
U.S. Department of Defense:
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth Statement on General Officer Nominations
Constant Méheut / New York Times:
U.S. Pressing Tough Demands in Revised Deal for Ukraine's Minerals  —  The Trump administration appears to be insisting that Ukraine relinquish half of its revenues from natural resource extraction, with no security guarantee in exchange.  —  Ukraine on Saturday was seriously considering …
RELATED:
Abbey Fenbert / The Kyiv Independent:
US threatens to shut off Starlink if Ukraine won't sign minerals deal, sources tell Reuters  —  Editor's Note: This story has been updated with Elon Musk's denial of the Reuters report.  —  The United States has threatened to cut off Ukraine's access to Starlink satellite internet terminals …
Luke Harding / The Guardian:
'It's blackmail': Ukrainians react to Trump demand for $500bn share of minerals
Discussion: Bloomberg and Forbes
Politico:
Musk says all federal employees need to explain their work immediately — or be let go  —  Federal employees received an email Saturday afternoon, and gave them a deadline of Monday night.  —  All federal government employees will have to share what they've been working on in the last week or face dismissal, Elon Musk said Saturday.
RELATED:
New York Times:
How Federal Employees Are Fighting Back Against Elon Musk … Karen Ortiz, an administrative law judge at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said her ability to send emails was shut off after she sent an agencywide message calling on the commission's acting chair to resign.Taurat Hossain for The New York Times
Discussion: Forbes
Donald Moynihan / The Atlantic:
The DOGE Project Will Backfire
Bernard Condon / Associated Press:
Musk's cost-cutting team is laying off workers at the auto safety agency overseeing his car company  —  Elon Musk's cost-cutting team is eliminating jobs at the vehicle safety agency that oversees Tesla and has launched investigations into deadly crashes involving his company's cars.
Discussion: New York Times and UPI
Isabella Kwai / New York Times:
Measles Outbreaks in Texas and New Mexico Sicken Nearly 100 People  —  Texas reported 90 cases this week, while New Mexico reported nine.  A majority of the cases have been in a Texas county where vaccination rates have lagged behind the rest of the state.  —  Outbreaks of measles in parts …
RELATED:
Adam Serwer / The Atlantic:
The Great Resegregation  —  The nostalgia behind the slogan “Make America great again” has always provoked the obvious questions of just when America was great, and for whom.  Early in the second Trump administration, we are getting the answer.  —  In August, speaking with someone he believed …
Jaclyn Diaz / NPR:
Federal prisons prep to move trans inmates as early as next week  —  The Bureau of Prisons is pushing ahead with plans to move transgender inmates out of prisons that align with their gender identity and into facilities corresponding to their sex at birth.  The moves could happen as early as next week …
Heather Cox Richardson / Letters from an American:
February 21, 2025  —  In an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) yesterday, billionaire Elon Musk seemed to be having difficulty speaking.  Musk brandished a chainsaw like that Argentina's president Javier Milei used to symbolize the drastic cuts he intended …
Discussion: Politico
RELATED:
Calvin Woodward / Associated Press:   Trump moves with light speed and brute force in shaking the core of what America has been
Rolling Stone:
Kristi Noem Says $200 Million DHS Ad Campaign Thanking Trump Was His Idea  —  Trump's Homeland Security Secretary said he instructed her to make ads that “thank me for closing the border”  —  NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland — The Department of Homeland Security has budgeted up to $200 million …
Discussion: NOTUS
Associated Press:
Pope Francis is in critical condition after long respiratory crisis, requiring oxygen at high flow  —  Pope Francis was in critical condition Saturday after he suffered a long asthmatic respiratory crisis that required high flows of oxygen, the Vatican said.
Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:
CDC Shutters PRAMS Program on Maternal and Infant Health  —  The Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) is a federal data collection system, run out of CDC, “designed to identify groups of women and infants at high risk for health problems, to monitor changes in health status …
Majlie de Puy Kamp / CNN:
Recording reveals new details on controversial DOGE employee  —  Less than three years before Elon Musk tapped him to take part in a sweeping overhaul of the US government, Edward Coristine, then 17, was the subject of a heated dispute between two executives at the Arizona-based cybersecurity firm where he was an intern.
Discussion: New York Magazine
Steve Saideman / Saideman's Semi-Spew:
Why Civ-Mil People Are Freaking Out?  —  Trump bravely waited until Friday night to purge the top level of the US military.  Why are people freaking out?  We knew this was going to happen.  Trump promised this before the election, and the selection of Hegseth, a misogynist and racist …
Discussion: The Mahablog
ProPublica:
They Worked to Prevent Death.  The Trump Administration Fired Them.  —  ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power.  Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they're published.  —  Every day, they tackled complex issues with life-or-death stakes:
Discussion: Raw Story
Melody Schreiber / The Guardian:
Alarm as bird flu now ‘endemic in cows’ while Trump cuts staff and funding  —  Experts say current US outbreak is unlikely to end without intervention with further mutation of virus likely  —  A newer variant of H5N1 bird flu has spilled over into dairy cows separately in Nevada and Arizona …
Jessica Costescu / freebeacon.com:
NBC Settles Defamation Lawsuit With Georgia Doctor Whom Rachel Maddow Dubbed the ‘Uterus Collector,’ Avoiding High Stakes Trial  —  NBC's top anchors made ‘verifiably false’ statements about a doctor they accused of performing ‘mass hysterectomies’ on female inmates at ICE facility, a federal judge ruled last year
 
 
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 More Items: 
Washington Post:
U.S. pressures Kyiv to replace U.N. resolution condemning Russia
Donna Ferguson / The Guardian:
Man killed intervening in knife attack on French police officers
Travis M. Andrews / Washington Post:
As sales drop, artists weigh canceling Kennedy Center shows in protest
Discussion: Raw Story
Jennifer Schuessler / New York Times:
Amid Changes at the National Archives, the Carter Library Cancels a Civil Rights Book Event
Liam Archacki / The Daily Beast:
Trump Admin. Agrees to Restore 9/11 Health Program Funding
Discussion: Associated Press and Raw Story
Ali Bianco / Politico:
Italy's Meloni defends Vance's Munich speech chastising Europe
Politico:
As Eric Adams melts down, Andrew Cuomo forges ahead
Discussion: New York Post
 Earlier Items: 
Carter Sherman / The Guardian:
Missouri lawmaker proposes registry of pregnant women ‘at risk’ for abortions
Discussion: Mock Paper Scissors and FOX 2
Nathan Layne / Reuters:
IRS blocks Musk aide from accessing taxpayer data
Jacob Silverman:
Prominent DOGE Staffer Is Grandson Of Turncoat KGB Spy
Discussion: Gizmodo and Byline Times
Aaron Blake / Washington Post:
The Trump team ups the trolling to 11
Maine.gov:
Governor Mills' Statement on Notice of Investigation From U.S. Department of Education