Top Items:


How Elon Musk Executed His Takeover of the Federal Bureaucracy — The operation was driven with a frenetic focus by the billionaire, who channeled his resentment of regulatory oversight into a drastic overhaul of government agencies. — On the last Friday of September 2023 …
Discussion:
Christian Science Monitor
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Feds to start getting weekly emails asking what they did. Bosses will see if it fits Trump goals. — The new strategy is in part meant to allow supervisors and agency heads to check whether employees' work fits into the Trump administration's goals and priorities, according to people familiar with it and records obtained by The Post.
Discussion:
The Hill, CBS News, Daily Kos and NewsNation


Judge blocks Trump administration's mass firings of federal workers — A federal judge ruled that the terminations at several agencies, including the Department of Defense, were likely illegal. — SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Office of Personnel Management …
Discussion:
CNN, Politico, Baltimore Sun, The National Pulse, New Republic, Reason, GovExec.com, Mediaite, The Hill, OutsideTheBeltway, USA Today, Townhall, Axios, The Daily Caller, The Independent and Forbes


Inside DOGE's Clash With the Federal Workforce — With a surprise incursion in the first minutes of the Trump presidency, Elon Musk's programmers seized control of a key personnel agency; ‘rogue bureaucrats’ fight back — WASHINGTON, D.C.-At 12:01 p.m. on Jan. 20, as Donald Trump …


Trump fires hundreds working on weather forecasts, satellite data and radar systems
Discussion:
Baltimore Sun, Daily Kos, Heatmap News, USA Today and Raw Story

Elon Musk's Takeover Is Being Aided by a Trumpworld Power Couple
Discussion:
Raw Story


Judge orders Trump administration to rescind directives on probationary employee firings
Discussion:
New York Times, The Guardian, NBC News, Associated Press, Business Insider, NPR, Defense One, UPI, USA Today, Washington Examiner, Blaze Media and Federal News Network

US judge in San Francisco will hear request by unions to halt mass firings of probationary workers
Discussion:
The Daily Caller, RedState and Associated Press

Office Closures and Relocations Part of Trump's Plan for Large-Scale Layoffs
Discussion:
USA Today


U.S. Terminates Funding for Polio, H.I.V., Malaria and Nutrition Programs Around the World — Here are some of the 5,800 contracts the Trump administration formally canceled this week in a wave of terse emails. — Starting Wednesday afternoon, a wave of emails went out from the State Department …
Discussion:
Politico
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Services to millions of people collapse as USAID cuts contracts worldwide
Discussion:
Associated Press

US shutdown of HIV/Aids funding ‘could lead to 500,000 deaths in South Africa’
Discussion:
Al Jazeera

Behind the scenes, GOP senators challenge legality of Trump's aid cuts
Discussion:
Politico, Wired, Hartford Courant, Raw Story and Daily Kos


Trump to Sign Executive Order Making English Official U.S. Language — The U.S. has never had a national language in its nearly 250-year history — WASHINGTON—President Trump is planning to sign an executive order that would for the first time make English the official language of the U.S., according to White House officials.
Discussion:
USA Today, Axios, CBS News, The Guardian, Backbencher, The Daily Caller, The Post Millennial, masslive.com, The National Pulse, NewsNation and Global Voices
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Trump to sign order making English the official U.S. language
Discussion:
Reuters

Trump to sign order Friday designating English as the official language of the US
Discussion:
Washington Examiner, MeidasTouch News, NBC News, The Hill, Fox News, Reuters, The Independent, The Gateway Pundit and New York Post


BREAKING: SEC halts fraud prosecution of Chinese national who sent Trump millions — In December, Popular Information reported that Chinese crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun purchased $30 million in crypto tokens from World Liberty Financial (WLF), a new venture backed by President Donald Trump and his family.
Discussion:
Gizmodo, Bloomberg and CoinDesk, more at Techmeme »
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A crypto mogul who invested millions into Trump coins is getting a reprieve on civil fraud charges
Discussion:
New York Times, CoinDesk, Wired and Fortune, more at Techmeme »


Hundreds of weather forecasters fired in latest wave of DOGE cuts — Hundreds of weather forecasters and other federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employees on probationary status were fired Thursday, lawmakers and weather experts said. Federal workers who were not let …
Discussion:
Axios, OPB, USA Today, The Colorado Sun, Mock Paper Scissors, The Independent, Scripps News, Washington Examiner and E&E News
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Trump's Assault on Social Security — Social Security is our biggest and most successful safety net program. The annual $1.6 trillion in benefits constitutes 21% of federal spending and 40% of older adults' income. It lifts more people out of poverty than any other government program.
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, Newsweek, Democrats and Fox Business
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Lies, Cuts, Closures: Trump and Musk Ravage Social Security Administration
Discussion:
Associated Press and Congressman Hakeem Jeffries


The Putinization of America — Trump's deference to the Russian dictator has become full-blown imitation. — We are barely a month into the second presidential term of Donald Trump and he has made his top priorities clear: the destruction of America's government and influence and the preservation of Russia's.
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FBI takes up EPA probe amid pushback from judge, prosecutors — While career prosecutors in two U.S. attorney offices and a U.S. judge balked at a court-ordered freeze, Citibank has locked down billions without explanation — FBI agents this week questioned Environmental Protection Agency …
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo and IJR


Young Republicans Group Invites Accused Sex Trafficker Brothers to Speak: ‘As Free Speech Absolutists...’ — The Tampa Bay Young Republicans tweeted an invitation to Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan to come speak to their group, drawing swift criticism for the outreach to the men currently facing charges …
Discussion:
No More Mister Nice Blog and Florida Politics
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Democrats Are About to Eat Their Own — Expect a bizarre scene at the White House today, where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is showing up to sign an agreement pledging some Ukrainian rare-mineral rights to the United States—theoretically in exchange for further U.S. opposition to Vladimir Putin engulfing his country.
Discussion:
New York Times and Vanity Fair
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Why Aren't We in the Streets? — On Trump the Almighty and his so-far quiescent capital.
Discussion:
Althouse


US Attorney Ed Martin Demotes Jan. 6 Case Supervisors — Washington's top federal prosecutor Ed Martin has demoted multiple senior supervisors involved in Jan. 6 insurrection cases to work in significantly reduced capacities. — The supervisors oversaw the office's work on federal crimes …
Discussion:
New York Post
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Musk Makes Big Mistake While Trying to Smear CNN Legal Analyst Norm Eisen — CARELESS — The billionaire DOGE chief found a woman with the same last name as a lawyer he hates. Cue the conspiracy.
Discussion:
Electrek and emptywheel


Speaker Mike Johnson Is Living in a D.C. House That Is the Center of a Pastor's Secretive Influence Campaign — ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they're published. — In 2021, Steve Berger …
Discussion:
Diane Ravitch's blog


Republicans consider major budget change to obscure deficit impact of extending Trump's tax cuts — GOP leaders argue that extending Trump's expiring 2017 tax cuts shouldn't be treated as costing any money. Democrats compare the tactic to nuking the 60-vote filibuster rule.
Discussion:
New York Magazine, Committee for a …, HuffPost, Washington Examiner, Grabien, The Hill, Axios and New York Times
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Republicans fear their big budget win is a 2026 time bomb
Discussion:
New York Times, Raw Story, IJR and The Hill


Here's the real threat to ‘personal liberties and free markets’ — The rapidly spreading authoritarianism coming from this administration threatens all of our freedoms. — Over the last 48 hours, I've been receiving from readers and friends the sort of notes one gets upon losing a loved one …
Discussion:
Thinking about, The Gene Pool, RedState and Issues & Insights


The Story Behind FCC Chairman Brendan Carr's Role in Project 2025 — Dozens of pages of emails reveal how Brendan Carr, the FCC's Republican chairman and close confidante of President Trump, was cleared by ethics officials to write a chapter in the 922-page manifesto when he was a commissioner.


Attorney General Pamela Bondi Releases First Phase of Declassified Epstein Files — Today, Attorney General Pamela Bondi, in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), declassified and publicly released files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his sexual exploitation …
Discussion:
People, Washington Examiner, Washington Post, Rolling Stone, New York Times, New Republic, Fox News, New York Post, The Gateway Pundit, Mediaite, Gizmodo, Townhall, NewsNation, The Hollywood Reporter, Israpundit, UPI, IJR, The Hill, Associated Press, One America News Network, The Daily Caller, Page Six, RedState, The Daily Signal, Bloomberg, Raw Story, The Post Millennial, The Federalist, Daily Mail, FOX 32 Chicago, The Maine Wire, Florida Politics, Human Events, Scripps News, The National Pulse and Hollywood Life


The MAGA War on Speech — In 1791, the nation's founders ratified the First Amendment to the Constitution. It would come to offer protections in the new nation essentially never seen before: the right to ask things of and to criticize the government; to express opinions, popular or not …


Elon Musk Is South African. It Explains a Lot. — Elon Musk is everywhere. — He is firing federal employees, gaining access to important government data, popping into the Oval Office, appearing on Fox News alongside President Trump and even attending a White House cabinet meeting.
Discussion:
Mother Jones, Louder With Crowder, RedState, Fox News, The Independent and Althouse