Check out Mini-memeorandum for simple mobiles or memeorandum Mobile for modern smartphones.
11:40 AM ET, February 8, 2025

memeorandum

 Top Items: 
Shayna Jacobs / Washington Post:
Federal judge blocks Musk's DOGE from access to Treasury Department material  —  The judge also ordered Musk and his team to “immediately destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from Treasury Department's records and systems, if any.”  —  NEW YORK — A federal judge issued …
Discussion: Townhall and CBS News
RELATED:
Alex Galbraith / Salon:
“The greatest threat we've ever faced”: US Treasury division classifies DOGE staff as extreme danger
Discussion: FedScoop
State of California:
Attorney General Bonta Sues Trump Administration Over DOGE's Unlawful Access to Americans' Personal Information
Discussion: New Jersey Office …
Michael Stratford / Politico:
Treasury elevates Musk ally to lead government payment system
Christina Jewett / New York Times:
Deep Cuts to Medical Research Funds Could Hobble University Budgets  —  Grants from the National Institutes of Health come with additional money for overhead.  Proposed funding cuts would leave colleges with large budget gaps.  —  The National Institutes of Health announced a new policy Friday …
Discussion: Politico and STAT
RELATED:
Samuel Bagenstos / Inside/Outside:
Indirect Costs and Trump's Attack on Independent Voices
Discussion: STAT and Reuters
New York Times:
Advocate of Jan. 6 Rioters Now Runs Office That Investigated Them  —  Ed Martin, a loyal Trump soldier, oversees the U.S. attorney's office, which is likely to help turn the investigative powers of the government on several of the president's perceived enemies.
Politico:
How spending $153M to pay its bills put USAID in DOGE's crosshairs  —  Aides to the president and Elon Musk suspected USAID officials were trying to go around a funding freeze.  —  Pete Marocco was furious.  —  It was Thursday, Jan. 23, and the Trump administration official had discovered …
Discussion: Twitchy and EADaily
RELATED:
Declan Walsh / New York Times:   Trump and Musk Bring Vast Aid Machinery to a Halt in Africa
Kathryn Watson / CBS News:
Trump fires archivist of the United States, official who oversees government records  —  President Trump has fired Archivist of the United States Colleen J. Shogan, the government official responsible for preserving and providing access to government records.
RELATED:
Bloomberg:
'It's a Circus': Trump Unleashes Chaos at Key US Science Agency  —  Muddled directives and early-morning emails at NOAA, one of the world's top weather and climate forecasters, have put the agency on edge.  —  The email arrived in US government workers' inboxes just after 1 a.m. East Coast time on Friday …
Deidre McPhillips / CNN:
Measles outbreak expands in West Texas around county with low vaccination rate  —  A measles outbreak is growing in a rural area of West Texas where vaccination rates are well below the recommended level.  —  In late January, two children in Gaines County were hospitalized for measles.
Greg Sargent / New Republic:
Did Trump Quietly Kill a Sensitive Pentagon Probe into Elon Musk?  —  In December, more than a month before Donald Trump took the presidential oath of office, The New York Times reported a blockbuster scoop: Elon Musk and his SpaceX company had repeatedly failed to meet federal reporting requirements designed …
Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:
Teen on Musk's DOGE Team Graduated from ‘The Com’  —  Wired reported this week that a 19-year-old working for Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was given access to sensitive US government systems even though his past association with cybercrime communities …
New York Times:
Trump Says He Will Dismiss Kennedy Center Board Members and Install Himself as Chair  —  The move by the president, whose authority to make the changes was not clear, is the latest attempt to bring a Washington institution under his control.  —  President Trump announced his intention …
RELATED:
María Luisa Paúl / Washington Post:
Trump halts aid to South Africa, claiming discrimination against Afrikaners  —  His executive order accuses South Africa's government of seizing property from White landowners and calls for their resettlement as “refugees” in the U.S.  —  President Donald Trump on Friday signed …
RELATED:
Camilo Montoya-Galvez / CBS News:
Trump orders U.S. to prioritize refugee resettlement of South Africans of European descent
Naomi LaChance / Raw Story:
30K tons of food ‘going to waste’ in Houston after Trump halted aid  —  About 30,000 tons of food is stuck at a port in Houston after Trump halted foreign aid for 90 days.  The food, intended to feed people overseas, is stalled at a warehouse,the Houston Chronicle reported.
Casey Michel / The Moscow Times:
Washington Has Given Up the Fight Against Kleptocrats.  Here's What Democracies Should Do  —  On Feb. 6, new U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a series of new directives from President Donald Trump's administration outlining her office's priorities.  Taken together, they represent …
Washington Post:
Kash Patel was paid by Russian filmmaker with Kremlin ties, documents show  —  Patel, President Trump's nominee to be FBI director, was paid $25,000 last year by a film company that has promoted anti-Western views advanced by the Kremlin, documents show.  —  Kash Patel, President Donald Trump's nominee …
Discussion: The Independent
RELATED:
Mother Jones:   Kash Patel Took $25,000 From Russia-Linked Firm to Appear on an Anti-FBI TV Series
Shawn McCreesh / New York Times:
Will a Time Magazine Cover Drive a Wedge Between Trump and Musk?  —  The cover of the venerable newsweekly, long an object of fixation for the president, put Elon Musk behind the Resolute Desk.  —  The president did not look amused.  He was meeting the Japanese prime minister …
Politico:
They still want ‘one big, beautiful bill.’ They're nowhere close.  —  GOP leaders are trying to lasso various factions as the Senate races ahead with its own plan for President Donald Trump's tax cuts and other priorities.  —  House Republicans are still far from finalizing several key details …
RELATED:
Natalie Allison / Washington Post:
Trump's Gaza proposal strikes fear in his new Arab American supporters  —  Whether Trump can keep these new supporters could have significant implications on key upcoming statewide races, but also on the fragile coalition the party assembled to gain new ground.
Discussion: Raw Story and Politico
Wall Street Journal:
The Mood of the American Consumer is Souring  —  Tariff threats, market turbulence causing jitters early in Trump's second term  —  The Trump bump in consumer confidence is already over.  —  Tariff threats, stock market swings and rapidly reversing executive orders are causing Americans across …
Discussion: The Independent and Raw Story
Joey McFadden / The Daily Beast:
Trudeau Caught on Hot Mic Revealing Trump's Plans for Canada  —  Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told business leaders that U.S. President Donald Trump's interest in annexing Canada was a very real plan aimed at controlling the country's vast mineral resources.Trudeau was caught …
Abdallah Fayyad / Vox:
The real lesson of the DOGE racist tweets scandal  —  On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that a staffer at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) resigned after the paper inquired about some racist social media posts from an account linked to him.
Politico:
German court orders X to hand over election data in legal blow to Musk's platform  —  Researchers win a legal battle against the platform formerly known as Twitter, securing crucial access to social media data to probe potential election interference.  —  BERLIN — A German court handed Elon Musk's X …
Aaron Wiener / Washington Post:
Federal workers who took Trump buyout feel fear, regret after judge's order  —  A judge in Massachusetts paused a Feb. 6 deadline to decide on whether to take the buyout, pending a Monday court hearing in a lawsuit seeking to nullify the Trump administration's deferred resignation program.
Discussion: ZeroHedge News and NBC News
Alexander Tin / CBS News:
Trump officials exerting unprecedented control over CDC scientific journal  —  Trump administration political appointees have taken steps in recent weeks to exert unprecedented influence over the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's flagship medical research publication …
Discussion: Wired
John Ismay / New York Times:
Hegseth Uses His First Town Hall to Attack Diversity  —  The defense secretary, speaking to the Pentagon work force, defended his “unconventional approaches” to an audience that included women and people of color.  —  Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave his first public address …
New York Times:
Now Is Not the Time to Tune Out  —  Don't get distracted.  Don't get overwhelmed.  Don't get paralyzed and pulled into the chaos that President Trump and his allies are purposely creating with the volume and speed of executive orders; the effort to dismantle the federal government …
 
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of memeorandum at 11:40 AM ET, February 8, 2025.

View the current page or another snapshot:


 
 See Also: 
memeorandum: site main
memeorandum River: reverse chronological memeorandum
memeorandum Mobile: for phones
memeorandum Leaderboard: memeorandum's top sources
 
 Subscribe: 
memeorandum RSS feed
memeorandum on Mastodon
 
 
 More Items: 
Melissa Goldin / Associated Press:
Claims about USAID funding are spreading online. Many are not based on facts
Discussion: New York Times and Boston Herald
Soumya Karlamangla / New York Times:
Firefighter Hiring Stalls at Federal Agencies After Trump's Freeze
Discussion: Gizmodo
Adam Edelman / NBC News:
Republicans retool their ‘parents’ rights' playbook for the Virginia governor's race
Washington Post:
A sample of the government webpages Trump doesn't want you to see
Discussion: Blaze Media and Truthout
Natalia Drozdiak / Bloomberg:
Former Spies Warn Congress Over ‘Insidious’ Aim of CIA Buyouts
Apoorva Mandavilli / New York Times:
With Aid Cutoff, Trump Severs a Lifeline for Millions
Discussion: DNyuz and Bloomberg
Allison Walker / International Business Times:
Trump Signs Order to Kill Federal Agency Investigating Tesla
 Earlier Items: 
Antonio Pequeño IV / Forbes:
Pete Hegseth Under Fire From Dems Over Alleged $49,000 ‘Emergency’ Paint Job For Government Home
Discussion: Bloomberg
Lorie Konish / CNBC:
RFK Jr. had up to $1.2 million in credit card debt — what experts say about tackling high balances
Discussion: CBS News
Pew Research Center:
1. Trump's second term: Early ratings and expectations
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
Annual letter: YouTube CEO Neal Mohan says TV has overtaken mobile as the “primary device for YouTube viewing in the US”, indicating YouTube is “the new TV”

Sara Fischer / Axios:
Sources and a memo: Disney makes changes to its DEI programs, like scraping its Reimagine Tomorrow initiative and changing content disclaimers on some titles

Matthew Weaver / The Guardian:
A BBC study finds 51% of AI answers to questions about the news had “significant issues”, and 19% of answers citing BBC content introduced factual errors

 
Sister Sites:

Techmeme
 Top news and commentary for technology's leaders, from all around the web
Mediagazer
 Top news and commentary for media professionals from all around the web
WeSmirch
 The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page