The National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods is (or was) an advisory committee housed within the USDA (but also working with HHS) which provides outside expert advice to advance food safety across the U.S. and across different levels of government. It was ordered disbanded this afternoon.
Continue reading “Feel the Food Safety Freedom”Phoenix Federal Courthouse Abandoned: Update
Earlier this afternoon I told you how the GSA staffers who run the Sandra Day O’Connor Federal Courthouse in Phoenix were abruptly fired with no warning or notification to anyone who works in the building. A bit later this afternoon I was able to speak to Debra Lucas, the District Court Executive and Clerk of the Court. To explain that job title Lucas is the senior judicial branch official at the courthouse in terms of the administration of the function of the courthouse. What Lucas told me basically squared with what sources had already told and which I shared with you in that earlier post.
They got no advance warning that this was going to happen. And they still haven’t gotten any explanation of what’s happening. “We’re still waiting for guidance,” Lucas told me. When I asked, guidance from whom? she said the GSA.
Continue reading “Phoenix Federal Courthouse Abandoned: Update”JD Vance’s ‘Neofascist’ Reading List
Vice President JD Vance’s social media feed includes several notable extremist writers including one described as a “long-time proponent of eugenics” and another that has been dubbed a “neofascist lifestyle influencer.”
Continue reading “JD Vance’s ‘Neofascist’ Reading List”One Agency Held Off The DOGE Invasion And Is Now Fighting Back
For weeks, the U.S. African Development Foundation says in a new lawsuit, it’s managed to do one thing that many federal agencies have not: beat back DOGE and other members of the Trump administration’s wrecking crew.
Continue reading “One Agency Held Off The DOGE Invasion And Is Now Fighting Back”Judge Reinstates Fired NLRB Member, Rejecting ‘A Presidency That Is Untouchable By The Law’
A federal judge ruled that President Trump’s firing of Gwynne Wilcox was unlawful and ordered her restored to the National Labor Relations Board in an opinion that excoriated his quest to craft a new, super-powerful presidency.
Continue reading “Judge Reinstates Fired NLRB Member, Rejecting ‘A Presidency That Is Untouchable By The Law’”Building Staff Canned At Phoenix Federal Courthouse
In Phoenix, the federal courthouse is named after Justice Sandra Day O’Connor: it’s the Sandra Day O’Connor U.S. Courthouse. The General Services Administration (GSA) is the agency charged with running the building. The GSA is currently controlled by DOGE and they’re the ones currently breaking leases on federal offices around the country and trying to sell off, at least as of earlier this week, hundreds of federal buildings including the Departments of Justice, Labor and Health and Human Services.
The Phoenix courthouse houses the judicial branch mostly. But the GSA is still in charge of running the building. So court staff were surprised earlier this week when they found out that all the GSA employees who run the building had been fired. None of the judicial offices, I’m told, had been notified. They only realized what was happening when they noticed some members of the building staff crying.
Continue reading “Building Staff Canned At Phoenix Federal Courthouse”Trump Bullies GOP Hardliners As House Dems Stand Against CR Without Separation Of Powers Deal
A group of House Republicans met with President Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday as GOP leadership is under pressure to get their whole caucus on board with a six-month “clean” continuing resolution House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has been pushing since Sunday.
Johnson can only afford to lose one Republican vote and still pass a stopgap spending bill to keep the government open. House Democrats have made it clear they won’t help the majority party pass the legislation without an agreement that Trump won’t continue his lawless DOGE rampage, freezing and rescinding congressionally authorized federal funds.
Continue reading “Trump Bullies GOP Hardliners As House Dems Stand Against CR Without Separation Of Powers Deal “Understanding the New WaPo Piece on Post-Constitutional America
This article from the Post is just one jaw-dropper after another. Musk met yesterday with Republican senators and then the House GOP caucus. Notionally it’s about communication. The folks on the Hill are getting a bit unhappy there’s a “lack of communication” about DOGE plans to shut down departments and unilaterally rewrite the federal budget. The Republicans want more details about what Musk’s doing, which — setting aside the infinite absurdities of this moment — would seem reasonable enough. They’re Congress after all. They’re literally in charge of this stuff. Read this graf …
Musk told a group of Republican senators in a closed-door lunch that he wanted to set up a direct line for them when they have questions, allowing them to get a near-instant response to their concerns, senators said. Some senators were given Musk’s phone number during Wednesday’s meeting, and the entrepreneur said he would “create a system where members of Congress can call some central group” to get problematic cuts reversed quickly, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) said.
There’s a budget, appropriated money that defines what the government does and provides the money to do it. But Musk, absent any visibility even for much of the executive branch, is simply changing everything. But wait … he’s going to set up a system where Republican members of Congress can call and ask to “get problematic cuts reversed quick.”
What the fuck?
Continue reading “Understanding the New WaPo Piece on Post-Constitutional America”Act Now
I may do a longer, maybe several longer versions of this post. But I think it’s important to state categorically and clearly: DOGE and Donald Trump are trying to shut down advanced medical research, especially cancer research, in the United States. Just that. That seems like a big statement. But it’s accurate. I communicate every day with people at NIH and its various centers. I’m not basing this on their personal responses to a harrowing and disorienting situation, though that is very important in itself. I am reacting to the broader picture built up by the facts emerging from these individual conversations, combined with other reporting and actions throughout the federal government. Reporting is inevitably focused on canceled grants, dismissed researchers, bans on certain forms of communication, on and off-again bans on travel, grant review processes halted.
Continue reading “Act Now”Acting DC US Attorney Ed Martin Is Out Of Control
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Criminalizing Higher Education
In another reckless, unethical, and highly politicized move, acting D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin is implicitly threatening Georgetown Law School with criminal investigation and explicitly blackballing its students unless the university ends all DEI efforts.
Martin’s threats against the Jesuit university came in a letter to the law school dean dated last month but apparently misaddressed and re-sent this week. (Well done, Ed, well done.)
“At this time, you should know that no applicant for our fellows program, our summer internship, or employment in our office who is a student or affiliated with a law school or university that continues to teach and utilize DEI will be considered,” Martin wrote.
Martin’s letter is similar to others he has sent over the past six weeks that abuse the power of his office to wade into political arenas and cast a pall of criminal suspicion over his targets.
The Georgetown letter is on Martin’s official letterhead and asserts his official position in the opening line, as if DEI is criminal and a federal prosecutor has any business being involved here: “As United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, I receive requests for information and clarification. I take these requests seriously and act on them with letters like this one you are receiving.” It concludes by giving Georgetown a deadline (or else what?) to respond and this prepackaged language: “I look forward to your cooperation with my letter of inquiry after request.”
The assault on the First Amendment rights of a private, religious university by a federal prosecutor using intimidation tactics that suggest a criminal dimension to his inquiry is far beyond anything we’ve seen from the Justice Department in modern times.
What Happened Yesterday In Court
- USAID: In an opaque and confusing ruling, a 5-4 Supreme Court majority declined to overturn lower court orders blocking the spending freeze at USAID and ordering the Trump administration to pay USAID vendors and contractors for work they’ve done. It was a loss – for now – for the Trump administration at the hands of a shaky majority consisting of Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and the three liberal justices.
- OSC: The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court order that had temporarily reinstated U.S. Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger. The decision, which was not on the merits, removes Dellinger from office while the appeal proceeds on an expedited basis.
- NIH: U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley of Massachusetts issued a nationwide preliminary injunction blocking NIH from instituting its dramatic cut in indirect cost rates.
- NLRB: U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell looks likely to reinstate the fired Gwynne Wilcox to her position on the NLRB but she used the occasion of yesterday’s hearing to elaborate at length on the historical importance of independent agencies, TPM’s Kate Riga reports.
Supine Hill Republicans Beg Elon Musk For Crumbs
Elon Musk met with House and Senate Republicans on Wednesday, and while it’s tempting to interpret that as a sign he’s running into headwinds from elected GOPers, the tepid pushback he got suggests we’re far from any kind of revolt against DOGE’s rampage. Instead, the meetings demonstrated the essential subordination of the GOP-controlled Congress to the world’s richest man, captured by eye-popping headlines like this one: “Senate GOP asks Musk for spending cuts vote.”
It get worse. As Morning Memo has repeatedly hammered, the unholy alliance of Trump-Musk has set out to turn every government good and service into a bauble to be negotiated, dispensed, and awarded on their personal terms. In his meeting with senators, Musk proposed this anti-democratic substitute for Congress actually doing its job and protecting its institutional prerogatives:
Musk told a group of Republican senators in a closed-door lunch that he wanted to set up a direct line for them when they have questions, allowing them to get a near-instant response to their concerns, senators said. Some senators were given Musk’s phone number during Wednesday’s meeting, and the entrepreneur said he would “create a system where members of Congress can call some central group” to get problematic cuts reversed quickly, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) said.
Musk takes a sledgehammer to the pillars of the Republic and GOP senators can call him, hat in hand, for special exemptions from the carnage. Just how the founders dreamed it up.
DOGE Watch: Trump Blows It
The President twice confirmed during his congressional address that Elon Musk is running DOGE, which is contrary to the position his administration is taking in multiple court cases. Remember Amy Gleason? Trump’s admissions prompted plaintiffs to run back to court to alert judges to the contradiction as another sign of continued obfuscation of Musk’s true role.
In other DOGE news:
- WaPo: Small federal agency blocks DOGE employees from entering its building
- Wired: Some DOGE Staffers Are Drawing Six-Figure Government Salaries
- Reuters: “U.S. Marshals have warned federal judges of unusually high threat levels as tech billionaire Elon Musk and other Trump administration allies ramp up efforts to discredit judges who stand in the way of White House efforts to slash federal jobs and programs, said several judges with knowledge of the warnings.”
The Purges
Trump’s purges are having a disproportionate impact on younger federal workers because they are more likely to be recent hires who enjoy fewer (but not none!) civil service protections:
- CIA: The Central Intelligence Agency begins purging probationary employees.
- VA: The Department of Veterans Affairs plans to cut more than 80,000 employees this year.
- DoE: President Trump is expected to issue an executive order as soon as today purporting to unilaterally abolish the Education Department, the WSJ reports.
- USDA: The Merit Service Protection Board ordered the temporary reinstatement of some 6,000 purged USDA workers.
The Destruction
- CFPB: Email trove reveals CFPB turmoil after Russ Vought’s work stoppage order. Separately, an email Monday explicitly instructs CFPB employees not to carry out activities mandated by law, a direct contradictions of representations CFPB officials have made in federal court.
- NBC News: Election security aid is on the chopping block
- WaPo: How 443 federal properties were targeted for sale, then suddenly weren’t
The Corruption
- NYT: “President Trump has still not disclosed the names of the donors who paid for his transition planning, despite a public pledge to do so.”
- Bloomberg: How Elon Musk Muscled His Way Into the FAA
- Trump’s tariffs seem like the perfect opportunity for him to grant corrupt dispensations, exceptions and carveouts. So far U.S. automakers have received a one-month exemption from his Mexico and Canada tariffs; and the U.S. agriculture industry may be next. No indication that these exemptions are themselves corrupt.
This Isn’t Just A Vetting Oops
Are we still going to treat reports that Trump’s new deputy press secretary at the Pentagon, Kingsley Wilson, has posted antisemitic, white supremacist, and Russian propaganda online as a “vetting problem“?
- Jewish Insider: Pentagon deputy press secretary Kingsley Wilson is a prolific purveyor of antisemitic conspiracy theories
- Mother Jones: This Pentagon Press Secretary Has a Long History of Bigoted and Xenophobic Posts
How Many Ways Can Trump Undermine Ukraine?
- Politico: Top Trump allies hold secret talks with Zelenskyy’s Ukrainian opponents
- Reuters: Trump to revoke legal status for 240,000 Ukrainians who fled the Russian invasion
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