Political Current Events March 3-4 | SOTU Address

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nycfan said:


“… The U.S. Forest Service, which stewards 193 million acres of public lands from Alaska to Florida, was in trouble even before Trump took office. Chronically understaffed, the service was already under a Biden-era hiring freeze, all the while on the front lines of fighting and recovering from back-to-back climate disasters across the country.

…
The federal agency does more than ensure that Americans have a place to hunt, hike, fish, or paddle. In the South, forest workers played a key role in helping western North Carolina and other communities recover from impacts of Hurricane Helene. In the West, they’re taking on fire risk mitigation and fighting wildfires. They’re also involved in fisheries management in places like Alaska. Across the country, agency biologists and foresters are busy working to strengthen the over 150 national forests and 20 grasslands it monitors in the face of changing climate.

Increasingly, the service is getting spread thin.

The agency has experienced a steady decrease in staffing over the last decade and the workers that remain are often overworked and underpaid, according to Reynolds.

“That means you’re going to see those campgrounds close, the trails go unmaintained, roads closed, you’re going to feel the effects of wildfire and hurricane recovery work that’s just going to remain undone,” said Reynolds. “Communities are going to struggle.” …”
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www.cbsnews.com

USAID official put on leave for memos saying funding cut will "result in preventable death"

"This will no doubt result in preventable death, destabilization, and threats to national security on a massive scale," Nick Enrich wrote in the memo.
www.cbsnews.com www.cbsnews.com

"... The memo lays out a timeline of how the administration's impact on waivers has hurt USAID's effort for humanitarian assistance. It notes that the Bureau for Global Health got approval to conduct activities to respond to an Ebola outbreak in Uganda, but USAID was never able to draw down the funds and did not receive any funds as of the issuing of the memo on Feb. 28.

The memo also says that as of Feb. 8, the Bureau for Global Health was told by the secretary of state that there are "tranches" of awards identified for termination, including of awards that were previously given waivers. While Enrich was reviewing the awards slated for termination, he writes that DOGE adviser Jeremy Lewin emailed him telling him to stop and that it is "delaying the timeline processing of these termination notices."

... The chaos surrounding USAID has caused disruptions to the supply chain and services for a variety of global life-saving causes have faltered. Musk posted on social media over the weekend that funding for Edesia, a Rhode Island-based company that makes a lifesaving paste for severely malnourished infants, had been restored and the company's payments should resume this week. ..." [My note -- Musk did so ONLY AFTER someone tweeted at him that the RUTF was still not being funded and Musk called the guy an idiot but he would check anyway, which is a very strange form of "government efficiency" all the way around]
 
The last line in the email is stunning.

"Assume what you write will be read by malign foreign actors."

How often has that line featured in government emails? It was, of course, once the province of the federal government to prevent that sort of thing.
 
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Background — 2021: https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...8a34fa-df99-11eb-a501-0e69b5d012e5_story.html

“President Biden on Friday [July 2021] fired Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul, a holdover from the Trump administration who had alienated crucial Democratic constituencies with policies designed to clamp down on benefits and an uncompromising anti-union stance.

Saul was fired after refusing a request to resign, White House officials said.

… As the head of an independent agency whose leadership does not normally change with a new administration, Saul’s six-year term was supposed to last until January 2025.

The White House said a recent Supreme Court ruling, followed by a Justice Department memo on Thursday affirming the president’s authority “to remove the SSA Commissioner at will,” gave the president power to treat the position like that of other traditional political appointments. …”

——
Biden came under pressure from Unions and advocates for retirees to remove Saul because what Saul called a fight against fraud they saw as making it take longer and be harder for elderly and disabled Americans to obtain and keep SSA benefits.
 
superrific said:
If only there was a document that unambiguously gives control over the postal system to Congress and not the president.
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Keep pushing to see how much they can get away with before someone stops them, I guess.
 
nycfan said:
Keep pushing to see how much they can get away with before someone stops them, I guess.
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But the most ridiculous thing is that this is not the fight for him to take. If there's one thing that the Supreme Court isn't going to give to the executive as part of the unitary executive theory, it's an enumerated power of Congress.

Again, maybe he doesn't care about winning court cases but he seems to.
 
superrific said:
But the most ridiculous thing is that this is not the fight for him to take. If there's one thing that the Supreme Court isn't going to give to the executive as part of the unitary executive theory, it's an enumerated power of Congress.

Again, maybe he doesn't care about winning court cases but he seems to.
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Honestly, I doubt he is paying attention to most of these domestic fight details — just enjoying being God Emperor and approving his arsonist fan boys’ wildest dreams.
 
nycfan said:

A Poor North Carolina County Is Counting on Trump for a Comeback​

Scotland County ushered in Republicans locally, too; ‘We better see some relief’​


GIFT LINK 🎁 —> A Poor North Carolina County Is Counting on Trump for a Comeback
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“… Scotland County is mostly divided between Black and white residents, along with a sizable portion of Lumbee tribal members. It is the kind of the place that helped Trump secure the swing state, even though registered Democrats outnumber Republicans roughly 2 to 1.

Trump won 53% of the vote here in November, adding about 300 votes from his 2020 tally. Votes cast by Black voters fell by about 400 from four years earlier, according to data compiled by Democracy North Carolina, a nonprofit that advocates for minority voter participation. …”
 


A top Justice Department lawyer wrote Monday that the “review will include an evaluation of … whether the case was ‘oriented more toward inflicting political pain than toward pursuing actual justice or legitimate governmental objectives’”
 
politicalwire.com

Kristi Noem Taunts Canadians at the Border

Boston Globe: “On a trip to Vermont following the fatal shooting of a US Border Patrol agent, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem… parroted Trump’s taunts while standing on the Canadian side of the line.”
politicalwire.com politicalwire.com

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Now the border is effectively closed and Trump did not need a new bill to do it, just existing immigration laws, which his administration is enforcing.
The number of migrants crossing the U.S. southern border illegally in President Trump’s first full month in office plunged to a level not seen in at least 25 years, according to preliminary government data obtained by CBS News.
 
www.theguardian.com

Trump orders swathes of US forests to be cut down for timber

President’s move to expand tree cutting across 280m acres evades rules to protect endangered species
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

Donald Trump has ordered that swathes of America’s forests be felled for timber, evading rules to protect endangered species while doing so and raising the prospect of chainsaws razing some of the most ecologically important trees in the US.

The president, in an executive order, has demanded an expansion in tree cutting across 280m acres (113m hectares) of national forests and other public lands, claiming that “heavy-handed federal policies” have made America reliant on foreign imports of timber.


“It is vital that we reverse these policies and increase domestic timber production to protect our national and economic security,” the order adds.

Trump has instructed the US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to increase logging targets and for officials to circumvent the US’s Endangered Species Act by using unspecified emergency powers to ignore protections placed upon vulnerable creatures’ habitats.
 
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