Trump / Musk (other than DOGE) Omnibus Thread

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Pam Bondi issued a flurry of orders on Day 1 as Trump’s attorney general​



“… President Donald Trump’s attorney general issued a flurry of orders Wednesday just after she was sworn in, releasing 14 “first-day” directives. Among them, Bondi ordered the department to set up a task force to examine the “weaponization” of the Justice Department and rein in investigations into foreign influence. She also warned career lawyers at her agency not to try to thwart Trump administration policies. …”
 
Continued

“… Bondi directed the “weaponization” group to investigate former special counsel Jack Smith, who brought the two federal criminal cases against Trump: one over Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and another on Trump’s mishandling of classified documents.

And she directed the group to examine “federal cooperation with the weaponization” by the offices of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Bragg’s office brought the criminal hush money case against Trump that ended in his conviction on 34 felony counts of business fraud. James brought a civil fraud lawsuit against Trump and his family business that resulted in a judge ordering Trump to pay a massive civil judgment.

Trump has repeatedly vowed revenge on Bragg and James, both Democrats, saying Bragg should be prosecuted and that James is “grossly incompetent.” Trump and his supporters have also questioned the role of one of the prosecutors in Bragg’s office, Matthew Colangelo, who previously worked at the Justice Department. Trump has pointed to Colangelo’s resume to claim that former President Joe Biden’s administration played a role in bringing the criminal case. …”
 
“… Bondi also called for the group to examine “the pursuit of improper investigative tactics and unethical prosecutions” surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, though she sought to draw a distinction from “good-faith actions by federal employees simply following orders from superiors.” …”
 
“… Bondi’s memo on law-enforcement prioritiesalso said the FBI will shutter the Foreign Influence Task Force it set up during the first Trump administration. Additionally, the Justice Department will bring charges under the Foreign Agents Registration Act only in “instances of alleged conduct similar to more traditional espionage by foreign government actors,” the memo said.

The move seems to be an effort to shift the Justice Department away from prosecutions related to covert propaganda and behind-the-scenes “malign influence” campaigns. DOJ brought several such cases against Trump allies with mixed results. …”
 
“… Bondi also laid down a get-tough policy toward any career lawyers who might seek to undermine the Trump administration’s agenda, even going so far as to raise the possibility of firing attorneys who won’t go along with their superiors.

… “It is therefore the policy of the Department of Justice that any attorney who because of their personal political views or judgments declines to sign a brief or appear in court, refuses to advance good-faith arguments on behalf of the Administration, or otherwise delays or impedes the Department’s mission will be subject to discipline and potential termination, consistent with applicable law,” she added.

That last part could be the rub: Civil service protections and legal ethics rules combine to make it difficult to take action against a government lawyer who says he or she thinks a particular argument is improper, unjustified or unethical.

Already, there have been notable filings in federal cases where Justice Department political appointees have signed pleadings alone, suggesting that career staff declined to do so. …”
 
“… She directed the creation of a “10-7” task force aimed at “seeking justice for victims of the attack and addressing the ongoing threat posed by Hamas and its affiliates, both domestically and abroad.”

In addition to pursuing criminal charges against those involved in the attack, the task force will investigate and prosecute “acts of terrorism, antisemitic civil rights violations, and other federal crimes committed by Hamas supporters in the United States, including on college campuses.” Trump has repeatedly vowed to deport foreign students who are backers of Hamas. …”
 
Bondi said the Justice Department would end a moratorium on federal executions that was put in place during the Biden administration
 
“…
Bondi reignited a long-running legal battle between DOJ and “sanctuary jurisdictions,” or cities or counties that have declined to cooperate with enforcement of federal immigration law.

She ordered the department to “pause the distribution of all funds until a review has been completed” of grants or other money flowing to those jurisdictions.

A similar move by Attorney General Jeff Sessions in Trump’s first term led to lawsuits from localities that said the Justice Department lacked the authority to cut off funding.

Courts reached mixed verdicts, with a federal appeals court in Chicago ruling that the Trump administration appeared to have usurped Congress’ authority to restrict grants and an appeals court in New York finding DOJ’s policy met legal muster. …”
 

Trump Considers Labeling Migrants a Measles, Tuberculosis Risk​

Advisers have searched for disease threats that would merit emergency health law invoked during Trump’s first term for Covid-19 risk​



“… President Trump’s advisers have been looking for evidence of disease threats that would merit reviving a policy they used during the pandemic in his first term to push back migrants who sought asylum at the border, the current and former officials said. The Trump administration sees the emergency health law, known as Title 42, as overriding laws that guarantee migrants a right to request humanitarian protection in the U.S.

White House officials have identified TB and measles as disease threats most likely to warrant invoking Title 42. The Health and Human Services department is sending Public Health Service officers to the border, officials involved in the effort said.

Kansas is experiencing a TB outbreak, and measles cases have been reported recently in states including Texas. It isn’t known whether those cases have any connection to the southern border, where crossings have plummeted in the past year. The general risk from both diseases remains low, public-health officials said. …”
 

Trump administration evicts former Coast Guard leader from her house with 3 hours notice​

Trump fired Linda Fagan, the first female Coast Guard commandant, on his second day in office. A Trump official told her she had three hours to leave her house on Tuesday.

www.nbcnews.com

Trump administration evicts former Coast Guard leader from her house with 3 hours notice

Trump fired Linda Fagan, the first female Coast Guard commandant, on his second day in office. A Trump official told her she had three hours to leave her house on Tuesday.
www.nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com

“… Fagan, a four-star admiral and the first woman to lead a branch of the military, was removed from her post as the Coast Guard’s top officer on Trump’s second day in office. Officials at the Homeland Security Department — which oversees the Coast Guard — cited border security issues and an “excessive focus”on diversity, equity and inclusion among the reasons for her dismissal.

…
Fagan, who was named commandant in 2022, made a convenient target for a new president who wanted to flex his muscle. The process for firing her was less complex than for dismissing chiefs of the four main branches of the military. More than that, the move allowed him to send signals about his anti-DEI agenda and desire to stem the flow of illegal immigrants and goods into the United States.

Throwing her out of her house on short notice went a step further.

"It's petty and it's personal," one Fagan ally said.

But a DHS official countered that it made sense for her to be moved out of the home at Joint Base Anacostia Bolling.

"She was terminated with cause two weeks ago today and she was still living in those admiral quarters," the official said, confirming that Fagan had been told to leave. The official said they could not confirm or deny the three-hour timeline.

Coast Guard leaders had given Fagan a 60-day waiver to find new housing, according to one of the sources. But on Tuesday, Homeland Security officials told the acting commandant, Kevin Lunday, that he had to kick her out because "the president wants her out of quarters," according to one of the people familiar with the incident. …”
 

Democrats focus on Elon Musk as they search for a message to fight Trump​

The party has struggled with how to respond to Trump’s aggressive efforts to remake the federal bureaucracy and other controversies.

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www.washingtonpost.com
 
“Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo said Wednesday his country will accept migrants from other countries who are being deported from the United States, the second deportation deal that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reached during a Central America trip that has been focused mainly on immigration.

Under the agreement announced by Arévalo, the deportees would be returned to their home countries at U.S. expense.

"We have agreed to increase by 40% the number of flights of deportees both of our nationality as well as deportees from other nationalities," Arévalo said at a news conference with Rubio.

Previously, including under the Biden administration, Guatemala had been accepting on average seven to eight flights of its citizens from the U.S. per week. Under President Donald Trump it's also been one of the countries that have had migrants returned on U.S. military planes. …”

 

Justice Dept. Says It Will Not Bring Charges in Investigation of Project Veritas​

Prosecutors in New York had spent years pursuing a case against the conservative group over its role in the theft of a diary kept by Ashley Biden.

www.nytimes.com

Justice Dept. Says It Will Not Bring Charges in Investigation of Project Veritas

Prosecutors in New York had spent years pursuing a case against the conservative group over its role in the theft of a diary kept by Ashley Biden.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

“… The prosecutors, who made their announcement in a one-paragraph letter to a judge overseeing the matter, did not say why they were declining to bring additional charges in the long running investigation.

In court filings in related cases, the Justice Department had laid out evidence of the group’s involvement in the effort to acquire and publish the diary, and had fought in court for access to evidence that investigators had obtained from the group’s operatives.

The investigation had raised difficult legal questions about the extent to which the First Amendment protected the publication of stolen materials.

But it was unclear whether the decision was part of a larger pattern by the Justice Department since President Trump took office to walk away from cases involving his allies. Project Veritas and its founder, James O’Keefe, have long been favorites of Mr. Trump’s and gained attention by using sting operations and undercover videos to seek to embarrass liberal groups and mainstream news organizations, among others. …”
 

Rubio Snubs G-20 Meeting Citing South Africa’s Focus on Equality​

  • Trump vowed to cut off funds to South Africa over new land law
  • Rubio also cites country’s effort to address racial inequality

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www.bloomberg.com
 
DOGE kid appears to be a hacker

Bluesky

bsky.app bsky.app

DOGE Teen Owns ‘Tesla.Sexy LLC’ and Worked at Startup That Has Hired Convicted Hackers​

Experts question whether Edward Coristine, a DOGE staffer who has gone by “Big Balls” online, would pass the background check typically required for access to sensitive US government systems.

www.wired.com

DOGE Teen Owns ‘Tesla.Sexy LLC’ and Worked at Startup That Has Hired Convicted Hackers

Experts question whether Edward Coristine, a DOGE staffer who has gone by “Big Balls” online, would pass the background check typically required for access to sensitive US government systems.
www.wired.com www.wired.com

“… Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old high school graduate, established at least five different companies in the last four years, with entities registered in Connecticut, Delaware, and the United Kingdom, most of which were not listed on his now-deleted LinkedIn profile. Coristine also briefly worked in 2022 at Path Network, a network monitoring firm known for hiring reformed black-hat hackers. Someone using a Telegram handle tied to Coristine also solicited a cyberattack-for-hire service later that year. …”

Kid’s LLC also owns a couple of Russian domain names, which likely would have ended any chance he would get security clearance via regular process. Also being 19 would have been a problem.
 
“… At Path Network, Coristine worked as a systems engineer from April to June of 2022, according to his now-deleted LinkedIn resume. Path has at times listed as employees Eric Taylor, also known as Cosmo the God, a well-known former cybercriminal and member of the hacker group UGNazis, as well as Matthew Flannery, an Australian convicted hacker whom police allege was a member of the hacker group LulzSec.

It’s unclear whether Coristine worked at Path concurrently with those hackers, and WIRED found no evidence that either Coristine or other Path employees engaged in illegal activity while at the company. …”
 
nycfan said:
Hegseth is not the first politician to get caught in this trap — it happened to Biden when he was first elected POTUS, though his public info was mostly a list of family, so it didn’t get a ton of media attention.

In any event, an excellent reminder to check your privacy settings in Venmo.
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why would you need to change settings if youre not doing anything shady?

dc is a cesspool of red and blue thieves
 
OGtruthhurts said:
why would you need to change settings if youre not doing anything shady?

dc is a cesspool of red and blue thieves
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Do you use Venmo? If you don’t mark info private anyone using it can see who you are doing business with.
 
UHG would eviscerate the VA. Their approach would be marginally distinct from private equity, which should be outlawed from holding managing share of any healthcare org. I know we have a few vets here; what’s your experience with the VA? How has your experience changed, over the years?

I encounter numerous vets per day, in clinical settings. I have yet to hear a single complaint about the local VA hospital and clinics.

My grandfathers served, and through the 80s and 90s I recall their complaints, as well as a few high profile investigations into VA quality of care. My understanding is that those public injuries sparked very real change for the better. I know that by 2005, at the latest, my grandparents gave the VA plaudits, which extended through the end of life.
 
Callatoroy said:
You mean this meaningless piece of shit: The Iran Nuclear Deal: What's Wrong With It And What Can We Do Now?

He is talking about one that actually has some teeth to it and would actually achieve the goal of preventing them from having a bomb. Not the bullshit Obama rolled out. You know, limited access to inspections. Call ahead to reserve inspection time like they are reserving dinner reservations. Easing of sanctions to free up billions to spend on terror. But hey, at least we could call it a deal right?
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Iran’s nuclear program has advanced since don’s veto of the nuclear deal.
 
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