NewsFlash

Feb. 10, 2025, 2:05 PM EST / Updated Feb. 10, 2025, 10:15 PM EST
By Chloe Atkins, Fallon Gallagher and Dareh Gregorian

A federal judge in Rhode Island on Monday said that the Trump administration had violated his order halting a sweeping federal funding freeze and ordered the government to “immediately restore frozen funding.” U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell handed down the order after the plaintiffs in the case, a coalition of 22 states, said the government had not restored funding in several programs despite his Jan. 31 order temporarily halting the wide-ranging Office of Management and Budget directive that had caused chaos and confusion across the country.  “The States have presented evidence in this motion that the Defendants in some cases have continued to improperly freeze federal funds and refused to resume disbursement of appropriated federal funds,” McConnell wrote, even though his order lifting the freeze had been "clear and unambiguous."


https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/judge-finds-trump-administration-violated-court-order-halting-funding-rcna191528


SEE ALSO
    Fund freeze likely unconstitutional, does ‘irreparable harm’
    Administration must ask federal judge for OK to pause funds

The Trump administration must immediately unfreeze all $3 trillion in federal funds, a judge ruled Monday, finding it violated his temporary restraining order by keeping some of the dollars paused.  Blue state attorneys general showed evidence that the administration is still refusing to let funds flow, despite the federal judge’s Jan. 31 order to pause the administration’s plan. The Trump administration must ask McConnell for permission to pause funds in specific cases, the judge said.  “The Defendants now plea that they are just trying to root out fraud,” Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. in the US District Court for the District of Rhode Island wrote Monday. “But the freezes in effect now were a result of the broad categorical order, not a specific finding of possible fraud.”

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/trump-defying-court-block-must-unfreeze-all-federal-funds-now



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By  The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected a Trump administration push to reinstate a sweeping pause on federal funding, a decision that comes after a judge found the administration had not fully obeyed an earlier order. The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals turned back the emergency appeal, the latest in a string of court losses that is increasingly frustrating top administration officials as it slows President Donald Trump’s wide-ranging agenda.

https://www.syracuse.com/us-news/2025/02/appeals-court-rejects-trump-push-to-reinstate-freezes-on-grants-loans.html

 

By  NICOLE WINFIELD
Updated 9:11 AM EST, January 20, 2025

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis said Donald Trump’s plans to impose mass deportations of immigrants would be a “disgrace,” as he weighed in on the incoming U.S. president’s pledges nearly a decade after calling him “not Christian” for wanting to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. Francis made the comments during an appearance at an evening talk show, and then followed up Monday with an official telegram of congratulations to Trump on the day of his inauguration. Francis said he prayed that America would live up to its ideals of being a “land of opportunity and welcome for all.”

“It is my hope that under your leadership the American people will prosper and always strive to build a more just society, where there is no room for hatred, discrimination or exclusion,” he wrote in the telegram. History’s first Latin American pope was asked Sunday night about the Trump administration pledges of deportations during an appearance on a popular Italian talk show, Che Tempo Che Fa. “If true, this will be a disgrace, because it makes the poor wretches who have nothing pay the bill” for the problem, Francis said. “This won’t do! This is not the way to solve things. That’s not how things are resolved.”

 https://apnews.com/article/vatican-immigration-trump-pope-d3516b41de56641391f59c2094ee380e


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    Feb. 11, 2025

Pope Francis on Tuesday harshly criticized President Trump’s policy of mass deportations and urged Catholics to reject anti-immigrant narratives in an unusually direct attack on the American administration. In an open letter to American bishops, Francis said that deporting people who often come from difficult situations violates the “dignity of many men and women, and of entire families.” The pope wrote that he had “followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations,” adding that any policy built on force “begins badly and will end badly.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/world/europe/pope-trump-immigration-deportations.html

https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/letters/2025/documents/20250210-lettera-vescovi-usa.html [Color me impressed!]

SEE ALSO

[snip]
Pope Francis issued an open letter on Monday to U.S. Catholic bishops condemning Trump's mass deportation program, describing it as a "major crisis."
The leader of the Catholic Church said that deporting people from the U.S.—some of whom escaped "extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment" in their own land—"damages the dignity" of these men, women and children.

Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, rebuked the pope for his comments attacking the administration's immigration plan. Homan, who is Catholic, said the pope should "stick to the Catholic Church and fix that and leave border enforcement to us." Homan also said that Vatican City, the tiny sovereign state located in the middle of Rome, has a wall that is protected by the Swiss Guard. A number of other Trump supporters attacked the pope on social media for speaking out against the former president after the letter was shared online.

https://www.newsweek.com/maga-pope-francis-letter-trump-mass-deportations-2029944

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act could prevent many married women from being able to register to vote.

The act, reintroduced by Texas Republican Representative Chip Roy, is intended to amend the National Voter Registration Act to ensure that all people registering to vote are U.S. citizens. It would require people to present in-person documentation as proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Much of the documentation listed under the SAVE Act is based on having a birth certificate that matches the person registering to vote. However, as many as 69 million married women in the United States have changed their legal name since getting married, meaning their name does not match their birth certificate, per the Center for American Progress.

Why It Matters

The United States is a democracy, meaning all citizens, with the exception of children and some felons, have the right to vote. The SAVE Act would make it significantly harder for married women, as well as many other members of the population, to exercise their right to vote as Americans. If they do not have a passport, which nearly 146 million people in the U.S. do not have, it will be much more difficult for those who have changed their name to register to vote under the SAVE Act. It is also already illegal to vote as a noncitizen, and several measures, including providing a social security number to register, matching voter rolls to federal data, and, in many places, bringing voter ID to the polls, are in place across the country to ensure only citizens can cast a ballot.

https://www.newsweek.com/married-women-stopped-voting-save-act-2029325

https://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/politics/2025/02/11/save-act-would-make-voting-harder-for-spouses-who-changed-names/78433382007/

New Hampshire judge blocks President Donald Trump's birthright citizenship executive order
The District Court in New Hampshire granted an injunction which prevents the executive order from being enacted.


https://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/politics/2025/02/10/donald-trumps-birthright-citizenship-order-blocked-by-federal-judge/78386528007/

SEE ALSO

[snip]

The birthright citizenship order, issued in Mr. Trump’s first hours back in the White House, has prompted a wave of legal challenges and a succession of sharp critiques from the federal courts. Judges in Maryland and Washington have issued nationwide injunctions halting any action to carry out the directive, and another in New Hampshire took similar action on Monday.

Legal experts emphasize that birthright citizenship cannot be revoked through an executive order, like the one issued by Mr. Trump on Inauguration Day. Ending birthright citizenship would require an amendment to the Constitution, which must be approved by two-thirds of both chambers of Congress and subsequently ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states. Mr. Trump has not pursued such a change to the Constitution, but his order and the intense legal blowback is nonetheless sowing confusion and stress among many immigrant families.

Under the order, citizenship would be denied to newborns who do not have at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident. Children born in the United States to people who violated the law by entering the country without permission, namely by crossing the southern border, would not be U.S. citizens.  Given Mr. Trump’s focus on combating illegal immigration, it was not surprising that the order targeted the undocumented population. However, its effect on people living in the country legally caught many of them off guard.

According to the order, children of people on visas to study and work in the United States for years would be ineligible for automatic citizenship.

Shraavya and her husband, Sumukh, who spoke on condition that their last names be withheld because of the sensitivity surrounding the citizenship issue, are among the immigrant parents now facing that possibility.  “I was under the impression that there would be orders targeting folks who are undocumented,” said Sumukh, 32. “When the order included those who are on long-term work visas, it was a bit of a shock.”

Birthright citizenship has long been considered a foundational principle of the United States. Eliminating it for the offspring of foreign workers could make working in the country less attractive, particularly for highly skilled and highly educated people who are in demand by many companies and must already navigate a byzantine, backlogged immigration system. Currently, there is no provision in the law for babies born in the United States to be anything but citizens.  “It’s that, or they are undocumented,” said Margaret Stock, an immigration lawyer who has published numerous articles on birthright citizenship.

“It appears the Trump administration is trying to stop immigration, period, because nobody in their right mind would want to come here on a work visa if they thought their kid born here would be undocumented,” Ms. Stock said. More than 30 million immigrants were part of the U.S. labor force in 2022, according to the Pew Research Center. The majority, or 22.2 million, were lawful immigrants; 8.3 million were undocumented.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/us/trump-birthright-citizenship-legal-immigrant-workers.html

Nan said: “ The United States is a democracy..”

As senior republicans have pointed out in recent years the USA is not a democracy, it is a Republic and the word democracy does not appear anywhere in the constitution.

A strict democracy is one person one vote.  A republic has representatives for many people voting for them. The over-arching principles are the same.

"The short answer is that democracy and republic are frequently used to mean the same thing: a government in which the people vote for their leaders. This was the important distinction at the time of the founding of the United States, in direct contrast with the rule of a king, or monarchy, in Great Britain. In part because that context was clear to everyone involved in the American Revolution, democracy and republic were used interchangeably in the late 1700s. Both words meant that the power to govern was held by the people rather than a monarch."

and

"Because democracy is an abstract name for a system and republic is the more concrete result of that system, democracy is frequently used when the emphasis is on the system itself. We could say that democracy is to republic as monarchy is to kingdom."

https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/democracy-and-republic

Enter the secret police.



Plain-clothed men raided a taco truck. They were later identified as federal agents

Three men wearing plain clothes entered a taco truck in Memphis, Tennessee, according to surveillance video posted on social media. Local officials later identified the men as federal agents.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/11/us/video/taco-truck-federal-agents-raid-memphis-digvid

And I'll end this morning's rant with this, as it's so ... yeah.     




Anna Paulina Luna is a U.S. Representative for Florida's 13th congressional district, serving since January 3, 2023. She is a member of the Republican Party and is known for her focus on issues like child safety online and government transparency.

A strict democracy is one person one vote.  A republic has representatives for many people voting for them. The over-arching principles are the same.

"The short answer is that democracy and republic are frequently used to mean the same thing: a government in which the people vote for their leaders. This was the important distinction at the time of the founding of the United States, in direct contrast with the rule of a king, or monarchy, in Great Britain. In part because that context was clear to everyone involved in the American Revolution, democracy and republic were used interchangeably in the late 1700s. Both words meant that the power to govern was held by the people rather than a monarch."

and

"Because democracy is an abstract name for a system and republic is the more concrete result of that system, democracy is frequently used when the emphasis is on the system itself. We could say that democracy is to republic as monarchy is to kingdom."

https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/democracy-and-republic

I don’t need convincing Nan, it is the people in power that need convincing. Every citizen in DC in theory has a vote but they have very little impact. They have no senators and virtual no representation in the house yet their population is bigger than the 3 smallest States. Even in Presidential elections they only get 3 members of the electoral college, the same number as Rhode Island.

I don’t need convincing Nan, it is the people in power that need convincing. Every citizen in DC in theory has a vote but they have very little impact. They have no senators and virtual no representation in the house yet their population is bigger than the 3 smallest States. Even in Presidential elections they only get 3 members of the electoral college, the same number as Rhode Island.

Not quite sure what the DC voting issue has to do with the overall purpose of this thread, but ok.  I've gotten very little sleep this week, so perhaps it will make more sense tomorrow.

Not quite sure what the DC voting issue has to do with the overall purpose of this thread, but ok.  I've gotten very little sleep this week, so perhaps it will make more sense tomorrow.

Apologies for the distraction. I was responding to your post where you said

The United States is a democracy, meaning all citizens, with the exception of children and some felons, have the right to vote.

I was just pointing out that in the US form of democracy not all votes are equal. And not all citizens are allowed to vote since US citizens in overseas citizens including Puerto Rico don't have a vote either.

Ah.  That was a quote, not my language. I see I forgot to either italicize it or put it in quotes.

Almost everything on this thread that has a link below or above it is an excerpt from the link.

And again, since that was kind of out there tangentially it threw me off a bit.  I am focusing on what the current administration is doing that is either questionable or illegal.

On Monday afternoon, Popular Information broke the news that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had frozen virtually all grant funding in violation of two federal court orders. The grants were frozen pending a review for compliance with President Trump's executive orders, including those targeting spending related to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). Our story was based on information from an NIH official who spoke on the condition of anonymity and internal NIH correspondence confirming the freeze.

David Super, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and an expert on administrative law, told Popular Information that the Trump administration was "in contempt of court" and the continued funding freeze at NIH was "completely unlawful." On Wednesday morning, NIH leadership distributed a memo, obtained by Popular Information, acknowledging that its funding freeze was illegal and directing staff to resume issuing grants.

The memo was written by Michael Lauer, the NIH Deputy Director for Extramural Research, and Michelle Bulls, the NIH Chief Grants Officer. It states that the NIH will "effectuate the administration's goals over time," but such considerations cannot factor "into funding decisions at this time." The memo acknowledges that NIH programs "fall under recently issued Temporary Restraining Orders" by federal courts.



https://popular.info/p/breaking-nih-admits-funding-freeze

FEMA official ignores judge's latest order, demands freeze on grant funding
Federal workers are being swept into the fight between Donald Trump and federal courts, with four FEMA aides fired Tuesday for being "deep state activists."

Feb. 11, 2025, 12:49 PM EST
By Jonathan Allen

WASHINGTON — A senior official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency instructed subordinates to freeze funding for a wide array of grant programs Monday, just hours after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration — for the second time — to stop such pauses.

In an email with the subject line “URGENT: Holds on awards,” Stacey Street, the director of the agency’s Office of Grant Administration, told her team to freeze funding for grant programs going back several years, including those focused on emergency preparedness, homeland security, firefighting, protecting churches from terrorism and tribal security.

"For all awards FY23 and prior: put financial holds on all of your awards — all open awards, all years (2021, 2022, 2023, 2024)," Street wrote, using the shorthand "FY" for fiscal year.

[SNIP]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/fema-official-ignores-judge-order-freeze-grant-funding-rcna191674

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has terminated contracts with multiple expert witnesses it had hired in cases against companies accused of hurting consumers.
A wide-ranging, indefinite freeze on activities at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau leaves Americans more vulnerable to financial abuse, consumer advocates say. The decision to suddenly cancel the contracts with expert witnesses suggests that the consumer watchdog no longer plans to pursue these enforcement actions under the Trump administration.

“The richest man in the world is coming in to shut down a case where a lender is cheating working people,” one expert witness whose contract was canceled on Tuesday told CNN in a phone interview, alluding to Elon Musk. “It’s utterly outrageous.” The expert witnesses requested anonymity to avoid retaliation. “I’m a little bit afraid of them. They could try to sue me or send an FBI agent,” the first expert witness said. Another expert witness hired to pursue a case against a debt buyer told CNN they had been working on the case for several years before the termination notice on Tuesday. “It’s pretty ludicrous,” this witness said.

The CFPB did not respond to a request for comment.

[SNIP]

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/12/business/cfpb-expert-witness-contracts/index.html