NewsFlash

The State Department plans to spend $400 million on armored vehicles from Tesla, which Musk owns.

The proposed budget also slashes funds for Medicaid (the rough equivalent of the NHS that serves low-income people, including the elderly in nursing homes).

A coalition of immigrant rights and legal aid groups, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, has sued the Trump administration, demanding that migrants flown by the government to a U.S. detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, be given access to lawyers.
Sailors and Coast Guardsmen erect tents for a migrant holding facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. President Trump has directed the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security to prepare for 30,000 detained migrants.

Wednesday's lawsuit says the Trump administration, after sending dozens of migrants to the remote Caribbean outpost in recent weeks, is now "holding them incommunicado, without access to attorneys, family, or the outside world." The suit alleges that "this isolation is no coincidence," since the distant location makes it especially difficult for migrants to communicate with attorneys who could explain their legal rights and challenge their detention.

"One has to wonder if they're doing it so they don't have access to counsel, so that they can be held without rights, and so that the government can have these photo opps," the lead attorney in the lawsuit, ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt, said in an NPR interview, referring to images of shackled men being loaded onto and off of military planes.

According to the lawsuit, some of the migrants' family members learned their relatives had been sent to Guantánamo upon seeing those photos, which were circulated publicly by the departments of Defense and Homeland Security. Several of those family members are plaintiffs in the case.  Since traveling to Guantánamo will be onerous for lawyers, the lawsuit requests that "at a minimum," attorneys be allowed to communicate with the migrants via phone calls, video conferences or email.

Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, noted that foreign terrorist suspects who have been imprisoned for years at Guantánamo have access to lawyers, meaning that "these immigrant detainees are now being held in a situation with less rights than even the alleged enemy combatants."

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https://www.npr.org/2025/02/12/nx-s1-5295046/guantanamo-aclu-lawsuit-dhs-migrants-trump

Technology
'Unprecedented': White House moves to control science funding worry researchers

"For just a few minutes, it feels like the whole world stands still and yet everything changes," says Corinne Brevik, a physicist at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. The sky darkens, stars come out as the blaze of the sun's corona becomes visible. "It reminds me that we are all part of something so much bigger than ourselves."  But only a sliver of the country gets this firsthand view. For the 2024 eclipse, Brevik used money from a National Science Foundation grant to help middle schoolers host a live, interactive broadcast that brought together kids within the path of totality with those around the country outside the path. It meant thousands of students could share the experience.  "You can literally watch the kids watching the eclipse and hear that moment of 'Whoa!' " she says. "It got a lot of kids who wouldn't necessarily have had a chance to see it out to observe."

On Tuesday, Brevik was surprised to learn that her grant was one of over 3,400 NSF grants labeled by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, as "woke DEI" research that may be advancing "neo-Marxist class warfare propaganda."A database released by Cruz this week formed the basis of an October report claiming over $2 billion of NSF's $9 billion budget went to "left-wing ideological crusades masked as 'academic research.'" The report also includes an appendix containing hundreds of DEI-related words. Parts of that appendix are currently being used by NSF staff to screen thousands of their active grants for compliance with President Trump's executive orders targeting diversity, equity and inclusion measures across the government. "It's frustrating," says Brevik. "The sole goal was to share what's happening with everybody. It's not propaganda; there's no background agenda. Our goal is to help educate our youth." Brevik was one of many scientists expressing dismay at how their basic research was being labeled.  The database included research grants from all corners of the country, large research institutions and small colleges. The list included projects aimed at finding better ways of synthesizing new medications; studying how to make self-driving vehicles safer; investigating how military service could help more women pursue science careers; figuring out why some proteins start to malfunction in ways that can lead to cancer.

"It's ludicrous," says Joshua Weitz, a biologist at the University of Maryland whose research was not flagged but who has received NSF grants. "[Cruz] is using his position as a senator to make a big noise about fundamental research and mis-categorizing what's going on in the research and technology sector in this country. If one looks at this list, you find things that we should absolutely be proud of funding."

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Tammie Visintainer, a professor of science education at San Jose State University, was one of three researchers explicitly called out by Cruz for her work aiming to engage underrepresented students in community-based science. "I found out via a text from my dean, who said 'Let me know if you're receiving any threats,' " she says. "It was chilling and alarming ... I actually took my name off my office door. It felt like I don't need people to know where I am."

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https://www.npr.org/2025/02/13/nx-s1-5295043/sen-ted-cruzs-list-of-woke-science-includes-self-driving-cars-solar-eclipses


How long until the long knives come out? 

More than 350 rabbis, alongside additional signatories including Jewish creatives and activists, have signed an ad in the New York Times in which they condemn Donald Trump’s proposal for the effective ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza.

The ad, which was signed by rabbis including Sharon Brous, Roly Matalon and Alissa Wise, as well as Jewish creatives and activists including Tony Kushner, Ilana Glazer, Naomi Klein and Joaquin Phoenix, says: “Trump has called for the removal of all Palestinians from Gaza. Jewish people say no to ethnic cleansing!”

Education Department employees on probation were abruptly dismissed without cause across the department this morning. Staff have been warned that more layoffs are coming.

The Education Department made department-wide cuts on Wednesday, including in its civil rights office, according to multiple sources familiar with the move, a day after President Trump said he'd like to see the department eliminated.  The terminations were primarily sent to newer probationary employees hired within the last year, sources said. Layoff letters were emailed to employees Tuesday. The letters informed employees that they could appeal their firing to the Merit Systems Protection Board if they felt they had been terminated "for partisan political reasons or because of your marital status."

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Mr. Trump has long suggested he wanted to shutter the Department of Education, and his willingness to dismantle much of the U.S. Agency for International Development suggests he could try to follow through on his threats to try to shut down the Education Department. As CBS News previously reported, Mr. Trump is considering executive action that would dismantle the department, ending some programs and shifting some responsibilities to other parts of government, according to multiple sources familiar with the plans. "Oh, I'd like it to be closed immediately," the president told reporters at the White House on Wednesday. "Look, the Department of Education is a big con job."

A spokesperson for the American Federation of Government Employees, one of the largest employee unions, said probationary employees at the Small Business Administration have been affected, too. AFGE doesn't have an exact number of workers impacted by the layoffs yet. The union said it's only aware of the workers who have contacted them. McMahon ran the SBA during Mr. Trump's first term.

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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/federal-employee-layoffs-begin-at-department-of-education/

The Trump administration is rapidly delivering wins to American companies by rolling back regulations, pausing investigations and retreating from lawsuits accusing employers of discrimination. A combination of firings, stop-work orders and litigation pauses has hobbled regulators like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The moves have led the S.E.C. to pull back on its attempt to police the cryptocurrency boom and upended efforts at other agencies to protect worker rights. The speed and scale of the deregulatory moves by President Trump reflect his ambitious agenda to downsize government.But the upshot of all this upheaval is simple: Regulatory agencies that are intended to protect ordinary Americans, workers and homeowners are being gutted, consumer advocates say. “Under the Trump administration, federal consumer protections are being rapidly stripped away in a lawless process,” said Adam Levitin, a professor at Georgetown Law who specializes in financial regulation. “This is deregulation by firings.”

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Some of the Trump administration’s policy changes are in keeping with a series of sweeping executive orders the president signed to stamp out programs protecting the rights of transgender people or climate change initiatives. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency both moved quickly to withdraw from an international climate change organization made up of bank supervisors. One change to a federal housing program that was meant to protect against gender discrimination has overtly religious underpinnings. Scott Turner, the new secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, announced Friday that HUD’s staff was halting enforcement actions that further a “far-left gender ideology” when it comes to housing programs. He said the 2016 rule was inconsistent with “what the Lord established from the beginning when he created man in His own image.”

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Kristin E. Hickman, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School who specializes in administrative law, said no matter the threats, only Congress could do away with a congressionally created agency like the consumer bureau. But she also noted that presidents had latitude in how much authority they could give to an agency. She said there was “a lot of wiggle room” when it came to the ability to “expand or shrink what an agency is doing.”

Here’s a closer look at some of the more significant changes going on at regulatory agencies under the Trump administration:
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Russell Vought, whom Mr. Trump tapped to lead the Office of Management and Budget, wasted no time during his first few days as acting director of the consumer bureau, the federal watchdog created in the wake of the financial crisis. He quickly ordered employees at the agency to shut down all “supervision and examination activity.” He directed the bureau’s lawyers to ask a judge to delay a rule that would require credit-reporting companies to keep medical debt off consumers’ credit scores. He shut the agency’s offices for a week. And on Tuesday night, more than 70 employees, including enforcement lawyers, were laid off. The firings occurred just hours before Mr. Trump named Jonathan McKernan, a former F.D.I.C. official, as the consumer bureau’s director. Further signaling a retreat from enforcement actions, the bureau also ended its contracts with a number of expert witnesses, who evaluate the evidence and testify in cases against companies, according to a person briefed on the matter.

Mr. Vought has long favored abolishing the consumer bureau, which focuses on preventing banks and other financial services firms from taking advantage of customers. One of the last acts the consumer bureau took during the Biden administration was to sue Capital One, accusing the bank of misleading consumers with promises of a high-yielding savings account. The bureau is also a particular target of Elon Musk, the tech billionaire, and his team of young cost cutters. Just last week, in a post on his social media platform, X, Mr. Musk all but called for the bureau’s demise. He has been creating a payment platform on X that would be regulated by the bureau.

At the S.E.C., the acting chair, Mark Uyeda, has been taking aim at crypto regulation. His first move was to create a crypto task force that will devise a framework for regulating the unruly industry without relying mainly on enforcement cases.  The task force is a rebuff to what the crypto industry saw as the heavy-handed approach taken by Gary Gensler, the previous S.E.C. chair. Mr. Uyeda has also moved to scale back the S.E.C.’s crypto enforcement unit, which had been staffed by more than 50 lawyers and investigators. Some lawyers have been moved to other enforcement teams, and a top lawyer on many crypto cases was moved entirely out of the enforcement division — action seem by some as payback to the crypto community. And on Tuesday, Mr. Uyeda informed a federal appellate court that the agency was pausing its defense of a rule that would require public companies to disclose how their operations affect climate change. Many U.S. companies have complained that the rule is too costly to carry out. Supporters of climate disclosures consider the rule among Mr. Gensler’s signature achievements.

Mr. Trump’s regulatory rollback also potentially extends to the S.E.C.’s enforcement of corporate corruption overseas. On Monday, he signed an executive order directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to pause enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes it illegal for U.S. companies to bribe foreign officials to get government contracts, and is enforced by both the S.E.C. and Department of Justice. One of the biggest foreign bribery cases in recent years was an investigation that led to a Goldman Sachs subsidiary’s entering a guilty plea in the 1MDB scandal.

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

At the E.E.O.C., the federal agency focused on protecting employees from discrimination, cases related to transgender workers are now in doubt. Last month, lawyers for the agency asked a judge to pause litigation in a case accusing a hog farm of discriminating against a transgender employee, including by failing to stop another worker from trying to grope her breasts and expose his own genitalia. The pause in the case, lawyers told the judge, “will permit the E.E.O.C. to determine whether its continued litigation” is permitted under Mr. Trump’s executive order related to “Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” In a statement, a spokesman for the E.E.O.C. said “the agency continues to enforce federal antidiscrimination laws.” But he added that the agency’s acting chair “has acted promptly to comply with applicable executive orders to the fullest extent possible under her existing authority."  The order leaves in doubt what will happen to other transgender discrimination cases, like one the E.E.O.C. brought in September against a chain of hotels. The commission charged the companies with illegally firing a transgender housekeeper who complained about being subjected to harassment. In announcing that lawsuit, a regional E.E.O.C. attorney said: “Preventing and remedying discrimination against L.G.B.T.Q.I.+ individuals remain key priorities for the E.E.O.C.” But Mr. Trump has made it clear that he has other priorities. Shortly after issuing the “biological truth” executive order, the Trump administration fired two of the agency’s Democratic commissioners and its general counsel.[/color]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/13/business/trump-deregulation-firing.html

Manhattan’s U.S. attorney on Thursday resigned rather than obey an order from a top Justice Department official to drop the corruption case against New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams. Then, when Justice Department officials sought to transfer the case to the public integrity section in Washington, which oversees corruption cases, the two men who led that unit also resigned, according to five people with knowledge of the matter. The resignations represent the most high-profile public resistance so far to President Trump’s tightening control over the Justice Department. They were a stunning repudiation of the administration’s attempt to force the dismissal of the charges against Mr. Adams.

The departures of the U.S. attorney, Danielle R. Sassoon, and the officials who oversaw the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, Kevin O. Driscoll and John Keller, came in rapid succession on Thursday. Days earlier, the acting No. 2 official at the Justice Department, Emil Bove III, had ordered Manhattan prosecutors to drop the case against Mr. Adams.

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Ms. Sassoon, in a remarkable letter addressed to Attorney General Pam Bondi, said that Mr. Bove’s order to dismiss the case was “inconsistent with my ability and duty to prosecute federal crimes without fear or favor and to advance good-faith arguments before the courts.”  “I have always considered it my obligation to pursue justice impartially, without favor to the wealthy or those who occupy important public office, or harsher treatment for the less powerful,” she said. “I therefore deem it necessary to the faithful discharge of my duties to raise the concerns expressed in this letter with you and to request an opportunity to meet to discuss them further.” Ms. Sassoon, 38, said in her letter that the mayor’s lawyers “repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the Department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed.”  She also said that Mr. Bove had scolded a member of her team for taking notes during the meeting and ordered that the notes be collected at the meeting’s end.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/13/nyregion/danielle-sassoon-quit-eric-adams.html

SEE ALSO

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/02/13/us/letter-to-bondi.html

NOTE:  Ms. Sassoon was appointed by Trump.

SAN DIEGO — The following are remarks by Cardinal Robert W. McElroy, of the Diocese of San Diego, delivered on Feb. 9 at St. Joseph Cathedral during a prayer service, “The Church Stands with Immigrants.”

Afterward, the estimated 1,500 people on hand, including many faith leaders from other faiths, walked to the federal vigil, where they heard testimonies  and prayed for federal authorities to treat undocumented immigrants with compassion, dignity and justice.

“We come together and pray and proclaim our faith; that the rights of every man, woman, and child are inviolate. And that when our society violates those rights, we must speak up with clarity. We understand that God created all of us. We are all children of our God. When misery, fear, and terror are unleashed upon the land, we cannot stay silent. When parents don’t know that they will be able to come home to be with their children after work, we cannot stay silent. When Costco becomes a ground to target people without papers, we cannot stay silent. When children become the targets to intentionally inflict pain on their parents with the threat their separation, we cannot stand silent. When our houses of worship are turned into houses of fear because they are targets for deportation, we cannot stand silent. But we do not stand silent today.

“Catholic teaching says that the nation has the right to secure its borders. That is true.

“We have a right to secure our border in a way that respects the dignity of all. But what we are witnessing is far different than that. It is not a targeted effort to secure the border. It has become an indiscriminate campaign to bring fear into the hearts of every undocumented person, man, woman, mother, and child in our society. Those who are our coworkers, those who are our neighbors, those who worship with us, those who have lived here for so long, helping to build up our society. We cannot stay silent.

“We must speak up and proclaim that this unfolding misery and suffering, and yes, war of fear and terror, cannot be tolerated. We must speak up and say, “Go no further,” because our brothers and sisters, who are being targeted, are too precious in our eyes and in God’s eyes. And we should speak up, we must speak up, as Americans, because it is the American belief that we are a nation of immigrants, and that our shores welcome all those who are poor and needy and come here seeking a better way of life. And that is the undocumented population we’re talking about, people who have come here seeking a better life, and who live among us, and work among us, and contribute to building up this country, who serve in our military, and help us in manifold ways.

“So, as we go forth this day, let us remember, not just at this moment, when we pray to our God and ask God’s blessing upon us all, but in every moment in the unfolding weeks. We cannot stay silent but need to speak up for the rights of those who are undocumented, and for the wrong of unleashing a campaign of fear, which is unfolding in our midst.”


[It's a start.  ]

The U.S. Forest Service will fire roughly 3,400 federal employees across every level of the agency beginning Thursday, according to two people familiar with the plans. The move targets employees who are still within their probationary period, which means it’s easier for them to be let go. Public safety employees at USFS are exempt from the firing. While firefighter jobs appear to be unaffected, other roles that support wildfire prevention are being cut. Employees who work on road and trail maintenance, timber production and watershed restoration are also impacted.

Separate but related -

SEE ALSO

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/trumps-executive-orders-cause-chaos-va-staffers-say-rcna192045

ABSOLUTELY TRUE. FOR YOUR OWN SAKE, IF NOT OURS.

Federal workers have begun receiving layoff notices as the Trump administration moves ahead with plans to drastically downsize the government.

While the full scale of layoffs isn't yet clear, the first round of cuts appeared to target employees who were recently hired and still on probationary status, according to multiple federal officials and staffers who spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized to speak to the press and feared retaliation from the Trump administration.  The firings are affecting a wide swath of federal workers, and include employees responsible for education, small business grants, and the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile.

Probationary periods vary by federal agency but typically last one or two years. According to government data, around 220,000 federal employees had less than one year of service in March 2024, the most recent time period available. Another 288,000 had between one and two years of service at that time. President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday directing federal agencies to start preparing to, "initiate large-scale reductions in force." Trump and his advisor Elon Musk have said they want to cut what they say is excessive government spending.

Compensation for federal employees amounted to around 3% of the federal budget in the 2024 fiscal year, according to government data.

The Department of Energy began firing its probationary employees on Thursday, according to two officials at the agency who spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

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According to an NNSA employee, roughly 300 of the agency's 1,800 staff are expected to be fired after the agency was denied a national security exemption. The small organization is responsible for maintaining and upgrading America's arsenal of nuclear weapons, combatting nuclear terrorism, and preventing proliferation around the world.

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https://www.npr.org/2025/02/13/nx-s1-5296928/layoffs-trump-doge-education-energy

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ausa-who-worked-on-adams-case-resigns-in-sharply-worded-letter-to-doj/ar-AA1z4aij

One of two assistant U.S. attorneys who was working on the Eric Adams corruption case has resigned from his position in a tersely-worded letter to the Department of Justice, according to an email, which was shared with NBC New York. Hagan Scotten, an assistant U.S. attorney with the Southern District of New York, resigned Friday morning in a note to Deputy Acting Attorney General Emil Bove. Scotten’s decision to resign comes a day after Acting U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, Scotten’s boss, also left her post following orders by Bove to dismiss the case against the New York mayor.

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SEE ALSO





EDITED NOTE Feb 15:  A DC member of that department finally caved and made the request after SEVEN prosecutors quit rather than do so. The scuttlebutt is that they were all brought into a room and told that one of them had to sign off on the request or they'd all be fired. See from the NY Times:

About two dozen lawyers in the Justice Department’s public integrity section conferred on Friday morning to wrestle with a demand from a Trump political appointee that many of them viewed as improper: One of them needed to sign the official request to dismiss corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams. The acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove III, told the shellshocked staff of the section responsible for prosecuting public corruption cases that he needed a signature on court motions. The lawyers knew that those who had already refused had resigned, and they could also be forced out. By Friday afternoon, a veteran prosecutor in the section, Ed Sullivan, agreed to submit the request in Manhattan federal court to shield his colleagues from being fired, or resigning en masse, according to three people briefed on the interaction, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/02/14/nyregion/eric-adams-charges-doj

Mayor Adams and Tom Homan, a Trump minion, actually were live on FOX TV (I saw this interview) when Homan threatened the Mayor that if he didn't produce the desired results, Homan (et.al.) would be coming after him.

Over a dozen states filed a lawsuit Thursday to nullify the unconstitutional actions of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and prevent them from performing any future actions like freezing federal funding, accessing agency data and taking over agencies. “Although our constitutional system was designed to prevent the abuses of an 18th century monarch, the instruments of unchecked power are no less dangerous in the hands of a 21st century tech baron,” the plaintiffs said in the lawsuit. The plaintiffs argued that Musk, DOGE and President Donald Trump violated the Appointments Clause and the separation of powers principles of the U.S. Constitution.

Musk has wielded the power of an official who would need to be formally appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, but he hasn’t gone through that constitutionally required process, the states argued. They detailed how he and his department employees “roamed through the federal government,” accessing sensitive information, controlling agency activities and eliminating programs in a variety of entities, including the Education, Labor, and Treasury departments, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

“Musk’s seemingly limitless and unchecked power to strip the government of its workforce and eliminate entire departments with the stroke of a pen, or click of a mouse, is unprecedented,” the plaintiffs said. “The sweeping authority now vested in a single unelected and unconfirmed individual is antithetical to the nation’s entire constitutional structure.”

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez (D) spearheaded the lawsuit, filing it with his counterparts in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. “Empowering an unelected billionaire to access Americans’ private data, slash funding for federal student aid, stop payments to American farmers and dismantle protections for working families is not a sign of President Trump’s strength, but his weakness,” Torrez said in a statement.  The plaintiffs specifically implicated Trump in the lawsuit for creating DOGE through an executive order, delegating “virtually unchecked authority” to Musk “without proper legal authorization from Congress.”

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https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/14-states-sue-to-block-elon-musks-doge-actions-claim-unconstitutional-abuse-of-power/