The Apprentice Season 2 - The Second Presidency of Donald Trump

[waitingtoconnect]

In Weimar America there isn’t time for them to catch up.

[Zaxxon]

I… agree with Trump?

[Kraken]

Hah, me too. I read last week that Elon was going to slay the penny. Cash transactions (remember those?) will round up or down to the nearest 5 cents, and electronic transactions will go unchanged.

Every now and then one's adversaries do something right. Stopped clocks and blind squirrels deserve acknowledgment when they do.

[stessier]

I always thought it was a blind pig, but yeah. Here's John Green's reasoning from 14 years ago for anyone interested.

[Zarathud]

Changes to currency and economic transactions should not be announced without discussion on SuperBowl Sunday. Even if it makes economic sense, this is just a way for Trump to hide the inflation he’s going to create. Retail isn’t going to round down.

[Zaxxon]

Changes to currency and economic transactions should not be announced without discussion on SuperBowl Sunday. Even if it makes economic sense, this is just a way for Trump to hide the inflation he’s going to create. Retail isn’t going to round down.

Absolutely. And there's also the point that Obama tried to do this many years back and was stopped by... the GOP.

[Rumpy]

Canada done away with pennies at least a decade ago now. They are pretty much useless and just take up space.

[Isgrimnur]

Judge says he will continue to pause Trump's federal buyout offer

During an hour-long hearing Monday, a lawyer for the Department of Justice framed the deferred resignation offer as a "humane off-ramp" for federal employees before President Donald Trump enacts sweeping changes to "rebalance and reorganize the federal workforce."
...
Elena Goldstein, a lawyer representing the unions that brought the challenge, hammered the Trump administration for attempting to enforce an "unprecedented program" with a "slapdash exploding deadline"
...
While Goldstein acknowledged that Trump has the right to downsize the federal government, she emphasized that OPM has not gone through any of the steps necessary to carry out such a sweeping move -- including analyzing the cost and benefits of their approach, evaluating its impact on the government's function, and accessing potential conflicts of interest for Musk. She added that the exact terms of the buyout are "shifting" for thousands of employees who have gotten inconsistent guidance from their agency.

"OPM appears to be making this up as they are going along," she said. "When the government wants to decide, there are ways to do this correctly ... none of that happened here in the two weeks since they enacted this program."
...
Just hours ahead of Thursday's original deadline for employees to accept the offer, Judge O'Toole -- who was nominated to the bench by President Bill Clinton -- temporarily blocked the offer until Monday so he could consider issuing a temporary restraining offer pausing the order.
...
According to the plaintiffs, Trump's offer violates federal law, lacks congressionally appropriated funding, and does not offer employees reassurance that the president would follow through with the offer. Their claim in part relies on a federal law from the 1940s called the Administrative Procedure Act that governs how federal agencies create and enforce rules.
...
The plaintiffs also argued that the buyout is unlawful because it relies on funding that Congress has yet to appropriate, violating the Antideficiency Act.

[$iljanus]

Hahaha conservative farmers. The leopard really tore into your face didn't he?

Farmers report missing millions of dollars of funding they were promised by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, despite promises from the Trump administration that a federal funding freeze would not apply to projects directly benefiting individuals.

On his first day in office, President Donald Trump ordered the USDA to freeze funds for several programs designated by President Joe Biden’s signature clean-energy and health-care law, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The freeze paused some funding for the department’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which helps farmers address natural resource concerns, and the Rural Energy for America Program, which provides financial assistance for farmers to improve their infrastructure.

I'm sure there's a lot of farmers with different political leanings who are being screwed. All the more reason to band together.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... ng-frozen/

[Max Peck]

That's on top of a couple billion dollars a year of lost crop sales to USAID as Trump guts that agency.

[Smoove_B]

Between the farm subsidy cuts and the culling of animals over H5N1, I am not sure people are really processing what's happening to our food supply.

[LordMortis]

Between the farm subsidy cuts and the culling of animals over H5N1, I am not sure people are really processing what's happening to our food supply.

Don't forget the threats, attacks, and ice raids on immigrant workers and threats of tariffs.

[Max Peck]

Well, it stands to reason that they'll stop "culling" so-called "sick" animals and just ship the carcasses to the processing plants. Nobody ever caught the Fake Flu from eating McNuggets or a Big Mac.

[Punisher]

Well, it stands to reason that they'll stop "culling" so-called "sick" animals and just ship the carcasses to the processing plants. Nobody ever caught the Fake Flu from eating McNuggets or a Big Mac.

To be fair, I'm skeptical that mcnuggets contain much, if any chicken.

[Smoove_B]

It feels like this should be headlines everywhere as it's presumably the scenario many have said will be an indication we're in trouble. Specifically, the courts ordered the Trump administration to stop the federal funding freeze, and yet there are still numerous agencies around the nation that don't have access to their funds:

When the federal courts first blocked the Trump administration’s funding freeze, Jessyca Leach was cautiously optimistic.

For days, the pause had prevented her from accessing the money she needs for her Phoenix health clinic to serve thousands of at-risk people, most of them poor and many of them members of the LGBTQ+ community. Things had gotten so bad that she had to lay off three employees and cut the salaries of her leadership team, including her own.

So when the funding started to flow again last week, days after the court orders, Leach hoped her ordeal would be over. It wasn’t.

Her federal dollars were accompanied by an ominous note from the payment processing arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Citing “Executive Orders regarding potentially unallowable grant payments,” the agency said that it would continue “taking additional measures to process payments” and that its reviews “will result in delays and/or rejections of payments.”

“If it’s not there,” Leach said of the federal money that covers the salaries for 40% of her staff, “things get really bad, really fast.”

The notice Leach received was one of several indications over the past week that the Trump administration is not backing down in its fight to slash spending and dramatically reshape the federal government, despite multiple court orders explicitly restraining the president’s sweeping executive actions. In some cases, to get around the judges’ rulings, the administration has cited a memo that it says is not subject to the existing orders. In others, it denied funding to organizations because their granting agencies are not defendants in one of the ongoing legal challenges. In others still, it has withheld funds by citing the agencies’ own judgment, not the president’s directives.

There's quite few agencies nationwide that are mentioned:

In New York, a top accounting official wrote that, as of Wednesday, the state could not access money that low-income people use to buy groceries, a block grant for maternal and child health services and nearly $6 million in education funding. In New Mexico, the official who heads services for the elderly and disabled adults said further spending pauses could force them to stop delivering hot meals.

The only response:

On Thursday, for example, a Department of Justice lawyer denied the administration was not abiding by the court’s rulings in one of the two cases challenging the government’s spending freezes, this one brought by a coalition of state attorneys general. He told an attorney representing Oregon that the Environmental Protection Agency was “working through the process of unsuspending grants, which is taking some time given the nature of the process.”

In another email, the same official wrote to a lawyer for New York that the delays in releasing funds to the state were not examples of the administration’s obstinance but were instead “very likely related to” the federal Payment Management System’s “ongoing process of working through the unusually large number of payment requests they received.”

In a filing, the lawyer explained the cause of the “operational delay,” writing that in the four days after OMB issued the spending freeze memo that kicked off the litigation, so many grantees tried to draw down funds — in many cases for their full grant balance — that the payment system automatically flagged 7,000 of them as unusual, prompting further review. As of Sunday, the lawyer wrote, the backlog was fewer than 600 requests.

Even if it's not intentional, just doing it has screwed up the regular flow of monies in a way that's still impacting people and communities. I want to give the benefit of the doubt here, but can't shake the idea that it's not accidental at all.

[Holman]

Between the farm subsidy cuts and the culling of animals over H5N1, I am not sure people are really processing what's happening to our food supply.

Don't forget mass deportation of farm and slaughterhouse workers. And kitchen staff.

[Max Peck]

"We're not defying the court's order, we're just super incompetent because doing a job is a lot harder than simply not doing a job" almost seems like an honest response.

[RunningMn9]

It would be so easy for them to inflict all of this unapologetic cruelty in a perfectly legal way, that the judiciary could do nothing about.

Just do it the way that the system is designed to do it. You control all branches of government. Just pass laws in Congress.

Of course, then the rest of the GOP would have to go on record, and when the shit hits the fan in their district/state, there might be consequences. So I guess that’s out?

[Blackhawk]

It would be so easy for them to inflict all of this unapologetic cruelty in a perfectly legal way, that the judiciary could do nothing about.

Just do it the way that the system is designed to do it. You control all branches of government. Just pass laws in Congress.

Of course, then the rest of the GOP would have to go on record, and when the shit hits the fan in their district/state, there might be consequences. So I guess that’s out?

Fastest and easiest would be to just flip the switch on everything (what they outwardly seem to be doing)
Slowest and the most work would be to follow the process.
The compromise they seem to be going for is to flip the switch on 100 things, then be forced to go back and do 10 of them right.

The side benefit is to so overwhelm everyone that nobody knows half of what's actually happened, while a few things (like conquering Canada) take 90% of the attention, providing cover for their other actions.

[RunningMn9]

I maintain that they are doing it this way so that they can claim “it wasn’t us!!” In 2026. If they have to record votes, they can’t do that.

[Blackhawk]

As with most things, the truth is likely a little of what each of us said, and a little of things we never thought of.

[raydude]

I maintain that they are doing it this way so that they can claim “it wasn’t us!!” In 2026. If they have to record votes, they can’t do that.

It amazes me still that none of the Republicans can see the writing on the wall with respect to Trump and his cronies disregarding or slow walking judicial rulings. All it takes for me is one blatantly ignored ruling and I can already see that the next step is for Trump to just hand wave away Congress when he wants to. Why no R in Congress thinks their job is in peril is beyond me.

[Smoove_B]

Why no R in Congress thinks their job is in peril is beyond me.

Because people like Susan Collins, Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham get re-elected every cycle - even over the last decade with all the insanity they've enabled.

[Kraken]

Why no R in Congress thinks their job is in peril is beyond me.

Their jobs aren't in peril. They're turning into genteel retirement gigs. The Roman Empire kept a Senate and well-off patricians long after the Republic was overturned.

[Zarathud]

What makes me furious is that the media takes the bait and calls it "Trump reforming government." The media and Democrats have allowed Trump to define the issue.

This isn't a reform. It's breaking government ... to increase corruption, not decrease wasteful spending. To avoid the accountability of having to take an open vote in Congress ... that wouldn't pass because even most Republicans wouldn't willingly vote for all of the cuts. We haven't had a budget for the last year because REPUBLICANS can't agree. They broke it before they owned it, and they want Elon Musk to be responsible for being their hatchetman.

[stessier]

From Ars - State AGs arguing an EO can't adjust the indirect costs from NIH grants. They only asked for an injunction in the 22 states they represent - that all went for Kamala or had Democratic governors/AGs (NC, MI, NV, and WI) - and that's all that was granted. Could create quite the dichotomy in research if it is allowed to go on for any length of time.

[LordMortis]

From Ars - State AGs arguing an EO can't adjust the indirect costs from NIH grants. They only asked for an injunction in the 22 states they represent - that all went for Kamala or had Democratic governors/AGs (NC, MI, NV, and WI) - and that's all that was granted. Could create quite the dichotomy in research if it is allowed to go on for any length of time.

Nice? And lucky we still have our Gov/SoS/AG in Mi. Only bad thing about it is that all the people here who put Rodgers in Congress and Leon and Thiel in the Whitehouse still get insulation from their actions. Though, I imagine Leon and Thiel will back down if only red states get to feel pain of their recklessness in this instance.

[geezer]

From Ars - State AGs arguing an EO can't adjust the indirect costs from NIH grants. They only asked for an injunction in the 22 states they represent - that all went for Kamala or had Democratic governors/AGs (NC, MI, NV, and WI) - and that's all that was granted. Could create quite the dichotomy in research if it is allowed to go on for any length of time.

If that was intentional, it's short-term brilliant, if intentionally harmful to innocent victims. By asking for the injunction only in their own blue states, they do two things:

1) Get the obvious advantage of having their funding unfrozen while letting red state institutions and residents suffer the result of their AGs' (lack of) action, leading , hopefully, to pressure from actual Republicans. (though what I'm reading is that these weasels are just asking on the sly for exemptions)

2) They prevent red-staters from being able to both complain about AND receive the benefits of positive actions (see - all the republican congresspeople taking credit for Infrastructure Act projects after voting against it).

[Smoove_B]

I'm very mixed on it. On the one hand, yeah, F those Red states; they voted for this.

On the other, I can't help but think it suggests there's a coalition of Blue States forming and this might edge us closer to an official (administrative?) Civil War as the divide grows. I honestly think it's going to be a weather event or some other type of large-scale disaster (like the next wildfire situation) that is going to potentially bring this to a head, depending on where and when it happens and if there's a situation where money/aid is quickly being funneled to a Red state but clearly being withheld to a Blue one.

Regardless, I read something over the weekend that suggested University of Alabama was one of the top recipients of NIH money. It was something like $700 million in 2022 and $900 million in 2023. If that money is cut off, it is going to be absolutely devastating to that school and the surrounding community. I'm having a hard time believing the intention of this administration is to punish a state like Alabama, but maybe they view the higher ed communities in deeply red states as the enemy, so they don't care.

[LordMortis]

I'm having a hard time believing the intention of this administration is to punish a state like Alabama, but maybe they view the higher ed communities in deeply red states as the enemy, so they don't care.

[raydude]

Why no R in Congress thinks their job is in peril is beyond me.

Their jobs aren't in peril. They're turning into genteel retirement gigs. The Roman Empire kept a Senate and well-off patricians long after the Republic was overturned.

Ah, my mistake was thinking Trump would be more Fuhrer-esque and wave away Congress when the time is right to declare himself "der Führer und Reichskanzle". I guess he'll go for keeping Congress as a figurehead but I don't know if his ego can handle that.

[Isgrimnur]

He has to outlaw all other parties first.

[Smoove_B]

Circling back to what stessier posted above, despite two injunctions, the NIH funding freeze is still in place:

Despite both of these injunctions, NIH staff was prohibited from issuing virtually any grant funding — including funding for multi-year grants that have already been approved and partially disbursed. According to internal NIH email correspondence, the agency leadership said that the freeze was in place to ensure the grants were compliant with Trump's executive orders. This was the precise rationale stated in the OMB memo.

...

Between February 3, 2024, and February 10, 2024, the NIH issued 513 grant awards totaling $218,273,053. Between February 3 and February 10 this year, the NIH issued just 11 grant awards totaling $4,981,089. In other words, since the courts ordered a full resumption in grant funding, the agency approved a handful of grants accounting for 2.2% of its typical volume. An NIH official says a small number of grants are being approved by NIH leadership, but nearly all grants remain frozen.

David Super, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and an expert on administrative law, told Popular Information that the Trump administration is "in contempt of court" and the continued funding freeze at NIH is "completely unlawful."

Additionally:

The federal judge overseeing the case brought by 22 states found that the Trump administration had not fully complied with the January 31 order. The judge issued a new order directing the Trump administration to "immediately end any federal funding pause." According to an NIH source, no action was taken in response to the new order.

[Blackhawk]

From Ars - State AGs arguing an EO can't adjust the indirect costs from NIH grants. They only asked for an injunction in the 22 states they represent - that all went for Kamala or had Democratic governors/AGs (NC, MI, NV, and WI) - and that's all that was granted. Could create quite the dichotomy in research if it is allowed to go on for any length of time.

From the article:

While that injunction only applies to research centers located in the states that have joined the suit, a separate suit was filed in the same district by a group of medical organizations, some of them (such as the Association of American Medical Colleges), have members throughout the country. As a result, Judge Kelley issued a separate ruling that extended the injunction to the remaining states.

I'm all for teaching the red states a lesson, but medical research isn't where I'd teach it (for instance, IU Med is in Indiana.)

[$iljanus]

From Ars - State AGs arguing an EO can't adjust the indirect costs from NIH grants. They only asked for an injunction in the 22 states they represent - that all went for Kamala or had Democratic governors/AGs (NC, MI, NV, and WI) - and that's all that was granted. Could create quite the dichotomy in research if it is allowed to go on for any length of time.

From the article:

While that injunction only applies to research centers located in the states that have joined the suit, a separate suit was filed in the same district by a group of medical organizations, some of them (such as the Association of American Medical Colleges), have members throughout the country. As a result, Judge Kelley issued a separate ruling that extended the injunction to the remaining states.

I'm all for teaching the red states a lesson, but medical research isn't where I'd teach it (for instance, IU Med is in Indiana.)

There's quite a few excellent centers of biomedical research in red states. And sure for the greater good having a separate ruling that applies to all 50 states is the right thing. But the AGs of these red states are riding on the coattails of blue state AGs and private organizations while they're busy pursuing supposed voter fraud, abortion issues, gender specific bathrooms and other bullshit. Maybe it will be the farmers that will band together because they're taking a hit and when the AGs of red states aren't responding to their concerns they'll get their ass voted out. But I'm not holding my breath as blue states do the heavy lifting yet again on these sorts of issues that impact a healthy democracy.

[raydude]

From Ars - State AGs arguing an EO can't adjust the indirect costs from NIH grants. They only asked for an injunction in the 22 states they represent - that all went for Kamala or had Democratic governors/AGs (NC, MI, NV, and WI) - and that's all that was granted. Could create quite the dichotomy in research if it is allowed to go on for any length of time.

From the article:

While that injunction only applies to research centers located in the states that have joined the suit, a separate suit was filed in the same district by a group of medical organizations, some of them (such as the Association of American Medical Colleges), have members throughout the country. As a result, Judge Kelley issued a separate ruling that extended the injunction to the remaining states.

I'm all for teaching the red states a lesson, but medical research isn't where I'd teach it (for instance, IU Med is in Indiana.)

There's quite a few excellent centers of biomedical research in red states. And sure for the greater good having a separate ruling that applies to all 50 states is the right thing. But the AGs of these red states are riding on the coattails of blue state AGs and private organizations while they're busy pursuing supposed voter fraud, abortion issues, gender specific bathrooms and other bullshit. Maybe it will be the farmers that will band together because they're taking a hit and when the AGs of red states aren't responding to their concerns they'll get their ass voted out. But I'm not holding my breath as blue states do the heavy lifting yet again on these sorts of issues that impact a healthy democracy.

In other words, Blue AGs are tired of Red AGs having their cake and eating it too. And frankly, so am I.

[waitingtoconnect]

What the actual …

H.R.1161 - To authorize the President to enter into negotiations to acquire Greenland and to rename Greenland as "Red, White, and Blueland".

https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-con ... -bill/1161

[Zarathud]

When the other side is playing dirty, it’s time to fight back the same way.

[Rumpy]

Interesting development regarding USAID. I'm putting this here instead of the Canada thread. I didn't realize Canada actually sent foreign money through USAID. That's another example of how closely linked we've been. But apparently Canada had sent millions of dollars to USAID for programming.

Canada's aid sector is bracing for cataclysmic suffering worldwide, and is asking Ottawa to help fill gaps as Washington winds down the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Numerous Canadian projects are in limbo as the world's largest aid agency freezes funding to multilateral programs, and it's unclear what will happen to millions of dollars Ottawa had sent to USAID for programming.

I smell a potential lawsuit if Trump's administration appropriates the Canadian money that was meant for aid.

Cooperation Canada represents dozens of Canadian non-profits working in international development and humanitarian assistance, many of whom run projects that use systems operated by USAID, or United Nations agencies that have significant U.S. funding.

"Many of those will need to shut down," Higgins said of Canadian programs.

That includes emergency medicine, basic education and hunger relief. It's leaving organizations trying to redesign their programs and working with organizations from other countries to try filling the gaps.

In addition, data from Global Affairs Canada shows a total of $40 million in development projects listed as currently operational that Ottawa had funded USAID to execute. The projects included climate-change adaptation in Peruvian watersheds and a fund that helps 2SLGBTQ+ activists fleeing violence.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada ... -1.7455291

[LordMortis]

I'm sure President Leon made arrangements to return that money in his well considered plan.