Musicalg

Semi-retired Actor, Writer, Photographer and Farscape Fan. Connoisseur of chocolate and pastries. Currently obsessed w political news.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

Trump’s budget director Russ Vought is the most dangerous person you’ve never heard of.

And he just proposed turning every federal grant into a loyalty test.

His plan would make funding for cancer research, housing, transportation, and public health depend on one thing: whether it “advances the President’s policy priorities.”

Not whether it works.

Not whether Congress authorized it.

Whether it pleases Trump.

This is the appropriations power. It belongs to Congress and to the people.
To my Republican colleagues: where are you?

Congress passed this funding. You voted for it.

Vought is telling you to your faces that your votes do not matter, that he and his enablers will override the law whenever it suits them. Every day you stay silent, you give away the institution you were elected to defend.

Grow a spine.

This is not about left or right.

It is about whether Congress still exists as a coequal branch, or whether we have quietly surrendered the purse to an unelected hack who holds the Constitution in contempt.

History will remember who stood up and who looked away.
https://t.co/2yHKBTNLbj

[Covie @covie_93]

The pro-life party wants to starve pregnant women and children.

[No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen @NoLieWithBTC]

An extremely dangerous maggot that eats human flesh called Screwworm has just been found for the first time since it was eradicated in 1966.

This comes after Trump cut funding for Screwworm monitoring programs.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

This is so insanely corrupt, I can’t even believe it.

More than half the donors to Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom just won over $50 billion in new federal contracts in six months.

And here’s the part that should make your blood boil.

Sixteen of these 27 donors were facing federal enforcement actions, antitrust reviews, labor cases, securities charges. Many of those cases have been quietly dropped or scaled back since Trump took office. You write a check, your legal problems disappear. That’s not a coincidence.

The White House won’t even release the full donor list. They’re hiding it on purpose, because daylight is the one thing pay-to-play can’t survive. A federal judge already ruled ballroom construction has to stop until Congress authorizes it.

Government is supposed to serve the people, not auction itself off to the highest bidder. When access goes to whoever pays the most, working families always end up paying the price.

We either end the corruption, or the corruption will end us.

https://t.co/4MGFzSseFl

[Natalka @littleukrainian]

@MilesTaylorUSA @IlanaGaron If this description is accurate, the question isn’t whether it’s insane. The question is how a system built on checks and balances evolved into one where this was even possible.

[Miles Taylor @MilesTaylorUSA]

Yesterday Donald Trump tripled the size of his personal political army inside the government. Illegally. And almost no one noticed.

Here's what happened:

He signed an order converting ~8,000 of the most senior career officials in government into employees he can fire for any reason, or no reason at all.

These aren't rando's. They're the directors, chiefs of staff, and the people who write the rules or decide who gets federal money, i.e. the lieutenants right below his political appointees.

Until yesterday, they answered to the law. Now they answer to him.

A president normally gets ~4,000 political appointees. People he can bring into government and fire at will. I was one of them at DHS. You serve at his pleasure, full stop -- so if you're gonna speak truth to power, you're prepared to quit (or get fired if he doesn't like it).

The rest of the federal government is PROTECTED from firing if they tell the truth.

But Trump just stripped those protections. Adding 8,000 more people to his personal army. Overnight. Without asking Congress.

With the stroke of a pen, those people now serve at the pleasure of the president. They're "his" people, whether they like it or not.

And the chilling effect is real. An official who can be fired this afternoon for "subversion of presidential directives" (the order's own words) doesn't need to be hand-picked to know what's expected of him or her.

The threat does all the work.

By the way, this order is illegal. The law only lets Trump reclassify jobs when "necessary" in exceptional circumstances. And this blows an 8,000-person hole in the merit hiring / firing system created by Congress.

Without permission, Trump has created a whole new category of stormtroopers inside the Executive Branch.

If this doesn't get challenged in court, you're going to see the U.S. government become a very different place.

Here's the full story: https://t.co/mJzrvzhxGR

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

SALINAS: Are you aware that diesel prices in Oregon are over $6 a gallon right now and are really harming farmers?

BROOKE ROLLINS: I do want to be fair that in the last administratio---

SALINAS: Reclaiming my time. We are not talking about the last administration.

[Chase Odell 🦬🌾🏔🦬🏹🦌 @ChaseOdell7]

@HQNewsNow @PatiKRoll11 DOGE screwed us

[Sean Z. Paxton @Homebrewchef]

The Trump administration is doing the same thing along the West Coast by removing scientific research buoys, which have been paid for, installed and producing important data on our climate, water temperature and a early warning system for tsunami, global warming and more!

This corrupt administration is doing long term damage to our country by handicapping our intel, our science systems.

Trump can not continue as president!

[Danny @danzu72]

@HQNewsNow We had protection, but MAGA vilified anyone who worked for the government and cheered when they were fired. It's these mundane government jobs that keep shit from breaking.

[Fly Sistah 🪷 @Fly_Sistah]

@HQNewsNow One would think Trump learned from covid 19, but no. That would require a functioning brain & a team with basic comprehension of data & facts. But no, Trump surrounds himself with a bunch of racist sychophants who thought cutting USAID would only hurt Black & brown countries.

[Headquarters @HQNewsNow]

The New World Screwworm, a grave parasitic threat, has just been detected in US cattle for the first time since it was eradicated in 1966.

The parasite's revival comes after Trump and DOGE slashed funding for Screwworm monitoring programs.

[Not Your Average Liberal @NotAvgLiberal]

Is anyone else disgusted?

America’s symbol of Freedom, Democracy and Independence.

Reduced to a pedo county fair.

This administration is a fucking joke.

[The Debt Collective 🟥 @StrikeDebt]

It's happening 🚨

House GOP representatives are about to introduce a bill that would completely eliminate subsidized student loans.

They are trying to make it impossible to go to college unless you can afford to pay for it upfront.

[Robert Reich @RBReich]

Remember: no judge or jury has found these boats were trafficking drugs. We're simply taking Trump's word for it.

He’s unilaterally acting as judge, jury, and executioner.

This is a danger to us all.

https://t.co/k9Nlr3q9iE

[MeidasTouch @MeidasTouch]

NEWS: The House has passed the Ukraine Support Act, 226-195, to provide new military aid to Ukraine and impose tougher sanctions on Russia.

The bill advanced through a discharge petition despite Speaker Mike Johnson's efforts to block a vote.

18 Republicans and former Republican Kevin Kiley broke with leadership to vote for it.

[Amber Woods @AmberWoods100]

Don’t forget: the complete Epstein files were due 167 days ago. A congressional deadline is being ignored by the DOJ.

Epstein survivors waited decades to be heard.

Every day the files remain withheld raises the same question:

Who benefits from this?

At some point, the delay itself becomes part of the betrayal to Americans.

[tern @1goodtern]

We tried and tried and tried to warn you about this guy.

[Epstein File Search @epsteinsearchin]

In February, Rep. Thomas Massie read Attorney General Pam Bondi a line from the Epstein files.

Leslie Wexner, he said, is listed in them as a co-conspirator. Not to tax evasion. To child sex trafficking.

Nobody has been charged.

[Gramps @GrandpaHarris65]

The fact that we're being held hostage by the dumbest 32% of the country is really strange and annoying.