The #legislation is the first request by the #Trump admin for #Congress to TAKE BACK MONEY IT ALREADY APPROVED through annual spending bills. The bill reflects a list of cuts totaling $9.4 billion that were requested by #RussVought’s #OMB. The bulk of the cuts—$8.3 billion—are to #ForeignAid programs addressing global #PublicHealth, international #disaster assistance & #hunger relief.
#AmericanAutocracy #authoritarianism #dictatorship #tyranny #law
"#DOGE is still dangerous even without Elon #Musk ...
Vought also was most likely the architect of many of DOGE’s most severe staffing cuts, and he has long argued that the president can make such cuts on his own without Congress. As Politico recently quoted a senior government employee saying: 'It wasn’t actually Musk holding a chainsaw. Musk was a chainsaw in Russ Vought’s hands.'" #russvought https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/elon-musk-doge-russell-vought-rcna211824
#JoniErnst later doubled down on her
comment on social media, attempting to equate concern that #Medicaid cuts could harm people with believing in the tooth fairy.
Ofcls such as #RussVought & Ernst have not provided a detailed explanation of their blithe assurances. But there is one center of conservative thought that has attempted to defend these claims: the WSJ editorial page.
#law #HealthInequity #HealthyIfYoureWealthy #Trump #eugenics
Perhaps for that reason, some #Republicans in Washington are now making even more audacious claims. On CNN over the weekend, #OMB Dir #RussVought insisted that “no one will lose coverage as a result of this bill.” Likewise, #JoniErnst, a #Republican senator from Iowa, recently told voters at a town hall, “Everyone says that #Medicaid is being cut, people are going to see their benefits cut; that’s not true.” After one attendee shouted, “People will die,” Ernst replied, “We all are going to die.”
"The Order targets #NPR & #PBS expressly because, in the President's view, their news & other content is not 'fair, accurate, or unbiased.'"
The “wolf”line was drawn from a 1988 dissent by the late #SCOTUS Justice Antonin Scalia.
The suit says the admin is usurping #Congress' right to direct how federal money will be spent & to pass laws. It names #Trump, OMB dir #RussVought, Treasury Secy #ScottBessent & #MariaRosarioJackson, the chair of the #NEA, as defendants.
From Reuters:
Appeals judges prod #Trump admin, #union over #CFPB wind-down
Federal appeals court judges in Washington wrestled Friday with the extent to which they could instruct the Trump admin to operate the government's consumer finance watchdog agency, which the White House this year has sought to decimate if not shut down entirely.
#law #RussVought #Constitution #Congress #SeparationOfPowers #CoEqualBranchesOfGovernment
“The DC Circuit should block the administration’s actions to shutter the agency & uphold #Congress’s plenary power over the existence & structure of federal agencies.”
…
“If President #Trump wants to shut down the #CFPB, the #Constitution requires that he go to Congress & get it to give him the authority to do that. Notably, he has not done so.”
#law #RussVought #SeparationOfPowers #CoEqualBranchesOfGovernment
Following oral argument at the US Court of Appeals for DC this afternoon in National #Treasury Employees #Union v. #RussVought, a case in which the court is considering whether the #Trump admin’s efforts to unilaterally shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (#CFPB) are constitutional, Constitutional Accountability Center Equal Justice Works Fellow Anna Jessurun issued this:
#law #Constitution #SeparationOfPowers #CoEqualBranchesOfGovernment #Congress
https://www.theusconstitution.org/news/cac-release-at-the-d-c-circuit-everyone-agrees-that-the-constitution-does-not-permit-the-president-to-unilaterally-shutter-the-cfpb/
More on #russellvought and the dismantling of the #US #Government
#uspoli #USPolitics #russvought
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/16/russ-vought-trump-project-2025-musk
#Trump #Budget #Hawk Takes Over the #DOGE Agenda. First Up: the #Military #RussVought Trump’s top budget official, is looking to lock in #Musk #spending cuts once billionaire #CEO steps aside from #government. #key part of his plan: #steamrolling #Congress. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-s-budget-hawk-takes-over-the-doge-agenda-first-up-the-military/ar-AA1Ez59f #GOP #republicans #maga #project2025 #defense #government #contracts No #oversight No #accountability No #audit No #fiscal #responsibility No rationale #corruption #democracy
#CFPB Quietly Kills Rule to Shield Americans From #DataBrokers
#RussVought, acting director of the #Consumer Financial *Protection* Bureau, [also #OMB director & #Project2025 architect] has canceled plans to more tightly #regulate the sale of Americans’ sensitive #PersonalData.
#Trump #law #InfoSec #privacy
https://archive.is/2025.05.14-170523/https://www.wired.com/story/cfpb-quietly-kills-rule-to-shield-americans-from-data-brokers/
“We look forward to working with you to restore public access to apportionment data in accordance with statute,” they wrote.
The letter was signed by Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma & Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the #Republican chairs of the #House & #Senate #appropriations cmtes, & the 2 senior #Democrats on those panels, Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut & Senator Patty Murray of Washington.
The top 2 #Republicans & #Democrats on the congressional #appropriations cmtes are quietly protesting the #Trump WH’s decision to take down a special website tracking federal #spending, escalating a battle between #Congress & Trump over spending powers.
In a previously undisclosed letter sent last month to #RussVought, the director of #OMB, the lawmakers questioned the rationale for shutting down the website, which they & advocacy groups said was a violation of the #law.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/06/us/politics/congress-white-house-spending-website.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=p&pvid=30672882-2D82-4825-873C-8B1419420A2B
Read #Trump's #budget proposal & its cover letter by #OMB director / #Project2025 architect #RussVought.
#Senate Democratic Leader #ChuckSchumer (NY) on Friday called Trump’s 2026 budget a “gut punch” to #families.
The budget proposes a $163 billion cut to federal spending next year, which would eliminate more than a fifth of the non-military spending excluding mandatory benefit programs.
§6 General Provisions [notably this puts #OMB Dir & #Project2025 architect #RussVought essentially in charge]
“the functions of the Director of the Office of Management & Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or #legislative proposals.”
#Trump #ExecutiveOrder #law #immigration #ConstitutionalCrisis #SeparationOfPowers #Federalism #ExecutiveOverreach #AbuseOfPower
President #Biden rescinded the order after he took office, but after taking office again in Jan, #Trump signed a new EO reinstating & renaming it.
Trump & his allies laid the groundwork for a new admin stocked w/ #loyalists. #ScheduleF was a significant part of that plan.
Many of the Trump allies who pushed for Schedule F now have key roles in the admin, including Dpty Chief of Staff #StephenMiller & #OMB Dir #RussVought.
#law #labor #CivilService #Project2025 #autocracy #AbuseOfPower
#Project2025’s #RussVought, #Trump’s director of the Office of Management & Budget [#OMB], previously endorsed an end to the federal #voucher program. He [falsely] wrote in 2022 that the #Section8 program in particular “brings with it crime, decreased property values, & results in dependency & subsidized irresponsibility.”
#law #aporophobia #classism #caste #EconomicDiscrimination #LowIncome #families #RentalAssistance #housing
#NASA’s #science budget could be cut nearly in half under an early version of #Trump’s #budget proposal to #Congress, a move that would terminate billions of dollars’ worth of ongoing & future missions….
The budget plan, sent to NASA by the #RussVought led #OMB, would give NASA’s Science Mission Directorate $3.9B, down from its current budget of about $7.3B….
#BrainDrain #AntiIntellectualism #research #space #tech #advancement #progress
What the fuck is this? [Wired]: Federal Judge Allows DOGE to Take Over $500 Million Office Building for Free
It’s the culmination of a weeks-long standoff between Elon Musk’s DOGE team and the United States Institute of Peace.
https://www.wired.com/story/judge-approves-doge-usip-office-building/
#doge #usip #wtf #corruption #musk #trump #russVought #russellvought
Judge Amy Berman Jackson in the National #Treasury Employees v. #RussVought (acting director of CFPB) ruled that the attempt to dismantle #CFPB is likely unlawful, & the recent claims by the #Trump admin that the agency was still performing its statutorily mandated duties was "nothing more than window dressing."
As such she ordered a preliminary injunction.
#law #ConsumerProtection #AbuseOfPower #Trump
https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2025cv0381-87
![In sum, the Court cannot look away or the CFPB will be dissolved and dismantled completely in approximately thirty days, well before this lawsuit has come to its conclusion. For all of the reasons set forth above, the Court will GRANT [Dkt. # 10] plaintiffs' motion and issue a preliminary injunction that maintains the agency's existence until this case has been resolved on the merits, reinstating and preserving the agency's contracts, work force, data, and operational capacity, and protecting and facilitating the employees' ability to perform statutorily required activities. The Court is aware of the modifications the plaintiffs have made to their proposed order, as well as the objections lodged by the defendants to previous iterations of the proposed order, and it is mindful that its order must be sufficiently specific to be enforceable, while also broad enough to afford the agency and its leadership the discretion they are accorded under the statute when carrying out their regulatory, enforcement, and supervisory responsibilities.](https://files.mastodon.social/cache/media_attachments/files/114/242/112/030/856/280/original/215a43a480502cea.png)
