United States | News & Politics

Yeah, I'm staying on Rednote

Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) program was sued within minutes of Donald Trump being sworn in.

The 30-page lawsuit, obtained by The Washington Post, challenges the legality of the government advisory committee Trump claims he has created, by alleging it violates federal transparency rules on disclosure, hiring and other practices.

The public interest law firm National Security Counselors says in the claim that Musk’s efficiency panel meets the bar to be considered a “federal advisory committee”, a class of legal entity regulated to ensure the government receives transparent and balanced advice, but fails to have “fairly balanced” representation, keep records of its meetings and be open to public scrutiny, as required by law.

“All meetings of Doge, including those conducted through an electronic medium, must be open to the public”, the lawsuit states.

The anticipated legal challenges of the legitimacy of Doge have also been expected, including by Musk, who argues his opponents in government have used “lawfare” tactics to stymie him and his companies.

The first act of the 119th Congress of the United States was to pass a bill that would require federal immigration enforcement to detain and potentially deport any unauthorized immigrant accused of minor crimes including petty theft or shoplifting.

The bill, which is to be passed on 20 January, is a meaningful departure from current policy, which requires not one but two or more convictions – not accusations – of crimes of moral turpitude to trigger deportation proceedings. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) estimates that it would cost $29.6bn to implement, requiring an additional 110,000 detention beds and 10,000 detention and removal personnel.

This bill is widely recognized as a step toward Donald Trump’s promise of mass deportations under the leadership of border czar Tom Homan, one disparaged by the Democratic party as being inhumane.

Yet, even as Democratic party leadership has decried this mass deportation plan and even as the bill maligns Democrats as victimizing Americans through its policy of “open borders,” 48 Democratic members of Congress voted for this GOP-backed bill. The bill is on the verge of passing in the Senate, as 10 Democrats joined Republicans in clearing the way for its final approval.

https://archive.ph/zxsIL

WASHINGTON ― With literally minutes left in his presidency, Joe Biden on Monday granted clemency to Leonard Peltier, the ailing Native American rights activist whom the U.S. government put in prison nearly 50 years ago after a trial riddled with misconduct and lies.

Peltier has been in prison ever since the federal government accused him of murdering two FBI agents in a 1975 shoot-out on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

WASHINGTON, Jan 20 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden issued pre-emptive pardons on Monday for people Republican successor Donald Trump has targeted for retaliation, including former Republican lawmaker Liz Cheney, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and former White House chief medical advisor Anthony Fauci.

The pardon covers all lawmakers, including Cheney, who served on the congressional select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, as well as police officers who testified before it.

Trump, who will return to the presidency later Monday, has repeatedly called for the prosecution of his perceived enemies since winning the White House in November.

Joe Biden has admitted that Israel has committed war crimes. That comes in a new interview for MSNBC, which should be treated for what it is: a confession, specifically a confession of complicity in genocide.

Why is Joe Biden, the 46th president of the United States, on the very eve of his presidency ending, publicly declaring that he had told the leader of a foreign state he has armed to the teeth for 15 months, to stop “carpet bombing” civilians at the beginning of an incessant genocidal onslaught? After all, Article 51 of the Geneva Conventions is very clear that carpet bombing civilian areas is a war crime.

He thinks this clip will lead historians to believe that actually he did remonstrate with Benjamin Netanyahu - that he did implore him to stop unleashing barbaric indiscriminate firepower against the innocent people of Gaza.

Well, this interview should be treated simply as an incriminating confession. If Joe Biden ever ended up at the International Criminal Court, this clip alone would be sufficient to find him guilty of complicity in grave war crimes.

Because it proves that Joe Biden knew exactly what the Israeli state was doing right from the start. Now Israel has been the biggest recipient of military aid of any foreign state in the post-war era, but in the year following 7th October 2023, that surged to nearly $18bn.

I thought there could be a sort of megathread about the inauguration of Trump. I'm watching the official livestream here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XOstVmSjf8

This week’s “breakthrough” in ceasefire negotiations to end the genocidal campaign against Gaza came, according to regional sources, after a single intervention by US president-elect Trump’s designated envoy Steve Witkoff in which he ordered Netanyahu's government to capitulate.

While we might be skeptical of Trump’s habit of claiming credit for any progress, it was corroborated by the far-right members of the Netanyahu government erupting into the kind of tantrum for which they are now world-famous, framing the deal as a disaster imposed on "Israel" by the incoming administration.

In the aftermath of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Biden, while parroting "Israel’s" atrocity propaganda about beheaded infants in ovens, gave Netanyahu a carte blanche to declare total war on the people of Gaza. As the unique scale of the atrocities in the Strip became clear, Biden proceeded, through his spineless UN ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, to provide diplomatic cover for the genocide at the Security Council.

In June, Biden lied that a ceasefire deal had finally been reached, that it was at the initiative of the Netanyahu government, and that the Israeli leadership had accepted it. Secretary of State Antony Blinken clownishly trumpeted this falsehood, along with the claim that the only impediment to the ceasefire was Hamas’ refusal of its terms. It was well known at the time to be a lie, but the breakthrough of the last week confirms it beyond all doubt.

TikTok stopped working in the US late on Saturday, shortly before a federal ban on the Chinese-owned short-video app was due to take effect.

The app was no longer available on Apple’s iOS App Store or Google’s Play Store. The US Congress passed a law in April mandating that parent company ByteDance either sell TikTok to a non-Chinese owner or face a total shutdown. It chose the latter.

TikTok said that divestment “is simply not possible: not commercially, not technologically, not legally”. The company held that line until the very end.

The app’s disappearance has been five years in the making. Donald Trump first proposed a ban on TikTok in mid-2020 via executive order, which did not succeed. Various members of Congress proposed measures that would do the same, only one passed. The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act became law, mandating TikTok be sold or be banned.

“A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned,” a message to users attempting to use the app said.

TikTok’s attorney told the supreme court that the app would “go dark” on 19 January. After TikTok disappears from app stores, preventing new downloads and updates, it will gradually obsolesce while the ban remains in place. Without regular maintenance, the app’s smooth functionality will suffer glitches and may become vulnerable to cyber-attacks. TikTok itself may shut off access even to users who have already downloaded the app to apply political pressure, per multiple reports.

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