Notices by Chuck Darwin (cdarwin@c.im)

Trump administration lawyers insist that the IRS and other federal agencies have acted within their authority when they ordered waves of mass terminations since Trump took office.
But according to previously unreported emails obtained by ProPublica, a top lawyer at the IRS warned administration officials that the performance-related language in his agency’s termination letter was “a false statement” that amounted to “fraud” if the agency kept the language in the letter.
The emails reveal that in the hours before the IRS sent out its Feb. 20 termination letter, a fierce dispute played out at the agency’s highest levels.
Joseph Rillotta, a senior IRS lawyer, wrote that “no one” at the IRS had taken into account the performance of the probationary workers set to be fired.
Rillotta urged that the language be struck from the draft termination letter.
If the falsehood wasn’t removed, Rillotta said he would file a report with the inspector general for the IRS

In a follow-up email, he said he was
“pleading with you to remove the clause,”
adding:
“It is not an immaterial false statement, because it is designed to improve the government’s posture in litigation
(to the detriment of the employees that we are terminating today).”

Because it was not true, he wrote,
“That renders it, as I see it, an anticipatory fraud on tribunals of jurisdiction over these employment actions.”

Rillotta was again ignored.

The IRS sent out the Feb. 20 termination notice with the disputed language in it,
according to copies received by fired workers who shared them with ProPublica.

The notice said the decision to fire the workers had
taken “into account your performance”
as well as administration guidance
and “current mission needs.”

In fact, many of the employees had received laudatory reviews with no hint of any concerns.
https://themoderatevoice.com/emails-reveal-top-irs-lawyer-warned-trump-firings-were-a-fraud-on-the-courts/

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea J. Campbell filed an amicus brief in support of Harvard Medical School researcher #Kseniia #Petrova,
calling for her immediate release from a Louisiana detention facility.

The brief — filed on Monday in a Vermont District Court — condemned the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to detain Petrova.

Customs and Border Patrol officials arrested the Russian-born cancer researcher in February, after she allegedly failed to declare frog embryos at the Boston Logan International Airport.
In the brief, Campbell wrote that Petrova is “stuck in a nightmare of a situation.”

“Her visa was cancelled unlawfully,
she was denied admission to the United States based on the unlawful cancellation of that visa,
and she is incarcerated in Louisiana seemingly indefinitely based on an expedited removal order that was never signed,” the brief read.

“This situation is unjustifiable and unlawful.”

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/5/14/campbell-amicus-brief-petrova/

The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, said on Wednesday that he had directed the FDA to review the regulations around the abortion pill #mifepristone.

The review, he said, was necessary due to “new data”
– data that emerged from a flawed analysis that top US anti-abortion groups are now using to pressure the Trump administration to reimpose restrictions on the abortion pill,
- if not pull it from the market entirely.

The analysis, which has not been peer-reviewed or published in a medical journal,
came after the Food and Drug Administration commissioner said he was open to reviewing new safety data on the pills, which are used in nearly two-thirds of abortions nationwide.

The conservative organizations are rallying behind a paper published on April 28 by a rightwing thinktank, the "Ethics and Public Policy Center",
which claims there are higher complication rates from taking mifepristone than previously known.

The paper has attracted scrutiny for appearing to dramatically overstate what it characterizes as “serious adverse effects” associated with the pill, according to medical experts.
For example, it counts ectopic pregnancies – when an embryo implants somewhere other than the uterine lining – as a serious complication.
Mifepristone does not cause an ectopic pregnancy
and taking it will not harm someone with an ectopic.
It also claims that needing an
in-clinic procedure to complete the abortion is a complication,
when patients are counseled in advance about the pills’ failure rate of about 3 to 4%.

The data, the authors say, means the FDA should reinstate earlier restrictions on mifepristone,
including a ban on telemedicine and limiting use to the first seven weeks of pregnancy – but they do not intend to stop there.

The authors note that restoring the limits could lead to better monitoring that could help “determine whether this drug should remain on the market”,
statements that echo proposals found in Project 2025, the 900-page playbook published by the Heritage Foundation and for which the EPPC was an advisory board member.

Project 2025 calls to end telemedicine prescriptions of abortion pills
as an “interim step” to revoking mifepristone’s approval altogether.

More than 100 scientific studies have found the medications cited in the paper are safe and effective for ending a pregnancy.

Telehealth, plus blue-state “shield laws”, have enabled thousands of people living in states where abortion is banned to continue to access mifepristone and misoprostol,
which frustrates abortion opponents.
One in five abortions nationwide are done via telemedicine,
and in spring 2024, mail providers facilitated more than 7,700 abortions per month in states with total or six-week abortion bans.

Anti-abortion leaders said during a private Zoom call that they intend to use the EPPC paper to pressure the FDA and lawmakers to dramatically roll back access to the drug,
“if not suspend” their approval entirely, Politico reported.
It is part of a plan they are privately calling “Rolling Thunder”.

Activists on that call
– which included representatives from Americans United for Life,
Live Action, Students for Life,
and Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America
– stressed that they viewed ending telemedicine prescriptions only as a “first step”.

According to the Politico report, the EPPC president, Ryan Anderson, argued on the call that
this plan aligns with Donald Trump’s stated desire to leave abortion policy to the states
because, he said, “you’re not leaving it to states if California can mail pills to Texas”.

Activists tried to push back on criticism that the paper was not peer-reviewed by arguing that academia is “broken”
and they could not trust journals or reviewers not to “sabotage” their effort or leak it to the press.
Politico reported that one medical professional on the call,
Christina Francis, the CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs,
warned her colleagues not to misrepresent the paper, acknowledging that the report was “not a study in the traditional sense”
and “not conclusive proof of anything”.
Still, Francis argued that it warranted government action and more research.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/14/rfk-jr-fda-abortion-pill-mifepristone?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

The tradition begins with legal theorist
#Carl #Schmitt
and can be followed in the work of the political philosopher #Leo #Strauss,
thinkers affiliated with the #Claremont #Institute,
a California-based think tank with close ties to the Trump movement,
and the contemporary writings of the legal scholar #Adrian #Vermeule.

Many on the right have bristled at presidential power’s being constrained over the past century by two waves of administrative reform.

The first dates back to the early 20th century and the rise of the bureaucratic-regulatory state during the Progressive and New Deal eras.

The second wave emerged in the 1970s, as Congress responded to the abuses of power by Richard Nixon.

The presidency has evolved to become an office exercising general (and often passive) oversight of vast departments and agencies,
which are staffed by career civil servants who stay on across administrations.

Presidents are constrained by layers of lawyers and others determining what is allowable based on law and precedent.

This evolution came about in part because the presidency can be the office most susceptible to despotic or tyrannical rule.

That’s where the more radical critique emanating from the hard right focuses its attention.

Schmitt (who died in 1985) developed his most influential ideas during the turbulence and ineffectual governance of Germany’s Weimar Republic.

In his view, liberalism has a fatal weakness.

Its aversion to violent conflict drives it to smother intense debate with ostensibly neutral procedures that conceal the truth about the nature of politics.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/04/opinion/trump-schmitt-strauss-intellectuals.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Increasingly often, Trump ends up backing down and simply declaring a win.
His opponents appear to be catching on,
sharpening their tactics based on Trump’s patterns and his unapologetically transactional attitude toward diplomacy.

The dynamic has played out repeatedly in recent weeks as Trump backed off, to varying degrees,
on his plans to transform Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East,”
turn Canada into the 51st state and
beat China into submission with tariffs.

Now, two very different tests are emerging.
One is over where Trump stands
-- with America’s biggest allies or with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia
-- on preserving Ukraine’s sovereignty and safety in any cease-fire deal.

The other, with Iran, may determine whether he is really willing to stand aside and let Israel bomb Iran
— or join in, despite the risks
— if he cannot extract a better nuclear deal than what President Barack Obama got, and cut off Iran’s pathway to a bomb.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/us/politics/trump-ukraine-china-iran-negotations.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

ICE used Ferreira De Oliveira’s loved ones to lure her out of her home
— where agents couldn’t arrest her
— and onto Eureka Street, three people with direct knowledge of the matter and another source familiar with the situation tell Rolling Stone. 
Two of the sources independently say that ICE used the undocumented Brazilian woman’s daughters and grandchild as “bait,” in an operation that the Trump administration is now touting as another victory in its sprawling, often lawless crackdownon both legal and illegal immigration.
Last Thursday, 21-year-old Augusta Clara, her three-month-old baby, and Clara’s 17-year-old sister had just begun driving away from their home when they were stopped by ICE agents.
The three of them and Ferreira de Oliveira, who entered the United States in 2022, are part of a Brazilian immigrant family who live together in the greater Boston area. (The family members do not all share the same immigration status.) 
Ferreira de Oliveira, who is 40 years old, was still at their nearby home when she received a phone call from one of her daughters, who said ICE had pulled them over and were threatening to arrest Clara. 
Ferreira de Oliveira’s frightened daughter told her mother that she needed to leave the home now and come meet them on the street,
because ICE was telling them that if they arrested Clara, they weren’t allowed to leave the baby in the hands of a minor. So, the feds insisted, grandma needed to rush over to take custody of the baby.
Shortly after Ferreira de Oliveira arrived on the scene, ICE took her into custody.
The agents suddenly no longer seemed interested in the 21-year-old daughter. ICE did not arrest her or her 17-year-old sibling. 
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/ice-kids-bait-arrest-woman-worcester-massachusetts-1235338539/

US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, went swimming with his grandchildren in a Washington DC creek that is toxic due to contamination by an upstream, ageing sewer system.

The “Make America healthy again” crusader attracted attention for the Mother’s Day dip in Dumbarton Oaks Park with his grandchildren which he posted about on X.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/13/rfk-jr-swim-rock-creek-washington-dc?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Why ICE grabs people off the streets:

If an officer knocks on your door:
Do not open the door.

ICE “warrants” are not signed by judges;
they are ICE forms signed by ICE officers
and they do not grant authority to enter a home without consent of the occupant(s).

https://immigrantjustice.org/know-your-rights/ice-encounter

https://bsky.app/profile/worcestermainfo.bsky.social/post/3lot5cakdnk2h

A massive aviation industry clearinghouse that processes data for 12 billion passenger flights per year
is selling that information to the Trump administration amid the White House’s new immigration crackdown, according to documents reviewed by The Lever.
The data
— including “full flight itineraries, passenger name records, and financial details, which are otherwise difficult or impossible to obtain” for past and future flights
— is fed into a secretive government intelligence operation called the "Travel Intelligence Program"
and provided to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies, records reveal.
Details of this program were outlined in procurement documents released Wednesday by ICE, which is a division of the Department of Homeland Security.
https://www.levernews.com/airlines-are-collecting-your-data-and-selling-it-to-ice/

Americans putting life on hold amid economic anxiety under Trump, poll shows

Six in 10 Americans said the economy has affected at least one of their major life goals, according to the Harris poll,
citing either lack of affordability or anxiety around the current economy.
Though Donald Trump’s tariff policies have only been in place for a few weeks, and though he has temporarily walked back on some of his harshest policies,
the findings are a sign that Trump’s economic agenda could have long-term effects.

The administration has said it wants to encourage Americans to have more babies, and is floating a $5,000 “baby bonus” for new mothers.
But its economic policies appear to be a major stumbling block to that ambition.
Of those who originally planned to have a child in 2025, a majority say the current economy has affected their plans in some way,
by either being unable to afford having a child (32%)
or being uncomfortable having one in the current economy (33%).

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/may/12/americans-economy-trump-poll?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Anti-ethnic cleansing protests happening in Worcester, Massachusetts.

The people demand justice and for Trump's ICE regime troops to leave their
#3E #StopICE #USprotests (@worcester_bumps)

“GET ICE OUT OF WORCESTER” “WHOSE STREETS? OUR STREETS”

https://bsky.app/profile/youranoncentral.bsky.social/post/3lotmaxijck2c

A bribe that will cost Americans a projected FOUR BILLION DOLLARS to properly retrofit to air force one specifications.

-- And that Trump intends to use after leaving office

Republicans are not financially savvy
They are grifters, conmen, pyramid scheme bullies.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-administration-poised-accept-palace-sky-gift-trump/story?id=121680511

A federal judge in California on Friday temporarily blocked
what at coalition of labor unions, local governments, and nonprofits argued was
“the unconstitutional dismantling of the federal government by the president of the United States on a scale unprecedented in this country’s history and in clear excess of his authority.”
Since returning to office in January, Donald Trump
— aided by his so-callled Department of Government Efficiency and its de facto leader, billionaire Elon Musk
— has worked to quickly overhaul the bureaucracy,
even though “the president does not possess authority to reorganize, downsize, or otherwise transform the agencies of the federal government, unless and until Congress authorizes such action,”
as the coalition’s complaint notes.

District Judge Susan Illston agreed with the groups and governments,
which include the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Alliance for Retired Americans, Main Street Alliance, Natural Resources Defense Council, the city and county of San Francisco, Chicago, Baltimore, and more.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-musk

NRA in 2020: "We need guns to resist tyranny!"

NRA in 2021: "We need guns to resist tyranny!"

NRA in 2022: "We need guns to resist tyranny!"

NRA in 2023: "We need guns to resist tyranny!"

NRA in 2024: "Ya know, tyranny's not so bad."

https://bsky.app/profile/mrsbettybowers.bsky.social/post/3lotvj2gjak2v

There are big, ugly problems at the center of the House budget bill

House Republicans want to cut taxes -- especially for the rich and corporations.

But they also want to reduce deficits -- which is at odds with those tax cuts. Tax cuts cost money, after all.

Perhaps the tax breaks could be offset by huge cuts to major safety-net programs such as Medicaid and food stamps.

But Republicans claim they also want to help regular Americans,
who would definitely be hurt if their health care and food assistance are taken away.

There’s no way to achieve all these things in one bill

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/05/10/republicans-trump-tax-spending-medicaid/

The key fact is that, after decades of falling and low interest rates, they are now up to historically normal levels and will stay up.

That is what makes the United States’ debt burden dangerous.

Interest on the debt now approaches $1 trillion per year,
more than total defense spending.

Economic historian Niall Ferguson has suggested that when this happens, a great power risks that it will no longer be great.

Rogoff predicts an economic storm
— and one that will come a good bit sooner because of Trump’s economic policies.

He believes that,
unless these policies are drastically reversed,
there is a 50 percent or more chance of a financial crisis
or spiraling inflation
or both by the end of this presidential term.

Some of the pressures we face are because of events outside America’s control.

Other countries have always resented the dollar’s exalted status, especially once the U.S. began to weaponize it.

Washington has promiscuously imposed sanctions on dozens of countries,
often unilaterally,
and these sanctions work only because of the dollar’s special status.

The Europeans, the Chinese, the Russians and mostly every large country is quietly making efforts to wean themselves off their dependence on the dollar.

It’s a slow process but it is moving in only one direction
— away from the dollar.

And while there is no single substitute for America’s currency,
Rogoff believes the dollar will lose share to a basket of other currencies as well as alternatives,
such as bitcoin.

This is not all about Trump.

Rogoff argues there has been a bipartisan recklessness in U.S. fiscal policy for decades,
with Republicans cutting taxes and Democrats spending
— both without restraint.

(It is worth noting, however, that the math is clear:
Tax cuts are responsible for the vast majority of the increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio over the last 25 years.)

He is also profoundly worried that the Federal Reserve’s independence is being compromised both from the right and from the left

(though it is worth noting that Trump is the first president to routinely attack the Fed,
threaten to fire its chair and challenge the legality of such independent institutions in court.)

“Much of the dollar’s role comes from our reputation for good, stable, predictable policy,
from the Fed’s independence from political pressures,
from our trustworthiness as the world’s superpower.

You can’t trash all that and expect the dollar to be unaffected,” Rogoff says.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/05/09/debt-budget-defense-dollar-bust/

A perfect economic storm might be coming our way

If lawmakers renew President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, enact all his newly proposed ones and do not cut spending, they will add up to $9 trillion to the national debt over 10 years
(according to the nonpartisan Peter G. Peterson Foundation.)

At that point, America would likely be running among its largest deficits as a percentage of gross domestic product in history
— and that’s in peacetime with no pandemic.

At the same time, Washington is raising tariffs on almost all the country’s imports.

We might have the makings of a perfect storm in the global economy.


That’s what Kenneth Rogoff, a renowned Harvard University economist, worries about.

One of his past books presciently warned about the dangers of a financial crisis.
(It was published in 2009 while the global financial crisis was unfolding but was researched and written well before it began.)

His new book,
“Our Dollar, Your Problem,”
worries that we are jeopardizing the dollar’s pivotal role in the global economy.

That should matter to all Americans because we benefit enormously from what has been described as
the “exorbitant privilege” of having the world’s reserve currency.

“It allows us to borrow more cheaply whether it’s mortgages, car loans, or credit card debt,” Rogoff explained to me,
estimating that the discount Americans get on their loans because of the dollar is probably between 0.5 and 1 percent.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/05/09/debt-budget-defense-dollar-bust/

Over the past weekend, several candidates in suburban Texas school districts who opposed book bans won their elections,
defeating conservative officials who had supported and implemented such policies in recent years.

https://truthout.org/articles/voters-oust-several-book-banning-incumbents-in-school-districts-across-texas/

Bill Gates ratcheted up his feud with Elon Musk, accusing the world’s richest man of “killing the world’s poorest children” through what he said were misguided cuts to US development assistance.
Gates, who is announcing a plan to accelerate his philanthropic giving over the next 20 years and close down the Gates Foundation altogether in 2045, said in an interview that the Tesla chief had acted through ignorance.
In February, Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) in effect shut down the US Agency for International Development, the main conduit for US aid, saying it was “time for it to die.”
The co-founder of Microsoft, and once the world’s richest man himself, said the abruptness of the cuts had left life-saving food and medicines expiring in warehouses and could cause the resurgence of diseases such as measles, HIV, and polio.
“The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one,” he told the Financial Times
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/05/bill-gates-accuses-elon-musk-of-killing-children-with-doge-led-usaid-cuts/

Sen. Elizabeth Warren just exposed a crypto scam where Trump and his family stand to make more than $60,000,000 from a $2 billion Saudi-Binance deal, where the purchase will use Trump’s coin.

This MUST be exposed.

https://bsky.app/profile/calltoactivism.bsky.social/post/3lok42vgacc2l