Notices by Chuck Darwin (cdarwin@c.im), page 22

Trump proposes U.S. control of Gaza, and permanent displacement of residents

The idea, a first indicator of Trump’s approach to the conflict,
is sure to inflame the region given the history of Palestinians’ displacement from their territory.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/04/trump-netanyahu-meeting/

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum linked the tariff ceasefire to the U.S. government’s commitment to stop the trafficking of high-powered weapons,
& next month, Mexico will ask for the Supreme Court’s endorsement on its lawsuit against gun manufacture
https://www.courthousenews.com/mexico-opens-two-front-war-on-u-s-guns/

Unelected Oligarch Elon Musk illegally ransacked USAID and threatened our national security.

This move aids and abets our Russian adversaries.

We MUST fight back.

Calling your congressperson is the most effective way to influence policy.

https://5calls.org/

PS Vindman is an advocate

https://vindman4va.com/fJYb60

The highest-ranking career official at the Treasury Department was pushed out after refusing to hand Musk’s team the keys to the government’s entire payment system and the $6 trillion in payments the system processes annually,
including Social Security checks, tax refunds and Medicare benefits.

Musk and his team have also seized control at the Office of Personnel Management and the General Services Administration, key institutions that function as the central nervous system of the U.S. government.

“In any other situation, this would be called state capture, and people around the world would be condemning it,”
says Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid,
who writes in a new blog post that Elon Musk is staging a coup.

We also speak with Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, who warns that Musk could be laying the groundwork for
major tax cuts Republicans have promised
that will disproportionately benefit corporations and wealthy people like him.

“Elon Musk is going to pay for his tax cut with your Social Security,” says Owens.
https://www.democracynow.org/2025/2/3/elon_musk_gov

The FBI is full of tough minded, hard charging, patriotic people—mostly Republicans—who have devoted years of their lives serving the country and placing mission over money. Many there now feel unfairly targeted by political operatives for doing things they were assigned to do. They are furious.
https://bsky.app/profile/kendilanian-nbc.bsky.social/post/3lha2qqsnvc2g

“It would be a blessing if major govts embraced economic pragmatism over ideological/self-serving political agendas that inflate the egos of politicians but harm the people they serve."

-- Keyu Jin
https://bsky.app/profile/jledmiston.bsky.social/post/3lexpe5qr222p

@SenateDems

- Freeze the Senate. No unanimous consent at all.

- Go to every agency & demand to see who is in there. Call for their arrests.

- Publicly call for Johnson & Thune to fulfill their damn oaths.
https://bsky.app/profile/mcopelov.bsky.social/post/3lh7vpepeus2e

ICE will no longer consider if "an alien is a victim of a crime...a positive discretionary factor"
in determining whether to deport them, per new ICE memo
https://bsky.app/profile/kenklippenstein.bsky.social/post/3lh32h6zsis2q

The Supreme Court on Wednesday threw out claims that the Biden administration unlawfully coerced social media companies to remove contentious content.

In reaching its conclusion, the court overturned an injunction that would have limited contacts between government officials and social media companies on a wide variety of issues if it were allowed to go into effect.

The Supreme Court had previously put the injunction on hold.

Writing for the majority, conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett said the plaintiffs, Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri, along with five social media users, had failed to show they had suffered harm at the hands of specific government officials.

She noted that social media platforms routinely moderated content even before the alleged coercion happened
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-tosses-claim-biden-administration-coerced-social-media-c-rcna151356

USAID source says staff are scrambling to save archived copies of US regulations before they're gone & are being actively locked out of systems, including a publicly available database of USAID documents.

WIRED has built software to systematically check the status of 1,374 government domains.
https://bsky.app/profile/dell.bsky.social/post/3lh5kyxu47k2y

Amid all the noise, an eerie hush is spreading across America.

Companies, scientific researchers and Trump critics are clamming up as 👉the MAGA movement ushers in a new era of government censorship.

On Day 1, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled
“Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship.”

This might have sounded like banal lip service, reaffirming commitment to the First Amendment.

In reality, it was the start of an Orwellian effort to root out #wrongthink from government ranks and the private sector.

The first kind of speech to be shushed was scientific speech.

Last week, the administration ordered a blackout on public communications from government health agencies — in the middle of flu season and a global zoonotic outbreak. For the first time since 1952, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention withheld its weekly report on morbidity and mortality data updates.
The blocked issue was slated to contain two important new studies about bird flu transmission, KFF reports. The move echoed Trump’s data-suppression approach to covid-19. (“If we stopped testing right now,” he said in June 2020, “we’d have very few cases, if any.)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/01/30/trump-free-speech-censorship-musk/

Trump’s FCC chair investigates NPR and PBS,
and urges Congress to defund them

Federal Communications Commission Chairman #Brendan #Carr has ordered an investigation into NPR and PBS.

"I am writing to inform you that I have asked the FCC's Enforcement Bureau to open an investigation regarding the airing of NPR and PBS programming across your broadcast member stations," Carr wrote in a letter yesterday to the leaders of NPR and PBS.

Brendan Carr has been described as "Trump's Censorship Czar"
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/trumps-fcc-chair-investigates-npr-and-pbs-urges-congress-to-defund-them/

What started with about 50 people at the corner of Carpinteria and South Milpas streets in Santa Barbara quickly turned into a mass protest with hundreds of people packed at the corner, roundabout and street median.

The gathering started at 5 p.m. Friday in protest of recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity, deportations, anti-Mexican hate and President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

Odalys Mora was one of the first protesters to arrive and said they were protesting because of the impact deportations have on children and because they want to see a better future for immigrants.
https://www.noozhawk.com/hundreds-unite-on-milpas-street-in-santa-barbara-to-protest-ice-activity/

How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days

He used the constitution to shatter the constitution.

-- Timothy W. Ryback
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/01/hitler-germany-constitution-authoritarianism/681233/

Trump's authorization of expanded migrant detention operations at #Guantánamo is certainly ominous.

But there are serious legal and practical obstacles to it actually accomplishing anything.

-- STEVE VLADECK
https://www.stevevladeck.com/p/bonus-120-trumps-guantanamo-memo?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Elon Musk’s Tesla paid a total of $0 in federal income taxes in 2024, new tax reports show,
despite the company having raked in billions of dollars in income and being the most valuable car company in the world
https://truthout.org/articles/tesla-paid-zero-federal-income-tax-in-2024-despite-2-3-billion-in-income/

If you cared about morale and recruitment you would not alienate a group that disproportionately enlists into the military, but if you are a white nationalist...
https://bsky.app/profile/jamellebouie.net/post/3lgwgxvbxm225

A group of Quaker congregations is suing the Department of Homeland Security for changing a policy that prevented Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from carrying out operations in so-called
“sensitive locations”
such as houses of worship, playgrounds, schools and hospitals without approval from supervisors.

The policy, which had been in place under multiple administrations
— including during President Donald Trump’s first term
— was rescinded last week.

The lawsuit, which was filed in federal district court in Maryland on Monday, alleges,
“The very threat of that [immigration] enforcement deters congregants from attending services, especially members of immigrant communities,”

and argues that attending religious services is at the heart of the “guarantee of religious liberty.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/quaker-groups-file-suit-end-policy-restricting-ice-arrests-houses-wors-rcna189471

Donald Trump said he’s open to getting rid of vaccines depending on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s review of their safety.

#TrumpHasMadeAmericaPoorerSickerWeakerAndLessSecure
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/12/12/congress/trump-open-to-pulling-vaccines-00194060

#Bird #Flu Enters a New Phase

A pandemic is not inevitable, scientists say.

But the outbreak has passed worrisome milestones in recent weeks,
including cattle that may have been reinfected.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/27/health/bird-flu-h5n1.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share