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Category: Politics

DOGE staffers resign en masse. Nearly 40% of canceled contracts are expected to produce no savings

DOGE staffers resign en masse. Nearly 40% of canceled contracts are expected to produce no savings

The Associated Press reports: More than 20 civil service employees resigned Tuesday from billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, saying they were refusing to use their technical expertise to “dismantle critical public services.” “We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” the 21 staffers wrote in a joint resignation letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. “However, it has become clear that we can…

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It’s impossible to overstate the level of Elon Musk’s contempt — or the extent of his ignorance

It’s impossible to overstate the level of Elon Musk’s contempt — or the extent of his ignorance

Matt Bai writes: [W]hat’s happened at USAID over the past couple of weeks is unfathomable. A $50 billion agency — funded by taxpayers, empowered by Congress and employing something like 11,000 people around the world — is now tightly controlled by a handful of 20-something software engineers who have never worked a day in government. They disregard promises from the American secretary of state while agonized policy experts stand by helplessly. In the coming weeks, courts will have to decide…

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Tesla owners vent their anger at Elon Musk

Tesla owners vent their anger at Elon Musk

London Guerrilla Ad-fare: #Tesla the #Swasticar … from 0 to 1939 in just 3 seconds #Musk pic.twitter.com/y96FiQ5g1Z — Peter Speetjens (@PeterBeirut) February 24, 2025 The Guardian reports: When Mike Schwede first sat in a Tesla Roadster 15 years ago, he felt like it was a glimpse into the future. By 2016, he was the proud owner of a Tesla, revelling in the thumbs up he would get from other drivers as he whizzed along Europe’s highways in the electric vehicle….

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Musk has lost more than $100B since December as Tesla stock value sinks

Musk has lost more than $100B since December as Tesla stock value sinks

NBC News reports: Elon Musk’s status as the world’s wealthiest person is in no danger of changing. But since mid-December, the tech titan’s net worth has declined by more than $100 billion, or approximately 25%, as a sell-off in shares of Tesla, his electric car maker, has accelerated in recent weeks. On Tuesday, the stock closed down another 8% to $302.80 and is off 25% year to date. The latest drawdown comes as new data showed new Tesla vehicle registrations…

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$1.5 billion stolen from Bybit exchange in biggest crypto heist ever. Meanwhile, Argentina’s Milei under investigation

$1.5 billion stolen from Bybit exchange in biggest crypto heist ever. Meanwhile, Argentina’s Milei under investigation

Mashable reports: $1.5 billion. That’s the amount of money that has just been stolen by hackers from one of the world’s biggest crypto exchanges. On Friday, Ben Zhou, cofounder and CEO of the crypto exchange Bybit, shared that hackers had gained control of Bybit’s ETH (Ethereum) wallet and transferred all of its holdings to an unknown crypto wallet address. Bybit ETH multisig cold wallet just made a transfer to our warm wallet about 1 hr ago. It appears that this…

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Rise of AfD highlights the divide between eastern and western Germany

Rise of AfD highlights the divide between eastern and western Germany

The New York Times reports: Three and a half decades after reunification, a line runs through Germany where the Iron Curtain once stood. Instead of barbed wires and dogs, that line now divides Germans by measures like income and unemployment — and increasingly by the willingness to vote for extremist parties. If East Germany were still its own country, the hard-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which has been linked to neo-Nazis and is being monitored by domestic intelligence, would…

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As one federal judge issues temporary restraining order, another questions DOGE’s constitutionality

As one federal judge issues temporary restraining order, another questions DOGE’s constitutionality

HuffPost reports: A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order on Monday blocking certain agencies from sharing sensitive records with President Donald Trump’s so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE. Several labor unions filed a lawsuit earlier this month against the Education Department and the Office of Personnel Management to prevent them from forking over data to DOGE as it seeks to fire workers, end federal contracts and unilaterally close agencies. U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman of Maryland said Monday…

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Republicans at risk of losing the House if they slash Medicaid

Republicans at risk of losing the House if they slash Medicaid

Politico reports: House Republicans who represent large numbers of Medicaid recipients are pushing back on their leaders’ plans to slash billions in funding for the insurance program for low-income people. That dissension could grow considering that President Donald Trump has made the GOP more appealing to the working class. Republicans rely on low-income voters more than they have in decades, with Trump the first Republican presidential candidate to win the poorest third of the electorate since the 1960s. A POLITICO…

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The U.S. Attorney for DC is not ‘President Trump’s lawyer,’ as Ed Martin now describes himself

The U.S. Attorney for DC is not ‘President Trump’s lawyer,’ as Ed Martin now describes himself

Rolling Stone reports: Interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin has already vowed to operate as a legal attack dog for Elon Musk and DOGE, and is now styling himself and those in his office as President Donald Trump’s personal lawyers. “As President Trumps’ lawyers, we are proud to fight to protect his leadership as our President and we are vigilant in standing against entities like the AP that refuse to put America first,” Martin wrote in a post from the United…

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Neo-Nazi group plots rebuild as Kash Patel takes control of the FBI

Neo-Nazi group plots rebuild as Kash Patel takes control of the FBI

The Guardian reports: An international neo-Nazi terrorist group with origins in the US appears to be quickly rebuilding its global and stateside ranks, according to information obtained by the Guardian from its digital accounts. Founded in 2018, the Base has been the intense focus of a years-long FBI counter-terrorism investigation that has resulted in more than a dozen of its members arrested. It has plotted an assassination, mass shootings and other actions in Europe, which made it a proscribed terrorist…

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Ukrainians are proudly democratic but resoundingly reject wartime elections

Ukrainians are proudly democratic but resoundingly reject wartime elections

Peter Dickinson writes: As the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion draws close, the chorus of voices calling for new elections in Ukraine is growing louder and louder. Curiously, however, these calls are not coming from the Ukrainians themselves, but from the Kremlin and the Trump White House. Since his inauguration one month ago, US President Donald Trump has begun echoing Russian demands for fresh Ukrainian elections. This week, he sparked outrage by branding Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator…

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Wealthiest 10% of Americans account for 50% of all spending

Wealthiest 10% of Americans account for 50% of all spending

The Wall Street Journal reports: Many Americans are pinching pennies, exhausted by high prices and stubborn inflation. The well-off are spending with abandon. The top 10% of earners—households making about $250,000 a year or more—are splurging on everything from vacations to designer handbags, buoyed by big gains in stocks, real estate and other assets. Those consumers now account for 49.7% of all spending, a record in data going back to 1989, according to an analysis by Moody’s Analytics. Three decades…

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Tesla protests gain momentum

Tesla protests gain momentum

electrek reports: Protests at Tesla stores are gaining momentum across the US as people are fighting back against Elon Musk’s government takeover, and the hate is spreading to owners. Last week, we reported on a new effort to organize protests at Tesla stores worldwide, but primarily in North America. There were significant turnouts to disrupt Tesla operations by picketing in front of dozens of stores. But the movement is ongoing, and there were protests against this weekend and more planned…

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Trump will align himself with whomever he wants — to hell with America’s allies

Trump will align himself with whomever he wants — to hell with America’s allies

Anne Applebaum writes: At a major multinational security conference in Munich last weekend, I sat in a room full of defense ministers, four-star generals, and security analysts—people who procure ammunition for Ukrainian missile defense, or who worry about Russian ships cutting fiber optic cables in the Baltic Sea. All of them were expecting Vice President J. D. Vance to address these kinds of concerns. Instead, Vance told a series of misleading stories designed to demonstrate that European democracies aren’t democratic….

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Republicans face angry voters at town hall meetings as broader backlash brews

Republicans face angry voters at town hall meetings as broader backlash brews

The New York Times reports: Some came with complaints about Elon Musk, President Trump’s billionaire ally who is carrying out an assault on the federal bureaucracy. Others demanded guarantees that Republicans in Congress would not raid the social safety net. Still others chided the G.O.P. to push back against Mr. Trump’s moves to trample the constitutional power of Congress. When Representative Pete Sessions, Republican of Texas, arrived at a crowded community center on Saturday in the small rural town of…

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Key agencies, including some led by Trump loyalists, refuse to back Musk’s latest draconian demand

Key agencies, including some led by Trump loyalists, refuse to back Musk’s latest draconian demand

The Associated Press reports: Key U.S. agencies, including the FBI, State Department and the Pentagon, have instructed their employees not to comply with cost-cutting chief Elon Musk’s demand that federal workers explain what they accomplished last week — or risk losing their jobs. That resistance has intensified a pervasive sense of chaos and confusion, while highlighting a potential power struggle among President Donald Trump’s allies, that is affecting federal employees across the country as a new workweek is about to…

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