pelespirit

Employees across the massive U.S. Department of Health and Human Services began receiving notices of dismissal on Tuesday in a major overhaul expected to ultimately lay off up to 10,000 people. The notices come just days after President Donald Trump moved to strip workers of their collective bargaining rights at HHS and other agencies throughout the government.

But efforts to curb so-called institutional homebuying have gained little traction this legislative session.

A pair of Democratic bills that would cap the number of homes private equity groups can own hasn’t garnered a hearing or any Republican support.

A GOP bill to study the practice, which Abbott vetoed last session during a property tax fight, has similarly gone nowhere.

“A year from now people will notice things are missing that used to be there and Doge and others promoting this will say: ‘See, told you government can’t do things’, rather than: ‘We broke it and it got worse,’” he said.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services has placed its entire staff on administrative leave.

The IMLS is a relatively small federal agency, with around 70 employees, that awards grant funding to museums and libraries across the United States.

An effort by the Trump administration to unilaterally strip the temporary protected status (TPS) of approximately 350,000 Venezuelan refugees living in the United States was blocked Monday night by a federal court judge who described the order by Secretary of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as being "motivated by unconstitutional animus."

In a 78-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco said Noem's rescinding of an order made under the Biden administration "threatens to: inflict irreparable harm on hundreds of thousands of persons whose lives, families, and livelihoods will be severely disrupted, cost the United States billions in economic activity, and injure public health and safety in communities throughout the United States. At the same time, the government has failed to identify any real countervailing harm in continuing TPS for Venezuelan beneficiaries."

“In just 71 days, the president of the United States has inflicted so much harm on Americans’ safety; financial stability; the core foundations of our democracy,” Booker said on the floor. “These are not normal times in America. And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate.”

“Generations from now will look back at this moment and have a single question — where were you?”

A second said his planes’ air conditioning kept breaking — an experience consistent with at least two publicly reported onboard incidents — and their lavatories kept breaking, something another flight attendant reported as well. But the planes kept flying. “They made us flush with water bottles,” he said.

But the flight attendants were most concerned about their inability to treat their passengers humanely — and to keep them safe. (In 2021, an ICE spokesperson told the publication Capital & Main that the agency “follows best practices when it comes to the security, safety and welfare of the individuals returned to their countries of origin.”)

A standard flight had more than a dozen private security guards — contractors working for the firm Akima — along with a single ICE officer, two nurses, and a hundred or more detainees. (Akima did not respond to a request for comment.) The guards were in charge of delivering food and water to the detainees and taking them to the lavatories. This left the flight attendants, whose presence was required by the FAA, with little to do.

Global X Airlines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Crossing_Airlines

Now, in a decision that could have major implications for states’ efforts to regulate abortion help and helpers in the post-Roe era, a federal judge in Montgomery, Alabama, has ruled that Attorney General Steve Marshall’s threats to prosecute abortion advocates violate fundamental protections for free speech and the right to travel.

“Alabama’s criminal jurisdiction does not reach beyond its borders, and it cannot punish what its residents do lawfully in another State,” US District Judge Myron H. Thompson declared in a 131-page ruling issued Monday, adding: “The Attorney General cannot prosecute those who assist people in Alabama to travel out of state to obtain a lawful abortion.”

Wrote it with Elvis Costello

But on Saturday, interior department officials reportedly granted at least two Doge employees the access they had requested, the two people told the Times.

With this access, the Doge employees now have visibility into sensitive employee information, like social security numbers, and are able to more easily hire and fire federal workers, according to the Times, citing the two people with knowledge who spoke with the newspaper on condition of anonymity due to fear of retribution.

“They’re our brothers and sisters. When we stop seeing people that way it’s so easy to start making laws or enacting policies that harm them.”