Attorneys general in 19 states and Washington, D.C., are challenging cuts to the U.S. Health and Human Services agency, saying the Trump administration’s massive restructuring has destroyed life-saving programs and left states to pick up the bill for mounting health crises.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Rhode Island on Monday, New York Attorney General Letitia James said. The attorneys general from Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia signed onto the complaint.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. restructured the agency in March, eliminating more than 10,000 employees and collapsing 28 agencies under the sprawling HHS umbrella into 15, the attorneys general said. An additional 10,000 employees had already been let go by President Donald Trump’s administration, according to the lawsuit, and combined the cuts stripped 25% of the HHS workforce.
As a number of rulings have come in this afternoon with federal judges blocking several aspects of Trump’s agenda that he’s tried to enact via vehicles such as executive orders, here’s a brief roundup of those developments.
A judge blocked Donald Trump’s efforts to add a proof of citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form, a change that voting rights advocates warned would have disenfranchised millions of voters. The president sought to unilaterally add the requirement in a 25 March executive orders. The Democratic party, as well as a slew of civil rights groups, challenged that order, arguing the president does not have the power to set the rules for federal elections. US district judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly agreed with that argument. She also blocked a portion of the executive order that required federal agencies to assess the citizenship of individuals applying to vote at a public assistance agency before they offered them a chance to vote. The order would have made it significantly harder to register to vote, even for eligible voters.
Meanwhile, a federal judge said the Trump administration’s attempt to make federal funding to schools conditional on them eliminating any DEI policies erodes the “foundational principles” that separates the United States from totalitarian regimes. US district judge Landya McCafferty partially blocked the Department of Education from enforcing a memo issued earlier this year that directed any institution that receives federal funding to end discrimination on the basis of race or face funding cuts.
At 94 years old, leftist billionaire George Soros has established the blueprint for how his enormous Open Society Foundations, fueled with $32 billion of his fortune, will continue fulfilling his dark vision throughout the world under the leadership of his more extreme son Alex. Part of that vision involves using the ever-evolving specter of climate change as a springboard to impel the world towards a New World Order. The utopia that the elder Soros envisions is one that has banned fossil fuels, with everyday human existence regulated into oblivion. The COVID pandemic in 2020 provided what he called a “revolutionary moment” to recognize what kind of social control could be accomplished.
MRC Business, in partnership with Bongino Report, conducted a three-month investigation into the Soros empire’s reach into the global climate-change movement. We uncovered a vast radical leftist network of hundreds of powerful Soros-funded grassroots organizations, universities, and international NGOs with influence in some of the most powerful policy-making institutions, such as the United Nations.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin took a New York Times reporter to task over media bias in reporting on efforts to expose fraud, waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars under the Biden administration.
During a press conference on Monday at the EPA, Zeldin confronted New York Times reporter Lisa Friedman over an April 2 story she had written in which she accused him of making “explosive accusations against the Biden administration” with no evidence, regarding the mishandling of $20 billion in climate grants.
Using the reporter’s own words, Zeldin fired back at the reporter and dared other media outlets, including the Washington Post and Politico, to back up their reporting that there was “no evidence” of wrongdoing.
She said the story was based on “one anonymous source who clearly has no idea what they are talking about,” and said Trump stands strongly behind the SecDef.
But even after that, NPR was doubling down on Tuesday morning, according to Marc Caputo of Axios.
I can’t find one White House official, including some at the highest levels, who confirm the NPR report that the admin has started looking to replace Hegseth
While millions of Americans were commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ this past weekend, a cabal of media propagandists and D.C. insiders was busy formulating a seemingly coordinated campaign to take down Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Within hours of one another, The New York Times and Politico dropped hit pieces on Sunday against the Pentagon chief. The pieces were apparently aimed at undermining his leadership of America’s military. While the former used anonymous sources to try and revive the media’s “Signalgate” dud, the latter ran an op-ed from a former Defense Department spokesman — who resigned last week after evidently failing to get the Pentagon job he wanted — alleging “total chaos” at the agency under Hegseth’s direction.
NPR decided to join the pile-on, publishing a piece on Monday containing allegations from an unnamed “U.S. official” that the White House “has begun the process of looking for a new leader at the Pentagon to replace Pete Hegseth.” The White House quickly shot down the claim.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) on Monday stopped just short of calling on Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to be removed following a new report that alleges the secretary shared detailed military plans in a group chat that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer.
“If it’s true that he had another [Signal] chat with his family, about the missions against the Houthis, it’s totally unacceptable,” Bacon told Politico, adding, “I’m not in the White House, and I’m not going to tell the White House how to manage this … but I find it unacceptable, and I wouldn’t tolerate it if I was in charge.”
Bacon’s remarks come after The New York Times reported on a previously undisclosed Signal group chat, in which Hegseth allegedly shared detailed information about forthcoming military strikes in Yemen on March 15.
The most critical issue facing America is an illegal alien gang member being sent back to El Salvador. At least, that’s what Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) act as if the fate of democracy hangs on. I’m sure you, an American, can think of at least five things more important, up to and including it being WrestleMania week. What most likely happened is that a progressive NGO funded by progressive billionaires settled on the gang member to be what progressives have to care about this week, and CNN said, “Sure, we have no self-respect.”
It’s not surprising that CNN’s Kaitlin Collins, when allowed to speak for some reason, would ask about the Democrat talking point du jour. Kilmar Abrego Garcia is an illegal alien under a deportation order who had been staying in Maryland. He was removed and sent back to El Salvador. Democrats and CNN want him brought back to America. Collins asked Trump why he is being so mean.
Trump, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, Marco Rubio, Pam Bondi, and Stephen Miller all took turns responding. They ran out of time for JD Vance to have his turn, so he shared his thoughts on Twitter.
Over the past two weeks, broadcast networks were utterly consumed by news of the Trump administration’s tariffs, to the degree that the topic took up more than a third of their flagship morning and evening newscasts’ total run time. Yet during that same time period, these networks spared barely any time at all to cover some of the positive economic news, such as the declining Consumer Price Index and a stronger-than-expected jobs report.
MRC analysts looked at all coverage of tariffs on ABC, CBS, and NBC’s flagship morning and evening news shows, from April 2 through April 11. During that time, these networks aired a jaw-dropping seven hours and two minutes of reporting about the Trump administration’s trade war, and all three surpassing two hours each. ABC led the pack with 148 minutes, followed by NBC with 144 minutes and CBS with 130 minutes dedicated to the topic.
Donald Trump is once again going to war with fake news as he continues to press legal actions against one of the most infamously biased mainstream media networks.
Trump, who originally sued CBS and its parent company Paramount last fall over a highly and deceptively edited Kamala Harris interview, which may have violated consumer protection law, is once again squaring up against CBS News, otherwise known as the Commie Broadcasting Service. Trump bashed CBS’s “60 Minutes” for segments critiquing his actions regarding Greenland and Ukraine. He slammed CBS as “a dishonest Political Operative simply disguised as ‘News,’ and must be [held] responsible.”
The new “60 Minutes” segment featured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who, instead of trying to make peace for the sake of his people, is apparently trying to resurrect the Russian influence hoax about Trump and his allies and demanding that Trump side with him explicitly, as Joe Biden did, instead of neutrally working to broker a deal between Ukraine and Russia.
NPR routinely demonstrates wokeness with an anti-Israel bias. Saturday’s All Things Considered story by youth-politics reporter Elena Moore from the frontlines of the Israel-Hamas campus wars. She lamented how students are afraid of expressing pro-Hamas sympathies on progressive college campuses: “For some students who protested war in Gaza, fear and silence is a new campus reality.”
This, after NPR either ignoring or “both-siding” threats to Jewish students from those same now-suddenly terrified “pro-Palestinian” campus activists, since Hamas attacked Israeli civilians in October 2023.
Moore focused on the pseudonymous “Sam.” NPR loves playing up how dystopian America is right now by granting anonymity to all kinds of radicals. If you named “Sam,” one might be able to find her chanting pro-Hamas slogans or pro-Hamas signs about ending Israel or cheering October 7. Moore isn’t focusing on how much free speech there is in Gaza — where anti-Hamas protesters can end up dead.
Last spring, Cornell University was home to a student encampment, where dozens slept in tents on the quad to protest Israel’s war in Gaza. The demonstrationlasted more than two weeks.
“It’s actually one of my most beautiful memories in Ithaca,” said a Ph.D. candidate at the school currently studying on a visa. She asked to be identified by the nickname Sam due to concerns over how she could be treated by immigration authorities if targeted for deportation.
… But that doesn’t mean they aren’t scared. Around 55% of leaders surveyed say they have serious concerns about lawsuits, additional government actions, and shareholder votes, forcing them to make serious changes to their programs. Costco and Apple, for example, were recently faced with proposals from anti-DEI shareholder activists, both of which were voted down.
Keeping a cool head right now is critical. Some research suggests that businesses that rapidly change viewpoints on issues customers care about could face backlash for coming off as “inauthentic.” And experts say that despite the fear created by Trump’s recent executive orders focused on eliminating DEI, if a corporate diversity program is open to everyone and compliant with existing civil rights laws, it’s perfectly legal.
“Despite the increased scrutiny, many companies seem to be taking a measured approach, rather than rushing to end or scale back IE&D efforts,” Jeanine Conley Daves, an employment attorney at Littler and member of the firm’s IE&D consulting practice, told Fortune. “It makes sense not to make extensive changes to efforts and initiatives that have helped to build a strong company culture.”
NUUK, Greenland — Denmark’s prime minister has told the U.S. during a visit to Greenland that “you cannot annex another country,” even with the argument that international security is at stake.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, said on Friday that Copenhagen “should focus on the fact that the Greenlanders don’t want to be a part of Denmark.”
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was wrapping up a three-day visit to the strategically critical Arctic island on Friday as U.S. President Donald Trump seeks control of Greenland. He argues that Greenland, a semiautonomous territory belonging to the Kingdom of Denmark, is critical to U.S. security.
Trump’s sweeping tariffs sent shockwaves through Wall Street, wiping about $3.1 trillion in market value in its largest one-day decline since the Covid pandemic.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 4 percent. The S&P 500 fell 4.8 percent.
And the tech-focused Nasdaq was down 6 percent — fuelled by declines from Apple, Nvidia and Amazon.