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Trump Admin Transferring Quick and Breaking Issues Throughout Govt Shutdown

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The Trump administration is shifting quick and breaking issues as they capitalize on the alternatives introduced by the federal government shutdown, compliant courts, ethically versatile firms, and beneficiant overseas governments.

Let’s begin with Workplace of Administration and Funds (OMB) Director Russell Vought who featured so prominently in yesterday’s Espresso Break.

Vought instantly seized on the shut all the way down to shut a number of infrastructure tasks in New York and yesterday he instructed GOP congresspeople that mass layoffs of federal workers will likely be coming “in a day or two” and that “funding for meals help for the Girls, Infants and Youngsters meals help program would run out within the subsequent week or two.”

The shutdown is only a information hook for Vought to attract consideration to what he’s already been doing (with an early help from Elon Musk & DOGE), per The New York Occasions:

Earlier than the federal government shutdown started Wednesday, many companies revealed contingency plans — routine frameworks which are usually up to date earlier than a shutdown. These paperwork included particulars about which packages will likely be suspended and what number of workers will likely be furloughed till the shutdown is over.

They reveal, to some extent, how a lot President Trump has slashed the federal work power via firings, layoffs and incentivized resignation packages, as a result of additionally they embody a current report of what number of workers work at every company.

The Occasions piece additionally has cuts by subagency, the place accessible.

The Courts have been a key a part of Group Trump in his second administration, sufficient in order that Republican Nationwide Legal professionals Affiliation President took to Actual Clear Politics to have fun that “Trump Is Most Profitable President within the Courts in Generations.”

President Trump is on a profitable streak the likes of which we haven’t seen in generations.

Actually, whereas the legacy media idolize rogue judges who throw up roadblocks to President Trump’s agenda at each flip and amplify perceived losses, what they don’t need you to comprehend is that when the mud settles, Trump wins more often than not on the final word determination.
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The 2024-25 time period constructed on vital wins achieved throughout Trump’s first administration, the place he was in a position to efficiently fill the federal judiciary and the Supreme Courtroom with originalist and textualist jurists, who adhere to the rule of regulation and the Structure somewhat than a inflexible ideology that pre-determines circumstances primarily based on outcomes and events.

Trump’s remaking of the judiciary throughout his first administration continued to rack up wins even through the Biden administration, when the Supreme Courtroom returned abortion regulation to the states (Dobbs 2022), ended the observe of basing faculty admissions on racial preferences (College students for Honest Admissions 2023), and overturned many years of unaccountable, bureaucratic rulemaking (Loper Brilliant 2024).

…the White Home “has gained 18 occasions on the Supreme Courtroom since Trump took workplace and is on a 15-case profitable run.” Moreover, “the Trump administration has requested the Supreme Courtroom to weigh in on an emergency foundation 28 occasions. … It has misplaced solely two.”
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The U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals – just under the Supreme Courtroom – are additionally constantly delivering victories for Trump, constitutional conservatives who supported him, and the rule of regulation.

The Fourth Circuit, now a courtroom normally delivering progressive, policy-driven selections, simply weighed into the dialogue over federal firings with a 2-1 victory for Trump, ruling that Democrat-led states couldn’t pursue lawsuits difficult the dismissal of practically 25,000 probationary federal workers.

Trump was in a position to reshape the Ninth Circuit – as soon as extensively known as the “Ninth Circus” as a result of it was so reliably left-wing – throughout his first time period, such that when California Gov. Gavin Newsom tried to reclaim management of the state’s Nationwide Guard throughout violent protests in L.A., District Choose Charles Breyer, who tried handy his governor a victory, was overturned in embarrassing style.

However not each choose is rolling Trump’s approach. U.S. District Choose William Younger, a Reagan appointee ripped Trump’s “effort to deport pro-Palestinian teachers” in a “scathing 161 web page opinion” that’s producing a lot of love within the MSM.

Though, the ruling is to date all discuss and no enamel, in response to Politico:

(Younger) didn’t instantly order modifications to administration insurance policies, however mentioned he’ll maintain additional proceedings on the way to rein within the practices he discovered to violate First Modification free-speech rights.
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“The President’s palpable misunderstanding that the federal government merely can not search retribution for speech he disdains poses an ideal risk to People’ freedom of speech,” Younger wrote, describing the courts as probably the most essential bulwark to this risk.

“I concern President Trump believes the American individuals are so divided that as we speak they won’t get up, struggle for, and defend our most valuable constitutional values as long as they’re lulled into considering their very own private pursuits will not be affected,” Younger added. “Is he right?”

Younger has repeatedly tangled with the administration over insurance policies he has described as discriminatory, one in every of a handful of old-guard Reagan-era judges to pontificate about Trump’s method to governing.

In August, two members of the Supreme Courtroom — Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — rebuked Younger for blocking the Trump administration’s selections to chop off medical analysis grants it deemed associated to range, fairness and inclusion initiatives. The 2 Trump appointees mentioned current rulings on different grant-related circumstances on the excessive courtroom’s emergency docket made clear Younger’s ruling was impermissible.

I lined the Supreme Courtroom’s problem in speaking their wishes to decrease courts beforehand.

Maybe it shouldn’t be a shock that Gallup is discovering the Supreme Courtroom’s approval ranking close to all-time lows.

One other case that has the shitlibs in excessive dudgeon, is the indictment of key RussiaGate prankster former FBI head James Comey. Simply take a look at the outrage:

I can’t resist lightening the temper by sharing Comey’s total Instagram assertion, though some would possibly discover it extra sickening than amusing (although it’s not fairly the banger his earlier video claiming to be a Taylor Swift fan was):

Right here’s a partial transcript through ABC Information:

James Comey: My coronary heart is damaged for the Division of Justice. I’ve nice confidence within the federal judicial system and I’m harmless, so let’s have a trial, and hold the religion.

My household and I’ve recognized for years that there are prices for standing as much as Donald Trump, however we couldn’t think about ourselves dwelling every other approach. We won’t stay on our knees and also you shouldn’t both.

Anyone that I really like dearly lately mentioned that concern is the instrument of a tyrant and she or he is correct (Comey is referring to a press release his daughter, Maurene Comey, made in a farewell e-mail to her colleagues after being fired from the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the Southern District of New York this summer season).

“However I’m not afraid, and I hope you aren’t both. I hope as an alternative you’re engaged, you’re paying consideration and you’ll vote like the one you love nation relies upon upon it, which it does.”

I need to admit I’m having fun with the media protection of the Trump appointee who’s dealing with the case, (that is some basic Trump admin dipshittery):

The New Yorker’s Ruth Marcus tells this a part of the story simply wonderful:

Thursday’s indictment of the previous F.B.I. director James Comey bore a single, telling signature: that of Lindsey Halligan, put in by President Donald Trump simply three days earlier to function the US Lawyer for the Japanese District of Virginia. Halligan is an insurance coverage lawyer turned Trump lawyer and White Home aide; in March, Trump appointed her to take away “improper ideology” from the Smithsonian. She has scant expertise in federal courts and none as a prosecutor. Her predecessor within the place, a seasoned prosecutor nominated by Trump, was pressured out final Friday, in response to quite a few information stories, after balking at calls for to concoct circumstances in opposition to Comey, along with New York’s lawyer normal, Letitia James, and others.

However general, I’ve to agree with Aaron Mate that the Comey indictment is in good firm with the RussiaGate prosecutions that Comey and the MSM have been so labored up about throughout Trump 1.0. Observe that Mate agrees “Trump is exploiting the justice system for revenge in opposition to a political foe,” he simply places it in context:

By the derelict requirements of the 2016 Trump-Russia collusion probe that Comey presided over and promoted lengthy after leaving his place, his 2025 prosecution is completely professional.
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By January 2017, when Trump took workplace, FBI brokers knew that that they had nothing to go on (within the Russiagate investigation), and even mentioned shutting down. However underneath Comey’s watch, the other occurred. Quite than abandon their baseless collusion hunt, the FBI expended appreciable power to make it look professional.
Comey directed brokers to snare Trump Nationwide Safety Advisor Mike Flynn in what amounted to a perjury entice, a transfer he later bragged about whereas hawking the primary of two Russiagate-profiteering books. Getting Flynn to talk with two FBI brokers was “one thing we’ve, I in all probability wouldn’t have carried out or perhaps gotten away with in a extra organized investigation, a extra organized administration,” a self-amused Comey recalled.
It labored: Flynn was accused of falsely telling the FBI that he had not mentioned the problem of sanctions with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak.
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It was all a lie. The declassified transcript of the intercepted Flynn-Kislyak confirmed that the 2 barely mentioned the problem of sanctions past just a few inconsequential phrases.
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Comey has now been indicted on the identical perjury cost that he nabbed Flynn on. Whereas each circumstances could be described as politically motivated and substantively flawed, Comey’s no less than has some approximation to a factual predicate.
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Comey, who was fired by Trump in Could 2017, used his supposed credibility to maintain the ruse alive. Hawking his memoir, A Increased Loyalty, to a Russiagate-crazed media upon its launch in April 2018, Comey went out of his solution to prop up probably the most farcical Trump-Russia conspiracy concept in circulation.
“I don’t know whether or not the present president of the US was with prostitutes peeing on one another in Moscow in 2013,” Comey instructed ABC Information. “It’s doable, however I don’t know.” …Comey, wrote The New York Occasions‘ Michelle Goldberg, “has began a protracted overdue nationwide dialog about whether or not the pee tape is actual.”
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Trump has repurposed his political foes’ playbook for his personal functions. For all the professional indignation at his abuses, a substantial portion of blame belongs to these, together with the newly indicted Jim Comey, who handed him the instruments.

Trump can also be celebrating yet one more victory in opposition to Ivy League universities:

The defining battle in his campaign in opposition to increased training will quickly be over, President Trump instructed reporters within the Oval Workplace, asserting, seemingly offhand, {that a} take care of Harvard College had been reached.

“All it’s important to do is paper it, proper, Linda?” the president mentioned as he turned to his training secretary, Linda McMahon. “Sure, sir,” she replied. As soon as the settlement is finalized, the president mentioned, “then their sins are forgiven.”

The announcement got here throughout an unrelated occasion on the White Home on Tuesday regarding developments within the remedy of pediatric most cancers. Particulars are nonetheless forthcoming. Pressed for extra info, White Home spokeswoman Liz Huston would solely say that “President Trump is reshaping increased training. Keep tuned for additional bulletins!” However Trump appears to have achieved precisely what he needed: a splashy settlement.

The Trump administration launched a multi-pronged assault on Cambridge earlier this 12 months, freezing greater than $2.4 billion in federal analysis grants in response to allegations that the college, which predates the nation, continued to advertise so-called range, fairness, and inclusion packages and discriminated in opposition to Jewish college students and school. Throughout an August cupboard assembly, Trump instructed McMahon, “We would like nothing lower than $500 million from Harvard. Don’t negotiate, Linda. They’ve been very dangerous.”

The transgressions of that college now appear to be forgiven. Trump previewed a deal whereby Harvard pays a $500 million wonderful and operates “a collection of commerce colleges” to coach college students in topics like synthetic intelligence and automotive engineering. He referred to as it “an enormous funding in commerce colleges carried out by very good folks.”

Group Trump gamers are additionally scoring large off Israel’s 8 entrance warfare, corresponding to cast-off 2020 Trump marketing campaign supervisor Brad Parscale, per The Hill:

President Trump’s former marketing campaign supervisor Brad Parscale has registered as a overseas agent for Israel, employed to create digital campaigns combating antisemitism in a contract value $6 million.

Parscale filed paperwork with the International Brokers Registration Act saying he started work for the Israeli authorities on Sept. 18. He registered an organization referred to as Clocktower X LLC and is primarily corresponding with Israel’s minister of International Affairs and Eran Shayovich, listed as chief of workers at Israel’s Ministry of International Affairs, in response to his LinkedIn.

Parscale’s contract was first reported by the Quincy Institute for Accountable Statecraft, a Washington-based suppose tank that advocates for restraint in overseas coverage.

Based on Parscale’s contract, his firm is employed to create content material the place no less than 80 p.c “is tailor-made to Gen Z audiences throughout platforms, together with TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, podcasts, and different related digital and broadcast shops.”

It’s a great factor Israel got here via for Brad, in response to Wikipedia he’d been lowered to “actual property flipping, restarting his political consulting agency, forming a knowledge evaluation startup” and dealing for a shedding GOP main marketing campaign in Ohio.

Accountable Statecraft has extra particulars on what Parscale’s firm will likely be as much as and introduces a financial institution shot that explains how Don Jr. will likely be wetting his beak on the deal:

Clock Tower will create new web sites to affect how AI GPT fashions corresponding to ChatGPT, that are educated on huge quantities of knowledge from each nook of the web, body matters and reply to them — all on behalf of Israel.

As a part of this work, the agency may also use search engine marketing software program MarketBrew AI, a predictive AI platform that helps purchasers adapt to algorithms and promote their work on serps like Google and Bing, to “enhance the visibility and rating of related narratives.”

Clock Tower will combine its pro-Israel messaging into Salem Media Community properties, a conservative Christian media group that boasts an enormous radio community and produces high-profile reveals such because the Hugh Hewitt Present, the Larry Elder Present, and the Proper View with Lara Trump. In April, the conservative media community introduced Donald Trump Jr. and Lara Trump as important stakeholders within the firm. Salem Media Community didn’t reply to a query clarifying whether or not it will be compensated by Clock Tower for selling messages on behalf of Israel, or how these messages could be built-in.

I do not know how Clock Tower will “combine its pro-Israel messaging into Salem Media Community properties.” Maybe they’ll insert adverts into Salem’s podcasts and radio broadcasts?

Talking of Trump 1.0 left-behinds, former favorite-son-in-law Jared Kushner is, as I’ve posted earlier than, cleansing up in Gaza, however now it’s been revealed that he was on the middle of the $55 billion deal that took EA Video games personal with Saudi and UAE cash, through Yahoo Finance:

Jared Kushner brokered the preliminary connection between the Redwood, California-based online game maker and Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund, and for months acted as a central determine within the talks, in response to folks acquainted with the matter, who requested anonymity to debate personal conversations. When the deal’s momentum slowed round mid-year, Kushner pushed to maintain it going, a number of the folks mentioned.
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Kushner’s matchmaking function within the plan to take EA personal provides one other strand to the dense tangle of enterprise relationships between rich Gulf states and the president’s household. Simply this week, as information of the EA deal rippled throughout Wall Road, the Trump Group was inking a separate settlement to develop with one other growth in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s second-largest metropolis, underscoring the extent of the household’s connections to the oil-rich nation.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund, together with Silver Lake Administration and Kushner’s Affinity Companions, agreed to pay $210 per share in money for EA, valuing the video-game firm at about $55 billion. JPMorgan Chase & Co. is offering a $20 billion mortgage to help the deal.

The Saudis would be the largest contributor to the $36 billion in fairness backing the deal, buying a controlling stake in EA, whereas Affinity may have the smallest share, in response to folks acquainted with the matter.

Kushner, 44, already had a monetary tether to PIF. After appearing as a senior adviser to Trump in his first time period, engaged on overseas coverage negotiations within the Center East, he based Affinity Companions in 2021. The Saudi sovereign wealth fund contributed about $2 billion.

Affinity, which now has $5.4 billion in belongings, together with from Abu Dhabi-based asset supervisor Lunate and the Qatar Funding Authority, hasn’t beforehand been a part of such a high-profile deal. A few of its different bets have been on corporations together with EGYM, a Munich-based well being know-how firm, and in Greenwich, Connecticut-based QXO Inc.

Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt didn’t get pleasure from being requested about it:

The Each day Beast wallowed in Leavitt’s crapulence:

“I believe it’s frankly despicable that you simply’re making an attempt to recommend that it’s inappropriate for Jared Kushner, who’s extensively revered around the globe and has nice belief and relationships with these essential companions in these nations to strike a twenty level complete detailed peace plan that no different administration would ever have the ability to obtain,” Leavitt declared.

“Jared is donating his power and his time to our authorities, to the president of the US, to safe world peace, and that could be a very noble factor,” she insisted.

“Just about everybody on the planet is supportive of this plan that Jared Kushner supplied his time to assist put collectively alongside our particular envoy Witkoff, the vice chairman, the president of the US, Secretary Rubio and the president’s total nationwide safety group,” she continued.

Leavitt didn’t have the short instincts to show the dialog to a subject extra favorable to group Trump, the tariff take care of Pfizer.

Pfizer Inc. secured a reprieve from President Donald Trump’s long-threatened tariffs on the pharmaceutical trade Tuesday by agreeing to slash a few of its drug costs by as much as 85% and promoting on to the American public, a transfer different main drugmakers are anticipated to observe.

Pfizer mentioned it’s going to guarantee People obtain comparable costs to these supplied in different nations and can launch new medicines at parity, addressing a key Trump grievance that People unfairly shoulder the very best medical prices on the planet. In alternate, the corporate gained a three-year grace interval from extensively anticipated pharmaceutical tariffs that the administration has been promulgating.

It’s the most recent instance of the transactional nature of profitable tariff exemptions from Trump, who has unilaterally wielded commerce coverage to exert energy over a number of industries. As lately as final week, he threatened 100% tariffs on the pharmaceutical trade.

Comparable offers might be forthcoming. Eli Lilly & Co. mentioned it’s in energetic discussions with the administration to additional develop affected person entry, because the announcement Tuesday underscores the urgency of constructing medicines extra inexpensive.

It is going to be attention-grabbing to see if Trump can leaven his budget-slashing and civil warfare mongering with sufficient populist strikes like this to tug off GOP wins within the mid-term elections.

However then once more, that’s what gerrymandering is for. We’re in a post-constitutional order, bear in mind.

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