Our servile GOP senators, who have been completely by-passed by DOGE, try to tell Elon Musk that he can't do that lol, now have to ask pretty please from White House chief of staff Susie Wiles

 

What an absolutely contemptible lot.

GOP senators tell Musk DOGE actions will require their votes 

Republican senators told tech billionaire Elon Musk at a closed-door meeting Wednesday that his aggressive moves to shrink the federal government will need a vote on Capitol Hill, sending a clear message that he needs to respect Congress’s power of the purse. ...

Paul and other Republican senators said Musk appeared open to the idea but didn’t seem to expect DOGE’s cuts and workforce reductions would need to come back to Congress for ultimate approval. ...

GOP lawmakers say Musk’s failure to brief them in advance about impending cuts and funding freezes — or to respond to their questions and concerns about actions taken by DOGE — reflected his belief that he thought the administration could largely bypass them by simply impounding funds lawfully appropriated by Congress. ...

Several GOP senators vented their frustrations over Musk’s operating style — especially his team’s failure to respond promptly to their concerns — at a meeting last week with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.

Wiles told frustrated senators they should contact her directly with their concerns over funding freezes and reductions in force pushed by Musk and his team of young engineers.

Sources familiar with Wednesday’s meeting said the GOP senators who complained about Musk and his methods last week were much more cordial when they met with him face-to-face in the wood-empaneled Mansfield Room just off the Senate floor. ...

Twilight Zone: Republican Senate fascists tell dictator Trump to drop dead, CHIPS Act won't be repealed

 

Republican lawmakers on Wednesday said President Trump’s call for Congress to “get rid of” the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which provided $52 billion for the domestic semiconductor manufacturing industry, is dead on arrival on Capitol Hill. ...

“I think reconstituting domestic manufacturing of advanced semiconductors is a national security and economic imperative,” said Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), who was one of 17 Senate Republicans who voted for the law.

Cornyn noted that “the whole purpose of this was national security.”

“Because if there’s a disruption between Asia or Taiwan, to be more specific, and the United States, we would plunge into a depression and we wouldn’t be able to build advanced weapons or aircraft like the F-35,” he said.

The Texas senator said “the idea” for the law came from the first Trump administration, particularly then-Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

“I understand the president suggesting maybe there’s a better way to do this than use tax dollars as incentives … but I think the original bill was responsible [for] this trend [to bring] much greater investment here in the United States,” he added.

He said he’s open to “tweaks around the edges” but explained “the program that Congress passed — that money is essentially spent.”

More.

 

Putin launches ballistic missile at hotel in Zelenskyy's hometown, kills four after Trump turns off warning technology

Russian strike kills 4 in Ukraine amid US aid, intelligence freeze

 ... Ukraine's air force reported 112 drones and two missiles launched into the country overnight, with 68 drones shot down and 43 lost in flight.

The air force reported damage in the Kharkiv, Sumy, Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

In Dnipropetrovsk, a ballistic missile hit a hotel in the city of Kryvyi Rih -- Zelenskyy's hometown.

"A ballistic missile struck an ordinary hotel," the president wrote on social media. Four people were killed with more than 30 others injured, he added. The attack came shortly after a group of foreign humanitarian volunteers checked into the hotel, Zelenskyy said. None were hurt.

Sources told ABC News that two U.S. citizens were among the volunteers who survived the strike, working for the Charity fund Freedom Trust and Ukraine Relief organization. ...

U.S. intelligence sharing with Ukraine had allowed Kyiv to give warnings to targeted areas ahead of Russian drone and missile strikes, tracking Russian aircraft taking off, drones being launched and missiles being fired. ...

 

Paper tiger misses deadline, tells Hamas he really means it this time as he gives billions to Israel but hangs Ukraine out to dry

 

... Last month Trump called on Hamas to release the hostages by Feb. 15 or "all hell is going to breakout." That deadline came and went. This time, Trump is describing his ultimatum as the "last warning!" ...

“I have just met with your former hostages whose lives you have destroyed," Trump added. "This is your last warning! For the leadership, now is the time to leave Gaza, while you still have a chance.” ...

The Trump Administration has already approved nearly $12 billion in major foreign military sales to Israel, according to the State Department’s website. ...

Hamas still is holding 59 hostages in Gaza, many of whom are believed to be dead. ...

More.

Polling from Rasmussen Reports shows Trump taking a nosedive after Friday's disastrous crucifixion of Zelenskyy in the Oval Office

 

Rasmussen Reports Trump Approval Index tanked to -5 on Fri Feb 28th & as low as -7 on Tue in the wake of the disastrous Oval Office meeting with Zelenskyy. People don't like seeing ugly from POTUS & VPOTUS. Massive damage control by surrogates all weekend has failed so far.

Defying every norm, Trump is negotiating directly with terrorists again (no, not the ones in Moscow)

 US holding secret talks with Hamas on release of Gaza hostages, 'Post' confirms

... US special envoy for hostage affairs Adam Boehler ... met with senior Hamas officials in Doha, Qatar, several times. These meetings, first reported by Barak Ravid on Axios, mark the first known direct dialogue between Hamas and the US administration since the US designated Hamas as a terrorist organization in 1997.

Such talks run counter to long-standing US policy against direct contact with groups that Washington lists as foreign terrorist organizations. ...

The White House said Boehler has the authority to negotiate directly with Hamas.

“When it comes to the negotiations that you’re referring to, first of all, the special envoy who’s engaged in those negotiations does have the authority,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters. ...

Such talks run counter to long-standing US policy against direct contact with groups that Washington lists as foreign terrorist organizations.Such talks run counter to long-standing US policy against direct contact with groups that Washington lists as foreign terrorist organizations.

The Paper Tiger is back, but he makes you call him and grovel

 Trump grants automakers one-month exemption from tariffs

... Spokespeople with the three companies as well as other automakers did not immediately respond for comment on the delay, which comes only a day after the tariffs went into effect.

Leavitt said the president is “open” to hearing requests from other industries seeking exemptions as well.

Leavitt also confirmed the “Big 3” Detroit automakers requested the Tuesday call with Trump, who mentioned it during his address to Congress later in the day. ...

Donald Trump is an utter disgrace, a traitor to everything decent

 

Since Donald Trump wants to move the goalposts for counting the costs of his tax cuts and for calculating GDP, let's use his dumb ass unemployment rate from 2015 from now on, shall we?

 Donald Trump had one of the worst annual dumb ass unemployment rates in history in 2020: 38.25%.

Every president between Carter and Obama did better than he did.

Get off your ass you losers and get to work.

 

 

Imbeciles Trump and Musk claim millions over the age of 100 get Social Security when it is 89,106 people in December 2024 lol

Trump loves Whoppers.

Smell the farts of nothing has changed.

In 2015 Trump used Rush Limbaugh Math and came up with 42% unemployed lol. "Not in labor force" is not a measure of unemployment.

These Social Security claims are loonier than Joe Biden and Kamala Harris saying 200 million and more had already died of COVID in the United States during their campaign for president-vice president in 2020. Joe corrected himself eventually. Trump and Musk WILL NOT.

... The [Social Security] issue has been repeatedly identified by inspectors general at the agency, but the Social Security Administration has argued that updating old records was costly and unnecessary.

Per the agency’s online records, just 89,106 people — not tens of millions — over the age of 99 received retirement benefits in December 2024, out of the more than 70 million people who receive benefits each year.

It’s a “humiliating mistake for anyone else to make, but they’re doubling and tripling down on it,” said Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank that addresses government spending. ...

More.

Meanwhile the US population 65 years old and older was only about 59 million in 2023. Hello.

 

Supreme Court rules 5-4 against Trump that USAID payments ordered by Judge Amir Ali must be made

 

A divided U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to let President Donald Trump’s administration withhold payment to foreign aid organizations for work they already performed for the government as the Republican president moves to pull the plug on American humanitarian projects around the world.

Handing a setback to Trump, the court in a 5-4 decision upheld Washington-based U.S. District Judge Amir Ali’s order that had called on the administration to promptly release funding to contractors and recipients of grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department for their past work.

Conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh dissented from the decision.

The order by Ali, who is presiding over an ongoing legal challenge to Trump’s policy, had originally given the administration until February 26 to disburse the funding, which it has said totaled nearly $2 billion that could take weeks to pay in full.

Chief Justice John Roberts paused that order hours before the midnight deadline to give the Supreme Court additional time to consider the administration’s more formal request to block Ali’s ruling. The Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority includes three justices Trump appointed during his first presidential term. ...

The Trump administration had kept the disputed payments largely frozen despite a temporary restraining order from Ali that they be released, and multiple subsequent orders that the administration comply. Ali’s February 25 enforcement order at issue before the Supreme Court applied to payment for work done by foreign aid groups before February 13, when the judge issued his temporary restraining order. ...

More.

Reagan Democrat, who turned Republican in 1985 but remained an immigration liberal, Lincoln Diaz-Balart has died of cancer at 70

Former Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart dead at 70: Former south Florida congressman fought Fidel Castro regime

 

... The Diaz-Balart brothers hail from a prominent family of prerevolutionary politicians who fled Cuba when Fidel Castro took power.

Their grandfather, father and uncle served in Cuba’s House before the family fled to the United States in 1959, the year of the revolution, when Lincoln was 5.

His father’s sister was married to Castro in the late 1940s and early 1950s, but they divorced and a falling-out between the families ensued. ...

May he rest in peace.

House Democrats correctly doubt whether any funding deal they agree to will be respected by Elon Musk and DOGE, hurtling the federal government toward a shutdown

 ... many Democrats are pressing leadership to withhold support for any spending plan that doesn’t take steps to ensure the allocated funds go where Congress intended — a response to Trump’s efforts to gut federal programs Congress had previously funded. 

“There will have to be some type of guarantees, because we’re very unsure about whether things that we’ve already approved are actually going to be expended,” Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) said. ...

“House Republicans are marching the country towards a government shutdown that was started by Elon Musk,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told reporters on Tuesday.

“Rosa DeLauro is still at the table. We need House Republicans to join her.” ...

Heading into the fight, some Democrats are already warning that they won’t support in any form. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said it makes no sense for Republicans to claim billions of dollars of waste and abuse across federal agencies, and then back a CR that funds that same waste and abuse. ...

More.

 

Trump's collection of horribles includes Alina Habba, his loser lawyer and sex-trafficker Andrew Tate fan, who now says people fired from their government jobs by Trump weren't fit to serve anyway

 

...  "We have a fiscal responsibility to use taxpayer dollars to pay people that actually work. ... perhaps they’re not fit to have a job at this moment, or not willing to come to work.” ... 

The Trump administration is engaged in a wide-ranging effort to cut the number of federal workers. How that is being done, as well as the personal stories of individuals such as veterans and others affected by the cuts, has led to blowback among the public. ...

Veterans make up about 30% of the total federal workforce, according to a report by the Office of Personnel Management.

As of September 2021, nearly 640,000 veterans were employed in that workforce. Of that tally, 53% were disabled. ...

More.

Trump not only wants to move the goalposts for getting the costs of his tax cuts to $0, but also for calculating GDP

 Why, is there something bad on the horizon with GDP lol?

These people belong in jail, not in the White House.

 Trump official floats new approach on GDP, as economy is poised to slow sharply

... Although countries’ approaches to economic measurement can vary slightly, most adhere to a recommended framework by the United Nations’ System of National Accounts. The group makes periodic adjustments to account for new methodologies and circumstances, and is set to do so this year. But it would be highly unconventional for the United States to suddenly strike out on its own, said Diane Coyle, a professor at Cambridge University and author of “GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History.” ...

 

 

It's catching on

 

Meanwhile Trump's Social Security today also boasts of spending $7.5 billion authorized by Congress and Joe Biden for people who didn't pay taxes, just one day after DOGE saves $800 million lol

 

 Social Security Pays Billions of Dollars in Retroactive Payments

The Social Security Administration (SSA) today shared its significant progress to quickly implement the Social Security Fairness Act. Through March 4, 2025, SSA has already paid 1,127,723 people more than $7.5 billion in retroactive payments. The retroactive payments are the result of the repeal of the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO). The average retroactive payment so far is $6,710.

“President Trump made it very clear he wanted the Social Security Fairness Act to be implemented as quickly as possible,” said Lee Dudek, Acting Commissioner of Social Security. “We met that challenge head on and are proudly delivering for the American people.”

The WEP and GPO provisions reduced or eliminated the Social Security benefits for over 3.2 million people who receive a pension based on work that was not covered by Social Security (a "non-covered pension") because they did not pay Social Security taxes.

The agency continues to pay remaining retroactive payments and is ready to begin paying higher monthly benefit payments beginning in April for people’s March benefit.

The federal government farts through $20 billion a day, Social Security under Trump boasts of finding $800 million in savings for fiscal year 2025

 Not even $1 billion a year. Whoopdeedoo. Don't spend it all in one place, boys.

Social Security Administration says it’s identified $800M+ in savings 

The Social Security Administration (SSA) said in a release that it has identified more than $800 million in savings or “cost avoidance” for fiscal 2025 among information technology, grants, property and payroll. ...

Republican fantasies about using "current policy" to price the cost of extending the Trump tax cuts at $0 are illegal

House GOP explores alternative math on Trump tax cuts

 ... But the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 requires that Congress use "current law" to account for how much a tax cut will cost. ...

Yeah, he didn't really though: It was a no apology apology

 Zelensky expresses regret for Oval Office spat with Trump

... "Our meeting in Washington, at the White House on Friday, did not go the way it was supposed to be. It is regrettable that it happened this way. It is time to make things right. We would like future cooperation and communication to be constructive," Zelensky wrote on X. ...