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Obama Judge Pushes Back After Ruling Attacking DOGE is So “Weirdly Written” and “Overly Broad” That It Could Lead to IMMEDIATE Shutdown of Social Security Administration

A federal judge on Thursday barred DOGE from accessing social security systems.

US District Judge Ellen Hollander, an Obama appointee, said DOGE’s workers are on a “fishing expedition.”

“The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion. It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack,” Judge Hollander wrote.

Far-left organizations like AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers and other plaintiffs sued the Social Security Administration, Elon Musk, DOGE and other Trump advisors.

“The plaintiffs are the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO (“AFSCME”); Alliance for Retired Americans (“ARA” or “Alliance”); and American Federation of Teachers (“AFT”). They have sued the Social Security Administration; Leland Dudek, in his official capacity as “purported Acting Commissioner” of the SSA; Michael Russo, in his official capacity as Chief Information Officer (“CIO”) of the Agency; Elon Musk, in his official capacity as “Senior Advisor to the President and de facto head of” the Department of Government Efficiency; the “U.S. DOGE Service”; the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization; and Amy Gleason, in her official capacity as the DOGE Acting Administrator,” the court document read.

The judge sided with the plaintiffs and said DOGE is likely violating privacy laws with access to social security numbers and other personal information.

On Friday Acting Social Security commissioner Leland Dudek told the Washington Post in an interview that he will likely file an affidavit asking Judge Hollander to clarify her ruling, calling the language “ambiguous,” “overly broad,” and “weirdly written.”

“[In] an interview Friday with The Washington Post, Dudek argued that the judge’s ruling was overly broad and that a reference to “DOGE affiliates” could apply to all employees who access personally identifiable information, or PII, because they are obligated to cooperate with DOGE,” The Washington Post reported.

“Everything in this agency is PII,” Dudek told The Post. “Unless I get clarification, I’ll just start to shut it down. I don’t have much of a choice here.”

Dudek’s comments created a media firestorm, prompting Judge Hollander to issue a letter clarifying her language.

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DOJ May Invoke State Secrets Privilege In Showdown With Federal Judge, Agency Says

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is considering invoking its state secrets privilege in its showdown with a federal judge over the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act and deportation of illegal immigrants, a high-ranking DOJ official said in a new court filing submitted Friday.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, a former criminal defense lawyer for President Donald Trump, confirmed a statement issued by Robert Cerna, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official, in court papers filed earlier this week in the case that Cabinet secretaries under Trump “are currently actively considering whether to invoke the state secrets privilege.”

“I attest to the accuracy of those statements based on personal knowledge of the events described by Mr. Cerna,” Blanche wrote, “including my direct involvement in ongoing Cabinet-level discussion regarding invocation of the state-secrets privilege.”

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg told government officials that they have a Friday deadline to submit a sworn declaration by a person “with direct involvement in the Cabinet-level discussions” about the state secrets privilege and to tell the court by next Tuesday whether the government will invoke it.

Invoking the state secrets privilege—an evidentiary rule used under U.S. legal precedent—means that government lawyers can assert that court proceedings may divulge sensitive state information that may endanger national security.

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Trump Admin Chooses Boeing To Construct the ‘Most Lethal Aircraft Ever Built’

The Pentagon has awarded Boeing a billion-dollar contract to build the Air Force’s most advanced fighter jet, President Donald Trump announced Friday.

The Next Generation Air Dominance program will replace Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor with Boeing’s F-47, a sixth-generation jet designed to operate alongside drones in combat. While details of the new jet remain classified, the aircraft is expected to feature stealth capabilities, advanced sensors, and new engines, Reuters reported.

“The F-47 will be the most advanced, most capable, most lethal aircraft ever built,” Trump said at the White House. “An experimental version of the plane has secretly been flying for almost five years, and we’re confident that it massively overpowers capabilities of any other nation.”

The new plane comes as part of a “family of systems” intended to “counter adversaries such as China and Russia,” according to Reuters. The contract is valued at more than $20 billion, with Boeing expected to receive hundreds of billions of dollars in orders.

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LA Budget Crisis, Deficit Approaches $1 Billion, Layoffs ‘Nearly Inevitable’

L.A.’s financial problems exploded into a full-blown crisis on Wednesday, with the city’s top budget official announcing that next year’s shortfall is now just shy of $1 billion, making layoffs “nearly inevitable.”

City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo said Mayor Karen Bass’ proposed budget, which will be released April 21, will close that gap, but it will require difficult “cost-cutting decisions.” He warned that the severity of revenue declines and rising costs has created a budget gap that makes layoffs “nearly inevitable.”

Szabo, in his presentation to the council Wednesday, attributed the city’s financial woes, in part, to increased spending on legal payouts, which have ballooned over the last few years. Tax revenues have been coming in much weaker than expected — and are expected to soften further in the upcoming budget year, which starts July 1.

Pay raises for city employees that are scheduled to go into effect in the coming budget year are expected to consume an additional $250 million. On top of that, Szabo said, the city needs to put hundreds of millions into its reserve fund, which has been drained in recent months in an attempt to balance this year’s budget.

Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who heads the budget committee, said the council will need to look at the possibility of asking unions representing city workers to defer the scheduled raises or make other concessions.

“I think everything needs to be on the table,” she said in an interview.

David Green, president and executive director of Service Employees International Union Local 721, called Szabo’s remarks “short-sighted and irresponsible.”

“There’s no question that all of us are in shock with this number,” said Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who sits on the council’s budget committee.

Blumenfield predicted that city leaders would need to seek financial concessions from the workforce.

“Eighty percent of our expenses is labor,” he said. “If we are short more than 10% of our budget, the ‘math doesn’t math’ without looking at labor costs.”

Over the last two years, Bass and the council have signed off on raises and increased benefits for an array of unions — first police officers, then civilian city workers, then firefighters.

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Federal Judge Could Force IRS To Release Internal Records in Alleged Political ‘Weaponization’ Case

A federal judge could soon rule on whether the Internal Revenue Service falsified records to target companies for tax penalties, according to new court filings on Friday.

Three companies filed a motion on Friday asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to determine whether there is sufficient evidence that the IRS fraudulently “backdated” documents while cracking down on “syndicated conservation easement” schemes, which allow individuals and corporations to offset their taxes by donating land to charitable groups.

The filing is part of a two-year-long Freedom of Information Act case against the IRS. The plaintiffs, Arden Row Assets, Basswood Aggregates, and Delwood Resources, claim IRS agents hit their companies with millions of dollars in tax penalties without proper authorization, and later fraudulently backdated documents to cover up the misconduct.

If the court decides there is sufficient evidence of wrongdoing by the IRS, it could force the agency to release internal records related to the case.

Critics of the tax bureau say the case is a prime example of politicized “weaponization” by the IRS, an agency that has faced extensive budget cuts and layoffs by the Trump administration.

“In the emails between the IRS agents, it’s clear that they know they didn’t properly date the documents, and they seem to have no concern about backdating the forms,” Rod Rosenstein, the former deputy attorney general who is representing the companies suing the IRS, told the Washington Free Beacon.

Rosenstein said it appears that agents were “encouraged to pursue penalties in easement cases” which “may have created pressure to pursue penalties even when they failed to get the required approval.”

Over the past decade, the IRS has launched a crackdown against “syndicated conservation easements,” a tax loophole that allows companies to donate undeveloped land to nonprofit groups for a tax writeoff. The easements have been criticized by some lawmakers who say they’re being abused by companies that buy up low-worth land, obtain inflated land value assessments, and then sell off portions to investors looking for tax breaks.

The lawsuit cited internal IRS emails that appeared to show agents discussing backdating forms that authorized millions of dollars of penalties against the plaintiff companies.

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USAID Censorship Scheme Exposed; Global Engagement Center Worked With UK Government And Media Firms To Deploy AI Tools

On Thursday, America First Legal (AFL) released explosive new documents obtained through ongoing litigation against the U.S. Department of State’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), exposing a vast, government-backed censorship operation to silence Americans under the guise of “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “malinformation.” The documents reveal a disturbing alliance between the GEC, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the British Foreign, Commonwealth, Development Office (FCDO), and media censorship organizations, all working in lock-step to manipulate public discourse, control media narratives, and suppress free speech.

The GEC, which was forced to shut down in December 2024, was designed to “combat foreign disinformation abroad.” However, through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, AFL uncovered that the GEC engaged in state-sponsored propaganda, repeatedly using willing participants from private media organizations. Further, AFL’s lawsuit against the GEC revealed that USAID had created an internal “Disinformation Primer” that explicitly praised private sector censorship strategies and recommended further censorship tactics.

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DR Congo Offers Trump Minerals in Exchange for Help with Rebels

Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) President Felix Tshisekedi wrote a letter to President Donald Trump in which he offered extensive mineral rights to the U.S. Sovereign Wealth Fund in exchange for military assistance against the Rwanda-backed insurgent group M23.

The February 8 letter, which has not officially been disclosed to the public, was allegedly reviewed by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Wednesday.

“Your election has ushered in the golden age for America,” Tshisekedi told Trump. “Our partnership would provide the U.S. with a strategic advantage by securing critical minerals such as cobalt, lithium, copper and tantalum from the Democratic Republic of Congo.”

Tshisekedi asked Trump for unspecified military assistance and a “formal security pact” to push back M23, which has been advancing from the eastern reaches of the DRC to capture key cities and threaten the capital of Kinshasa.

A spokeswoman for Tshisekedi’s office confirmed the authenticity of the letter and said negotiations with U.S. officials over the DRC’s natural resources are already underway. A source told the WSJ that the White House National Security Council (NSC) requested a briefing on Tshisekedi’s proposal.

“The DRC is interested in partnering with the Trump administration to end the conflict and stop the flow of blood minerals via Rwanda,” Tshisekedi’s spokeswoman said.

The White House, on the other hand, refused to comment on the letter, which it described as “private correspondence to the president.”

The WSJ noted that the DRC has been separately attempting to work out a deal for securing its mining operations with former Blackwater CEO and founder Erik Prince. Blackwater is long gone, having been sold off in 2010, but Prince is involved with other private security operations and he is an outspoken supporter of President Trump.

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Trump EPA Cancels Funding for Nancy Pelosi’s and Ilhan Omar’s Pet Climate Projects

The EPA canceled two multimillion-dollar environmental justice grants that Democratic Reps. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Ilhan Omar (Minn.) helped to secure just weeks before President Donald Trump took office, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

Pelosi helped secure a $20 million grant awarded to the San Francisco County Transportation Authority to help develop six green transportation projects—including the purchase of an electric bus, installation of electric ferry charging ports, and creation of a bike-share program. “This project will create a cleaner, greener city where reliable public transportation promotes equity and opportunity for all San Franciscans,” Pelosi said in a statement announcing the grant in December.

Omar, meanwhile, was involved in securing a $10 million grant to build solar panels and energy efficiency upgrades at the Minneapolis American Indian Center and develop a geothermal energy system at the Sabathani Community Center. The partnership between the two Minneapolis-based community centers would strengthen the resilience of an area that is “home to low-income communities disproportionately impacted by climate change,” Omar wrote to the EPA months before the agency awarded the grant.

“Recent examples of the importance of these two legacy organizations includes [sic] their response to the civil unrest following the murder of George Floyd and how they served as critical resources throughout the pandemic,” she wrote in the letter obtained by the Free Beacon.

The Minneapolis partnership and San Francisco development projects, a source familiar told the Free Beacon, are among the more than 400 environmental justice and DEI-related grants that EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, in collaboration with the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency, has canceled in recent weeks.

The EPA’s actions to revoke the grants highlight the EPA’s and, more broadly, the Trump administration’s efforts to curb spending. Zeldin ordered EPA officials to conduct a line-by-line review of grants disbursed by the Biden administration. Overall, the Trump EPA has clawed back more than $1.7 billion awarded under the previous administration and terminated eight grants worth $20 billion for a “green bank” program.

“It is our commitment at EPA to be exceptional stewards of tax dollars,” Zeldin said this month.

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DOJ to Investigate Anti-White Discrimination in Rhode Island Public Schools

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has opened an investigation into possible discriminatory employment practices at the Rhode Island Department of Education (“RIDE”) and Providence Public Schools (PPS), Breitbart News learned exclusively Friday.

DOJ opened a civil pattern or practice investigation into RIDE and PPS to assess whether their employment practices discriminate against teachers at PPS who identify as white by offering a student loan repayment program only to non-white teachers.

“Establishing or using race-conscious terms and conditions or benefits of employment is a denial of equal employment opportunity and violates Title VII,” said Deputy Assistant Attorney General Mac Warner of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in a statement obtained by Breitbart News. “This investigation will evaluate whether the Rhode Island Department of Education and Providence Public Schools have violated Title VII in failing to provide equal benefits of employment to all its teachers.”

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, and religion. That law gives DOJ the authority to investigate state and local government employers where it has reason to believe that a “pattern or practice” of employment discrimination exists.

DOJ’s letter to RIDE and PPS notifying them of the investigation was signed by acting Associate Attorney General Chad Mizelle, who Attorney General Pam Bondi charged with supervising the investigation.

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‘Anti-Trump’ Hollywood Stars Request Administration’s Help With AI Copyright Protections, Sending An Open Letter

A number of Hollywood stars who previously slammed President Donald Trump’s administration are now reportedly seeking its assistance in enforcing artificial intelligence (AI) copyright protections — as the entertainment industry fights back against the impact of the new technology.

Actor and director Ben Stiller, musician Paul McCartney, and actor Mark Ruffalo are among the over 400 entertainment figures who signed an open letter to President Trump’s administration this week.

“We firmly believe that America’s global AI leadership must not come at the expense of our essential creative industries,” the letter began, which was addressed to the Trump administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy.

The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is a department of the United States government, part of the Executive Office of the President. Congress established the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to provide the president and Executive Office of the President (EOP) with advice on the scientific, engineering, and technological aspects of national policy and the work of the executive branch. This includes matters of the economy, national security, homeland security, health, foreign relations, the environment, education, and resource management, according to the White House.

“America’s arts and entertainment industry supports over 2.3M American jobs with over $229Bn in wages annually, while providing the foundation for American democratic influence and soft power abroad. But AI companies are asking to undermine this economic and cultural strength by weakening copyright protections for the films, television series, artworks, writing, music, and voices used to train AI models at the core of multi-billion-dollar corporate valuations,” the group’s letter continued.

For years, companies training AI tech have purportedly collected copyrighted art, books, music, and other creative mediums of entertainment without paying for it. The companies can then create their own works while profiting from the “stolen” material.

“For nearly 250 years, U.S. copyright law has balanced [a] creator’s rights with the needs of the public, creating the world’s most vibrant creative economy,” it added. “We recommend that the American AI Action Plan uphold existing copyright frameworks to maintain the strength of America’s creative and knowledge industries, as well as American cultural influence abroad.”

The letter is in response to submissions placed by Google and OpenAI, requesting the ability to train their own AI models on copyrighted material.

“The federal government can both secure Americans’ freedom to learn from AI and avoid forfeiting our AI lead to the PRC by preserving American AI models’ ability to learn from copyrighted material,” OpenAI’s letter read.

The entertainment industry’s letter continued, countering OpenAI’s point: “There is no reason to weaken or eliminate the copyright protections that have helped America flourish. Not when AI companies can use our copyrighted material by simply doing what the law requires: negotiating appropriate licenses with copyright holders – just as every other industry does.”

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