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Evening Shade---Resistance Rising---Saturday [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-02-08
(Or NOT As the CASE MAY BE)
YOU WILL FIND in the DIARIES a LOT of POLITICS
THE PERSON who MAKES the FIRST COMMENT WILL GET TWO CRITTERS
EVERY PERSON WHO COMMENTS WILL GET A CRITTER
RULES IN THE DIARY
WHEN YOU FIND SOMETHING in the DIARY that you LIKE
YOU CAN REPOST IT AS COMMENT in the DIARY
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Here's something you can do. Every Damn Day if necessary.
x Here is a script you can use for any issue. Find your reps' # at reps.fyi or 5calls.org. Every time you see a news story that horrifies you: call, or something else about it. It matters to say what you believe. You are setting a norm.
[image or embed] — Celeste Ng (@pronounced-ing.bsky.social) February 8, 2025 at 7:13 AM
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Shop Costco, not Target.
x Costco, which has come out saying it supports DEI, will make no changes to its existing programs, AND pays workers a minimum of $30/hour, is up 15% YTD. Target, which announced it is ending all DEI programs and has a minimum wage of $15-$24/hour, is down over 4%. Keep voting with your wallet.
[image or embed] — KSV (@ksvesq.bsky.social) February 8, 2025 at 5:19 AM
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No surprise here. But it explains a lot. Florida tycoon is behind oil-for-migrants deal U.S. reached with Venezuelan strongman. www.miamiherald.com/…
A Florida magnate with close ties to the Republican Party helped set up the recent meeting between Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro and President Donald Trump’s special envoy, laying the groundwork for a major deal that would allow the Caracas regime to boost its oil sales to the United States in exchange for accepting hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan deportees. Sources familiar with the negotiations told the Miami Herald that Palm Beach County-based businessman Harry Sargeant III, a major GOP donor who has sought to expand his prior oil and asphalt dealings in Venezuela, worked behind the scenes to facilitate the meeting between Maduro and the envoy, Richard Grenell, a diplomat during Trump’s first term in office. Their talks led to a deal in which the socialist strongman agreed to accept future flights of Venezuelans deported by the Trump administration — a decision that immediately enraged Venezuelans in South Florida with temporary status who now fear they will be sent back to a nation that has suffered economic collapse under Maduro’s authoritarian rule. The question that immediately arose for observers after the stunning news last week was whether strings were attached to the deal: What was Maduro promised by the U.S. government in exchange for agreeing to take back Venezuelans deportees? Although details of the Jan. 31 meeting in Caracas have not been fully disclosed and Trump administration officials claim no quid pro quo was discussed, three sources familiar with the situation said that Maduro’s goal was to leverage his country’s acceptance of the Venezuelan deportees for the partial or complete lifting of U.S. sanctions against Venezuela’s state-owned oil-company, Petróleos de Venezuela, PDVSA. The sanctions, which have severely limited the Venezuelan oil industry’s access to the U.S. market, were imposed by the Trump administration in 2019. At his meeting with Trump’s envoy, Maduro requested that the U.S. Treasury Department renew a license that will allow Chevron USA to produce oil out of Venezuela for another six months. The license was extended on Feb. 1, the day after the Maduro-Grenell meeting.
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While you were sleeping...judges were hard at work.
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x The Judge's order blocking Trump from putting 2,200 USAID workers on administrative leave and reinstating the 500 that were already on administrative leave. My latest: www.muellershewrote.com/p/judge-nich...
[image or embed] — Mueller, She Wrote (@muellershewrote.bsky.social) February 7, 2025 at 9:52 PM
From the article. Judge Nichols' Order Blocking Trump From Gutting USAID. www.muellershewrote.com/…
If you’ve listened to the Jack podcast for a while, you’ll remember Trump-appointed Carl Nichols as the lone judge who interpreted 1512(c)(2) as needing to be about a document, record, or other object. The appeals court overturned his ruling but he teed up the oligarchs on the Supreme Court to gut the statute on appeal. Jack Smith saw it coming a mile away and wrote his indictment on the narrower interpretation of the statute, but none of that mattered after SCOTUS crowned Trump king and he was re-elected by a handful of votes in a handful of states. But I digress. Tonight, Judge Nichols blocked Trump’s attempt to put 2,200 USAID employees on administrative leave. DoJ lawyers argued (and this had to be embarrassing for them) that because Trump decided USAID was a fraud, he didn’t need to justify putting 2,200 employees on paid leave. And when asked by the judge what these specific employees did to warrant an immediate adverse personnel action, the DoJ lawyer said that Secretary Rubio shouldn’t have to provide that information.
Its long, but worth a read.
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This is a really good explainer from Marc Elias on the constitutionally of DOGE. I've been wondering a lot about just this thing. The Legal Challenges to Elon Musk’s DOGE, Explained. www.democracydocket.com/…
Ever since President Donald Trump announced in November that he was creating something called the Department of Government Efficiency — cheekily shorthanded as DOGE — and it would be run by billionaire Elon Musk, it’s drawn intense skepticism and scrutiny. For starters, a president can’t just create a new federal agency via executive order — that can only happen through an act of Congress. Then what is DOGE? In essence, what Trump did is rename the United States Digital Service — created within the Executive Office of the President under Barack Obama to improve all the federal and executive websites — into DOGE and retooled its mission to hunt down fraud and waste within federal agencies. Naturally, chaos and uncertainty ensued. What authority does DOGE actually have? Are attempts to gain access to sensitive and classified data from federal agencies legal? And what can be done about it?
Click the link to read more.
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Yeah, about that cutting of government waste...
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Hegseth gets in on the grift act.
x Pete Hegseth attacks a former colleague and Fox corespondent for reporting on a letter sent by Dems on the House Appropriations Committee.
[image or embed] — Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) February 7, 2025 at 5:39 PM
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x So the only asylum seekers the US will now admit are White people from former apartheid South Africa.
[image or embed] — Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) February 7, 2025 at 5:29 PM
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Fuck You Bill Cassidy. He's a friggin' doctor for Dog's sake.
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Leaving things on a lighter note.
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Evening Shade Seekers! Happy Iowa Day!
Happy Global Movie Day!
Happy National Opera Day!
Happy National Boy Scouts Day! Two legged or four legged, scouting is good.
AND, Happy National Fly a Kite Day!
Tomorrow is National Pizza Day and National Pork Rinds Day. Yum!
[END]
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