<....The DOGE team’s buzz saw approach to Social Security and Medicaid and Medicare is where the administration’s disinterest in demographics is particularly glaring. By the end of this year, almost 12,000 people in the U.S. will be turning 65 daily as all those Baby Boomers stampede into retirement. Social Security staffing was already at a 50-year low, and the administration plans to further cut 7,000 workers, or almost 12% of the staff.

A fifth reason Social Security is likely to continue to go through the DOGE wringer is its vast trove of sensitive information. Data holds value — especially in the world of technology, where software and apps are constantly scooping up personal information. The Social Security Administration touches almost every working American in some way, and SSA employees have traditionally taken strict steps to protect all that data. Access is limited even within the administration’s various departments, and SSA employees annually take an oath to protect that information. Even inadvertently disclosing data could result in a five-year prison sentence and a $5,000 fine for every violation, Laura Haltzel, former associate commissioner at the SSA, said on the podcast “You Earned This.”

There’s no evidence that DOGE marauders who swept into the Social Security Administration allegedly looking for waste, abuse and fraud signed a similar oath or that they consider Americans’ data sacred.

“The magnitude of the data that is being shared through DOGE is so much bigger than probably most people even realize,” Haltzel said.

Finally, the Trump administration conflates need with weakness and associates wealth with strength. Musk seems to view the program as excessive largesse and not money people have earned. Yes, earned with FICA payroll tax deductions that have been taken out of their paychecks every week with the full expectation that they would get some assistance in their elderly years. (FICA stands for Federal Insurance Contribution Act — and those deductions earn future credits for Social Security benefits.)

Social Security is a social contract that has worked in this country for 90 years, and while the billionaire class has no need to pay attention to the FICA deduction in paychecks, voters in both red and blue America will indeed notice if their Social Security payments don’t appear. They will complain. It will be loud. And it will be justified.

About one-quarter of the aged live in households that receive at least 90% of family income from Social Security.

To say it is a lifeline is not an understatement. According to a 2017 report from the Social Security Administration, “roughly half of the aged population live in households that receive at least 50 percent of total family income from Social Security and about one-quarter of the aged live in households that receive at least 90 percent of family income from Social Security.”

If Trump breaks his promise to protect Social Security, that’s devastatingly bad news for America. Social Security is an anti-poverty program, and ending it or even severely curtailing it would have catastrophic effects.

Social Security is called a third rail for a reason. And if Trump and his billionaire aids [sic] touch it they’ll give Democrats the issue they need to wage a righteous fight on behalf of all Americans.>

<[Event "19th World Open"] [Site "Philadelphia PA"]
[Date "1991.07.??"]
[EventDate "1991"]
[Round "?"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Garcia, Gildardo"]
[Black "Wolff, Patrick"]
[ECO "B63"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<We began hearing talk last week that House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan’s (R-OH) upcoming hearings on supposed “abuses” of judicial authority might serve as a placeholder for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) actually entertaining the idea of judicial impeachments (which he doesn’t have the votes for) before the House passes its big, beautiful budget bill next month.

It looked like it might be used as a potential consolation prize for those pushing for the impeachment of U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who has been handling the Alien Enemies Act case, and other judges who have blocked some of Trump’s most lawless executive actions in recent weeks. On top of hearings, House Republican leadership was also expected to move forward with a bill introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) that would place limits on some judges’ authority to issue nationwide injunctions. The “No Rogue Rulings Act” was voted out of the House Judiciary Committee in early March. It has remained unclear whether House Republicans have the votes to actually pass Issa’s measure.

But on Tuesday, House Republicans escalated their rhetoric around how exactly they may act to help Trump in his efforts to defy constitutional checks and balances. Politico had reported on Monday that Jordan planned to talk to the House Appropriations Committee about funding for the judicial branch. Jordan made remarks to reporters today that appear to confirm his interest in defunding the courts (at least, the ones that rule in ways Trump doesn’t like). The Appropriations Committee will soon begin its work crafting the bipartisan funding bills that Congress will need to pass to fund the government once the CR they just passed runs out in September. Per NBC News:

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who plans to hold a hearing focused on Boasberg and district judges next week, said he’s speaking with GOP appropriators about what he called “legislative remedies.”

“We got money, spending, the appropriations process to help try to address some of this,” Jordan said, without adding further details.

Johnson took things several steps further during his weekly press conference on Tuesday, when he floated the possibility that Congress might “eliminate” certain federal courts. My colleagues Emine Yücel spoke to House Democrats about Johnson’s remarks this afternoon. You can read that piece here, but per Emine:

The bafflement from the House Judiciary Democrats comes after Johnson spoke candidly to reporters about House Republicans’ options for acting on Trump’s judiciary grievances Tuesday. Several members of the House Republican conference have floated various actions they want to take to rein in federal judges who have angered Trump by blocking some of his administration’s most lawless executive actions in recent weeks.

“We do have the authority over the federal courts, as you know. We can eliminate an entire district court. We have power of funding over the courts and all these other things,” Johnson told reporters during a press conference. “But desperate times call for desperate measures, and Congress is going to act.”....>

<....There were plenty of truly stunning moments today as members of the Senate Intelligence Committee grilled DNI Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe about how on earth an Atlantic editor was added to a war-planning group chat the nation’s top intelligence officials — and why they were using a commercially available app to discuss classified information in the first place. Aaron Rupar documents some of the most befuddling dodges from the two here.

The baffled reactions are not just coming from Democrats. Republicans have piped up — a bit — too, voicing “concern.” Senate Armed Service Chair Roger Wicker (R-MS) confirmed to reporters Tuesday that his committee would be investigating what exactly happened with what is starting to be referred to as SignalGate.

“We’re going to look into this and see what the facts are, but it’s definitely a concern. And you can be sure the committee, House and Senate, will be looking into this,” Wicker said Tuesday, adding the understatement of the year:

“And it appears that mistakes were made, no question.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi’s on Sunday warned Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) about her participation in a non-violent “TeslaTakedown” conference call. Now, Bondi is also demanding an apology from Crockett. The ongoing saga is another bizarre example of Trump’s Justice Department using its authority to go after the President’s — and, now, Elon Musk’s — perceived political enemies.

Crockett specifically noted during the “TeslaTakedown” conference call last week that she was not advocating for violence of any kind. But in response, Bondi still advised Crockett to “tread very carefully.”

During a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity Monday night, Bondi said that Crockett should apologize to Tesla shareholders and to the country: “She must apologize immediately not only to all Texans, but to our country, to the American shareholders of Tesla, because she is promoting violence.”>

Jasmine Crockett should tell Pam Blunder to f*** off and die.

<[Event "19th World Open"] [Site "Philadelphia PA"]
[Date "1991.07.??"]
[EventDate "1991"]
[Round "?"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[White "Ivanov, Alexander"]
[Black "Lesiege, Alexandre"]
[ECO "B81"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<By design, presidents have no power over the conduct of federal elections. President Donald Trump’s recent executive order on election administration aims to flip that, trying to take power from both an independent bipartisan federal agency and from the states, in an affront to principles of federalism. This dangerous power grab signals further democratic backsliding.

Most other democracies such as Canada or Australia have a national body that administers national elections. The United States, on the other hand, leaves the administration of federal elections to states and counties, with additional rules imposed by Congress under its constitutional power to regulate congressional elections.

It’s dangerous to put such power in the hands of the president.

After the disputed 2000 election, Congress used those powers to pass the Help America Vote Act which, among other things, established the United States Election Assistance Commission: a federal agency that approves voting technologies eligible for federal subsidies and advises states and counties on best practices. The EAC is described as “independent” in the congressional statute; it has four members, no more than two from any single political party, and it takes three commissioners to approve anything. The design is meant to be bipartisan and independent of political branches, insulating the agency from some politics.

Trump’s executive order tries to turn that around. It purports to direct the EAC to do certain things such as require documentary proof of citizenship on a form that the federal government provides to allow people to register to vote anywhere in the United States for federal elections.

Requiring documentary proof of citizenship to be allowed to register to vote is currently under debate both in Congress and in the states (Arizona has such rules, though they are tied up in litigation). Whether a documentary requirement is a good idea — and I think it is a bad idea, because it could disenfranchise millions of eligible voters and prevent only a tiny amount of fraud — the issue is up to the states and Congress, not to the president.

It’s dangerous to put such power in the hands of the president, who could attempt to manipulate election rules to favor his party and his self-interest. And it seems especially dangerous to take power away from the states when there are many threats to our democracy.

Republicans seemed to understand this point in the past. When Joe Biden was president, he issued his own executive order on voting. The order was a mild one, asking federal agencies to promote voter access and voter registration. Yet Republicans were outraged. Rep. Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, the chair of the House Administration Committee, issued a press release calling the order “another attempt by the Biden Administration to tilt the scales ahead of 2024.” Then-West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner dismissed the order as “federal overreach.”

If that order was an overreach, what Trump is trying to do now risks dislocating his proverbial arm from its socket. Not only does the executive order try to direct the independent EAC to take certain action, it also directs the attorney general to sue states that accept and count ballots that are mailed before Election Day but arrive after that day. And it purports to give the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Government Efficiency the power to subpoena voter registration records from states in a silly hunt for elusive voter fraud.

In the first Trump administration, an advisory commission on “election integrity” chaired by Vice President Mike Pence tried to go after similar voting records. Pence and the commission got pushback from both Democrats and Republicans. One GOP official who refused to hand over such records was Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann. “As all of you may remember, I fought in federal court to protect Mississippi voters’ rights for their privacy and won,” he said in 2017. “In the event I were to receive correspondence from the commission requesting (what the other state received) ... My reply would be: They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi is a great state to launch from.”

I hope Republican officials have a similar response this time around — minus the reference to the “Gulf of Mexico” of course.>

<Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene told a Sky News reporter to "go back to your country" on Wednesday for asking questions related to the Trump administration's recent Signal group chat mishap regarding attack plans in Yemen.

Newsweek reached out to Greene's office and Sky News for comment.

The White House has been in defense mode this week after Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was accidentally sent attack plans conveying the specific timings of a United States strike set to occur against Houthi targets in Yemen.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth updated numerous department officials within a Signal chat that included Goldberg, including distinct times of attacks and how they would be administered. National security adviser Mike Waltz inadvertently invited Goldberg to the chat.

The situation has led to questions about why top U.S. officials were sharing purportedly classified information over a messaging app and how nobody seemed to realize that Goldberg was present in the chat.

During a meeting with the press, Greene was asked by Sky News reporter Martha Kelner about the Signal chat and the sensitivity of the content.

"Should the defense secretary—" Kelner attempted to ask Greene before the representative swiftly interjected.

"Wait, what country are you from?" Greene asks Kelner, who is from the United Kingdom.

"OK, we don't give a crap about your opinion and your reporting," Greene said. "Why don't you go back to your country where you have a major migrant problem? You should care about your own borders...Do you care about your own country? What about all the women that [sic] are raped by migrants?"

As Kelner ignored Greene's remarks and continued to ask questions about Signal, Greene said, "No, no, no, we're done."

She then called on "an American journalist" for questions, to which the unidentified male reporter said, "I'd like to hear your answer to what [Kelner's] asking."

Greene ignored the question and blamed former President Joe Biden's administration for "open borders," adding that Trump and his team have done "a great job." The exchange was caught on C-SPAN and has been viewed millions of times on X.

Kelner later followed Greene after the press conference, asking if Hegseth should resign.

"Absolutely not," Greene said, walking away. "He's doing a great job."

National security adviser Mike Waltz told Fox News: "We're going to get to the bottom of it. I just talked to Elon on the way here, we've got the best technical minds looking at how this happened, but I can tell you, I can tell you for 100 percent, I don't know this guy [Goldberg]. I know him by his horrible reputation and he really is a bottom scum of journalists, and I know him in the sense that he hates the president but I don't text him, he wasn't on my phone and we're going to figure out how this happened."

Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, told MSNBC: "The secretary of defense seems like a person who is unserious and is trying to deflect from the fact that he participated in a conversation on an unclassified messaging app that he probably shouldn't have participated in."

Senator Roger Wicker, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is requesting an expedited Inspector General probe of the Signal group chat leak.

Wicker told reporters he was working with the committee's Democratic ranking member, Senator Jack Reed, to request the probe and seek a classified briefing.>