Law be damned, Trump asserts unilateral control over executive branch, federal service (3 Viewers)

bird said:

What the absolute fork is wrong with this country?

Click to expand...

how much time do you have?

UncleTrvlingJim said:

how much time do you have?

Click to expand...

I’m too old for that length of time.

So...while at work today, I learned that Government Purchase Cards which are a common means of purchasing supplies, office equipment, training materials, reserving conference rooms for events among other things, has been frozen for a minimum of 30 days based on another executive order.

This is one of the ways the agency programs I work with are able to make purchases of things that help the program achieve their mission. This is elementary stuff like printer ink, basic office supplies, equipment for those with accessibility issues, books or subscriptions for SMEs to reference and utilize, etc. The cardholders are now in a pickle because they can't pay for items that actually already have funding allocated to. People are now going to put off training, products that already have an agreed upon price could see price increases and this would hinder offices from being able to fully accomplish their mission.

Even though I work with an agency that involves national security we're being directly impacted by these executive orders. Ergo national security is being impacted if not outright compromised.

This sheet is becoming intolerable.

I read today that one of Musk’s henchmen told the judge that they cannot “turn the spending back on” even though the judge ordered them to do so a few days ago. This was specifically USAID, I think.

I will see if I can find the article.

President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order making English the official language of the United States, three White House officials told CNBC on Friday.

The order would establish a national language for the first time in U.S. history.

Trump's order would also rescind former President Bill Clinton's August 2000 directive requiring agencies and other recipients of federal funds to provide services for those with limited English proficiency, according to a fact sheet shared with CNBC.

Trump's designation will allow federal agencies to maintain their current policies and continue to provide documents and services in other languages. But it "encourages new Americans to adopt a national language that opens doors to greater opportunities," according to the fact sheet.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the order earlier Friday morning.

Trump's schedule for Friday does not currently include any time for signing executive orders. A White House source did not immediately say when Trump was expected to sign the order.

More than half of U.S. states have formally established English their official language. But the federal government has never done the same.

About one-in-five Americans — nearly 68 million — spoke a language other than English at home in 2019, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That figure was nearly triple where it stood in 1980.

The White House fact sheet argues that having a national language "strengthens the fabric of our society" by promoting unity and civic engagement, as well as establishing "efficiency in government operations.".............

Optimus Prime said:

President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order making English the official language of the United States, three White House officials told CNBC on Friday.

The order would establish a national language for the first time in U.S. history.

Trump's order would also rescind former President Bill Clinton's August 2000 directive requiring agencies and other recipients of federal funds to provide services for those with limited English proficiency, according to a fact sheet shared with CNBC.

Trump's designation will allow federal agencies to maintain their current policies and continue to provide documents and services in other languages. But it "encourages new Americans to adopt a national language that opens doors to greater opportunities," according to the fact sheet.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the order earlier Friday morning.

Trump's schedule for Friday does not currently include any time for signing executive orders. A White House source did not immediately say when Trump was expected to sign the order.

More than half of U.S. states have formally established English their official language. But the federal government has never done the same.

About one-in-five Americans — nearly 68 million — spoke a language other than English at home in 2019, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That figure was nearly triple where it stood in 1980.

The White House fact sheet argues that having a national language "strengthens the fabric of our society" by promoting unity and civic engagement, as well as establishing "efficiency in government operations.".............

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/28/trump-english-official-language-order.html

Trump signs order designating English as the official language of the US

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order designating English as the official language of the United States.

apnews.com

Click to expand...

well, none of those services will be around so the point is mute. Wait I thought the government could not infringe on free speech???

A Washington DC art gallery has abruptly cancelled two exhibitions featuring Black and LGBTQ+ artists, prompting accusations that it has caved in to Donald Trump’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes.

The Art Museum of the Americas, run by the Organization of American States (OAS), was due to present the shows Nature’s Wild with Andil Gosine and Before the Americas in March.

The decision to pull the exhibits coincided with an executive order issued by the Trump administration directing a review of relationships with international organisations that receive US funding. To Gosine, it is an alarming example of pre-emptive capitulation – obeying in advance.

“There’s a long history of the arts being attacked by conservative forces,” the 51-year-old Canadian artist and curator told the Guardian. “What I’m disappointed about with the OAS is that this is not Trump’s action; this is anticipating. This for me is even scarier because it feels like we have this closeup view to how fascism unfolds.”


The cancellation was a crushing blow for Gosine, a professor of environmental arts and justice at York University in Toronto, who put years of work into the exhibition. It was inspired by his 2021 book Nature’s Wild: Love, Sex and Law in the Caribbean, which explored ideas about ecology, sexuality and human rights. His preference for working with public institutional spaces led him to the OAS and its Art Museum of the Americas in Washington.

“For three years they have been consistently enthusiastic,” he said. “Every time I proposed something they were quick to write letters of support for it. They seemed very happy up to the day before cancellation; I have all these enthusiastic emails. I don’t think we had one bad word in that time.”

Gosine added: “I have not put more resources or time into any project. This was to be the feather in my cap because it was a very personal project. I grew up in Trinidad; the exhibition was around unpacking a life. The signature image for the exhibition was an image of me at three years [old].”

The show was to include works by a dozen artists from across the Americas, many of them LGBTQ+ people of colour. It was to feature sculpture, photography, video, acrylic paintings, oil paintings and collage including a video installation by the Black artist Lorraine O’Grady, who died in December aged 90.

Gosine used funds awarded to him to keep the budget as low as possible, for example creating work in the US so it would not have to be shipped from Canada. World Pride had selected it as one of their marquee arts events and organised dedicated programming. The opening date was brought forward to 21 March so that a Canadian mission could visit.

But at 9am on 5 February Gosine received a phone call from the museum’s director, Adriana Ospina. “She said: ‘I’ve been ordered to cancel the exhibition.’ She didn’t give a direct reason. I mean, I was in shock. Never in a million years.

“There are lots of challenges to this space; I was prepared to make up for all of them. But there would be no discussion. She alluded to budget restraints at their museum but that was perplexing because in fact they were contributing almost nothing to the show.”………

‘I was in shock’: DC gallery pulls exhibits of Black and LGBTQ+ artists amid Trump DEI crackdown

Art Museum of the Americas’ abrupt cancellation after anti-diversity order is ‘how fascism unfolds’, curator says

www.theguardian.com

MT15 said:

Click to expand...

Here is what will happen. The database of transactions will be hacked and the fake money looted. The crapto itself is not the issue. The issue is the supporting infrastructure which will be inherently unsafe.

In New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward, Arthur Johnson has witnessed firsthand the vital role trees play, from filtering pollution to providing respite from the scorching summer sun.

But two decades after Hurricane Katrina decimated 200,000 trees across the city, including many in Johnson's own neighborhood, efforts to restore the tree canopy face a significant setback.

The US Forest Service's recent decision to terminate a $75 million grant to the Arbor Day Foundation has dealt a blow to communities struggling to afford tree planting initiatives.

The program, designed to bring green spaces to underserved neighborhoods, has become the latest casualty of the Trump administration's campaign against environmental justice.

The grant termination has had a direct impact on organizations like Sustaining Our Urban Landscape (SOUL), an environmental group working in New Orleans' historically Black communities. Having already planted over 1,600 trees, SOUL has now been forced to halt plans for an additional 900, leaving a void in the ongoing effort to restore the city's green spaces.

Those are trees that largely low-income residents otherwise couldn’t afford to plant or maintain, said the 71-year-old Johnson, who runs a local nonprofit, the Lower 9th Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development, that has helped SOUL with its work and done some tree plantings of its own in the area.

“You're not just cutting out the tree, the environment” with such cuts, said Johnson. If those trees aren’t replaced and more aren’t continually added, “it really takes a toll on the sustainability of the Lower 9th Ward and its community.”

The benefits of trees are vast. They capture stormwater and replenish groundwater. They help clean the air in polluted areas, improve mental health, and cool air and surfaces of the built environment, especially during heat waves that are growing more intense and frequent with climate change.

One study by the UCLA Luskin Center found that shade can reduce heat stress on the human body from 25 percent to 35 percent throughout the day. And much research shows that low-income and communities of color have fewer trees — and are hotter — than better-off neighborhoods.

The Arbor Day Fund's grant was part of former President Joe Biden's signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, which sent $1.5 billion to the forest service’s Urban and Community Forestry program. In a Feb. 14 email canceling the grant, the Forest Service wrote that the award "no longer effectuates agency priorities regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and activities.”

But Dan Lambe, the Arbor Day Foundation's chief executive, said the projects weren't just going to serve disadvantaged people. They were going to benefit every member of the community, he said. In total, 105 nonprofits, municipalities and Indigenous organizations — from Alaska to Florida to Maine — have lost funding for critical environmental projects, the foundation said.

“This was an opportunity to make a really meaningful impact on people’s lives, so it’s been disappointing," Lambe said.

The Forest Service didn't say if other recipients of the $1.5 billion forestry investment also had grants terminated. In a statement, its parent agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said the agency was following directions to comply with Trump's executive orders.

“Protecting the people and communities we serve, as well as the infrastructure, businesses, and resources they depend on to grow and thrive, remains a top priority for the USDA and the Forest Service,” the agency said.

For SOUL in New Orleans, losing the grant means they don't have the money to water trees already planted, and they've had to drop plans to hire three people. Another $2.5 million grant is on hold due to the federal funding freeze, and founder and executive director Susannah Burley said the nonprofit's survival is uncertain. Its annual budget is a little more than $1 million.

“We kind of are lost because we don’t know if we should be planning to close our doors or if we should be planning for next season,” she said.

For others who were set to get Arbor Day Foundation money, the loss is not existential but still devastating. In the city-county of Butte-Silver Bow in southwest Montana, forester Trevor Peterson was going to use a $745,250 grant to buy chain saws, rigging gear and other essential tools, remove up to 200 dead or dying cottonwoods and plant as many as 1,000 trees as part of a decades-long effort to replenish trees cut to make way for copper mining. He wanted to help organize large community events focused on education, hoping to impart the knowledge necessary for future stewardship of the urban forest.

“We will now have to go back to the drawing board to determine where to go from here,” he said.

Jackson County, Oregon, was awarded a $600,000 grant to replant trees after wildfires in 2020 destroyed thousands of homes and charred more than 60,000 trees. The town of Talent lost two-thirds of its trees..........

MT15 said:

Click to expand...

Ma he is going to rake the scam money in.

superchuck500 said:

Click to expand...

This administration is evil.