Sign in

jlevy

@jlevy1954.bsky.social
17 followers 9 following 82 posts
PostsRepliesMedia
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 13/04/2025
Yesterday's NY Times reported that the library of the U.S. Naval Academy, by order of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, has purged books critical of racism but kept those defending white power. For example, Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" is out, while Hitler's "Mein Kampf" is in.
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 29/03/2025
The constitutional guardrails are straining but still hold, for now: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau lives for another day, thanks to Judge Amy Berman Jackson. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
storage.courtlistener.com
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
Thank you for your service. As a token of our thanks, we bring you VA voicemail hell. www.cnn.com/2025/03/28/p...
cnn.com
‘Heartless and Dangerous’: Slashing of VA call centers part of aggressive layoff plan | CNN Politics
The call centers that America’s military veterans rely on to schedule appointments and arrange medical care may no longer have a live voice on the other end of the line because the agents who handle t...
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
“We will never know if SpaceX would authentically win competitions for these awards because all of the offices in government intended to prevent corruption and conflicts of interest have been beheaded or defunded.” www.nytimes.com/2025/03/23/u...
nytimes.com
Musk Is Positioned to Profit Off Billions in New Government Contracts
The boost in federal spending for SpaceX will come in part as a result of actions by President Trump and Elon Musk’s allies and employees who hold government positions. Supporters say he has the best ...
022
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
To gain concessions on Ukraine, Putin gives Pres. Trump a “beautiful portrait” commissioned from a Russian artist. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/24/w... The gift seems to be working.
nytimes.com
Putin’s Aims in Trump Talks on Ukraine
Moscow sees economic and geopolitical benefits in humoring President Trump’s push for a cease-fire in Ukraine. But the Kremlin’s war aims haven’t shifted.
120
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
Trump DUI hire, Peter Hegseth, broke rules and endangered the military. He needs to resign. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/24/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | If Pete Hegseth Had Any Honor, He Would Resign
A defense secretary intentionally using a civilian app to share sensitive war plans without noticing a journalist was in the chat would be egregious.
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
“Only one word for this: FUBAR,” Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.), an Army veteran who sits on the Armed Services Committee, wrote on X. www.politico.com/news/2025/03...
politico.com
‘Amateur hour’: Washington aghast at Trump administration's war plan group chat
Democratic lawmakers also called for investigations and hearings on the incident.
010
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
Here's today's ruling by Judge Boasberg continuing to block Trump's deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members. The ruling was cautious and well thought out. A key point: the deportees are owed a due process right to try to prove they weren't gang members. ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show...
ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov
010
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
Hillary was pilloried for using private server. This is far worse.
080
Reposted by jlevy
Financial Times @financialtimes.com · 24/03/2025
The apparent security breach published by the Atlantic magazine has triggered a firestorm in Washington, with both Democratic and Republican politicians lambasting Donald Trump's administration. www.ft.com/content/ddb1...
49378109
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
HOW WE CARE FOR VETERANS, THEN AND NOW THEN: Abraham Lincoln: We must "care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan…" NOW: Under Donald Trump and DOGE, mental care for vets is trashed. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/22/u...
nytimes.com
Trump and DOGE Propel V.A. Mental Health System Into Turmoil
A chaotic restructuring order threatens to degrade services for veterans of wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 22/03/2025
The Alien Enemies Act applies only when "the President ... shall make public proclamation" that there is been a war or invasion by a foreign nation. Trump now admits he didn't sign the proclamation that led to flying alleged gang members to a prison in El Salvador! The deportation was invalid.
010
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 22/03/2025
Somehow I don't think Lutnick relates to the common man.
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 22/03/2025
Pres. Trump, who accused Pres. Biden of not having signed his pardons, or not knowing what he was signing, now says that he (Trump) didn't sign the proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act, even though the Federal Register shows one with his signature. Crazy. www.cnn.com/2025/03/21/p...
cnn.com
Trump says he didn’t sign proclamation invoking Alien Enemies Act | CNN Politics
President Donald Trump on Friday downplayed his involvement in invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1789 to deport Venezuelan migrants, saying for the first time that he hadn’t signed the proclamation, e...
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
And another dictator for Trump: the Chinese state news media is gloating about drastic budget cuts to Voice of America and Radio Free Asia. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/w...
nytimes.com
Chinese Nationalists Praise Trump’s Cuts to Voice of America
Beijing has long criticized the outlet, as well as Radio Free Asia, for highlighting human rights abuses in China.
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
Another dictator for Trump: Trump deported hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador this week, paying that country $6 million to take them. El Salvador's leader, who sought the deal, has called himself the world's "coolest dictator." www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/w...
nytimes.com
Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s Leader, Sees Opportunity in Trump’s Deportations
President Nayib Bukele’s role in the Trump administration’s deportation strategy signals a new level of power and global visibility for the young leader.
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
Health Secretary RFK, Jr. would allow bird flue to spread unchecked on poultry farms. Scientists say that would be disastrous. To paraphrase Dirty Harry, "Do you feel lucky, punk?" www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/h...
nytimes.com
RFK Jr.’s Prescription for Bird Flu on Farms: Let It Spread
The health secretary has suggested allowing the virus to spread, so as to identify birds that may be immune. Such an experiment would be disastrous, scientists say.
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
Perhaps some of the deportees are gang members. But given this record of falsehood, they should have a chance to ask a court to consider whether they are in fact “alien enemies” under the statute before they’re sent away to do hard time in a foreign jail.
010
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
Pres. Trump himself has lied about winning the 2020 election, hush money to Stormy Daniels, sexually assaulting E. Jean Carroll, and the war in the Ukraine. He made over 30,000 false or misleading claims during his first administration, an average of 21 per day. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_o...
en.wikipedia.org
False or misleading statements by Donald Trump - Wikipedia
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
DOGE’s “wall of receipts,” a list of supposed savings to the public from contract cuts, has been riddled with basic mistakes, greatly overstating the actual savings. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/03/u...; www.politifact.com/article/2025...
nytimes.com
Struggling With Errors, DOGE Deletes Billions More From List of Savings
For the second time in a week, Elon Musk’s government overhaul effort updated its “wall of receipts” to remove mistakes that inflated its success.
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
While Musk has bragged that DOGE has laid off only unproductive workers, but many received their pink slips after recent glowing reviews. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/02/u...; data4democracy.substack.com/p/the-doge-p....
nytimes.com
Horticulturists, Biologists, Engineers: Federal ‘Bloat’ or Valued Experts?
President Trump’s effort to remake the government is a direct challenge to a decades-long effort to build a civil service stocked with experts. Critics say it will backfire.
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
Apart from Vladeck’s points, this administration simply cannot be taken at its word when it says the deportees are all gang members. Trump and his team have a long trail of false statements. They are like the little boy who cried wolf. Here are some examples:
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
This assertion ignores two centuries of cases confirming that courts have the power and duty to determine whether a proposed deportee is, in fact, an “enemy” under the relevant definition. Professor Vladeck discussed those cases in a law journal 2007 article. law.lclark.edu/live/files/9...
law.lclark.edu
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele then gloated, “Oopsie…Too late.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio later shared Bukele’s post from his personal account. The White House has asserted that the federal courts “have no jurisdiction” over the president’s power to expel foreign enemies.
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
Some of the immigrants sued the Trump administration in federal court in D.C. to stop their expulsion. The judge issued an oral and then a written order, putting the expulsion on hold. The flights to El Salvador took off anyway. www.justsecurity.org/109194/trump...
justsecurity.org
Is the Trump Administration Deliberately Violating a Federal Court Order?
Addressing the Trump administration's theories for why it did not violate a court order by deporting Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador.
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
Even if the deportees are bad dudes, that doesn’t turn them into a foreign nation (Venezuela) or its government. The 1798 act doesn’t apply. If there are good reasons to expel the immigrants, the Trump team should do so legally, instead of just flying them to a foreign prison without a hearing.
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
Trump’s team justified the deportation under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. But that act applies only to times of declared war or any “invasion or predatory incursion…by any foreign nation or government. www.justsecurity.org/109168/alien...
justsecurity.org
5 Big Questions in the Alien Enemies Act Litigation
Top expert discusses the major legal issues following Chief Judge Boasberg's ordering a temporary block to the presidential proclamation.
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
We are now facing a constitutional crisis. This weekend Trump's team deported hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants to a prison in El Salvador over the weekend. It appears that this action was without legal basis and a deliberate violation of a federal court order. Let me explain why.
1001
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has directed the military to revive the Confederate names of military bases, restoring honor to traitors to our country who fought for slavery. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/03/u....
nytimes.com
Hegseth Revives the Old Name of Another Military Base
The base’s name was changed to Fort Moore in 2023 as part of a bipartisan effort to eliminate military honors bestowed on Confederate officers.
010
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
Crypto currency has created great wealth for insiders and great losses for outside investors. It is a classic speculation that is fertile ground for pump-and-dump schemes. www.nytimes.com/2024/09/16/t...;
nytimes.com
Trump Rolls Out His New Cryptocurrency Business
In a livestream, Donald Trump formally introduced World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture led by two digital currency entrepreneurs with little experience running high-profile businesses.
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
Trump has proposed using taxpayer money to create a crypto currency reserve. Proposals for crypto reserves by Trump and his allies will include crypto currencies sponsored by his donors and Trump himself. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/04/b...; truthsocial.com/@realDonaldT...
nytimes.com
Trump’s Crypto Reserve Plan Raises Doubts. Here’s What We Know.
The prospect of using taxpayer money to stockpile cryptocurrencies in a national reserve has drawn criticism from lawmakers and investors.
100
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
U.S. consumers can expect to pay more for groceries, cars, gasoline, lumber, and consumer electronics. (And how’s the price of eggs these days?) Projected growth of the GDP recently flipped from +2.3% to -2.8%, and stock markets have plunged in recent days. www.forbes.com/sites/peterc...
forbes.com
Investors Seek Stock Market Crash Protection As Recession Fears Rise
Traders appeared to monetize — that is, take profits —from put options tied to the S&P 500, as the index’s latest struggles pushed many of those contracts into the...
010
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
Trump’s trade war, which the Wall Street Journal has called the “dumbest in history,” www.wsj.com/opinion/dona..., may well trigger a global recession. mishtalk.com/economics/a-...
wsj.com
Opinion | The Dumbest Trade War in History
Trump will impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico for no good reason.
100
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
The $175 million spent for Ukraine aid has been spread out over several years and, in total, represents only 0.0006% of America’s 2024 GDP of $29 trillion. And Ukrainians, not Americans, are now on the front lines, fighting, bleeding, and dying to defend the free world against Putin.
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
That’s still not chump change, but it’s far cheaper to deter Russian aggression now than to wait until our allies have been overrun and war has reached our doorstep. World War II cost the United States over $4 trillion in today’s dollars. www.wsj.com/livecoverage...
wsj.com
How Much Aid Has the U.S. Given to Ukraine?
President Trump–who on Monday paused military aid to Ukraine and is expected to address the issue in his speech to a joint session of Congress–has said the U.S. has spent a total of $350 billion
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
In last week's speech to Congress, Trump claimed that the U.S. has spent $300 million to aid Ukraine; the real figure is $175 million. www.wsj.com/livecoverage...
wsj.com
How Much Aid Has the U.S. Given to Ukraine?
President Trump–who on Monday paused military aid to Ukraine and is expected to address the issue in his speech to a joint session of Congress–has said the U.S. has spent a total of $350 billion
200
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
In short, Trump has now forfeited America’s status as the leader of the free world and abandoned alliances that have prevented a repeat of world wars for the past 80 years.
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
In foreign affairs, Trump has already trashed our longtime allies; ignited trade wars; threatened to seize Canada and Greenland; criticized Germany for shunning a neo-Nazi party; cozied up to Putin, a vicious tyrant, and put in doubt whether we will honor our mutual-defense agreements.
100
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
Although Trump promised voters he won’t touch Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, the Republican budget cannot meet its target of multi-billion spending cuts without slashing those programs. www.newsweek.com/donald-trump...; www.nytimes.com/2025/02/25/u....
newsweek.com
Donald Trump's deafening silence on Medicaid
The president did not mention the health care program during his speech to Congress, amid fears it will be victim to GOP spending cuts.
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
(The actual rate of Social Security overpayments is about 0.84% of the total, better than any private insurance company in the country, and with a lower cost of administration.) www.nytimes.com/2025/03/03/u...; www.politifact.com/article/2025...
nytimes.com
Struggling With Errors, DOGE Deletes Billions More From List of Savings
For the second time in a week, Elon Musk’s government overhaul effort updated its “wall of receipts” to remove mistakes that inflated its success.
000
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
Meanwhile, DOGE’s “wall of receipts,” a list of supposed savings, has crumbled as basic errors have come to light – millions confused with billions, triple counting, counting contracts already completed or cancelled years ago, and mistakenly thinking that Social Security is paid to 150-year-olds.
100
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
In addition to massive destruction to government operations, DOGE has stripped Americans of their privacy, as DOGE’s kiddie corps has gained access to Americans’ tax returns, health information, and bank accounts.
010
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
In other words, with Trump and DOGE, loyalty trumps competence, much as in Stalin’s Great Purge in 1937 and the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s.
010
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
It turns out that staffing cuts aren’t about efficiency; instead, they target employees and departments whose ideology the Trump team mistrusts. data4democracy.substack.com/p/the-doge-p....
data4democracy.substack.com
The DOGE Purge: Empirical Evidence of Politically Motivated Firings
And what it means for American Democracy
010
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
Musk brags that only unproductive workers are being laid off, but many received their pink slips after recent glowing reviews. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/02/u...
nytimes.com
Horticulturists, Biologists, Engineers: Federal ‘Bloat’ or Valued Experts?
President Trump’s effort to remake the government is a direct challenge to a decades-long effort to build a civil service stocked with experts. Critics say it will backfire.
210
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
The privatizing of the Weather Service and NOAA is good for Trump's cronies and bad for the rest of us. It is much like the way Putin gave away Russian assets to his oligarch pals.
020
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
Project 2025, the policy blueprint from Trump’s administration, called for NOAA to be dismantled and its data-gathering services to be “fully commercialized.” In other words, agency expertise and assets, paid for by taxpayers, will be transferred to private businesses.
011
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
Mass layoffs have occurred at the National Weather Service and its parent agency, NOAA. Those agencies have now lost irreplaceable experts in safeguarding the public from hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, and wildfires. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/w....
nytimes.com
231
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
Trump also referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers”; and he disparaged John McCain, a prisoner of the North Vietnamese for more than five years (“He’s not a war hero. I like people who weren’t captured.”) www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...
theatlantic.com
Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’
The president has repeatedly disparaged the intelligence of service members, and asked that wounded veterans be kept out of military parades, multiple sources tell The Atlantic.
011
jlevy @jlevy1954.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
It’s not surprising that Trump would slash the VA Department, with his contempt for veterans. He declined to visit an American cemetery near Paris in 2018 (“Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.”)
021