Top Items:
CNN:
Musk associates sought to use critical Treasury payment system to shut down USAID spending, emails show — Four days after Donald Trump's inauguration, Elon Musk's top lieutenants at the Treasury Department asked its acting secretary, a career civil servant, to immediately shut off …
Discussion:
Reuters, The Register, Bloomberg, One America News Network, Raw Story, Talking Points Memo, FedScoop, Axios, Fox Business, CNBC and Forbes
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New York Times:
Treasury Sought to Freeze Foreign Aid Payments, Emails Show — Trump administration appointees and allies of Elon Musk wanted to use the Treasury's sensitive payment system to block payments. — In the days after President Trump took office, as Elon Musk's team began pressing for access …
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo and Bloomberg
Lucas Ropek / Gizmodo:
America's Unions Sue DOGE, Launch the ‘Department of People Who Work for a Living’
Discussion:
Truthout, Washington Post, America's Unions, Daily Kos, E&E News, Axios, Business Insider and New York Times
NBC News:
Trump administration agrees to restrict DOGE access to Treasury Department payment systems
Trump administration agrees to restrict DOGE access to Treasury Department payment systems
Discussion:
CBS News, The Bulwark, Fox News, Ars Technica, WUSA, The Guardian, Common Dreams, DNyuz, The Gateway Pundit, UPI, The Hill, The Independent, Raw Story, NewsNation, Fox Business and Politico, more at Techmeme »
Reuters:
Musk's DOGE granted access to US Medicare and Medicaid systems
Musk's DOGE granted access to US Medicare and Medicaid systems
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, Axios, UPI, Breitbart, Healthcare Dive, ZeroHedge News, WXIA-TV, Fox News, Bloomberg, i shall wear …, USA Today, WGN-TV, Daily Mail, Lawyers, Guns & Money and Raw Story
Katherine Long / Wall Street Journal:
Exclusive | DOGE Staffer Resigns Over Racist Posts — A staffer for Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency whose access to U.S. Treasury payment systems was approved by a federal judge on Thursday has links to a deleted social-media account that advocated for racism and eugenics.
Discussion:
Forbes and Notes on the Crises
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Washington Post:
Musk's DOGE agents access sensitive personnel data, alarming security officials — The highly restricted data includes personally identifiable information for millions of federal employees maintained by the Office of Personnel Management.
Discussion:
Raw Story, Business Insider and Reuters
Joey McFadden / The Daily Beast:
Musk's DOGE Youngins Are Terrorizing Senior Gov Staffers
Zach Montague / New York Times:
Trump Administration Live Updates: Judge Delays Program Offering Federal Workers Incentives to Quit — Where Things Stand — Judge delays resignation plan: A federal judge in Massachusetts has stopped, at least temporarily, the Trump administration's effort to get federal employees …
Discussion:
Reuters, GovExec.com, CNBC, The Verge, Business Insider, CBS News and Eschaton
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Melissa Quinn / CBS News:
Deadline for Trump's federal worker buyout proposal temporarily blocked by judge — Washington — A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the Office of Personnel Management's deadline for federal employees to accept the Trump administration's “deferred resignation” offer.
Discussion:
Federal News Network, Washington Examiner, Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, CNN, USA Today, Raw Story, NBC News, Daily Caller News Foundation, The Daily Wire, Associated Press, FedSmith.com, The Gateway Pundit, ZeroHedge News, DNyuz, Bloomberg, The National Pulse, Semafor and Scripps News
Holly Otterbein / Politico:
Musk aims to hobble federal workers ahead of ‘buyout’ deadline — Countless staffers in the government are now grappling with what to do. — Elon Musk has declared war on the bureaucracy. And as a Thursday deadline nears for federal employees to take a “buyout,” he is looking to demoralize and wear down his enemy.
Discussion:
CNN, Federal News Network, Washington Post, Forbes, Blue Virginia, Townhall, FedSmith.com, The Guardian, Washingtonian, DNyuz and Washington Examiner
Associated Press:
Federal workers debate the legitimacy of financial incentives to quit as the deadline nears
Federal workers debate the legitimacy of financial incentives to quit as the deadline nears
Discussion:
Axios, Washington Examiner, Politico, NPR, Federal News Network, Business Insider, CBS News, UPI, FedScoop, Blaze Media, Reuters, NewsNation, WNYW-TV, The Guardian, MPR News, KRDO, WTOP News, USA Today, New York Daily News, abc7NY and The State of Illinois …
Daily Kos:
Trump taps televangelist kook to run new White House ‘faith’ office — Christian nationalism is in full swing after Donald Trump's Thursday announcement of a task force to “eradicate anti-Christian bias,” as well as a new White House Faith Office led by right-...
Discussion:
Blaze Media and Washington Post
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Brett Samuels / The Hill:
Trump announces task force to ‘eradicate anti-Christian bias’
Trump announces task force to ‘eradicate anti-Christian bias’
Discussion:
Associated Press, USA Today, New York Magazine, Al Jazeera, Washington Examiner, Daily Kos, Fox News, Raw Story, The Daily Signal, UPI, The Independent, NewsNation and CBS News
Noah Berlatsky / Public Notice:
Trump goes full colonialist
Trump goes full colonialist
Discussion:
New York Times, NBC News, Washington Post, Foreign Policy, Houston Public Media, Revolver News, Reuters, WTOP News, Washington Examiner, NOTUS, The Gateway Pundit, Crooks and Liars, Al Jazeera, Raw Story, Asia Times, Truthout, Associated Press, CBS News, The Floridian, Agence France-Presse, American Greatness, ABC News, The Daily Wire, freebeacon.com, Patterico's Pontifications, American Thinker, DCReport.org, The National Interest, MPR News, The Japan Times, Daily Kos and Wall Street Journal
David Gutman / The Seattle Times:
Judge in Seattle accuses Trump of trying to change the Constitution — A federal judge in Seattle has once again blocked the Trump administration's attempt to rescind birthright citizenship — the guarantee embedded in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that every person born in the U.S. is an American citizen.
Discussion:
New York Times, Fox News, Associated Press, Law & Crime, Oregon Capital Chronicle, The Gateway Pundit and Bloomberg
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Garrett Haake / NBC News:
Trump to sign an executive order sanctioning the International Criminal Court
Discussion:
USA Today, Reuters, The Gateway Pundit, IJR, Raw Story, Jewish Insider, NewsNation, New York Post, The Guardian and freebeacon.com
Zach Schonfeld / The Hill:
Judge rails against Trump in blocking birthright executive order for second time
Judge rails against Trump in blocking birthright executive order for second time
Discussion:
BBC, Townhall, NewsNation and SCOTUSblog
ABC News:
Rubio acting director of the National Archives — In addition to being the Secretary of State and the acting director of USAID, Marco Rubio is also the acting archivist of the United States, according to a high-level official. — Per the official, Rubio has been the acting archivist since shortly …
Discussion:
Washington Examiner
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Jason Koebler / 404 Media:
National Archives Workers Unsure If Marco Rubio Has Secretly Been Their Boss for Weeks
National Archives Workers Unsure If Marco Rubio Has Secretly Been Their Boss for Weeks
Discussion:
The Bulwark and Fox News, more at Mediagazer »
Akayla Gardner / Bloomberg:
Trump Will Seek to End Carried Interest, Expand SALT in Tax Bill — White House unveils additions to tax priorities as talks begin — Trump seeks to end tax breaks for billionaire sports owners — President Donald Trump outlined his tax priorities in a meeting with Republican lawmakers …
Discussion:
CNBC, Washington Examiner and The Daily Wire
RELATED:
Washington Post:
Elon Musk's DOGE is feeding sensitive federal data into AI to target cuts — At the Department of Education, the tech billionaire's team has turned to artificial intelligence to hunt for potential spending cuts — part of a broader plan to deploy the technology across the federal government.
Discussion:
Forbes, Gizmodo, Raw Story and Axios, more at Techmeme »
Wired:
DOGE Teen Owns ‘Tesla.Sexy LLC’ and Worked at Startup That Has Hired Convicted Hackers — Experts question whether Edward Coristine, a DOGE staffer who has gone by “Big Balls” online, would pass the background check typically required for access to sensitive US government systems.
Daniel Wu / Washington Post:
Gutting USAID threatens billions of dollars for U.S. farms, businesses — U.S. businesses that sold goods and services to USAID are in limbo, including American farms dealing in rice, wheat and soybeans purchased as food aid.
Discussion:
Lawyers, Guns & Money, Foreign Policy, Raw Story and Blaze Media
Sigal Samuel / Vox:
JD Vance accidentally directed us to a crucial moral question — Theology isn't usually part of the job description for America's vice president, but that's not stopping JD Vance from giving it a try just a couple of weeks into his new position. — In a Fox News segment on immigration …
Discussion:
Associated Press and Anglican Ink © 2025
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Chris Geidner / Law Dork:
A.G. Pam Bondi says Trump sets DOJ policy, all DOJ lawyers are “his lawyers” — Shortly after being sworn into office on Wednesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi went from the Oval Office to the Justice Department to do President Donald Trump's bidding. — Immediately issuing a series of orders …
Discussion:
Raw Story, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Townhall, New York Post, Daily Kos, The Post Millennial, Twitchy, Hollywood Life, DNyuz and Washington Post
RELATED:
Andrew Goudsward / Reuters:
Trump administration disbands task force targeting Russian oligarchs — The U.S. Justice Department under President Donald Trump is disbanding an effort started after Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine to enforce sanctions and target oligarchs close to the Kremlin.
Politico:
Note to Our Readers — POLITICO has been the subject of debate on X this week. Some of it has been misinformed, and some of it has been flat-out false. Let's set the record straight. — POLITICO has been the subject of debate on X this week. Some of it has been misinformed, and some of it has been flat-out false.
Discussion:
Axios, HotAir, The Hill, The Post Millennial, Fox News and ZeroHedge News, more at Mediagazer »
Wall Street Journal:
White House Preparing Order to Cut Thousands of Federal Health Workers — The executive order could come as soon as next week, if the Trump administration goes ahead with plans — The White House is working on an executive order to fire thousands of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services workers …
Discussion:
Baltimore Sun
Dara Kerr / The Guardian:
US immigration is gaming Google to create a mirage of mass deportations — Thousands of press releases about decade-old enforcement actions topped search results, all updated with a timestamp from after Trump's inauguration — News of mass immigration arrests has swept across the US over the past couple of weeks.
Dan Froomkin / Press Watch:
‘Trump Brazenly Defies Laws’ is not an A17 story — Donald Trump has repeatedly and flagrantly broken the law since reassuming the presidency. But the national media - whose mission is ostensibly to hold the powerful accountable - is treating it like the new normal.
Discussion:
New York Times
Noam Scheiber / New York Times:
Trump's Attacks on DEI Get Approval From Some in the Left Wing — Many Democrats and activists are rallying to defend diversity programs, but others say they distract from deeper efforts to address inequality. — A few days after President Trump issued an order urging the private sector to end …
Discussion:
HotAir
Alec MacGillis / ProPublica:
Memory-Holing Jan. 6: What Happens When You Try to Make History Vanish? — ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they're published. — On Jan. 10, the U.S. Department of Justice released a 123-page report …
Discussion:
Washington Post and NJTODAY.NET
Niraj Chokshi / New York Times:
Airline Pilots in the DC Plane Crash Acted as Expected, Experts Say — The pilots of the American Airlines regional jet in the Washington airport collision acted as expected, aviation safety experts and other pilots said. — Just after 8:43 p.m. on Jan. 29, an air traffic controller …
Discussion:
Washington Examiner and DNyuz
Bloomberg:
Fed Closes Climate Program, Ending Stress-Test Burden for Banks — US central bank initiated the pilot program two years ago — Decision impacts lenders, including JPMorgan and Citigroup — The Federal Reserve has ended its program that required the biggest US banks to submit data …
Jose Pagliery / NOTUS:
Trump's DOJ Is Struggling to Commit to Keeping FBI Agents' Names Private — The agents fear political retaliation not only from the Trump administration — but also from the pardoned Jan. 6 rioters. — Copy — Justice Department lawyers in court on Thursday would not make a simple promise …
Discussion:
Reuters, UPI, NPR, Law & Crime, Raw Story and New York Post
Rohan Goswami / Semafor:
Trump team considers housing detained migrants in container offices — The Scoop — The Trump administration is in talks with a private shipping-container company to provide temporary space to house and process thousands of migrants slated for deportation, according to people familiar with the matter.
Discussion:
Quartz, New York Times, Just Security, NCJA, Fox News and Military.com
Timothy W. Ryback / The Atlantic:
The Oligarchs Who Came to Regret Supporting Hitler — They helped him in pursuit of profit. Many ended up in concentration camps. — he was among the richest men in the world. He made his first fortune in heavy industry. He made his second as a media mogul.
Dan Mangan / CNBC:
Trump administration demands lists of low-performing federal workers … - CNBC Councils — CNBC on Peacock — Join the CNBC Panel — Supply Chain Values — Select Shopping — Ad Choices — News Tips — Got a confidential news tip? We want to hear from you.


