TV News LIES

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has ruled that several key pieces of the massive bill to implement President Trump’s agenda run afoul of the Byrd Rule and must be taken out of the package to allow it to pass with a simple majority vote on a special procedural fast track.

The parliamentarian ruled against several provisions under the jurisdictions of the Senate committees on Banking, Environment and Public Works, and Armed Services.

These included a provision that would have placed a funding cap on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which would have cut $6.4 billion from the agency by reducing its maximum funding to zero percent of the Federal Reserve’s operating expenses. The funding cut would have eliminated the agency.

The creation of the CFPB was one of the central reforms of the Dodd-Frank Act that Democrats passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

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A federal judge on Thursday rejected Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Sean Duffy’s attempt to tie state funding to immigration enforcement operations.

“Congress did not authorize or grant authority to the Secretary of Transportation to impose immigration enforcement conditions on federal dollars specifically appropriated for transportation purposes,” U.S. District Judge John McConnell wrote in the preliminary injunction.

McConnell, a former President Obama appointee, said the 20 states suing the Trump administration are likely to succeed in blocking Duffy’s efforts to restrict federal funding.

In late April, the Transportation secretary said states would lose federal funds for roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects if they block President Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts; support diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives; or defy other directives from the administration.

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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is placing new limitations on lawmakers seeking to visit detention facilities, releasing guidelines in the wake of visits from Democrats that have turned confrontational.

Members of Congress have the legal right to make unannounced visits to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities.

But new guidance posted by ICE seeks to rein in that power, asking lawmakers to give 72 hours notice before any visits, while requiring their staff to give 24 hours notice.

Though lawmakers retain the ability to make unannounced visits to ICE detention facilities, the new policy blocks them from visiting field offices, where most agency action takes place.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) had harsh words for embattled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during a Capitol Hill hearing Wednesday: President Trump’s previous Defense leader, Mark Esper, “had more guts and balls” than Hegseth because Esper refused to maim unarmed protesters, she said.

“[Esper] didn’t accept the order,” Slotkin, a former CIA analyst and Defense official, told Hegseth. “He had more guts and balls than you, because he said, I’m not going to send in the uniformed military to do something that I know in my gut isn’t right.”

Esper, who was Defense secretary for a year until Trump fired him after the 2020 election, wrote in his 2022 memoir that Trump wanted authorities to shoot protesters in the legs during demonstrations after the murder of George Floyd.

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A federal appeals court panel on Wednesday refused the Justice Department’s effort to put itself on the hook for an $83.3 million defamation award advice columnist E. Jean Carroll won at trial from President Trump.

It’s the latest setback for the president in his efforts to fight Carroll’s lawsuits at the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Last week, the 2nd Circuit upheld her earlier $5 million jury award.

On Wednesday, the three-judge panel denied the Justice Department’s request to replace Trump as the defendant in Carroll’s defamation lawsuit under the Westfall Act, a 1988 law that protects federal employees from certain lawsuits concerning things they did in the course of their jobs.

The Justice Department contended Trump’s denials of Carroll’s sexual assault claims in a written statement and comments he made on the White House South Lawn in 2019 — the basis of her suit — were made within the scope of Trump’s employment as president.ee

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The NAACP announced it will not invite President Trump to its national convention in July. The civil rights organization is breaking from its 116-year tradition of welcoming the sitting U.S. president to the annual event that draws NAACP supporters from around the country.

The group says Trump is the first president it has declined to invite.

NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson made the announcement Monday at a news conference in Charlotte, N.C., where the convention is scheduled to be held. The group also shared a statement from Johnson.

"Donald Trump is attacking our democracy and our civil rights … The president has signed unconstitutional executive orders to oppress voters and undo federal civil rights protections," Johnson said. "… he continually undermines every pillar of our democracy to make himself more powerful and to personally benefit from the U.S. government."

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A federal judge on Tuesday extended an order blocking the Trump administration from enforcing a policy requiring identity documents to reflect an individual’s sex “at conception” to all transgender, nonbinary and intersex Americans who want to change the sex designation on their passports.

A previous ruling, handed down in April, had ordered the State Department to allow only six trans and nonbinary plaintiffs named in a federal lawsuit to obtain passports with sex designations matching their gender identity while the case proceeds. The lawsuit, filed in February in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, argues the administration’s policy “is motivated by impermissible animus.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s (D) spokesperson responded to President Trump’s refusal to call him following the shooting of two Minnesota state lawmakers.

“Governor Walz wishes that President Trump would be a President for all Americans, but this tragedy isn’t about Trump or Walz,” spokesperson Teddy Tschann said in a statement Tuesday.

State of Minnesota, and the Governor remains focused on helping all three heal,” he continued.

Walz previously served in the state Legislature with Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman (D), and confirmed her death Saturday at a press conference.

Trump told reporters early Tuesday during his flight back from the Group of Seven summit that he would not be calling Walz.

“I think the governor of Minnesota is so whacked out. I’m not calling,” Trump said. “Why would I call him?”

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