Senate confirms Vought as OMB director
As expected, the Republican-controlled Senate last night confirmed Russell Vought to head the powerful White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Vought was involved in crafting the Project 2025 playbook for the Heritage Foundation that lays out plans for the new Trump Administration. Vought made it clear that as head of OMB he would ignore Congressional spending mandates when he wanted to and believes that the president should ignore the Constitutional mandate that gives the power of the purse to Congress.
Unemployment rate moves down in January
The unemployment rate edged down to 4.0% in January, according to statistics released this morning by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Only about 143,00 jobs were added last month. The number of unemployed people, at 6.8 million, changed little over the month. Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men and women both stood at 3.7%, teenagers were at 11.8%, Whites were at 3.5%, Blacks at 6.2%, Asians at 3.7%, and Hispanics at 4.8%. The number of long-term unemployed who have been jobless for 27 weeks or more stood at 1.4 million, changed little in January.
Labor groups sue to stop USAID closing
Two labor groups that represent workers at the government’s U.S. Agency for International Development have sued the Trump Administration in an effort to block the dismantling of the agency. An estimated 10,000 employees at the agency are planned to be fired tonight and fewer than 300 allowed to continue work at the State Department. The shutdown of USAID was pushed by Elon Musk and Donald Trump. It already has caused a halt to programs to combat infectious diseases, which could spread globally and resulted in food and medicine rotting in overseas ports instead if being distributed to starving and sick people. U.S. organizations such as Catholic Relief Services, the World Food Program and Save the Children have had their funding slashed.
Energy Department’s law office tried to block Musk’s access to computers
CNN reports that members of the general counsel’s office at the Energy Department tried to stop Elon Musk’s computer people from gaining access to the departments computers. Energy Secretary Chris Wright allowed a 23-year old former employee of Musk’s SpaceX company to get into the computers according to CNN. Both the lawyers and the department’s information technology chief complained that the Musk employee did not have proper clearances but they were ignored.
Trump orders personnel of International Criminal Court kept out of U.S.
Donald Trump has ordered that representatives of the International Criminal Court be kept out of the U.S. The court has issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who visited with Trump this week. The court today called upon its members to come out against Trump’s move, saying that he is trying to cause harm to the court’s independent work to enforce international law. There are 125 nations that are parties to the court. The court said it will stand by its pledge to provide justice to millions of victims of atrocities around the world.
Trump Administration moves to kill EV charger program
The Federal Highway Administration, now under the control of Donald Trump, is trying to shut down a program started under the Biden Administration to build a network of electric vehicle charging stations across the country. The Highway Administration has notified states that they will no longer be authorized to install charging stations under the program. It said it will have new guidance in the spring. Trump supporter Elon Musk has built a network of charging station for his Tesla electric vehicles and customers pay Telsa to recharge their electric vehicles at the stations.
