October 30, 2025

14 Republican lawmakers say Argentinian beef imports 'undermine American cattle producers' in new letter

Source: The Hill

10/29/25 10:13 PM ET


Over a dozen Republican House members, in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, expressed concern over the Trump administration’s plan to boost imports of Argentine beef.

“We encourage the Administration to ensure that any adjustments to Argentina’s tariff-rate quota or inspection regime be contingent on verified equivalency and reciprocal market access for American beef,” said the letter, signed by House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) and 13 others. Last week, the administration confirmed plans to quadruple the tariff rate quota for beef from Argentina, days after President Trump cited rising beef prices in backing the plan.

The average per pound price of ground beef was roughly $6.32 in September, $0.77 higher than in January and $0.65 higher than in September 2024, according to Department of Agriculture (USDA) data compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), meanwhile, unveiled a plan to strengthen the domestic beef industry, including by boosting grazing access, disaster support, market options and domestic and international demand.

The proposal regarding Argentine beef, though, has sparked backlash from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, particularly in states with high cattle inventory. The letter’s signatories include lawmakers from Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas, all of which rely heavily on the beef industry.

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5580401-republican-lawmakers-argentinian-beef-imports-undermine-american-cattle-producers/

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Link to LETTER (PDF) - https://jasonsmith.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/USDA_USTR-Beef-Import-Letter-SIGNED.pdf

(note - the whole first paragraph of the letter is gobbledy gook fawning before they get "concerned" in the 2nd paragraph )

October 30, 2025

State police slam Trump's ICE agents after tear gas hits officers

Source: Raw Story

October 29, 2025 7:03PM ET


Oregon state police are shredding President Donald Trump's ICE agents after officers "suffered exposure" from tear gas during a protest outside an ICE facility in Portland earlier this month.

Judge Karin Immergut said she would decide on whether to hold the government in contempt and determine whether the government violated a temporary restraining order when officials refused to pause National Guard soldiers going into Portland, Oregon. New evidence was presented in court on Wednesday about the federal government firing on local law enforcement with pepper balls and chemical gas.

"Oregon State Police Capt. Cameron Bailey says his sergeant & other officers 'suffered exposure' from tear gas after federal officers sprayed protest - adds there was no warning for law enforcement. Continues plaintiffs' main theme, that federal officers are endangering cops as well as protesters," Talking Points Memo reporter and co-host of the John Marshall podcast Kate Riga wrote on Bluesky.

People at the protest said the scene in early October was alarming. "Commander Franz Schoening of the Portland Police Bureau describes a protest in early October outside the ICE facility featuring lots of 'older' people - says it was 'startling' to watch federal officers use tear gas on the crowd, that it wasn't 'best practices' or justified," Riga said.

Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-2674248037/

October 30, 2025

Federal shutdown could cost US economy up to $14 billion

Source: Aol/Reuters

Wed, October 29, 2025 at 4:42 PM EDT


WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The federal government shutdown could cost the U.S. economy between $7 billion and $14 billion, shaving up to 2% from gross domestic product in the fourth quarter due to the lapse in government spending, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday.

The partial shutdown was in its 29th day on Wednesday with no end in sight, as Senate Republicans called on Democrats to support a stopgap measure to fund federal agencies through November 21 and Democrats demanded negotiations to extend expiring federal tax credits to help Americans purchase private health insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act.

CBO estimated that the economy would suffer as a result of delayed federal spending for employee compensation, goods and services, and food stamp benefits for low-income Americans.

"Although most of the decline in real GDP will be recovered eventually, CBO estimates that between $7 billion and $14 billion will not be," agency director Phillip Swagel said in an October 29 letter to House of Representatives Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, a Texas Republican who requested the analysis.

Read more: https://www.aol.com/articles/federal-shutdown-could-cost-us-204206724.html

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Link to Congressional Budget Office (CBO) REPORT - https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2025-10/61823-Shutdown.pdf

October 29, 2025

Federal judge blocks the Trump administration from pulling funding for sex ed on gender diversity

Source: Yahoo! News/AP

Tue, October 28, 2025 at 1:52 PM EDT


PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge in Oregon has blocked President Donald Trump's administration from pulling sexual education funding over curricula mentioning diverse gender identities.

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken issued the preliminary injunction Monday as part of a lawsuit filed against the Health and Human Services Department by 16 states and the District of Columbia, which argued that pulling such money violated the separation of powers and federal law.

The complaint, filed last month, says the department is attempting to force the states to “rewrite sexual health curricula to erase entire categories of students." It describes the action as “the latest attempt from the current administration to target and harm transgender and gender-diverse youth.” The administration said in court filings that Health and Human Services has the authority to impose conditions for receiving funding grants.

Aiken wrote that the department “provides no evidence that it made factual findings or considered the statutory objectives and express requirements, the relevant data, the applicable anti-sex-discrimination statutes and its own regulations.” The judge added that the department also “fails to show that the new grant conditions are reasonable.”

Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/federal-judge-blocks-trump-administration-175212466.html

October 28, 2025

Trump admin admits to 'factual discrepancy' that played pivotal role in appellate ruling of National Guard case

Source: Law & Crime

Oct 28th, 2025, 1:11 pm


After a tumultuous twist of fate last week, the Trump administration has issued a mea culpa in one of the ongoing legal battles over the federal use of state National Guard troops to police American cities.

On Monday, in a letter motion addressed to the clerk of court for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, the U.S. Department of Justice admitted that multiple prior representations about federal deployments to Portland, Oregon, were "incorrect" and expressed "regret" for making numerous such "errors" in various court filings.

Early last week, a three-judge appellate panel, in a 2-1 ruling, stayed a temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, an appointee of President Donald Trump during his first term in office. That TRO barred "the federalization and deployment of Oregon National Guard service members."

Late last week, after the Beaver State alerted the court to those aforementioned errors, the full 9th Circuit administratively stayed the panel's own stay – "[w]ithout objection from the panel." While the full court was clear that its pause of the panel's pause was "not a reconsideration of the earlier stay order," the latest-in-time order came in response to Oregon's arguments regarding the now-admittedly incorrect numbers supplied by the federal government.

Read more: https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/we-deeply-regret-these-errors-trump-admin-admits-to-factual-discrepancy-that-played-pivotal-role-in-appellate-ruling-of-national-guard-case/

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Full headline: 'We deeply regret these errors': Trump admin admits to 'factual discrepancy' that played pivotal role in appellate ruling of National Guard case

REFERENCE - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143553226

October 28, 2025

Trump administration moves to overrule state laws protecting credit reports from medical debt

Source: AP

Updated 6:13 PM EDT, October 28, 2025


NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump administration is moving to overrule any state laws that may protect consumers’ credit reports from medical debt and other debt issues.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has drafted what’s known as an interpretative rule related to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, interpreting the law in a way that says the FCRA should preempt any state laws or regulations when it comes to how debt should be reported to the credit bureaus like Experian, Equifax and Trans Union.

This repeals previous Biden-era rules and regulations that allowed states to implement their own credit reporting bans. More than a dozen states like New York and Delaware prohibit the reporting of medical debt on a consumers’ credit report. Medical debt is often the most disputed part of a consumer’s credit report, because insurance payments can take time, and oftentimes patients do not have the means to fully pay a medical bill if insurance is not covering a procedure that has already taken place.

The three credit bureaus jointly announced in 2023 they would no longer track any medical debts below $500, which at the time the bureaus said would eliminate 70% of all medical debts reported on consumers’ credit files. But some states have gone further than that. New York, Delaware and others passed laws where medical debts can no longer be reported to the credit bureaus.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/medical-debt-cfpb-fcra-equifax-experian-trans-union-fdb5ad61e4ca0f18943045d314dd7b3b

October 28, 2025

Democrats blast Trump's decision to export US-made guns, saying they can wind up in hands of terrorists

Source: The Independent

Tuesday 28 October 2025 13:54 EDT


Democrats have branded the Trump administration’s decision to remove export restrictions on American-made firearms “a gift to violent cartels and drug traffickers.”

A group led by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro wrote to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Secretary of State Marco Rubio criticizing the scrapping of a Joe Biden-era rule intended to frustrate the black market in illegal small arms sales.

“Eliminating firearm export rules is a gift to violent cartels and drug traffickers responsible for the deaths of Americans and innocent civilians around the world,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter, first reported by The Hill. “By rescinding the rule, Commerce is empowering the very cartels and criminal organizations that this administration has sought to counter.”

Warren and Castro’s letter, signed by 14 other senators from their party and dozens of representatives, included a string of questions they are seeking answers to regarding the decision-making process, giving Lutnick and Rubio until November 4 to respond.

Read more: https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/gun-exports-terrorists-trump-democrats-b2853832.html

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Link to Sen. Warren PRESS RELEASE - Warren, Durbin, Castro, Meeks, Lead 50+ Democrats in Challenging Trump Administration’s Gun Industry-Friendly Changes to Trade Rules

Link to LETTER (inquiry) (PDF) - https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/warren_durbin_castro_meeks_dems_letter_to_commerce_and_state_departments_on_firearm_export_rule.pdf

October 28, 2025

Shutdown stretches into 28th day as Senate again fails to pass spending legislation

Source: The Guardian

Tue 28 Oct 2025 16.44 EDT
Last modified on Tue 28 Oct 2025 18.00 EDT


The US government shutdown stretched into its 28th day with no resolution in sight on Tuesday, as the Senate remained deadlocked over spending legislation even as a crucial food aid program teeters on the brink of exhausting its funding. For the 13th time, Senate Democrats blocked a Republican-backed bill that would have funded federal agencies through 21 November.

The minority party has refused to provide the necessary support for the bill to clear the 60-vote threshold for advancement in the Senate because it does not include funding for healthcare programs, or curbs on Donald Trump’s cuts to congressionally approved funding. The quagmire continued even after the president of the largest federal workers union called on Congress to pass the Republican proposal, citing the economic pain caused to government workers.

“Both political parties have made their point, and still there is no clear end in sight. Today I’m making mine: it’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today. No half measures, and no gamesmanship. Put every single federal worker back on the job with full back pay – today,” Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), said in a statement released on Monday.

But the top Senate Democrat, Chuck Schumer, signaled no change in his party’s strategy of holding out for concession from the Republicans, citing the imminent rise of premiums for Affordable Care Act health plans. Though tax credits that lower their costs expire at the end of the year, many enrollees in the plans have received notices of steep premium increases ahead of Saturday’s beginning of the open enrollment period.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/28/government-shutdown-senate-vote-fails

October 28, 2025

Pentagon moves to fire civilian personnel with 'speed and conviction'

Source: msn/Washington Post

1h


The Pentagon removed key protections for defense civilian workers and directed that managers move with “speed and conviction” to fire employees with “unacceptable” performance reviews last month, just a day before the government shut down. The new guidelines were outlined in a Sept. 30 memo titled “Separation of Employees with Unacceptable Performance” that’s been circulating through the Defense Department in the last week, spurring concern among the workforce.

The move is seen by some managers as necessary to get rid of underperforming employees. Others caution that the edict, signed by Undersecretary of Defense Anthony Tata, the Pentagon’s top personnel policy officer, is so broad it could be used to fire anyone who doesn’t rubber stamp the administration’s programs.

“Looks like we are all ‘at will’ employees now,” one defense civilian said, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation.

Almost half of the defense civilian workforce is furloughed during the ongoing partial government shutdown. The Trump administration tried earlier this month to fire thousands of furloughed employees, but the move was stopped by a California federal court that found the cuts while the government was closed were likely illegal.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/pentagon-moves-to-fire-civilian-personnel-with-speed-and-conviction/ar-AA1Pn8Ri

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Of course that nonsense violates the Civil Service Act(s).

October 28, 2025

UPS Mass Layoffs as 48,000 Jobs Cut

Source: Newsweek

Published Oct 28, 2025 at 09:58 AM EDT updated Oct 28, 2025 at 11:16 AM EDT


United Parcel Service (UPS) on Tuesday said it had cut 48,000 positions in the first nine months of 2025.

The Atlanta-based company said the reductions comprised 14,000 roles primarily in management, alongside around 34,000 cuts within its “operational workforce”—employees involved in its day-to-day logistics and delivery services.

When contacted for comment, UPS directed Newsweek to Tuesday’s release and emphasized that the 48,000 cuts had already occurred.

Why It Matters

UPS said the layoffs were part of a broader effort to cut costs and reshape the company to better adapt to shifting market dynamics, as executives face pressure to stem a long-term decline in the share price, which has fallen by more than 20 percent this year.

Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/ups-mass-layoffs-as-48000-jobs-cut-10951313