Josh Hammer
@josh_hammer
The media never ceases to "remind" us that birthright citizenship for illegals is "settled law."
Except they're dead wrong—it isn't.
This is an "open" legal question. And on the constitutional merits, Trump's executive order is sound.
Great joining @danabrams on @NewsNation
7:24 AM · Jan 24, 2025
·112.3K
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https://x.com/josh_hammer/status/1882766315808497952
Cenk is an idiot!
Americans are on our side, GOP Senate majority leader says
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., lays out his goals for enacting President Donald Trump's agenda in Congress on 'Hannity.'
10:01
https://youtu.be/vZVfVF5R9GA
Politico
State Department issues immediate, widespread pause on foreign aid
Robbie Gramer, Nahal Toosi and Eric Bazail-Eimil
Fri, January 24, 2025 at 2:43 PM EST
Secretary of State Marco Rubio halted spending Friday on most existing foreign aid grants for 90 days.The order, which shocked State Department officials, appears to apply to funding for military assistance to Ukraine.
Rubio’s guidance, issued to all diplomatic and consular posts, requires department staffers to issue “stop-work orders” on nearly all “existing foreign assistance awards,” according to the document, which was obtained by POLITICO. It is effective immediately.
It appears to go further than President Donald Trump’s recent executive order, which instructed the department to pause foreign aid grants for 90 days pending review by the secretary. It had not been clear from the president’s order if it would affect already appropriated funds or Ukraine aid.
The new guidance means no further actions will be taken to disperse aid funding to programs already approved by the U.S. government, according to three current and two former officials familiar with the new guidance.
The order shocked some department officials for its sweeping mandate. “State just totally went nuclear on foreign assistance,” said another State Department official.
Still, the document leaves room for interpretation and does provide some exceptions. It specifies that foreign military financing for Egypt and Israel will continue and allows emergency food assistance and “legitimate expenses incurred prior to the date of this” guidance “under existing awards.” At points, it also says the decisions need to be “consistent with the terms of the relevant award.”
One current State Department official, plus two former Biden administration officials, said the pause appears to stop aid to key allies such as Ukraine, Jordan and Taiwan. They, and others, were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive internal government documents.
The guidance could open the U.S. government up to civil liability as lawsuits could be filed over unfulfilled contracts if the terms are deemed to have been violated, the current and former officials said, although at points it says the decisions need to be “consistent with the terms of the relevant award.”
The guidance states that “decisions whether to continue, modify or terminate programs will be made following the review” from the secretary.
A State Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The omission of Ukraine is particularly troubling to American officials who want to help it defeat Russia.
Trump and Republicans have for years homed in on what they described as wasteful foreign aid spending under the Obama and Biden administrations. But in recent days, Trump has ratcheted up his rhetoric toward Russia, threatening Moscow with sanctions if it does not end its nearly three-year invasion of Ukraine and declaring that Putin bears responsibility for ending the war.
Ukraine’s government has yet to respond to the move. But boosters of Kyiv are voicing hope the pause won’t set back Ukraine’s war effort.
“We’re working to understand what this means for Ukraine. We’re confident that the administration isn’t going to let America fall for Putin’s scare tactics,” said Mykola Murskyj of Razom, a U.S.-based group that advocates for Ukraine.(NGO money is stolen)
People working in global health are alarmed about the impact of the order on programs such as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which funds testing and treatment for people living with HIV, mostly in Africa. The program has received about $5 billion in funding annually, in recent years.
“This stop-work order is cruel and deadly,” said Asia Russell, the executive director of Health GAP, a nonprofit which advocates for access to treatment in people with HIV.
The guidance was cleared by a litany of top State Department staffers, including State Department counselor Michael Needham and policyplanning director Michael Anton.
The State Department is expected to prepare a report within 85 days of the guidance being issued, which will then accompany a recommendation from Rubio to Trump about which foreign assistance programs to continue and which to discontinue.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/state-department-issues-immediate-widespread-194302536.html
US issues broad freeze on foreign aid after Trump orders review. 1/2
Fri, January 24, 2025 at 5:27 PM EST By Humeyra Pamuk and Daphne Psaledakis
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. State Department issued a "stop-work" order on Friday for all existing foreign assistance and paused new aid, according to a cable seen by Reuters, after President Donald Trump ordered a pause to review if aid allocation was aligned with his foreign policy.
The cable, drafted by the Department's foreign assistance office and approved by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, said waivers have been issued for military financing for Israel and Egypt. No other countries were mentioned in the cable.
The move risks cutting off billions of dollars of life-saving assistance. The United States is the largest single donor of aid globally -in fiscal year 2023, it disbursed $72 billion in assistance.
Just hours after taking office on Monday, Trump ordered a 90-day pause in foreign development assistance pending a review of efficiencies and consistency with his foreign policy but the scope of the order was not immediately known.
The State Department cable said effective immediately, senior officials "shall ensure that, to the maximum extent permitted by law,no new obligations shall be made for foreign assistance" until Rubio has made a decision after a review.
It says that for existing foreign assistance awards stop-work orders shall be issued immediately until reviewed by Rubio.
"This is lunacy," Jeremy Konyndyk, a former USAID official who is now president of Refugees International, said. "This will kill people. I mean, if implemented as written in that cable … a lot of people will die." (CIA is in USAID dept)
"There's no way to consider this as a good-faith attempt to sincerely review the effectiveness of foreign assistance programming. This is just simply a wrecking ball to break as much stuff as possible," Konyndyk said.
Trump's order is unlawful, argued a source familiar discussions in Congress on the move.
"Freezing these international investments will lead our international partners to seek other funding partners - likely U.S. competitors and adversaries - to fill this hole and displace the United States' influence the longer this unlawful impoundment continues," the source said on condition of anonymity. (Thats a stupid argument)
WAIVERS
A USAID official, who requested anonymity, said officers responsible for projects in Ukraine have been told to stop all work. Among the projects that have been frozen are support to schools and health assistance like emergency maternal care and childhood vaccinations, the official said. (All things they don't provide to the US)
Across the board, "decisions whether to continue, modify, or terminate programs will be made" by Rubio following a review over the next 85 days. Until then Rubio can approve waivers.
Rubio has issued a waiver for emergency food assistance, according to the cable. This comes amid a surge of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip after a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas began on Sunday and several other hunger crises around the world, including Sudan.
But Konyndyk said emergency food assistance was just a minority of all humanitarian assistance, adding that nutrition, health and vaccination programs will have to stop, as would relief aid to Gaza and Syria as well as services to refugee camps in Sudan.
"It's manufactured chaos," said a former senior official with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), speaking on condition of anonymity.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-pause-applies-foreign-aid-190150534.html
2/2
"Organizations will have to stop all activities, so all lifesaving health services, HIV/AIDS, nutrition, maternal and child health, all agriculture work, all support of civil society organizations, education," said the official.
The State Department cable also said waivers have so far been approved by Rubio for "foreign military financing for Israel and Egypt and administrative expenses, including salaries, necessary to administer foreign military financing."
Israel receives about $3.3 billion in foreign military financing annually, while Egypt receives about $1.3 billion
Other states identified for such financing in 2025 includeUkraine, Georgia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Djibouti, Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Israel, Egypt and Jordan, according to a request to Congress from former President Joe Biden's administration.
That request also said foreign military financing would "also seek to bolster the Lebanese Armed Forces' ability to mitigate instability and counter malign Iranian influence."
The Lebanese military is currently trying to deploy into the south of the country as Israeli troops withdraw under a ceasefire deal that requires Iran-backed Hezbollah weapons and fighters to also be removed from the area.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-pause-applies-foreign-aid-190150534.html