SmartNews

Senior Social Security official removed by security after pointing out illegal plans: WaPo

According to a new report from the Washington Post, a senior official in the Social Security Administration was marched out of his office after he confronted one of Elon Musk's outside hires over a change in policy that he deemed illegal.

The report states that "well-regarded" official Greg Pearre raised objections when Scott Coulter, the newly installed chief information officer, detailed his plans to transfer the migrants’ names into a Social Security death database, thereby halting their ability to make a living by working.

According to the report, Pearre told Coulter, "the plan was illegal, cruel and risked declaring the wrong people dead, according to three people familiar with the event," which led to his being escorted out of his office and placed on leave.

The WaPo's Hannah Natanson, Lisa Rein and Meryl Kornfield are reporting, "They walked Pearre out of the building, capping a momentous internal battle over the novel strategy — pushed by Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service and the Department of Homeland Security — to add thousands of immigrants ranging in age from teenagers to octogenarians to the agency’s Death Master File. The dataset is used by government agencies, employers, banks and landlords to check the status of employees, residents, clients and others."

RELATED: Untested new software installed by DOGE employees crashing Social Security servers: report

The report notes that multiple experts agree with Pearre, stating it violates privacy laws as flagrantly falls under falsifying government records.

According to Devin O’Connor of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "This is an unprecedented step. The administration seems to basically be saying they have the right to essentially declare people equivalent to dead who have not died. That’s a hard concept to believe, but it brings enormous risks and consequences.”

The report adds that a call was made to Coulter, "an investment firm founder named to the top technology job on March 27," on Friday asking for comment and that he hung up on the Post reporter.

Keep reading... Show less

'Kafkaesque nightmare': MSNBC's Rachel Maddow tears into latest DOGE move

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow tore into the latest cuts at the hands of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency — an 87% reduction to the workforce at regional Social Security offices at a time, she said, when its customer service is "already absolutely collapsing."

Maddow flagged what she called "bad news" after WIRED reported that the Social Security Administration is gutting regional offices and shifting all its communications to Musk's X platform.

Keep reading... Show less

'It’s already in the cards': Trump impeachment urged by WSJ editorial board member

In a column published late Friday, a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board claimed it would be "desirable" to subject Donald Trump to a third impeachment to make up for the damage he has done to the U.S. economy with his "ill-founded" trade war.

According to longtime columnist Holman W. Jenkins Jr., Trump's on-again, off-again tariff threats almost makes it appear he wants to be impeached, with Jenkins writing, "A future Trump impeachment seemed all but guaranteed by last Wednesday morning. It seems only slightly less likely now. It may even be desirable to restore America’s standing with creditors and trade partners."

As he sees it, the president's last great achievement was being re-elected in 2024, and the damage he has been creating since then belies his promise of a "golden age," so an impeachment is "already ion the cards."

"No consensus or even significant coalition exists for trying to force into existence a new American 'golden age' with tariffs, which anyway is like asking a chicken to give birth to a lioness. He invented this mission out of his own confused intuition," he accused.

Noting that conservative historian Niall Ferguson labeled Trump's trade policy going "full retard," he contributed, "I go with 'neurotic' for the word’s wider applicability to any leader who, lacking a clear bead on his times, fabricates a gratuitously ambitious mission to meet his misguided sense of importance."

"Nobody in Mr. Trump’s orbit actually shares his belief in the magical efficacy of tariffs because it makes sense only in a world that doesn’t exist, where other countries don’t retaliate," he pointed out before concluding, "The founders never anticipated today’s instantly responsive trillion-dollar financial markets. And yet these markets neatly adumbrate the founders’ scheme of checks and balances, also known as feedback. Mr. Trump, still sane enough to appreciate what’s good for Mr. Trump, listened this week to their feedback."

You can read more here (subscription required).

Details of Trump's medical exam to be released ‘as soon as we possibly can’: White House

The White House on Friday pledged to release a detailed update of Donald Trump’s health after the oldest president in U.S. history underwent his annual medical examination earlier in the day.

“I have never felt better, but nevertheless, these things must be done!” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform before the examination, which was performed at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

Keep reading... Show less

‘Unacceptable’: Judge blasts court decision that thrust her election victory into limbo

A Democratic justice in North Carolina is calling attention to a state Supreme Court ruling that threatened to upend her November election victory over her Republican challenger – which she carried by just 736 votes.

The North Carolina Supreme Court, in a Friday ruling, tossed out nearly 300 ballots and instructed about 5,000 military and overseas voters that their votes would be counted only if they submitted copies of their photo IDs, The Washington Post reported.

Keep reading... Show less

Visas revoked for four international students at flagship Montana universities

Visas revoked for four international students at flagship Montana universities

by Keila Szpaller, Daily Montanan
April 11, 2025

Keep reading... Show less

'She can't spell AI!' MSNBC's Rachel Maddow speechless at Trump official's 'terrible' flub

A.1. Steak Sauce is having a moment after Education Secretary Linda McMahon mixed the popular steak-topping condiment with artificial intelligence – and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was all over the gaffe she called “delicious.”

Maddow in the opening minutes of her Friday show paused to highlight the latest blunder to emerge from President Donald Trump’s administration after she first highlighted the infamous “Signalgate” debacle, and the president’s own misdialed call this week to his estranged former National Security Adviser, H.R. McMaster, who he proceeded to curse out.

Keep reading... Show less

'Patients simply cannot survive': Trump could wreck supply chain for critical drug

One of the potential unintended consequences of President Donald Trump's draconian new tariff regime on China could be the collapse of the supply chain to manufacture a vital and inexpensive drug necessary for hospitalized people, The Washington Post reported on Friday.

Specifically, the anticoagulant drug heparin, vital for ensuring some patients don't develop blood clots on lines that put nutrients directly into their bodies, requires ingredients from Chinese plants — which could be part of the new 145 percent tax Trump is enacting on that country.

Keep reading... Show less

'Put it on the receipt': Irked companies slap Trump-branded surcharges on their products

It didn’t take long for President Donald Trump’s tariffs to hit the pocketbooks of American consumers – and some businesses are making no secret of why new surcharges are appearing on their bills.

That’s according to a new report in Bloomberg, which detailed how a growing crop of businesses – ranging from companies selling shower heads to adult toys – are beginning to slap “Trump tariff” surcharges onto customers’ bills. It’s a “marketing gimmick” that could provide a financial boost to some specialized brands struggling under the steep new tariffs affecting Chinese goods, the report added.

Keep reading... Show less

'It's a mess': Trump's tariffs 'not being collected' after major glitch hits ports

Trump's draconian new tariffs regime is now being delayed due to a "glitch" that has arisen at U.S. ports, CNBC reported on Friday, in the latest blow that threw even more uncertainty into how markets and international trade are functioning.

An alert sent out to shippers from U.S. Customs and Border Protection "notified users of a glitch in the system that is used to exempt freight from tariffs, including shipments from China that were already on the water at the time of this week’s whipsaw in tariffs policy, and any trade from nations now under the 90-day pause put in place by the Trump administration," reported Lori Ann LaRocco. "The alert explained that U.S. Customs discovered that the entry code for U.S. shippers to use to have their freight exempted is not working and 'the issue is being reviewed.'"

Keep reading... Show less

Trump vows to return wrongly deported migrant — if Supreme Court makes him

President Donald Trump told reporters Friday evening he would return a migrant that his administration deported, should the conservative-leaning Supreme Court order him to do so.

The response came after the high court ordered his administration to "facilitate" the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador and has been detained in a notoriously brutal maximum security prison.

Keep reading... Show less

FBI suspends analyst on Kash Patel's 'enemies list' — despite his 'no retribution' pledge

FBI head Kash Patel vowed there would be "no politicization at the FBI" and "no retributive actions" taken by the bureau during his confirmation hearing — but the agency reportedly suspended an employee who was on Patel's so-called enemies list.

The New York Times reported Friday that the FBI suspended an analyst who was also on that list, placing Brian Auten on administrative leave last week. The reasoning behind the suspension wasn't immediately clear.

Keep reading... Show less

‘Broken promise, abuse of power’: Conservative WSJ editors slam Trump after latest antic

The Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial board eviscerated President Donald Trump in a biting opinion piece on Friday that turned the tables on the MAGA leader for repeatedly vowing to end the “unfair weaponization of the Justice Department.”

But the president did just that with a pair of “extraordinary” executive orders directing his DOJ to launch probes into two members of his former administration he now views as his political enemies, the editorial board wrote.

Keep reading... Show less