Tag: Karoline Leavitt

Trump’s Prescription for Poverty: Forced Psychiatry and the Criminalization of Homelessness

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

Trump order pushes forcible hospitalization of homeless people

Related:

Trump Pushes Policies That ‘Treat Homelessness and Mental Illness as a Crime’

New Research Shows Risks of Coercive Psychiatric Treatment

A new study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is raising difficult but necessary questions about a practice that affects hundreds of thousands of lives each year: involuntary psychiatric hospitalization.

…

This equates to a 79% increase in risk of being charged with a violent crime, and almost a doubled risk of dying by suicide or overdose, in the three months following evaluation for hospitalization.

The researchers also found hospitalization often caused destabilization. It led to declines in employment and earnings, and increased use of homeless shelters. It did not lead to better outpatient care or more consistent medication use.

First They Came for Mahmoud Khalil…

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)
Thumbnail / Text

Trump Admin Is Trying To Deport Mahmoud Khalil for Speech That’s ‘Contrary’ to US Foreign Policy

The Trump administration is trying to deport 30-year-old Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder who was arrested by ICE agents over the weekend, for activity that is “contrary” to US foreign policy based on his involvement in protests critical of Israel’s war on Gaza at Columbia University.

Read More »

The US Treasury Claimed DOGE Technologist Didn’t Have ‘Write Access’ When He Actually Did

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The US Treasury Claimed DOGE Technologist Didn’t Have ‘Write Access’ When He Actually Did (archived)

Sources tell WIRED that the ability of DOGE’s Marko Elez to alter code controlling trillions in federal spending was rescinded days after US Treasury and White House officials said it didn’t exist.

…

As WIRED has reported, Elez was granted privileges including the ability to not just read but write code on two of the most sensitive systems in the US government: the Payment Automation Manager (PAM) and Secure Payment System (SPS) at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (BFS), an agency that according to Treasury records paid out $5.45 trillion in fiscal year 2024. Reporting from Talking Points Memo confirmed that Treasury employees were concerned that Elez had already made “extensive changes” to code within the Treasury system. The payments processed by BFS include federal tax returns, Social Security benefits, Supplemental Security Income benefits [Social Security Disability Insurance], and veteran’s pay.

…

On February 4, WIRED reported that Elez did, in fact, have admin access to PAM and SPS. Talking Points Memo reported later that day that Elez had “made extensive changes to the code base for these critical payment systems.” In a letter that same day that did not mention Musk or DOGE, Treasury official Jonathan Blum wrote to Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, “Currently, Treasury staff members working with Tom Krause, a Treasury employee, will have read-only to the coded data of the Fiscal Service’s payment systems.” (Krause is the top DOGE operative at Treasury and CEO of Cloud Software Group.) The letter did not say what kind of access the staff members actually had.

Previously:

Cloud Software Group: As Elon Musk Begins Shutting Down Payments to Federal Contractors, a Strange Money Trail Emerges to His Operatives Inside the U.S. Treasury’s Payment System

Pro-Israel leaders encouraged by Brian Hook’s role on State Department transition team

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

As questions emerge about how President-elect Donald Trump will handle the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East during a second term, some pro-Israel foreign policy voices say they have been reassured by recent news reports that Brian Hook, a special envoy for Iran in the first Trump administration, is expected to lead the transition team at the State Department.

Hook, who previously worked in the State Department under former President George W. Bush and is now the vice chairman of Cerberus Global Investments, helped to oversee Trump’s so-called “maximum pressure” campaign toward Iran, including punishing sanctions after the U.S. withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal. He was also a key player on the team that negotiated the Abraham Accords, Trump’s signature foreign policy achievement, which the president-elect has pledged to expand when he returns to office.

…

Among the candidates rumored to be under consideration for secretary of state are Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a former ambassador to Japan; Robert O’Brien, Trump’s former national security advisor; and Ric Grenell, who served as the former president’s ambassador to Germany as well as his acting director of national intelligence.

…

But conservative foreign policy experts surveyed by JI said they did not envision ideological tensions between Hook and Grenell emerging should they serve together. “Grenell mirrors Trump in being a champion-level supporter of Israel and Iran hawk,” said a former official on Trump’s National Security Council, who was granted anonymity to discuss the transition. “There would be no reason for friction.”

Pro-Israel leaders encouraged by Brian Hook’s role on State Department transition team

Previously:

Making Excuses for Trump: Where Does the Buck Stop?

But Trump’s seemingly aimless foreign and national security policies are only part of the problem. More to the point, the president keeps appointing people to senior level positions where they have a hand in shaping the policies ranging from hardline on civil liberties issues to complete interventionism vis-à-vis America’s role worldwide. The list is long and includes John Bolton, Rick Grenell, Mike Pompeo, Brian Hook, James Jeffrey, Robert O’Brien, John Ratcliffe and Gina Haspel. And one might suggest that the latest move might very well be the worst of all, naming Eliot Abrams as Special Envoy on Iran.

‘When it’s anyone but white Christian cis men, it’s not a right anymore’: Conservatives finally want gun control—for trans people

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The Nashville school shooting is leading conservatives to finally call for gun control. Their newfound enthusiasm for reforming gun laws is based on transphobia, but some of their suggestions are also supported by gun control advocates.

‘When it’s anyone but white Christian cis men, it’s not a right anymore’: Conservatives finally want gun control—for trans people

Related:

Ben Shapiro: Ban Trans People From Owning Guns

Not surprising, Shapiro didn’t mention Trump getting rid of a mental health regulations for owning firearms in 2018.

Did President Trump Revoke Gun Background Checks for Mentally Ill People?

While the law did not change who is required to be the subject of background checks, it is true that Trump signed the repeal of a measure that would have plausibly prevented certain classes of mentally ill people from purchasing firearms by allowing a new data source to be included the system that runs those background checks. As such we rank the claim mostly true.