Democrats are desperately searching for new leaders. AOC is stepping into the void.
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is stepping into the Democrats’ leadership void, picking up her powerful megaphone to channel the base’s anger — toward both President Donald Trump and her own party.
Some of the initial skepticism in the party around the progressive star when she first arrived in Washington six years ago has started to fade as she has established herself as a political player on Capitol Hill and demonstrated a unique knack for communicating with a younger generation.
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Acting DOGE head pulls back the curtain on parts of the group’s structure in a court filing
The acting administrator of the Department of Government Efficiency, Amy Gleason, shed some light on the agency’s structure in an overnight court filing in a case brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington seeking the disclosure of its records.
DOGE has 79 employees who were directly appointed to it and 10 from other agencies, but no formal front office or organizational chart, Gleason said in the filing.
“Every member of an agency’s DOGE Team is an employee of the agency or a detailee to the agency,” Gleason wrote. “The DOGE Team members — whether employees of the agency or detailed to the agency — thus report to the agency heads or their designees, not to me or anyone else at USDS [U.S. Digital Service].”
Gleason said she reports to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and noted that she does not report to tech billionaire Elon Musk, whom Trump put in charge of efforts to cut the government under DOGE, nor does Musk report to her.
Gleason said DOGE has an obligation to maintain records under the Presidential Records Act and will transfer records to the National Archives and Records Administration “at the appropriate time.”
Immigration authorities detain Georgetown University graduate student
Federal immigration authorities have detained a Georgetown University graduate student from India who was teaching at the Washington, D.C., institution on a student visa, his attorney said last night.
Masked agents arrested the graduate student, Badar Khan Suri, outside his home in Arlington, Virginia, on Monday night, attorney Hassan Ahmad said.
The agents identified themselves as being with the Department of Homeland Security and told him the government had revoked his visa, Ahmad said.
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New DOGE leadership of USAID outlines priorities to remaining staff
The new Department of Government Efficiency leadership of the U.S. Agency for International Development sent a letter to the remaining staff last night about their plan to “lead USAID through a responsible, safe, and cost-efficient process to transfer USAID operations to the State Department.”
About 83% of foreign aid programs have been cut, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this month. The approximately 1,000 remaining programs will be transferred to the State Department, the USAID email said.
“Our remaining programs exemplify the promise of responsible American foreign assistance: they invest in partners, deliver real and measurable impact for people in need, and further the foreign policy objectives of the country and President,” the email said.
DOGE senior official Jeremy Lewinsky and Ken Jackson, who were made deputy administrators this week, committed in the email “to ensure the safety, dignity, and productivity of USAID personnel during this transition period,” adding that they “aim to share additional details soon on what this process will mean for USAID personnel.”
Inside Vance’s unfiltered ‘err on the side of openness’ social media presence
Former Vice President Al Gore championed the development of the internet so enthusiastically that one of the first myths of the online era was that he claimed to have invented it.
It was in those early days of the world wide web that one of Gore’s successors came of age. JD Vance grew up with chat rooms and email and instant messaging. He graduated into young adulthood at the dawn of blogging. He entered politics with a millennial’s fluency in social media.
Now, at 40, he is the nation’s third-youngest vice president — and, nearly a quarter-century after Gore left office, the nation’s first very online vice president. It’s a pioneering distinction that reflects the serious time and thought, as well as the debate-me vibes, that Vance puts into his interactions with othe
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Trump to sign executive order aimed at eliminating the Education Department
Trump is expected to sign an executive order this afternoon to dismantle the Education Department, the White House confirmed.
Trump will participate in an event at the White House at 4 p.m. ET and sign an order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure the Department of Education and return education authority to the States, while continuing to ensure the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”
Only Congress can formally close the department, but Trump can move to make it nearly impossible for employees to carry out their work, continue hollowing out the size of the agency or significantly reduce spending, as it has done with the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
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