Republicans Quietly Kill Office to Combat Foreign Propaganda

The GOP has eliminated a critical government agency fighting disinformation just in time for Trump’s second term.

The State Department’s Global Engagement Center, responsible for leading efforts to combat foreign disinformation, was shut down this week after Republican lawmakers at the last minute removed its funding from the spending bill to avert a government shutdown.

The GEC is a spin-off of an Obama-era creation, the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications. Obama signed an executive order to make the GEC an official body in 2016. Since then, the center has tracked things like Russian and Chinese Covid-19 conspiracy theories and accused the Kremlin of trying to destabilize U.S. influence domestically and abroad. 

But the GEC has been under fire since billionaire Elon Musk called it “the worst offender in US government censorship & media manipulation.” Shortly after that, Republican House Foreign Affairs Committee members began to call for its closure, claiming that it was censoring conservative voices and choosing to partner with liberal NGOs.  

The effort to close the GEC, which only has a $60 million budget, is deeply troubling in a time of deeply pervasive misinformation. 

“[The GEC] has played an indispensable role in combating Russian and Chinese disinformation,” Senator Chris Murphy said in October while trying to save the center. “It would unnecessarily undermine U.S. national security if we eliminated this tool.”

Despite still being on holiday break, some Republicans are not in the giving mood when it comes to House Speaker Mike Johnson.

On Thursday, Representative Andy Harris, who chairs the far-right House Freedom Caucus, told Fox Business that Republicans need to think about whether their current leadership “is what we need.”

“Before the last couple of weeks, I was in his corner, but now we should consider what’s the best path forward,” Harris said about Johnson. “We do need to consider whether—if we’re going to advance Mr. Trump’s agenda—whether the current leadership is what we need.”

On Friday, Representative Thomas Massie also expressed a lack of confidence in Johnson’s leadership in a post on X, saying that he “will vote for someone other than Mike Johnson.”

“I’m not persuaded by the ‘hurry up and elect him so we can certify the election on J6’ argument,” Massie’s post said, referring to the certification of the 2024 election set to take place on January 6, 2025. “A weak legislative branch, beholden to the swamp, will not be able to achieve the mandate voters gave Trump and Congress in November.”

Last week, Harris said in a statement that he was “now undecided on what House leadership should look like in the 119th Congress,” possibly signaling that the Freedom Caucus may lead the charge in unseating and replacing Johnson when the new Congress is sworn in. If this is the case, then who would replace Johnson as the new speaker?

Earlier this year, Harris floated Representative Jim Jordan as a possible candidate, while outspoken Republicans like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Senator Rand Paul have made an outlandish call for Elon Musk to take over the speakership. In this Republican Party, however, another crazy leadership shake-up is not out of the question.

The only person to be in charge of both the CIA and FBI wants everyone to know that Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel don’t have what it takes to do the job.

William Webster, who is literally 100 years old, took the time to write a letter to the Senate to outline just how bad Patel and Gabbard would be as FBI head and director of national intelligence, respectively.

“His record of executing the president’s directives suggest a loyalty to individuals rather than the rule of law—a dangerous precedent for an agency tasked with impartial enforcement of justice,” Webster said of Patel.

He went on to say that Gabbard had “a profound lack” of experience with the intelligence community.

“Effective management of our intelligence community requires unparalleled expertise to navigate the complexities of global threats and to maintain the trust of allied nations,” Webster penned. “Without that trust, our ability to safeguard sensitive secrets and collaborate internationally is severely diminished.”

“I urge you to weigh the critical importance of nonpartisan leadership and experience,” he concluded. “The safety of the American people—and your own families—depends on it.”

Webster headed the FBI from 1978 to 1987 and the CIA from 1987 to 1991.

The online beef between Donald Trump’s Silicon Valley backers and the more traditionally conservative MAGA base has culminated in Elon Musk allegedly using X to censor his fellow Trump supporters.

Laura Loomer, Gavin Mario Wax, ConservativePAC, and Owen Shroyer all had their X verification badges removed Thursday night after criticizing Musk’s stances on labor and immigration earlier in the day.

“All of our influencers have now lost verification status, as well as our own page,” the Trump-supporting ConservativePAC wrote. “Our brand did nothing. We spoke out against HB1 visas and it appears that @elonmusk intentionally shut us down? Is this the new status quo from America’s ‘most free’ social media platform?”

“I mean right after @elonmusk called me a troll today, my account verification was taken away, my subscriptions were deactivated and I was banned from being able to buy premium even though I was already paying for premium,” said Loomer. “Clearly retaliation.”

“My verification badge is now under review. Weird! Didn’t change anything,” said Gavin Mario Wax, another vocal critic of H-1B visas.

This all comes after Musk and fellow Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, co-chair Vivek Ramaswamy engaged in some post-Christmas infighting with conservatives about whether Asian immigrants on H-1B work visas or pure corn-fed Americans would make better SpaceX employees.

“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” Ramaswamy said in a long, rambling post Thursday on X. “A culture that venerates Cory from ‘Boy Meets World,’ or Zach & Slater over Screech in ‘Saved by the Bell,’ or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in ‘Family Matters,’ will not produce the best engineers.”

Musk expressed similar sentiments, noting that “the number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low,” before soon getting into a fight with his own followers about the issue.

And apparently, the oligarch has thin skin when it comes to his critics.

“Insane that blue checks are being removed from accounts that have been vocal in their criticism of the H1B racket. Horrible look,” conservative influencer Wax said in a separate post. “I’ve supported Elon and X. Anyone who was at the @NYYRC gala can attest that I dedicated a large portion of my speech to praising Elon. Sad!”

This racialized internal strife has yet to be commented on by President-elect Trump, and may spell trouble for the future of DOGE, Musk, and Ramaswamy.

The president of Panama, José Raúl Mulino, is not happy with Donald Trump’s accusation that Chinese troops are stationed in the Panama Canal, calling the claim “nonsense.”  

“Merry Christmas to all, including to the wonderful soldiers of China, who are lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama Canal,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday as part of a barrage of unhinged posts on the holiday. As one might expect, Mulino was not happy with the false charge. 

“There is not a single Chinese soldier in the canal,” Mulino said to reporters Thursday, adding that there is “absolutely no Chinese interference.” 

Trump told a crowd of supporters in Arizona Sunday that “the fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous, highly unfair,” saying that if shipping rates were not lowered, “we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, quickly and without question.”

Why Trump is choosing to attack Panama right now isn’t clear, although it could have something to do with the outstanding tax evasion case the president-elect faces in the country. It stems from 2019, when the owners of a Panama City hotel tower that was previously managed and operated under the Trump brand accused the Trump Organization of pocketing money meant to pay taxes. According to a lawsuit, Trump’s companies simply kept the money, “intentionally evading taxes” and leaving the new owner liable for millions.

Trump’s threats to Panama in recent days are accompanied by his renewed desire to buy Greenland from Denmark, an idea he floated during his first presidential term that was met with widespread derision. It seems as though the president-elect is bringing back the belligerent threats and bizarre attention-seeking antics that were a hallmark of his first presidential term, with even less restraint than before.

Right-wing influencer and Donald Trump gadfly Laura Loomer is attacking Elon Musk, seemingly over his desire for more immigrants to work and study in science and technology fields in the United States.

In several posts on X Thursday, Loomer railed against Musk and his influence on Trump. She attacked Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” project with Vivek Ramaswamy, calling it a “vanity project” on Wednesday before accusing it as a smokescreen for “the pet projects of tech bro billionaires” on Thursday. She also claimed that there would be a falling out between Musk and Trump soon. 

In response, Musk accused Loomer of being a troll and said she should be ignored. Loomer continued her attacks unabated, calling the tech CEO a pawn of China, resorting to homophobic and racist insults, and accusing Musk of having “bought his way into MAGA.”

“Remember when you voted for Biden and propped up @GovRonDeSantis and you said Trump was too old? We all know you only donated your money so you could influence immigration policy and protect your buddy Xi JinPing,” Loomer wrote in one post, and in a follow-up, she called Musk “a total f****ing drag on the Trump transition.”

“He’s a stage 5 clinger who over stayed his welcome at Mar a Lago in an effort to become Trump’s side piece and be the point man for all of his accomplices in big Tech to slither in to Mar a Lago,” Loomer posted.

Loomer, renowned for her Islamophobia, racism, and conspiracy theories, appears to be opposing Musk for those very reasons, as her virulent racism drives her anti-immigration views. Her attacks on Musk are flavored with that racism, from her invoking of China to repeated attacks on people from India.

On a related note, Musk’s DOGE sidekick, Vivek Ramaswamy, also got piled on Thursday by MAGA for his own immigration views after making the glaring mistake of claiming there were shortcomings in American culture, fueling racist attacks from the far right. It seems that Musk and Ramaswamy are already wearing out their welcome in Trumpworld, and soon might anger the big guy himself.

Vivek Ramaswamy thinks that tech companies are choosing foreign-born workers over American ones because our culture is too chill, too mediocre, and doesn’t uplift dorks like him enough.

The former Republican presidential candidate and upcoming Department of Government Efficiency co-lead offered his two cents on the discussion surrounding the future of “American-born” labor in Silicon Valley.

​​”A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers. A culture that venerates Cory from ‘Boy Meets World,’ or Zach & Slater over Screech in ‘Saved by the Bell,’ or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in ‘Family Matters,’ will not produce the best engineers,” Ramaswamy wrote in a lengthy post on X.

“More movies like Whiplash, fewer reruns of ‘Friends.’ More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less ‘chillin.’ More extracurriculars, less ‘hanging out at the mall.’ … ‘Normalcy’ doesn’t cut it in a hyper-competitive global market for technical talent. And if we pretend like it does, we’ll have our asses handed to us by China.”

“A culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness. That’s the work we have cut out for us, rather than wallowing in victimhood & just wishing (or legislating) alternative hiring practices into existence,” he concluded.

Ramaswamy, who is Indian American, was immediately lambasted by the left and the right for this pitiful, presumptuous take.

“There is nothing wrong with American workers or American culture,” former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley replied. “All you have to do is look at the border and see how many want what we have. We should be investing and prioritizing in Americans, not foreign workers.”

“Vivek you’ve accomplished a lot but it’s ok to just say you don’t understand American culture,” one conservative replied, going on to remind him how racist much of the MAGA base is. “Neil Armstrong, greater than any Indian to ever live and product of American culture, chose the less academic Purdue over MIT because he liked the football team.”

“‘Us’, ‘our’, ‘we’. No. YOU are going back,” another MAGA supporter replied.

“Ivy leaguer trying to sell ‘math Olympiad over prom queen’ to the maga base amid intense educational polarization is wild,” said Harvard professor Matt Blackwell.

“Vivek trashing sports achievement (‘a culture that celebrates the jock over the valedictorian’) is surely going to go down well with his audience. Everyone loves a Yale guy talking about why American culture sucks,” wrote Current Affairs editor Nathan J. Robinson.

Ramaswamy’s views, which seem to be in misalignment with the majority of MAGA, may potentially put his power as DOGE co-lead in jeopardy. It remains to be seen how President-elect Donald Trump will respond to these talking points, if at all.

In response to Russia allegedly downing an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet, a Republican congressman thinks Russia should be given what it wants regarding Ukraine.

Representative Ryan Zinke was asked on Fox Business Thursday about the plane crash, and he largely dismissed the gravity of the attack, saying that if the reports are true, it’s not the first jet Russia has taken down. He then went on a tangent about the situation in Ukraine.

“It’s a sitting melting pot without an answer unless we have clearly defined objectives. What’s our plan? You know, my position is I don’t think Ukraine is ready for NATO, they’d have to do a massive political reform that they’re not willing to do, and the Crimean peninsula has been a sticking point,” Zinke said.

“Look, it’s the only warm water port that Russia has, and quite frankly, there’s been 14 wars fought over that Crimean peninsula. I don’t think you’re going to wrest it out of the hands of Russia anytime soon, and I don’t think you should be going to NATO,” Zinke added.

Early reports indicate that Russia’s air defenses attacked a civilian plane entering its airspace, and then its electronic warfare systems disrupted the plane’s communication abilities, resulting in a grievous error at best and a heinous crime at worst. But Zinke’s first thought appears to be how to hand Russia what it wants in its war in Ukraine.

In any case, it’s another example of Donald Trump’s Republican Party seeking to appease Vladimir Putin’s Russia rather than oppose its attempts to control Ukraine and seize territory from the country. Zinke’s word salad is probably what a lot of Republicans are thinking: a misunderstanding of the conflict coupled with a lack of solutions to real problems.

New Hampshire Democratic Representative Annie Kuster is making her feelings known on her way out of Congress.

The longtime congresswoman fired shots at President Joe Biden, President-elect Donald Trump, and everyone in between in an exit interview with The Boston Globe published Thursday.

Kuster’s answer as to why she is retiring from Congress was twofold. The first reason was the issue of gerontocracy. 

“I’m trying to set a better example,” Kuster said. “I think there are colleagues—and some of whom are still very successful and very productive—but others who just stay forever.”

Her second reason was that she’s not the best “gladiator” as Donald Trump returns to office. 

Kuster, who announced her retirement in March, suspected that Trump would win the election. “Just in my heart, [I] reached the conclusion that this would be a very challenging campaign for [Biden], and to put himself out there for another four-year term was going to be a struggle.”

“I was one of the last members of Congress in the gallery on Jan. 6, and as it turns out, we have the security footage that shows it was only 30 seconds from when I was able to evacuate that the insurrectionists were in that hallway hunting for us with zip ties and bear mace and who knows what else,” Kuster said in a similar interview with Roll Call on Monday. “I just felt like, he tried to kill me once. I’m not available for it again.”

Kuster still sees the whole of her time in Congress as a success, even with the recent tilt toward the GOP. 

“Twelve years is a good amount of time to put your shoulder to the wheel and try to make a difference on these issues,” she said. “I can’t say we solved them, but I think we made a difference, not just in changing policy, changing funding, but changing attitudes.”

During last week’s negotiations to avert a government shutdown, Congress quietly slashed $20 billion from the Internal Revenue Service.

Republicans have long targeted the tax agency, and their cuts will hurt its efforts to go after rich tax evaders and improve the IRS’s functionality. It’s their second successful cut from President Biden’s $80 billion funding boost to the agency in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, as the GOP took away an earlier $20 billion in a 2023 budget deal.

The latest cuts to the IRS will come automatically thanks to the 2023 deal, as the language was repeated in last week’s bill. The Biden administration said the cuts would end up adding $140 billion to the national debt, as they hurt the tax agency’s ability to audit big corporations and the wealthy.

Specifically, the White House said, the IRS will conduct 400 fewer major business audits each year, and 1,200 fewer audits of rich individuals. Customer services for taxpayers will also be hurt, according to Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo. Last month, he warned that by 2026, the IRS will only have the resources to answer two of every 10 phone calls to its helplines, with wait times increasing to an average of 28 minutes.

The Inflation Reduction Act’s boost to the tax agency helped relieve a long backlog of tax filings, and created a well-liked free tax filing pilot program. All of that is on the chopping block now, fitting in with Donald Trump and Republicans’ plans to weaken the IRS. The president-elect plans to appoint anti-tax extremist Billy Long to take over the agency next year, who repeatedly tried to abolish the IRS as a member of Congress.

These cuts combined with Long’s planned appointment mean that tax season next year will almost certainly result in headaches for the average taxpayer and windfalls for the wealthy and powerful. A ballooning national debt is also on the horizon. The question is whether Trump and the GOP will be able to get away with all of it.