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Size of the Federal Workforce
The size of the federal government workforce has dropped three percentage points since the year of Donald Trump’s birth. The problem with the federal government, some analysts say, is that it is too small, not too big. They contend that when the federal government is understaffed, the public is underserved and badly served.
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Chronic and Infectious Diseases Under RFK Jr.
Public health experts are stunned but unsurprised by the Senate confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary. Kennedy, they contend, oversimplifies and distorts complex public health subjects including chronic disease and vaccine safety. His stance on vaccines in particular threatens to cause a major infectious disease conflagration, such as the measles outbreak currently occurring in Texas.
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Gaza Population Transfers Would Be Illegal Under International Law
Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.
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Trump vs. Campus Activism
Last month, President Trump signed an executive order promising “immediate action”––including canceling student visas and deporting students––against noncitizen college students who participate in pro-Palestine protests.
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Musk’s Hands in OSHA
Sources report that Elon Musk and his “Department of Government Efficiency” will make their first visit to the Department of Labor on Wednesday, Feb. 5. Labor reporter Kim Kelly writes that “DOL workers have been ordered to give DOGE access to whatever they ask for—or risk termination.” Meanwhile, Congressman Andy Biggs (R-AZ) has introduced legislation to repeal the Occupational Safety and Health Act and “abolish” the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). This is the third time Biggs has introduced such legislation.
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Ethnic Cleansing Endgame in Gaza * No Ceasefire in West Bank
On Tuesday evening, the Associated Press reported, President Trump “suggested that displaced Palestinians in Gaza be permanently resettled outside the war-torn territory and proposed the U.S. take ‘ownership’ in redeveloping the area into ‘the Riviera of the Middle East.’ Trump’s brazen proposal appears certain to roil the next stage of talks meant to extend the tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and secure the release of the remaining hostages held in Gaza.”
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Federal Funding Freeze Rescinded: What Now?
The Trump administration rescinded its controversial and illegal directive from the Office of Management and Budget to freeze federal funding. On Tuesday, states struggled to access Medicaid and Head Start portals, although the administration stated that programs that provided direct payments to individuals were supposedly exempt. The memo amounted to a partial government shutdown by decree. The fallout created chaos.
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Rural Public Health: “Less Messaging, More Listening”
Instead of focusing on Robert F. Kennedy Jr., many public health experts based in rural communities are focusing on the social and economic landscape that gave rise to the popularity of extreme figures like RFK Jr. They are also concerned about the loss of healthcare infrastructure and the risk of H5N1, or bird flu, in rural areas.
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Netanyahu Pivots to Escalating Attacks on West Bank
“It seems clear that Netanyahu only agreed to the nominal ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for a greenlight from Trump to escalate violence in the West Bank. When Trump was elected, Finance Minister Smotrich told his staff to prepare to annex the West Bank. American officials from Trump’s pick for UN Ambassador Elise Stefanik to even former President Bill Clinton have expressed support for the extreme right-wing Zionist position that Israel has a Biblical right to the West Bank. Yet if Israel annexed the West Bank,” this would tank Trump’s stated plans “for Israeli-Saudi normalization. …”
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Trump’s “Manifest Destiny” and U.S. Treaty-Breaking Record
“The United States is a treaty-breaking nation. In the first century of its existence, the United States signed more than 300 treaties with Indigenous nations, more than any foreign power. And it violated every single Indigenous treaty. Today, the United States has the worst record of ratifying international human rights and environmental treaties and has always broken its treaties, pacts, and promises. The recent U.S.-led and supported genocide in Palestine, in defiance of international law, is a case in point.”
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“With a tiny staff, it has managed to place on the air and in newspapers, points of view otherwise excluded from the national debate.”
Howard Zinn