Pocket Rescissions

Previous posts have discussed budget cuts.

 Oriana González at NOTUS:

The Office of Management and Budget’s director, Russell Vought, is the mastermind behind the administration’s pocket rescissions strategy which involves a request from the president to withhold money already appropriated by Congress. But the request comes so late in the fiscal year that Congress doesn’t have enough time to act within the allotted timeframe. and the administration considers the money rescinded once the fiscal year ends.

The Trump White House had so far used pocket rescissions once, when it withheld nearly $5 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid in August. The Supreme Court allowed the move, effectively greenlighting Vought’s strategy for the near future.

But in July, Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, vice chair of the House Appropriations Committee and one of the 12 so-called “cardinals,” quietly added a provision to the fiscal 2026 bill for the National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Subcommittee — which funds the agencies most impacted by Trump’s two rescissions requests — that would have addressed pocket rescissions.

The clause, Sec. 7065, would have given Congress an extra 45 days to consider rescissions requests submitted late in the fiscal year.

After the bill text was released, Vought reached out to Díaz-Balart, explaining that the White House was concerned about the provision, one senior White House official told NOTUS. The official said that after Vought relayed the issue, Díaz-Balart removed the provision.

The White House did more than just reach out to Díaz-Balart. Republican appropriators started receiving pressure from the White House to not support the bill if the provision remained, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Expatriation 2025

Many posts have discussed citizenship and expatriation.

Benedict Vigers and Julie Ray at Gallup:

For the second straight year, about one in five Americans say they would like to leave the U.S. and move permanently to another country if they could. This heightened desire to migrate is driven primarily by younger women.

In 2025, 40% of women aged 15 to 44 say they would move abroad permanently if they had the opportunity. The current figure is four times higher than the 10% who shared this desire in 2014, when it was generally in line with other age and gender groups.

The percentage of younger women wanting to move to another country first rose decisively in 2016, the final year of President Barack Obama's second term. That year, Gallup surveyed the U.S. in June and July, after both parties’ presumptive nominees were set for the November election, which Donald Trump went on to win. Desire to migrate continued to climb afterward, hitting 44% in President Joe Biden’s last year in office and remaining near that level in 2025. This suggests a broader shift in opinion among younger women, rather than a solely partisan one.

Trump and the GAO

 Previous posts have discussed the congressional lobotomy including  the shrinkage of GAO.

Trump wants to replace the head of the Government Accountability Office.  Not so fast, writes Kevin R. Kosar at The Washington Examiner:

Republican senators have been willing to deep-six Trump appointees, particularly to low-profile positions. Trump has withdrawn a record high of 48 nominations this year. In recent weeks, they have forced the withdrawal of nominees to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Export-Import Bank, and the Office of Special Counsel. They also appear to be rejecting Trump’s proposed ambassador to Kuwait.

Many, if not most, senators value GAO’s work. Unlike, say, communications from lobbyists, interest groups, and their political parties, GAO reports and opinions are factually-based. The agency does not get more money or rewards from helping a legislator understand why fraudsters can rip off the federal SNAP food program. GAO’s value would be greatly diminished if senators approved a new comptroller general who viewed himself as the president’s advocate and defender.

Nor does it appear likely that Trump could circumvent the Senate and install an acting head of GAO. The law empowers the GAO deputy director to take over the top position when Dodaro’s term ends, and it requires Congress to form a commission headed by the majority and minority leaders of both chambers to propose potential nominees for the president’s consideration.

And not to be forgotten is that Congress rebuffed Trump the last time he attempted this maneuver. This spring, his acting appointees were turned away from the Library of Congress and the Copyright Office, with the support of both Senate and House GOP leaders.

SNAP Demographics

Many Americans, including Republicans, depend on federal services and assistance.

 Drew DeSilver at Pew:

The most comprehensive data source we have is the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation, although its most recent data is from 2023. That year, nearly 23 million SNAP recipients (65%) were adults, and 12.4 million (35%) were children.

Non-Hispanic White people accounted for 44.2% of adult SNAP recipients and 24.8% of child recipients in 2023. Nearly 27% of adult recipients and almost a third of child recipients (32.3%) were Black. Hispanics, who can be of any race, accounted for 24.2% of adult recipients and 40.7% of child recipients.

The vast majority of both adult and child recipients were born in the United States – 81.1% and 96.9%, respectively.

Among adult recipients, 54.1% had a high school diploma or less education. And despite the program’s work requirements, 61% said they had not been employed at all that year.

The Census Bureau also looked at households where at least one person received SNAP benefits. More than six-in-ten of these households (63.1%) reported having no children in 2023; almost a third (32.7%) said they lived alone. Among all SNAP-receiving households, 39% were in the South, the highest share of any region.

Presidents and the Press: The Early Years

 Many posts have discussed the relationship between presidents and the press. 

Todd Andrlik at Mount Vernon:

Washington read newspapers voraciously and understood the immense power of the printed word. Bruce Chadwick, one of 37 historian contributors to Reporting the Revolutionary War, wrote in George Washington’s War (2004) that “The help of the press was another part of Washington’s winter [of 1777] strategy. The general read as many newspapers as he could… he had friends in every major city in the states send him their newspapers and asked anyone scheduled to visit him to bring along the latest editions. He read them to find out how the press and public felt about the army – and him – but also to determine what the British were doing.”

The following winter, Washington received authorization from Congress to fund the publication of the New-Jersey Journal, a completely army-controlled newspaper that served as Washington’s mouthpiece and helped offset the political vitriol from James Rivington’s and James Humphreys’ Loyalist papers being printed in British-occupied New York and Philadelphia. The story of the Journal is well told in Chadwick’s volume. In Reporting the Revolutionary War, general audiences can now experience firsthand the same impressive assortment of war intelligence and public opinion that Washington craved from newspapers.

Shannon Duffy at Mount Vernon:

The peak of press attacks against Washington came with the public announcement of the controversial Jay Treaty with Great Britain in 1794, which attempted to ward off an impending war with Britain at the expense of American-French relations. Even before the terms of the treaty were announced, Jay's negotiations stirred up widespread opposition. The hostility was triggered not only by anti-British sentiment, but also by fears that the President was overstepping his authority in negotiating the treaty.

Washington's apparent refusal to acknowledge public opposition to the treaty added to a general discomfort with the power he was wielding. "Belisarius" cast harsh aspersions upon Washington's high-handed manner, which he saw as emblematic of the entire administration: "a brief but trite review of your six years administration, mark the progressive steps which have led the way to the present public evils that afflict your country. . .the unerring voice of posterity will not fail to render the just sentence of condemnation on the man who has entailed upon his country deep and incurable public evils."3

John R. Vile at The Free Speech Center:

In 1792, the new Congress under the Constitution adopted further legislation on the postal service. In setting rates, from 6 cents to 25 cents per letter (depending on the distance it was being sent), Congress provided that newspapers would be charged only 1 or 1 1/2 cents, again based on distance. The law also allowed designated governmental officials including the president, vice president, cabinet officers, and members of Congress to send mail related to their offices for free. This practice, which continues today, is known as the franking privilege.

To facilitate the exchange of information, the law continued the earlier practice that provided that “every printer of newspapers may send one paper to each and every other printer of newspapers within the United States, free of postage, under such regulations, as the Postmaster General shall provide.”

Peter McNamara at The Free Speech Center:

Scholars have traditionally cited 17 indictments and 10 convictions, many upon charges so flimsy as to be comical.  Targets of the act tended to be the editors of Democratic-Republican newspapers who criticized the Federalist administration of President John Adams.

...

The prosecutions and subsequent convictions under the Sedition Act galvanized opposition to the Federalist administration. (Samuel Chase, a Supreme Court justice, was particularly partisan toward the Sedition Act when presiding over prosecutions, and was later impeached for this.) The prosecuted Republican printers and editors became folk heroes. In the election of 1800, the Federalists were swept from power—never to return—and Jefferson, the new Democratic-Republican president, subsequently pardoned those who had been convicted under the law.

Almost 170 years later, the Supreme Court wrote in the celebrated libel case New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964): “Although the Sedition Act was never tested in this Court, the attack upon its validity has carried the day in the court of history.” Today, the Sedition Act of 1798 is generally remembered as a violation of fundamental First Amendment principles.

The Federalists in 1800 turned to papers to warn about the election of Thomas Jefferson: 

Monticello:

In order to curb Alexander Hamilton's influence, [James Thomson} Callender published, in his The History of the United States for 1796, a report of the affair between Alexander Hamilton and Maria Reynolds, a married woman.[4] The day before the Alien and Sedition Acts became law on July 13, 1798, Callender fled to Virginia to the home of Senator Stevens Thomson Mason of Loudoun County. Then, in 1799, he moved to Richmond where he wrote for the Richmond Recorder. His anti-Federalist pamphlet, The Prospect Before Us, led to his prosecution under the Sedition Act.[5] He was sentenced on May 24, 1800, to nine months in jail and a $200 fine.

When he got out of jail in the spring of 1801, Callender expected President Jefferson to reward him for his work and his loyalty. He wanted the Richmond postmaster job but he did not get it. In the president's view, Callender was now too radical, and in an attempt to foster reconciliation after the difficult election of 1800, Jefferson did not patronize the more militant or radical Republicans. As Jefferson wrote, "I am really mortified at the base ingratitude of Callender. it presents human nature in a hideous form."[6] In February 1802, Callender joined with Federalist newspaper editor Henry Pace and began to attack both parties, particularly the Republicans and specifically Jefferson. In a series of articles beginning on September 1, 1802, Callender alleged that Jefferson had several children by a slave concubine, Sally Hemings.[7]

Free Speech Center;

Before either of these events, a riot in Baltimore reflected local anger over the publication of the Federalist Republic, a newspaper run by Alexander Contee Hanson.

Reflecting sentiments that prevailed among members of the Federalist Party, it had vehemently opposed American participation in the War of 1812, which Congress had declared at the request of President James Madison, largely over English interference with American shipping. After being driven from his business by rioters, Hanson had retreated to Georgetown but returned to Baltimore where he resumed his vitriolic verbal attacks against the war and its Democratic-Republican supporters.

 

AT&T's California Astroturf

A number of posts have discussed Astroturf, i.e., artificial grassroots lobbying.  Sometimes they write the letters that their "supporters" send on their  behalf.

 AT&T is pushing California legislation to end its obligation to provide landline service.   Yue Stella Yu and Malena Carollo report at CalMatters:

On its face, AB 470 had widespread support this year from Californians for a Connected Future, a recently formed coalition of more than 150 disability advocates, chambers of commerce, tribes, community service organizations, local officials and small businesses, including a construction company and a tennis shop. For months, dozens of those groups testified in public hearings and signed identical letters urging lawmakers to pass the bill, arguing it would incentivize modern technologies and ensure more reliable coverage.

The coalition, which describes itself as “grassroots,” also states it is a “project of USTelecom.” Rhonda Johnson, AT&T’s executive vice president of federal regulatory relations, sits on the trade group’s board. USTelecom received $250,000 from AT&T to lobby on its behalf this year, and also spent between $85,200 and $106,000 running ads on Facebook supporting the bill in the coalition’s name, according to a CalMatters tally.

It’s a prevalent practice commonly known as “astroturfing,” when corporations or trade groups enlist seemingly unaffiliated organizations for the appearance of grassroots support, said Jack Pitney, politics professor at Claremont McKenna College.

“If you don’t read the fine print, you’ll assume that … there are a lot of organizations that sincerely support this legislation.”

While the coalition often bragged about the scale and diversity of its membership, more than 80% of member organizations have ties to AT&T, CalMatters found.

Some of those groups have AT&T’s top leaders serving on their board of directors. That includes AT&T president Susan Santana, who sits on the board of the California Chamber of Commerce. Ben Golombek, the chamber’s chief of staff for policy, most recently served as the west region vice president for public affairs for AT&T. Other AT&T executives, mostly directors of external affairs, double as board members of various local chambers, business groups, foundations and voting rights groups.

AT&T also pays to be a member of many local chambers of commerce, many of whom support the bill. Of the 28 chambers in support, AT&T is listed as a corporate member of 26 of them.

Dozens of coalition members list AT&T as a key funder. The California Asian Pacific Chamber of Commerce calls AT&T an “invaluable” partner. Groups such as the Concerned Black Men of Los Angeles, which provides mentorship to Black local residents, list the company as a sponsor.

Others, including tribes, youth service groups and senior advocates, have partnered with the company in its $5 billion effort to “bridge the digital divide” nationwide, distributing free laptops donated by AT&T, hosting “connected learning centers” the company set up across the state to offer free digital access or receiving grants from AT&T to address digital inequity.

The telecom giant has also sponsored events for some coalition members, from golf tournaments for the San Gabriel Valley Conservation Corps to the 70th anniversary gala of Society for the Blind.

The financial support can make it hard not to align with AT&T, Pitney said.

“If AT&T has supported you in a material way, you want to make sure that support continues,” he said. “You are likely to look favorably on requests from that organization.”

 

Declining Religiosity

 Many posts have discussed the role of religion in American life.   

Benedict Vigers and Julie Ray at Gallup:

The 17-point drop in the percentage of U.S. adults who say religion is an important part of their daily life — from 66% in 2015 to 49% today — ranks among the largest Gallup has recorded in any country over any 10-year period since 2007.

About half of Americans now say religion is not an important part of their daily life. They remain as divided on the question today as they were last year.

Such large declines in religiosity are rare. Since 2007, only 14 out of more than 160 countries in the World Poll have experienced drops of over 15 percentage points in religious importance over any 10-year period.

Only a small number of mostly wealthy nations have experienced larger losses in religiosity, including Greece from 2013-2023 (28 points), Italy from 2012-2022 (23 points), and Poland from 2013-2023 (22 points). Other countries, including Chile, Türkiye and Portugal, have seen declines similar in magnitude to the U.S. decline.

...

As religiosity has declined in the U.S., the gap between the U.S. and the global median has widened. The global median for religiosity has remained stable for nearly two decades, averaging 81% since 2007 and reaching 83% last year, the most current full-year data available.

At the same time, attitudes in the U.S. are drawing closer to those in other advanced economies. Across the 38 OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries in 2024, a median of 36% of adults said religion is important to their daily lives. The gap between the U.S. and the median for these countries is now narrower than at any point in Gallup’s trend.