BumRushDaShow
BumRushDaShow's JournalCalifornia gives Planned Parenthood $140M to help keep 109 clinics open
Source: AP
Updated 2:45 PM EDT, October 24, 2025
After months of financial strain, Planned Parenthood will get a $140 million lifeline to offset losses it sustained after Congress in July cut funding for the health system, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday. The money will help Planned Parenthood keep 109 California clinics open. In a statement, Newsom said the move reflects the state’s continued commitment to abortion and reproductive health care.
“Trump’s efforts to defund Planned Parenthood put all our communities at risk as people seek basic health care from these community providers,” Newsom said. Lawmakers will also take up the issue in January when the Legislature reconvenes.
The news comes a week after the nonprofit organization announced it would eliminate primary care at clinics in Orange and San Bernardino counties. Five other clinics also closed in July in the Bay Area, Santa Cruz and Central Valley, all in response to federal defunding.
Planned Parenthood needs roughly $27 million monthly to operate all of its local facilities, according to Jodi Hicks, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, the organization’s statewide advocacy group.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/planned-parenthood-andrew-adams-gavin-newsom-donald-trump-donald-trump-es-d10e33568d5b2e631f2fd8482c2dc1e0
Trump administration won't use contingency fund to pay November food stamp benefits
Source: CNN Politics
PUBLISHED Oct 24, 2025, 4:36 PM ET
The US Department of Agriculture says it will not tap into its $6 billion contingency fund to cover food stamp benefits next month, according to an agency memo obtained by CNN. That means that roughly 42 million Americans will not receive critical food assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, in November, unless the agency shifts its position.
“Contingency funds are not legally available to cover regular benefits,” the memo reads. “SNAP contingency funds are only available to supplement regular monthly benefits when amounts have been appropriated for, but are insufficient to cover, benefits. The contingency fund is not available to support FY 2026 regular benefits, because the appropriation for regular benefits no longer exists.”
Also, states will not be reimbursed if they use their own funds to pay for benefits, according to the memo, which was reported earlier by Axios.
The loss of the critical safety net program ramps up pressure on Congress to end the federal government shutdown, which began on October 1, by agreeing to a federal spending package. Democrats have said they will not support a short-term spending bill unless it includes an extension of the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/24/politics/usda-contingency-fund-november-snap
But they'll illegally take a $130 million "donation" to pay the military.
As a note that I keep repeating - SNAP is under the FARM BILL, a 5-year appropriation that the GOP keeps punting year after year on C.R.s (we're still using what is basically an extended 2018 one that became a 2023 one extended through to this past Sept. 30 with the March C.R.).
Ronald Reagan's daughter rips 'heartbreaking' teardown of White House's East Wing
Source: The Independent
Friday 24 October 2025 15:08 EDT
Former President Ronald Reagan’s daughter has slammed President Donald Trump’s “heartbreaking” demolition of the White House’s East Wing.
Patti Davis, 73, mourned the East Wing in a New York Times opinion essay published Friday. Photos circulated online this week showing the extensive building work, which is being carried out to make room for Trump’s long-awaited $300 million ballroom. The East Wing stood for more than 100 years before it was destroyed this week.
“The images we’ve now all seen of the East Wing being demolished are heartbreaking,” Davis wrote. “Over the centuries, many presidents have altered the White House, and certainly older buildings need to be updated and repaired. But this is complete destruction.”
Davis said the East Wing “was not just a building made of brick and plaster; it was the people’s house, a building suffused with the spirit of the ideals that built it.” The building “invited you to look beyond your own life,” she argued. “Now no one else will get to walk across that threshold and feel the richness of that history brush past them,” Davis wrote. “It was where Eleanor Roosevelt walked. It was where Jacqueline Kennedy planned the Rose Garden.”
Read more: https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-patti-davis-east-wing-demolished-b2851857.html
Senators demand Linda McMahon ask DHS to stop immigration enforcement near schools
Source: NBC News
Oct. 24, 2025, 5:00 AM EDT
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and at least a half a dozen other senators are calling on the U.S. Department of Education to pressure immigration authorities to refrain from carrying out immigration enforcement within 1,000 feet of any school property, citing recent classroom disruptions in the Chicago area.
On Friday, they sent the letter, first provided to NBC News, to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, demanding that she step in and ask the Department of Homeland Security to curb its operations around schools.
“Federal agents continue to use unwarranted, excessive levels of force around Chicago, demonstrating an alarming lack of care or regard for the health and wellbeing of children, particularly by conducting unfocused, inflammatory operations within close proximity of school grounds,” the senators wrote in the letter. “We demand you pressure your colleague, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, to reinstate restrictions on Federal immigration enforcement operations in and around places of education.”
The letter asks for “common sense” civilian immigration policing around schools, arguing that “if society can agree that alcohol, tobacco and drugs should be kept at least 1,000 feet away from our schools, surely we can agree that tear gas—a chemical weapon which causes burning, pain, skin inflammation and respiratory distress—and other violent DHS tools and tactics also belong on that list.”
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/senators-demand-linda-mcmahon-ask-dhs-stop-immigration-enforcement-sch-rcna239427
Donald Trump Sued Over East Wing Demolition
Source: Newsweek
Published Oct 24, 2025 at 08:27 AM EDT updated Oct 24, 2025 at 10:45 AM EDT
President Donald Trump is facing legal action over the demolition of the White House’s East Wing, part of a $300 million plan to build a new ballroom on the executive grounds.
A Virginia couple, Charles and Judith Voorhees, filed an emergency motion in federal court on Thursday, seeking to halt the project, alleging that it violates multiple federal preservation and planning laws. A White House spokesperson told Newsweek on Friday President Trump has "full legal authority to modernize, renovate, and beautify" the building. Newsweek contacted attorneys for the couple for comment via email outside of normal office hours on Friday.
Why It Matters
The fight over Trump’s demolition project goes beyond a construction dispute—it’s a test of presidential power, public ownership, and historic preservation. The Voorhees lawsuit seeking to halt the project argues that Trump bypassed laws meant to protect national landmarks and public transparency.
At stake is whether a sitting president can unilaterally alter one of the country’s most symbolically important buildings, or whether the "People’s House" must remain subject to the same review and accountability standards that govern other federal projects.
Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-sued-east-wing-demolition-10931917
Link to FILING (PDF) - https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.286172/gov.uscourts.dcd.286172.1.0.pdf
Hakeem Jeffries backs Zohran Mamdani for NYC mayor
Source: ABC News
October 24, 2025, 2:46 PM
“Zohran Mamdani has relentlessly focused on addressing the affordability crisis and explicitly committed to being a mayor for all New Yorkers, including those who do not support his candidacy,” the congressman said in his statement.
"The stakes are existential. Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress have unleashed an unprecedented assault on the economy, ripped healthcare away from my constituents, weaponized the Department of Justice against our state’s Attorney General and ordered masked agents to callously target law-abiding immigrant families," Jeffries added.
Mamdani thanked Jeffries in a statement. "I welcome Leader Jeffries’ support and look forward to delivering a city government and building a Democratic Party relentlessly committed to our affordability agenda -- and to fighting Trump’s authoritarianism," he said. "Our movement to turn the page on the politics of big money and small ideas grows stronger by the day."
The New York Times first reported Jeffries' endorsement.
Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hakeem-jeffries-backs-zohran-mamdani-nyc-mayor/story?id=126842484
Article updated.
Original article -
After weeks of declining to weigh in on the New York City mayor's race, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Friday he was backing Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani.
Jeffries, who represents parts of Brooklyn, said in a statement he gave exclusively to The New York Times that while he and Mamdani had "areas of principled disagreement," he acknowledged the state assemblyman's win in the June primary and called for unity.
“Zohran Mamdani has relentlessly focused on addressing the affordability crisis and explicitly committed to being a mayor for all New Yorkers, including those who do not support his candidacy,” the congressman said in his statement.
Trump administration seeks to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia, Justice Department says
Source: CBS News
Updated on: October 24, 2025 / 11:59 AM EDT
Washington — The Justice Department said Friday that the Trump administration is seeking to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia and said the West African nation has agreed to accept him. In a filing with a federal judge in Maryland, Justice Department lawyers said that immigration officials expect to formally notify Abrego Garcia later Friday that Liberia has been designated as the new country of removal.
They said the Trump administration expects to be able to deport Abrego Garcia as soon as Oct. 31. The administration has "received diplomatic assurances regarding the treatment of third-country individuals removed to Liberia from the United States and are making the final necessary arrangements for [Abrego Garcia's] removal," they wrote.
In the court filing, the Justice Department said that Abrego Garcia had identified more than 20 countries that he fears would persecute or torture him if he were removed there, and Liberia is not on the list. "Liberia is a thriving democracy and one of the United States's closest partners on the African continent," they wrote.
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, Abrego Garcia's attorney, said the administration "has chosen yet another path that feels designed to inflict maximum hardship." "Their actions are punitive, cruel and unconstitutional," Sandoval-Moshenberg said. "Unless Liberia guarantees that it will not re-deport Mr. Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, then sending him to Liberia is no less unlawful than sending him directly to El Salvador a second time."
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/justice-dept-deport-kilmar-abrego-garcia-to-liberia/
US Consumer Sentiment Drops to Five-Month Low on Prices
Source: Bloomberg
October 24, 2025 at 10:00 AM EDT
Updated on October 24, 2025 at 10:17 AM EDT
US consumer sentiment fell in October to a five-month low, as worries persisted about stubbornly high prices and the impact on their finances.
The final October sentiment index fell to 53.6 from 55.1 in September, a deterioration from the preliminary reading, according to the University of Michigan. A measure of current conditions dropped to the lowest since August 2022.
Consumers expect prices to rise 3.9% over the next five to 10 years, more than the 3.7% they anticipated a month ago, the data released Friday showed. Respondents expect prices to rise at an annual rate of 4.6% over the next year, down slightly from 4.7% a month earlier.
“Overall, consumers perceive few material changes in economic circumstances from last month; inflation and high prices remain at the forefront of consumers’ minds,” Joanne Hsu, director of the survey, said in a statement. “There was little evidence this month that consumers connect the federal government shutdown to the economy.”
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-24/us-consumer-sentiment-drops-to-five-month-low-on-price-concerns
No paywall (gift)
Letitia James pleads not guilty in Virginia mortgage fraud case
Source: The Guardian
Fri 24 Oct 2025 11.21 EDT
First published on Fri 24 Oct 2025 06.00 EDT
The New York state attorney general, Letitia James, pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges of bank fraud and false statements brought after Donald Trump publicly called for her to be prosecuted in a move widely seen as political retribution. “Not guilty judge to both counts,” James told the judge as she made her first appearance in federal district court in Virginia. The case has been assigned to Judge Jamar Walker, who was nominated by Joe Biden.
The five-page indictment against James accused her of falsely claiming in loan documents that she would use a home she bought in Norfolk, Virginia, as a secondary residence in order to get more favorable loan terms, when she in fact used it as an investment property. But the charges, which were filed by Trump’s hand-picked US attorney Lindsey Halligan, came over the objections of career prosecutors who believed there was insufficient evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt and said that James did not materially profit from the loan.
James is also expected to soon submit a motion to dismiss the indictment, according to court filings, on grounds that Halligan was improperly appointed and since she alone filed the charges, the entire case should be thrown out.
The prosecution comes at a turbulent time for the justice department, which has found itself itself buffeted by constant pressure from Trump and other administration officials to pursue cases against their perceived political enemies regardless of the strength underlying evidence.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/24/letitia-james-mortgage-case-hearing
The GOP expected Democrats to relent on the shutdown by now. That isn't happening.
Source: NBC News
Oct. 24, 2025, 5:00 AM EDT
WASHINGTON — For the 12th time, Senate Democrats blocked the Republican Party's government funding legislation this week without a single senator switching his or her vote. Just three Democratic caucus members voted for the bill: John Fetterman, D-Pa.; Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev.; and Angus King, I-Maine. That means Republicans are still five votes short of the 60-vote threshold to ensure passage of the bill, just as they have been since before the government shut down 23 days ago.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told NBC News he’s taken aback by some of the Democratic posturing and rhetoric. “I’m surprised at how open they’ve been about it,” Thune said in an interview Thursday. “That statement yesterday by that House member that they know the American people are going to suffer but this is their leverage? This isn’t about leverage. This isn’t a political game. It’s about people’s lives.”
He was referring to House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass., who said in a recent Fox News interview: “Shutdowns are terrible. Of course, there will be families that are going to suffer. We take that responsibility very seriously. But it is one of the few leverage times we have — it is an inflection point in this budget process where we have tried to get the Republicans to meet with us and prioritize the American people.”
Democrats have used that “leverage” to push Republicans to extend Obamacare subsidies that will expire at the end of the year. Failing to do so would lead to increased health care costs for millions of people. Republicans say Democrats must first reopen the government, but, so far, the party hasn’t budged. The Democratic Party’s hardened resolve in the shutdown battle seems to have left the Republican majority without answers.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/republicans-expected-democrats-cave-shutdown-not-happening-rcna239457
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