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Tech billionaire Elon Musk ripped alleged "fraudulent" Treasury payments on Saturday as reports circulated that the Department of Government Efficiency has gained acces to the federal government's payment system as the second Trump administration continues cutting what they say is government fat and overspending. "The @DOGE team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups. They literally never denied a payment in their entire career. Not even once," Musk, the chair of DOGE, posted early Saturday morning to X. Musk's post came just ahead of...

[Video] Robert F. Kennedy Jr. denied Gov. Josh Green’s allegation that he caused many deaths in Samoa by discouraging the measles vaccine. HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) -- Gov. Josh Green was in the U.S. Capitol hearing room Wednesday while Robert F. Kennedy Jr. denied Green’s allegation that he caused many deaths in Samoa by discouraging the measles vaccine. Green responded with profanity on national television. Speaking on CNN and MSNBC cable outlets after the hearing, the governor was clearly angry. It was understandable because during his confirmation hearing, RFK Jr. basically called Green a liar. Kennedy, who was nominated by President Donald...

Washington, D.C. – Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., today introduced the U.S.-Cuba Trade Act of 2025 to repeal sanctions on Cuba and establish normal trade relations with the island nation. Wyden introduced the bill after the Biden White House announced this week it was removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism and Cuba agreed to free a number of political prisoners. Senator Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., co-sponsored the legislation. The U.S.-Cuba Trade Act would repeal the major statutes that codify sanctions against Cuba, including the Helms-Burton Act and the Cuban Democracy Act, as well as...

Too bad if something were to happen to it. You can tell how badly Trump’s McDonald’s coup worried Democrats by the fact that they immediately threatened the fast food chain. Senators Ron Wyden, Bob Case, and Elizabeth Warren sent this letter to McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski. I won’t go through it line by line, but here are some observations. The left-wing senators write: We write with concern regarding increases in fast food prices over the last several years and seeking information regarding McDonald’s pricing decisions. Prices of every commodity and service have risen sharply over the last few years. It...

Senate Democrats attacked McDonald’s on Tuesday for price gouging while it continues to “grow” profits and serve the needs of customers. The letter, written by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Bob Casey (D-PA), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), underscores the success of former President Donald Trump’s campaign stop on Sunday when he worked a McDonald’s drive-thru window in Pennsylvania. Images and video of the former president helping customers to McDonald’s finest foods nearly broke the internet. Many of Trump’s critics heralded the gesture as great retail politics and a stroke of political genius.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) is preparing legislation to expand production of semiconductors only weeks after his family members purchased stock in semiconductor tool manufacturers. Wyden and two other Democrat senators released a statement to announce they were working on legislation to “expand production of critical technologies like semiconductors, batteries and solar components” in the name of “economic recovery.” ‘By building on tools with records of success, we can also boost manufacturing in communities that have been left behind. We are working on new legislation that would expand production of critical technologies like semiconductors, batteries and solar components....

WASHINGTON — Ron Wyden, Oregon's senior U.S. senator, introduced legislation Thursday that would overhaul the U.S. Supreme Court and "restore public trust" in the institution, his office said in a statement. The "Judicial Modernization and Transparency Act" would make a number of significant changes to the highest court and the federal circuit courts beneath it, including an overall expansion of the court itself. "The Supreme Court is in crisis and bold solutions are necessary to restore the public trust," Wyden said.

During an interview with Portland CBS affiliate KOIN 6 on Friday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) responded to Israel killing some of Hamas’ leaders and its potential impact on ceasefire talks by stating that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is going to just have to find a way to show some restraint and bring people together.” And Netanyahu, “in particular, is going to have to have some diplomacy to bring about restraint.” Co-host Elizabeth Dinh asked, “So, now to Gaza, of course, we want to talk about there was a wrench thrown in peace talks after the killing of some top...

Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) are calling on Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel to determine if Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas violated federal ethics and tax laws. In the letter sent to Garland last week, the senators point to news reports revealing that Thomas did not disclose luxury trips or gifts over the past 20 years. Whitehouse and Wyden suggested that Thomas could be in violation of the Ethics in Government Act, which criminalizes a public servant for “knowingly and willfully” failing to file or report gifts and income from outside sources. “The...

@RonWyden As the longest serving member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I can say with confidence that this bill is the biggest expansion of the government's warrantless surveillance power since the PATRIOT Act. I'm still doing everything in my power to stop it passing the Senate.

Republicans are demanding Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden step down from his position as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee over his wife's major stock holdings."We are alarmed by reports of your wife's exceptionally large stock holdings, totaling $3 million, in four of the Big Five technology companies that you are tasked with overseeing – Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google," a group of national Republicans, led by New York Young Republican Club President Gavin Wax, wrote to Wyden in a letter obtained by Just the News on ThursdayWyden's latest financial disclosure covers 2022, and it shows that his wife, Nancy...

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden has been working with Idaho Senator Ron Crapo on creating a digital service tax somewhat modeled after Europe. Within Europe there are different models and proposals that target different digital services such as streaming, digital products, software, advertising and collecting consumer information. This means Wyden’s proposal could end up taxing Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and Disney+ for providing digital streaming services to customers. This would be an interesting tax question for how it applies to Amazon Prime, which is primarily a delivery discount service that offers free videos and movies as a secondary benefit to signing...

Senator Ron Wyden is introducing new legislation that would ban what he calls "judge shopping." The Fair Courts Act comes after last month's decision by a Texas federal judge to reverse approval of the popular abortion drug mifepristone. Wyden says no federal judge should have this much power."When you had these anti abortion activists allowed to judge shop and put forth an illegitimate case in front of one judge 17-hundred miles from here, access to a safe and effective medication would effect nation wide! Nation wide... The choices women have!" Said the Senator. "No single judge oughta have that kind...

A federal judge has issued a ruling that will stop the sales of abortion drugs nationwide and possibly save hundreds of thousands or even millions of babies from abortions. The abortion drug mifepristone is used for more than half of all abortions in the U.S. every year, or hundreds of thousands of unborn babies, according to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute. But a new lawsuit, filed by a group of doctors with the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, challenges the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval and later expansion of the deadly drug under the Clinton, Obama and Biden administrations. Represented by...

PORTLAND, Ore. — A federal judge in Texas on Friday ordered that access to a common abortion pill be put on hold across the country, and then minutes later a federal judge in Washington ordered the Food and Drug Administration to keep the drug accessible. The dueling rulings put the medication mifepristone, which has been available for more than 20 years, in limbo. Not long after the rulings, Oregon’s senior U.S. senator, Ron Wyden, a Democrat, told KATU in a telephone interview that the president and the FDA should ignore the Texas judge’s ruling. "I think there's no basis for...

PORTLAND, Ore. (Portland Tribune) — U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden’s Washington County town hall on Thursday, Jan. 12, was mostly civil, covering roads and bridges, social media and the war in Ukraine, save one woman’s outburst that saddled her with a few misdemeanors. After she shouted questions out of turn during the public Q&A at the Conestoga Recreation and Aquatic Center in Beaverton - related to how much money of the Inflation Reduction Act was going to China, alluding to a laptop belonging to President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and calling Wyden a “Chinese operative” - the woman was escorted from...

The FBI has obtained Pegasus spyware from the Israeli company NSO Group, which allows the agency to take complete control of a person’s phone without their knowledge. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has demanded answers from the FBI about how often it uses this invasive tool to hack Americans and whether the agency has gotten authorization from the courts to do so.“The American people have a right to know the scale of the FBI’s hacking activities and the rules that govern the use of this controversial surveillance technique,” Wyden said in a letter Tuesday to FBI Director Chris Wray.In particular, Wyden...

It is no mere coincidence that the once highly regarded FBI has become a malevolent force, a cancer on the body politic. Like any cancer, it needs to be cut out, and destroyed as an institution. Harsh words, but the shameful, partisan conduct of the FBI during the past 7 years conjurers up images of the Soviet’s KGB or East Germany’s Stasi. Let me be clear, especially for any FBI thugs monitoring me, I am calling for the lawful action of Congress to defund the Bureau and create a new, professional Federal police force. This is not a call for...

(CNN) Sen. Joe Manchin and his staff told Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and his staff "unequivocally" on Thursday the West Virginia Democrat won't support the climate or tax provisions of a Democratic economic package that the two had been negotiating for months, according to two sources familiar with the talks. Schumer, a New York Democrat, made a number of concessions to pare back the climate provisions but Manchin would not budge. Manchin told Schumer he will not support a bill this month with any provisions on energy or climate, or consider raising taxes on the wealthy or corporations, which...

A long line of suppressed disclosures has shown that the federal government is indeed spying on Americans, and Congress still hasn’t done anything about it.Facing an increasing backlash against the Biden administration’s Disinformation Governing Board (DGB), Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas promised it would not monitor Americans. It was not enough. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security was forced to put the DGB on “pause,” and its director, Nina Jankowicz, resigned under public pressure. Now DHS says it is “reviewing” the board while “continuing” its “critical work…to address disinformation.” No matter what happens with the board, it is hard to...