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Hungary welcomes Netanyahu and announces it’s quitting top war crimes court
Court Watch |
2025/04/05 17:58
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Hungary will start the process to withdraw from the International Criminal Court, an official said Thursday, just as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived to red carpet treatment in the country’s capital despite an arrest warrant from the world’s only permanent global tribunal for war crimes and genocide.
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán gave the Israeli leader a welcome with full military honors in Budapest’s Castle District. The two close allies stood side by side as a military band played and an elaborate procession of soldiers on horseback and carrying swords and bayoneted rifles marched by.
As the ceremony unfolded, Orbán’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyás, released a brief statement saying that “the government will initiate the withdrawal procedure” for leaving the court, which could take a year or more to complete. Netanyahu’s visit to Hungary, which is scheduled to last until Sunday, was only his second foreign trip since the ICC issued the warrant against him in November.
The ICC, based in The Hague, Netherlands, said when issuing its warrant that there was reason to believe Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had committed crimes against humanity in connection with the war in Gaza.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages, most of whom have since been released in ceasefire agreements and other deals. Israel rescued eight living hostages and has recovered dozens of bodies.
Israel’s offensive has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t say whether those killed are civilians or combatants. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence. Israeli military’s response resumed last month, shattering a ceasefire.
After the ICC issued the warrant, Orbán invited Netanyahu to Budapest, and accused the court of “interfering in an ongoing conflict for political purposes.” That invitation was in open defiance of the court’s ruling and contradicted Hungary’s obligations as a signatory to arrest any suspects facing a warrant if they set foot on their soil.
All countries in the 27-member European Union, including Hungary, are signatories, but the court relies on member countries to enforce its rulings. Hungary joined the court in 2001 during Orbán’s first term as prime minister.
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Military veterans are becoming the face of Trump’s government cuts
Court Watch |
2025/03/17 19:47
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As congressional lawmakers scramble to respond to President Donald Trump’s slashing of the federal government, one group is already taking a front and center role: military veterans.
From layoffs at the Department of Veterans Affairs to a Pentagon purge of archives that documented diversity in the military, veterans have been acutely affected by Trump’s actions. And with the Republican president determined to continue slashing the federal government, the burden will only grow on veterans, who make up roughly 30% of the federal workforce and often tap government benefits they earned with their military service.
“At a moment of crisis for all of our veterans, the VA’s system of health care and benefits has been disastrously and disgracefully put on the chopping block by the Trump administration,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the top Democrat on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, at a news conference last week.
Most veterans voted for Trump last year — nearly 6 in 10, according to AP Votecast, a nationwide survey of more than 120,000 voters. Yet congressional Republicans are standing in support of Trump’s goals even as they encounter fierce pushback in their home districts. At a series of town halls this week, veterans angrily confronted Republican members as they defended the cuts made under Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
“Do your job!” Jay Carey, a military veteran, yelled at Republican Rep. Chuck Edwards at a town hall in North Carolina.
“I’m a retired military officer,” an attendee at another forum in Wyoming told Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman before questioning whether DOGE had actually discovered any “fraud.”
Although Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson advised his members to skip the town halls and claimed that they were being filled with paid protesters, some Republicans were still holding them and trying to respond to the criticism.
“It looks radical, but it’s not. I call it stewardship, in my opinion,” Republican Rep. Gus Bilirakis of Florida said on a tele-town hall. “I think they’re doing right by the American taxpayer. And I support that principle of DOGE.”
Still, some Republicans have expressed unease with the seemingly indiscriminate firings of veterans, especially when they have not been looped in on the administration’s plans. At a town hall on Friday, Texas Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw told the audience, “We’re learning about this stuff at the speed of light, the way you are. I think there’s been some babies thrown out with the bath water here, but we’re still gathering information on it.”
Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL, added, “If you’re doing a job that we need you to do, you’re doing it well, yeah, we’ve got to fight for you.”
The Republican chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, Rep. Mike Bost, assured listeners on a tele-town hall last week that he and Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins are talking regularly. As the VA implements plans to cut roughly 80,000 jobs, Bost has said he is watching the process closely, but he has expressed support and echoed Collins’ assurances that veterans’ health care and benefits won’t be slashed.
“They’ve cut a lot, but understand this: Essential jobs are not being cut,” Bost said, but then added that his office was helping alert the VA when people with essential jobs had in fact been terminated.
Two federal judges this month ordered the Trump administration to rehire the probationary employees who were let go in the mass firings. At the VA, some of those employees have now been put on administrative leave, but a sense of dread and confusion is still hanging over much of the federal workforce.
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Musk gives all federal workers 48 hours to explain what they did last week
Court Watch |
2025/02/23 18:04
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Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been given little more than 48 hours to explain what they accomplished over the last week, sparking confusion across key agencies as billionaire Elon Musk expands his crusade to slash the size of federal government.
Musk, who serves as President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting chief, telegraphed the extraordinary request on his social media network on Saturday.
“Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,” Musk posted on X, which he owns. “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
Shortly afterward, federal employees — including some judges, court staff and federal prison officials — received a three-line email with this instruction: “Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager.”
The deadline to reply was listed as Monday at 11:59 p.m., although the email did not include Musk’s social media threat about those who fail to respond.
The latest unusual directive from Musk’s team injects a new sense of chaos across beleaguered multiple agencies, including the National Weather Service, the State Department and the federal court system, as senior officials worked to verify the message’s authenticity Saturday night and in some cases, instructed their employees not to respond.
Thousands of government employees have already been forced out of the federal workforce — either by being fired or offered a buyout — during the first month of Trump’s administration as the White House and Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency fire both new and career workers, tell agency leaders to plan for “large-scale reductions in force” and freeze trillions of dollars in federal grant funds.
There is no official figure available for the total firings or layoffs so far, but The Associated Press has tallied hundreds of thousands of workers who are being affected. Many work outside of Washington. The cuts include thousands at the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense, Health and Human Services, the Internal Revenue Service and the National Parks Service, among others.
Labor union leaders quickly condemned the ultimatum and threatened legal action.
AFGE President Everett Kelley called the new order an example of Trump and Musk’s “utter disdain for federal employees and the critical services they provide to the American people.”
“It is cruel and disrespectful to hundreds of thousands of veterans who are wearing their second uniform in the civil service to be forced to justify their job duties to this out-of-touch, privileged, unelected billionaire who has never performed one single hour of honest public service in his life,” Kelley said. “AFGE will challenge any unlawful terminations of our members and federal employees across the country.”
Musk on Friday celebrated his new role at a gathering of conservatives by waving a giant chainsaw in the air. He called it “the chainsaw for bureaucracy” and said, “Waste is pretty much everywhere” in the federal government.
McLaurine Pinover, a spokesperson at the Office of Personnel Management, confirmed Musk’s directive and said that individual agencies would “determine any next steps.”
What happens if an employee is on leave or vacation? Again, she said individual agencies would determine how to proceed.
In a message to employees on Saturday night, federal court officials instructed recipients not to respond.
“We understand that some judges and judiciary staff have received an email ... directing the recipient to reply with 5 accomplishments from the prior week. Please be advised that this email did not originate from the Judiciary or the Administrative Office and we suggest that no action be taken,” officials wrote.
Judges around the country got emails from Musk’s team in late January, apparently by mistake, U.S. District Judge Randolph Daniel Moss said earlier this month. Moss said he’d also gotten a message and ignored it.
The National Weather Service leadership acknowledged some confusion in a message to its employees late Saturday as well.
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Small businesses brace themselves for potentially disruptive TikTok ban
Court Watch |
2025/01/02 03:40
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A looming TikTok ban could affect the millions of small businesses that use the short-video social media app to help them grow their business.
Desiree Hill, owner of Crown’s Corner Mechanic in Conyers, Georgia, started her business solo as a mobile mechanic. Sharing videos of her work on TikTok helped spread the word and she became so popular she was able to open a 9,000 square foot brick and mortar shop with five employees 18 months ago.
“Every day I get at least two to three customers that have seen me on TikTok, watched my videos and wanted to become a customer,” she said.
Though TikTok has been around only since 2016, small business owners use the platform in a variety of ways, from growing a customer base to advertising and marketing, as well as selling goods directly from the site.
According to TikTok’s own estimates, small businesses on TikTok would lose more than $1 billion in revenue in a single month if the ban goes into effect.
The Justice Department ordered the app’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, to sell TikTok or face a U.S. ban by Jan. 19, citing security concerns. The Supreme Court will take up the matter in January. President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office Jan. 20, has asked the Supreme Court for a delay.
If a ban does occur, small businesses will have to migrate to other platforms to find their customers. Instagram Reels, SnapChat and YouTube Shorts are alternatives. The good news is brands likely already have a presence there. But it may be harder to reach teens that have made TikTok their preferred social media app.
Another alternative is to build a strong database of customers that opt in to providing contact emails or phone numbers. That lets owners reach out directly to customers with promotions and other marketing messages.
But Crown Corner Mechanic’s Hill said she is worried that other sites may not have the reach that TikTok does. She has a presence on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, but it’s not the same, she said. |
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Court backs Texas over razor wire installed on US-Mexico border
Court Watch |
2024/11/26 03:02
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A federal appeals court Wednesday ruled that Border Patrol agents cannot cut razor wire that Texas installed on the U.S.-Mexico border in the town of Eagle Pass, which has become the center of the state’s aggressive measures to curb migrant crossings.
The decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is a victory for Texas in a long-running rift over immigration policy with the Biden administration, which has also sought to remove floating barriers installed on the Rio Grande.
Texas has continued to install razor wire along its roughly 1,200-mile (1,900 kilometers) border with Mexico over the past year. In a 2-1 ruling, the court issued an injunction blocking Border Patrol agents from damaging the wire in Eagle Pass.
“We continue adding more razor wire border barrier,” Republican Gov. Greg Abbott posted on the social platform X in response to the ruling. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Wednesday.
Some migrants have been injured by the sharp wire, and the Justice Department has argued the barrier impedes the U.S. government’s ability to patrol the border, including coming to the aid of migrants in need of help. Texas contended in the lawsuit originally filed last year that federal government was “undermining” the state’s border security efforts by cutting the razor wire.
The ruling comes ahead of President-elect Donald Trump returning to office and pledging a crackdown on immigration. Earlier this month, a Texas official offered a parcel of rural ranchland along the U.S.-Mexico border to use as a staging area for potential mass deportations.
Arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border have dropped 40% from an all-time high in December. U.S. officials mostly credit Mexican vigilance around rail yards and highway checkpoint. |
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