But the GAO’s recent work on #impoundment has proved more politically contentious, & under #Trump, it has been met w/fierce #Republican opposition.

In May, the #watchdog found that the admin wrongly blocked funds under a $5B program to build #EV charging stations, a component of the #Biden-era #bipartisan infrastructure #law that Trump sees as *wasteful*. In June, the #GAO determined the admin mishandled funding for #libraries & #museums, after Trump curtailed the agency overseeing the money.

The threat of 100% #tariffs from #Trump is a different approach than the #sanctions package a #bipartisan group of more than 80 senators on Capitol Hill has been urging him to take. Their proposal seeks to target #Russia’s #economy with sanctions, but at a much higher level: 500% for countries that buy Russian #oil & #uranium.

“We are looking at the most expensive piece of #legislation probably since the 1960s,” said Jessica Riedl, a snr fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a #conservative think tank. “The danger is that #Congress is piling trillions of new borrowing on top of deficits that are already leaping.”

Historically, lawmakers have been unable to make such a large change in the country’s #finances without #bipartisan support, helping contain how much #debt is added at a time.

…Those 8 deployments resulted in just 1 fatality—a testament to remarkable restraint by the #military. But many of the norms that fostered such restraint—#bipartisan consensus, respect for institutional #expertise, & well-planned #RulesOfEngagement—are today weaker, or gone altogether. What’s more, whereas US #marines were previously accompanied by #Army military #police trained in crowd control & de-escalation, they are now deployed alone, an unsettling break w/past practice.

Stebbins started the review in response to a #bipartisan request from Sen Roger Wicker of MS, the #Republican chair of the #ArmedServices Cmte, & the committee’s ranking #Democrat, Sen Jack Reed of RI.

Beyond the controversy of the #Signal chat, #Hegseth’s office has been shaken by the sudden firings of Caldwell, Selnick & Colin Carroll, all top advisers to the #defense secy. They were escorted from the #Pentagon last week after being accused of leaking sensitive info.

The #Senate approved a measure to block some of the #tariffs #Trump has imposed on #Canada, w/a handful of #Republicans joining #Democrats to…halt levies set to take effect this week.

The measure is all but certain to stall in the #House, where #GOP leaders moved preemptively to shut down any attempt to end Trump’s tariffs. But Senate passage on a vote of 51 to 48—hours after Trump unveiled sweeping tariffs on >100 trading partners…, sent a signal of #bipartisan opposition to Trump’s #TradeWar.

#Trump says that #Congress should repeal a #law that would supercharge #US manufacturing of semiconductor chips. The #CHIPS & #Science Act was signed into law by Pres #Biden & heralded as a #bipartisan victory ensuring the US would no longer rely on foreign countries to produce the chips needed in a majority of the #technology we use. Along w/ #Democrats, 24 House #Republicans voted to approve the bill. Many of them were targeted by #FarRight colleagues & #MAGA for backing a Democrat bill.

The justices said they would consider whether the #law, passed w/ #bipartisan support to address #NationalSecurity concerns, violates the #FirstAmendment rights of… #TikTok users & owners of the wildly popular video-sharing platform.

Oral argument is scheduled for Jan 10, & a ruling could come anytime after that.

TikTok had asked the #SCOTUS to intervene before Jan 19, the deadline Congress set for TikTok’s #China-based parent company, #ByteDance, to sell the platform or be barred in the #US.