It’s not so much the clone-talk as it is the proposed starvation of millions of children

ALSO INSIDE: How Baltimore saved the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Jun 02, 2025

Cam here 👋 bringing you your daily dose of what people are doing – good, bad, and otherwise – in the world of politics. We’re diving into the stories you won’t see anywhere else. And remember, you can also keep up with me over on TikTok and Bluesky.

What Happened

In an action that took less than a second, Trump has managed to dominate three days' worth of news coverage, taking over broadcast news and printed papers alike. And while the President of the United States sharing a post reviving a conspiracy theory about Joe Biden being a clone isn’t exactly befitting of the office… it also isn’t something that’s going to impact people’s everyday lives, either.

Unlike the proposed budgets for the USDA and US Department of Interior, however, which were quietly released during the Biden/Clone fervor and would have massive implications on millions of people’s health and livelihoods. The agency budget proposals are based on required funding cuts should Trump’s federal budget become law, and include getting rid of:

Loan, conservation, and disaster relief funds for small farms
Clean water, soil, and agriculture programs and protections
Forest preservation and wildfire prevention
Child starvation prevention programs like SNAP
Biological and ecological research
Endangered animals protection
Restrictions on drilling and mining on federal lands

The budgets also propose short-term cost-saving measures that would make the millions of dollars that have already been spent on efforts to combat climate change go to waste.

Attempts to Sanewash

Far-Right Spin

Baltimore blocks Musk’s attempt to kill consumer protections

One of the first agencies Musk put in his crosshairs was the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a congressionally funded department that has returned over $200 billion to scam victims since it was created in 2011. He sent his goons from DOGE to infiltrate their systems in February, announced its budget would be returned to the Federal Reserve, emailed termination letters to 1,500 employees, and claimed to close the CFPB’s headquarters.

It turns out that all those actions were illegal—and not only that, Musk’s team knew it was illegal, but they thought they could bully the CFPB into submission anyway. And we now know this, thanks to the city of Baltimore.

Baltimore’s mayor and city council last Thursday voluntarily dismissed their lawsuit against Russell Vought, Musk’s DOGE co-head, who was appointed to run/close the CFPB, after Vought admitted to the court that his plan to shut down the agency was all talk. Despite all their public bluster, Vought and Musk knew they didn’t have the power to defund the agency or fire employees en masse because both funding and employees are required to fulfill the agency’s legally binding obligations—obligations that can only be taken away by an act of Congress.

“Defendants have repeatedly represented,” Baltimore’s lawyers pointed out in their dismissal filing, “that there is no mechanism by which Defendant Consumer Financial Protection Bureau can transfer away money from, or otherwise relinquish control over the money in, the Bureau Fund.”

Musk and Vought were well aware of their legal restrictions, but it wasn’t until DOGE was pressured by the courts that they admitted their impotency. This admission that they were powerless wouldn’t have come if Baltimore and labor unions representing federal employees hadn’t taken a stand.

US Rep. Mike Rogers, Alabama’s 3rd Congressional District

Since taking office in 2003, Rep. Rogers has:

Sponsored 97 bills, two of which have been signed into law
Knowingly received over $30,000 in campaign contributions from a money laundering PAC
Threatened to beat up a voter who asked him about ethically questionable contributions to his wife’s campaign for county judge
Tried to start a fight with former Rep. Matt Gaetz on the House floor over a committee assignment
Almost been appointed to be Trump’s Defense Secretary, but had to stay in the House so Republicans wouldn’t lose their majority
Blamed ISIS for the 2016 mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando and voted against designating attacks against LGBTQ people as a hate crime

Fun Facts

Rep. Rogers was an ardent supporter of former President George Bush's invasion of Iraq—so much so that he hired one of the conflict’s most prolific war criminals. Chris Brinson worked on Rogers’ staff starting in 2003 and was his chief of staff for about a decade. He came fresh from military service as a US Army Reserve Captain during the Iraq War, where he participated in the ongoing human rights violations that took place at the Abu Ghraib prison.

As a reminder, this is the torture racket uncovered by 60 Minutes, which published photos of naked prisoners dragged on leashes, shocked with electric wires, and forced to masturbate in front of female soldiers.

For his involvement in the physical and psychological torture, rape, and murder that occcurred under his watch, Brinson was reprimanded by the US Army for his involvement. From there, he went straight to Rogers’ office, where the war criminal was welcomed with open arms.

“Chris’ influence on my office is immeasurable; my staff in Alabama and DC revere him, and without his help, I would not have successfully run for two chairmanships,” Rogers said of Brinson. “I have some of the longest-serving staff on Capitol Hill and that’s in part to what Chris has done for our team.”

Personally, Rogers’ net worth has fluctuated considerably since he’s been in Congress. Financial disclosures put him right around the $1 million mark when he first took office, but the liabilities he took on over the years landed him a spot on the list of poorest members of Congress by 2018, with about $600,000 worth of debt. He seems to have bounced back, somewhat; his latest disclosure from 2023 shows he’s around $250,000 in the black.

Pressure builds on Arizona detention center

After three months of desperately searching for his wife, Vilma Villabos, Jose Camacho received a letter last week informing him that she was being held in an immigration detention facility in Eloy, Arizona. Vilma has lived in the US since she was a few weeks old, but Jose told reporters the cost and legal hurdles have proven to be difficult barriers on her path to citizenship.

It is unclear at this point why she has been held for so long, as she has not been charged with any crime, and whether she will be able to go home to her family or be deported to a country she’s never lived in.

@coppercourier WATCH: An Arizona husband speaks out after trying to visit his wife at the Eloy Detention Center. Jose Camacho, a Tempe resident, was sent into a panic after his wife, Vilma Villabos, vanished and he didn’t hear from her for weeks. Villabos, who was born in Mexico, has been in the US since she was 2 weeks old, her husband said. Camacho suspected that she might’ve been detained by immigration agents, but didn’t know for sure. After three months, Villabos was finally able to send her husband a letter to inform him she’d been apprehended by ICE and was being held at an Eloy facility. Camacho tried to visit his wife on Thursday during her scheduled hearing at Eloy and managed to lay eyes on her for the first time in three months, but was denied the chance to speak to her after the hearing was rescheduled.

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Jose has made the hour-plus drive from his home in Tempe to Eloy multiple times to visit his wife but has been denied access by ICE agents.

This comes as little surprise to those familiar with the facility, which has a documented history of negligence. Sahara Sajjadi, political correspondent for COURIER’s The Copper Courier in Arizona, has been on the scene—make sure to read her article on the subject or watch her breakdown on Instagram.

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