USA | United states of America

Every year, the U.S. National Civilian Community Corps, better known as AmeriCorps NCCC, organizes teams of volunteers to help communities across the U.S. with environmental work, including habitat restoration, emergency response and wildfire mitigation. It’s also the latest federal agency on the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) chopping block. Most of the staff have been placed on leave and volunteers abruptly sent home.

archived (Wayback Machine)

• Invidious
• Youtube

"Everything is a better option than paying these tariffs. There's no world in which it makes sense for us to pay these tariffs and sell these products in this region (US).

It makes more sense for us to give up on this region and move to another region."

• Rob Teller, Hyte Product Director.

^For context Hyte's margin is 5% before the tariffs. The retailers would benefit from the tariffs situation whereas the manufacturers and OEMs would still be stuck with their previously set margins.

https://archive.ph/bJlpI

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/32103955

Archived

A U.S. electric vehicle battery manufacturer with ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has suspended its permit application to build a plant near a Michigan National Guard base following fierce opposition.

Chuck Thelen, CEO of Gotion Inc. — a “wholly owned and controlled” subsidiary of Chinese company Hefei Gotion High-Tech Power Energy Co. Ltd. (Gotion High-Tech) — said the decision stemmed from the firm’s ongoing breach of contract lawsuit against Green Charter Township, according to the Big Rapids Pioneer. The township soured on the $2.4 billion project in November 2023 after voters recalled numerous officials following a series of reports revealing Gotion and its Chinese parent company’s ties to the CCP.

“I applaud the people of Mecosta County as Gotion pauses their permitting process, but their fight is not over,” Republican Michigan Rep. John Moolenaar, chair of the House Select Committee on the CCP, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Gotion must announce it will finally listen to the people, and end its projects for good.”

[...]

Questions about Gotion’s CCP-ties began to arise around March 2023 when The Midwesterner reported Gotion High-Tech’s “Articles of Association” required the firm to establish a “Party organization and carry out Party activities in accordance with the Constitution of the Communist Party of China.”

[...]

The House Select Committee on the CCP investigated Gotion High-Tech in 2024 and “found their supply chains are reliant on forced labor as part of the CCP’s ongoing genocide of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang Province,” Mooleenaar told the DCNF.

[...]

Meanwhile, Michigan residents — like Joseph Cella, the director of the Michigan-China Economic and Security Review Group — engaged in grassroots activism to oppose the CCP-tied company. Cella served as the U.S. Ambassador to Fiji during the first Trump administration.

[...]

“[They] refused to follow the directives given to state and local governments on dealings with China-based companies to exercise vigilance, conduct due diligence, and ensure transparency, integrity, and accountability are built into the partnership to guard against potential foreign government exploitation,” Cella said. “It is important that executive branch agencies, Congress, the Michigan Legislature, and citizens continue to scrutinize and investigate this ‘deal.’”

[...]

https://mstdn.social/@DemocracyMattersALot/113063952703333947

BREAKING: Following Donald Trump’s debacle at Arlington National Cemetery, Vote Vets released this devastating ad calling out Donald Trump for his BS. Retweet to make sure all Americans see this.

Click link for video (1 min, 33 secs) hosted on a Mastodon instance

When was the last time a federal judge claimed the governmt was violating the first ammendment?

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/342944

Decent study into official US claims about privacy