- Supreme Court rules Trump administration must unfreeze foreign aid payments
The court ruled 5-4 the administration must comply with a lower court order.A sharply divided Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that the Trump administration must comply with a district court order and pay out nearly $2 billion in foreign assistance funds to nonprofit aid groups for work already completed on the government’s behalf.
Supreme Court Refuses to Save Trump in Quest to Demolish USAID
The Supreme Court has denied Donald Trump’s emergency bid to cancel billions in USAID funding already approved by Congress.Hundreds of State Dept. Officials Sign Dissent Cable Urging Rubio to Stop Killing USAID
The letter, obtained by The Bulwark, is a remarkable eleventh-hour attempt to save the beleaguered agency. - Trump’s Rage Over “Low” Deportations Suddenly Gets More Unnerving
A new DOJ memo argues that immigration judges can be stripped of civil service protections. That could lay the groundwork for firing them if they don’t rule the “right” way. - Trump Wants to Use the IRS to Track Down Immigrants. They May Stop Paying Taxes.
Undocumented immigrants contribute billions to Social Security and other programs. That money might fall off because of Trump’s crackdown. - Trump’s Tariffs Whack Trump Voters
Whatever happened to GOP concern for the working class? - This country just warned its citizens about travel to the U.S.
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But with a measles outbreak in Texas quickly spreading to both neighboring and distant states, the Mexican government has issued an advisory for citizens who may be traveling there. - State of play of Bird Flu in the US – and how the Trump administration is increasing the danger for everybody
Where we are, what we know, what we don’t know and how Trump is making things worse
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How the Trump administration is making the US response worse- Surveillance gaps getting worse
- Shifts to manage bird flu outbreaks as an economic issue rather than a health one
- Health policies under RFK Junior are increasing the risk
- Reducing the ability of scientists to do science
- Read NPR’s annotated fact check of President Trump’s address to Congress
There is a right side and a wrong side, and we are now on the wrong side.
Trump’s Speech Reduced American Democracy to a MAGA Game Show
The president turned to TV tricks to candy-coat his malignant intentions.MAGA Melts Down Over Dems’ Refusal to Clap During Trump Speech
“They hate America,” said Trump ally Elon Musk after congressional Democrats blanked the president.The American Century is Over
Making China and Russia Great Again
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In sum, it was the smallest, lowest speech in modern presidential history.Atticus Finch Would Have Voted for Trump
Go Set a Watchmen, To Kill a Mockingbird, and white supremacy lite.Alt National Park Service’s Post
Trump Didn’t Help Himself Last Night
The president is losing popularity and the public’s patience.We Crushed Fascists Before — It’s Time to Do It Again
The last time American fascists tried this, FDR and Wallace took them down. Will we?Real America is Protesting
Pro-democracy, No King protesters gathered around the country on March 4th, some of them chanting, “Trump isn’t America, we are America!”Trump Lies, His Seals Clap
His American dream is a nightmare“The days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over.”
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Trump’s comments were delivered after he gave a shoutout to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who was not elected to office, for spearheading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).Rep. Al Green Explains What He Shouted at Trump And Why He Thinks It’s Worth Any Punishment
Green was physically removed from the chambers as republicans chanted “hey, hey, hey. Goodbye.”White House Issues Head-Scratcher Of A Defense For Trump’s ‘Transgender Mice’ Claim
- Two Months Ago, Lawmakers Celebrated a Bipartisan Boost to Social Security. Now, DOGE is Cutting the Agency.
- AG Bondi blames deep state for nothingburger Epstein files
Conspiracies are fun. Reality notsomuch.
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Miami Herald journalist Julie Brown, who spent years chasing down the Epstein story and interviewing victims, writes that the FBI’s “Epstein files” likely contain a tremendous amount of information that can’t be released publicly. The identities of minor victims and grand jury materials are protected by law. Epstein’s co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell has appealed her conviction, and any future trial could be jeopardized by the haphazard release of evidence in her case. (Note that this is the same justification accepted by Judge Aileen Cannon when she ordered the DOJ not to release the Special Counsel’s report.) And Loomer is actually right that, if the rumored blackmail sex tapes do exist, then they amount to child sex abuse material.The problem for Bondi is that she swims in a sea of fake online scandals where the truth is largely irrelevant. Elon Musk rants about $50 million of condoms for Gaza; EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin accuses his predecessor of “stealing” $20 billion in “gold bars” and giving them to Stacey Abrams; HHS Secretary Kristi Noem steals $81 million from New York based on a lie about gang leaders housed in luxury hotels. Bondi probably hoped to stage a similar headline-grabbing stunt as her fellow cabinet members and the de facto head of government.
- Strategic corruption reserve
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The term “Crypto Strategic Reserve” is a non sequitur since there are no plausible circumstances in which the United States government holding large amounts of cryptocurrencies would be of any strategic benefit. - Some DOGE Staffers Are Drawing Six-Figure Government Salaries
Engineers and executives at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency are drawing healthy taxpayer-funded salaries—sometimes from the very agencies they are cutting. - Find A Way to Fight Back
On Who We Need to Be to Combat the Rise of Fascism - Against recklessly bombing children
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Hegseth had “signed a directive easing policy constraints and executive oversight on airstrikes and the deployment of American commandos”—i.e. loosening rules on who can be bombed and how sure you have to be that you’re bombing the right guys and not, say, a wedding full of innocent women and children. The directive doesn’t seem to be publicly available, but Hegseth has confirmed the report. - Trump lawyer on fired vets: ‘Perhaps they’re not fit to have a job’
- A few words about FiveThirtyEight
Silver Bulletin will begin publishing some new features soon — including Trump approval ratings. But the media just lost an extremely valuable resource. - I Know Exactly What They Are Doing
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You don’t need to be an economist to look around and see that the Trump administration is going to cause economic disaster — a recession or a depression. And it is by design. It is a feature, not a bug.How do I know this?
I live under a GOP Supermajority. I have lived under their boot for two decades. They have economically damaged my state and it wasn’t by accident. They did it to sell off the state and workers and land to the wealthy. They created a desperate situation in Missouri and that desperation equates to bounty for the oligarchs.
The new Gilded Age. Make America desperate again.
- There’s an Archive of the Pre-Trump CDC Website
It’s slightly out of date, but (almost) everything is there. - US State Department Kills Global Air Monitoring Program Researchers Say Paid for Itself
The initiative helped pressure the Chinese government to clean up the air in Beijing and was later expanded to dozens of cities around the world. Now, it’s been abruptly halted. - National Park Service fires hundreds of park rangers, which cuts deep at the San Antonio Missions
Ranger Sanya Marin said the item in her inbox on Valentine’s Day this month turned her world upside down. - Draft of Trump Executive Order Aims to Eliminate Education Department
Secretary Linda McMahon would be directed to ‘take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure’
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Fully unwinding the department would require a filibuster-proof, 60-vote majority in the Senate, legal experts have said. The major programs it administers—including money for students with disabilities and student loans—are codified in law and have significant political constituencies. The draft order doesn’t mention Congress.“It’s hard to think of functions” of the department that aren’t statutorily required “in large part because most are, or are in service of those functions,” said Julia Martin, an education lawyer at the Bruman Group.
McMahon, during her confirmation hearing, said Trump wasn’t intending to cut federal programs but to make them more efficient. She said Congress would need to go along with scrapping the department.
- Welcome to Wisconsin!
Why is the April 1 State Supreme Court election in Wisconsin so crucial? And why is Elon Musk pouring so much money into it? A multi-piece explanation is offered in this State Package - The Unlawful And The Awful: DOJ Is Decaying Under Pam Bondi And Ed Martin