NY Times: Trump budget draft ends Narcan program and other addiction measures.
The opioid overdose reversal medication commercially known as Narcan saves hundreds of thousands of lives a year and is routinely praised by public health experts for contributing to the continuing drop in opioid-related deaths. But the Trump administration plans to terminate a $56 million annual grant program that distributes doses and trains emergency responders in communities across the country to administer them, according to a draft budget proposal.
…
The federal health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has long shown a passionate interest in addressing the drug crisis and has been outspoken about his own recovery from heroin addiction. The proposed elimination of addiction programs seems at odds with that goal. Last year, Mr. Kennedy’s presidential campaign produced a documentary that outlined federally supported pathways out of addiction.
(NY Times more…)
Propublica: Trump Pick to Run DEA Could Challenge America’s Already Tense Relations With Mexico
In 22 years at the agency, Terry Cole never rose to its top ranks, but he is a vocal supporter of the president’s goal of going after Mexican officials who are complicit with drug cartels.
…
The Trump administration has warned that it is prepared to take unilateral actions against drug mafias in Mexico if the government there does not greatly escalate its own efforts. But current and former officials said White House discussions have been more focused on the tactics it could use against the traffickers — from drone strikes to cyber operations — than on any longer-term strategy to weaken them.
…
“We will never permit interventionism or violations of our sovereignty,” Sheinbaum said. “It will not be like before President López Obrador, no.”
Privately, some DEA veterans have lobbied against Cole. Those former officials, most of them associated with the agency’s Special Operations Division, have questioned Cole’s qualifications for the job in discussions with Senate staff aides, but they have been unwilling to air their criticism publicly.
(Propublica more…)
-
Closer to the Edge: Deported for driving: the erasure of Felipe Zapata Velásquez
The United States educated him. Welcomed him. Gave him a student ID and a tuition bill. Then it kicked him out like a used napkin over a technicality.
(Closer to the Edge more…)
-
Fast Company: ‘Hostile and political’: Jeff Bezos should have known Trump was always going to turn against Amazon
The Amazon founder seemed to think he could insulate himself from Trump’s attacks with changes at the Post and a Melania documentary. He was wrong.
(Fast Company more…)WSJ: Trump vs. Amazon’s Brilliant Tariff Idea
The retailer says it won’t display tariff costs on its site, which is a shame.
-
Wired: Trump’s Policies Are Creating Uncertainty for Fossil Fuel Companies
The Trump administration aims to make fossil fuels cheap—so cheap they wouldn’t be worth extracting. “‘Drill, baby, drill’ is nothing short of a myth,” one oil executive has said.
NY Times: How Trump May Unintentionally Cut Carbon Emissions
Despite his administration’s lack of concern about climate change, a recession would give the atmosphere a break. At least in the short term.
(NY Times more…)
-
Closer to the Edge: “You follow me.”
“There’s my friend… He follows me. He follows me.”
— Donald J. Trump, 100 days into his second term as President of the United States
Donald Trump is onstage in Warren, Michigan right now — still talking, still ranting, still confusing reality for a script he wrote on the back of a cheeseburger wrapper. It’s his 100th day back in power, and he’s marking the occasion the only way he knows how: by demanding loyalty, threatening enemies, mocking the disabled, and attacking entire communities with the vocabulary of a bar fight.This isn’t a campaign rally. This is a broadcast from the center of a cult, and tonight’s sermon is equal parts delusion, vengeance, and vintage-grade bigotry.
(Closer to the Edge more…)Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – April 29, 2025
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt popularized the idea that the first 100 days of a presidency established an administration’s direction. As soon as he took office on March 4, 1933, he called Congress into special session to meet on March 9 to address the emergency of the Great Depression. Congress responded to the crisis by quickly passing 15 major bills and 77 other measures first to stabilize the economy and then to rebuild it. On July 24, 1933, FDR looked back at “the crowding events of the hundred days which had been devoted to the starting of the wheels of the New Deal.”
…
Today is the 100th day of President Donald Trump’s second term in office. He marked it by delivering what amounted to a rally outside Detroit, Michigan, in which he claimed his had been “the most successful first 100 days of any administration in the history of our country, and that’s according to many, many people…. This is the best, they say, 100-day start of any president in history, and everyone is saying it. We’ve just gotten started. You haven’t even seen anything yet.”In fact, Trump has signed just five measures into law: the Laken Riley Act, which Congress passed before he took office; a stopgap funding measure; and three resolutions overturning rules set by the Biden administration.
But Trump’s administration does parallel FDR’s in an odd way. Trump set out in his first hundred days to undo the government FDR established in his first hundred days. Trump has turned the nation away from 92 years of a government that sought to serve ordinary Americans by regulating business, providing a basic social safety net, promoting infrastructure, protecting civil rights, and stabilizing global security and trade. Instead, he is trying to recreate the nation of more than 100 years ago, in which the role of government was to protect the wealthy and enable them to make money from the country’s resources and its people.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)Liz Dye: Trump demands states obey law he just announced via tweet
That’s not how any of this works.
“We are the federal law,” President Trump insisted at a lunch with state governors on February 21. And he really believes it!
Since his first day in office, Trump and his minions have loudly insisted that the law means what he says it does, despite the Constitution vesting in Congress the power to enact laws and courts the duty interpret them. And yet, he persists.
Nowhere is this legal fantasizing more bizarre than in the context of civil rights, where Trump concocted new theories of gender and race discrimination and commands all of us to treat them as if they are real. Suddenly we are expected to accept that the existence of trans people or the mere acknowledgement of racism is itself discriminatory. It’s bizarre and ahistorical, and it almost certainly won’t work.
(Liz Dye more…)
-
NY Times: Trump Says He Could Free Abrego Garcia From El Salvador, but Won’t
Trump’s comments undermined previous statements by his top aides and were a blunt sign of his administration’s intention to double down and defy the courts.
Daily Beast: Trump Melts Down at Being Fact-Checked Right to His Face
KNUCKLEHEAD
The president lashed out when challenged on his claims about the tattoos on deported dad’s left hand.
…
Earlier this month, Trump posted a photo on social media of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s hand showing four tattoos—a marijuana leaf, smiley face, cross, and skull. In the picture, the numbers and letters “M-S-1-3” were digitally added above each tattoo to argue that the symbols were a code to signify gang membership.
…
Criminal justice experts told CBS News that members have been known to tattoo the gang’s colloquial name “MS-13” on their bodies, along with images of devil horns. But a community activist who had worked with gang members for more than 25 years said he had never seen a gang member with Abrego Garcia’s knuckle tattoos.
(Daily Beast more…)Jennifer Rubin: Trump Refuses to Fold a Losing Hand
Donald Trump’s dozens of losses in court, including multiple defeats in his lawless quest to deport people without due process, have not slowed his zeal for bullying and retribution. Raised at the knee of Roy Cohn, his learned modus operandi has always been “Never apologize.” Instead, he doubles down with ever more outrageous actions, rhetoric, and nominations.
But that may come at a price.
(Jennifer Rubin more…)Politico: Judge frees Columbia student activist whom Trump administration wants to deport
(Politico more…)
-
Dean Blundell: From MapleMAGA to Treason: Danielle Smith Outlines Plan to Hand Alberta to the U.S
Alberta’s Premier is rigging the system to ditch Canada, cozying up to Trump and pushing a 51st-state fantasy.
-
Hill: Trump fires Doug Emhoff, Biden appointees from Holocaust museum board
-
Dean Blundell: Trump’s Papal Dreams: Can a Rapist with 34 Felonies Lead the Catholic Church?
Yesterday, in a scrum outside the White House, Donald J. Trump dropped a bombshell that left reporters and onlookers in stitches: “I think I’d make a great Pope. We’ve had fascist Pope’s before and the words “rape” and “Vatican” are familiar to around 9 billion people so WTF. Let’s go down the “Pope Donald” dream Rabbit hole.
(Dean Blundell more…)
-
Politico: DOGE has made a big impact on Washington. But government spending is up.
…
DOGE has cut a wide swath — shrinking the federal workforce to 1960s levels. But its impact in other ways has been more narrow than both supporters and detractors might realize. Government spending is actually increasing amid all the DOGE cuts, with notable exceptions including foreign aid and education.
(Politico more…)
-
Dean Blundell: Russia Begs Trump to Invade Canada After Carney’s Win – “Canada = Ukraine”
Putin’s Right Hand Man/Culture Minister “Alexander Dugin” is Publicly Begging Trump to Treat Canada Like Russia is Treating Ukraine
(Dean Blundell more…)
-
Decoding Fox News: Fox News: Pay No Attention to Trump’s Falling Poll Numbers
A condensed overview of 17 hours of Fox News for the week ending 4/27/25
Last week as Americans grew increasingly worried about Trump’s chaotic trade deals Fox News distracted its audience with stories about dark woke Democrats, a renegade dog-walking Tesla vandal, the negative qualities of Pope Francis, the short-comings of due process and the never-ending deep state persecution of Pete Hegseth.
The segments that got the most airtime on the network focused on problems within the Democratic Party. When Fox can’t promote anything positive about the Trump administration it falls back on one of its favorite topics – Democrats are terrible.
(Decoding Fox News more…)
Project 2025 Tracker
DOGE Tracker
Leave a Reply