Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – April 21, 2025

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The stock market plunged again today after President Donald J. Trump continued to harass Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell. The threat of instability if Trump tries to fire Powell, added to the instability already created by Trump’s tariff policies, saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average fall 971.82 points, or 2.48%; the S&P 500 dropped 2.36%, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.55%. The dollar hit a three-year low, while the value of gold soared. Journalist Brian Tyler Cohen noted that since Trump took office, the Dow has fallen 13.8%, the S&P 500 is down 15.5%, and the Nasdaq is down 20.5%.

Hannah Erin Lang of the Wall Street Journal reported that “[t]he Trump rout is taking on historic dimensions.” She noted that the Dow Jones Industrial Average “is headed for its worst April performance since 1932,” when the country was in the midst of the Great Depression. Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon Investments, told Lang: “It’s impossible to commit capital to an economy that is unstable and unknowable because of policy structure.”

(Heather Cox Richardson more…)

Robert Reich: The secession of the billionaire class

Popular Information: $3 billion yanked from schools to help pay for Trump’s tax cuts

Wired: Investors Worry Trump’s Tariffs Could Cause a ‘World of Hurt’ for Startups

Donald Trump’s unpredictable tariff policies have unsettled the venture capital world, further darkening an already gloomy outlook for IPOs.

• NPR: The White House is looking to replace Pete Hegseth as defense secretary

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  Atlantic: Why Trump Is Standing by Hegseth, for Now

  Trump is currently supporting his defense secretary, but some in the administration are speculating about how long Pete Hegseth will last.
  The White House has begun the process of looking for a new secretary of defense, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly.

  Daily Beast: Why Pete Hegseth Is Just the Tip of the Lunacy and Chaos Iceberg

  NBC: Info Hegseth shared with wife and brother came from top general’s secure messages

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  The material Kurilla sent included details about when U.S. fighters would take off and when they would hit their targets — details that could, if they fell into the wrong hands, put the pilots of those fighters in grave danger. But he was doing exactly what he was supposed to: providing Hegseth, his superior, with information he needed to know and using a system specifically designed to safely transmit sensitive and classified information.

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• Closer to the Edge: Yes, we stole Kristi Noem’s purse

  
  
  
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  CNN: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s bag, including $3,000 in cash, is stolen from DC restaurant

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  The thief got away with Noem’s driver’s license, medication, apartment keys, passport, DHS access badge, makeup bag, blank checks, and about $3,000 in cash.

  Dean Blundell: Kristi Noem’s Purse-Snatching “Excuse” is Hilarious

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• CNN: For now, Pentagon and DHS won’t recommend that Trump invoke the Insurrection Act

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• Slate: Alito’s Emergency Deportation Dissent Misrepresents the Most Crucial Fact in the Case

  … Perhaps Alito’s most egregious misrepresentation, however, was not legal, but factual: The justice wrote that Trump administration lawyers “informed” a federal judge that “no” deportations “were planned to occur” on Friday or Saturday, so there was no need for emergency action. That is false. And what the Justice Department actually said in court reinforces the wisdom and necessity of the Supreme Court’s dramatic move.
  (Slate more…)

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• Bloomberg: Behind Trump’s imperial presidency (and Elon), there’s Russell Vought

  
  
  
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• NY Times: Trump Will Never Be the ‘Fertilization President’

  Long before Donald Trump said he wanted to be known as the “fertilization president,” Hungary was trying mightily to promote traditional families and raise its lagging birthrate.
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  But if Trump really wanted to arrest the decline in America’s fertility rate — which reached a historic low of 1.62 births per woman in 2023 — the best thing he could do is resign in concert with his entire administration. The crude chauvinism his presidency represents is a major impediment to the creation of healthy families.

  There are plenty of people on the left who find fear of falling birthrates unseemly. I don’t blame them; the pronatalist milieu is rife with misogyny, white supremacy and eugenics. But rapidly declining fertility really is a problem. It’s likely to lead to stagnant, geriatric societies without enough young working people to maintain, let alone expand, the social safety net.

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• NBC: New images could change cancer diagnostics, but ICE detained the Harvard scientist who analyzes them

  Without scientist Kseniia Petrova’s expertise, no one can fully unlock the data’s potential, putting crucial advancements in early cancer detection at risk.

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• Fast Company: Coal miners lose safety nets as black lung programs collapse under Trump

  A decades-old program operated by NIOSH to detect lung disease in coal miners is one of the federal programs that have been suspended.
  

  
  
  
  (Fast Company more…)

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• Harvard Crimson: Harvard Sues Trump Administration Over $2.2 Billion Funding Freeze

  
  
  
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  David R. Lurie: Resistance is not futile

  Harvard is demonstrating that bullies don’t like to get hit back
  

  
  
  
  Barack Obama recently said, “It has been easy during most of our lifetimes to say you are a progressive or say you are for social justice or say you’re for free speech and not have to pay a price for it. Now we’re at one of those moments where, you know what? It’s not enough just to say you’re for something; you may actually have to do something and possibly sacrifice a little bit.”
  (David R. Lurie more…)

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• Jess Piper: Red State Rebels

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  What you may not know is I also spend my time watching my fellow rebellious red-state Democrats hit the streets and courthouse lawns and highway medians throughout Missouri. I am here to share what they are doing and how acts of civil disobedience are becoming common in GOP-led states.
  

  
  
  
  (Jess Piper more…)

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• TNR: The Trump Team Knows Its Case Against Abrego Garcia Is Thin

  That’s precisely why the accusations are getting wilder.

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• Conversation: How single-stream recycling works − your choices can make it better

  
  
  
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  Onion: Underfunded Schools Forced To Cut Past Tense From Language Programs

  
  
  

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