Bulwark: Trump Might Finally Make Voters Care About Climate Change

The White House’s actions are making the issue relevant in ways they aren’t considering.

CLIMATE CHANGE DID NOT RANK HIGH among policy concerns heading into the 2024 election, according to a far-reaching Gallup survey. Just 21 percent of registered voters called it “extremely important,” while 29 percent said it was “very important.” The rest characterized the existential threat to humanity as either “somewhat important” (24 percent) or “not important” (26 percent).

But there are new factors that could make climate change—or at least climate-related issues—more pressing for the average voter. Take, for example, President Donald Trump’s clampdown on job-providing green-energy initiatives.

(Bulwark more…)

WSJ: Corporate Giants Shred Outlooks Over Tariff Uncertainty

CEOs warn big-ticket items will cost more, while travel becomes early trade-war casualty

Boing Boing: American Airlines declares Trump 2.0 travel slump — withdraws 2025 financial guidance

WSJ: Home Sales in March Fell 5.9%, Biggest Drop Since 2022

Many buyers, spooked by rising economic uncertainty, stayed away from the housing market during the start of the crucial spring season

Nate Silver: It’s good when stocks go up

Actually, the stock market is an increasingly good proxy for the economy.

• Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – April 24, 2025

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  Trump won the presidency by assuring his base that he was a strong leader who could impose his will on the country and the world. Now he is bleating weakly at Putin.

  Trump was the logical outcome of the myth of cowboy individualism embraced by the Republicans since President Ronald Reagan rose to the White House by celebrating it.
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  Leaders who pushed this ideology knew it attracted voters. Once they were in power, they could slash government programs and cut taxes and regulations that kept wealth and opportunity accessible to poorer Americans. They argued that a society works best if wealth and power are concentrated among a few elites, who can direct capital more efficiently than government bureaucrats can. Their rhetoric worked: from 1981 to 2021, $50 trillion moved from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%. But those same people talking about individualism to secure votes also knew that the world has never worked this way. In the twenty-first century, U.S. security and the economy depended more than ever on coalitions and government investment.
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  Now the dog has caught the car. In 2024, Americans reelected Donald Trump, but he is no longer restrained by those who understood the importance of alliances and government programs. .
  (Heather Cox Richardson more…)

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• Bulwark: Rümeysa Öztürk’s Ordeal Is Our Nation’s Disgrace

  There is clear evidence of serious wrongdoing in the Tufts student’s case—and it’s all on the part of the government.
  (Bulwark more…)

  NBC: Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk must be moved to Vermont, judge rules

  The federal government had tried to pause the detained transfer of the woman, who is fighting deportation.

  Randall Munroe: PhD Timeline

  
  
  
  

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• Yahoo! FBI arrests Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan for allegedly obstructing ICE agents, Director Kash Patel says

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  In a post on X, Patel said Dugan, 65, was arrested for “intentionally misdirecting” federal agents who came to her courthouse to detain an immigrant who was set to appear in front of her in an unrelated court case. Patel posted the same message earlier on Friday, but had deleted it before reposting.

  Hayden Wright: Trump Regime Arrests County Judge, IMMEDIATELY Covers It Up

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  More details are bound to come out in the next couple of days. But ask yourself one question: how do you “misdirect” a federal agent if you never have contact with them — and never speak to them? Based on current reporting, it seems like she neither told ICE officials where the defendant was, nor misled them in any way.
  (Hayden Wright more…)

  Dean Blundell: Trump’s FBI Director Arrests WIsconsin Judge For Not Complying WIth Trump’s Illegal Human Trafficking Operation

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• Bulwark: 100 Days In, Mass Deportation Is a Failure

  Deportation statistics and poll numbers both say so.

  DURING THE 2024 CAMPAIGN, Donald Trump promised to “launch the largest deportation program of criminals in the history of America” on his first day in office, telling Time “15 million and maybe as many as 20 million people” could be rounded up and shipped off.

  And when he returned to power, Trump’s administration instituted arrest quotas for ICE, with a goal of hitting one million deportations during his first year.

  So far, it has been a failure.

  By the end of March, Trump will have overseen 113,000 arrests and 100,000 deportations, according to the highest estimates available. While those figures may earn breathless coverage in Trump-allied outlets like the New York Post, they are nowhere near on pace for his stated goals. Furthermore, they may be dubious.
  (Bulwark more…)

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• Steven Beschloss: Once a Magnet, Becoming a Pariah

  Foreign tourists, students, researchers and others are turning away from Trump’s America—a rational response to a dangerous regime
  

  
  
  
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• Jennifer Rubin: Four Undaunted Individuals

  When historians review the Trump Presidency 2.0, they may well cite this week as a tipping point.

  From collective action in civil society (colleges and nonprofits) to courts (on the MAGA effort to steal the North Carolina Supreme Court election, Voice of America), to the government’s noncompliance with discovery in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case, to Democratic politicians’ vigorous advocacy (with Minority Leader Charles Schumer standing with nonprofits and four members of Congress traveling to El Salvador on their dime) we saw forceful, effective pushback against the Trump regime. Like many archetypal bullies, Trump frequently backs down when people stand up to him or when he is faced with the consequences of his actions (e.g., backing off firing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, shelving the attack on nonprofits, and pausing some detrimental tariffs).

  Not everyone is backed by the power of collective action, however. Four individuals this week, acting without institutional or political support, firmly defied authoritarian power plays—and it is their courage that we want to underscore at the end of this inspired week.
  (Jennifer Rubin more…)

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• Your Local Epidemiologist: Birth rates are falling. But solutions are focused on the wrong thing.

  It’s not rocket science on how to fix it.

  1. Access to affordable care is not readily available
  2. There’s little support for new parents
  3. Raising a child is financially daunting
  4. There’s a climate of fear
  5. Programs that support women are being dismantled

  …If the government wants to be part of the solution, it shouldn’t just throw out incentives. It should invest in the foundation: affordable care, parental leave, safe childbirth, and supportive systems.

  Let’s focus on what matters: building a society where families can thrive. If we do that, everything else—including birth rates—may just follow.
  (Your Local Epidemiologist more…)

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• TNR: Trump Makes Alarming Confession on Wrongly Deported Immigrant

  Donald Trump is openly admitting his defiance of the Supreme Court on Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
  (TNR more…)

  National Memo: Trump White House Doxxed An American Family — Forcing Them To Move

  Allison Gill: So What About Everyone Else at CECOT?

  USA Today: DOJ memo offers blueprint to Tren de Aragua deportation plan

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• Slate: MAGA Is Aiming to Take Over the D.C. Bar

  If he were elected, would Brad Bondi try to suspend or disbar those lawyers who stood in the president’s—or his sister’s—way?
  

  
  
  
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  Fortunately, even if Bondi’s candidacy is in fact part of a larger threat to civil society and democracy, neither civil society nor democracy are dead yet. Bondi and his ally Alicia Long both have opponents in the D.C. Bar election. And voting is open until June 4.
  (Slate more…)

  All Rise: Law students organize to give Trump-caving firms a recruitment problem

  By creating a spreadsheet, Georgetown Law students sparked national headlines, along with PR headaches and staffing challenges inside the world’s most powerful firms.

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• NBC: Trump takes executive action targeting ActBlue, the main Democratic fundraising platform

  empty wheel: The ActBlue Targeting Is a Perfect Opportunity to Flip Trump’s EOs on His Head

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  Trump has ordered Pam Bondi to investigate foreign political donors, period. This creates a lever — at the very least a political one, but if done right, a legal one — to hold Bondi accountable for her clear bias.

  On her first day on the job, Bondi said she wasn’t going to investigate foreign influence in elections anymore, a move that was undoubtedly done to shelter Trump’s own misconduct. But now Trump has ordered her to do just that.

  Pam Bondi will obediently do as she bid, even as ActBlue has cause to sue about the selective targeting of ActBlue. But that provides ample opportunity to show all the foreign money Trump is gulping down that she refuses to examine.
  (empty wheel more…)

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• Stars & Stripes: Houthi rebels have shot down 7 US Reaper drones worth $200 million in recent weeks

  
  
  
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• WSJ: Polygraph Threats, Leaks and Infighting: The Chaos Inside Hegseth’s Pentagon

  Defense secretary has chastised top military officers and staffers as he seeks to quiet a storm he helped create

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• Slate: The GOP Keeps Losing Public Abortion Votes. So It’s Trying This Absurd Ploy.

  
  
  
  One of the most revealing moments of the 2024 election on abortion came when Missouri, one of the most conservative states in the union, approved a ballot initiative creating constitutional reproductive rights. And yet less than six months later, Republican lawmakers are pushing a new constitutional amendment to overturn the result voters put in place.
  (Slate more…)

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