20250303

• Heather Cox Richardson – Letters from an American -March 2, 2025

  On February 28, the same day that President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance took the side of Russian president Vladimir Putin against Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office, Martin Matishak of The Record, a cybersecurity news publication, broke the story that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered U.S. Cyber Command to stop all planning against Russia, including offensive digital actions.

  Both the scope of the directive and its duration are unclear.

  On Face the Nation this morning, Representative Mike Turner (R-OH), a strong supporter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Ukraine, contradicted that information. “Considering what I know, what Russia is currently doing against the United States, that would I’m certain not be an accurate statement of the current status of the United States operations,” he said. Well respected on both sides of the aisle, Turner was in line to be the chair of the House Intelligence Committee in this Congress until House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) removed him from that slot and from the intelligence committee altogether.

  And yet, as Stephanie Kirchgaessner of The Guardian notes, the Trump administration has made clear that it no longer sees Russia as a cybersecurity threat.

• The U.S. Weather Enterprise: A National Treasure at Risk
  A Statement of the American Meteorological Society

  U.S. leadership in scientific innovation is at risk due to the recent and ongoing reductions in U.S. federal science capabilities. The consequences to the American people will be large and wide-ranging, including increased vulnerability to hazardous weather.

• U.S.A.I.D. Memos Detail Human Costs of Cuts to Foreign Aid
  The world is likely to see millions more malaria infections and 200,000 cases of paralytic polio each year, according to an agency whistle-blower.

• Trump Greets Zelenskyy With Antisemitism
  Christofascists want a Jewish leader to bend the knee.
  …
  Trump deserves all the criticism and more. Not many people have mentioned, though, that in berating Zelenskyy, Trump was doubling down on his long history of sneering antisemitism. Trump’s attack on a Jewish leader resonates with his own personal bigotry. But it also is a reminder that Putin and Trump are working together to spread Christofascism—an ideology that targets a range of marginalized people, definitely including Jews.

• Trump Is Feeling The Heat As He Calls Republican Town Hall Protests Fake
  Donald Trump has noticed that Republicans are showing up at the town halls of GOP members of Congress and they are angry. Trump has decided that his own supporters are fake.

• What a Weekend for Putin!
  It’s been a long time since the Russian dictator had it this good.

  Kremlin Says U.S. Foreign Policy Shift Aligns With Its Own Vision
  Kremlin Accuses Zelensky of Rejecting Peace After Clash With Trump

• Texas’ refugee designee sues U.S. health department, RFK Jr. over prolonged funding pause
  …
  Catholic Charities Fort Worth, the parent organization for the Texas Office for Refugees, sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., alleging that reimbursements to CCFW have not resumed since the Trump Administration rescinded a memo freezing all federal grant payments in late January.

• RFK Jr.’s Top Spokesman at HHS Quits After Just Weeks on the Job
• COVID & Health News 3/2/25

  Respiratory illnesses are MODERATE across the country as levels of COVID decrease. Influenza is still HIGH and is causing many hospitalizations, but cases are just starting to decrease as well. I recommend wearing a KN95 or N95 mask when going out to the store to protect yourself from the Flu, COVID and even the Measles in some locations.

• Tesla’s used car prices are dropping
• The Trump-Vance-Musk-Putin manosphere
  …
  Trump, Vance, and Musk inhabit what’s been termed the “manosphere” — a place where the main events are dominance and submission. The whole point is to humiliate weaker men — and to subjugate women.

• Trump credit card freeze crippling cancer and Alzheimer’s research
  …
  Musk has angrily rejected claims that DOGE or the Trump administration have hindered funding for cancer research. “The White House can lie all they want about how they’re not stopping cancer research,” the NIH source said, “but they’re stopping cancer research on [NIH’s] Bethesda campus.”

• It’s not Dickens—it’s the MAGA agenda
  Taking food from children; healthcare from the infirmed
  …
  House and Senate Republicans bear just as much responsibility as President in Name Only (PINO) Donald Trump and acting president Elon Musk for mutely going along with these actions. Moreover, we must view the House budget as yet another exercise in cruelty and reckless endangerment of human life.

• Spring Covid shot, measles, Listeria outbreak, and VRBPAC cancelled
  …
  If you’re 65+ or moderately/severely immunocompromised, a spring Covid-19 vaccine is available. Last October, CDC recommended a second dose of the 2024-2025 Covid-19 vaccine for this spring. It’s a 6-month recommended interval, so the first people will be eligible this week.

  Are they still working? Yes. Data published last week showed Covid-19 vaccines provided 45% additional protection against hospitalizations this winter.

  Wait. Wasn’t the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) stalled? It was. But this recommendation was approved in the fall, before Secretary Kennedy arrived.

  Do you really need one? It’s hard to tell, given that the ACIP meeting was stalled, but I’ll tell my 93-year-old grandparents to get one based on last year’s data. They don’t need to run, but it’s worth the extra protection as we expect a summer wave.

• RFK Jr.’s Policies Could Spread Measles Far Beyond Texas
  Many areas of the country are already dangerously below the 95 percent vaccination threshold needed to prevent measles outbreaks. The Trump administration could cause them to sink further.

  In the first few months of the year, measles spread like wildfire among a largely unvaccinated population, the number of cases quickly outpacing the total for the entire previous year. Then the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent a strike team, spending long days assisting local efforts to vaccinate, help patients isolate, and trace their contacts. The community in question wasn’t opposed to vaccines; they simply hadn’t had steady access to health care, and they gladly rolled up their sleeves. The outbreak was controlled, and the worst was avoided.

  That was last year, in Chicago. Now a similar situation is unfolding in West Texas. The population is different—this time, it’s spreading largely among rural Mennonite communities; then, it was clustered around an urban immigrant shelter—but the same underlying issues of access persist.

  And this year, the CDC isn’t sending a team.
  …
  While RFK Jr. changed his tone on Friday, calling the measles outbreak a “top priority,” little changed in the administration’s approach.

• Would President Trump Have Stopped Hitler? The Answer Is Alarming.
  The free world is standing on an all-too-familiar precipice. But we’re not standing with it.

  On June 26, 1940, the head of Texaco, a man named Torkild Rieber, arranged a dinner for some corporate titans at the Waldorf Astoria. Edsel Ford was reportedly among the attendees. The guest of honor was a certain Gerhard Westrick, a German national who was in America to establish relationships between U.S. corporations and Nazi Germany. The reason for the dinner? To celebrate—yes, celebrate—the fall of France.
  …
  In the face of all this, what did President Roosevelt do? He fought back. He put his country firmly on the anti-fascist side. In the light of recent events, one can’t help but wonder if Donald Trump, had he been president in 1940, would have done the same.

• GOP Budget Cuts Stand to Deal Tremendous Damage to Rural Economies
  As congressional Republicans mull slashing federal spending, a key nutrition program is on the chopping block—and everyone on our food supply chains could take a hit.
  …
  Nearly 43 million people receive such program benefits annually. Around 80 percent of SNAP households include a child, an elderly adult, or an adult with a disability. Because of its widespread use, any potential future cuts to SNAP would affect constituents of every ideological leaning, including rural Americans who live in Republican areas.

• Trumpism Isn’t Working
  As a checked-out president sits back and lets Elon Musk shred the civil service, the signs of economic calamity are growing—and Americans of all stripes are getting pissed off.

• Musk’s Purges Suddenly Take a Horrific Turn—and Wreck an Ugly MAGA Lie
  We can now be depressingly confident that their mass cuts are killing people.

  It has a dry, bureaucratic name, but Ready to Use Therapeutic Food has functioned for over a decade as a lifeline for countless starving children around the globe. Manufactured in the United States and distributed by the U.S. Agency for International Development, it’s a paste made of peanuts, milk, and vitamins that alleviates a form of acute malnutrition known as “severe wasting.”

  Now the Trump administration has officially terminated a number of current contracts struck by USAID for this lifesaving nutrition, contracts that had called for the paste to be delivered to hundreds of thousands of children, most in Africa, according to the Georgia-based nonprofit set to deliver them, Mana Nutrition.

  Mark Moore, the CEO of Mana, says ready-to-move boxes of the paste are now piled up in a Georgia warehouse and may never be shipped abroad. “If these contracts are not reinstated, there is no doubt children will die,” Moore told me.
  …
  All of this lays waste to the spin that Trumpworld has employed to defend the dismantling of USAID. For instance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has claimed all along that “lifesaving humanitarian assistance” will be spared. By any reasonable standard, many of the contracts that have just been canceled qualify as just that.

• Mission: Control
  Trump’s Hostile Takeover of the U.S. Military
  …
  Beyond prejudice, these moves appear to be driven by personal politics. Trump has long sought to ensure that every government institution—even the military—is led by individuals loyal to him personally, rather than to the Constitution. Brown’s replacement, retired Lieutenant General Dan Caine, reportedly impressed Trump during a meeting six years ago. Trump himself has said that Caine “loved” him and wore a Make America Great Again cap in his presence. There is little doubt that Caine was chosen based on political loyalty rather than professional merit. (I have heard from some folks, however, that he is a good guy. Hope so.)

• Trump used a DJ’s Facebook post to defend Zelenskyy meeting. I spoke to that DJ. | Opinion
  Even if you liked what Trump did to Zelenskyy, there’s no universe in which anyone should think an American president defending his actions by sharing a post from a random karate instructor is normal.

• After Years Pursuing Citizenship This Austinite Questions Her Future in the U.S.
  Young ambassador to Austin’s French sister city might stay abroad

• Vulture Capitalism Comes for Democracy
  The playbook Trump and Musk are following to dismantle government resembles the one used to pick apart America’s newspapers.

• 5 Real-World Consequences of Elon Musk’s DOGE Layoffs and How These Can Greatly Affect You
  From critical safety issues to lack of military awareness, these firings and layoffs could have a detrimental impact.
  1. Loss of climate and weather workforce causes critical public safety issues
  2. Shrinking the Defense Department could impact military readiness
  3. Layoffs at Department of Health and Human Services will most likely harm public health across the U.S.
  4. Department of Energy terminations will worsen U.S. climate crisis
  5. Dismantling the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) may lead to deaths across the world

• Trump trashes Europe as land of “rape gangs” and “murderers”
  …While American lawmakers snooze away, Trump is tirelessly working to eradicate the most important global alliance since World War II, all for a seat at the dictators’ table — ignorant to the fact that Vladimir Putin in not his friend.

• How a looming government shutdown might impact your tax refund, Social Security, and more
  Congress has less than two weeks to avoid a shutdown, and this one might actually happen.

• Trump’s anti-DEI push ends $75 million award to plant trees in places that need them
  Those are trees that largely low-income residents otherwise couldn’t afford to plant or maintain.

• Polish democracy hero Wałęsa says Trump’s treatment of Zelenskyy filled him with ‘horror’

  Wałęsa posted the letter on Facebook on Monday along with a photograph of himself with Trump. It was signed by himself and 38 other former democracy activists who were imprisoned by Poland’s Moscow-backed communist regime before 1989. Among the others who signed are Adam Michnik, Bogdan Lis, Seweryn Blumsztajn and Władysław Frasyniuk.

• Elon Musk’s $1 Spending Limit Is Paralyzing Federal Agencies
  The DOGE-mandated credit card freeze is delaying shipments of critical supplies, stalling travel, and stopping employees from doing their jobs.
  …
  At the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, scientists aren’t able to order equipment used to repair ships and radars. At the Food and Drug Administration, laboratories are experiencing delays in ordering basic supplies. At the National Park Service, employees are cancelling trips to oversee crucial maintenance work. And at the Department of Agriculture and the Federal Aviation Administration, employees worry that mission-critical projects could be stalled. In many cases, employees are already unable to carry out the basic functions of their job.

• DOGE Tries to Do Math Again and Makes $86B Mistake
  Elon Musk’s team can’t seem to add up their own numbers correctly.
  …
  The controversial service updated its “wall of receipts” Sunday and now claims to have saved U.S. taxpayers an “estimated” $105 billion—yet, its own website tallies a much smaller number. DOGE’s three savings groups add up to approximately $19 billion, by its own count, with an estimated savings of $8 billion for canceled contracts, $10 billion for nixed grants, and $660 million for terminated leases.

• AOC Writes to DOJ to Find Out if She’s Actually Under Investigation

  “I write to request clarity on whether the Department of Justice (DOJ) has yielded to political pressure and attempts to weaponize the agency against elected officials whose speech they disagree with.” —New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi

  Hello, Pam Bondi? Is your agency being weaponized?

• Target Loses Web Traffic As Costco Gains On Feb. 28 Economic Blackout Day
  Target’s online traffic dropped during The People’s Union USA Economic Blackout on Feb. 28, according to data from website analytics platform Similarweb. And while the boycott was not explicitly targeting brands that rolled back diversity, equity and inclusion policies, Costco’s uptick in online traffic on the same day, brings the conversation back to the forefront.

• Now Trump’s pissing off the crypto bros
• TESCREAL is the new Jesus?
  “The President’s people essentially tried to extort President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people, to give up half of their mineral supplies in order for past U.S. support, and to continue ongoing U.S. support. It was extortion pure and simple. It would be like in the middle of World War II, you know FDR saying to Churchill, we’re not going to help you against the Nazis and Hitler, unless you give up half of your mineral resources and half of your coal. So, it (the deal) did change, but to suggest Zelenskyy was wrong to be rejecting which was essentially extortion earlier on, is a warped version of what actually happened.”
  …
  When J.D. spoke up at the Oval Office meeting to President Zelenskyy, it was unprecedented to be sure, but it was also unprecedented for a Vice President to do so at any Oval Office meeting hosting a visiting head of state—and with the cameras rolling. At one point, Vance even talked over Trump and interrupted him to tee up the set piece he’d rehearsed for the mafioso-style verbal takedown. The cry uncle. As Putin must believe, both Musk and Vance likely see Trump as a useful idiot and entertaining clown who has the confidence and power of the Christian Right and their votes.
  …
  The group of philosophies that a growing number of tech billionaires are adopting for their North Star, including Elon Musk, is referred to as: The TESCREAL bundle.
  …
  TESCREAL, an acronym coined as shorthand for Transhumanism, Extropianism, Singularitarianism, Cosmism, Rationalism, Effective Altruism, and Longtermism

• Worse Than You Thought: Trump Is Shaking Down Zelensky For Billions
  …
  It turns out that the real reason Trump and Vance belittled and pressured Zelensky on Friday was so that Donald Trump can get even richer than he already is. His anger at the president of Ukraine isn’t that he wasn’t obsequious enough, although that would have helped, but that he won’t agree to a deal fast enough.

  I told you it was worse than you thought.

• Social Security has never missed a payment. DOGE actions threaten ‘interruption of benefits,’ ex-agency head says

The siren suit: Why Churchill didn’t dress to impress on his visit to the White House