NPR: ‘Segregated facilities’ are no longer explicitly banned in federal contracts
After a recent change by the Trump administration, the federal government no longer explicitly prohibits contractors from having segregated restaurants, waiting rooms and drinking fountains.
The segregation clause is one of several identified in a public memo issued by the General Services Administration last month, affecting all civil federal agencies. The memo explains that it is making changes prompted by President Trump’s executive order on diversity, equity and inclusion, which repealed an executive order signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 regarding federal contractors and nondiscrimination. The memo also addresses Trump’s executive order on gender identity.
Axios: Trump administration ends “segregated facilities” ban in federal contracts
NPR: Here are all the ways people are disappearing from government websites
CNN: Massive purge of Pentagon websites includes content on Holocaust remembrance, sexual assault and suicide prevention
Task & Purpose: Arlington Cemetery website drops links for Black, Hispanic, and women veterans
The website for Arlington National Cemetery “unpublished” links to lists of notable graves, walking tours and educational material pertaining to Black, Hispanic and women veterans, as well as some Medal of Honor recipients.
Task & Purpose: Medal of Honor recipient depicted in movie ‘Glory’ erased from Pentagon website
Denzel Washington reenacted the heroics of Sgt. William Carney.
Albany Times Union: Racism is not just another political tactic
August 4 2019: I had fully intended to ignore President Trump’s latest round of racially charged taunts against an African American elected official, and an African American activist, and an African American journalist and a whole city with a lot of African Americans in it.
Time: A Lawsuit Threatens the Disability Protections I’ve Known My Whole Life
As with much of U.S. politics right now, Texas v Becerra feels like a reckless attempt to pull us back to a former time. But there is one crucial difference between 1977 and 2025. More than one generation of disabled children has grown up under the protections Section 504 provides us. And while the politicians are still reciting the same script, our revolutionary predecessors gave us a new story. We are a valuable part of our communities, we belong here, and we’ve been shown how to fight.
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Ralph Nader: Stay Silent and Stay Powerless Against Trump’s Tyranny
There are reasons why influential or knowledgeable Americans are staying silent as the worsening fascist dictatorship of the Trumpsters and Musketeers gets more entrenched by the day. Most of these reasons are simple cover for cowardice.
Jess Piper: You Are Going to Have to Tell Them the Truth
Let me say this upfront…I never meant to be a public speaker.
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Public speaking made me feel panicked.I did it anyway.
I have now been speaking regularly for over two years and it is much easier for me. My panic usually doesn’t rear its nasty head often and I have been able to keep the creeping red blotches from attacking me during my talks.
One thing has become more difficult, though — the act of inspiring hope for the people who gather to hear me speak. The act of keeping myself together when others can’t.
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Bulwark: MAGA Hates American Greatness
A movement that says it wants to restore our preeminence is hell bent on undermining it.
I’ve got to say, it’s actually quite amazing how many things about America that MAGA hates. MAGA hates the fact that we’re a nation of immigrants. MAGA hates the fact that we have a political system featuring checks and balances, one that supports free government and the rule of law. MAGA hates the fact that we have a society that’s diverse and a culture that isn’t static.There’s one other thing that “Make America Great Again” hates: American greatness.
No moment better embodies American greatness in the twentieth century, I think, than D-Day. That longest day of the greatest generation was organized under the command of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe. More than 4,400 allied troops died during the Normandy landings, but it began the liberation of Europe from the Nazis.
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And so for nearly 75 years, a four-star U.S. general has commanded NATO military operations in Europe, working together with a European NATO secretary general to lead a structure that has deterred aggression, kept the peace, secured freedom, and enabled prosperity.But as NBC national security correspondents Courtney Kube and Gordon Lubold reported late yesterday, the Trump administration would like to change that.
La Presna: La clausura de la radio Voz de América
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Berlatsky: The Road to Trump Was Paved With Mass Incarceration
When you create a police state, you end up with a police state“How did we get to this horrible place?” is a question a lot of people are trying to answer right now. Most of the focus is on trying to figure out what exactly went wrong in the 2024 election. There’s also a good bit of analysis of the longer term trajectory of the Republican party.
It’s also worth thinking about factors outside of electoral politics, though. And one of those factors, per Amy Lerman and Vesla Weaver’s Arresting Citizenship, might be the criminal justice system.
Lerman and Weaver published their book in 2014, so it doesn’t directly address Trump or Trumpism. It does, however, make the case that the expanding carceral system—or as they call it, the carceral state,” is profoundly undemocratic.” More they argue that while the main people who suffer from the authoritarianism of the carceral state are the disproportionately poor and disproportionately Black people caught in its clutches—the “custodial citizens”—, they also point out that “the offense to democratic citizenship and equality affects us all.” And they offer a prescient warning: “custodial citizens are the canary in the mine, showing us that conditions in the polity are not well.”
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News Nation: Trump will run and win again in 2028: Steve Bannon
- Bannon says a team is developing ways to elect Trump a third time
- Strategist says US experiencing ‘1932-type realignment’ under Trump
- He defends Musk’s role despite differences, praises ‘shock troops’
The Contrarian: The Constitutional Crisis May be Upon Us
With Trump openly challenging the courts, democracy defenders must draw a line in the sand
Public Notice: Trump defies court orders to dump Venezuelans in Salvadoran slave jail
For “national security.”
Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – March 18, 2025
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Trump’s post sounds as if he is nervous about the increasing unrest over his policies and is trying to convince people that he has a mandate although in fact more people voted for other candidates in the 2024 election than voted for him. But it was his suggestion that any judge with whom he disagrees should be removed that sparked pushback from Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts, who issued a statement saying: “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”Closer to the Edge: TRUMP’S ELEPHANT UNDER A BEDSHEET STRATEGY
Trying to hide an elephant under a bedsheet is a ridiculous exercise — it’s too big, too obvious, and everyone knows it’s there. But that’s exactly what President Trump is trying to do with his latest legal strategy: invoking the state secrets privilege to conceal deportation flight details in a case where national security has nothing to do with it. It’s a desperate and transparent maneuver, and just like that oversized elephant under the fabric, it’s only a matter of time before someone pulls back the sheet and exposes the absurdity.
BBC Mundo: “Cuando reconocí a mi hijo, sentí que me estaban sacando el alma”: el barrio de Venezuela que llora a 4 deportados por EE.UU. a El Salvador
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Wired: FTC Removes Posts Critical of Amazon, Microsoft, and AI Companies
The Trump administration’s Federal Trade Commission has removed four years’ worth of business guidance blogs as of Tuesday morning, including important consumer protection information related to artificial intelligence and the agency’s landmark privacy lawsuits under former chair Lina Khan against companies like Amazon and Microsoft. More than 300 blogs were removed.
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WSJ: Putin Rejects the Trump Cease-Fire
The Russian wants much bigger concessions that would cripple Ukraine.
Bulwark: The Art of the Bogus Peace Deal
Trump-Putin phone call creates confusion, not goodwill.
DONALD TRUMP’S TUESDAY PHONE CALL with Vladimir Putin to discuss a proposed thirty-day ceasefire in Ukraine, presumably as a step toward a peace deal, was pre-announced with great fanfare. But the actual conversation achieved next to nothing. Or perhaps worse than nothing if it sets the stage for a new round of Trump administration pressure on Ukraine—possibly including another cutoff of military aid and intelligence-sharing.
Politico: Zelenskyy says he has call with Trump after White House’s failed bid to halt Putin
Ukrainian president says the Russian leader’s “words are at odds with reality,” as ceasefire talks go nowhere helpful for Kyiv.
New Statesman: Why Putin rejected Trump’s ceasefire deal
The Russian leader agreed to a 30-day halt to attacks on energy infrastructure but laid down his own demands for an eventual peace.
BBC: Trump-Putin call seen as victory in Russia
Judging by some of the headlines today in Russia, Moscow believes that the latest telephone conversation between Presidents Putin and Trump went well – certainly for the Kremlin.
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TNR: Republican Rep. Sparks Fury After Telling Town Hall He Supports Musk
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Nebraska Representative Mike Flood was excoriated by the crowd at his own town hall on Tuesday for basically every position he took. When he told his constituents he supported Elon Musk, he was booed mercilessly.“What makes Elon Musk a better person to audit our government for waste, fraud, and abuse than the inspectors general that Donald Trump fired?” one constituent asked Flood. “Elon Musk gets $40 billion a year in funding from the federal government. What makes you think he has no conflict of interest? … Do you think he would cut that before he would cut our Medicare, or our Social Security, or our jobs?”
Wired: ‘It’s a Heist’: Real Federal Auditors Are Horrified by DOGE
WIRED talked to actual federal auditors about how government auditing works—and how DOGE is doing the opposite.
MSN: Cybersecurity Experts Are Sounding the Alarm on DOGE
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“I see DOGE actively destroying cybersecurity barriers within government in a way that endangers the privacy of American citizens,” says Jonathan Kamens, who oversaw cybersecurity for VA.com until February, when he was let go. “That makes it easier for bad actors to gain access.”Krebs on Security DOGE to Fired CISA Staff: Email Us Your Personal Data
The Daily: Republicans In Big Trouble As Deep Red Nebraska Town Hallers Chant Tax The Rich
It was just a few years ago that Republicans were showing up at townhalls, school board meetings, and almost any other public gathering and going on long winded verbal benders about the threat of DEI, parents choice in schools, masks during COVID, and trans kids in sports.
If you went to a town hall or local government meeting, there always be some of these people in attendance holding court and letting other citizens know that these were the real threats to America in their minds.
They were promised that Donald Trump would save them from it all, but now that Trump has returned to the White House, something fascinating is happening.
There are different chants at Republican town halls.
Rep. Mike Flood in Nebraska was making the usual Republican case for cuts because America can’t afford anything in the view of Republicans. What House Republicans never say is that these unaffordables all involves programs and services that they oppose.
Rep. Flood asked the crowd at his town hall how the country should pay for for services, and he got an answer that he wasn’t expecting.
The crowd loudly chanted, “Tax the rich,” over and over again.
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TNR: Trump Dealt Huge Blow as Judge Allows Mahmoud Khalil Case to Continue
The judge has ordered the case to be moved to New Jersey.
Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil will have his day in court.
U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman on Wednesday tossed the Trump administration’s attempt to dismiss Khalil’s case, instead transferring the case to New Jersey—where Khalil was first held in detention, and where he resided when his attorneys challenged his deportation—rather than Louisiana, where he had been sent.
The Manhattan-based judge agreed with the Justice Department that the case was outside of his jurisdiction, and did not rule on Khalil’s bid to be released on bail. Furman did, however, extend an order that explicitly bars the federal government from removing Khalil from the country. That will remain in effect until the federal court in New Jersey that the case is transferring to rules otherwise, according to Furman’s order.
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NY Times: It May Not Be Brainwashing, but It’s Not Democracy, Either
The Trump administration has enabled a small network of high-tech oligarchs to determine a vast proportion of federal spending and regulatory policy.Much of the attention, understandably, has fallen on Elon Musk, but he is not working alone.
Marc Andreessen, a billionaire venture capitalist, cryptocurrency investor and pivotal but unofficial adviser to Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, made the case in a recent interview that the entire system of American higher education should be shuttered and abandoned.
The Street: Tesla insiders, including someone unexpected, are dumping shares
People close to Musk don’t seem to have much faith in his leadership.
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TNR: No One Is Safe From America’s Abusive Immigration Authorities Anymore
Even legal residents and tourists are being terrorized by Trump-emboldened officers at ICE and CBP.
It probably never crossed Fabian Schmidt’s mind that he wouldn’t breeze through security at Boston’s Logan Airport. A legal resident of New Hampshire, he flew back to the United States on March 7 after a visit to Luxembourg, but never made it through security. According to his mother, who didn’t get to speak with him until four days later, Schmidt was “violently interrogated” for hours, stripped naked, and forced into a cold shower. Given little food or water, suffering from sleep deprivation, and prevented from taking anxiety and depression medication, he collapsed and was hospitalized (where he learned he also had the flu), she said. Schmidt is now reportedly locked up in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Wyatt, Rhode Island.Schmidt is not your usual profile of an immigrant subjected to alleged abuse by U.S. immigration authorities. A 34-year-old German national with a green card since 2008, he’s an electrical engineer whose partner, a cardiologist, is a U.S. citizen; they have an 8-year-old daughter. Schmidt’s mother said his green card had been flagged, possibly over a since-dismissed misdemeanor for marijuana possession in California. His case, along with a growing list of other examples, shows how large a role discretion plays in the immigration system—and how that discretion appears to be changing drastically under the second Trump administration, as emboldened authorities throw the book at and even abuse those who once could consider themselves relatively protected.
Hartmann: Trump’s America: Where Even U.S. Citizens Can Now Be Dragged Away Without a Trial
First, they came for the immigrants. Now, they’re coming for legal residents, tourists, and even citizens. Are you paying attention now?
Le Monde: Etats-Unis : un chercheur français refoulé pour avoir exprimé « une opinion personnelle sur la politique menée par l’administration Trump »
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EFF: If you’re critical of the US government and you are planning to cross the US border any time soon, today is a good day to review EFF’s border search pocket guide:
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Klippenstein: The Nuclear War Plan for Iran
Trump’s threats to Tehran are alarming. Here’s what they mean.
Donald Trump has laid down a Ukraine-like ultimatum to Iran: either agree to give up your nuclear program within two months or suffer the consequences. He’s been vague about what these consequences might include, but I can now report specifics that are as severe as you can imagine.“We can’t let them have a nuclear weapon,” Trump says. “I would rather have a peace deal than the other option but the other option will solve the problem.”
To the casual observer that might sound like more of the targeted airstrikes the U.S. has been doing, but behind the scenes, as the Pentagon prepares for a “major” regional war with Iran, the use of nuclear weapons is on the table.
