Week of April 20th, 2025

Here goes...

1. Several former Trump Administration officials signed a letter accusing Trump of being a Royal Despot. The signatories even included Ty Cobb, a lawyer (and former loyalist) who served as one of his lawyers. (NYT, The Daily Beast, The Telegraph)

“For a president to personally and publicly direct the levers of the federal government against publicly named citizens for political reasons sets a new and perilous precedent in our republic,” the group wrote. “No matter one’s party or politics, every American should reject the notion that the awesome power of the presidency can be used to pursue individual vendettas.”

2. In the interminable National Security calamity that is Pete Hegseth, we now learn he shared details about a series of strikes in Yemen in a 2nd Signal group chat that included his wife, brother and lawyer. (ABC, NBC News, The AP). Significantly, this time it was he, himself, who did it (not Walz or another staffer). Hegseth’s wife Jennifer is a Fox News Producer (yep). Hegseth immediately took full responsibility and apologized. Just kidding, they don’t do that. He again blamed everyone except himself.

3. US academic leaders unite against Trump's attacks on academic freedom. (Reuters, The AP) More than 200 university leaders signed a letter opposing Trump's higher education policies restricting academic freedom, and Harvard sues Trump administration over funding freeze and demands.

4. Lots of losses in court this week, thank goodness, on issues from immigration, election law, academic freedom, and more. (US News and World Report) The judiciary is the only guardrail left. Several of the judges were Trump appointees.

5. EXCEPT, House Speaker Mike Johnson keeps threatening to defund districts where judges rule against him and, shockingly, the FBI ARRESTED a judge this week for defying ICE. (The AP, Reuters). ONLY DESPOTS ARREST JUDGES when they don’t get their way. Four months in, and we are arresting judges.

BTW, if you are starting in with “yeah but Biden weaponized the DOJ...” save it, and refer back to Week of April 6th, 2025, #13.

Also, no one who actually cares about law and order pardons the J6 criminals – especially the ones who beat cops half to death.

6. State Department tried to quietly send 400 million to Tesla for armored vehicles. (NPR) Under normal circumstances, buying vehicles from Tesla is not a problem, but given Musk’s massive (and shady) role in government right now, it is an extreme conflict of interest with obvious ethical issues. Which of course is why the Admin tried to deny it. They claim the deal was made during the Biden Admin.

“But NPR has obtained a State Department document detailing that Biden's State Department planned to spend just $483,000 in the 2025 fiscal year on buying electric vehicles and $3 million for supporting equipment, like charging stations. It represented less than 1% of the hundreds of millions of dollars likely destined for Tesla vehicles after the Trump administration quietly revised a State Department procurement document….”

7. Trump shows children a “trading card” depicting the Butler assassination attempt at the White House Easter Egg Roll. This actually happened. You can get your card on Amazon or Ebay.

8. More from Robert (brain worm) F. Kennedy, sadly the head of HHS: RFK Jr. claims that Americans with autism are stopping the United States from being an "exemplary nation" and that it’s “20 times worse than COVID-19” (which killed over one million Americans) in terms of the economic, social and moral(?) impact.”

Just a quick reminder of this (batshit crazy) thing he said last week about people with autism: "They'll never pay taxes, they'll never hold a job, they'll never play baseball, they'll never write a poem, they'll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted."(ABC News, NYT, BBC) BTW, none of this is remotely true. And this is the Head of HHS.

9. HHS Plans to Cut the National Suicide Hotline’s Program for LGBTQ Youth. (Mother Jones, CBS News, Politico). This service for LGBTQ youth has received 1.3 million calls, texts, or chats since 2022. LGBTQ youth are 4 times more likely to attempt suicide. And hey, assholes, it’s not because they are mentally ill (FFS) or “don’t know Jesus”. It’s because their family, and their church family, and community tell them they are an abomination, or sick, or folks with no psychological credentials, call them deviant - over and over. For sure, lets balance the federal budget on the backs of vulnerable populations (while giving tax breaks to the ultra-rich for their private jets), or I don’t know, people who love someone. YES, this is personal.

10. Arkansas's request for federal disaster relief after tornadoes ripped through the state has been DECLINED, despite pleas from Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. (CNN, KHBS, Economic Times)

11. Trump is selling 2028 merch. (The Guardian, CNBC, AXIOS) No really. You can’t, as they say, make this shit up. He really, really is trying to get you used to the idea, regardless of its constitutionality. "Rewrite the Rules" is printed on the t-shirts.

12. According to court documents, a 2-year-old US citizen (along with her 11-year-old sister and mother) appears to have been deported with ‘no meaningful process’. (CBS News, USA Today, WSJ). Multiple children with cancer have been deported. (Rolling Stone, Yahoo) What the hell are we doing here? We were told Biden let in millions and millions of violent gang members (he didn’t). We were told that Trump was really going after violent criminals. So why are we spending time and resources deporting children, sick children in particular?

13. Trump keeps telling us part of the immigration crackdown is to address the legitimate problem of fentanyl and other illegal drug trafficking. It’s real. So why cut the Narcan program (a 56 million grant to make Narcan available to first responders) and other addiction initiatives? (NYT, Yahoo, The Independent)

14. Administration officials have determined that the Aliens and Enemies Act allows ICE to enter homes without warrants to look for illegal immigrants. (NYT, Sierra Vista Herald, NPR). Given what we’ve seen so far - Do. Not. Be. Surprised. When. They. Do. This.

In the words of Thomas Jefferson in Hamilton, “So what did I miss?"