Week of April 6th, 2025

Here we go!

1. GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville on Fox News: "We have entire men's teams across this country now that are tuning trans. Women's teams are turning trans. That's gonna be a situation where it's gonna pick up speed because these woke globalists are pushing these kids." (Yahoo News) Wut?

2. DOJ Pam Bondi suspends one the DOJ’s top immigration lawyers because he said a man should not be deported. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis remarked that the move was “wholly lawless”. (Reuters, NBC News, WP)

3. The White House shared a video of people being deported to the tune…Na na na na na na na na hey hey hey goodbye. And another one with the music Kiss Him goodbye (Economic Times)

4. In the Administration’s ongoing utterly stupid anti-DEI campaign, National Park Service removed references to Harriet Tubman from ‘Underground Railroad’ webpage”(CNN, Dallas Examiner, KVOA)

5. As we watch the economy crash because of Trump’s tariff nonsense, you should know there is a bipartisan bill sitting on Speaker Mike Johnson's desk from the Senate that would allow Congress to override the president on tariffs. So far, Johnson is refusing to let the bill even be debated.(Yahoo, Politico)

6. Trump just ordered the opening of over half of our National Forests to logging. ALL of Washington and California’s National Forests are included. All of these forests are now exempted from environmental review. (SFGate, Fox13 Seattle, WaPo). The Administration in part sites increased forests fires but of course they don’t cite Climate Change as the reason, or the importance of carbon capture of our forests because they’ve actually banned the words “climate change”. (NYT, Grist, Pen America).

7. A pardon attorney fired by Trump says Trump’s DOJ mobilized armed U.S. marshals to deliver a letter warning her not to testify before Congress about Trump’s DOJ’s abuse of power. (Reuters, The AP)

8. The Venezuelan military says it has raised its alert level following the discovery of an alleged U.S. plot to fabricate an incident at an ExxonMobil offshore platform in the contested waters between Venezuela and Guyana to justify an armed conflict.(Miami Herald, LA Times)

9. Trump admin revokes legal status for migrants who entered the U.S. on Biden-era CBP One app. These are people who booked an appointment, showed up on time, and came here through LEGAL channels. (NBC News, The AP, CBS News)

10. 60 minutes could find no criminal record for 75% of the people sent to the prison in El Salvador. (Axios, CBS News). By the way, being undocumented is a misdemeanor. Surely I’m not the only one who thinks its heinous to send people with no criminal record other than being undocumented to a gulag in El Salvador. But the base seems to like the cruelty (hence the hey hey hey goodbye song).

11. Trump on the tariff war (speech at NRCC): “These countries are calling me, kissing my ass, they are dying to make a [trade] deal… ‘please, please sir let me make a deal, I’ll do anything, I’ll do anything sir.’” (video available on numerous platforms). Even if this is true (and I mean come on – the “sir” stories never pan out) I just don’t think the president should talk like this. But I do realize the decorum train left the station back in 2016.

12. In his ongoing retribution campaign, Trump is now going after the law firm that represented Dominion in the defamation suit vs. Fox. (The Daily Beast, The Independent). AND Trump is now ordering the criminal investigations Chris Krebs (the cybersecurity expert who said the 2020 election was secure) and Miles Taylor who are both former members of Trump’s first administration who wrote books about their experience. (WaPo, AP News) CRIMINAL investigations. He accuses them of “treason”. Treason?

13. The Right complained about “weaponization” of the DOJ during the Biden Admin but look, TRUMP ACTUALLY COMMITTED CRIMES. Over a hundred criminal and grand jury jurors on multiple cases, from different jurisdictions and from all political persuasions looked at the EVIDENCE and saw crimes, many of them serious. Why should Trump be considered above the law?

14. The DOJ just said that it won't comply with Judge Xinis' order to provide location information related to Kilmar Abrego Garcia and begin to facilitate his release because the deadline she set is "impracticable."

15. And now the Trump DOJ is defying Supreme Court order to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia who they admit they wrongly deported. (The Guardian, Law and Crime Times). They are blatantly defying the SC, like the courts don’t matter anymore. Because really, who is going to enforce the rules?

16. Cabinet members and other Trump loyalists are wearing gold pins with a bust of Trump on their lapels. (Yahoo, MSN, Daily Kos). MSN and others are reporting that folks are being “instructed” to wear it. It’s weird. It’s something you would see in North Korea. And they wonder why we accuse them of cult-like behavior. Blind loyalty and devotion to any leader is not supposed to be who we are in this country. This right here is the Chair of the FCC - wearing a gold pin - on his lapel - of - Trump.

17. Col. Susan Meyers was removed from her post as commander at Greenland's Pituffik Space Base after an email she wrote distancing herself from Vice President JD Vance's critical comments about Greenland surfaced.(WaPo, Axios) Apparently she wasn’t supposed to say this (what appeared to be intended to foster solidarity between U.S. service members and personnel stationed there from other countries, including Denmark and Greenland): “I do not presume to understand current politics, but what I do know is the concerns of the U.S. administration discussed by Vice President Vance on Friday are not reflective of Pituffik Space Base.” She said she thought a great deal about “the actions taken, the words spoken [during Vance’s visit], and how it must have affected each of you.” Meyers pledged in the message that as long as she is in charge of the base, “all of our flags will fly proudly — together.” (Defense News) Sounds like a pretty great leader to me.

18. Trump authorizes military to take control of federal land along US southern border. (CNN, Politico, The Guardian). The military is not supposed to be involved in domestic law enforcement (1878 Posse Comitatus Act).

19. Trump Administration is eliminating all government research and reporting of Climate Change data (Reuters, The Guardian), and is trying to block state climate change projects (ProPublica, ScienceAAS). Remember during COVID when Trump thought if we just don’t report the numbers, it won’t seem that bad? He also said “If we stop testing, we’ll have fewer cases.” Don’t address something that has apocalyptic consequences, even though that’s kind of what government is here for. Downplay it, pretend it’s not that bad. Politics and approval ratings above all else.

20. Elon Musk has announced a massive cuts in Social Security workforce and moving the Social Security platform to X. (Wired, Yahoo News). Is your mom going to get on X (formerly Twitter) to understand what is happening with Social Security? Well, I’m pretty sure mine is not. FFS.

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