Week of March 8, 2025

Here goes…

1. Trump has dropped or halted more than 1 in 5 investigations and actions against corporations. At least 34 of those companies — including Tesla, Amazon, and Wells Fargo — gave over $34M to Trump's inauguration. (Robert Reich, NPR, Public citizen)

2. Trump posted this. Look, I don’t know. It’s just weird. He is the President of the United Sates of America. Just – weird. I guess MAGA loves this stuff.

3. Sierra Club files lawsuit regarding firing NP employees. Godspeed Sierra Club!

4. Via executive order Trump is going after the law firms that investigated him, particularly Perkins-Coie (a Seattle firm) (NYT, NPR, The Hill etc.). At the time of this writing a judge (Beryl Howell) has temporarily blocked parts of the order saying – “the president's order against Perkins Coie is clearly intended to punish the firm, and likely violates its First, Fifth and Sixth amendment rights.” Well, he told us over and over on the campaign trail that his presidency would be one long retribution bonanza.

5. After daily saying he would bring down inflation (particularly egg prices) “on day one”, this week he shared a post from Charlie Kirk (don’t get me started on that guy) that said, “shut up about egg prices”. Yep. (Newsweek, Economic Times).

6. On gutting USAID - “This is going to be a massive loss of life overall,” Atul Gawande a surgeon who formerly led USAID’s global health initiatives told TNR (The New Republic).

7. It’s worse even than that (a lot worse), because internal memos show that officials at USAID warned Trump and Rubio of the consequences of dismantling USAID (ProPublica). “One million children will go untreated for severe malnutrition, up to 166,000 people will die from malaria and 200,000 more children will be paralyzed by polio over the next decade, the memos estimated. The programs were cut anyway.”

“During exchanges outlined in one of the memos, a DOGE engineer emailed staff and said they were not allowed to review the programs they were canceling.”

This is truly sick. I got no jokes for this one.

8. A nutritional paste made by Mana Nutrition in Georgia (US) helps to alleviate malnutrition and severe wasting syndrome. Earlier this week it was reported that tons of it was going to waste as distribution of it via USAID had been halted (Georgia Public Broadcasting). A couple days later the Trump Administration reinstated the contract to make the paste. All chaos all the time. If they just spent five freaking minutes looking into the contracts before hacking away at them it would save so much grief, fear, and confusion.

9. In this week’s edition of My Blood is F$%cking Boiling, the Trump administration insisted on the removal of the Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington DC. This was created by the people of DC after George Floyd was murdered by Officer Derek Chauvin (who Musk wants pardoned by the way). It’s not cost savings (the removal is WASTING money). This is not what the people in DC want. It's the paternalistic white administration telling them (Black folks) to quit being so uppity. It is simply spitting in the face of the people of DC, in which 41% of the population is Black. There is no functional, practical, or sensible reason to remove it. It's just an F. U. to the residents of DC and in particular the Black residents. Their obsession with DEI (which they either do not understand or see it as a way to manipulate their supporters) is absolutely pathological (if they don’t understand it) or diabolical (if they are using it to manipulate people). And frankly, it’s probably the latter.

10. Speaking of Derek Chauvin, Trumps DOJ will no longer, at least temporarily, investigate civil rights violations by police (WaPo, Truthout.org). This is to give Trump time to purge any and all DEI initiatives. But does anyone think the investigations are really coming back?

11. Trump wants to revoke the legal status of 240,000 Ukrainians who fled the war for their safety (Reuters, Economic Times). BTW they are here LEGALLY. Why? He wants his deportation numbers to be higher.

12. On Kremlin TV this week, Russian State TV host and Putin intimate Vladimir Solov'yov says that Russia is so encouraged by Trump taking their side in the conflict that they no longer see any need for a ceasefire: “No, there won’t be any ceasefire. Our idea of peace is everything happening the way we see fit.” He then plays a clip of JD Vance “slamming” Ukraine to emphasize his point. Vance is "our man" he says. There is video. (Daily Kos.) (Thanks Uncle Rod)

13. The US was added to international CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist for rapid decline in civic freedoms (The Guardian). Other nations on the list are Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan and Serbia. Are we great now?

14. ICE, on orders from the State Department took a U.S. Palestinian Permanent resident Mahmoud Khalil, away from his 8-months pregnant wife and disappeared him so that even his lawyer can’t find him. He was not charged with a crime. He had led peaceful protests re: the Gaza war at Columbia University. THIS IS STRAIGHT UP TYRANY. In this country we are allowed to protest. You are not supposed to be arrested just because the president disagrees with you. Except that now maybe you do. Update: It appears we do know where he is now at least.

15. The stock market is in freefall because of Trump’s on-again off-again tariffs. By the way, it should be noted that Trump warned us that if Kamala Harris was elected president, America would experience another crash like the Great Depression. “We are going to have a crash, and we’re going to have a crash like a 1929 crash if she gets in”. I think it’s pretty obvious that Harris would never have done this idiotic do-si-do with tariffs. She actually understands how they work. And Harris' economic plan was backed by 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists (CNBC). But some people said she laughs weird, so…

16. In Trump’s ongoing war with…um…Canada, one of the things he continually lies about is the dairy tariff (CNN), He tells you Canada has a 200% tariff on our dairy products. But those tariffs only kick in at a certain quantity imported by Canada and that quantity has never been reached so, no, that tariff has never gone into effect.

17. Elon Musk (that bag of rancid ham) called Mark Kelly, Navy Captain and Astronaut and husband of Gabby Gifford who was shot during a mass shooting….. a traitor for visiting Ukraine.(The Independent, Bloomberg) Here’s how Kelly responded, “Look — he can go to war behind his keyboard all he wants. It's a free country. But I've launched into orbit 4 times, I flew 39 combat missions in Desert Storm, and I held my wife's hand in the hospital after she was shot in the head. I don't scare easily, and I don't really care what he thinks of me." Oh, hell yeah.

18. Elon Musk has announced plans to cut Social Security, calling it an entitlement and “the big one to eliminate” in a new Fox News interview. (AP, Blomberg, Forbes). You will remember that he (the richest man in the world) said that people on Medicare were the “Parasite Class”. Nice.

19. The Social Security Administration, on Musk’s orders, cut its phone services and intends on cutting 50 offices and 7000 employees. 73 million people have relied on this phone service for decades (Washington Post). Oh, but guess what? Musk changed his mind a few days later. Again, all chaos all the time. Let’s scare the crap out of senior citizens – just for fun?

20. Tesla is tanking. So, Trump decided to hock Tesla cars from the front lawn of the White House. Aside from how classy that is, it is illegal for the President to do this (yawn. No one cares about ethics anymore). But what will be hilarious is if the rigidly climate science denying MAGA faithful start buying up electric cars to support Trump.

21. Again, with the nonsensical hostility toward Canada, our longest ally, Trump now wants Canadians in the U.S. for more than 30 days to register with the government (The Guardian, NYT). As is his way, Trump wildly exaggerates, “The fentanyl coming through Canada is massive.”. However less than 1% comes from Canada (US News and World Report).

22. Trump continues to talk about annexing Canada and making it the 51st state (NBC, NYT, Forbes) and insulting the prime minister by calling him Governor (look, well-adjusted adults don’t do this and it is ridiculous that I even feel the need to say this.). Even Sec. Marco Rubio (who used to be a relatively decent guy) not only blames Trudeau for Trump wanting to annex Canada but even said, “…the president has made his argument about why he thinks Canada would be better off joining the United States for economic purposes,”.

Hey, I learned a new word (Thank you Rick Steves): APPARATCHIKS: A term first used in the USSR to describe the legions of lackeys who abandoned their morals to stay close to power. Rather than “speaking truth to power,” apparatchiks become “spineless” and speak lies to the powerless.

As an aside, Rick Steves has a great post with a glossary for our times.

23. The U.S. military is canceling more than 90 studies, including some that U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dismissed as climate change "crap." (Reuters) Look, climate change is absolutely settled science. Period. Heck, if we act tpo prevent climate change, but end up being wrong about it (we’re not, but if…) we still get cleaner air and water and a healthier planet. If we are right, we get all of that and not leave a planet that is uninhabitable for our kids.

Look even big oil like ExxonMobil admits Climate Change is real and man-made and will be catastrophic if not addressed (although they lied about it for a generation). (NPR, Science Advisor, ExxonMobile web site.)

24. And it gets worse. Trump’s FBI (Patel) moved to criminally charge major climate groups including HABITAT FOR HUMANITY among others (Yahoo News, Truthout.org). The new EPA director Lee Zeldin says “We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy. This of course would be the opposite of “protection” in the Environmental PROTECTION Agency. By the way, the US has never produced more energy than it does today and is in fact a net exporter of energy (exports more than it imports). (Forbes)

Jason Rylander, legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute: “Come hell and high water, raging fires and deadly heatwaves, Trump and his cronies are bent on putting polluter profits ahead of people’s lives.” This is undeniable.

Cartoon from The New Yorker.

25. Trump/Musk have killed the Department of Education. The Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, said it was her mission to kill it, with the idea that states should control the curriculum. NEWS FLASH, the states DO control their curriculum and set educational standards! What the Fed does is try to ensure access for poor students, rural students, and kids with special needs. Most states cannot replace that when it is gone (FindLaw). This will hit red states very hard.

26. One of the school districts near Boise sent a letter demanding a teacher take down a poster that says “Everyone is Welcome Here.” (Daily Kos, Yahoo News) I just….I….people are losing their damn minds!

27. This week Musk posted this, “Stalin, Mao, and Hitler didn’t murder millions of people. Their public sector employees did.” Apparently, we’ve been too hard on Hitler all these years? And public sector workers are genocidal psychos? (Haaretz, USA Today). He has since deleted the post. I wonder why.

28. And of course, the list would not be complete without another Trump attack on our national parks and monuments. Trump has rescinded a proclamation that established the Chuckwalla National Monument and the Sáttítla National Monument in California.(National Parks Traveler)

29. Defying a court order, Trump administration deports hundreds under sweeping wartime authority, The Alien Enemies Act.(NYT, AP, CNN, etc) Now that Trump has filled our government with Trump yes-men and women, WHO IS GOING TO ENFORCE THE LAW? No really, who?

There was good news this week in that the courts ordered Trump to re-hire many of the fired federal workers. (BNC News, NYT) But again, who will enforce this? He's taking it to the Supreme Court but even if they rule against him, will he comply and what will be done if he doesn't?

30. Historic Montgomery Bus Station, Freedom Riders Museum is part of DOGE-ordered sell-off. (Alabama Political Reporter). U.S. Rep. from Alabama, Shomari Figures: “I know it is a building that absolutely should not be sold. The historical significance of that building is a big reason I’m able to sit in this seat (in Congress). The Civil Rights Movement was the greatest, most consequential social movement in the history of the country. These landmarks should be protected. That they are not, is very troubling.”

31. I have had my issues with Ralph Nader, but he is spot on with this essay: Stay Silent, Stay Powerless. We are not overreacting. The country as a whole is wildly under-reacting to our slide into authoritarianism.

Well, on that uplifting note, I’m now off to stare into the abyss and pet my cat

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