This news cycle, ho boy. Every advocate I know, including me, needs to nap for about a week–and we haven’t even hit 60 days yet. I’ve done my best to pare down the last few weeks into a manageable amount of material, but the news is still a drink from a filthy firehose. I guess this is our new normal, but this normal is defective; I wish we could all send it back for a refund.
Standard and new reminders apply: we may be starting my ninth year of journalism, but I summarize news within my areas of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not a government agency!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. We’re still playing around with formatting and frequency as I navigate two healing ribs and all of the everything. And, of course, for the law things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!
Spills in Aisle 47:
It still isn’t fully clear how all the different heads of this hydra are working together, though they all seem dedicated to blowing things up as much as possible. That said, after seven weeks, some trends are starting to emerge. DOGE gets to be the HR financiers from hell, while 47 and the MAGA crew do all the things that make the rest of the world hate us. Vance does… insulting Republicans, I guess? Meanwhile, anything that sounds both competent and evil probably came from Vought and the Project 2025 team. With all of that in mind, we’re just going to summarize the whole gestapo gestalt as Authoritarian Actions for now. Here are the main lowlights from the last few weeks to know:
- To Hell in a ‘Waste’ Basket. DOGE has continued to force its way into accessing several sensitive governmental systems over the past few weeks, such as the federal child support database and IRS taxpayer databases. It has also continued to cut a swath through a bajillion government programs, using claims of ‘fraud’ and ‘waste’ to fire thousands of necessary personnel–then, in several cases, being forced to rehire them. All told, the department has fired something like 62,000 workers, including 6,000 IRS jobs in the middle of tax season. They’re still planning many more cuts, and also harassing the workers who are still there by demanding weekly emails that justify their work. Half of the time, these hatchet jobs aren’t even saving money, which is the supposed point of all of this, and it’s contributing to a messed-up business sector–but more about that below.
- From the Department of Health and Human Sacrifices. There has also been a slew of bad health news, particularly since RFK Jr took over DHHS. The administration initially planned to shut down a free COVID test program, and it also canceled an annual flu advisory meeting used to select the flu strain in the annual flu shot. We also had our first measles death in ten years, in part because the administration isn’t handling the crisis in Texas appropriately. Meanwhile, the National Institute of Health is not properly processing its research grant applications, which may have very long-lasting implications on health research, and a lot of existing grant funding is still being cut despite a court order to resume payments. The administration is similarly cutting funding to a lot of higher ed institutions that do health research, among other things, which is already resulting in smaller research programs and hiring freezes. And all of this is, of course, on top of firing a bunch of health agency staff (some of whom had to be rehired). Just today, we also learned that SCOTUS will hear a conversion therapy ban case this season, which in the current atmosphere is frankly terrifying.
Since this administration doesn’t (yet) work in a vacuum, no matter how much they clearly want to, there are some Capitol Hill Dales stories too. Here’s what I have for you:
- Budget Blues. Congress has been negotiating to keep the lights on again, since the current federal funding will run out on March 14, and it’s looking likely that they’ll pass a continuing resolution that will fund day-to-day spending until September. They’re also beginning votes on reconciliation for long-term budgeting, with pretty scary results. (We don’t have all the bill language yet, but it’s pretty much not possible to make the types of budget cuts they are signaling without dramatically cutting Medicaid, and it wouldn’t be great for DC either).
- SCOTUS-POTUS. Even without the conversion therapy cert that was granted earlier today, SCOTUS has had a busy few weeks. They did ultimately issue an opinion saying that Trump has to follow court orders when they are issued–and I still can’t believe that sentence is actual news–but the court waited until the order in question was moot to say so. They also issued an opinion basically saying that the Clean Water Act really doesn’t require clean water, actually (although Comey Barrett did side with the liberals and dissent on that one). So, you know, great few weeks for the highest court in the land.
The Latest Fashy:
- Ukraine Drain.* One foreign affairs trend we’ve been seeing a lot is fascist expansionism, and it has been a truly wild few weeks to track our relations with Ukraine. I think it’s fair to say the Trump administration has antagonized President Zelenskyy all over the place, from demanding U.S. mineral rights on Ukrainian soil to withholding funding to questioning Zelenskyy’s dress code and blaming Ukraine for Russia’s invasion. Pretty much the only good thing I can say about the situation is that this spurred Europe to support Ukraine more, because our country clearly isn’t going to.
- Tariff A New One.* Trump has also been busy getting into tariff standoffs with our neighboring countries and China over the past few weeks, more-or-less acknowledging that this may cause a recession but not caring because, I don’t know, reasons. Unsurprisingly, this has Wall Street freaking out, with many stocks dropping especially over the last few days. He also established a ‘strategic Bitcoin reserve’ this week that will be overseen by a Crypto and AI Czar, and how is this real life.
Silver Linings:
- Recent Legal Resilience. We have at least had several different court case wins this cycle, with a lot of courts ordering the Trump administration to do or stop doing various things. A suit was also brought on Friday to reverse the firing of government workers, and I really want to see where that one goes. Meanwhile, Dems in the Senate managed to kill a federal trans sports ban bill. It’s particularly encouraging to see Democrats successfully mobilize on something, given how the last few weeks have gone.
So that’s what I have for you, and it was definitely more than enough. For making it through, you deserve this curious kitten and a more functional government. I’ll be back next time with more and improved news, and I hope you will be back as well–but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments. Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me more hours in the day!
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