This week was off the rails even by our contemporary low, low standards. It also involved a lot of economic nonsense, which I will freely admit is not my area – but I’m going to try to tackle it anyway, just because it has so many implications. Bear (market) with me, y’all, and feel free to use the feedback link to suggest corrections.
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 tariff!–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:
I continue to struggle with how to even divide things up into buckets, because it all feels like one fetid mass of Authoritarian Actions. Here are the main lowlights from the last few weeks to know:
- To Hell in a ‘Waste’ Basket (DHHS Edition). There were some stories here and there about federal layoffs in a variety of departments that have or will be hit by the DOGE chainsaw – namely, sluggish response to an earthquake in Myanmar without USAID in place; more illegal NSC firings; threats to cut funding to FEMA. Musk also had a soundbite in the news about why he’s dismantling everything–namely, to give everything possible to private businesses instead. But the majority of attention was rightfully on the Department of Health and Human Services, where 10,000 people were let go in a chaotic flood of RIFs set loose by RFK. The changes appear to have been designed to do as much damage to health agencies as possible – they pretty much gutted the CDC and chucked out leadership at the FDA and NIH as well. (Fun fact, they offered some of those leaders opportunities to work in Alaska or with the Indian Health Service instead of leaving, which is honestly more insulting than just firing them.) Though the cuts were ostensibly to “restructure,” in many instances entire offices or divisions were closed instead of moved–and many of those let go served critical public health functions, such as preventing lead poisoning, conducting biomedical research, running tobacco cessation quitlines and mental health hotlines, inspecting food, and updating the public on disease outbreaks. Many shuttered divisions and programs also worked with populations the administration doesn’t like, such as disabled Americans, people with systemic health disparities, and people living with HIV. And unsurprisingly, they eliminated FOIA offices so that nobody can get details on the train wreck that is sure to follow.
- Mr. Trump’s Wild Tariff Ride.* This news cycle’s “how am I not making this up” award goes to Trump deciding to tank world trade because he took economic advice from ChatGPT. More specifically, he enacted the highest tariffs in modern history, with a ten percent tariff on every country and reciprocal tariffs on specific countries using a bunch of lies and what staffers have described as the “not giving a fuck” method. Needless to say, the market started to drop, and then it kept dropping for nearly a week. The policy has made Trump a lot of enemies, even in his own party, though notably not Russia, as Trump never imposed tariffs against them. Finally, as we were nearing a bear market earlier today, Trump announced that he’s pausing all ‘reciprocal’ tariffs except those against China. It seems likely that the markets will calm down a bit from here, but I suppose we’ll have to see what happens.
The Latest Spring Fashy:
- Inhumane Immigration Actions. This was a truly awful cycle for immigration stories, even against our lowered expectations. The Trump administration kicked things off by stating that they had made an ‘administrative error’ when sending a Salvadoran asylee to a supermax prison in El Salvador, despite his credible claim that he feared for his life if returned. They then followed that up by saying that they couldn’t return him because…I don’t know, reasons? Then they suspended their own lawyer for saying it was a mistake in court, despite the party line from the administration being that it was… a mistake. Then after that, a student on a visa in my town was abducted near her home because of an op-ed she wrote a year ago urging her school administrators to honor a student senate vote regarding Palestine. This kicked off a larger effort to revoke over 300 visas of random students who publicly said things about Palestine, and Rubio ordered social media searches of people who apply for visas. Then just for funsies, the Supreme Court issued an emergency docket opinion that will make it harder to bring cases when ICE abducts people–which really isn’t great when we already know that the administration is detaining and deporting citizens. And to cap all of this off, today the administration announced that the IRS will start giving ICE data gathered when undocumented people file taxes, which I’m sure won’t have a chilling effect on people paying their taxes at all. Several IRS leaders are quitting over the decision to comply.
- You’re Not My Real Law Dad (again). This news cycle saw a lot of advancements of what I’m tentatively calling Trump’s war against the law, which is basically anything this administration does to dismantle the rule of law or our civic structures directly. For one thing, he’s talking again about serving a third term as President, which is definitely not constitutional no matter what he says to the contrary. He’s also started to go after law firms that either challenged his illegal actions or represented people he doesn’t like, and put out an executive order which would require proof of citizenship as part of voter registration–another authority, by the way, that he probably doesn’t have. Perhaps unsurprisingly, stories continue to come out about Justice Department attorneys who are quitting en masse.
- From the Department of Health and Human Sacrifices (cont). I’ve covered a lot of the massive gutting of HHS above, but there are a number of other awful health stories to track as well. There has been a second child death from measles in Texas, where over 500 cases have been reported since January. So many cases in unvaccinated kids have been reported, in fact, that the U.S. is at risk of losing elimination status regarding the disease. Meanwhile, local doctors are reporting that children are getting Vitamin A toxicity because everybody’s trying to use a fat-soluble vitamin to try to prevent or treat measles. RFK still refuses to directly state that vaccines are good, actually, probably because he’s too busy telling the CDC to stop recommending fluoride in the water. The administration has also ordered NIH to eliminate $2.6B in federal grants, and we’re still likely looking at Medicaid cuts–a possibility made even more likely by confirming talk show doctor and jackass Mehmet Oz as head of CMS.
Silver Linings:
- Recent Political Resilience. We did see some political resilience this cycle as well. Cory Booker made history with a 25-hour-long speech about everything that’s wrong with the current administration, overturning Strom Thurmond’s previous record of a full day of racism. In Wisconsin, voters thoroughly rejected a Musk-backed candidate for the state Supreme Court. And across the country and the world, an estimated one million protesters turned out for over 1,400 protests about the current administration.
So that’s what I have for you, and I’m sorry, there are no news refunds. For making it through, you deserve this rainy pool session and a less corrupt 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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