Tag: History

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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!     

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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.
  

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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Hello, and welcome to my latest NNR/health compromise! Many folks reading this likely already know that I slipped on some black ice and broke two ribs earlier this week (and yes, it’s about as fun as it sounds). But way, way too much is going on for me to do nothing. Thus I present: The Year 9, Month 1 lightning round!

There are a lot of developing stories to keep track of right now, and many of them have common themes. We’re going to spend a few minutes on each story I’m tracking–mostly involving health, civil rights, and dismantling of government–so that it’s easier to see the overall picture. It’s an experiment, so please let me know if it’s useful!

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Tracking Threads:

• DOGEshift. Over the past few weeks, Elon Musk and his juvenile cronies have been sticking their noses into many, many spaces where their noses do not legally belong and spreading germs all over the government.  At first, there were a lot of stories about them seizing assets from and/or access to financial and HR systems within our government–which then led to offering staff buy-outs and straight-up firing thousands of people across numerous agencies. Of note, they’ve basically shut down the CFPB, a semi-independent consumer finance bureau which would be in charge of monitoring all of this. They have also cut massive swaths out of the functionality of many necessary federal agencies, such as billions in NIH research funding, countless Department of Education contracts, and basically all of USAID. (They’re similarly expected to turn their eyes to the IRS in the coming week). By now, Musk is now being pretty upfront about wanting to “delete” whole agencies, and an EO issued this past week instructs all agencies to let Musk gut them–among other things, it requires each agency to “hire no more than one employee for every four employees that depart.”  Many of the targeted cuts personally benefit Musk in one way or another, and the administration has also fired top officials in several different government watchdog groups. Needless to say, none of this is legal at all, but this administration appears to ignore temporary restraining orders with some frequency, and not all judges are ruling on the side of law, so it’s unclear how effective legal challenges will be.
  
  
• From the Department of Destroying Health.  In addition to all of the Week 1 health garbage (which included funding freezes, communication freezes, the dismantling of foreign aid, and the scrubbing of federal data), Robert F Kennedy Jr was confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services this past Thursday. Trump celebrated by issuing another batshit health EO which instructs a taskforce to “look into” the validity of children taking psych meds such as antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and stimulants.  (I will share for free that this one really gets under my skin.)  This EO joins an earlier EO that banned adolescent access to gender-affirming care (which is already paused by judicial order) as well as Musk’s actions to fire thousands at NIH and CDC.
  
  
• Illegal International/Imprisonment Changes.  In the immigration/criminal space, the administration has started moving immigration detainees to Guantanamo Bay and threatened to start holding U.S. prisoners in El Salvador. Conversely, several DOJ staff have resigned this week because they were told to drop corruption charges against NYC mayor Eric Adams due to, I dunno, vibes. (This comes on the tail end of firing a bunch of federal prosecutors because they worked on the January 6 case.) In other international news, Trump said he would “end” the war in Ukraine by negotiating with Putin, which apparently involved demanding half of Ukraine’s mineral rights. He also imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum and additional tariffs on China. Finally, the administration is now using their renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as a litmus test for reporters, and is barring the Associated Press from White House access due to their refusal to use the made-up name.

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So that’s the lightning news, and I’m sorry, there are still no news refunds. For making it through, you deserve this science ferret and a more functional government.  I’ll be back next time, hopefully with the full 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 a speedy recovery time!

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I’ve heard a lot of people describe the past week as an intentional shock doctrine campaign, and frankly, that’s a good framing for what just happened. We had such a barrage of the everything that I want to give people some grounding and context–while I definitely won’t be able to put out the NNR weekly, we’re doing back-to-back summaries for Week 1. Frankly, this week needs it.

Standard standing reminders still 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 federal employee!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the 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!     

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Spills in Aisle 47:

Things are chaotic and scary enough that for the foreseeable future, we’re going to give Presidential Project 2025 actions their own section.  Expect this category to cover everything implementing Project 2025 from executive orders to memoranda to, y’know, general cheeto overflow. 

• From the Department of Destroying Health. Boy howdy, was this week a weird time to work in national healthcare.  The administration ordered a communication freeze, which is just a fancy way of saying “you’re not allowed to talk to anybody about anything,” for the Center for Disease Control, Food and Drug Administration, and National Institutes of Health through February 1. At NIH, reports began trickling in that this included NIH study sessions, which is how the NIH reviews grant applications, as well as advisory committees.  People and outlets also described NIH conferences that ended mid-conference and restrictions on travel and hiring.  Guidance was eventually issued that said that clinical trials could continue but the NIH still wasn’t allowed to talk about them, and people remained confused about their funding. Meanwhile, the CDC can’t issue health alerts, which is not great when we currently have an outbreak of bird flu in several states (side note–apparently it is killing bald eagles, which feels like quite an apt metaphor at the moment).  The CDC was also directed today to stop working with the World Health Organization immediately, which precludes a controlled withdrawal and likely isn’t legal.  The FDA has scrubbed lots of clinical data that relates to diversity in clinical trials as well, though we’ll talk more about that below.  Trump rounded out the week by threatening to pull FEMA funding as a first step for destroying the agency, and he did indeed order on Friday that FEMA be “assessed”.  Looking ahead, RFK’s hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, and now is a great time to call your Senator to demand they quash his HHS nomination.
  
  
• Immigration Roundups.  A huge amount has happened on the immigration front, which isn’t surprising when it was such a flagship issue for 47 but is still plenty disturbing.  Trump did indeed issue an executive order that illegally revoked birthright citizenship, which he then argued in court applied to Indigenous peoples–and reports began trickling in of Navajo Nation citizens being detained by ICE.  In apparent response on Tuesday, Bishop Mariann Budde gave an inaugural service sermon to Trump urging him not to be horrible to immigrants, which naturally was so offensive that Trump questioned her credentials and demanded an apology.  This served to set something of a tone for the rest of the week, as for an encore he canceled entrance for thousands of approved refugees–which, for those of you playing the home game, definitionally involves people who are legally entering the United States due to credible risk of torture or death if they stay where they are.  This was followed by revoking the Sensitive Location doctrine, which is a rule from 2011 stating that ICE can’t invade churches and schools, and this is already leading to massive raids.  And just today he instated abhorrent quotas requiring ICE to arrest a thousand immigrants per day–a massive increase, as ICE detained 11,000 people total last year.  When combined with a recent law by Congress that permits deportation due to arrest for crimes like minor theft, the capacity for abuse is massive. Now is a great time to donate to immigration advocacy groups, print red cards for community use, and share Know Your Rights documents generally.
  
  
• License to Discriminate.  By far, the executive documents I have spent the most quality time with this week are the orders, as foretold by prophecy, which suppress all federal DEI efforts and revoke recognition of transgender people existing.  The anti-trans order features a lot of bizarro junk science and a reference to fetal personhood, but nonetheless has very real implications for trans and gender diverse people living in the United States.  It’s particularly dangerous for incarcerated trans people, but people are also already reporting their passport applications getting pulled if they requested an X marker or a gender marker change.  Meanwhile, all DEI-related staff are being fired by January 31, equity-related data is getting scrubbed, and federal employees are being told to rat out their coworkers if they suspect them of engaging in DEI activities, lest employees face “adverse consequences” for failing to snitch.  He also revoked sixty-year-old protections that prohibited discrimination in federal contracts, extending these rules to the private sector and higher education.  Both of these orders, incidentally, are part of the Project 2025 agenda–so that’s fun.  On a related note, the Justice Department has frozen civil rights work, which likely indicates less, shall we say, robust enforcement under the new regime.  Now’s a great time to support trans resource groups.

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The Latest Fashy:

• Orange is the New Bleak. We also saw a bunch of stuff this week that is violent or advancing fascism but not, like, in a Project 2025 kind of way. I’m sure most folks have heard by now that Trump has pardoned all of the January 6 insurrectionists, some of whom were frankly very scary people. What’s less well-known is that he’s also now investigating the Jan 6 prosecutors–a move that’s particularly concerning when he also fired fifteen independent inspectors general in the middle of the night this week. It also comes at the same time that he is ending telework for federal employees, removing employee protections from firing, installing loyalty measures, and just generally made career federal employees’ lives miserable. We’ll want to keep an eye on all of these things, though I don’t have any immediate suggestions for action on them.

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Silver Linings:

• Recent Judicial Resilience. At least we’re already starting to see inroads through litigation – in one of the many lawsuits brought on the subject, a federal judge has already blocked the birthright citizenship order. (Said judge called it ‘blatantly unconstitutional,‘ which is absolutely correct, but it’s nice to see a Reagan-appointed judge willing to say it.) And just today, a group of Quakers brought a lawsuit challenging the removal of the sensitive locations doctrine. Hopefully an injunction will be granted in that case, as well. And finally, a trans woman in federal prison is suing the administration over the blatantly dangerous provisions of the anti-trans executive order. Newsweek, of all places, has a good summary of all the litigation popping up against Trump this week, and it’s worth taking a look.

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So that’s what I have for you, and I’m sorry, there are still no news refunds.
For making it through, you deserve these beach buddies 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!