May 5, 1818 Political philosopher, social scientist, historian and revolutionary Karl Marx was born in Trier, Germany. His ideas, laid out in the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, and in many other publications, considered the state, class divisions, the nature of industrial capitalism, and culture and religion as oppressive forces. A young Karl Marx
May 5, 1925 Biology teacher John T. Scopes was arrested for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution in a Dayton, Tennessee, high school in violation of state law. Working in a public school, he was prohibited by statute “to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.” State of Tennessee v. Scopes ACLU
May 5, 1981 Irish Republican Army hunger-striker Bobby Sands died in Northern Ireland’s Maze Prison (aka Long Kesh); it was his 66th day without food.He had just been elected by a narrow margin to a seat in the British Parliament for the district of Fermanagh and South Tyrone while still serving the last of a 14-year sentence for possession of firearms. The government introduced and Parliament quickly enacted the Representation of the People Act 1981 which prevented prisoners serving jail terms of more than one year in either the UK or the Republic of Ireland from being nominated as candidates in UK elections. “Our revenge will be the laughter of our children.” – Bobby Sands
May 5, 1983 Over one million Sicilians, a fifth of the Italian island’s population, signed a petition against the deployment of more than 100 U.S. cruise missiles at the Comiso Air Base.
May 5, 1991 The last U.S. cruise missile left Greenham Common Air Base in England, the site of a decade of women’s anti-nuclear protests. The encampment persisted for nearly another decade until it was returned to public access. Protesters leave Greenham Common for the last time Peace link
May 5, 2000 Reformers allied with President Mohammed Khatami swept run-off elections, winning control of the 290-seat Majlis of Iran (parliament) from hard-liners for the first time since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Results were subject to certification by the Guardian Council which reversed the results in eleven of the original February contests.
Black holes are one of our favorite cosmic objects
So we created Black Hole Week to celebrate them.
Throughout the week, science communicators from across the globe will be sharing news, videos, and social media posts about black holes. Our goal is that no matter where people turn that week, they’ll run into a black hole. (Figuratively, of course — we don’t want anyone falling in!) (snip)
=====
=====
First Tip: Don’t Visit Black Holes!
But if you must, read our safety guide.
Learn more about black holes, how to find them, and how to stay safe on your travels!Read More snip) Enjoy!
Growing up, my father had a number of sayings that I did not always appreciate. One that sticks with me to this day is when he saw me waxing my first car. Admittedly, it wasn’t a great car, but it was mine!, and I was proud to have it. So there I was, rubbing away at it like a bum on the beach caressing a dented lamp hoping a Genie would pop out and make it a Mustang or something, and I saw him, leaning against the wall watching me use up his good wax and I grinned at him. “You know, son, there’s only so much you can polish a turd,” he said, then walked away as my grin fell.
Value is subjective, determined by the amount of life we deem it to be worthy. One of the most dangerous things you can do is stand between a man and what he believes worth everything for he will destroy anything to protect it.
The second most dangerous thing one can do is to overvalue something, for you will willingly destroy yourself and everything you love less in the pursuit of that item. This is the fall of Mike Lindell, Michael Cohen, Rudi Giuliani, and so many others. Obsessed with a conman and addicted to the koolaid, they laid prostrate upon the dark alter of Trump and sacrificed their wealth, career, future, loved ones, and perhaps their very soul for that which is objectively corrupt, offensive and untrue.
It is interesting to me to watch the fall of another who thought he could ride the corrupt lies to greatness only to find them as corrosive to ‘friend’ as to ‘foe’. Elon, once the wealthiest of businessmen, began his downfall by attempting to stifle the decency within Twitter in service to his Lord drumpf. He then used his platform to lie and cheat for a conman, buying his presidency and drinking the koolaid as fast as drumpf could make it.
I couldn’t understand why this man, wealthier than many countries, would put all he was and could be on the line like that. A man known for his advances in science and conservation placed himself within the nuclear blast zone of someone who denies science, flaunts his own ideas over those of experts, who embraces ignorance and self aggrandizement, and who denies conservation care for the environment. What drives people like these to destroy themselves? What hold does that Svengali have on them?
In all fairness, I don’t think I need to shed a tear for Elon. He is a big boy and will just have to suffer the consequences of his self-immolation. It is the curiosity of seeing it happen live, to see the startling half-realization that hate has consequences and seeking the shiney value, the loud and obnoxious clown above all that has real value, has begun his destruction. I can’t help but to wonder where he will wash up.
To be clear, nothing – NOTHING – Joe Biden said 4 years, including his debate meltdown, comes anywhere close to the insanity, unreality, unhingeness, of Trump repeatedly insisting – even when the interviewer is letting his crazy lie pass – that it was a real image of his knuckles
This reporter’s front yard was ripped apart for having a Black Lives Matter sign. Then he started investigating. On this week's More To The Story, NBC News reporter @mikehixenbaugh.com talks to our friends at @revealnews.org about how that incident led him directly to America’s public schools.
every gender transition is a statement in favor of human possibility and freedom and i’m tired of hearing it talked about like it’s some kind of disease
The Attorney General of the United States gushing on camera that the President has saved two-thirds of the entire population of America from dying of a fentanyl overdose was a gut-churning lurch towards the absurd flattery lavished on personality-cult dictators by fawning subordinates.
“'They were shouting at me, threatening to rape me, chanting ‘death to Arabs.’ I thought the police would protect me from the mob, but they did nothing to intervene,' she said."
I think the tide is turning and the superexpressive attacks on the LGBTQ+ people, both adults and kids is not working well for republicans. I think they will see at local levels people are not buying it and are working to stop efforts to wipe all mention of LGBTQ+ people from society. Hugs
‘This is more than a policy victory,’ Equality Florida said.
LGBTQ advocates are celebrating several bills — including one that could have banned Pride flags flown at government buildings — stalling out this Session.
“Once again, we’ve done what many thought was impossible: not one anti-LGBTQ bill passed this session,” Equality Florida’s Executive Director Nadine Smith said in a statement Saturday.
The Legislative Session ended Friday although lawmakers failed to pass a balanced budget.
Some of the dead bills including HB 75/SB 100 that would have banned government buildings, schools and universities, from flying flags that represented a “political viewpoint.”
The proposal was sponsored by outgoing state Sen. Randy Fine before he left for Washington, D.C.
“How would we feel if the city of Palm Bay or the city of Ormond Beach flew the Make America Great Again flag from City Hall? How would we feel if a teacher hung that in their classroom?” Fine said during a March committee hearing. “The idea is whether it’s political viewpoints that we agree with or we disagree with, let’s keep that stuff out of government buildings.”
Equity Florida lobbied against the bill with its public policy director Jon Harris Maurer calling the flag ban “unnecessary, unclear, unconstitutional and dangerous.”
“It does not help Floridians struggling with insurance and housing affordability,” he said. “Instead, it is a made-up solution to a culture war for political purposes, but it will have real harms.”
Ultimately, Fine’s bill was withdrawn, failing to reach the Senate floor.
Equity Florida also heralded the defeat of other bills, including HB 1495/SB 440 to prevent governments from using the preferred pronouns for people who are transgender and other bills targeting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI.)
The organization pointed to its grassroots campaign this Session with 400 LGBTQ activists lobbying during “our largest largest advocacy week ever,” 16,000 emails sent to lawmakers and about 325 in-person meetings with legislators.
“It’s students and seniors, faith leaders and frontline workers, parents and teachers, standing together and making sure lawmakers hear us loud and clear: we will not back down,” Smith said in a statement.
Gabrielle Russon
Gabrielle Russon is an award-winning journalist based in Orlando. She covered the business of theme parks for the Orlando Sentinel. Her previous newspaper stops include the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Toledo Blade, Kalamazoo Gazette and Elkhart Truth as well as an internship covering the nation’s capital for the Chicago Tribune. For fun, she runs marathons. She gets her training from chasing a toddler around. Contact her at gabriellerusson@gmail.com or on Twitter @GabrielleRusson
A think tank founded by Stephen Miller sued Roberts and the office that administers the judiciary, claiming that the White House should run the federal courts.
WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 04: U.S. President Donald Trump (L) greets Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts, Jr as he arrives to deliver an address to a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol on March 04, 2025 in Washington, DC. President Trump was expected to address Congress on his early achievements of his presidency and his upcoming legislative agenda. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)LESS
Close allies of President Trump are asking a judge to give the White House control over much of the federal court system.
In a little-noticed lawsuit filed last week, the America First Legal Foundation sued Chief Justice John Roberts and the head of the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts.
The case ostensibly proceeds as a FOIA lawsuit, with the Trump-aligned group seeking access to judiciary records. But, in doing so, it asks the courts to cede massive power to the White House: the bodies that make court policy and manage the judiciary’s day-to-day operations should be considered independent agencies of the executive branch, the suit argues, giving the President, under the conservative legal movement’s theories, the power to appoint and dismiss people in key roles.
Multiple legal scholars and attorneys TPM spoke with reacted to the suit with a mixture of dismay, disdain and laughter. Though the core legal claim is invalid, they said, the suit seems to be a part of the fight that the administration launched and has continued to escalate against the courts over the past several months: ignoring a Supreme Court order to facilitate the return of a wrongly removed Salvadoran man, providing minimal notice to people subject to the Alien Enemies Act, flaunting an aggressive criminal case against a state court judge.
The executive branch has tried to encroach on the power of the judiciary in other ways too, prompting a degree of consternation and alarm unusual for the normally-staid Administrative Office of U.S. Courts. As TPM has documented, DOGE has already caused disorder at the courts and sent out mass emails to judges and other judiciary employees demanding a list of their recent accomplishments. Per one recent report in the New York Times, federal judges have expressed concern that Trump could direct the U.S. Marshals Service — an executive branch agency tasked with protecting judges and carrying out court orders — to withdraw protection.
These are all facets of an escalating campaign to erode the independence of the judiciary, experts told TPM. The lawsuit demonstrates another prong of it: close allies of the president are effectively asking the courts to rule that they should be managed by the White House.
“It’s like using an invalid legal claim to taunt the judiciary,” Anne Joseph O’Connell, a professor at Stanford University Law School, told TPM.
“To the extent this lawsuit has any value other than clickbait, maybe the underlying message is, we will let our imaginations run wild,” Peter M. Shane, a constitutional law scholar at NYU Law School, told TPM. “The Trump administration and the MAGA community will let our imaginations run wild in our attempts to figure out ways to make the life of the judiciary miserable, to the extent you push back against Trump.”
A FOIA from America First
The America First Legal Foundation filed the suit on April 22.
It came after the group first filed a FOIA request in July 2024 to the Judicial Conference of the United States and the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts asking for “all records referring or relating to (1) Clarence Thomas or (2) Samuel Alito” and all communications with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), starting in April 2023. Both Democrats have led investigations into the influence of wealthy political donors’ money on the court, the conservative legal movement’s long-term plan to capture the high court, and alleged ethical violations by Justices Thomas and Alito. The Judicial Conference, which is composed of senior federal judges and operates via an array of committees, sets policy for the judiciary.
Ethan V. Torrey, legal counsel of the Supreme Court, rejected the request in a September 2024 letter, per an exhibit filed along with the complaint.
Daniel Z. Epstein filed the FOIA request, and is listed as lead attorney on the lawsuit. Epstein currently represents President Trump in his personal capacity in the lawsuit against CBS over an October 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris.
Stephen Miller, the longtime Trump aide, founded the America First Legal Foundation in April 2021, describing it as the “long-awaited answer to the ACLU.” Over the next few years, the group succeeded in slowing down or blocking several Biden administration policies, often by filing in the Northern District of Texas’s Amarillo courthouse, which is presided over by a judge who is notably receptive to conservative arguments. Its priorities often match those of Trump’s second term; it attacked diversity programs, protections for LGBT students, immigration, and supposed “wokeness” in corporate America. Miller himself has been a public driving force in the most aggressive and lawless elements of the second Trump administration’s effort to bulldoze through civil liberties in the name of increasing the tempo of deportations.
In an email after publication, an America First Legal spokesperson cited a 1991 9th Circuit decision in a case brought by a federal judge seeking to force the Administrative Office to pay for a private defense attorney he wanted to hire in a lawsuit brought over his work as a judge. In that ruling, the 9th Circuit found that AO was a “non-Article III adjunct,” akin to a magistrate judge or special master: a body that serves the courts, but is not a court itself. America First Legal didn’t immediately reply to a follow-up question from TPM about whether it could address its claim that the Judicial Conference is also an independent agency of the executive branch.
When the suit was filed in April, it received a small round of coverage that focused on FOIA element of the claim.
Legal experts suggested to TPM that the FOIA piece is something of a trojan horse. The Judicial Conference and Administrative Office’s denial of the FOIA request provides standing to sue, and thereby ask a federal judge to declare that the two judicial bodies “are subject to the FOIA as independent agencies within the executive branch.”
In terms of importance, a judge finding that core parts of the judiciary are independent agencies of the executive branch would dwarf any FOIA material America First Legal might receive. The lawsuit itself seems to acknowledge this. At one point, in language channeling that of a protection racket, America First Legal observes that “Federal courts rely on the executive branch for facility management and security. Federal judges, as officers of the courts, need resources to fulfill their constitutional obligations.”
New extreme for an old theory
There is a level of irony here.
For years, conservative legal scholars have pushed the idea that power in the executive is unitary, granting the President the ability to exert direct control over all federal officials who carry out federal law. It opens the door to a level of presidential power that hasn’t been seen until this administration, and which the Supreme Court may ratify this term.
This lawsuit asks the judiciary to extend that logic to its own operations, potentially dealing a fatal blow to judicial independence.
This argument reaches a provocative peak when it comes to the Judicial Conference of the United States. There, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court can appoint members to committees. The lawsuit says that this means Roberts may, at times, fall under the President’s power — for FOIA purposes, of course.
“Accordingly, if the Chief Justice does indeed have this power to appoint officers, then he must be acting as an agency head, subjecting the Judicial Conference to the FOIA,” the suit reads.
Melissa Murray, a professor at NYU Law, pointed out that the suit raises a number of bizarre scenarios. If it makes it to the Supreme Court, “does the Chief Justice have to recuse himself?” she asked.
“It does seem like poking the bear,” she added.
As of this writing, lawyers for Roberts and the U.S. Courts director have not appeared on the docket. In other cases filed against parts of the judiciary, the Justice Department’s Civil Division has appointed attorneys.
The DOJ did not return a request for comment. The Administrative Office of U.S. Courts declined to comment. The Supreme Court also did not return requests for comment.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that federal courthouses will soon start serving Trump steaks, or that Kid Rock will be called on to provide filler sound during sidebar sessions.
Blake Emerson, a professor at UCLA Law, called the suit’s claims “outlandish,” and said that if it somehow succeeded, it would grant the White House control over “the means by which the judicial branch functionally operates.”
O’Connell, the Stanford Law Professor, described it to TPM as more of an attempt to tell a story about “how much power they think the executive should have” than a serious legal claim.
“There is no chance that this will prevail,” she said.
Musk gave Trump $290 million. The quid pro quo? Deregulation.
– The NLRB dropped union-busting charges against SpaceX – The EPA backed off fines for environmental violations – The FAA continues approving launches despite rocket explosions – The FCC is giving Starlink favorable… pic.twitter.com/jH64dF6m1c
SpaceX, already one of the biggest NASA and Pentagon contractors, could win billions of dollars in new contracts if President Trump’s budget proposal is approved by Congress.
Elon Musk at the White House in April.Credit…Eric Lee/The New York Times
Eric Lipton has spent the last 18 months examining SpaceX contracts with the federal government and how federal agencies regulate SpaceX and other companies controlled by Elon Musk.
Elon Musk and SpaceX are big winners in Donald J. Trump’s 2026 spending plan.
President Trump is delivering on Mr. Musk’s wish list at both NASA and the Pentagon to reorient federal spending on space in a way likely to drive billions of dollars in new business to Mr. Musk’s space technology company, if Congress signs off on the budget plan.
At the Pentagon, Mr. Trump is calling for a massive jump in spending, an extraordinary 13 percent increase, almost entirely through allocations in a Congressional budget reconciliation plan under consideration.
The jump would happen while many other federal agencies would be slashed, in part to supercharge federal spending in two areas where SpaceX is positioned to profit: a vast missile defense system and space missions to Mars and the moon.
Mr. Trump has proposed a Golden Dome defense system to track and kill missiles headed toward U.S. targets, possibly sent by China, Russia, North Korea or other rivals.
Pentagon officials say SpaceX is considered likely to be the top recipient of this burst of new spending, which could generate billions of dollars in new contracts for the company.
That is because SpaceX manufactures both rockets that can launch military payloads into orbit and satellite systems that can deliver the surveillance and targeting tools needed for the project, which would require the largest military investments the United States has ever made in space.
Mr. Trump’s budget plan also calls for an undisclosed but large amount of new money for “U.S. space dominance to strengthen U.S. national security.”
SpaceX is already, by far, the largest recipient of Pentagon spending on existing military low-earth-orbit communications systems, and it gets the largest cut of Pentagon rocket launch contracts. Congressional approval for the plan to significantly expand this spending would be a giant win for Mr. Musk and SpaceX.
Mr. Trump’s proposed budget calls for Pentagon spending for 2026 to be $113 billion greater than for this year. But that increase would come entirely from allocations Congress is considering via its reconciliation plan for the 2025 fiscal year, according to Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former space industry executive, who pointed to a footnote in Mr. Trump’s plan.
NASA’s budget faces overall cuts in Mr. Trump’s plan, but there are increases that largely match SpaceX’s own corporation priorities.
The spending plan goes after Mr. Musk’s commercial rivals, calling for NASA to phase out funding for the Space Launch System, a rocket program being led by Boeing, and also the Orion astronaut capsule, being built by Lockheed Martin, which was part of three planned flights to take humans back to the moon.
Instead, Mr. Trump’s budget calls for “more cost effective commercial systems that would support more ambitious subsequent lunar missions,” an industry that SpaceX now dominates. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, which has developed its own new rocket, also could be a big beneficiary of this shift, industry executives said Friday.
Both Blue Origin and SpaceX have moon landing systems that NASA is contracted to use and that have not, at least so far, been targeted for cuts.
“Their design is easier to do than SpaceX,” said Doug Loverro, a former NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations who has also been an adviser to the Trump administration, referring to Blue Origin’s moon landing plan.
The NASA budget also calls for $1 billion in new spending to focus on a mission to Mars, which has been the primary driving force for Mr. Musk since he first started SpaceX. He is already building a new rocket, called Starship, to attempt to deliver on this plan.
“SpaceX’s handprints are all over this,” said Mo Islam, a co-founder of Payload, a commercial space news site. “I don’t see there is any other way to look at it. SpaceX is positioned to be the primary beneficiary of the majority of these budgetary moves.”
There are some items in the NASA budget that could result in declines in spending at SpaceX, such as less spending on the International Space Station, where SpaceX delivers both cargo and astronauts.
But SpaceX still will likely emerge the winner. It recently won an $843 million contract to “de-orbit” the space station when it is retired in 2030. And Mr. Musk has pushed Mr. Trump to speed up that retirement date.
“The decision is up to the President, but my recommendation is as soon as possible,” Mr. Musk wrote on his social media platform, X, in February.
In the 2024 fiscal year, SpaceX secured $3.8 billion in federal contracts, most of it from NASA and the Pentagon. The company has taken a total of $18 billion in federal contracts overall in the last decade, a New York Times analysis of federal contracting data shows.
Experts like Mr. Loverro have long argued that NASA is too focused on an over-budget and behind-schedule moon program called Artemis, particularly the parts of the effort that rely on Boeing and Lockheed. That said, Mr. Loverro said the new spending plan “does impact SpaceX in a lot of very positive ways.”
But Mr. Harrison, the former industry executive, said it also opens up SpaceX and the Trump administration to potential criticism.
“It taints this now all with a suspicion of improper influence,” Mr. Harrison said. “Even if these are legitimate questions.”
Eric Lipton is a Times investigative reporter, who digs into a broad range of topics from Pentagon spending to toxic chemicals.
Gabrielle RussonMay 3, 2025
‘This is more than a policy victory,’ Equality Florida said.
Scottie's Playtime 