Trigger warnings for starving and abused kids / people. Sadly this is what the US government is supporting and keeping other world leaders from stopping. This was because Biden was an old person who remembered being part of Israels founding and thought they were so important that it excused everything they did. tRump doesn’t care about the human cost, he wants the value of the land or as much of the share he can get. This is sickening. Personal note. I was so lacking nutrition in my childhood that my childhood doctors were concerned enough to tell my adopting mother if I did not get more food I would never see five feet in height. I ended up in a child ICU rushed to the hospital by my grandfather and I had clinical death. Hugs
WELKER: Your secretary of state says everyone who's here, citizens and non-citizens, deserve due process. Do you agree?TRUMP: I don't know. I'm not a lawyer. I don't know.WELKER: Don't you need to uphold the Constitution?TRUMP: I don't know
In November, Dhillon appeared on Tucker Carlson’s podcast to recount “all the crimes committed by Kamala Harris.”
The DOJ is quietly gutting its voting rights department. They are reassigning top staff, dropping active cases, and have rewritten their mission to focus on “voter fraud” instead of voter suppression.https://t.co/D218kQRPg0
Trump’s tariffs aren’t just wrecking the economy and fueling inflation—they’re also failing at their one supposed goal: helping American manufacturing. pic.twitter.com/GgrkzXWKv9
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) May 6, 2025
A system-wide outage last Monday caused air traffic controllers to lose the ability to see, hear or talk to all arriving and departing aircraft for 60 to 90 seconds at Newark Liberty Airport. @MattRiversABC reports. https://t.co/UWI0blu3tYpic.twitter.com/W2KpuEMfMX
BREAKING: The Supreme Court halts a district court injunction that had blocked Trump's ban on transgender military service. SCOTUS is clearing the way for Trump to enforce his purge of transgender troops. All three liberals dissent. http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25…
BREAKING: Another $70 million F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet from the USS Harry S. Truman has been lost in the Red Sea—the second jet from the carrier lost in just over a week. -CNN pic.twitter.com/s5QrPYPo7O
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) May 7, 2025
Another Navy fighter jet sank to the bottom of the Red Sea on Tuesday following the second such mishap aboard the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier in just over a week, a U.S. official told ABC News.
Hageman: I think another reason we should change the name to The Gulf of America is for over 40 years, Mexico has been dumping raw sewage in the area near San Diego… That’s another reason we need to retake and claim ownership of this area pic.twitter.com/7VKXsYBHVH
NEW: The U.S. is ramping up its intelligence-gathering efforts in Greenland, deploying its spy apparatus to support Donald Trump’s campaign to take control of the island. -WSJ
Yes, Joy Reid has a Substack, bless her for doing it! Anyway, I’ve been watching/reading coverage of the Met Gala from various POVs. I’ve probably gotten the most substantive coverage from this post, so here it is, plus more generally topical (non-Gala) coverage, from our beloved Joy Reid!-A
The Daily Reid: the resistance is fly and dandy by Joy-Ann Reid
Art and fashion stood its ground at the Met Gala … while the warnings about the technofeudalist autocrats are ringing louder and louder Read on Substack
Unknown (American). [Studio Portrait], 1940s–50s. Gelatin silver print. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Twentieth-Century Photography Fund, 2015 (2015.330) Source: Vogue.
At its best, art is subversive and loud, even when it is silent and mainly visual. Fashion, at its best, is art that’s like that. The Met Gala 2025 was about that life. And while there was some criticism that not enough Black designers got to take part (too much Louis Vuitton, plenty of Sergio but not enough of everyone else… one wonderful exception being Hanifa…) and many of the looks were more elegant than Met Gala over-the-top, the overall impact of the night was deliciously subversive, in just the way art should be. From the Times:
Last October, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute announced its next fashion show, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” the political landscape looked very different.
Kamala Harris, the first female vice president and the first Black woman ever to top a major-party ticket, was in the final weeks of her campaign for the White House. The show, the culmination of five years of work by Andrew Bolton, the Costume Institute’s curator in charge, to diversify the department’s holdings and shows in the wake of the racial reckoning brought about by George Floyd’s murder, seemed long overdue.
On Monday, however, when it finally opens to the starry guests at its signature gala, the splashiest party of the year, it will do so in a very different world. One in which the federal government has functionally declared war on diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as programming related to race — especially in cultural institutions.
In February, President Trump seized control of the Kennedy Center, promising to make its programming less “woke.” Then, in late March, he signed an executive order targeting what the administration described as “improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology” at the Smithsonian museums and threatened to withhold funds for exhibits that “divide Americans by race.”
Against that backdrop, the Met’s show, one devoted for the first time entirely to designers of color, which focuses on the way Black men have used fashion as a tool of self-actualization, revolution and subversion throughout American history and the Black diaspora, has taken on an entirely different relevance.
Suddenly the Met, one of the world’s wealthiest and most established museums, has begun to look like the resistance. And the gala, which in recent years has been criticized as a tone-deaf display of privilege and fashion absurdity, is being seen as what Brandice Daniel, the founder of Harlem’s Fashion Row, a platform created to support designers of color, called a display of “allyship.”
Especially because Anna Wintour, the Met Gala’s mastermind, a powerful Democratic fund-raiser and the chief content officer of Condé Nast, said on “The Late Late Show” in 2017 that the one person she would never invite back to the fete was Mr. Trump.
The collision of cultural and current events means the Met is now sitting at the red-hot “center of where fashion meets the political economy,” said Tanisha C. Ford, a history professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center.
“This feels way bigger than just fashion,” said Louis Pisano, a cultural critic and the writer of the newsletter Discoursted. “Putting Black style front and center sends a real message.”
And that it did. That Ms. Wintour and the the organizers didn’t shift course even a little bit, or invite the garish Trump gang or administration or maga people (unless you count Kim Kardashian) was a bold statement in itself. I think seeing J.D. Vance and his complicit wife or garish, lip-plumped Lara Trump on that blue carpet would end the credibility of the Met Gala forever. (Long live the memory of Andre Leon Talley!)
Instead, what we got was a feast of celebration, of classic Black elegance and style, of Black boldness in the face of social, economic and political catastrophe, and just a lot of fun. Made a little video about it, wanna see it? Here it goes!
There were a number of meaningful statements, reflecting the history of Black formality, which was subversive in its own way, in the early 20th century when Black men and women were socially discarded by white society as little more than servants and footstools to white lives. Black people in their church lives and social lives were often really dressy, and that’s a tradition that has lingered, particularly in Southern states, where even a trip to the supermarket or to the polls means getting fully dressed — and formality is seen as a sign of pride and regality, even in the face of discrimination. That’s the piece of Africa that stayed with every enslaved captive.
Five hundred people RSVP-ed to Monday morning’s media preview for “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the majority appeared to show up to tour the show before it bows to the public on Saturday.
Beforehand, attendees got a primer about dandyism, the exhibition’s undercurrent. They also were reminded by the Met’s director and chief executive officer Max Hollein that the museum is “having a little party tonight aka the Met Gala.” And this year’s annual fundraiser for the Costume Institute is a record-breaker at $31 million.
That was “quite a jump” compared to last year’s total of $26 million, Hollein said after the program. As for how that happened in such economically and geopolitically shaky times, he said, “The level of support, enthusiasm and importance of what we do is significant, especially this show, which is not only a celebration of Black designers, but it’s also a statement. It’s an important exhibition about history. That all comes to the fore. That’s what a lot of our supporters felt — that it is meaningful and important.”
Because Black people, and Black Americans in particular, have always been fashion and cultural trendsetters. (I’d note that there is also a long Dandy tradition in my late father’s home country, the Democratic Republic of Congo, where dandyism is a whole thing…
Diasporic Black dandyism mirrors the Congolese sapeur movement—a fashion subculture that emerged in the 1920s when Congolese soldiers returned from World War I with foreign attire. These Congolese dandies, known as sapeurs, often inherit the tradition from parents and community role models. For them, dandyism resembles a religion. They revere style and derive power from being impeccably dressed.
Both movements grew out of the 1920s — the age of the Harlem Renaissance, when Black Americans were perfecting a unique post-enslavement culture that drew on the rich heritage of African music, ornamentation, dance and style, coupled with evocative literature — poetry, fiction and nonfiction — that spoke to the ache of being an African trapped in America, yet with little or no memory of where your people originally came from. Your timely reminder that some of us Black Americans are immigrants, but even most of us are immigrants whose people were unwilling workers in the so-called “new world.” Very few Black people in America are here by choice. Instead, it was grace, determination and sheer force of will that built a culture that has come to be globally dominant and largely determinative of what the world considers “American culture.”
I came across this powerful TED Talk by investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr of the Observer, best known for breaking the story in 2018 that Facebook was allowing a British tech company called Cambridge Analytica to steal millions of users’ data without their consent. Her new warning about the rising tech “broligarchy” that are using their global digital platforms and hijacking our data (including via “doge”) to amass unprecedented political power and dismantle our democracies in the U.S. and abroad and replace them with authoritarian rulers, is chilling. But she also reminds us that we have more power than we think to slow the tech bros down. This Talk recorded April 8th at TED2025 is well worth the 17 minute listen, to receive her bleak but powerful warning:
Set your cookies to “performance only.”
Another relatively long listen: on a very popular episode of Diary of a CEO, tariff expert, investor and bestselling author Morgan Housel explains not just the danger of tariffs, but succinctly lays out why we cannot rebuild the power manufacturing era of post World War II America. The podcast goes on for more than an hour after his excellent explanation but it’s worth diving into the first 20 minutes or so in the link below:
The tariff situation, and the futility of Trump’s “back to manufacturing” dream are important to unpack, because what’s happening beyond our shores ain’t good.
Everybody hates Trumpmerica…
In Europe, consumers are developing an aversion to U.S. products, or at minimum, they’re getting used to ignoring them. From the New York Times:
For motorcycle lovers in Sweden, Harley-Davidson is the hottest brand on the road. Jack Daniels whiskey beckons from the bar at British pubs. In France, Levis jeans are all about chic.
But in the tumult of President Trump’s trade war with Europe, many European consumers are starting to avoid U.S. products and services in what appears to be a decisive and potentially long-term shift away from buying American, according to a new assessment by the European Central Bank.
In April, Mr. Trump imposed a 10 percent blanket tariff on America’s trading partners, and threatened “reciprocal tariffs” on many of those, including the European Union. Companies like Tesla and McDonald’s are seeing customers in Europe put off by “Made in America.”
“The newly imposed U.S. trade tariffs on European products are causing European consumers to think twice about what’s in their shopping cart,” the E.C.B. wrote in a blog post about its research on consumer behavior. “Consumers are very willing to actively move away from U.S. products and services.”
Europeans had already begun testing grass-roots boycotts on American products, including Heinz ketchup and Lay’s potato chips, shortly after Mr. Trump took office. His threats to take over Greenland, part of Denmark, energized Danes to organize no-buy campaigns on Facebook. Tesla owners in Sweden slapped “shame” bumper stickers on their cars to distance themselves from Elon Musk, the Tesla chief executive who is one of Mr. Trump’s top advisers.
But Europeans’ anguish over Mr. Trump’s treatment of America’s longtime allies has hardened as he has moved to rewire world trade with steep global tariffs, the central bank found. …
… And even if a trade deal is reached, Europe’s newfound wariness of its longtime ally will not easily be unwound. The E.C.B. study found that even if a mere 5 percent tax were placed on American products sold in Europe, Europeans would still be inclined to shun them.
What is new, the central bank said, is a “preference” among European consumers “to move away from U.S. products and brands altogether,” no matter what the cost. That was the case even for households that could bear the brunt of higher prices.
“Even though they could afford more expensive U.S. products and services, they consciously choose alternatives,” the bank said. “This suggests that consumers’ reactions may not just be a temporary response to tariff increases, but instead signal a possible long-term structural shift in consumer preferences away from U.S. products and brands.”
In Germany and Italy, developers have created apps that scan grocery and clothing items for people who want to make sure they are not buying American. The top app, BrandSnap, even suggests European alternatives.
On a French-run “Boycott USA!” Facebook channel with 31,000 members, people boast about buying Adidas, a German brand, over Nike and New Balance, and post stories about avoiding travel to the United States.
In a Danish Facebook group with 95,000 members, people try to help each other figure out if products like Gillette Mach 3 razor blades or Schweppes soda are from the United States. One run from Sweden promotes alternatives to Airbnb and is calling for a European boycott on Meta platforms for a week in May.
Europeans have also posted online to say they have begun canceling subscriptions to U.S. streaming giants, including Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video.
Some consumers who have boycotted Amazon have gone online to lament that delivery from alternate e-commerce platforms in their countries are slower or less reliable, but say that they are staying the course.
Millions of people still buy American goods and services worldwide, but U.S. companies and investors are keeping a close eye on international markets for signs of anti-American sentiment related to Mr. Trump’s policies.
Thanks a lot, Donald.
This as Europe is wooing our fired scientists…
As the Trump administration slashes support to research institutions and threatens to freeze federal funding to universities like Harvard and Columbia, European leaders are offering financial help to U.S.-based researchers and hoping to benefit from what they are calling a “gigantic miscalculation.”
“Nobody could imagine a few years ago that one of the great democracies of the world would eliminate research programs on the pretext that the word ‘diversity’ appeared in its program,” President Emmanuel Macron of France said on Monday.
He was speaking at the Sorbonne University in Paris during an event called Choose Europe for Science that was organized by the French government and the European Union.
It was unthinkable, Mr. Macron said, alluding also to the withdrawal of researchers’ visas in the United States, that a nation whose “economy depends so heavily on free science” would “commit such an error.”
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, announced an investment of 500 million euros, or $566 million, at the conference to “make Europe a magnet for researchers” over the next two years.
Although that amount is not much compared to the billions in cuts American universities face, it comes on top of the $105 billion international research program called Horizon Europe that supports scientific breakthroughs, like genome sequencing and mRNA vaccines, Ms. Von der Leyen said.
She did not mention the United States by name, but she described a global environment where “fundamental, free and open research is questioned.”
“What a gigantic miscalculation!” she said.
In Europe, there is a widespread feeling that Mr. Trump has abandoned America’s traditional support for liberty, free speech and democracy through his embrace of autocrats and the assault on science and academia. That has created strains but also a sense of opportunity on the continent, where attracting the best scientific minds to vigorous and independent universities is seen as part of a broader campaign to “rearm” Europe as an independent power.
Over the longer term, the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, plans to double grants for researchers who relocate and to enshrine freedom of scientific research into a law called the European Research Area Act.
“The first priority is to ensure that science in Europe remains open and free. That is our calling card,” Ms. von der Leyen said.
Well it should certainly remain open and free somewhere…
Not invited to the Star Wars party
Another thing about culture — either you’re part of it, or you’re not. And the immigrant-hating Christofascists currently running are government certainly are NOT. They’re not even decent nerds. Item: whoever posted the latest AI Trump cosplay on the official White House social media in order to demonize immigrants (while creating hilarious maga entertainment) whiffed it … badly. Here’s the ridiculous AI image, posted on May 4th, AKA Star Wars Day, when actual franchise fans cry out: “may the Fourth be with you…” as a nod to that famous line about the “force…”
Note the color of the laser. Come on, magas… you’re so close to getting it … and not just the absolute absurdity of presenting your elderly, possibly senile, portly, big-bellied God-king as some kind of roided up demigod whom y’all really seem to have a creepy visual-almost-sexual fantasy life over … or the ginormous eagles hovering over him … The color of the laser… I’m just gonna let y’all figure it out on your own.
In the full, unedited version of Donald Trump’s recent Meet the Press interview with Kristen Welker—released online by NBC but not aired in full during the broadcast—Trump made several striking remarks that were omitted from the televised segment.
Trump on Meet the Press
Meet the Press
One such moment came when Trump claimed credit for getting Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to remove tariff impact notices from the platform. “I asked him about it and he said I don’t want to do that and he took it off immediately,” Trump said, calling Bezos “a very nice guy” and suggesting a friendly relationship between the two.
Welker: What did you say to Jeff Bezos?
Trump: He’s just a very nice guy. We have a relationship. I asked him about it and he said I don’t want to do that and he took it off immediately. pic.twitter.com/lE4xtTC4lo
The removal of such notices undermines public transparency by severing the direct link between rising consumer prices and Trump’s tariff policies.
Other remarks that were cut from the interview that aired included Trump’s insistence that prices for eggs “were down 87%” under his administration, citing White House Easter egg hunts as anecdotal proof, despite Welker reminding him the price spike was caused by a bird flu outbreak.
Trump: Eggs.. you were the one who asked me. It was the first week. I didn’t even know what you were talking about. Egg prices were so high you couldn’t buy eggs. They didn’t have any eggs.. We had Easter at the WH and we had thousands of eggs and they were down 87%.
Trump also returned to debunked claims about the 2020 election, asserting the results were “rigged” and insisting he “won a lot of court cases” despite losing the vast majority.
Trump: The election was rigged…
Welker: I don’t want to look back. You took your case to court about your allegations..
Trump: There’s no question. The election was rigged. The facts are in and it’s still being litigated.
He went further to suggest that “China is eating the tariffs” rather than U.S. consumers or businesses. That is not the reality.
Trump: What people don’t understand is.. the country eats the tariff, the company eats the tariff and it’s not passed along at all… China is eating the tariffs pic.twitter.com/oC30AQokR0
These unaired statements raise questions about editorial choices in broadcast journalism, especially as Trump continues to air grievances about 60 Minutes for what he claims was an unfairly edited interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. While time constraints are common in televised interviews, withholding full conversations—especially those containing controversial or revealing statements—can fuel partisan claims of media bias.
Releasing full interviews, as MSNBC ultimately did, could help restore public trust and offer a more complete view of political figures’ positions.
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.
President Trump arrives in Warren, Mich., to deliver a speech marking his 100th day in office on April 29. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
President Trump arrives in Warren, Mich., to deliver a speech marking his 100th day in office on April 29. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
President Trump says a recession is OK in the short term, in a clip of a pre-recorded interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker” released on Friday.
Why it matters: Business owners and politicians alike have shared fears of a recession given the uncertainty surrounding the president’s tariffs.
The latest: When Welker asked Trump whether he’s “comfortable with the country potentially dipping into a recession for a period of time” if he were able to achieve his long-term goals, the president initially avoided answering the question directly.
“Some people on Wall Street say that we’re going to have the greatest economy in history. Why don’t you talk about them?” he instead said.
But after Welker pushed more, Trump responded, “Yeah, everything’s OK. I said, this is a transition period. I think we’re going to do fantastically.”
When asked if he was worried about a recession, Trump said: “Anything can happen. But I think we’re going to have the greatest economy in the history of our country. I think we’re going to have the greatest economic boom in history.”
The full interview will publish on NBCNews.com on Sunday.
Last Wednesday, Trump predicted during a Cabinet meeting (where everyone was required to praise him while Gulf-of-America caps were aligned across the table) that higher prices caused by tariffs will mean “children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls.”
I’m sure fathers buy their daughters as many dolls as they cry for, because dads are weak for their daughters, but I doubt they buy 30 for Christmas. Am I wrong? What I’m thinking, is that he bought Ivanka thousands of dolls and maybe half as many for his other daughter, what’s-her-name. He probably bought a gazillion GI Joes for Jr and maybe a few Barbies for Eric.
I had “action” figures, not dolls, when I was a kid. Not only did I have superheroes like Batman and Spiderman, I also had a Fonzie (who suffered a traffic accident when I hid him in a lamp and one of his cool legs melted off). I even had an Epstein from Welcome Back, Kotter. Of course, I had a bunch of Star Wars guys. Oh, crap, maybe I did have 30, but I didn’t get 30 for Christmas.
What’s surreal here is that Trump is a glutton. From what I’ve heard from his friends, he’s also a pack rat and a hoarder. His offices are full of useless crap he doesn’t need. It’s all junk. But now this billionaire, who purchases portraits of himself and has multiple homes and golf resorts, is telling Americans to cut down on their consumerism. What?
This is probably the first time in the modern era that the Republican message is, “Don’t spend so much money.” Wasn’t one of Trump’s campaign messages, “Make America wealthy again?” It was along with, “Make America hate again.”
At the cabinet meeting, Trump said, “You know, somebody said, ‘Oh, the shelves are going to be open. Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.”
Yeah! Screw those spoiled brats! If nothing else, instead of buying them so many dolls, make them get a job and pay rent and board. You can ship them off to Arkansas, where Governor Sarah Huckabee Hound Sanders has greatly loosened child labor laws.
When you go to McDonald’s and they’re screaming for the Happy Meal toy, make that brat pay for that Happy Meal.
In 1995, my life was a living hell every time we went to McDonald’s because my kid was always screaming for the Black Power Ranger, and we got Pink Power Ranger every. fucking. time, and my son would lose his shit. I should have melted them like I did to poor Fonzie.
I still have nightmares about Pink Power Ranger.
Trump also said, “They (China) have ships that are loaded up with stuff, much of which — not all of it — but much of which we don’t need.” This….THIS coming from the asshole selling us Trump straws. This grifter probably wants us to stop buying so much shit from China and buy more of his shit…from China.
Trump is out of touch because he thinks the tariffs will only hike prices for useless shit. But people need to eat too, and some are taking out loans to buy groceries. The other option is to make your kid eat his GI Joe.
Stephen Miller said, “If you had a choice between a doll from China that might have, say, lead paint in it, that is not as well-constructed as a doll made in America that has a higher environmental and regulatory standard and that is made to a higher degree of quality, and those two products are both on Amazon,” Miller said, “then, yes, you probably would be willing to pay more for a better-made American product.”
Lead paint? Someone tell Baby Goebbels that imports sold in America are often subject to the same regulatory standards as domestic products. Also, during Trump’s first term, his Environmental Protection Agency tried to roll back safety standards that would expose children to…wait for it….lead paint.
If you really want to freak your kid out, buy them a Stephen Miller doll. The brat will be begging for a Pink Power Ranger after that.
A Stephen Miller doll would be like a Goebbels version of Chucky.
Creative note: Proofer Laura wrote, “This is unspeakably gross.” I told her she should be ashamed of herself for looking at it… after I sent it to her.
Students are shown at Carl Wunsche Sr. High School, 900 Wunsche Loop, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025, in Spring.
Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer
A lawmaker pushing to ban non-human behavior in schools says he based his bill on a conversation with a school administrator, who has since denied so-called furries are a problem in her district.
During an at-times tense hearing Tuesday night, Republican state Rep. Stan Gerdes said he filed the bill after hearing “reports of the presence of a furry” in a Smithville school. He said he called the district superintendent in November, who told him “this is happening in districts across the state” and schools don’t have the ability to stop it.
“We just want to help them have the tools to get some of the distractions out of the classroom so we can get back to teaching time,” Gerdes told the House Public Education Committee.
But the Smithville school district issued a public statement last month disputing Gerdes’ claims. It said Superintendent Cheryl Burns told Gerdes there were no litter boxes on campus for use by students dressed as cats, but as a courtesy to the lawmaker, she “made the extra effort to walk the campus to confirm.”
“At this time, the District has no concerns related to students behaving as anything but typical children,” the statement said.
Still, Gerdes argued the legislation was needed to curb the “extremely concerning” trend while providing scant evidence furries are a problem, or even present, in Texas schools.
Both Gov. Greg Abbott and House Speaker Dustin Burrows have backed the “Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying in Education (F.U.R.R.I.E.S) Act,” which would prohibit any “non-human behavior” by a student, including wearing animal ears or barking, meowing or hissing.
The bill includes exceptions for sports mascots or kids in school plays and would only apply to grades 6-12. Still, it includes a clause that would amend the family code to deem schools “allowing or encouraging” a child to “develop a dependence on or a belief that non-human behaviors are societally acceptable” as child abuse.
The furries trend has existed for years, at least among adults. Many like taking on animal personas, dressing up in costumes and attending gatherings. The annual Anthrocon convention in Pittsburgh draws thousands.
Rumors about classrooms adapting to child furries appeared to start online in 2022. School districts in Iowa, Michigan and Nebraska later debunked claims they were providing litter boxes in bathrooms, and the fact-checking team at PolitiFact could not find any credible news reports that supported the claim.
Under questioning from a Democrat on the panel, who cast the bill as part of a “smear campaign” against public schools, Gerdes could not point to a single example of a school providing litter boxes to students.
Gerdes, a two-term legislator and past aide to former Gov. Rick Perry, said his office has received “some reports of them.”
“Did I go to these school districts and visit and see it with my own eyes? No,” Gerdes said.
When Gerdes introduced the legislation last month, he said he fully expected members of the subculture he was targeting to show up at the Capitol “in full furry vengeance” when the bill was heard.
“Just to be clear — they won’t be getting any litter boxes in the Texas Capitol,” the Smithville Republican said in a press release announcing the bill.
But there were no so-called furries or litter boxes at the late-night hearing Tuesday. Instead, the four people who showed up to testify against the measure included a public school teacher and a Texan who worried the measure could affect students with disabilities.
State Rep. James Talarico, a Round Rock Democrat who grilled Gerdes on the legislation, called the bill a “joke,” but said it would have serious consequences for educators. Teachers and schools could face fines of $10,000 to $25,000 for allowing behavior prohibited by the bill.
Talarico questioned whether a student licking their fingers after eating Cheetos would be prohibited by language in the bill, which defines “non-human behavior” as “licking oneself or others for the purpose of grooming or maintenance.” He asked whether students reading “Animal Farm” would be flouting the law if they made sounds like the characters in the book.
Gerdes said neither would meet the intent of the bill, and said he would be open to working with Talarico on the language to make him more comfortable with the legislation.
“I’m not comfortable with any bill that’s going after a non-existent issue,” Talarico responded. He cast the bill as part of an effort by Republicans to undermine public schools.
“Governor Abbott has used this litter box rumor to paint our schools in the worst possible light,” Talarico said. “That’s because if you want to defund neighborhood schools across the state, you have to get Texans to turn against their public schools. So you call librarians groomers, you accuse teachers of indoctrination, and now you say that schools are providing litter boxes to students. That’s how all of this is tied together.”
Gerdes denied the accusation. Later in the hearing, state Rep. Jeff Leach, a Plano Republican, defended Gerdes as a supporter of public schools and cast Talarico’s opposition to the legislation as part of an “obsession” with the governor.
“His hatred for Gov. Abbott and for private school vouchers or educational savings accounts has just gone too far,” Leach said. “You’re highly respected,” he told Gerdes, “and this bill doesn’t change that.”
The committee left the measure, House Bill 54, pending.
Scottie's Playtime 