“The top Democrat on the U.S. House committee tasked with holding the Trump administration accountable said Tuesday during a debate on a Republican proposal that the GOP knows President Donald Trump cannot legally ‘delete whole federal agencies’ or ‘take a chainsaw to beloved programs like Social Security and Medicaid.’ ‘Congressional Republicans also know these dangerous, deeply unpopular cuts would never be approved by Congress through regular order,’ said Rep. Gerry Connolly [D-VA], ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. ‘So now they’ve brought us H.R. 1295, the so-called Reorganizing Government Act, in a desperate attempt to circumvent the normal congressional process.’ The bill, said Connolly, would more accurately be called the Dismantling Government Act …” (03/26/25)
“President Donald Trump has promised to create millions of new high-paying jobs. One easy first step to doing that is to repeal Biden regulations on America’s 4 million business partnerships (sometimes known as S corporations) that are prolific job creators. The latest estimates find 10 million Americans employed by these business partnerships, with $800 billion paid in worker salaries and benefits. … The profits from these enterprises are passed through to the 28 million partners, who make tax payments based on their share of those earnings. These have been the tax rules governing partnerships for many decades. The Biden administration didn’t like the tax rules, so instead of asking Congress to change them, then-President Joe Biden’s Treasury Department worked through the back door to unilaterally modify the rules as part of its ‘fairness’ agenda.” (03/26/25)
“The U.S. Supreme Court appeared sympathetic on Wednesday to the Federal Communications Commission’s defense of the mechanism it uses to fund a multi-billion dollar effort to expand phone and broadband internet access to low-income and rural Americans and other beneficiaries. The justice heard arguments in an appeal by the agency and a coalition of telecommunications firms and interest groups of a lower court’s ruling that the FCC funding operation effectively levied a ‘misbegotten tax’ on consumers in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s vesting of legislative authority in Congress. It was the latest case to come to the Supreme Court challenging the power of federal agencies. A majority of the nine justices, citing a range of concerns, seemed wary of adopting the lower court’s ruling against the FCC.” (03/26/25)
“It’s not surprising that key members of Donald Trump’s administration would decide to sketch out bombing plans via group chat. It’s not surprising that they would use a third-party platform (Signal) to hold this chat, bypassing 100% secure internal platforms that already exist. It’s also not surprising that a group of people this bad at their respective jobs would somehow accidentally tag in the editor of the fucking Atlantic to that chat, allowing a major press outlet to eavesdrop on their planning and then report on it. You and I have been dealing with Trumpism for a decade now. We know these people don’t give a shit. But let’s talk about the man who broke this story, because I’m not terribly certain he gives a shit, either. The man in question is Jeffrey Goldberg, who is editor-in-chief of the Atlantic and who broke the news under his own byline on Monday.” (03/25/25)
“Their collective name, ‘coalition of the willing,’ suggests that the loose grouping of Ukraine’s allies certainly wants to help. But as the nearly three dozen nations gather again for more talks in Paris, it is still far from clear exactly what kind of aid they are preparing that could contribute toward their goal of making any ceasefire with Russia lasting. French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been driving the coalition-building effort with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, is expecting 31 delegations around the table Thursday morning at the presidential Elysee Palace. That’s more than Macron gathered for a first meeting in Paris in February — evidence that the coalition to help Ukraine, possibly with boots on the ground, is gathering steam, according to the presidential office. The big elephant in the room will be the country that’s missing: the United States.” (03/26/25)
“For years, the Democratic political figures, liberal activists, and the resistance movement writ large have drawn morbid comfort from the fact that Donald Trump’s supporters were, frankly, quite old. The Trump phenomenon, they believed, had an expiration date sometime in the near future: Young voters would replace their parents and grandparents as demographics shifted, and all would be right — or rather, left — with the world. The 2024 election has shattered these hopes. Trump’s gains with young people are so massive that Gen Z might as well be called Gen Trump. Data guru David Shor laid bare this stark reality in an interview with The New York Times’ Ezra Klein last week; Shor walked Klein through the ramifications of his polling insights and voter analyses, which reveal a historically unprecedented rightward shift among young people, particularly young males.” (03/25/25)
“South Korean governments committed numerous human rights violations over decades in a controversial programme that sent at least 170,000 children and babies abroad for adoption, a landmark inquiry has found. It said the government’s lack of oversight enabled the ‘mass exportation of children’ by private agencies that were driven by profit, and found examples of fraud, falsified records and coercion. Since the 1950s, South Korea has sent more children abroad for adoption than any other country, with most sent to Western countries. South Korea has since moved to tighten its adoption processes, but some adoptees and their biological parents say they are still haunted by what they went through. The BBC spoke to one woman who claimed her adoptive parents ‘took better care of the dog than they ever did of me’. ‘This is a shameful part of our history,’ said Park Sun-young, the chairperson of the commission, at a press briefing.” (03/26/25)
“The Trump administration on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to allow it to cut hundreds of millions of dollars for teacher training. A federal judge in Boston temporarily blocked the cuts, finding they were already affecting training programs aimed at addressing a nationwide teacher shortage. An appeals court turned away a plea from the administration to allow them to resume. The government asked the high court to step in, arguing that the order is one of several issued by federal judges around the country wrongly forcing it to keep paying out millions in grant money. The Supreme Court called for a response to the appeal by Friday. It comes after U.S. District Judge Myong Joun issued a temporary restraining order sought by eight Democratic-led states that argued the cuts were likely driven by efforts from President Donald Trump’s administration to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs.” (03/26/25)
Source: In These Times
by Naomi Klein, Astra Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor & Chenjerai Kumanyika
“About a month after Donald Trump was inaugurated to a second term, and as it became overwhelmingly clear that Elon Musk’s role alongside him is to gut the administrative state and pave the way for widespread privatization, Haymarket Books held ‘An Emergency Town Hall’ to help situate this ‘Corporate Coup in Global Context.’ The roundtable discussion included bestselling journalist and author Naomi Klein …; writer, author and organizer Astra Taylor …; author, journalist and professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor …; and professor Chenjerai Kumanyika, who helped guide the discussion, cohosts the Uncivil podcast and also created and hosts the widely popular Empire City podcast.” (03/26/25)
“In the history of countries that offer models of reconciliation after long conflicts, Syria is now trying to make its mark. A good example is a grassroots rescue organization known as the White Helmets. During a severe but short flare-up of sectarian violence in early March, the group’s volunteers quickly entered the killing zone in a minority area to help any and all, conducting around 30 responses a day. ‘When we go to rescue someone in need, we don’t ask them about their religion or political opinion,’ said Abdulkafi Kayal, head of the group’s operations in the coastal region where the killings took place. ‘Our mandate is to help those in need,’ he told the BBC. A reporter from the BBC was able to join the Syrian Civil Defence, as the White Helmets are formally known, as it went about its humanitarian missions.” (03/24/25)
