Recap of this week in the revolution: Crawford wins Wisconsin despite election interference, Sen. Booker makes history with 25-hour speech, and bipartisan bill brings House to a standstill. Trump tries to make voting harder for millions, and DOE turns over it's responsibility along with a billion-dollar contract to a highly questionable company. Judge orders a man deported by mistake to be brought back to the U.S. while DOGE tries to take over the federal payroll system. Protesters around the nation gather to tell Trump: Hands Off! Join the resistance by supporting Ukraine, support those who are targeted by the Trump regime, and ditch big tech apps for ethical alternatives.
The Good...
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the United States are here under Temporary Protected Status (TPS) while their home country is undergoing a crisis, war, or disaster. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem decided that those protections should not be honored. In a 78-page decision, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen pointed out that Noem's decision was a "classic example of racism."
"The Secretary's rationale is entirely lacking in evidentiary support," Chen wrote. "Venezuelan TPS holders have lower rates of criminality than the general population."
Elon Musk sank $25 million into a state supreme court election to support Republican Brad Schimel, including bribing voters by offering to pay them up to $1 million to sign a declaration that they agreed with Trump's political agenda. Despite the unprecedented investment/bribery in a state Supreme Court election, voters elected Susan Crawford.
While her win is good news, I want to caution anyone from seeing a 55%-45% election win as a crushing blow to the Trump regime. It is a clear, incontestable win, but it remains disturbingly close. If 45% of any electorate is still willing to support Trump-like policies and politicians, we have a long fight ahead of us.
Meanwhile, in Florida, Republicans held on to two recently-vacated seats in deep red districts, bringing the Republican House majority to 220-213. But they won by narrower margins than previously expected, indicating support for Trump Republicans is waning even where they continue to win.
"This is a moment where we cannot afford to be silent, when we must speak up."
Senator Booker spoke for over 25 continuous hours on the Senate floor to "disrupt the normal business of the senate for as long as he was able because he sincerely believed the country was in crisis."
This speech was not a filibuster, which is a form of obstruction in the legislature where someone prolongs the debate on proposed legislation to delay or prevent a decision from being made. There was no legislation being obstructed by the speech. Instead, this was an act of defiance of the Trump regime and a means of opposing the Republican majority in the Senate.
Image by CQF-avocat from Pixabay.
Andrew Rabinowitz was once a lawyer helping big property management companies, including one owned by Jared Kushner, evict tenants from their low-income apartments in New Jersey. Now, he has turned his back on that life and is representing tenants against their big landlords.
In his previous work, Rabinowitz represented the landlords against the tenants they were evicting. He did what he could to try to come to an equitable agreement between both parties, and was once called, "the fairest debt collector in town."
But things changed for Rabinowitz when Maryland passed a law giving any tenant the right to an attorney, and providing funding for them. Now he works for Rising for Justice, a nonprofit organization offering free legal representation to low-income tenants being evicted. He took the job for a significantly lower salary than he had before, but he sleeps better at night now that he's making a difference in the lives of his clients instead of just "putting money into rich people's pockets."
Representative Brittany Pettersen, a Colorado Democrat, and Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, have been trying to pass legislation to allow new parents to designate someone to vote for them by proxy for 12 weeks after the birth of a child. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who opposes the bill, used his authority to refuse putting the bill up for a vote.
But the bill received enough support to bypass Johnson's authority, so he tried to invoke new rules to prevent the bill from being passed. This prompted Luna to bring forward her petition as "privileged," forcing it to be voted on. In response, Johnson canceled all scheduled votes for the rest of the week.
Nick LaLota, a New York Republican, indicated he would vote no on the bill, but said, "Members who oppose her proposal should negotiate with her to amend it or persuade 218 members to vote 'no,' rather than deny her a vote on the merits."
The Bad...
After a meeting between DOGE and Trump's new appointee as acting director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the agency's entire staff was placed on administrative leave via e-mail.
The IMLS provides funding to libraries and museums in the form of grants. These funds make up the majority of all federal library funds. Say goodbye to any new federal funding for libraries, and without a staff to administer the already-approved grants, they will most likely be terminated.
United States Institute of Peace Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Image by Something Original from Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Nothing says, "we're the bad guys," like shutting down something called the "institute of peace." And we already know that DOGE is a bad "guy."
But to add insult to injury, DOGE has transferred ownership of the headquarters of the dismantled USIP to the General Services Administration without paying for it.
"To state this plainly: DOGE forced out the directors and staff of a nonexecutive agency and installed one of its own GSA staffers as president, and that person is now attempting to hand the institute’s $500 million headquarters over to the agency he came from, at zero cost."
On Monday, the Social Security online portal suffered a full outage, which was only the latest in a series of system crashes that used to be uncommon.
The Musk rats at DOGE have been working to cripple the administration, and this outage is a sign that it is working. As the system falters, DOGE will say, "See, the SSA is not doing a good job," and will claim that continuing to fund the program is wasteful, since it can't carry out its mission. They will use this to justify further and deeper cuts until the entire system collapses.
Why? Workers who have no hope for their future and no opportunity to retire are much easier to exploit than those who have financial security.
Trump's new executive order would require voters to show documentation of citizenship before registering for elections, set limits on counting mail-in ballots, set rules for voting equipment, and prohibit non-U.S. citizens from being able to donate.
On the surface, these rules seem to be acceptable, or even reasonable. But what's behind them? The supposed issues these changes seek to "fix" are already rare and/or punishable by law. The prevention of foreign contributions is mainly targeted at a single investor who lives in the U.S. and has donated heavily to support liberal causes.
The Constitution is quite clear that it is up to the states to determine the "times, places, and manner" for running elections, although Congress can set regulations on elections. The president, however, has no such authority. In 2021, when Biden issued an executive order to promote voting access, Republicans claimed the order was unconstitutional. If they were right, Trump's executive order is just as unconstitutional.
"Following a rigorous competitive selection process," the DOE awards a $1.4 billion contract to a 6-year-old company with no website that invests in...self-storage units in Colorado?
I have so many questions...
Trump's economic and foreign polices are all based on the belief that the United States is the most important nation in the world, and that the rest of the world has no choice but to do whatever we tell them.
But this belief, like all of Trump's beliefs, is not only wrong, it's foolish. As the United States rattles its saber with tariffs and threats of takeover, the rest of the world is working hard and fast to establish new trade partnerships that exclude the United States. China and the European Union are both well-positioned to fill the void left by the United States. Southeast Asia, South America, and Africa are poised for rapid growth as the world's major providers of goods. The importance of the U.S. Dollar in world trade is rapidly declining.
America won't survive Trump's second term—here's why:
The Ugly...
Hundreds of Venezuelans living in the United States were rounded up and sold to an El Salvador slave prison without due process. The Trump regime later admitted that at least one of these was picked up and shipped out due to a "clerical error."
When caught doing something terrible, members of the Trump regime will all just lie like a dog and pretend what they did was actually a good thing. Now the Trump regime is claiming that the man, Kilmor Armando Abrego Garcia, is a member of a different gang. When asked for evidence to back that up, White House Press Secretary Levitt says, "I saw it this morning," as if anyone cares whether she's seen it.
To make matters even worse, Abrego Garcia was not only here in the country legally, but a judge had issued an order to prevent him from being deported to his home country of El Salvador because his life would be at risk if he were to return home. So, the Trump regime swept him up with hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants and sent him to El Salvador...the one place he was not allowed to be sent to.
A judge has ordered the Trump regime to bring Abrego Garcia back within 3 days...we'll see if they comply.
DOGE has demanded several of its associates (not all of whom work for DOGE directly) be given full-control of all systems in the Department of Interior, allegedly to create, pause, and delete e-mail accounts (Because, I guess, that's how you find and stop fraud...by creating new e-mail accounts or pausing or deleting existing e-mail accounts, right?). Having this level of access would allow DOGE to also access payroll systems, access personal data of federal workers, or even stop payments to individual workers.
This level of access is designed to be split among multiple actors to prevent any single person from having this level of access...and more importantly, to minimize the potential damage a breached account might cause. Concerned DOI officials asked for more information about this unprecedented request to weigh the inherent security risks, but the DOGE team refused to provide any such information.
Donald Trump has let his "universal" new tariffs slide when it comes to the energy sector. Why would they be excluded?
It might have something to do with the $96 million big oil poured into Trump's campaign in exchange for promises to roll back environmental regulations and deregulate the entire sector.
What did I/we do last week?
Hands Off! protest, April 5, 2025, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA
Image by Myotus from Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license
On Saturday, April 5, 2025, I joined millions of my fellow Americans to take to the streets in protest of the wanton destruction of our government and our democracy by the Trump regime.
The Disgraced Flag of the United States even made another appearance on the streets in one of the 1,200+ protests, flying in defiance of the Trump regime.
It's nice to see each protest getting larger and drawing larger crowds. No protest is going to fix the problems with our country, but as the protests grow larger and louder, people start to believe in a future where Donald Trump is no longer the president and the nation is represented by a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
What can you do this week?
Civilian Shield provides resources and support to civilians and civil servants in war-torn Ukraine.
Unlike larger non-government organizations (NGOs), Civilian Shield's smaller size allows it to rapidly position itself where it is needed most, when it is needed the most.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine was left with a large stockpile of nuclear weapons. The world was worried about the proliferation of nuclear-armed nations after the fall of the Soviet Union, and Ukraine agreed to disarm themselves in exchange for a promise from the United States and Russia that they would protect Ukraine's fledgling democracy from any potential aggressors who might threaten their sovereignty or safety.
Russia broke that promise each time they invaded Ukraine. The United States broke that promise by failing to protect Ukraine from Russia. In the video, we learn that "Christopher" is fulfilling the promise that his country has broken, and asks others to help out in whatever way they can.
I will post this opt out list regularly. If you’ve finished, prioritize spreading the word. AND building mutual aid connections. You can join our Telegram group for help doing so. Spread the message with love. No purity tests. Just doing the best we each can.
— Shutdown 315 (@shutdown315.bsky.social) April 1, 2025 at 10:29 AM
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Keeping you informed...
The website firsttheycamefor.com lists the people being illegally detained or deported by the Trump regime.
Sadly, this is a long list, and is not pleasant to think about. But we cannot forget those who have been removed from our society by the corrupt Trump regime.
We have an obligation to remember those who have been targeted, even when we think that it's just a problem for "them" and won't affect us.
The targets will just keep changing until we are the targets.
We have to help them, "or else we haven't learned a thing."
On the lighter side...
SNL mocks Donald Trump's rose-garden speech where he announces his tariff plan to MAWA—Make America Wealthy Again. Or maybe MAGDA—Make America Great Depression Again. "This depression is going to be so great, we're going to be the ones eating the cats and dogs."
I kind of want to go
— Molly Jong-Fast (@mollyjongfast.bsky.social) April 4, 2025 at 3:42 PM
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— Gillian Martin (@gillmartin.bsky.social) March 29, 2025 at 3:52 AM