POKING AROUND IN THE MIDDLE OF WEEK 3 OF THE SECOND 100

It is Day 114 of the attempted fascist coup against America. There are 538 days till the midterms.

Let’s start with Really Good News. Last night, Douglas County, Neb., Treasurer John Ewing Jr. (D) ousted Republican Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert (R) in the latest victory for Democrats during Pmaladministration II. Ewing, a former Omaha deputy chief of police, will become the city’s first Black mayor. His victory denied Stothert a chance at an unprecedented fourth consecutive term in office in an election that was officially nonpartisan but featured a Democrat and a Republican facing off. The city hasn’t had a Democratic mayor since 2013, when Stothert beat Democratic incumbent Jim Suttle to become Omaha’s first female mayor. She has enjoyed comfortable electoral victories since then; her closest race was in 2017, when she won by just less than 6 points. Both candidates focused on local issues such as jobs, public safety and affordable housing. But the race took on more of a national angle in the final weeks before the election, with Stothert slamming Ewing over transgender issues and Ewing seeking to tie Stothert to Trump.

Meanwhile, Dr. Alondra Nelson, the Harold F. Linder Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study and a researcher, author, policy advisor, and nonprofit administrator, has resigned her positions with the National Science Board and the Library of Congress Scholars Council. And she has written about why: “Even as the White House threatens the foundational tenets of constitutional democracy and continues to slash funding for essential social services, it is tempting to hope that the public institutions charged with promoting and protecting knowledge will, nevertheless, soldier on with their mission. I did. Since January 2025, scientists and librarians, program officers and policy analysts at the National Science Foundation, the Library of Congress, and other federal offices and agencies have focused on their work, despite an increasingly hostile political environment... Perseverance has its limits. The erosion of these institutions’ integrity—and the growing realization that it is impossible to fulfill their missions in good faith—has made the cost of continuing untenable. This is why I must step away from my work with two federal institutions I care deeply about.... These repeated obstacles of procedural circumvention, particularly insidious to those of us who have long advocated for more democratic and inclusive knowledge systems, represent not just personal frustration, but institutional regression. Freedom of expression is not merely an abstract principle, or even a constitutional right, but a practical necessity for meaningful advisory work. Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 warned not only of the destruction of books, but of a society in which people had lost the desire to read them. The parallel today is not only the administration’s effort to destroy and suppress knowledge, but also the institution’s willingness to accept the cultivated irrelevance of it—a challenge that undermines any serious effort to conduct research, inform policy, or guide public institutions... But the meaning of oversight changed with the arrival of DOGE. That historical tension— between the promise of scientific freedom and the peril of political control—may now be resurfacing in troubling ways. Last month, when a National Science Board statement was released on occasion of the April 2025 resignation of Trump-appointed NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan, it was done so without the participation or notice of all members of the Board... I listened to NSF staff say that DOGE had by fiat the authority to give thumbs up or down to grant applications which had been systematically vetted by layers of subject matter experts. Our closed-to-the-public deliberations were observed by Zachary Terrell from the DOGE team. Through his Zoom screen, Terrell showed more interest in his water bottle and his cuticles than in the discussion... The message I received was that the National Science Board had a role to play in name only... The advisory body had been transformed into a ceremonial assemblage. Consultation occurred without consequence. When grant applications are vetoed and whole organizations restructured, the freedom to speak becomes meaningless when disconnected from the possibility of being heard. All of this is threatened by the creeping normalization of authoritarian approaches to knowledge management and academic freedom... This hollowing out is not just about governance in the abstract, it has material consequences for which research questions get asked, which datasets get produced, which knowledge gets produced, and which perspectives shape our understanding of pressing societal challenges. It has consequences for the integrity of knowledge itself.” There you have it, ladies and gentlemen - this is how far down the hole we have already fallen.

From the Department of This Is How Bad It Is Now: Popular progressive political streamer Hasan Pike said he was detained for several hours by CBP when he came through customs at O’Hare International, returning to the US from France, and was asked leading questions about Donald Trump and Hamas, among other topics. “They literally, they tried to straight-up get something out of me that I think they could use to basically detain me permanently,” he said. “He kept asking over and over again, Hamas, Houthis, all this shit, trying to be like, ‘Oh, do you support them, do you like them? What do you think about them?’” Knowing full well that they know exactly what they’re looking for, I saw no reason to hold back on certain things, so I said, ‘I don’t like Trump. What are you going to do? It’s protected by the First Amendment ... he said he was going to end the wars. He hasn’t ended the wars. What the fuck is up with that?’” Piker said he was bracing for the officer to ask for his phone. In preparation, he’d turned off Face ID on his iPhone and set it to only use a passcode to unlock, which CBP officers can’t legally compel you to provide if you’re detained. “The reason for why they’re doing that is, I think, to try to create an environment of fear. To try to get people like myself, or at least others that would be in my shoes that don’t have that same level of security, to shut the fuck up.” I suggest to all readers that you remember that rule about passcodes and set your phone accordingly.

From the Department of Speak The Truth And They’ll Think They’re In Hell: Protesters opposing Republican cuts to Medicaid spending briefly shut down a House hearing on Tuesday. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY) kicked off the hearing by praising the GOP budget bill, saying it "unleashes American energy dominance, advances innovation, and protects access to care for our most vulnerable. I have no doubt that we'll have some robust discussions today about these proposals," the chairman noted as a protest broke out in the committee room, shutting down the hearing. "No cuts to Medicaid! No cuts to Medicaid!" the protesters chanted. "The chair will advise the audience that disruption of congressional business is a violation of law and is a criminal offense. The chair advises the audience that violations will not be tolerated and the violators will be removed from the room and may be subject to arrest." Capitol Police officers wheeled disabled protesters out of the room. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) urged officers not to arrest the protesters. "These demonstrations are people feel very strongly because they know they're losing their health care and the cruelty that comes from the Republican proposal that makes them lose their health care and their health insurance. But I would just ask that to the police, I don't know if they're in the room, that we not arrest people if possible, because many of them are disabled, and I don't want to see them further hurt with their disability in the process of being arrested. President Trump and congressional Republicans promised the American people they would not cut Medicaid benefits or strip away people's health care. It's clear that they have broken that promise." The Republican bill would result in at least 13.7 million people losing health coverage. 25 protesters were arrested.

From the Department of Goulash Nazi Strikes Again: Nazi apologist Seb Gorka, currently esconced with the rest of the incompetent mouthbreathers at Saddam’s Palace North didn’t like it when a BBC reporter asked him about the $400 million flying whorehouse the Seventh Century Camelfuckers are bribing his Lord and Master with. Radio 4's World At One host Sarah Montague asked, “The Qataris are giving a jet worth $400 million. The U.S. Constitution has provisions that no elected official should accept any present from the leader of a foreign state without congressional approval. Is there a problem with this, because it doesn’t look like it’s draining the swamp?” Rather than answer the question, a clearly irritated Gorka attacked the journalist: “Do you ever have pangs of conscience that you are so utterly and completely biased that all you can do is give in to your Trump derangement syndrome? Have you ever once said anything positive about President Trump or not knelt at the altar of left-wing ideology?” Montague tried again, asking, "Is there a response to the question?” Gorka shot back, "Is there a response to my question?” Gorka finally replied: “You know what, I like it when a head of state saves the taxpayer $400 million. I like that, OK, especially when Boeing has failed to deliver the new Air Force One for years on end, is behind schedule, and afterwards the plane is donated to the presidential library. Weird how BBC doesn’t know that. That’s because you’re not journalists.” Earlier in the interview, Gorka threatened to walk out when confronted about aid to starving children in Gaza.

From the Department of Republiscum Goons In Action: Rep. Earl “Buddy” Carter introduced a resolution on Tuesday seeking to remove several Democrats from their committee posts for t heir participation in an incident last week at the ICE concentration camp in New Jersey. Carter’s resolution would remove Bonnie Watson Coleman from the House Committee on Appropriations, LaMonica McIver from the House Committees on Homeland Security and Small Business, and Robert Menendez from the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Carter, a Senate candidate in Georgia, said: “This behavior constitutes an assault on our brave ICE agents and undermines the rule of law. The three members involved in this stunt do not deserve to sit on committees alongside serious lawmakers.”“The idea we ‘stormed’ a heavily guarded federal detention center is absurd – just more lies from the most dishonest administration in history,” Watson Coleman replied. In addition, miniature Speaker MAGA Mike threatened to expel the three Democratic lawmakers. ICE Barbie Kristi Noem told Jesse Watters the three "don't deserve to be in the House" and should be censured.

From the Department of The Defiance Of The Courts Continues: The Department of InJustice faces a new legal deadline after U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis warned that its failure to comply with a court order could be treated as an “intentional refusal” to follow the law. In a sharply worded one-page order, the judge said the InJustice Department missed a key deadline to produce a privilege log tied to its claims of the state secrets privilege in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. “Evidently missing from the defendants’ filing is the privilege log that this court ordered to be produced.” The judge gave the government a Tuesday afternoon deadline to file the log and delivered a warning. “Failure to file the privilege log or otherwise respond will be construed as an intentional refusal to comply with this court’s orders.” The judge set the next in-person hearing for Friday.

From the Department of Republican Justice Is Different From Actual Justice: Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Stephanie Haines ruled Tuesday thatMaladministration II can invoke the Alien Enemies Act to remove Tren de Aragua members, but determined Maladministration II has provided insufficient notice before carrying out the deportations. Herruling contrasts with several other federal judges who have ruled Maladministration II illegally invoked the wartime statute. She says PINO is within his rights to deport members of a foreign terrorist organization - a designation he has made for Tren de Aragua. Haines emphasized her “unflagging obligation is to apply the law as written.” Haines said she wasn’t resolving whether the president can use the law to remove gang members , one of several consequential legal questions the judge took care to avoid; but by focusing on PINO’s power to use the AEA against foreign terrorist organizations, her ruling put her at odds with several other judges who have weighed the matter.

Judges in three other jurisdictions have found Maladministration II does not have the power to use the AEA to target gang members, saying the law was not meant to be used outside of an invasion or incursion. “Having done its job, the Court now leaves it to the Political Branches of the government, and ultimately to the people who elect those individuals, to decide whether the laws and those executing them continue to reflect their will,” Haines wrote in her 43-page ruling. Haines’s ruling lifts a temporary order she issued last month blocking the government from using the AEA to deport any migrant detained in the Western District of Pennsylvania. The government can now proceed, so long as they provide 21-days’ notice to migrants in both English and Spanish..

From the Department of Ed Martin Is Still running Loose: he conservative activist named by President Donald Trump as the head of the Justice Department's "Weaponization Working Group" said Tuesday he planned to "name" and "shame" individuals the department determines it is unable to charge with crimes, in what would amount to a major departure from longstanding Justice Department protocols, saying: “There are some really bad actors, some people that did some really bad things to the American people. And if they can be charged, we’ll charge them. But if they can’t be charged, we will name them. And we will name them, and in a culture that respects shame, they should be people that are ashamed. And that’s a fact. That’s the way things work. And so that’s, that’s how I believe the job operates.” Martin's remarks came on his last full day as interim U.S. attorney DC. Donnie Dimbulb announced last week that he was making Martin the pardon attorney, associate deputy attorney general, and director of the "Weaponization Working Group" that Attorney General Pam Bondi established at the InJustice Department. That group is due to examine work including that of former Special Counsel Jack Smith; any federal cooperation with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who prosecuted Trump's hush money case, and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought a civil case against the Trump Organization; the Justice Department's handling of cases related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack; and criminal prosecutions of anti-abortion activists, among other issues. “When it comes to the problem of weaponization, the first part of it must be transparency. We have to show our fellow Americans what went on, because when you hide it and then you prosecute, you look like your target.” DOJ protocols state that officials generally shouldn't confirm the existence of or otherwise comment on ongoing investigations. Legal experts caution Martin’s actions could lead to lawsuits. “If the government wants a slew of Privacy Act lawsuits, I guess that’s their business," said national security lawyer Bradley P. Moss.

From the Department of Elmo’s Corruption Continues: Elmo’s turn from DOGE back to AI is revealing not just in providing evidence that his primary interest all along was not in “waste, fraud, and abuse” but in collecting government data about the American people. It is not likely a coincidence that the administration fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden last Thursday and Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter on Saturday. Both questioned the unauthorized use of copyrighted material to train AI. Michael Jackson Nose enthusiast Karoline Leavitt explained Hayden’s firing by saying “There were quite concerning things that she had done at the Library of Congress in the pursuit of [diversity, equity, and inclusion] and putting inappropriate books in the library for children.” The Library of Congress collects according to a list of principles to enable it to perform research for members of Congress and to keep a record of the American people. It is not a lending library. In order to conduct research at the Library of Congress, researchers must be at least 16 years old.

From the Department of This Is Not Surprising: Maladministration II has moved to resettle white South African "refugees" in Idaho, a state known for its white supremacist movement. The Idaho Statesman reported that at least nine of the dozens of Afrikaners would be sent to Twin Falls. "The move meant the Trump administration prioritized the South Africans ahead of about 12,000 already approved refugees, including more than 400 who had been poised to resettle in Idaho this year, according to the Idaho Office for Refugees," the paper noted. In 2018, the Southern Poverty Law Center determined that Idaho was the most hateful state in the country, with growing white supremacist and alt-right movements. In addition to anti-Muslim groups, Idaho was also known for Ku Klux Klan chapters and Neo-Nazi movements.

From the Department of The War On The Rest Of Us Continues: The Anti-EPA announced this morning that it plans to weaken limits on some “forever chemicals” in drinking water that were finalized last year, while maintaining standards for two common ones. The Biden administration set the first federal drinking water limits for PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, finding they increased the risk of cardiovascular disease, certain cancers and babies being born with low birth weight. Those limits on PFAS, which are man-made and don’t easily break down in nature, were expected to reduce their levels in drinking water for millions of people. “We are on a path to uphold the agency’s nationwide standards to protect Americans from PFOA and PFOS in their water. At the same time, we will work to provide common-sense flexibility in the form of additional time for compliance,” said Anti-EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.

Here’s a little weirdness from the Department of The Alchemists’ Dream Has Been Realized: Medieval alchemists dreamed of transmuting lead into gold. Lead and gold are different elements, and no amount of chemistry can turn one into the other. But our modern knowledge tells us the basic difference between an atom of lead and an atom of gold: the lead atom contains exactly three more protons. So can we create a gold atom by simply pulling three protons out of a lead atom? As it turns out, we can. But it’s not easy. While smashing lead atoms into each other at extremely high speeds in an effort to mimic the state of the universe just after the Big Bang, physicists working on the ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland incidentally produced small amounts of gold. Extremely small amounts: 29 trillionths of a gram. The ALICE scientists calculate that, while they are colliding beams of lead nuclei, they produce about 89,000 gold nuclei per second. They also observed the production of other elements: thallium, which is what you get when you take one proton from lead, as well as mercury - two protons. Once a lead nucleus has transformed by losing protons, it is no longer on the perfect orbit that keeps it circulating inside the vacuum beam pipe of the Large Hadron Collider. In a matter of microseconds it will collide with the walls. This effect makes the beam less intense over time. So for scientists, the production of gold at the collider is more of a nuisance than a blessing.

From the Department of Here’s Something For All You Sports Fans To Agonize Over: In a historic, sweeping decision on Tuesday, baseball commissioner Rob Manfred removed Pete Rose, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and other deceased players from Major League Baseball's permanently ineligible list. Manfred ruled that MLB's punishment of banned individuals ends upon their deaths. "Obviously, a person no longer with us cannot represent a threat to the integrity of the game," Manfred wrote in a letter to attorney Jeffrey M. Lenkov, who petitioned for Rose's removal from the list Jan. 8. "Moreover, it is hard to conceive of a penalty that has more deterrent effect than one that lasts a lifetime with no reprieve.” They are now eligible for election into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Based on current rules for players who last played more than 15 years ago, it appears the earliest Rose and Jackson could be enshrined is summer 2028 if they are elected. Manfred's ruling removes 16 deceased players and one deceased owner from MLB's banned list, including Jackson's teammates, ace pitcher Eddie Cicotte and third baseman George "Buck" Weaver. The so-called "Black Sox Scandal" is one of the darkest chapters in baseball history, the subject of books and the 1988 film, "Eight Men Out."

From the Department of What Did You Expect From A Reality-TV Star?: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy keeps going on TV and insisting it’s safe to fly in and out of Newark Airport, despite recent extremely frightening outages and workforce shortages. Duffy has now admitted he changed a flight booked for his wife on Monday so that she wouldn’t have to travel through Newark. Duffy made the startling admission to David Webb, a conservative radio host, during his SiriusXM show on Monday. “My wife was flying out of Newark tomorrow. I switched her flight to LaGuardia,” Duffy said. It’s not clear if Duffy really understood what he had just admitted to publicly. Because Duffy has repeatedly claimed that it’s perfectly safe to fly through Newark, even as things seem to be falling apart there. Abhi Rahman, Deputy Communications Director for the DNC, said Duffy isn’t being honest about the dangers flyers face right now. “Trump’s transportation secretary won’t let his wife take a flight out of Newark because he knows it’s unsafe, but he thinks it’s okay for you and your family. What does Sean Duffy now that he’s not telling the American people?” Only the best people, folks, only the best.

From the Department of Everything They Do Is A Confession: Donnie campaigned on a pledge to fight antisemitism. "Antisemitic bigotry has no place in a civilized society," he said at an event in 2024. However, three Maladministration II officials with close ties to antisemitic extremists, including a man described by federal prosecutors as a "Nazi sympathizer," and a prominent Holocaust denier, have b een identified. Paul Ingrassia, currently serving as the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, has ties to multiple figures widely known for promoting antisemitism. Ingrassia was also seen at a June 2024 rally in Detroit led by Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier and white nationalist. Before joining the Trump administration as the communications director for the White House Office of Management and Budget, Rachel Cauley served on the board of the Patriot Freedom Project. That group was explicitly formed to advocate for Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, who was convicted of multiple nonviolent offenses for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6 and was later pardoned. Federal prosecutors described Hale-Cusanelli as a "Nazi sympathizer" who once went to work at a naval weapons station with a "Hitler mustache." He also recorded a lengthy antisemitic video rant in which he compared Orthodox Jews to a "plague of locusts." Ed Martin praised Hale-Cusanelli as an "extraordinary man" and "extraordinary leader" and gave him an award for promoting "God, family and country" in 2024. (Martin also gave Ingrassia an award immediately after Hale-Cusanelli spoke to the gathering.) Only the best, folks, only the best.

Cary and Danny

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