POKING AROUND ON APRIL FOOLS DAY

See anything in there?

From the Department of Annapolis Surrenders: At the order of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the Naval Academy has identified some 900 books that “run afoul” of PINO’s anti-DEI order, including “The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.,” “Einstein on Race and Racism,” and a biography of Jackie Robinson, swhich will be removed from the Nimitz Library. Additionally, the academy has ended the use of affirmative action in admissions.

A federal employee union has sued to block a Trump administration order that would strip bargaining rights at 18 departments, arguing the president abused a limited national security authority to attack unions. President Trump last week signed an order that directed agencies to terminate already-signed collective bargaining agreements and to “cease participating in grievance procedures.” The Civil Service Reform Act that gives federal employees the right to unionize does have exceptions for national security, but in its suit the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) argues Trump went beyond authority that allows its use if an agency “primarily does intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work.” “The President’s sweeping Executive Order is inconsistent with this narrow authority. The Administration’s own issuances show that the President’s exclusions are not based on national security concerns, but instead a policy objective of making federal employees easier to fire and political animus against federal sector unions,” NTEU wrote in its suit.

From the Department of Here’s How You do It Democrats: Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) on Monday evening took to the Senate floor to speak as long as he is “physically able” in protest of actions taken by President Trump’s administration. “I’ve taken the Senate floor and will speak for as long as I’m physically able to lift the voices of Americans who are being harmed and not being heard in this moment of crisis,” Booker said on X, which included a link to watch his speech live. Booker began speaking at 7 p.m. “I rise tonight with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able. I rise tonight because our nation is in crisis: Bedrock commitments are being broken; Unnecessary hardship is being borne by Americans of all backgrounds; Our institutions are being recklessly and unconstitutionally attacked and even shattered. In just 71 days, the President has inflicted harm after harm on Americans’ safety; financial stability; the foundations of our democracy; and any sense of common decency. These are not normal times in our nation. And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate. The threats to the American people and American democracy are grave and urgent and we all must do more to stand against them. Generations from now will look back at this moment and have a single question -- where were you? When our country was in crisis and when the American people were asking for our help -- did we speak up? When the 73 million American seniors who rely on Social Security were told that from now on, there will be no one to answer when they call for help; when our seniors were afraid and worried because of the menacing of an American president, did we speak up? When prices at the grocery store were skyrocketing and the stock market was plunging and Americans were hurting and looking for help – and at the same time, the President of the United States was launching a trade war on our allies; firing the regulators who investigate America’s biggest banks and corporations; dismantling the agency that protects consumers from fraud; peddling his own meme coin; and doing a car commercial for the richest man in the world in front of the White House; When the President tried to take health care away from people with disabilities in order to pay for tax cuts for the billionaires sitting on the dais at his inauguration and in his cabinet meetings at the White House; When he gutted public education; slashed funding for pediatric cancer research; and fired thousands of veterans who risked their lives for this country; When he abandoned our allies and our international commitments at a time when floods, fires, hurricanes, and droughts are devastating communities across the country, and outbreaks of dangerous infectious diseases are still a global threat. When the American press was being censored; when international students were being disappeared from American communities; when American universities were being silenced; when American law firms were being targeted; when the people who attacked the police officers defending this building and American democracy on January 6th weren’t just pardoned, but were celebrated by the man in the highest office in the land; When Americans from across the country were all speaking up and saying: this is not right; this is un-American; this is not who we are. Did we speak up? I rise tonight because to be silent at this moment of national crisis would be a betrayal, and because at stake in this moment is nothing less than everything that makes us who we are.”

From the Department of Always Pay Attention to PINO’s Handler: Russian President Vladimir Putin says he’s open to staying in touch with the White House after critical comments from the U.S. president toward Russia’s leader, which have been rare amid his efforts to get peace talks rolling. Putin criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, suggesting he may not be a legitimate leader, and therefore unable to represent Ukraine in peace talks. Trump said Sunday he was “very angry” and “pissed off” at Putin’s remarks about Zelensky, and threatened to impose new tariffs on Russian oil exports. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov indicated on Monday the remarks would not derail ongoing discussions related to Ukraine. “We are working to implement some ideas in connection with the Ukrainian settlement. This work is ongoing,” Peskov said. “There is nothing concrete yet that we could and should announce. This is a drawn-out process because of the difficulty of its substance.”

From the Department of I Think The Lady Is Correct: Ana Navarro, a co-host of ABC’s “The View,” says President Trump is floating the idea of a third term as way to distract from other headlines that are swirling around his administration. “He is the distractor in chief,” Navarro said. “So he doesn’t want us to keep talking about Signalgate, which is a real threat to national security and everyday more details are revealed that show us how incompetent and reckless his national security team is.” Navarro said she has “learned the lesson of taking him seriously,” no matter “how hare brained” what the president says is. The president “doesn’t want us to talk about the way he is tanking the stock market with his imbecilic tariffs,” Navarro said. “What he’s calling Liberation Day should be called Hypertension Day because it’s going to give us all a heart attack,” she quipped. Navarro accused PINO of playing a game with media headlines and trying to distract from the consequences of his agenda on immigration, health care and the economy. “He doesn’t want us to be talking about any of those things. And he wants us to be talking about this,” she said.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Monday the West Wing is “seriously considering” making changes to the White House press briefing room seating chart and blasted the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) for a statement pushing back on rumors it was seeking to take control of the room. “We’ve made a lot of changes across the board that have benefited the American public to how this White House is covered,” Leavitt said Monday afternoon during an appearance on Fox News. “We believe that it’s fundamentally unfair that a group of D.C.-based elitists get to choose who gets to cover the president of the United States.”

Leavitt had been asked about a report in Axios over the weekend suggesting the West Wing was considering taking control of the briefing room seating chart, a job typically reserved for the correspondents’ association. In a statement Monday, the WHCA board issued a blistering statement pushing back on those rumors. “The White House should abandon this wrong-headed effort and show the American people they’re not afraid to explain their policies and field questions from an independent media free from government control,” it said.The press secretary confirmed the Trump administration was “seriously considering” the changes and said the White House press office had been attempting to “broker” a meeting with WHCA leadership. “But unfortunately their president sent out a fundamentally unserious email making it clear that this is a group that doesn’t care about press freedom, transparency and access for all media voices but just cares about having their monetized monopoly over the briefing room,” Leavitt said.

From the Department of We Should Have Killed This Guy’s Traitor Ancestors When We Could: A judge challenging the outcome of his North Carolina Supreme Court race was photographed wearing Confederate military garb and posing before a Confederate battle flag when he was a member of a college fraternity that glorified the pre-Civil War South. The emergence of the photographs comes at a delicate time for Jefferson Griffin, a Republican appellate judge who is seeking a spot on North Carolina’s highest court. Griffin, 44, is facing mounting criticism – including from some Republicans – as he seeks to invalidate over 60,000 votes cast in last November’s election, a still undecided contest in which he is trailing the Democratic incumbent by over 700 votes. The photographs, which were obtained by The Associated Press, are from when Griffin was a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1999-2003 and a member of the Kappa Alpha Order, one of the oldest and largest fraternities in the U.S., with tens of thousands of alumni. Kappa Alpha has proven to be a lightning rod for controversy over the decades, often due to the racist or insensitive actions of some of its members. A number of politicians have been forced to apologize for having worn Confederate costumes at the fraternity’s functions or for being photographed in front of a Confederate flag. The fraternity claims Robert E. Lee as its “spiritual founder” and long championed the Southern “Lost Cause,” a revisionist view of history that romanticizes the Confederacy and portrays the Civil War as a valiant struggle for “states’ rights” unrelated to the enslavement of Black people. In decades past, some Kappa Alpha chapters referred to themselves as a “klan,” a term that many viewed as an unsubtle wink to the Ku Klux Klan.

From the Department of People Are Definjitely Opening Their Eyes: Overall, only 40% of Americans apparently qualify under H.L. Mencken’S comment about nobody ever underestimating the intelligence of the public. That’s the number who still believe Orange Fuckface and his bullshit. On just about every issue, from immigration to the economy, there are more Americans who disapprove of Trump’s actions in office than approve of them, according to a new poll conducted this month from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. As PINO’s April 2 deadline for imposing tariffs on most global imports looms, the poll shows that 60% of Americans disapprove of the administration’s handling of trade negotiations with other countries, compared to just 38% who approve. PINO is similarly under water when it comes to his handling of the economy (58% disapproval), the Russia-Ukraine conflict (56% disapproval), Social Security (56% disapproval), managing the federal government (55% disapproval), and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (54% disapproval). PINO’s strongest issue — his approach to immigration — is a much tighter split, with 49% of Americans approving of his performance, compared to 50% who disapprove.

From the Department of These Fuckwitted Basement Dwellers Are Still Here: One of Elmo’s Anti-Social Teenage Mutant Ninja Basement Dwellers is back on the payroll, and with even more access than he had .Marko Elez, 25, also broke data sharing rules and may have violated federal law at the U.S. Treasury Department when he shared personally identifiable information on a spreadsheet with several employees at the GSA who did not have permission to view the data, according to an audit. In February, Elez was brought on board as a Labor Department employee. He was later detailed on March 5 to HHS. According to a Saturday court filing, Elez is also employed by four other agencies. The court filings, which show how Elez and Elmo’s other kiddies have been given access to sensitive and secure databases, come just days after several other federal judges found that DOGE likely broke the law with its inexplicable access to sensitive data systems.

From the Department of Let’s Watch Hah-vahd Bend The Knee: Maladministration II announced Monday it would be reviewing around $9 billion in federal grants and contracts to Harvard University as part of an ongoing investigation by the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism. The statement, made by HHS, Education, and GSA, said that the departments would be reviewing $255.6 million in contracts between Harvard, its affiliates, and the federal government, as well as $8.7 billion in multi-year grant commitments to the university. “Harvard’s failure to protect students on campus from anti-Semitic discrimination—all while promoting divisive ideologies over free inquiry—has put its reputation in serious jeopardy,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. This comes after the Task Force announced on March 7 that it would be withdrawing $400 million dollars in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University. This spurred Columbia to concede to the administration’s demands, including prohibiting masks on campus and granting dozens of campus security personnel the ability to make arrests, resulting in global backlash and the resignation of its interim president, Katrina Armstrong, Friday. The Task Force was created in February with the stated mission of rooting out “anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses.” Both Columbia and Harvard were placed on a list of 10 universities that the Task Force was set to visit and investigate in regards to alleged antisemitic incidents since October 2023.

From the Department of Disney Gets A Kick In The You-Know-Where: (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr suggested in an interview Monday that ABC’s broadcast license could be at risk as the federal regulatory agency probes Disney, ABC’s parent company, over its alleged efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) through its hiring practices. “If the evidence does in fact play out and shows that they were engaged in race- and gender-based discrimination, that’s a very serious issue at the FCC, that could fundamentally go to their character qualifications to even hold a license,” Carr said in an interview with Fox News’s Jacqui Heinrich on Monday.“But we’re going to follow the facts wherever they go,” he added. Carr announced Friday that he is opening an investigation into Disney over potential violations of the FCC’s equal employment opportunity (EEO) regulations through the company’s DEI policies. Carr said the probe is “about the hiring practices and their employment practices,” noting ABC “can’t make hiring decisions based on protected characteristics, including gender and race,” under FCC’s EEO regulations. “The evidence we have so far indicates potentially that Disney and ABC were making employment decisions based on race and gender, including having effectively race-defined affinity groups within the company. We have evidence that they put quotas in place based on specific demographics,” Carr said, in the Monday interview. The FCC last month launched a similar probe into Comcast, the parent company of NBCUniversal, over DEI concerns. Letters that Carr sent to both companies note the FCC wants to ensure that the companies “are not promoting invidious forms of discrimination.” The Walt Disney Co. said on Friday it received Carr’s letter and will cooperate.

From the Department of This Is What We’re Losing: Cornell University student Momodou Taal, whose visa was revoked over his involvement in pro-Palestinian campus protests, said he left the United States voluntarily on Monday after a judge declined to intervene to block the Trump administration from taking steps to deport him. “Today I took the decision to leave the United States, free and with my head held high,” Taal wrote in a post on X. Taal sued the Trump administration over the legality of two executive orders the administration is using in its crackdown on foreign students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests. A judge ruled against Taal, saying the court does not have subject matter jurisdiction and the student did not show a clear threat to his constitutional rights that would be solved by the lawsuit. Taal said he was due to submit a second briefing in court, which he planned to do “with the hope that I could stay out of detention” as the lawsuit progressed, but he decided to leave the country instead, fearing for his safety. “Given what we have seen across the United States, I have lost faith that a favourable ruling from the courts would guarantee my personal safety and ability to express my beliefs,” Taal wrote in his statement. “I have lost faith I could walk the streets without being abducted,” he continued. “Weighing these options, I took the decision to leave on my own terms.” “This is of course not the outcome I had wanted going into this, but we are facing a government that has no respect for the judiciary or for the rule of the law,” he added.

From the Department of Of Course They’ll Go After Planned Parenthood: The Trump administration will withhold some federal funding from Planned Parenthood beginning Tuesday, potentially making it harder for Americans to access birth control, cancer screenings, and reproductive health care, the organization said in a press release. Nine Planned Parenthood affiliates received notices late Monday about the Trump administration’s plans to withhold Title X funding starting April 1, according to the release. Title X is the country’s only federal program dedicated to providing affordable birth control and other sexual and reproductive health care to low-income Americans and has done so since the 1970s. In 2023, the program supported almost 4,000 clinics serving close to 2.8 million people, according to health advocacy nonprofit KFF. That year, Planned Parenthood affiliate health centers provided more than 5 million sexually transmitted infection services, over 2 million birth control services and more than 400,000 cancer screening and prevention services, according to the organization. “President Trump and Elon Musk are pushing their dangerous political agenda, stripping health care access from people nationwide, and not giving a second thought to the devastation they will cause,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund. “We know what happens when health care providers cannot use Title X funding: People across the country suffer, cancers go undetected, access to birth control is severely reduced, and the nation’s STI crisis worsens.”

From the Department of When Laurence Tribe Is Worried We Should Be Too: Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe has given his two cents on the possibility of President Donald Trump serving a third term. Tribe emphasized that anyone who “discounts” a third Trump term by using the 22nd and 12th Amendments of the Constitution as a defense “is thinking magically.” And he added that the 22nd Amendment doesn’t actually bar a president from serving a third term, but rather prevents them from being elected three times. In an X post Monday, he wrote: “Anyone discounting a 3d Trump term per the 22d am + the 12th am is thinking magically: The 22d dsn’t bar *serving* a 3d term, only being *elected* 3 times.” “The 12th dsn’t bar running for VP unless ‘ineligible’ to serve as Pres, but Trump isn’t ineligible,” he added. “QED!”

There is good news today:

From the Department of Kick Confederate Scum In Their Ass: Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s threats to prosecute abortion funds and other helping Alabamians to obtain abortions out of state are unconstitutional, a federal judge declared on Monday in a first-of-its-kind ruling.

Marshall’s threats were unconstitutional on multiple grounds, including the right to travel and the First Amendment, U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruled in a 131-page opinion.The threatened prosecutions followed the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling overturning Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Shortly thereafter, as detailed by Thompson, Marshall “stated that his office would exercise its authority to prosecute violations of the 2019 abortion ban and Alabama’s conspiracy laws, which could include attempts to procure an out-of-state abortion.“ Marshall specifically targeted abortion funds in later comments, saying: “If any individual held themselves out ... as an entity or a group that is using funds, that they are able to raise, uh, to be able to facilitate ... those visits [to an out-of-state abortion provider] then that, uh, is something we are going to look at closely” The Yellowhammer Fund later sued, as did three healthcare providers who wish to provide abortion-related support. After nearly two years of litigation — including a decision last year rejecting Marshall’s request to dismiss the challenges, which was covered at Law Dork — Thompson, a Carter appointee, issued a final judgment in the case on Monday: “The defendants use of provisions of Alabama’s criminal code to prosecute those who assist individual seeking to leave Alabama to receive medical care in a State where abortion is legal would violate both the first Amendment and the right to travel.”

In closing...

Here’s a bit of excellent advice from Rick Wilson, a guy I used to dislike who I respect a lot now: “Watch for the — and the ghost of William Safire will strike me down for saying this — vibe shift. Pay attention to those town halls, and watch Democrats—who, for once in the last few years, seem to sense a real opening— and are moving with speed and purpose.”

Samantha 1992 - 2008

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