Week 14
By 
Donald Trump is not doing well this week. He is losing in the courts. One count I saw was 11 losses this week. He is underwater on all the issues on all the polls. For example,
And he wore a blue suit to the Pope’s funeral. He did put his red tie aside for a blue one in a concession to the Vatican’s request for men to wear black suits and ties.
Seems clear that they are not making numbers for immigrants, so they are going for show instead. Last night’s show was deportation of toddler citizens, one of them with cancer.
Josh Marshall has encouraged a project to record the probable lawbreakers and which laws they’re breaking for later prosecution. Like many with good ideas, he felt someone else should do it. I’ve got a good idea too – let’s start making our own lists of what we would like the US to look like. Abolish ICE becomes more obvious every day. But let’s look also at the positive things we need to achieve – health care for everyone, more equal income distribution. What we need now is to collect ideas. I don’t care if your idea is the very best and the only one that should be considered. We need to consider them all. Maybe I will do a series like this.
My Saturday coverage may be spotty and even absent for the next few months. Big changes coming in my life.
Follow the court-watchers for the lawsuits, now up to 186, including 4 closed. Chris Geidner (LawDork, Bluesky), Roger Parloff (Lawfare, Bluesky), and the Just Security tracker.
As usual, keep it to things that have actually happened, not hypotheticals. What is actually happening is bad enough.
Caring for yourself and loved ones is resistance too. Post your pets.
Here’s what the Trump administration did this week, in no particular order
- Pete Hegseth shared classified information again, this time with his wife, brother, and attorney, among others. He had an insecure internet line installed in his office to facilitate this sharing.
- Trump begged Putin on social media, “Vladimir, STOP!”
- Arrested a Wisconsin judge
- Made public a draft agreement to end Russia’s war against Ukraine.
- Ed Martin, interim US attorney in Washington, is sending threatening letters to medical journals. Part of RFK Jr.’s attempt to insert crap into medical journals.
- Asked Barnard College staff if they were Jewish. At the same time, RFK Jr. announced that his autism task force would be setting up an autism registry.
Pushback
- Supremes said in the middle of the night that the administration can’t rendition people. Probably stopped another few planeloads going to the El Salvador prison.
- China didn’t call, as Trump pleaded, and said that tariffs have to be lifted before talks can begin.
- 16 Democrats wrote a letter to the law firms that capitulated suggesting they may have broken the law.
- Law students say they won’t work for those firms. https://bsky.app/profile/klasfeldreports.com/post/3lnncyacp7p2y
- ICE will restore status of thousands of foreign students whose SEVIS records were terminated w/o notice earlier this month.
- Social Security abandons DOGE-led phone service cuts.
- Over 500 college and university presidents signed “A Call for Constructive Engagement.” from American Association of Colleges and Universities
- Shutdown of Voice of America reversed.
- A federal judge in Washington blocked President Trump from ending collective bargaining with unions representing federal workers.
194 more weeks to go. What are you doing?
Previous weeks: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6, Week 7, Week 8. Week 9, Week 10