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April 2, 2025
Republicans reel as Dem over-performances hit a swing state and MAGA country
(Politico) Republicans emerged from Tuesday’s elections on shaky footing. Over the past 10 weeks, President Donald Trump and Elon Musk have worked to hobble the federal government, pummel into submission the country’s most powerful independent institutions and enact a sweeping nationalist agenda with little regard — and often disdain — for political norms and the Constitution itself. And they’ve done so with near-universal support from the GOP in Washington. Then the voters got the chance to speak.
Go to discussionTesla EV sales plunged 13% in Elon Musk backlash
(Axios) Tesla's vehicle deliveries plunged 13% in the first quarter, compared with a year earlier, as the company faces a backlash over CEO Elon Musk's political actions. The datapoint marks one of the first significant indicators that Tesla's brand reputation is suffering from Musk's chainsaw-wielding leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency in the Trump administration. The company delivered 336,681 vehicles in the first quarter, down from 386,810 in the same period a year earlier.
Go to discussion'Fasted for days': Cory Booker didn't eat or drink ahead of record breaking speech
(Raw Story) New details about Democratic Sen. Cory Booker’s record-breaking marathon speech are beginning to emerge and reveal how the New Jersey lawmaker was physically able to accomplish the longest floor speech in the history of the United States Senate. Booker ended his record 25-hour floor speech Tuesday evening after spending a continuous day railing against actions ushered in by President Donald Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk.
Go to discussionAdam Schiff places hold on Ed Martin's nomination to be D.C. U.S. attorney
(CBS News) President Trump's controversial choice to be the top federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., Ed Martin, faces an uncertain future, as a Senate Democrat plans to put an indefinite hold on his nomination. Martin, a "Stop the Steal" advocate and former defense attorney who represented U.S. Capitol riot defendants, is Mr. Trump's nominee to be U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, and Sen. Adam Schiff, a first-term Democrat from California, plans to hold his nomination amid a growing number of controversial statements and decisions by Martin.
Go to discussionWaltz and staff used Gmail for government communications, officials say
(Washington Post) Members of President Donald Trump’s National Security Council, including White House national security adviser Michael Waltz, have conducted government business over personal Gmail accounts, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post and interviews with three U.S. officials. The use of Gmail, a far less secure method of communication than the encrypted messaging app Signal, is the latest example of questionable data security practices by top national security officials already under fire for the mistaken inclusion of a journalist in a group chat about high-level planning for military operations in Yemen.
Go to discussionI Study Measles. I'm Terrified We're Headed for an Epidemic.
(New York Times) We used to think of measles outbreaks in the United States as isolated events: short-lived and confined to close-knit communities with low vaccination rates. A flare here, a bubble there. But as those bubbles grow and converge, the United States could be at risk for tens of thousands of cases. Measles was declared eliminated in this country in 2000. That didn’t mean the virus disappeared. It meant we stopped it from spreading freely. It was a hard-won public health triumph made possible by decades of vaccination. But that protection is now unraveling.
Go to discussionA mom and her kids were 'snatched' from their New York home by ICE. Advocates are now demanding their release
(The Independent) A mother and her three children were “wrongfully” detained by immigration enforcement agents in New York and taken to a detention facility in Texas, a nonprofit says as it calls for their release. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained the mother - whose birth country was not disclosed - and her kids, one of whom is in third grade, on March 27 while they were executing an arrest on a farm in Sackets Harbor, New York, according to the New York Immigration Coalition.
Go to discussionTrump's cruel calculus on public health is slashing lifelines for the most vulnerable
(Salon) On March 25, Andrew Nixon, director of communications at Health and Human Services, said “The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago.” This is not a policy clarification. It’s a betrayal wrapped in spin. While the White House justifies its clawback of $11.4 billion in public health funds by declaring the pandemic “over,” the truth — buried beneath rhetoric — is that this money was never solely about COVID.
Go to discussionHome Insurance Providers Have Dropped 1 in 4 US Homeowners
(Newsweek) One in four U.S. homeowners have been dropped by their insurer last year, according to a new survey. Half of those lucky enough to still hold a homeowner insurance policy told personal finance company ValuePenguin, part of LendingTree, that they are worried their properties will become uninsurable—double the rate reported in 2024.
Go to discussionCory Booker breaks record for longest known Senate speech, beating Strom Thurmond
(USA Today) Sen. Cory Booker on Tuesday delivered the longest recorded floor speech in Senate history, breaking the record set by segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond in 1957. Booker began speaking on the Senate floor at 7 p.m. Monday evening to protest President Donald Trump's policies. At 7:19 p.m. on Tuesday, Booker broke Thurmond's record of 24 hours and 18 minutes, which he made while speaking against the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first major civil rights bill since Reconstruction.
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