Read & Resist – May 17

Read & Resist – May 17. I know it’s dated. (How odd to suggest, just a few days makes something *dated* – I remember the world BEFORE BREAKING NEWS!) Anyhow, the content remains important to share.

I’m exhausted. So the issue THE ONE ISSUE that is bringing the GOP out to dissent is the gift of a big beautiful plane. Is it because they are jealous and want one too?

— All Things Jennifer (@allthingsjennifer.bsky.social) May 13, 2025 at 8:21 PM

• Too much grift…even for MAGA Republicans? – “It took a Qatari ‘gift’ for Trump’s GOP to suggest that accepting anything gilded in gold doesn’t look (or smell) great for a president who has placed a cap on pencils.”
• Rule of law is ‘endangered,’ chief justice says – AAAAARUGH IF ONLY YOU THOUGHT ABOUT THIS OH MAYBE A YEAR AGO OR TEN?!
• Wake the Hell Up – THIS IS JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG) “Over the last 48 hours, Republicans advanced a budget bill to defund Planned Parenthood, RFK Jr. directed the FDA to review regulations for mifepristone, and news broke that a brain dead woman in Georgia is being kept alive against her family’s wishes because she’s pregnant.”
• The United States just lost its last perfect credit rating – Eh, no bigs. We can just get the Motherland to co-sign for us, right?
• Republicans Slide “Nonprofit Killer” Law Into Tax Bill – The White House could end any group’s tax-exempt status by accusing it of support for terrorism.
• Trump administration working on plan to move 1 million Palestinians to Libya – MOVE? MOVE! THE CORRECT LANGUAGE HERE WOULD BE ETHNIC CLEANSING AND GENOCIDE! (Aside – Free Palestine! A Reading List)
• Pentagon spent at least $21 million on flights to Guantanamo, which currently holds 32 migrants – Make America EFFICIENT again?
• Congressional Republicans’ Reconciliation Plan Could Cost a Working-Class Family Thousands More Per Year – “The bill would enact the largest Medicaid cuts in history; slash food assistance and home utility discounts; and accelerate payments for student loan borrowers.”
• FDA stalls in posting food safety warning letters amid staff cuts – “Since the week of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, no warning letters to U.S. food manufacturers have been posted publicly, FDA records show.”
• After disasters, AmeriCorps was everywhere. What happens when it’s gone?– “In April, AmeriCorps placed 85 percent of its 500 staff on leave and canceled nearly $400 million in grants out of a $1 billion budget. The move effectively ended the service of an estimated 32,000 AmeriCorps workers across the country. The agency puts more than 200,000 people, young and old, in service roles every year”
• The DEA Once Touted Body Cameras for Their “Enhanced Transparency.” Now the Agency Is Abandoning Them. – I mean, I’m sure this is fine. Just another efficiency cost-cutting measure for the American people.
• The Dangers of An Elon Musk Shadow Presidency Are Now Clear Following a Shockingly Raw Interview By His Father – Just a little light reading…
• DOGE’s Hunt for Social Security Fraud Ends in Total Bust– “After months of baseless claims about “extreme levels of fraud” within the Social Security Administration—even going so far as calling it the “biggest ponzi scheme of all time”—Elon Musk and DOGE have only found two likely fraudulent claims out of over 110,000 at the Social Security Administrations, according to Nextgov. Musk and other DOGE workers were claiming that 40 percent of calls to the agency were fraudulent.”
• Trump’s Legal Strategy Has a Name: And it has been deployed by would-be autocrats around the world– “As Trump himself posted on Truth Social in response to a Supreme Court ruling, perfectly articulating the logic of court-baiting, “I’m doing what I was elected to do, remove criminals from our Country, but the Courts don’t seem to want me to do that.”
• Trump’s Third-Term Ambitions Are Very Revealing – “The bad man, Holmes wrote, does not want to know what his obligations are. He wants to know only what will happen if he engages in a given course of action. If an action causes no adverse consequences to him—if he can get away with it—then the law provides no reason not to do it.”
• DHS asks for 20,000 National Guard troops to assist in deportations – Here. We. Go.
• Trump Asks the Supreme Court for a “Catch Me if You Can” System of Justice – “…it is unclear whether there are five votes among the justices to end universal injunctions outright. Doing so would be a radical departure from the law, one that would subject the nation to every illegal fantasy Trump and his braintrust can think up for an indeterminate amount of time.”

🤦🏻‍♀️

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— All Things Jennifer (@allthingsjennifer.bsky.social) May 16, 2025 at 7:38 AM

How far we have fallen. Are we really celebrating the fact that a SUPREME COURT JUSTICE asked a SOLICITOR GENERAL to confirm they would follow the rule of law…AAAAAARRRRUGH.

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— All Things Jennifer (@allthingsjennifer.bsky.social) May 15, 2025 at 10:31 PM