Week 10

This morning came the announcement that the visas of hundreds of foreign students have been revoked. ICE has demonstrated their willingness to kidnap university students on thin pretexts, sometimes having to do with protests about Palestine. It’s a terror campaign, starting with those who are the most helpless, but it’s a signal to all of us.

(This post couldn’t be embedded. This is the link to the Times of India.)

They seem to be speeding up their actions. This may be because they recognize that the resistance is growing. Today is #TeslaTakedown across the world, and next Saturday is planned as a day of action. The markets are beginning to believe that yes, Donald Trump is willing to tank the economy. He is losing in the courts too. International opinion is building against the United States. As they speed up, they will be more likely to make mistakes, but they will also damage people.

It appears that Trump (or his handlers) is following the Project 2025 playbook: Fire everyone and replace them with loyalists. His distinctive addition is resentment and anger. Firing is easy enough, although the courts are making it harder than Trump would like, but filling enough positions to make things work with competent loyalists will be interesting. Musk adds his greed for more contracts, but he is also trying to eliminate anything in the budget that looks like that weakness of the Western world, empathy. It looks like the US won’t be sending aid to the victims of the Myanmar earthquake.

Follow the court-watchers for the lawsuits, now up to 149. Three of the giant law firms won temporary restraining orders against the asministration actions.  Chris Geidner (LawDork, Bluesky), Roger Parloff (Lawfare, Bluesky), and the Just Security tracker.

I didn’t go to my congressional Representative’s town hall. She got enough response that she had to find a new venue, and a change in time to too early for me came along with that. It was streamed on Facebook, but the sound quality was poor.

As usual, keep it to things that have actually happened, not hypotheticals. I think it’s important to stay grounded with what has happened. What is actually happening is bad enough, and hypotheticals confuse our sense of reality.

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

• Hegseth and others hold a Signal conversation about plans to hit the Houthis, include Jeffrey Goldberg. (gift link, in case you haven’t read it by now and the substance of the chat) 
• Trump issues EO on voting. Governor Pritzker of Illinois says to fuck off.
• Three graduate students have been kidnapped by ICE. Or is it four?
• Usha Vance planned to go to Greenland. Nobody wanted to see her, so she and her husband went to the American base at Pituffik rather than a dog race.
• Announced that the source code that the Social Security Administration runs on will be rewritten and supplanted by Musk’s boys in the next month.
• Withdrew Elise Stefanik’s nomination for Ambassador to UN. Looks like the special elections have worried them about control of the House. Special election for two seats in Florida coming up on Tuesday, along with a state Supreme Court election in Wisconsin that Musk has been pouring money into on the Republican side.
• EOs against law firms. Some are complying, some are fighting
• Tried to spread their anti-DEI campaign internationally. This was this morning, so we don’t have a lot of reaction yet. Seems to be part of the speedup.

Continuing

• Empty-chair town halls in red districts.
• Trump adds tariffs.
• Tesla demonstrations. Reports are that they’re getting bigger.

Pushback

•  Canada is reconsidering purchase of military jets
• Boston against ICE 

A Tuesday win

198 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