Trump/Musk Administration Faces First Pushback from the Courts
Plus: The Future Has an African Horizon
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KIM WEHLE: Trump/Musk Administration Faces First Pushback from the Courts
WITH ELON MUSK RUNNING THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH alongside Donald Trump and a sycophantic Republican party controlling Congress, it has sometimes seemed that there is no one left to stop the ravaging of the federal government that began minutes after Trump’s inauguration. But there is a way to slow things down: litigation.
Thursday brought news of a trio of rulings that may somewhat slow the Trump/Musk takeover of our constitutional order. They’re an important reminder that the federal courts, at least, are still functioning and capable of standing up for the Constitution and the rule of law.
HOLLY BERKLEY FLETCHER: The Future Has an African Horizon
IN MY EXPERIENCE, MOST AMERICANS—regardless of race, class, or education level—neither know nor care much about Africa. American presidential administrations have generally deemed the continent a low priority in a world full of toils and snares. Africa usually enters the conversation only when something goes terribly wrong—terrorist attacks, humanitarian calamities, disease outbreaks, wars. Even then, it’s hard for African stories to break through. The International Rescue Committee declared the Sudanese Civil War the worst humanitarian disaster ever recorded, yet most Americans probably could not find Sudan on a map, much less tell you anything about that conflict.
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MONA CHAREN: Trump and Musk Take a Hammer to America’s Reputation
A “SPECIAL GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE” wealthy beyond the dreams of Croesus, chose as his first target the poorest and most vulnerable people on Earth. On Sunday evening, Elon Musk and his peach-fuzz adjutants locked employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development out of their email accounts, shut down the agency website, announced that nearly everyone would be fired, and crowed that USAID had been fed into a “wood chipper.” President Onlooker muttered approvingly that the agency had it coming because it was dominated by “radical left lunatics.” Musk called them criminals.
ALGIS VALIUNAS: The Poetry of Bombs and Trenches and Mustard Gas
THE AWFUL DESTRUCTIVENESS of the First World War, which ripped its way through the best of a generation like a flail at harvest time, has long been exhaustively documented and mourned and reviled. But in Muse of Fire, Michael Korda, an intellectually sprightly nonagenarian with a distinguished military background and two dozen books to his credit, has written an insightful study of several of the major English (and one American) war poets whose experience became emblematic of the general course of the war and significantly shaped the public mind, from the innocent irrational enthusiasm of the early going to the disgust and despair as the slaughter proceeded with no good end in sight. No other war, Korda writes, has been so completely subject to official censorship. The authorities saw to it that the newspapers and soldiers’ letters home told as little as possible of the insane bloodletting and the routine excruciation of life in the trenches. As no one else could, soldier poets laid bare the pointless suffering as it occurred. And thus, for a brief time, English poetry became a matter of civic importance, as never before and never since.
🚨OVERTIME🚨
Happy Friday! A quick programming note: Bill and Sarah will go live on Sunday at noon ET on the Substack App to chat with you about the week in news. An alert will go out at noon via email letting you know where to watch. We'll post the replay on the site. too.
If you haven’t downloaded the app and want to watch live, you’ll have to have it for this. (The replay, you won’t.) Just be sure to be careful about your settings if you prefer emails when installing.
Vice President Poaster JD Vance is back…. Arguing with Democratic congressmen and erstwhile supporters on Twitter.
MAGA’s Sickening Hypocrisy… From ‘Save The Children’ To ‘Defund The Org That Actually Saves Children’ (Mike Masnick, Tech Dirt).
DOGE Emails Went Out… to Federal Judges by Mistake (Newsweek).
“The White House just issued an executive order… on South Africa that includes admitting Afrikaner South Africans as refugees to the United States” (Ben Jacobs). That is just so incredibly convenient! How could that have happened? Where are we at on eggs?
“This is not what we stand for, and it will never be what we stand for.” Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval on the neo-Nazi demonstration in Evendale.
Return of the Big Mac… The Daniel Beard Bridge (locally known as the Big Mac) is reopening ahead of schedule after a bizarre playground arson.
Eagle Ed Martin’s Love Letters… To Elon Musk are super cringe, formatted improperly, and legally dubious in a kind of frightening way: this man is the District Attorney for the District of Columbia. Oh, and communicated exclusively through X, like a good DA should. (After they’re printed, signed, and scanned, which is totally normal!)
Guess who is in charge of The Kennedy Center now? Trump, who appointed himself chairman of the board (The Hill).
U.S. foreign aid freeze disrupts… Houston-based HIV program’s lifesaving work in Africa (Houston Chronicle🎁 )
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