MAGA IS MISOGYNY
'Rabid' hatred of Amy Coney Barrett reveals frightening truth about 'MAGA ideology': analysis
Amy Coney Barrett before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 6, 2017 (CSPAN)
Alex HendersonApril 12, 2025
ALTERNET
When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in 2020 and President Donald Trump appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett as a replacement, it was a definite game changer for the U.S. Supreme Court. Ginsburg was a liberal appointee of former President Bill Clinton, while Barrett is considered an "originalist" who was greatly influenced by the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
Moreover, Barrett doesn't have the libertarian leanings of former Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Ronald Reagan appointee who was right-wing in his judicial philosophy yet voted with Ginsburg and other High Court liberals on key issues involving gay rights and abortion rights. Very much a social conservative, Barrett was part of the 2022 majority decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization — which overturned Roe v. Wade after 49 years.
Yet in 2025, Barrett is being attacked as a RINO (Republican In Name Only) by many far-right MAGA Republicans. And journalist Jill Filipovic explains why she finds that troubling in an op-ed published by the Daily Beast on April 12.
"What is the job of the American judiciary?" Filipovic writes. "If you said to decide cases based on the law and the U.S. Constitution, you would be correct — unless you're playing by MAGA rules. Rabid supporters of Donald Trump, and the president himself, have a different view of what judges are for. In their opinion, judges should be loyalists, backing whatever the president does, no matter how unconstitutional. And they're putting us all in jeopardy. Judges who have ruled against Trump and his policies have come under MAGA fire, with some facing dire threats."
Filipovic continues, "The latest target — in fact, a perennial target — of this ire is Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who found herself in the crosshairs over a dissent objecting to the Trump Administration’s decision to implement an obscure and more than two-centuries-old law, intended for use in times of war, to deport migrants they claimed were gang members, without due process."
Filipovic notes some of the venom that is now being directed at Barrett. For example, MAGA Republican Tricia Flanagan said of Barrett, "Here's the simple truth that no one wants to admit — most women are not emotionally fit to be on the Supreme Court…. (because) women tend to be more emotionally vulnerable." And Laura Loomer described Barrett as a "DEI appointee."
"We're in a new political universe now, one in which the chief presumption is that white men are inherently qualified for their roles while women and racial minorities are presumptively not," Filipovic warns. "In some ways, this is very retro, harkening back to days when these groups were formally excluded from public office, many jobs and public participation writ large, and when various white male authority figures would opine on their lack of aptitude for these roles."
Filipovic continues, "But MAGA ideology is even worse: A person's professional and social fitness is determined solely by loyalty to a single strong man. Intelligence, credentials, experience, expertise, even the basic ability to function as a working adult? None of that matters."
Law firm that successfully sued Fox News for defamation takes on Trump’s executive order
U.S. President Donald Trump smiles, on the day he signs energy-related executive orders, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 8, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
April 13, 2025
ALTERNET
Susman Godfrey, the firm that won a $787 million defamation lawsuit against Fox News for spreading lies about Dominion Voting Systems, is now suing the administration over President Donald Trump’s executive order “penalizing firms that employed his enemies or engaged in work he opposes,” the Daily Beast reports.
“No administration should be allowed to punish lawyers for simply doing their jobs, protecting Americans and their constitutional right to the legal process,” the firm wrote in a statement about the suit.
As the Beast reports, “On Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order barring Susman Godfrey from federal contracts held by the firm’s clients, removed its employees’ security clearances, and banned them from accessing federal buildings.”
According to the suit, Trump has made “no secret of its unconstitutional retaliatory and discriminatory intent to punish Susman Godfrey for its work defending the integrity of the 2020 presidential election.”
“But this goes far beyond law firms and lawyers,” Susman Godfrey said in a statement, “Today it is our firm under attack, but tomorrow it could be any of us. As officers of the court, we are duty-bound to take on this fight against the illegal executive order.”
According to the Beast, “Four firms—including the two largest firms in the country, Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins—cut deals on Friday to avoid falling victim to one of Trump’s executive orders. They agreed to provide a total of at least $500 million in pro bono work for the current administration.”
“Susman Godfrey joined the handful of firms—including Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, and WilmerHale—that have taken action against the president, calling the president’s spree of executive orders ‘so obviously unconstitutional,’” the Beast reports.
'Devastating cuts': Trump eliminates office tied to benefits for at least 80 million people
REUTERS/Nathan Howard
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media on board Air Force One on the way to Miami, Florida, U.S., April 12, 2025.April 13, 2025
President Donald Trump’s firings at the Department of Health and Human Services included the entire office that sets federal poverty guidelines, which determine whether tens of millions of Americans are eligible for health programs such as Medicaid, food assistance, child care, and other services, former staff said.
The small team, with technical data expertise, worked out of HHS’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, or ASPE. Their dismissal mirrored others across HHS, which came without warning and left officials puzzled as to why they were “RIF’ed” — as in “reduction in force,” the bureaucratic language used to describe the firings.
“I suspect they RIF’ed offices that had the word ‘data’ or ‘statistics’ in them,” said one of the laid-off employees, a social scientist whom KFF Health News agreed not to name because the person feared further recrimination. “It was random, as far as we can tell.”
Among those fired was Kendall Swenson, who had led development of the poverty guidelines for many years and was considered the repository of knowledge on the issue, according to the social scientist and two academics who have worked with the HHS team.
The sacking of the office could lead to cuts in assistance to low-income families next year unless the Trump administration restores the positions or moves its duties elsewhere, said Robin Ghertner, the fired director of the Division of Data and Technical Analysis, which had overseen the guidelines.
The poverty guidelines are “needed by many people and programs,” said Timothy Smeeding, a professor emeritus of economics at the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin. “If you’re thinking of someone you fired who should be rehired, Swenson would be a no-brainer,” he added.
Under a 1981 appropriations bill, HHS is required annually to take Census Bureau poverty-line figures, adjust them for inflation, and create guidelines that agencies and states use to determine who is eligible for various types of help.
There’s a special sauce for creating the guidelines that includes adjustments and calculations, Ghertner said. Swenson and three other staff members would independently prepare the numbers and quality-check them together before they were issued each January.
Everyone in Ghertner’s office was told last week, without warning, that they were being put on administrative leave until June 1, when their employment would officially end, he said.
“There’s literally no one in the government who knows how to calculate the guidelines,” he said. “And because we’re all locked out of our computers, we can’t teach anyone how to calculate them.”
ASPE had about 140 staff members and now has about 40, according to a former staffer. The HHS shake-up merged the office with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, or AHRQ, whose staff has shrunk from 275 to about 80, according to a former AHRQ official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
HHS has said it laid off about 10,000 employees and that, combined with other moves, including a program to encourage early retirements, its workforce has been reduced by about 20,000. But the agency has not detailed where it made the cuts or identified specific employees it fired.
“These workers were told they couldn’t come into their offices so there’s no transfer of knowledge,” said Wendell Primus, who worked at ASPE during the Bill Clinton administration. “They had no time to train anyone, transfer data, etc.”
HHS defended the firings. The department merged AHRQ and ASPE “as part of Secretary Kennedy’s vision to streamline HHS to better serve Americans,” spokesperson Emily Hilliard said. “Critical programs within ASPE will continue in this new office” and “HHS will continue to comply with statutory requirements,” she said in a written response to KFF Health News.
After this article published, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon called KFF Health News to say others at HHS could do the work of the RIF’ed data analysis team, which had nine members. “The idea that this will come to a halt is totally incorrect,” he said. “Eighty million people will not be affected.”
Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has so far declined to testify about the staff reductions before congressional committees that oversee much of his agency. On April 9, a delegation of 10 Democratic members of Congress waited fruitlessly for a meeting in the agency’s lobby.
The group was led by House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee ranking member Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), who told reporters afterward that Kennedy must appear before the committee “and tell us what his plan is for keeping America healthy and for stopping these devastating cuts.”
Matt VanHyfte, a spokesperson for the Republican committee leadership, said HHS officials would meet with bipartisan committee staff on April 11 to discuss the firings and other policy issues.
ASPE serves as a think tank for the HHS secretary, said Primus, who later was Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s senior health policy adviser for 18 years. In addition to the poverty guidelines, the office maps out how much Medicaid money goes to each state and reviews all regulations developed by HHS agencies.
“These HHS staffing cuts — 20,000 — obviously they are completely nuts,” Primus said. “These were not decisions made by Kennedy or staff at HHS. They are being made at the White House. There’s no rhyme or reasons to what they’re doing.”
HHS leaders may be unaware of their legal duty to issue the poverty guidelines, Ghertner said. If each state and federal government agency instead sets guidelines on its own, it could create inequities and lead to lawsuits, he said.
And sticking with the 2025 standard next year could put benefits for hundreds of thousands of Americans at risk, Ghertner said. The current poverty level is $15,650 for a single person and $32,150 for a family of four.
“If you make $30,000 and have three kids, say, and next year you make $31,000 but prices have gone up 7%, suddenly your $31,000 doesn’t buy you the same,” he said, “but if the guidelines haven’t increased, you might be no longer eligible for Medicaid.”
The 2025 poverty level for a family of five is $37,650.
As of October, about 79 million people were enrolled in Medicaid or the related Children’s Health Insurance Program, both of which are means-tested and thus depend on the poverty guidelines to determine eligibility.
Eligibility for premium subsidies for insurance plans sold in Affordable Care Act marketplaces is also tied to the official poverty level.
One in eight Americans rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, and 40% of newborns and their mothers receive food through the Women, Infants, and Children program, both of which also use the federal poverty level to determine eligibility.
Former employees in the office said they were not disloyal to the president. They knew their jobs required them to follow the administration’s objectives. “We were trying to support the MAHA agenda,” the social scientist said, referring to Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” rubric. “Even if it didn’t align with our personal worldviews, we wanted to be useful.”
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Advocates are terrified as Trump’s DOJ freezes police reform work across the country
REUTERS/Rebecca Noble
A pro-Palestinian protester is removed by Tucson Police after interrupting The People's Town Hall with Democrats U.S. Senators Cory Booker and Mark Kelly and U.S. Representative Greg Stanton in Republican U.S. Representative Juan Ciscomani's district at Catalina High School in Tucson, Arizona, U.S., April 13, 2025.
April 14, 2025
When news broke in January that the Trump Justice Department was freezing significant work on civil rights litigation, including police reform cases, attention immediately focused on two cities: Minneapolis and Louisville, Kentucky.
Both places were on the cusp of entering court-enforced agreements to overhaul their police forces after high-profile police killings there sparked a nationwide reckoning over race and policing.
But it’s now clear that the administration’s move will be felt well beyond those two cities. In fact, it throws into question police reform efforts in at least eight other communities across the country, according to a ProPublica review. The need for change in these places was documented in a flurry of investigations published by the Justice Department in the final year of Joe Biden’s presidency. All of the probes found a “pattern or practice” of unlawful behavior that was routine enough that the federal government recommended reforms.
From Phoenix to Trenton, New Jersey, federal officials investigating the eight agencies found unjustified killings, excessive force, debtors’ prisons, retaliation against police critics, racial discrimination, unlawful strip searches and officers having sexual contact with sex workers during undercover operations.
Such findings are typically the first step toward a department agreeing to federal oversight and court-ordered reform. Over the years, the DOJ has credited such agreements, known as consent decrees, for having helped departments reduce unnecessary use of force, cut crime rates and improve responses to people with behavioral health needs. President Donald Trump’s Justice Department, however, has ordered its civil rights attorneys to pause such work until further notice, effectively reinstating the limited approach it took during the president’s first term. Department officials did not respond to questions about the pause or how long it would remain in effect.
For now, that means any reform efforts will be up to local leadership — a dynamic that experts say could bode poorly for communities with long histories of police abuse.
Cliff Johnson, an attorney and director of the Mississippi office of the MacArthur Justice Center, a nonprofit legal organization, was not optimistic.
“While those DOJ reports sometimes can lead municipalities, police departments and other offenders to come to Jesus,” Johnson said, “what we’ve been seeing, from our perspective, is folks saying, ‘I don’t need Jesus. I got Trump.’”
Louisiana leaders, for example, have slammed the Justice Department’s report, which found a pattern of problems in the way the state police used force against civilians. Gov. Jeff Landry said the report was an attempt by the Biden administration to “diminish the service and exceptionality” of the state police. And state Attorney General Liz Murrill said the Justice Department was being used to “advance a political agenda.”
The report was partly spurred by the 2019 death of Ronald Greene, who was killed while in the custody of Louisiana State Police. Officers repeatedly shocked him with a Taser, dragged him by his ankle shackles and then left him face down in the road. Some officers deactivated or muted their body cameras during the incident. Louisiana troopers had claimed Greene died when his car crashed after a high-speed chase. The department was forced to change its story when The Associated Press obtained and published body-camera footage of the incident.
Federal investigators found the episode was not an outlier. According to their report, officers in the department used Tasers without warning and against people who were restrained or who did not pose a threat, didn’t give people the chance to comply before using force, used force against people who weren’t a threat, and used excessive force against people running from officers.
A spokesperson for the Louisiana State Police did not answer questions about the report’s findings but said the agency is working to improve its relationship with citizens and other stakeholders. Landry’s office did not respond to ProPublica’s questions about the report and the state’s response, and Murrill’s office declined to comment.
Across the state line in Lexington, Mississippi, the Justice Department’s shift away from police accountability could also be consequential. Department officials said residents there were so afraid of local police that they were hesitant to meet with investigators in public, fearful of retaliation.
They had good reason to be concerned. In 2023, officers arrested an attorney who was representing citizens in police abuse cases against the department. She had been filming a traffic stop at the time.
The police force — made up of about 10 officers, some of whom are part time — is the smallest the Justice Department has investigated in decades. Federal investigators ultimately found that its officers use excessive force, discriminate against Black people, conduct stops and searches without probable cause, and arrest people purely for not having the money to pay fines.
It’s unclear what steps, if any, the Lexington Police Department is taking in response to the report. Police Chief Charles Henderson declined to comment and directed questions to the city attorney, who did not return a call.
Reform advocates have put their hopes in upcoming elections in Lexington that could bring in new leadership that is more interested in making changes at the police department.
In Mount Vernon, New York, advocates say they’ve seen little movement since the Justice Department found police there use excessive force, conduct unlawful strip and body cavity searches of arrestees, and fail to properly train officers and supervisors. It also found police discriminated against Black people. One group is considering legal action to bring the city to the table.
“It seems like Mount Vernon has put lip service on addressing the findings,” said Daniel Lambright, an attorney with the New York Civil Liberties Union. “It remains unclear actually what they’re doing to address the findings.”
In their report, federal investigators expressed concern that the police department’s “overly aggressive tactics unnecessarily escalate encounters.” In one instance, they wrote, five Mount Vernon officers used force on a man they thought was selling drugs — without announcing their presence or attempting to arrest him peacefully. Instead, one of the officers approached the man from behind and attempted to put him in an “upper body hold,” which started an altercation, according to the report. Police then threw the man to the ground. One officer drove his Taser into the suspect five times while another repeatedly punched him in the head. The man suffered a broken nose.
“The reform efforts have to continue,” said the Rev. Stephen Pogue, a member of the United Black Clergy of Westchester, an organization that works on social justice matters in Mount Vernon and surrounding areas. “We’re not in one of those places where Trump is our god. In Mount Vernon, we still need Jesus.”
Pogue said he hopes the city will host a public meeting about the report before the summer.
Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard and a police spokesperson did not reply to interview requests. But in December, the mayor said in a statement that the city would work with the Justice Department to address its findings. “We wholeheartedly support our good officers and at the same time will not tolerate and will punish unconstitutional policing,” she said.
In Phoenix, city and police officials have sent conflicting signals about the federal investigation, which found the Police Department used excessive and deadly force, violated the rights of homeless people, and discriminated against Black, Latino, Native American people, as well as those who have behavioral disabilities. “Why the hell would anybody ever accept a consent decree?” said one City Council member months before the report was released. Afterward, the head of the police union said the investigation was a “farce” and part of an “unprofessional smear campaign.”
But Mayor Kate Gallego has said the city is taking the report seriously. In September, the City Council passed several police reform measures, including requiring all officers who deal with the public to use body-worn cameras, even the special units that have been at the center of controversial shootings.
“Regardless of the new federal administration, these reforms are moving forward, and the mayor’s commitment to improving the police department is unwavering,” a mayoral spokesperson told ProPublica.
Some of the other cities the Justice Department had targeted are taking small steps toward fixing problems the federal investigators identified, though it’s unclear whether the efforts will result in lasting change.
In Oklahoma City, where Justice found in January that police officers discriminate against people with behavioral health disabilities, the city recently began funding mobile mental health units that can respond to incidents instead of police, said Jessica Hawkins, chair of the city’s Crisis Intervention Advisory Group. She said the city is also working on a written response to the DOJ report but didn’t know when it would be completed.
Police Chief Ron Bacy declined ProPublica’s request for an interview and through a spokesperson said the department was “still reviewing the report.”
In Memphis, Tennessee, where federal investigators found that police use excessive force, conduct unlawful stops and discriminate against Black people, the mayor put together a reform task force, led by a retired federal judge. “The DOJ report, in our case, kick-started a conversation that had sort of gone cold,” said Josh Spickler, executive director of Just City, an organization that works on litigation and justice matters in Memphis.
And in Trenton, New Jersey, where the Justice Department found that local police have a pattern or practice of using excessive force and conducting unlawful pedestrian and vehicle stops, City Council member Jasi Edwards has been hosting community meetings to introduce the idea of a civilian complaint review board and build support for the measure. Edwards said she plans to formally put forth her proposal sometime in the fall.
It will likely run into resistance, though. Representatives of the Police Department and mayor told ProPublica that they didn’t believe a civilian review board was necessary because it would be costly and there are existing ways for citizens to complain about police conduct. The DOJ report, they said, highlighted some areas in need of improvement but mischaracterized a number of cases and gave an inaccurate depiction of the department’s culture.
In Worcester, Massachusetts, reforms are already moving forward in response to the Justice Department’s investigation.
Last month, the police chief released a 15-page report on proposed measures intended to remedy the problems identified by federal investigators. The changes, which are still awaiting legal review, include prohibiting police from releasing K-9 dogs into mass gatherings or riot scenes and requiring a supervisor to go to a scene if someone reports being injured by police.
The police chief, Paul Socier, has also proposed several changes to how officers approach prostitution. Investigators found the department engaged in “outrageous government conduct” with sex workers by having sexual contact during undercover operations.
“We are hopefully headed in the right direction,” said Audra Doody, co-executive director of Safe Exit Initiative, an organization in Worcester that provides services, housing and counseling to sex workers who want to leave the sex trade. “With a time of such uncertainty, I want to believe our people in the community are telling the truth and actually are going to do what they say they’re going to do, which they seem like they are, right now.”
ProPublica is reporting on how the Trump administration’s efforts to reshape the federal government will impact the Department of Justice and its work on civil rights. If you’re a former or current Justice Department employee and you want to send us a tip, please contact us. We’re especially interested in the department’s Civil Rights Division. Topher Sanders can be reached by phone or on Signal at 904-254-0393 or by email at topher.sanders@propublica.org.
CALVINIST BLACK PRINCE OF MERCENARIES
Ex-Blackwater CEO’s new pitch for Trump 'could be a precursor to deporting US citizens'
Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, attends a police and military presentation, in Guayaquil, Ecuador April 5, 2025. REUTERS/Santiago Arcos
April 12, 2025
ALTERNET
Former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince and defense contractors are aiming to cash in on deportations to a Central American prison/holding facility.
Prince — the brother of President Donald Trump's former education secretary, Betsy DeVos — hopes his proposal can skirt U.S. immigration laws by designating a section of a sprawling El Salvadoran prison as American territory, Politico reported. Proposed new language claiming “transferring a prisoner to such a facility would not be an Extradition nor a Deportation” raises the specter of deporting U.S. citizens to offsite facilities because "deportation" may only qualify as a "transfer." Politico's Dasha Burns and Myah Ward noted that Prince's proposal "could be a precursor to deporting U.S. citizens" even though the facility is initially only for holding undocumented immigrants.
Trump has already floated plans to deport U.S. citizens.
The facility, which has already drawn accusations of violence and overcrowding from human rights groups, could receive thousands more immigrants from facilities in the U.S. There is no word on how accessible the expanded Central American prison would be to immigrant defense attorneys and affected families, however.
It is unclear how seriously the White House is considering Prince’s plan.
A shooting incident in Nisour Square left 17 Iraqi citizens dead, allegedly at the hands of four Blackwater guards, nearly two decades ago. Intense government investigations, scrutiny, private security reform and criminal charges ensued. In 2014, an American jury found the Blackwater guards guilty of various criminal charges, from murder to weapons offenses.
Trump pardoned Blackwater contractors jailed for the massacre in 2020.
The facility is pitched as a holding pen for “criminal illegal aliens,” but the administration has made it clear that the only criminality necessary for arrest and deportation to an offsite prison is being on U.S. soil.
“[B]ecause they illegally broke our nation’s laws, and, therefore, they are criminals, as far as this administration goes,” said Trump Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in January.
Most immigrants swept up within the last two months do not have criminal records in the United States.
Read the full POLITICO article at this link.
ANTI-DEI, ANTI-WOKE IS PRO WHITE POWER
Trump admin keeps Hitler’s memoir on Naval Academy library shelves — but bans Maya Angelou
U.S. President Donald Trump, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio attend a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 10, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
April 11, 2025
ALTERNET
After he was sworn in as secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth ordered the U.S. Naval Academy to end diversity practices in admissions and in its circulation of the approximately 600,000 titles available in the academy's Nimitz Library.
On Friday, the New York Times found that the result of that policy has been the wholesale removal of books by authors from diverse backgrounds, while keeping books promoting racism and white supremacy on the shelves. Among the books banned include "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou, the 2010 book "Memorializing the Holocaust" (about how female Holocaust victims are remembered) and a critique of the book "The Bell Curve," which argues that Black men and women are genetically less intelligent than whites.
However, the Trump administration has allowed "The Bell Curve" itself to remain available for Naval Academy students. Adolf Hitler's manifesto, "Mein Kampf," is also available for checkout. And a 1973 book called "The Camp of the Saints," which is about a fictionalized world in which immigrants from developing nations take over the Western world and is reportedly a favorite of Trump advisor Stephen Miller, is also still on the shelf.
"Initially, officials searched the Nimitz Library catalog, using keyword searches, to identify books that required further review," Navy spokesperson Cmdr. Tim Hawkins told the Times. "Approximately 900 books were identified during the preliminary search. Departmental officials then closely examined the preliminary list to determine which books required removal to comply with directives outlined in executive orders issued by the president."
The Times noted that "antiracists were targeted" in particular as part of the purge. But the bans were criticized by some Naval Academy alumni, including Admiral James Stavridis, who was previously the commander of all U.S. forces in Europe.
"The Pentagon might have an argument — if midshipmen were being forced to read these 400 books. But as I understand it, they were just among the hundreds of thousands of books in the Nimitz Library which a student might opt to check out. What are we afraid of keeping from them in the library?" Stavridis said, adding that sailors needed to be "educated and not indoctrinated.
“These are among the most intelligent students in the world, who we are entrusting to go to war,” retired commander William Marks, who is an alumnus of the Naval Academy, told the Times. “What does this say about the Pentagon if they don’t trust these young men and women to have access to these books in the library?”
Gov. Shapiro and Family Evacuated From Governor's Mansion After Arson Attack
"Thank God no one was injured and the fire was extinguished," Shapiro said.
Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania, speaks during a rally.
(Photo: Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Common Dreams Staff
Apr 13, 2025
Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family were evacuated early Sunday morning after an apparent arson attack on the official governor's residence.
"Last night at about 2:00 am, my family and I woke up to bangs on the door from the Pennsylvania State Police after an arsonist set fire to the Governor’s Residence in Harrisburg," Shapiro said in a statement posted on social media.
The Harrisburg Bureau of Fire responded to the fire, which "caused a significant amount of damage to a portion of the residence" before it was "successfully extinguished," the Pennsylvania State Police said in a statement. The fire was in a different part of the house from where the governor and his family were staying.
"While the investigation is ongoing, the State Police is prepared to say at this time that this was an act of arson," their statement read.
Shapiro was considered a leading contender to serve as former Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate in the 2024 election. He has been floated as a potential Democratic presidential candidate in the 2028 election.
Shapiro and his family celebrated Passover the night before the fire.
In his message, Shapiro expressed gratitude for the first responders.
"Thank God no one was injured and the fire was extinguished," he said.
Police offered up to $10,000 for any information that leads to an arrest and conviction.
"No additional information will be released at this time. However, this is a fast-moving investigation, and details will be provided as appropriate," the police concluded.
The attack comes as there is growing concern over political violence in the U.S., as The New York Times explained:
Recent high-profile incidents of violence directed at political figures have helped feed fear and unease among Americans, polls have shown. Before the presidential election last year, for instance, about 4 in 10 voters said they were extremely or very concerned about violent attempts to challenge the outcome. The assassination attempt against President Trump last summer took place in Butler, Pennsylvania, a little over 200 miles west of Harrisburg.
Pennsylvania's Lieutenant Governor Austin Davis, a Democrat, was one of several state leaders who spoke out against politically motivated violence in their response to the fire.
"I won't speculate on motivations," he wrote on social media, "but I will say that targeting elected officials and their family members with violence is never acceptable. These sorts of acts deter good people from pursuing public service at a time when we despe
FURTHER
The Observance It Deserves
Balmer posted this embroidered Molotov cocktail on his Facebook page.
Facebook
Abby Zimet
Apr 14, 2025
COMMON DREAMS
Which is more astounding: That a right-wing yahoo got into and set ablaze the home of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and his wife and four kids, or that an orange madman - who assails both those who vandalize cars and those who oppose killing brown children as "domestic terrorists" - stayed silent on the attempted murder of a Jewish governor's family while vowing to "look to Christ's love" even "in life’s most difficult moments," presumably like when your house is burning down. Tough call.
In a Sunday press conference, officials said Gov. Shapiro and his family were evacuated early that morning after an apparent arson attack that caused "a significant amount of damage" to the Governor’s Residence in Harrisburg. Shapiro posted that he and his family were asleep at about 2 a.m. when they were awakened by state police and fire officials banging on their door. The fire struck the part of the residence where, hours before, the family had held a Seder dinner to mark the first night of Passover; Shapiro posted a photo wishing, "Happy Passover From the Shapiro family's Seder table to yours." The family was asleep in a different area, and they all escaped uninjured.
By Sunday night, officials announced they'd captured a suspect, Cody Balmer, 38; they said a "methodical" Balmer "targeted" the home, evaded troopers on duty, jumped a fence and got inside long enough to toss a "home-made incendiary device." According to news reports and a social media trail, Balmer has a criminal record; what is evidently his Facebook page reveals hatred for women and Biden - "Biden supporters shouldn't exist" - a fondness for guns, and support for Trump because gas was cheaper under his reign. While the investigation is ongoing, officials say they expect charges against Balmer to include attempted murder, terrorism, aggravated arson and aggravated assault on an enumerated person.
The attack comes amidst rising political violence that's regularly denounced by politicians including Shapiro - "It is not okay, and it has to stop" - and yet both tacitly and brazenly fomented, since the days of "good people on both sides," by a complicit Mobster-In-Chief; says one sage, "Trump's fingerprints are all over this." Critics note that Trump and Attorney General Blondie Bondi have been quick to condemn any small actions of good will they disagree with - from protesting or vandalizing Teslas to speaking up on college campuses against starving or killing children in Gaza - as "anti-Semitism," "hate crimes" and/or "domestic terrorism," all while amassing troops at the border and disappearing "criminal aliens" for seeking safety.
So it was that, even past midnight Sunday, the witch-hunted, hoax-targeted, anti-anti-Semitic guy who wants to "protect" America's women and white people and riches from "domestic terrorism" - while dismissing attacks on Gretchen Whitmer, Paul Pelosi, the seat of democracy itself - had still said not a word about some random bigot trying to burn a Jewish elected official and his family out of their home. Note to mob boss: The "terrorists" and "anti-Semites" are not the righteous students protesting the deaths of innocent Gazan women and children; they are the arsonists trying to burn families as they sleep on the first night of Passover, which celebrates liberation from oppression. Terror, here, resides in the jaundiced eye of the beholder.
Instead, in the kick-off for his new "Faith Office," Trump issued a Palm Sunday message, renewing his promise to "defend the Christian faith" against the "appalling" likes of (devout Catholic) Biden, who planned 2024's Transgender Day of Visibility on Easter as part of his "years-long assault on the Christian faith." Not so for our new Man of the Gospel who doesn't know any of it. "We will never waver in safeguarding the right to religious liberty," he wrote, calling on "Christ’s love, humility, and obedience." His White House has also promised "an extraordinary Holy Week" to honor Easter with "the observance it deserves." No details yet, but the plans evidently include deporting several more brown-skinned college students for setting fire to Gov. Shapiro's home.
Balmer photo on Facebook page
Abby Zimet has written CD's Further column since 2008. A longtime, award-winning journalist, she moved to the Maine woods in the early 70s, where she spent a dozen years building a house, hauling water and writing before moving to Portland. Having come of political age during the Vietnam War, she has long been involved in women's, labor, anti-war, social justice and refugee rights issues. Email: azimet18@gmail.com
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'Scared for my friends’: Scientists fearing retaliation from Trump abruptly withdraw studyApril 11, 2025
ALTERNET
Co-authors working on a scientific paper abruptly pulled its publication because it was a paper on evolution -- and feared retaliation from President Donald Trump's administration.
The paper “was months of work, but at the same time I know the current situation, and I’m scared for my friends in the U.S.,” said a European evolutionary biologist speaking anonymously for fear if retaliation. “I told them, ‘If you think it is too dangerous, don’t do it.’”
The co-authors, who are legal immigrants, told fellow researchers they feared deportation for daring to publish a paper on evolution, according to Washington Post reporter Mark Johnson. One of the co-authors had just lost a job because of a canceled government grant and the other feared more canceled grants for even broaching the topic in a nation riddled with anti-science. Both worried they might lose their residency if their names appeared on a “controversial article” despite being in the U.S. legally, Johnson writes.
One of the paper’s editors, European astrobiologist Michael L. Wong, confirmed authors pulled their submission from the Royal Society journal because of the nation’s embrace of anti-science.
“I was so looking forward to reading this paper because I think the ideas in it are potentially transformative,” said Wong. “But the fact that people, scientific researchers, are afraid of just engaging in normal scientific discourse, putting their well thought out ideas into the public sphere so that everybody can see them, read them, come to their own conclusions about them and then debate them ― it is so disheartening.”
United States officials have detained French scientists entering the United States after daring to criticize President Donald Trump's cuts to science funding, and international scientists are increasingly leery of traveling to the U.S. The Washington Post obtained an email from the French National Centre for Scientific Research advising U.S. visitors that they could have their laptops and cellphones seized and examined at the border and their spoken or written criticisms of U.S. government used against them while in the country.
“I have friends who are currently afraid to have a layover in the U.S.,” a University of Toronto molecular biology student told the Post. The student also spoke anonymously out of fear of retaliation.
Read the full Washington Post article at this link.
'No One Voted to Slaughter Hummingbirds': Trump's DOI Guts Bird Protections, Again
"Trump is breaking the law and flouting a court order by handing the fossil fuel industry and polluters this blank check to kill millions of migratory birds," one advocate said.
A ruby-throated hummingbird flies over a mimosa tree in Saugus, Massachusetts, on July 22, 2023.
(Photo: Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images)
Olivia Rosane
Apr 12, 2025
COMMON DREAMS
The Trump administration moved on Friday to weaken protections for migratory birds threatened by industrial activities, including oil and gas operations.
Acting Solicitor of the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) Gregory Zerzan restored an opinion from the first Trump administration that the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) "does not apply to the accidental or incidental taking or killing of migratory birds," despite the fact that this opinion was already ruled illegal in federal court.
"Trump is breaking the law and flouting a court order by handing the fossil fuel industry and polluters this blank check to kill millions of migratory birds," said Tara Zuardo, a senior campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. "The United States has lost billions of birds over the past 50 years, and that decline will accelerate horrifically because of this callous, anti-wildlife directive. No one voted to slaughter hummingbirds, cranes, and raptors, but this is the reality of Trump's illegal actions today."
"We're not going to succeed in addressing the crisis facing birds and other wildlife if we let this and other historic rollbacks stand."
The new directive comes as birds in the U.S. are under threat, with their numbers falling by around 30% since 1970. A number of factors are responsible for this decline, among them the climate emergency, habitat loss, falling insect populations, window strikes, and outdoor cats. However, conservationists toldThe New York Times that industrial activities would be a greater threat if not for the protection the law provides.
For example, Zuardo told the Times that if U.S. President Donald Trump's interpretation of the law had been in effect following BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010—which likely killed over 1 million birds—the company would not have been charged the around $100 million in fines that went to support bird conservation after the disaster.
Friday's directive is part of an ongoing effort over the course of both Trump administrations to weaken the MBTA so that it only targets the purposeful killing of birds, dropping enforcement against accidents such as as oil spills, drownings in uncovered oil pits, trappings in open mining pipes, and collisions with power lines or communication towers.
In 2017, lead Interior Department lawyer Daniel Jorjani issued an initial legal opinion claiming the MBTA only covered purposeful killings. This interpretation was struck down by a federal court in 2020, which argued that the act's "clear language" put it in "direct conflict" with the Trump opinion.
This didn't stop the Trump administration from issuing a final rule attempting to enshrine its interpretation of the MBTA at the end of Trump's first term, which was widely decried by bird advocates.
"We're not going to succeed in addressing the crisis facing birds and other wildlife if we let this and other historic rollbacks stand," Erik Schneider, policy manager for the National Audubon Society, said at the time.
However, months into the presidency of Joe Biden, DOI principal deputy solicitor Robert T. Anderson withdrew the initial 2017 Trump administration opinion after an appeals court, following the request of the U.S. government, dismissed the Trump administration's earlier appeal of the 2020 court decision.
"The lower court decision is consistent with the Department of the Interior's long-standing interpretation of the MBTA," Anderson wrote.
Later, the Biden administration also reversed the formal Trump-era rule weakening the MBTA.
Now, in his second term, Trump is coming for the birds again. The Biden-era withdrawal was one of 20 Biden-era opinions that the Trump DOI suspended in March. It was then officially revoked and withdrawn on Friday.
In justifying its decision, Trump's DOI cited the president's January 20 executive order "Unleashing American Energy," which calls on federal agencies to "suspend, revise, or rescind all agency actions identified as unduly burdensome," making it clear the weakening of protections is largely intended to benefit the fossil fuel and mining industries.
Trump Proposal Called a 'Death Sentence for Plants and Animals on the Brink of Extinction'
"Humanity's survival depends on biodiversity, and no one voted to fast-track extinction," one conservationist stressed. "This is a five-alarm fire."
A green sea turtle swims in the bay of Muelle Tijeretas near Santa Cruz island, part of the Galapagos archipelago, on February 17, 2025.
(Photo: Ozge Elif Kizil/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Jessica Corbett
Apr 12, 2025
COMMON DREAMS
A leading conservation group is sounding the alarm over a new Trump administration attack on threatened and endangered species: an attempt to redefine "harm" as it relates to a key federal law.
The law? The Endangered Species Act (ESA), a longtime target of U.S. President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans, despite being signed in 1973 by then-President Richard Nixon.
The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) on Tuesday noticed that the Department of the Interior—now led by Trump appointee Doug Burgum, a billionaire ally of the fossil fuel industry—sent a proposed rule to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs for review.
The Monday proposal is not yet available, but on a public online dashboard it is titled, "Redefinition of 'Harm.'" There is also a Tuesday submission from the Department of Commerce titled, "Defining 'Harm' Under the Endangered Species Act."
CBD called it "the first step toward stripping habitat protections from rare plants and animals headed toward extinction."
"The malignant greed driving these policies threatens to greatly increase destruction of the natural world and turbocharge the extinction crisis."
Under the ESA, people cannot "take" an endangered species of fish or wildlife—and take is defined as "harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect." Within that definition, harm means injuring or killing wildlife.
The law states that "such act may include significant habitat modification or degradation where it actually kills or injures wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns, including breeding, feeding, or sheltering."
Noah Greenwald, CBD's co-director of endangered species, explained Tuesday that "weakening the definition of harm would cut the heart out of the Endangered Species Act and be a death sentence for plants and animals on the brink of extinction."
"The Trump administration has been systematically killing protections for our air, water, wildlife, and climate like a vicious cancer," he continued. "The malignant greed driving these policies threatens to greatly increase destruction of the natural world and turbocharge the extinction crisis. We'll keep fighting for each and every one of these plants and animals."
"Unless habitat destruction is prohibited, spotted owls, sea turtles, salmon and so many more animals and plants won't have a chance," Greenwald warned. "Humanity's survival depends on biodiversity, and no one voted to fast-track extinction. This is a five-alarm fire."
The redefinition push is just part of the GOP's assault on the ESA. As Common Dreamsreported in late March, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have been working to advance a pair of laws, the ESA Amendments Act, which aims to streamline regulatory and permitting processes, and the Pet and Livestock Protection Act, which would strip federal protections from the gray wolf within 60 days and prohibit judicial review of the action.
There have also been direct attacks on the law from the White House. When Trump returned to office in January, he swiftly declared a "national energy emergency" intended to deliver on his promise to "drill, baby, drill" for climate-wrecking fossil fuels. A section of the executive order effectively says the ESA can't be an obstacle to energy development, which concerned conservationists.
"This executive order, in a lot of ways, is a gift to the oil and gas industry and is being sold as a way to respond to the emergency declaration by President Trump," Gib Brogan, a campaign director with conservation group Oceana, toldThe Associated Press in January. "There is no emergency. The species continue to suffer. And this executive order will only accelerate the decline of endangered species in the United States."
CBD's Greenwald also blasted the order at the time, declaring that "with U.S. oil production at an all-time high, the real national emergencies are the extinction crisis and climate change."
"We're losing plant and animal species at an unprecedented rate, and our planet is heating up with dangerous speed," he stressed, just weeks after the conclusion of the hottest year in human history. "Extinction and climate change are chewing up the web of life that ultimately supports virtually everything we know and love, and Trump's order will only accelerate the destruction."
"This executive order is a death warrant for polar bears, lesser prairie chickens, whooping cranes and so many more species on the brink of extinction," he added. "This unconscionable measure is completely out of step with most Americans, an overwhelming majority of whom support protecting species from extinction and preserving our natural heritage. We'll use every legal tool we can to ensure dangerous fossil fuel projects don’t drive species to extinction."
The president continues to pursue fossil fuel-friendly executive actions. On Tuesday, he signed multiple orders that aim to boost the coal industry—which Jason Rylander of CBD's Climate Law Institute said "take his worship of dirty fossil fuels to a gross and disturbingly reckless new level."
"Forcing old coal plants to keep spewing pollution into our air and water means more cancer, more asthma, and more premature deaths," Rylander noted. "This is yet another assault on efforts to preserve a livable climate, and it's now abundantly clear that Trump's promise to give America the cleanest air and water was a bold-faced lie."
