Neil Jacobs, the nominee to run National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (which includes the National Weather Service), pledged to work to undo the DOGE Weather Service staffing cuts in testimony today before the Senate. To quote Government Executive magazine: “Nominee says he would work to undo the workforce cuts from the last few months, though the process could take time.”
Here’s the piece.
As you have probably seen, Attorney General Pam Bondi has announced that there’s no there there with the whole Jeff Epstein saga: no list, no hidden group of the world’s most powerful men having sex with minors, no prostitution ring, etc. etc. etc. Of course MAGA has gone into paroxysms with claims that Bondi, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino may be part of the Deep State themselves. I confess to as much schadenfreude as the next red blooded American seeing MAGA eat itself alive over this latest turn of the conspiracy theory. But is it possible that none of this stuff was ever true in the first place or that it’s perhaps been wildly exaggerated?
Read More
This is my official new favorite story ever. It’s from the Journal News, which covers three suburban counties just north of New York City, and it’s about local congressman Mike Lawler (R) and a raucous town hall which I actually covered back in May. It turns out that at that town hall, his deputy district director, Erin Crowley, was simultaneously patrolling the boisterous constituents who had showed up to express their opposition while also apparently egging the anti-Lawler crowd on to disrupt the town hall using a fake identity known as “Jake Thomas.”
The Journal News is careful to note that it is impossible to prove definitively that “Jake Thomas” is Erin Crowley — who is also a county legislator in addition to being Lawler’s staffer. But they’ve got hard proof that “Jake Thomas” used Crowley’s cell phone when “he” joined an anti-Lawler Facebook group and the Signal group it uses and used during the May town hall.
I wanted to elaborate on some points Theda Skocpol addressed in her reader email this weekend about ICE and the supercharged ICE the new Trump budget law envisions. Some of this may be obvious just seeing what we’ve all seen in recent months. But I wanted to describe some of the exact modalities we’re talking about.
First, a general point about ICE. Long before the current moment and even the controversies of the first Trump term, ICE was generally known as a place made up of people who couldn’t get jobs at the more established and reputable federal policing agencies — so, FBI, U.S. Marshals, DEA, ATF, etc. Because of this, it has a high proportion of people who are there because they want to wear a uniform, knock people around and act tough. That’s an aspect of every policing organization. But more professional organizations do their best to weed those people out on the front end and instill discipline that keeps those impulses in check. There’s much less of that at ICE. So it’s never had a good reputation within federal law enforcement.
TPM Reader TS (Harvard sociologist/political scientist Theda Skocpol) and I often compared notes on the news of the day and I am always particularly attentive to her thoughts on state structure and power. So I asked her to write out her comments in response to Josh Kovensky’s piece on the vast expansion of ICE funded in the new budget bill. I really strongly recommend you read this, especially in you’re a government worker or elected official in state or local government.
Read MoreThe Trump monster bill’s huge upward rewarding tax cuts and punitive shrinking of health and food benefits are crucial, but you are right Josh that massive militarization of ICE is the real heart of this law – didn’t J. D. Vance say just that a little while ago?
Late this afternoon, the Social Security Administration sent out an email, seemingly to all recipients, cheering the passage of the President’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
There are plenty of legitimate questions swirling around the devastating flooding in Texas last weekend that left at least 100 people dead.
But we live in the MAGA era. And despite all these honest questions — about county, state, and federal disaster preparedness, about the increasingly disastrous impacts of climate change — Trump’s allies are coming up with their own conspiracy theories to explain the tragedy.
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Member Newsletter
