I usually go many years between writing anywhere else but TPM. But I got tempted by the opportunity to write a short item about the hows and the whys of hand tool woodworking. It’s in Playboy of all places (don’t start). It’s part of a package called 25 Things To Do Before the End of the World. You can read it here.

So it looks like at least Roll Call thinks Republicans will be able to pass their continuing resolution through the House without any Democratic votes. Surprising, given the nature of the caucus, but it doesn’t change the big picture since Republicans still need seven Democratic senators to cross over and vote for it in the Senate. The House just released their continuing resolution text. What I hear though is that Senate Democrats simply don’t have their heart in the fight.

This is a Facebook post by Missouri state Rep. David Tyson Smith (D-Columbia). The Rep. Mark Alford (R-MO) he refers to is one of the members of Congress who got rocked late last month in one of those townhalls where people were angry about DOGE.

Just found out that a new memorandum from the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), dated March 5th, 2025, directs all acquisitions executives through the military to stop including language which requires contractors to agree that they will not use segregated facilities as a condition of being a DOD contractor.

You see in the feature well we have Josh Kovensky’s piece on the U.S. African Development Foundation’s efforts to resist takeover by DOGE and a purported new presidential appointee Pete Marocco. After we published this afternoon, Marocco and DOGE showed up with U.S. Marshals and forced their way into the Foundation’s offices, changed the locks and took over. The issue here is the U.S. Marshals. The U.S. Marshals are part of the Justice Department. But their primary function is to protect the federal judiciary and execute its orders. They also have statutory authority to enforce certain laws. They are not a police force working for the White House and they certainly aren’t a police force for DOGE. As far as I know there’s no court order here. So under what authority did any of this happen? Under what authority were the Marshals there and under what authority did they employ force to facilitate this takeover?

The National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods is (or was) an advisory committee housed within the USDA (but also working with HHS) which provides outside expert advice to advance food safety across the U.S. and across different levels of government. It was ordered disbanded this afternoon.

Earlier this afternoon I told you how the GSA staffers who run the Sandra Day O’Connor Federal Courthouse in Phoenix were abruptly fired with no warning or notification to anyone who works in the building. A bit later this afternoon I was able to speak to Debra Lucas, the District Court Executive and Clerk of the Court. To explain that job title Lucas is the senior judicial branch official at the courthouse in terms of the administration of the function of the courthouse. What Lucas told me basically squared with what sources had already told and which I shared with you in that earlier post.

They got no advance warning that this was going to happen. And they still haven’t gotten any explanation of what’s happening. “We’re still waiting for guidance,” Lucas told me. When I asked, guidance from whom? she said the GSA.

In Phoenix, the federal courthouse is named after Justice Sandra Day O’Connor: it’s the Sandra Day O’Connor U.S. Courthouse. The General Services Administration (GSA) is the agency charged with running the building. The GSA is currently controlled by DOGE and they’re the ones currently breaking leases on federal offices around the country and trying to sell off, at least as of earlier this week, hundreds of federal buildings including the Departments of Justice, Labor and Health and Human Services.

The Phoenix courthouse houses the judicial branch mostly. But the GSA is still in charge of running the building. So court staff were surprised earlier this week when they found out that all the GSA employees who run the building had been fired. None of the judicial offices, I’m told, had been notified. They only realized what was happening when they noticed some members of the building staff crying.