A very odd query went out today through NIH: a “short turnaround call” from the office of the director looking for “every NIH investment in South Africa.” The query aims to collect a list of all “intramural projects, contracts or other projects” by tomorrow (Wednesday, March 11th, 2025).

The document went out today.

In the era that I studied when I was still part of the academic world, one recurrent topic was that of “over-mighty subjects.” This was more a reality of the 15th and 16th centuries, just before my period, the eras of the Yorkists and Lancastrians and the Tudors. But the fear hung over the British Isles and thus over their American colonies well into the 17th and 18th centuries. The term referred to subjects of the Crown who were themselves so powerful that they threatened the sovereign power of the Crown itself. They might command more wealth, hold castles and walled cities. They might command retinues that verged on private armies notwithstanding their notional obedience to the King. (The problem resurfaced in the late 18th century in the different, commercialized form of the British East Indian Company, which used its geyser of cash to quite effectively corrupt the House of Commons.) In the U.S. we have no sovereign; or, more specifically, we have no sovereign head of state. But there is a sovereign, the American people. This architectonic fact of the American order is written into every document that undergirds the Republic, from the founding charters to the simplest phrasings that permeate judicial proceedings where prosecutors appear in court representing “the people.”

Kevin Drum died on Friday. Many of you knew Kevin’s blog. For those who didn’t, he was one of the first well-known politics bloggers, dating back to early in the first George W. Bush administration, and he never stopped. His last post was three days before he died. He began as “Calpundit” and then took his blog in-house at a series of publications before again going independent. His passing was not a great surprise. Kevin was first diagnosed with cancer a number of years ago and recently shared with readers that as part of that ongoing battle his health had grown acutely precarious.

I never knew Kevin terribly well. As I thought about it today, I’m not sure we ever met in person. But we would exchange notes, tips, even career advice on a couple of occasions. He was one of the few people to whom I could say, figuratively if not literally, I understand what you do. Because I do it too. And it’s a very weird, idiosyncratic and personal enterprise.

In this post, I am collecting reports about where Democratic senators are telling constituents they stand on the Trump/Elon continuing resolution bill. If you haven’t, please read the piece immediately below this one (or click here) about the choice Dems now face.

(Ed. Note: I go into a lot of detail below. The bottom line is Democrats have about 48 hours to convince D senators to clip Elon’s wings. It’s still totally doable. But it has to happen in the next 48 hours.)

We’re now down to the wire with the so-called “continuing resolution” fight. And just to take this out of Congress-speak, this is a temporary spending bill that will keep the government running, such as it is, until Republicans can pass their full budget in the early fall — that’s the one that will slash health care coverage and other safety net spending to give the Elon crowd a massive tax cut. After almost two months of a criminal wilding spree on the republic, interspersed with lots of “cry more!”s and “sucks to be you”s, Republicans now come to Democrats and say: hey, now we need your help to keep going. The bill is essentially a license for Elon to keep the party going right through the fall.

The bill is being billed as a “clean CR” — in other words, just a continuation of the Biden budget. That’s not true. It’s the Biden-era stuff plus new money for a bunch of Trump priorities. What it doesn’t do is lock in the Musk-illegal cuts. What that also means is that it appropriates a bunch of money for stuff Elon has already shut down. So where’s that money go exactly?

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.

A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Kate and Josh discuss Trump’s bizarre economic actions, the response to his joint address to Congress and how slashing the federal government is playing in the courts.

One of Elon Musk’s Starship rockets exploded over the Gulf of Mexico early yesterday evening, creating a spectacular fireworks-like display and disrupting commercial air traffic from Florida up through the eastern seaboard. Flight radar maps showed numerous commercial airliners in the eastern Caribbean scrambling to leave the debris zone. Starship is SpaceX’s new mega-rocket intended for missions to the moon and possibly Mars. I want to flag a couple details.

Musk had a running feud with former FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker and is generally believed to have helped force Whitaker into retirement when Donald Trump was sworn in in January, though the precise details are murky. Musk had claimed repeatedly that he was over-regulated by the FAA, especially after the agency fined SpaceX $633,000 for launching rockets with unapproved changes. He repeatedly called for Whitaker’s resignation and accused the FAA of “harassing SpaceX about nonsense that doesn’t affect safety while giving a free pass to Boeing even after NASA concluded that their spacecraft was not safe enough to bring back the astronauts.” The FAA also had to fine Starlink for skirting safety regulations.

If you want to understand the inner workings of TPM, there’s really no better person to seek out than Nicole. In addition to overseeing and authoring Where Things Stand and The Weekender, Nicole works as an editor with all of our reporters. Nicole first came to TPM as an editorial intern back in 2014 and then returned in 2017. So, suffice to say, she has seen a lot. Did you know she once worked at the Daily Caller and I thought she might be some kind of plant infiltrating TPM? We discuss that (she wasn’t, obviously.) How has TPM evolved to cover Trump II? We talk about that. What’s the philosophy behind The Weekender and Where Things Stand? She explains. Do you watch Rings of Power? We do, and we talk about it. So check it out, it’s a good one!