The White House is, at least according to Bloomberg, well on its way to creating a sovereign wealth fund, despite having no authority to create one and no legal source of money to fund it. But now they’ve hired a guy to run it, Michael Grimes. And small world, he’s Elon’s banker.
Breaking: Hampton Dellinger (At Least Temporarily) Out
DC Circuit rules that Trump administration can remove Hampton Dellinger while the case about whether he ultimately can be removed continues.
Dellinger is the head (or was) of the Office of Special Counsel that found that a bunch of Trump/DOGE firings had been unlawful. (This is tied to a series of posts I’ve done about rulings against DOGE firings.) OSC was then backed up by the Merit Systems Protection Board. Trump has been trying to fire basically everyone involved at both entities. And he’s been losing those cases. But this is obviously a win for the White House, though how much I’m not quite sure yet.
Will try to provide more context later. For now, see this update from the Post.
Emergency Abortions In Idaho Legal For Now, Even As Trump DOJ Drops Case
An abortion fight that made it all the way to the Supreme Court was dismissed Wednesday, as the Trump Justice Department dropped a case its Biden predecessor had brought to try to protect emergency room abortions in Idaho.
Continue reading “Emergency Abortions In Idaho Legal For Now, Even As Trump DOJ Drops Case”D’oh! NIH Warns Fired Researchers to be Wary of Foreign Recruitment
Here’s one of the more entertaining memos I’ve read recently coming out of the DOGE-tossed federal bureaucracy. This one’s from NIH, dated today and from the NIH Office of Defensive Counterintelligence and Personnel Security (ODCPS). And the gist is management is saying that while we’re busy making your lives hell, banning travel, communication and research reviews, defunding your projects and firing you one by one to drag out the torture, we need you to be extra vigilant because apparently foreign governments are trying to recruit you guys because you’re so upset.
I’m taking a bit of liberty with the language but not much.
Continue reading “D’oh! NIH Warns Fired Researchers to be Wary of Foreign Recruitment”We’re Outta Here
The National Cancer Institute will be a no-show this year at the annual meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research, per an internal guidance memo dated March 4th, 2025 written by Kimberly Blair of the NCI Office of Communications.
Laying the Groundwork to Defeat Joni Ernst
Democrats need to be on the ground in states like Iowa, supporting local Democrats who can start building the case now against Sen. Joni Ernst (R) and other pro-Trump politicians, whoever ends up winning the right to challenge her as the Democratic nominee. I’m not saying Ernst will lose. It will be a very difficult race. Iowa has rapidly gone from a textbook swing state to a reliably red one in presidential elections. But people forget how rapidly things can change in a political climate in which visible, core political decisions by elected officials have tangible and deep impacts on ordinary people’s lives. People forget what happened between 2004 and 2006. They forget what happened between 2008 and 2010, though I think the first is the more relevant analog. There’s 2018 too. But I think we’ll find 2018 isn’t that true an analog.
Continue reading “Laying the Groundwork to Defeat Joni Ernst”Federal Judge Poised To Block NLRB Firing Bristles At ‘Extreme’ Attempt To Expand Trump’s Power
A federal judge instructed the lawyers before her to walk through the history of the National Labor Relations Board and the long effort to degrade agency independence, providing a bird’s-eye primer for the public on President Donald Trump’s attempt to put the entire executive branch under his direct control.
Continue reading “Federal Judge Poised To Block NLRB Firing Bristles At ‘Extreme’ Attempt To Expand Trump’s Power”DOGE D’oh: Nuclear Waste Facility Edition
As DOGE continues it’s federal government wilding spree, purportedly searching for examples of waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, we seem to have had another case of keyword search gone awry. One of the leases DOGE decided to cancel is the lease for Skeen-Whitlock Building in Carlsbad, New Mexico, a 90,000 square foot facility which manages the nation’s only storage area for DOD-created nuclear waste and the only operating deep geologic nuclear waste storage facility in the world.
Continue reading “DOGE D’oh: Nuclear Waste Facility Edition”Podcast Schedule Change
Alas, due to scheduling conflicts, The Josh Marshall Podcast will be out tomorrow, Thursday, March 6, instead of our usual Wednesday drop.
In the meantime, the team is hitting the road, and we want to hear from you! Want us to visit your neck of the woods? Vote now.
Emergency Economic Measures
It’s not the people who directly compile the economic statistics at the Commerce Department precisely. It’s an expert panel which advises those people on how to do it correctly. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick fired them at the end of last month.