My Article & Video Recommendations:
A small reprieve for finals week
Feel free to check the past Biden Era archives and follow the editions to come in the Trump Era on Substack, Medium, and LinkedIn, including those on the 2024 Autopsy, Bench-Building, DOGE News, Project 2025 Authoritarianism, Progressive Populism, and more (First Come, First Serve!).
First, for new subscribers, feel free to check out my recent recap of Trump’s 100 Days, as well as the previous coverage of Trump’s First 100 Days on Substack, Medium, and LinkedIn. If you are running for office, or considering running for office, or supporting or volunteering for someone running for office, these blog posts might be of interest to you.
Since I am head-to-toe deep in finals week, I wanted to instead promote news articles and videos that may be of concern to the public (most, if not, all of which are further corroborated by other reports):
A neat, down-to-earth overview on the First 100 Days from Inequality Media
A message from Bernie Sanders on May Day to Democrats: “Stop defending the [economic] status quo”
This Trump Workplace Safety Nominee heated workers to death. Now he could dismantle heat protections on the national level for workers
DOGE may have a far different function from “finding waste, fraud, and abuse.” It may instead form the basis of a data surveillance state
Schedule F may roll back even more protections for federal government workers than what even DOGE has ever been capable of
Via The Guardian: Trump’s Tariffs: ‘It feels like Covid 2.0. So many things are getting disrupted’
Via The Intercept: Trump’s Auto Tariff Relief “Helps Tesla a Lot” — Leaving Other Carmakers Behind
How Democrats can enact policy in the states and improve the quality of life via The American Prospect
A number of states are seeking to codify the SAVE Act for their future elections
While the US nears 1,000 measles cases, RFK Jr. wants to look into bogus vitamin treatments for the disease
Corbin Trent on how the Democratic Party came to acknowledge its own vulnerability and brokenness below:
And finally, here are 100 things Donald Trump did that you might or might not know about via the Elizabeth Warren campaign:
“1. Turned the White House into a Tesla dealership.
2. Fired independent commissioners at the FTC.
3. Punished former officials who opposed his 2020 election lies.
4. Paid for the White House Easter Egg roll by soliciting corporate sponsors who have business pending with the government.
5. Helped Trump’s son set up a club — pay $500,000 for access to Trump’s cabinet.
6. Declared that there would be NO tariff exceptions. Then permitted Apple’s CEO “behind the scenes” access — and poof, iPhone tariffs were cut.
7. Created an opening for insider trading by reportedly giving Wall Street exclusive information about trade talks.
8. Hosted million-dollar dinners between Big Pharma CEOs and their regulator RFK Jr.
9. Launched crypto memecoin right before inauguration to make millions of dollars, then increased the value of those coins by signing executive orders making crypto a priority.
10. Launched a meme coin for Melania, too.
11. Promised his "rich-as-hell" donors a giant tax handout, and is working to deliver.
12. Weakened rules insulating government workers from politics.
13. Limited corporate foreign bribery investigations.
14. Halted enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act.
15. Offered a private dinner with Trump himself—and a special tour of the White House—for the top 220 holders of his memecoin, permitting Trump and his family to profit both from the run up in the value of the coin AND the increase in trading on the Trump platform.
16. Accepted $40 million for First Lady Melania's documentary from Jeff Bezos – way above the market rate.
17. Pointed to Bezos’s multi-million-dollar documentary payment as a model, when Warner Bros. asked Trump's team how to improve its own relationship with the White House.
18. Struck a deal with Amazon to stream Trump’s old show The Apprentice, which will mean more money for Trump as Amazon seeks tax breaks and other federal benefits.
19. Started undermining Medicare’s ability to negotiate drug prices after Big Pharma companies gave millions to Trump’s inauguration.
20. Filed a meritless lawsuit against 60 Minutes and launched a baseless FCC investigation.
21. Tried to get the AP to bend the knee and kicked them out of the White House briefing room when they refused.
22. Hired Defense Secretary Hegseth’s younger brother to serve in a key role.
23. Hired a longtime former partner of Don Jr. to serve as Ambassador to Greece.
24. Nominated Jared Kushner’s father to serve as Ambassador to France.
25. Selected Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law to serve as an adviser.
26. Appointed an oil and gas executive to lead the Department of Energy.
27. Selected a Chief of Staff who was a big-time lobbyist for clients like tobacco and mining companies.
28. Named officials who had recently lobbied for oil and chemical giants to help write EPA rules.
29. Appointed Mehmet Oz, who has close ties to Medicare Advantage insurers, to lead CMS to set payment rates and otherwise help out Medicare Advantage insurers.
30. Appointed John Phelan, a major donor with no military or government experience, to lead the Navy and hand out Navy construction contracts.
31. Appointed Pam Bondi, a former lobbyist for a federal detention contractor, to lead the DOJ.
32. Announced the DOJ would stop prioritizing enforcement of restrictions on foreign lobbyists, under the leadership of Bondi, who herself is a former foreign lobbyist for Qatar.
33. Appointed Howard Lutnick, who has billions invested in companies accused of illegally facilitating crypto money laundering, to lead the Commerce Department.
34. Appointed Marty Makary, the former executive of a company selling weight-loss drugs, to lead the FDA, which would regulate his company.
35. Appointed Sean Duffy, who lobbied for the airline industry, to Transportation Secretary.
36. Tapped Pete Hegseth, whose wife owns stock in large defense contractors, to lead the Defense Department.
37. Tapped Doug Burgum — who made money from leasing land to Big Oil — to lead the Interior Department.
38. Nominated a Big Oil lobbyist to run the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
39. Nominated as IRS head Billy Long, an aggressive salesman for a fraud-riddled tax credit, who received donations after being nominated to clear old campaign debts.
40. Tapped Paul Atkins, a former crypto lobbyist, to lead the SEC.
41. Appointed a former tax lobbyist, to lead tax policy.
42. Appointed RFK Jr., who planned to get paid for anti-vax lawsuits while heading up HHS.
43. Appointed a top Pentagon official who led a firm investing in defense contractors and has directed DOD to outsource as much as it can.
44. Appointed someone who lobbied to privatize Medicare to lead OMB’s healthcare budget.
45. Installed Steve Davis to effectively lead DOGE while also leading a Musk company.
46. Installed another DOGE leader to control the Treasury's payment system while still holding down his day job as a software CEO.
47. Handed power over crypto policy to a White House crypto czar who leads a venture capital firm that heavily invests in crypto.
48. Selected a border czar who led a firm that got tens of millions of dollars of federal contracts for homeland security companies.
49. Appointed Treasury Secretary Bessent who is gutting the IRS so that it can’t audit rich tax cheats — he’s a tax-dodging mega-millionaire.
50. Pardoned Rod Blagojevich, former Illinois governor convicted for corruption, after his vocal support for Trump.
51. Pardoned January 6 insurrectionists who tried to overturn an election he lost.
52. Pardoned a Trump loyalist found guilty of wire fraud.
53. Pardoned the son of a longtime Republican donor.
54. Pardoned a corporation that had been fined $100 million for money laundering.
55. Launched his own stablecoin while preparing to sign legislation that will help the stablecoin and let him oversee it.
56. Sold merch with presidential branding.
57. Disbanded DOJ’s crypto unit after business talks between Binance and a Trump-backed crypto company ramped up.
58. Halted SEC enforcement actions against crypto companies that enriched Trump.
59. Met with crypto executives who are asking Treasury to back off of oversight of their companies — all while exploring a deal to list a Trump-linked crypto company’s new stablecoin.
60. Maintained financial ties between Trump officials and Trump’s media company. That includes FBI Director Kash Patel, who was gifted a huge award of Trump media company stock.
61. Nominated Attorney General Bondi who owned $2 million in DJT shares.
62. Paid the Education Secretary almost $1 million in Trump Media company shares.
63. Intelligence Board nominees who have millions in Trump Media company shares.
64. Selected a Special Envoy to the Middle East who wants to develop real estate in Gaza while running his own real estate firm.
65. Appointed an FBI Director who consulted for the Qatari government.
66. Picked that FBI Director even though he also received millions from a Cayman Island holding company with ties to China.
67. Decided to cancel the Direct File program, which will help the bottom line of Intuit, which gave $1 million to Trump’s inauguration.
68. Took its largest inauguration donation from a poultry company under DOJ scrutiny. After the donation, the SEC approved its parent company for the New York Stock Exchange.
69. Dropped a probe into sexual misconduct allegations against Trump’s Education Secretary’s husband.
70. Hosted dozens of foreign, federal, and state officials at Mar-a-Lago, helping enrich Trump.
71. Hosted a GOP retreat at another one of Trump’s resorts.
72. Circumvented the normal contracting process to pick a company with close ties to Trump’s former campaign manager.
73. Awarded a $30 million ICE contract to Trump insider Peter Thiel.
74. Continued developing new Trump properties overseas, including in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
75. Hatched a plan for the State Department to pay Tesla $400 million dollars.
76. Accepted a $4 million inauguration donation from a GOP megadonor and nominated him as UK ambassador the same day.”
…
“77. Fired EEOC leaders investigating and suing Tesla.
78. Illegally fired the NLRB Chair, which filed a complaint against SpaceX.
79. Gutted CFPB staff and fired the Director after they investigated complaints against Musk’s companies.
80. Gutted the Department of Labor office investigating Tesla and SpaceX.
81. Fired the USAID Inspector General, who launched a probe into satellite terminals made by Musk’s Starlink.
82. Targeted the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration staff who were reportedly, quote, a “thorn in Tesla's side.”
83. Said Musk would self-police his conflicts of interest. Yeah, right…
84. Pressured the Administrator of the FAA, which fined Musk’s SpaceX, to resign.
85. Permitted Musk to keep his financial disclosure hidden. I’ve got a new bill to fix that!
86. Allowed Musk’s Starlink to start working with the FAA after Musk criticized the FAA’s air traffic telecom system.
87. Made Musk’s SpaceX the frontrunner for a new lucrative Golden Dome contract.
88. Stood by Musk when his X executives told an advertising firm to increase ad revenue — threatening that Musk could interfere with a pending merger.
89. Permitted Musk to join Trump's interview with the Air Force secretary nominee while SpaceX held billions of dollars in contracts with the Air Force.
90. Permitted the National Transportation Safety Board to share news related to the airplane crashes in Washington and Philadelphia only on Musk-owned X.
91. Permitted the Social Security Administration to only share important public communication on X.
92. Dropped DOJ’s anti-discrimination complaint against Musk’s SpaceX.
93. Fired FDA staffers reviewing Elon Musk’s Neuralink clinical trial applications.
94. Coercing law firms to offer almost $1 billion in free legal work in an arrangement that experts say could run afoul of anti-bribery laws.”
…
“95. Fired 18 Inspectors General who make sure the federal agencies follow the law
96. Fired the head of the Office of Special Counsel who protects whistleblowers and makes sure that civil service laws are fired.
97. Fired the head of the Office of Government Ethics who watches to see that the President and his Administration follow the laws on conflicts of interest, bribery and other ethics issues.
98. Fired DOJ prosecutors who worked on January 6th investigations.
99. Sidelined DOJ’s office that reviews the legality of executive orders.
100. Gutted DOJ’s office that prosecutes misconduct by public officials.”
See you soon.
A good run down of current events. Great job Mike.