so fun fact: recently during the fraud investigations being redone by this season’s feds, MN’s rate of medicaid/medicare fraud was well below the national average

nationally, it’s ≈ 6% each year; in minnesota it’s like ≈ 2.5%

we know this is vindictive at this point

Aaron Rupar(atrupar.com): JD Vance: “We`re announcing today that we have decided to temporarily halt certain amounts of Medicaid funding that is going to the state of Minnesota in order to ensure that the state of Minnesota takes its obligations seriously to be good stewards of the American people`s tax money.“

Trump has slashed 12 years off the projected life span of the trust fund that pays for Medicare Part A, according to a newly updated report from (CBO). The Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund is now slated to be entirely exhausted by 2040

The primary culprit for this accelerated depletion is a sharp reduction in the fund’s projected income, heavily driven by.. the One Big Beautiful Bill [which] significantly reduced the revenues the trust fund normally receives from taxing Social Security benefits.

The CBO also cited decreased projections for payroll tax revenues, warning it had to adjust their models to account for lower expected worker earnings.

(msn.com)

If fewer people are insured, costs don’t vanish. They shift: to hospitals via uncompensated care, to insured patients via higher prices, to the uninsured who bear the burden of ill health, and to taxpayers via bailouts and subsidies.

Georgia mother on increased health care costs:

“A little over a year ago, I had so much hope for my kids. And today it feels overwhelmingly crushing. I`m afraid for my youngest`s access to the medication that he needs to live.“

Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ passed this year will add record amounts to the national debt while enacting regressive tax cuts and pushing millions off of Medicaid. @nytopinion.nytimes.com

Let a single person feed their family with food stamps when they don`t “deserve“ the benefit and Republicans will be filled with such rage that they`ll take away those benefits from millions of others.

Meanwhile the administration is doing this:
(nytimes.com)

“For every meal that a food bank provides, the SNAP program provides nine. There`s no way we can meet that gap. There`s no way we can replace every single one of those meals. It is not sustainable for food banks to fill this gap. We were not built to do this.“

Very important insight. Note also that it isn`t just healthier people that drop out - it`s people who don`t expect to need health care (which includes a lot of people who actually do -- or will). That`s why the health consequences of disenrollment are potentially high.

Larry Levitt(larrylevitt.bsky.social): Insurers set their premiums for 2026 assuming ACA enhanced tax credits aren`t extended and that healthier people drop out of the market. Premiums could theoretically be changed after open enrollment starts, if the federal government and states allow it. But, it would be chaotic.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismissed all of the staff that had distributed $1.7B annually in Social Services Block Grant funds, which many states had depended on for their child welfare, foster care and adoption systems.
"The administration is quietly putting America’s children at risk by cutting funds and manpower for investigating child abuse, enforcing child support payments, providing child care and much more." (propublica.org)

David Sacks, the president’s AI and crypto czar, says the quiet part out loud as Trump and Republican leaders pretend they aren’t slashing Medicaid

President Donald Trump and Republican leaders keep pretending they aren’t cutting Medicaid with their new tax bill, which will further enrich the wealthy and pay for it in part by significantly slashing Medicaid, the government health insurance program for low-income and disabled Americans. Trump, who has repeatedly promised to protect Medicaid, and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) have both claimed that Republicans are simply targeting “waste, fraud, and abuse” in their tax bill, which passed the House last week. David Sacks, who is serving as Trump’s “AI and crypto czar,” put the Medicaid situation more plainly Saturday on his All In podcast: “This bill cuts $880 billion from Medicaid over a decade.”

Like Trump’s 2017 tax law, the GOP’s reconciliation legislation is expected to disproportionately benefit the wealthy. This year’s bill will even reduce the after-tax income of households earning less than $51,000 per year. It is also expected to force at least 10 million Americans off Medicaid, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. This carnage will primarily be achieved by imposing work requirements — a demand that any able-bodied Medicaid recipients work at least 80 hours a month. Such requirements, which have previously failed at the state level, would come in addition to the program’s existing income caps.

Taken together, this means that Medicaid recipients will be expected to work low-paying jobs and deal with burdensome paperwork demands if they want to maintain their insurance coverage. Many eligible recipients will likely lose coverage due to the added bureaucracy.

Last month, House Republicans forced Democratic billboards to be taken down that claimed Republicans were cutting Medicaid. They said it was defamation.

Today, Republicans introduced a budget that cuts Medicaid.

Rachel Schilke (@rachel_schilke): NEW: After @HouseForward launched billboards in vulnerable R districts, @NRCC sent a cease-and-desist letter to the billboards’ vendor, arguing they will be liable for defamation.
The billboards are now being taken down, per the vendor. (washingtonexaminer.com)

CVS Health plans to exit the individual health insurance business also known as Obamacare next year, leaving about 1 million Aetna members in 17 states looking for new coverage in 2026.

CVS’ move to exit the individual insurance market comes as the Donald Trump White House and Republicans in Congress ponder cuts to health insurance benefits to pay for tax cuts for wealthy Americans. Trump has never been a fan of Obamacare, which he tried and failed several times to repeal in his first term, and his administration has already made moves to cut spending on such health benefits, already slashing what the federal government spends on navigators that help people sign up for Obamacare coverage.

Meanwhile, it remains unclear whether subsidies Americans use to buy individual coverage will remain once Congress has passed its budget.

Work requirements do not work.

If enacted in 2026, national #Medicaid work requirements could result in:

📉 Up to 5.2M adults losing coverage
💼 449,000 jobs lost
💰 State GDPs could shrink by up to $59 billion
💸 $4.4B drop in state and local tax revenue

📍 See the projected state-by-state impact ⤵️
(commonwealthfund.org)

"Jesse Huddleston, board chair at Durham’s Pauli Murray Center, said they first noticed the website page deletion yesterday. The edits are part of a federal sweep of NPS content related to LGBTQ+ history; an NPS page for Pauli Murray’s home appears untouched so far."

(indyweek.com)

New: We illustrate what $880 billion in Medicaid cuts could mean on a state-by-state basis.

29% of state Medicaid spending
6% of state taxes
19% of state education spending
(KFF.org)

New @commonwealthfund.org estimates from GW researchers on economic impact of $880 billion in #Medicaid cuts. Includes single-year state-by-state effects on economic activity, job losses and state tax revenues: Also includes impact of SNAP cuts.
(link)

How CBO views a Medicaid work requirement:

Little effect on employment.

Saves the federal government $109 billion over a decade.

Causes 600,000 people to become uninsured. But, that assumes states pay $65 billion to offset federal cuts and maintain coverage for 900,000 people.

Here is CBO confirming the obvious. To meet House budget resolution's target that Energy and Commerce Committee make at least $880 billion in mandatory spending cuts and Medicare is excluded, deep #Medicaid cuts are absolutely necessary as there isn't much other spending. (link)

Amazon is adding a 3.5% “fuel and logistics-related surcharge“ to all U.S. sellers due to rising gas prices from Trump`s Iran war.

The global trade war that Trump launched one year ago didn’t just temporarily raise tariffs.

It may have also broken the global system that lets technologies like Bluetooth work everywhere.

When the World Stops Syncing
The global trade war that Donald Trump launched one year ago didn’t just temporarily raise tariffs. It may have also broken the global system that lets technologies like Bluetooth work everywhere.

(politico.com)

Even if Trump`s war of choice were to *magically* end tomorrow, the US and global economy will continue to feel the effects for years.

In addition, this time around the impacts will reach far beyond the gas pump. Fertilizers, natural gas (LNG), plastics, and a host of other products are disrupted.

Does anyone know what the current tariff rate is that the U.S. is charging on imports?

We have a Presidential proclamation from Friday declaring that a 10% rate went into effective at 12:01am today. Also a Truth Social post upping it to 15% “effective immediately.“

WHICH IS IT?

In just 25 hours, the U.S. has had four tariff regimes:
1. Liberation Day Mark_II_re-revised_(final)
2. Liberation Day Mark_II_re-revised_(final) - IEEPA tariffs
3. Liberation Day Mark_II_re-revised_(final) - IEEPA tariffs +10%
4. Liberation Day Mark_II_re-revised_(final) - IEEPA tariffs +10% + 5%

“The tariffs have utterly failed to restore manufacturing jobs, which are falling in part due to the misguided application of the tariffs themselves.” @gregsargent.bsky.social on the Supreme Court striking down of Trump’s most central—and most ruinous!—policy agendas.

Greg Sargent(gregsargent.bsky.social): The Supreme Court`s remarkable ruling against tariffs is another sign that Trumpist nationalism is in crisis. Tariffs and deportations are key pillars of Trumpism. Both are major fiascos. Both have caused his approval to crater.

Trumpism is failing.

New piece:
newrepublic.com/article/2068.. (k)

CATO: “.. In short, seven independent research teams have now examined the “who’s paying” question and have reached essentially the same answer: We are.” (cato.org)

Host: Trump`s trade war is hitting Americans maybe even harder than previously thought. Tariffs raised taxes for the average American household by $1,000 last year, and that is expected to rise to $1,300 this year. This is the largest US tax increase as a percent of GDP since 1993.

WELKER: What is the national emergency that justifies this new slate of tariffs?

BESSENT: The national emergency is avoiding a national emergency

Trump has doomed the American auto industry. Companies can’t sell their cars overseas, and EV subsidies are gone. China now accounts for 42 percent of the global auto market — the U.S. is down to 12. From @ryanlcooper.com: trib.al/VBrxzT4
(trib.al)

Actual 2025 tariff rates are, to date, far less than statutory rates, but the costs of the tariffs are mostly borne by the US – estimated tariff pass-through to US prices in 2025 is 94%. Tariffs on imports act like a 1 to 2pp tax on US manufacturing. brentneiman.com/research/GN2...
(brentneiman.com)

`Company employees have also “spent hundreds & hundreds and hundreds of hours counter-sourcing product, pausing production, restarting production, rushing production, running price analysis, cost analysis, shipping analysis,” Abel said. “I spent zero minutes on tariffs before this administration”`
(politico.com)

Tractor maker Deere has warned that US President Donald Trump’s tariffs are backfiring on American farmers, prompting cash-strapped producers to delay replacing aging equipment. Deere has had to cut production and workers and says it is likely to cut more jobs in 2026. www.ft.com/content/523a...
(ft.com)

This is op/ed is a hot mess but let`s focus on one specific false claim from Oren Cass. He wrote:

“the crops are not rotting in the fields“

But yes, Oren, they are. Crops are rotting in the fields.

New York Times Opinion(nytopinion.nytimes.com): President Trump “has used the first phase of his second term to swing a wrecking ball through the American establishment with astonishing speed and force,” Oren Cass writes. But, as Congress is returning from its August recess, a question remains: What now (7)

Thanks to tariffs (esp re: Canada), US aluminium prices are now roughly 50% higher than in Europe & Japan, thus putting US manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage.

Heckuva industrial strategy.

Maybe the craziest part of Trump's "reciprocal" tariffs is they tend to get HIGHER as countries' tariffs on US exports get LOWER. (Eg, Switzerland got 39% even though its tariffs average 0.2%). So, we're punishing countries for being open to US goods.

Make it make sense.
(cato.org)

I know we all hate economists, but they predicted this fairly accurately. US companies will take the hit, lay off people, cancel CAPEX investment plans and suffer margin erosion.

Scott Lincicome (@scottlincicome): Goldman's latest (still very early) analysis of tariff effects thru June 2025:
-Foreign exporters absorbed 14% of US tariffs
-US companies ate 64%
-US consumers ate 22%
-Protected US companies also raised prices
-Consumers will see bigger price increases (70%) thru the Fall

Procter & Gamble plans to increase prices on 25% of its U.S. products starting in August to help cover the costs associated with tariffs introduced under Trump. The company anticipates incurring $1 billion in pre-tax tariff-related expenses during fiscal year 2026.

Our Big Mac index will sadden America’s burger-lovers

Trump’s tariffs have brought a double serving of pain
(economist.com)

"Goldman Sachs economists estimate that U.S. consumers will end up paying 70% of tariffs’ direct costs."
This is a tax, folks, and American consumers are paying it!
(wsj.com)

It has continued to slide even as President Trump has backed down from his tariff threats and the U.S. stock market has recovered from its losses.
(nytimes.com)

Nucor Corporation (the largest steel producer in the U.S.) has raised its price for hot-rolled coil to $910 per ton for all producing mills.

That same price was $670 at the start of 2025.

Scott Lincicome (@scottlincicome): Fueled by tariffs, US steelmaking giant Nucor raised prices again last month, the latest in a string of hikes that have its US prices 35% higher since this time last year

(steelindustry.news)

35% US tariff on Canada, no mention of energy, no mention of ongoing USMCA exemption, no real details at all.

Just random sour capricious vibes

Presumably will be withdrawn at the last minute, but never productive and always distracting in the meantime.

You can’t create new copper mines in our country.

The copper mines in the world are where they are.

There’s literally nothing you can do about it.

You can tariff copper 10,000% and it still won’t change the fact that most of the copper on earth is in Chile and Peru.

Why the fuck is this moron touting tariffs on copper now?

Walmart CFO John David Rainey: "We've not seen a period where you've had prices go up this high, this quickly. We're well equipped and experienced in dealing with price increases that are going up 2 or 3 percent, but not 30 percent."

🚨 WALMART RAISING PRICES DUE TO TARIFFS

“We will do our best to keep our prices as low as possible but given the magnitude of the tariffs, even at the reduced levels announced this week, we aren’t able to absorb all the pressure given the reality of narrow retail margins,” Walmart CEO says.

KENNEDY: If Vietnam came to you and said, 'You win. We're gonna remove all tariffs and all trade barriers. Would the US please do the same?" Would you accept that deal?

LUTNICK: Absolutely not. That would be the silliest thing we could do

KENNEDY: What's the purpose of reciprocity then?

Not a single international cargo ship at the Port of Seattle. The port is dead. The last ship from China will dock at a West coast port on the 29th, and the last Chinese ship will dock on the East coast around May 10th. After that, there will be no more shipments arriving from China. We’re screwed.

This latest gyration comes less than a week after Trump triumphantly posted a video online that said he was “purposely crashing the stock market,” as a favor to his fellow Americans. His sudden change of approach comes just one week after he publicly launched his tariff blitz, with numbers, math, and tactics that made absolutely no sense to pretty much anyone who looked at it. For now, it seems as if the president’s economy-nuking bad math was somehow too stupid to implement, even for this uniquely depraved administration. “I can breathe now … But everything could change tomorrow,” one big Trump and GOP donor says, days after telling Rolling Stone: “I don’t know if I would be this worried about what will happen to the economy if Bernie fucking Sanders were president. That’s how bad this is.” (rollingstone.com)

New in PN: The Hope Florida scandal, explained

"A GOP investigator said he believes DeSantis's former chief of staff engaged in a conspiracy to launder money. We're sure Pam Bondi is on it (sarcasm). But there could still be consequences."

The story of how Casey DeSantis, Ron’s wife, came into $10 million for her Hope Florida program, $10 million that then made its way to DeSantis-related PACs, is predictably messy. Let’s start at the beginning.

The $10 million at issue here was part of a settlement that Centene, Florida’s biggest Medicaid contractor, paid to the state. Centene had overbilled the state by millions and, in September 2024, agreed to pay $67 million to settle the matter. Those millions were to be returned to state and federal coffers. Only $57 million made its way back to the state, however. $10 million was sent to the Hope Florida Foundation, run by Casey DeSantis.
(publicnotice.co)

The decision to send deportees to Libya was striking. The country is racked with conflict, and human rights groups have called conditions in its network of migrant detention centers “horrific” and “deplorable.”

The Libya operation falls in line with the Trump administration’s effort to not only deter migrants from trying to enter the country illegally but also to send a strong message to those in the country illegally that they can be deported to countries where they could face brutal conditions. Reuters earlier reported the possibility of a U.S. deportation flight to Libya.

The State Department warns against traveling to Libya “due to crime, terrorism, unexploded land mines, civil unrest, kidnapping and armed conflict.” The country remains divided after years of civil war following the 2011 overthrow of its longtime dictator, Muammar Gaddafi. A United Nations-recognized government in Tripoli rules western Libya, and another in Benghazi, led by the warlord Khalifa Haftar, controls the east.

"I'm a Republican CEO. I'm adding a 'tariff tax' to my price tags so customers know why prices are rising." (businessinsider.com)

This is kinda hilarious: Trump officials are stocking up on toilet paper and food in anticipation of shortages caused by Trump’s own trade wars.
I only wish they’d tell their boss about their newfound hoarding instead of only leaking to @swin24.bsky.social
(rollingstone.com)

It's impossible to overstate how stupid Trump's view of trade is. He literally thinks that if you, American consumer, buy a TV that's made in China, you've "lost money," even though you got a TV in exchange for your dollars (at a very fair price).

Aaron Rupar (@atrupar): Trump: "We were losing hundreds of billions of dollars with China. Now we're essentially not doing business with China. Therefore, we're saving hundreds of billions of dollars. It's very simple."

Goldman Sachs is now projecting that the United States will have the lowest economic growth AND the highest inflation rate of any developed economy in 2025.

How much more winning before we can go back to losing?

🚨🚨PROBLEM🚨🚨

This is the Port of Seattle and the container yard. Note the image. This is the 4th busiest port in the nation. Anyone who has spent time in Seattle can tell you that these docks are always PACKED and the Puget Sound is usually overrun with waiting cargo vessels.

There are presently ZERO cargo ships docked or en route. There are ZERO containers in the yard, and there are ZERO trucks to haul cargo.

Remember what I told all of you last November about stocking up on stuff and arbitraging it later once the shelves were emptied? Well...we're just about there.

Even if this global trade war is ended tomorrow, it will take at least 7-9 months to normalize supply chains and have available product again. And that's if everybody calls it off immediately.

40% of cargo vessels leaving China today (vessels that were already paid to make the journey, whether there is a reason to or not) are traveling completely empty. Shipping container volume is down 80%.

The "this is what I voted for" people are about to learn what exactly that is.

For you, the Cult of the Cavebaby, all I'll say is this: It wouldn't be the worst idea right now to go through your entire house and identify anything it is you feel you need but don't yet have, anything you have that might be on its last legs and in need of future repair or replacement, or things you feel you won't be able to procure going forward because everything is categorized as "backordered - indefinite".

The storm is coming.

The hysterical response to a private business possibly choosing to show its customers a tax on their receipts is pretty much all you need to know about said tax and said responders.

You can think of the latest round of revisions in the IMF forecasts as an evaluation of who is likely to suffer most from the Trump tariffs. The biggest loser is Mexico, followed by the United States. China's economy will suffer, but not as much. And the rest of the world will suffer, too.

The cover of this week’s Economist.

Welp, got an answer to this question: Apparently the answer is no tariffs are being collected. Trump broke the system

(cnbc.com)

Killing your greatest export is an unusual tactic in the midst of a trade war.


(washingtonpost.com)

It’s not just HVAC equipment that’s getting more expensive, but refrigerants too. I’ve never seen this kind of rapid cost escalations since entering the industry. These cost increases will largely get passed on to end consumers. More expensive ACs, more expensive heat pumps.

😳🤬"A deadly E. coli outbreak hit 15 states, but the FDA chose not to publicize it: The outbreak linked to romaine lettuce killed one person and sickened at least 88 more, including a 9-year-old boy who nearly died of kidney failure."😳🤬

(link)

Mack Trucks will lay off between 250 and 350 workers at its Lehigh Valley Operations center outside Allentown over the next three months, due to economic uncertainty caused by U.S. tariffs, a company spokesperson said Thursday.

(penncapital-star.com)

I was tasked with assessing the minerals ban from China at my workplace.

My response?

"If it has a battery, a microprocessor, converts AC to DC, DC to AC, or is used in fiber optic electronics, we aren't going to be able to source that component".

A mild panic was started.

“When he announced a 20% tariff, I made a plan to survive 40%, and I thought I was being very clever,” said Woldenberg, CEO of Learning Resources, a third-generation family business that has been manufacturing in China for four decades. “I had worked out that for a very modest price increase, we could withstand 40% tariffs, which was an unthinkable increase in costs.”

His worst-case scenario wasn’t worst-case enough. Not even close.

Woldenberg reckons [the tariffs] will push Learning Resource’s tariff bill from $2.3 million last year to $100.2 million in 2025. “I wish I had $100 million,” he said. “Honest to God, no exaggeration: It feels like the end of days.”

“The consequences of tariffs at this scale could be apocalyptic at many levels,” said David French, senior vice president of government affairs at the National Retail Foundation.

The S&P 500 fell almost 5 percent on Thursday, its worst drop since June 2020, as President Trump’s higher-than-expected tariffs set off another round of economic worry.

President Trump’s escalation of a global trade war on Thursday fueled the worst stock market sell-off since the coronavirus pandemic, as investors worried that the steep tariffs imposed on America’s trading partners would push the economy into a downturn.

The index, which had already fallen five of the last six weeks, tipped into correction territory, which means it has declined more than 10 percent from its latest peak and which is a line in the sand for investors assessing the severity of a recent drop.

As the fallout from President Trump’s global trade war spreads, investors are fleeing what is typically seen as the safest corner.

Someone in the pharma business told me companies are freezing hiring and new projects because of uncertainty about tariffs. I don't think Trump grasps how damaging mere uncertainty is.

And that damage is already done. Trump has shown himself to be ill-advised and impulsive. Even if he repealed all the tariffs tomorrow, businesses would still have to worry about what he might do next, and be correspondingly conservative about plans for future expansion.

Steve Rattner had a series of charts presented this morning on @morningjoe-msnbc.bsky.social describing the Trump tax increases (tariffs). A thread 🧵

SCOOP: Trump personally selected now widely-mocked formula for determining country-specific tariffs from a menu

Numerous aides had for weeks been at work crafting country-specific tariffs that took into account a broad range of tariff & non-tariff barriers

(washingtonpost.com)

This isn’t hypothetical. Let’s look at how Trump’s steel tariffs in 2018 affected the industry.

Factories closed as downstream industries—like auto and construction—faced higher costs, losing $3.5B in output.

A 2019 Fed study estimates 75,000 manufacturing jobs were lost due to pricier steel, offsetting minor gains (1K jobs) in steelmaking.

Firms tried but struggled to open U.S. steel plants, and many quickly shuttered because they couldn’t compete due to higher prices.

That was just a single targeted tariff. Now imagine the effects of Trump’s blanket tariffs on everything.

U.S. manufacturing may never recover and consumers are going to get destroyed.

Tariffs xkcd.com/3073
(link)

There is a strong legal case that Trump tariffs are illegal (because he has not authority to issue them.)

No major corporation or trade association, however, has filed suit because they are all afraid of making Trump mad.

The only company that has sued is a small stationary store in Florida.
(link)

But muh tariffs 😲

I’m sick of people telling me this is “pro-worker”

Honestly I think this is what's driving me nuts more than anything in the discourse. The completely memory-holing of 2023, when there was a new chip or battery factory being announced almost every day. All these larping pro-manufacturing Influencers weren't even paying attention.

THE WORST DEFENSE OF THE TRUMP TARIFFS

In today's Odd Lots newsletter, I wrote about how there are so many different arguments being put forth to explain or defend the tariffs. But the stuff about countering China's strategic tech dominance has to be the most egregiously bad.

After all the efforts of surrogates to give other rationales, Trump literally just thinks that when you buy more from a country than they buy from you, that means you are giving them money, and he intends to stop that.

I wonder what Trump would say if you asked him whether this applies to US states as well. If a US state has a bilateral trade deficit with another US state, is that a wealth transfer of some sort? Are all 50 states meant to have breakeven trade with all the other states?

So how exactly do tariffs work?

The small business that orders $100,000/week from their Chinese factory on auto refill gets a $104,000 invoice from U.S. customs to release their inventory or it gets dumped into the East River?

How is this actually going to work?

Small businesses have zero liquidity to pay these extortion fees.

Layoffs immediately?
(link)

Rand Paul: "The whole [tariffs] debate is so fundamentally backwards & upside down. It's based on a fallacy & the fallacy is this: that somehow in a trade, someone must lose. That somehow when you trade with someone, someone is taking advantage of you... I have a trade deficit with my grocery store"

Used car prices *had* been falling. And then Trump announced fat car tariffs. CarGurus data shows almost every brand (with notable exception of Tesla) seeing higher prices on used cars in last 30 days:
(cargurus.com)

Beer appeared quietly Wednesday on a list of aluminum-linked products now potentially subject to a 25 percent U.S. import duty. The move, buried in a bureaucratic annex and part of a broader trade war unleashed by the Trump administration, has left European brewers fizzing with confusion — and drinkers foaming with rage.

Trump posts a video of himself golfing as the economy crashes and millions of Americans lose their retirement savings

Seems like this should’ve been a bigger deal. 🤷🏼‍♂️

(link)

Trump is privately warning CEOs of automakers not to hike prices when his tariffs hit. This blows up Trump's lies about the tariffs, because it shows he knows they'll push up costs in the US, and knows "other countries" don't pay them!

New piece from me:

(newrepublic)

To be clear: Trump did not merely say he was indifferent to higher car prices resulting from his auto tariffs ("couldn't care less"). He also said he *hopes* auto companies raise prices

JPM calls it “the fastest Momentum unwind in 40 years .. erased 2 years’ worth of gains and accelerated investors’ late-cycle positioning into Defensive / Low Vol ..”
(link)

There are pages and pages of this stuff. Hard to overstate how badly the White House is torching potential for economic activity rn.

"Professional, scientific and technical services
Erratic behavior by the current administration makes us increasingly uncertain about the economy and our business. Our business specializes in shopping malls, so if consumer spending dips, our business will suffer. If the price of building materials or tariffs for commercial real estate developers skyrocket, our business will suffer.
...
Administrative and support services
The economic uncertainty resulting from the chaotic and shifting policies from Washington has negatively impacted client behavior. A number of projects and activities have been delayed, or clients are taking more of a wait-and-see approach. For the most part, our clients are focused on domestic activities, and it is doubtful their businesses will be directly impacted by the aggressive tariff policies. It can only be assumed their response is the expectation tariffs will lead to price increases and increased inflationary pressures.
We will be selling off what we can and closing the doors in 60 days.
...
Warehousing and storage
Tariffs are creating considerable uncertainty across a variety of fronts. The potential surcharge on Chinese-made ships will be a devastating hit to Texas ports and likely the Texas economy in general.
"
(Dallas Fed)

I am not sure if Trump believes this, or just believes that enough people will believe it if he says it.

He also knows that the news media won't call the absurdity out.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (reichlinmelnick.bsky.social): For the second time in the last 24 hours, Trump suggests that he thinks he will be putting tariffs directly on fentanyl smuggled into the United States illegally.

Car salesman at a local Hyundai dealership today, after I asked him about the tariffs:

"It's terrible. The price of every vehicle is going to go up five or six thousand dollars... And here's the thing, even after they go away, think about it, they're not going to come back down again."

james surowiecki has discovered where the completely fabricated trump tariff rate has come from for each country

"...for every country, they just took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country's exports to us."
(link)

There is no general “economic emergency” that provides the statutory justification for global tariffs; if anything can be justified on national security grounds than everything can be justified on national security grounds; and if everything can be justified on national security grounds: Danger.

We don’t have to let Trump wreck our economy with tariffs—that’s a choice.

The Constitution gives trade authority to Congress, not the President.

Congress delegated tariff powers to the President and we can take them back.

We have the bills (one is mine). We just need enough support to pass them.
(link)

Tough language from JPMorgan tonight:

“.. we view the full implementation of these policies as a substantial macro economic shock not currently incorporated in our forecasts. .. these policies, if sustained, would likely push the US and global economy into recession this year.”

Look at this graph. This just happened.

We have gone back to the 1800s.

This lawsuit challenging the Trump tariffs is very substantial. I doubt this plaintiff can show the injury necessary for immediate relief (the complaint says they import from China each year from December to March), but the claims on the merits are strong. nclalegal.org/filing/compl...

Cristian Farias (cristianfarias.com): The real story of this lawsuit, and why you should care about it, is that it’s being brought by conservative legal activists.

And not just any advocates: This is the same nonprofit that argued and won one of the cases that brought down Chevron last year. They even cite it in the complaint. (MCLA Legal)

/r/smallbusiness is full of stories like these right now, including from owners who have tried to domestically source products but there are no manufacturers in the U.S. that are set up to make their products
(link)

This BBC graphic is a good way to show why reciprocal 25% tariffs will cause prices on some goods to go up far more than 25%.

A piston used in a car engine made in Michigan will cross the U.S. border twice, and will be taxed 25% each time. Some products cross more than that.

Hard to square “NAFTA killed US manufacturing” with this chart.

News flash -- manufacturing WAS coming back in America. Under Joe Biden.

Trump has NO IDEA what he's doing.

In my life I have never seen a more brutal evisceration of an American president than what The Economist said about Trump and his tariffs.

IF YOU failed to spot America being “looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far” or it being cruelly denied a “turn to prosper”, then congratulations: you have a firmer grip on reality than the president of the United States. It’s hard to know which is more unsettling: that the leader of the free world could spout complete drivel about its most successful and admired economy. Or the fact that on April 2nd, spurred on by his delusions, Donald Trump announced the biggest break in America’s trade policy in over a century—and committed the most profound, harmful and unnecessary economic error in the modern era.

NEW 🧵
A quick thread of charts showing how Trump’s economic agenda is going so far:
1) Trump has had the same impact on economic uncertainty as a global pandemic.
2) That was just the US version.
What’s particularly impressive is that he’s managed this on a global scale.
Starting to get the feeling that “Trump” annotation is going to be the chart equivalent of a layer of volcanic ash in the fossil record.
3) US consumers are reacting very very negatively.
These are the worst ratings for any US government’s economic policy since records began.
4) Well over half of Americans expect the economy to deteriorate over the next year, again the highest figure ever recorded.

Trump has, in less than 100 days, ended America's century of global dominance. All of the economic and political privileges that Americans have taken for granted their entire lives are going to vanish. We're the British now

Alex Mechanick ((@apmechan)) That the dollar *weakened* in response to tariffs is terrifying. By making imports more expensive, tariffs should *strengthen* the dollar. The market sees a Trump catastrophe (economic regime change) beyond tariffs - expecting investment to *tank* enough to crush the dollar.

"If you set a tariff at 300%, then nobody buys imports, so there’s no revenue collection. Trump seems to believe he can impose prohibitively high tariffs *and* collect revenue, which you can’t actually do."
(publicnotice.co)

Business leaders all across America are freaking out that Trump's tariffs will kneecap their firms.

“There’s an overriding sense of helplessness” among executives. “CEOs are feeling stunned, and they’re not used to feeling like they don’t have good moves.”

(WSJ gift link)

Australia's Treasurer Jim Chalmers has warned the impact of the new US administration's policies will have a "seismic" impact on the global economy, ahead of his fourth national budget due to be handed down on Tuesday.
(bloomberg.com)

Judging by President Donald Trump's punitive tariff action this weekend against Canada, China, and Mexico, it seems that the bad idea of starting a trade war is back again for the first time in almost one hundred years.

Like the Smoot-Hawley Act of the 1930s, these tariff measures will likely end in tears for the US and world economies.

When tariffs are raised, at least some and possibly all of the cost will fall on domestic consumers through higher final prices. Anyone who claims otherwise is being disingenuous.

After thinking Trump would be good for them, firms are now realizing his tarrifs are going to hurt big time.
(link)

Any discussion of manufacturing that doesn't mention the historic EXPLOSION under Biden will be pretty much like all the news of the last four years.

Ronald Reagan: "Our peaceful trading partners are not our enemies; they are our allies.

We should beware of the demagogues who are ready to declare a trade war against our friends–weakening our economy, our national security, and the entire free world–all while cynically waving the American flag."
[includes video]

David Kelly of
@JPMorganAM
: "The trouble with tariffs, to be succinct, is that they raise prices, slow economic growth, cut profits, increase unemployment, worsen inequality, diminish productivity and increase global tensions. Other than that, they're fine."

US solar installation: Down 14% between 2024 and 2025.
Chinese solar installation: Up 14% between 2024 and 2025.

Last year China installed more than 7 times more solar capacity than the US. So much for energy dominance...

MAHA be damned, this administration is poisoning you www.scientificamerican.com/article/trum...

Trump administration slashes mercury regulations from coal plants
Mercury pollution from coal plants has been tied to serious neurological problems, especially in children and babies

(scientificamerican.com)

It has been known for *125 YEARS* that carbon dioxide collects in the atmosphere to cause a greenhouse effect

Aaron Rupar(atrupar.com): VARNEY: We were told coal is the dirtiest fuel & there are more CO2 emissions than from gas. Is that no longer true?

BURGUM: It`s true, but then the question goes back to reversal of the endangerment finding, which is, is CO2 a pollutant or something that helps plants grow? We know it`s the latter

BREAKING: Trump Just Made It Legal to Poison Your Air — Then Ordered the Military to Pay for It!

#EPA #Trump #climatechange #coal

Read, subscribe:
(chrisgloninger.substack.com)

“Basically, what this administration is saying, that trying to monetize the value of a human life is so complicated that it can’t really trust the numbers — so they’re just not going to include it,” said Board Member @robverchick.bsky.social, of Loyola Law.
(theadvocate.com)

“Cutting off all oil revenue will lead to a massive reduction in food imports and is likely to trigger the first major famine in the Western Hemisphere in modern history.”
(motherjones.com)

White House rescinds $20m for clean water in pesticide-contaminated rural California

EPA said grant to provide clean water was a ‘wasteful DEI program’ as pesticide leaches into residents’ wells

The aquifer in the rural, majority-Spanish-speaking communities in Monterey county, which sits about 50 miles (80km) south of the San Jose, is widely contaminated with 1,2,3-TCP, a pesticide ingredient and carcinogen banned in 40 countries that persists for decades in the soil and groundwater. In many cases, the 1,2,3-TCP levels in wells have been found to far exceed state limits and EPA health guidelines for drinking water. 1,2,3-TCP can also evaporate and create toxic fumes in the shower, and it is linked to liver, kidney and reproductive damage.

The EPA grant, along with state funding, would have connected more than 1,000 residents with unsafe wells to municipal lines. It also would have provided financial support to municipal systems needed to expand water provision and provide improvements.
(theguardian.com)

The Environmental Protection Agency said on Friday that it would eliminate its scientific research arm and begin firing hundreds of chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists, after denying for months that it intended to do so.

The E.P.A.’s science office provides the independent research that underpins nearly all of the agency’s policies and regulations. It has analyzed the risks of hazardous chemicals, the impact of wildfire smoke on public health and the contamination of drinking water by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Its research has often justified stricter environmental rules, prompting pushback from chemical manufacturers and other industries.

When President Trump took office, the science office had roughly 1,155 employees. The science office “is the heart and brain of the E.P.A.,” said Justin Chen, president of A.F.G.E. Council 238. “Without it, we don’t have the means to assess impacts upon human health and the environment. Its destruction will devastate public health in our country.”
(nytimes.com)

Closing Mauna Loa and three other U.S. sites that track greenhouse gases would disrupt a decades-long record of the planet’s changing atmosphere.

More than 11,100 feet above sea level, surrounded by nothing but black rocks, white clouds and blue sky, the Mauna Loa Observatory is in a Goldilocks spot for studying the atmosphere.

The air that swirls around the isolated outpost located on a Hawaiian volcano is a mix from all over the Northern Hemisphere. That makes it one of the best places to measure greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It is indispensable to scientists around the world.

The readings collected from Mauna Loa, starting in 1958, were used to create what is famously known as the Keeling curve. It’s an upward-swooping line that charts the steady rise of carbon dioxide over the past seven decades — the result of nations burning oil, gas and coal.

“It’s frankly inconceivable,” said Lisa Graumlich, an emeritus climate scientist at the University of Washington and past president of the American Geophysical Union. People know and understand the “iconic” record, she said. “A lot of the science we do is incredibly complex, and this record is something that can be grasped.”
(nytimes.com)

Here, Public Notice brings the receipts on how bad the budget bill is for climate, gutting the momentum of multiple industries, turning them over to China. An active decision to make climate worse, and make America weaker. (publicnotice.co)

Trump’s true pollution agenda at EPA—not his “very cleanest water on the planet” claim.

‘The EPA will rescind & reconsider drinking water standards for four chemicals that have been linked to a range of illnesses, according to documents reviewed by The Post.’ (washingtonpost.com)

Five former National Weather Service directors have taken the unusual step of signing onto an open letter warning that cuts to the organization by the Trump administration may soon endanger lives.

The former agency directors say current employees will face an “impossible task” to maintain service just as hurricane season begins. (nytimes.com)

President Trump's first 100 days unleashed an "all-out assault" on the environment that could take a generation or more to repair.

“It is not an overstatement to say that the Trump administration has launched the worst White House assault in history on the environment and public health."
(motherjones.com)

NEW: The total loss of NOAA’s office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research —a nerve center of global climate science, data collection and modeling — represents a setback for climate preparedness that experts warn the nation may never recover from.

By @abrahm.bsky.social (ProPublica.org)

Referring to a little-known provision, it said power plants and others could write to seek exemptions to mercury and other restrictions and that “the president will make a decision.”

Now, the Trump administration is offering companies an extraordinary out: Send an email, and they might be given permission by President Trump to bypass the new restrictions, as well as other major clean-air rules.

The Environmental Protection Agency this week said an obscure section of the Clean Air Act enables the president to temporarily exempt industrial facilities from new rules if the technology required to meet those rules isn’t available, and if it’s in the interest of national security.

In a barrage of pronouncements on Wednesday the Trump administration said it would repeal dozens of the nation’s most significant environmental regulations, including limits on pollution from tailpipes and smokestacks, protections for wetlands, and the legal basis that allows it to regulate the greenhouse gases that are heating the planet.

But beyond that, Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, reframed the purpose of the E.P.A. In a two-minute-and-18-second video posted to X, Mr. Zeldin boasted about the changes and said his agency’s mission is to “lower the cost of buying a car, heating a home and running a business.”

Nowhere in the video did he refer to protecting the environment or public health, twin tenets that have guided the agency since its founding in 1970.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin on Tuesday night terminated the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund grants, including a $7 billion award to Climate United Fund. That group had sued to access those funds, a request that became more complicated after EPA terminated the grant less than 24 hours before a hearing.

The Trump administration is planning to cancel its lease at a government laboratory in Hawaii, a site where scientists support key observations of surging greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, according to a list obtained by Democratic members of Congress and shared with The Post.
(link)

One-third of Americans skip meals or other needs to afford health care (washingtonpost.com)

New in PN: Trump somehow got worse on public health after covid

“Trump has brought us fascism, he is threatening war and violence. But it is all too possible that his most lasting and horrific legacy, in his second term as in his first, will be plague.“

Trump somehow got worse on public health after covid
He`s incapable of learning lessons and actively resists it.

(publicnotice.co)

In his confirmation hearings, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told U.S. senators that he would not cut funding for vaccine research or change the nation`s official vaccine recommendations. He did both. n.pr/46QDn9p

RFK Jr. made promises to get his job as health secretary. He`s broken many of them
In his confirmation hearings, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told U.S. senators that he would not cut funding for vaccine research or change the nation`s official vaccine recommendations. He did both.

(n.pr)

RFK Jr/MAHA world say they`re not reducing access to vaccines for anyone who wants them, only giving people “choice“ to opt out.
But by refusing to even review new vaccines, yes, they are absolutely blocking those who want a new immunization from ever having access to it.

Catherine Rampell(crampell.bsky.social): Top FDA official Vinay Prasad overruled the agency’s reviewers--career scientists--when he refused to accept Moderna’s application for a new influenza vaccine

(statnews.com)

“They are refusing to review a new vaccine with a more flexible technology, while creating a real risk we will not have traditional vaccines for next year,“ @doritreiss.bsky.social said. (theguardian.com)

What utter assholes. “At least 12 companies received letters from the agency stating that the gender-affirming compression garments are medical devices and require compliance with strict federal regulations.“ (rewirenewsgroup.com)

Catastrophe: Florida`s Department of Health is stopping coverage for antivirals to 10,000 low-income people with HIV infection, blaming impending federal cuts to the AIDS Drug Assistance Program. 12.5% of Americans with HIV live in Florida.
(fox13news.com)

Hundreds of infectious disease specialists have been let go by the Trump administration. Here are four who helped to keep pandemics at bay.
(Gift article)
(nytimes.com)

🚨Dept. of Education proposes to exclude public health degrees from the “professional degree” category.

That means new public health experts could lose access to key higher ed resources, like loan limits & reimbursement.

A bold strategy to let infectious diseases win! 🦠
(aspph.org)

Two months after President Donald Trump signed an executive order restricting H-1B visas, soaring costs are roiling rural health care facilities that have long struggled to find staff.
(wapo.st)

I led the Army into New Orleans after Katrina. Why Trump`s cuts to FEMA worry me. www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...
(msnbc.com)

The FDA appeared to move closer to realizing RFK Jr.’s goal of getting people off antidepressants, quietly convening a so-called expert panel to discuss selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and pregnancy.

The result was a misinformation fest.
(motherjones.com)

Some of the panelists invited by the FDA to discuss SSRIs and pregnancy claimed that antidepressants don't work at all and depression goes away on its own. One suggested that depression was not an illness, but rather a product of “women just naturally experiencing their emotions more intensely.”
(nbcnews.com)

The Trump administration has drafted a plan to repeal a fundamental scientific finding that gives the United States government its authority to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions and fight climate change, according to two people familiar with the plan.

The proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule rescinds a 2009 declaration known as the “endangerment finding,” which scientifically established that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane endanger human lives.

The E.P.A. intends to argue that imposing climate regulations on automakers poses the real harm to human health because it would lead to higher prices and reduced consumer choice
(nytimes.com)

Undermining public access to expert information on (largely unregulated) supplements and their interactions with medications while pushing a "MAHA" agenda that uplifts quacks selling said supplements?

No COI to see there

Nadja Cech with the question I also had, having been in the DS-safety/efficacy world many years ago: "NCCIH publishes valuable info on safety of dietary supplements. What happens with the website not being updated with this info?"

Director: "We are literally heartbroken about the website"

“Make America Healthy Again….” They Said.

(civileats.com)

Sum: Harmful, bleak, and grim.

Dark Age 2.0

Trump’s second presidency begins: evaluating effects on the US health system by @scottlgreer.bsky.social, @hjarman.bsky.social, @mirandayaver.bsky.social, @xrkulik.bsky.social
(sciencedirect.com)

I think 5 years ago, I would've said people that chose brand names over generic drug were just throwing away money. Now, I don't know... I still take generic medications, but high-risk patients might reasonably choose differently.

ProPublica (propublica.org): NEW: With deep job cuts at the FDA, inspectors say the ongoing strain could compromise policing an industry spread across more than 90 countries.

“Things will be missed, we are going to have a lot less safe drugs,” a former inspector said.

(propublica.org)

How the new health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is dismantling the agency.

[The FDA's] federal budget is roughly the size of the budget of the local school district in Montgomery County, Md., where it is based.

Approving drugs quickly and with less evidence might give doctors and patients more options, but it also shifted a huge burden of uncertainty from the agency onto them.

Reports from inside the agency remained bleak. Some of the civil servants fired in February and April were now being invited back (the office of generic drugs had been reinstated), but most were not. Those who remained were being asked to volunteer for essential tasks for which there was now no dedicated staff. Scientists and technicians still did not have ready access to the scientific journals they needed to do their work. More than one drug review had been delayed, and political appointees had interfered in several others. (nytimes.com)

united states cumulative measles cases in 2025: 1,277 (at least)
highest count in 33 years

really can't stand the anti-science trend in the united states right now
(washingtonpost.com)

I want people to understand we were so close to curing HIV. Like the past few years we made leaps and bounds into this research. This is one of the most unforgivable decisions they have made. This administration is nothing but death.

JUST IN: Trump admin cuts a program key to developing an HIV vaccine.

Decades into a global epidemic.

They pulled funding on the finish line.

RFK Jr. ordered the NIH’s Integrated Research Facility in Frederick to stop all research on serious infectious diseases yesterday at 5:00 PM.

They study pathogens like Ebola there. You may be familiar with it from The Hot Zone. (wired.com)

Nearly all of remaining staff at CDC's NIOSH received lay off notices today, we're told

This is an org chart shared with us illustrating eliminated divisions to date

Cuts had already upended approvals of new N95 respirators and probes of firefighter injuries

(cbsnews.com)

RFK Jr. is ending the federal Narcan distribution program credited with the recent steep decline in overdose deaths. This despite his own past heroin addiction and his own brother dying of a drug overdose in 1984.
(latintimes.com)

Just to be clear, this is a violation of the fundamental ethical principle in clinical trial design called "equipoise."

Equipoise means that no-one is exposed to excess risk just to test the therapy. That's specifically *why* vaccine trials don't use placebo arms.

Ethical violation as POLICY. (reuters.com)

Bad news for the Novavax COVID vaccine: FDA wants Novavax "...to show its vaccine is effective w/ another randomized study after appointees under (HHS Sec. RFK Jr.) intervened in the approval process... The additional step goes beyond what other Covid-19 vaccine makers had to do to win approval..."🛟

Richard M. Carpiano, PhD, MPH (‪@rmcarpiano.medsky.social‬): Unclear. Confusing details (see image). Also, ends w/ this:
"...(RFK Jr.) said the govt. is 'looking at' (the) approval bc shots...targeting a single antigen—'have never worked' for resp. illnesses. The comment baffled scientists who pted to other shots for Covid-19 & RSV as examples...that work."

A new study forecasts more than 850,000 measles cases over the next 25 years if US vaccination rates stay the same. Millions of infections are possible if rates drop. (wired.com)

Since the 19th century, the scientific partnership between the federal government and universities has been mutually dependent and synergetic.

The benefits have accrued to both university capacity and national governing capacity—but also importantly to broad national economic and social development

Opponents of federal science in the 19th century often barred departments/agencies from building physical scientific infrastructure and limited personnel.

In response, scientific administrators in the federal government relied on and funded universities to build physical infrastructure.

The federal government placed federal scientists at universities across the country and employed scientists who were simultaneously employed at universities and colleges.

This response to federal constraints helped build up the organizational structure at the heart of the US’s scientific power.

This can't be said enough. The narrative is quickly becoming but universities need fed funds, when it should be that the fed govt needs universities. NCI/NIGMS funding to Harvard/MIT supported research that led to the discovery of Herceptin, a cancer drug that has saved 3 million lives to date! 🧪

Pam Herd (pamherd.bsky.social): This can't be said enough. The narrative is quickly becoming but universities need fed funds, when it should be that the fed govt needs universities. NCI/NIGMS funding to Harvard/MIT supported research that led to the discovery of Herceptin, a cancer drug that has saved 3 million lives to date! 🧪 (donmoynihan.substack.com)

The agency targeted grants focused on diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as research on misinformation.

As of Monday, the National Science Foundation had canceled more than 400 active awards, according to a list obtained by The New York Times. The decision comes after months of scrutiny of the agency, including a report released by Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, last October and, in February, an internal review of awards containing words related to diversity, equity and inclusion, or D.E.I.

In January, the Trump administration attempted to freeze grant payments for existing awards at the N.S.F. A temporary restraining order lifted the freeze. The order also said that the agency could not terminate active awards to comply with President Trump’s executive orders, one of which called for an end to “illegal and immoral discrimination programs” under the premise of D.E.I. across the federal government.(NYTimes.com)

Two important points here:
*The cancellation of awards at odds with the administration's priorities appears to violate a court order
*Many of the awards cancelled were on Ted Cruz's list of "questionable projects". We are replacing scientific peer review with disingenuous hacks.

Even though David Geier is not a physician, he gave autistic children a dangerous, unapproved drug and improperly prescribed puberty blockers.

In 2011, the Maryland Board of Physicians charged David Geier, who is not a physician and has only a bachelor’s degree, with illegally practicing medicine alongside his father, Mark Geier, a doctor who died last month. The two treated children with Lupron, a drug used to lower testosterone or estrogen levels in patients with prostate cancer, endometriosis and other diseases, along with chelation therapy, which leaches heavy metals from the body, as in lead poisoning.

“Anyone who would fleece families with fake cures should not be trusted to interpret a scientific study, let alone conduct one,” the Autistic Self Advocacy Network said in a statement decrying David Geier’s hiring. “This move toward conspiracy theories and junk science puts all our lives at risk.”

Growing case numbers suggest that the national total will surpass that seen during the last large outbreak in 2019.

“This is the largest outbreak in the U.S. since measles elimination was declared in 2000,” he said. The agency was sending seven additional officials to Texas, epicenter of the escalating crisis, he added.

Texas health officials have reported 624 cases since late January. Two young, unvaccinated girls have died, the first measles deaths in a decade in the country.

As of Thursday, the C.D.C. had reported 800 measles cases nationwide, but the current tally is likely to be higher because it takes time for the agency to collate state reports.

The federal government plans to eliminate services for LGBTQ youth who call 988, the national suicide and crisis hotline, according to a Health and Human Services budget draft leaked last week.

(motherjones.com)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has rejected a request from health officials in Milwaukee for help with a lead poisoning investigation, after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. eliminated the agency's response team.

Officials in Milwaukee and Wisconsin's state health department had formally requested the CDC's help on March 26, after many of the city's schools were found to have "significant lead hazards" exposing children. Federal experts were asked to help develop a strategy to test and triage Milwaukee public school students for lead poisoning, as well as help with outreach to the community.

JUST IN: Deputy Assistant to the President and "Counterterrorism Czar" Sebastian Gorka says anyone advocating for due process for Kilmar Abrego Garcia could be viewed as "aiding and abetting a terrorist" and be federally charged. (h/t Philip Germain)

RFK Jr. wants to eradicate autistic people and also has no idea what an autistic person is

The health secretary has faced harsh criticism for his handling of the outbreak, embrace of alternative treatments and tepid endorsement of vaccination.

“There isn’t a single person in this entire country whose life isn’t impacted by the essential functions of HHS, and soon we’ll see what happens when those functions are destroyed.”
(thehandbasket.co)

Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has traveled to West Texas after a second measles-related death of a child.
(link)

Worth noting that Marks was a career official who navigated several political teams, including the first Trump admin. (Where he helped conceive of Operation Warp Speed.)

Two former FDA commissioners under GOP presidents, @ScottGottliebMD and Mark McClellan, on record with praise for Marks tonight.
(washingtonpost)

This week, as the number of confirmed measles cases rose to 483, the CDC buried a report that would’ve stressed the importance of getting vaccinated.

The move was “not normal at all,” one agency staff member said.

By @sheinvestigates.bsky.social
(propublica.com)

Absolute BLOODBATH at HHS/NIH/CDC this morning. Generation of scientists, health care officials being wiped out

Short thread of my favorite charts showing the efficacy of vaccines...

- 1: Measles

- 2: Polio

- 3: HPV vaccine and cervical cancer

- 4: Smallpox

- 5: Hepatitis A

- 6: Diphtheria

OK, I'm on a coast to coast flight, but i'm overwhelmed with messages about the firings. The FDA as we've known it is finished, with most of the leaders with institutional knowledge and a deep understanding of product development and safety no longer employed. I believe that history will see this a huge mistake. I will be glad if I'm proven wrong, but even then there is no good reason to treat people this way. It will be interesting to hear from the new leadership how they plan to put "Humpty Dumpty" back together again.

Even in 2025, some things still shock. Like the apparent selection of a long-time vaccine opponent who was disciplined & fined for practicing medicine without a license to conduct a new HHS study into whether there's a link between vaccines and autism.

(link)

RFK Jr. told people to take Vitamin A rather than the vaccine. Multiple children ended up poisoned. And the measles outbreak is ongoing.

“Physicians at Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, Texas, say they’ve now treated a handful of children who were given so much vitamin A that they had signs of liver damage.
Some of them had received unsafe doses of supplements for several weeks in an attempt to prevent a measles infection”
(NY Times)

A pie graph worth keeping in mind as the NIH budget plummets.

"Funding from the NIH was contributed to 354 of 356 drugs (99.4%) approved from 2010 to 2019" (jamanetwork.com)

Newborn babies exposed to measles in Texas hospital.
(link)

Steve Miran is a pending nominee to the Federal Reserve Board. In addition to his fringe views on dollar devaluation, he has a long history of making basic errors about economics.

The first example comes from a bizarre speech he gave after Liberation Day back in April. Miran declared - without any evidence - that the entire economics profession is "wrong" to oppose tariffs ( whitehouse.gov)

Miran then proceeded to mischaracterize "trade models" by falsely claiming that they do not account for trade deficits, or assume they will self-correct. In reality, economists since Adam Smith in 1776 have been pointing out the fallacy of Miran's thinking. As for Miran's claim that modern economists assume no trade deficits or assume that they are self-correcting, it's utter nonsense. There's a huge academic literature by leading economists on the persistence of trade deficits. Miran appears to be unaware of its existence.

In addition to the basic errors in his claims about trade economics, Miran has a long history of misusing and misrepresenting academic papers by other economists to make claims that their authors do not support. Miran's "Mar a Lago Accord" white paper from 2024 cited a paper by Costinot & Rodiguez-Claire to support his call for a 20% baseline "optimal" tariff. The problem? Both authors denounced Miran's proposal for misrepresenting their work.

Exact same thing happened again a few months later. Miran cited a 2024 paper by Pulojas and Rossbach, claiming that it showed the US could "win" a trade war by imposing tariffs. Except as Pujolas explained, their paper aimed to show the exact opposite.

Issues of competence have plagued Miran since he took his current job at the White House. In April he met with Wall Street investors to calm their concerns about Trump's tariffs. The opposite happened & they left the meeting saying Miran was "incoherent" ( fortune.com).

This is all in addition to Miran's adherence to a long list of fringe economic beliefs about trade, dollar devaluation, and even a backdoor default on the US National Debt, which the Wall Street Journal documented yesterday. (wsj.com)

- He has no scholarly record on trade economics or exchange rate policy, no serious publications on these subjects, and only appears to have gotten into them ca. 2024 when auditioning for the Trump WH.
- It would be entirely accurate to characterize his understanding of trade econ as "incompetent" and "out of his depth" based on his white papers, speeches, and public commentary.
- He has also resisted efforts of mainstream economists to correct his erroneous representations of the trade econ literature, and done so my just repeating the same pro-tariff talking points.
- He appears to have gotten much more political since taking the job with Trump, and routinely parrots economically-ignorant Trump talking points in his media appearances and tweets.

That leads me to conclude that he's fundamentally unqualified for this job.

Antoni has distinguished himself with his lack of shame in producing viral dishonest analyses that have been criticized by honest conservative analysts. If he brings that lack of shame to the production official economic statistics, their reliability could be in question. U.S. economic statistics like inflation and jobs numbers require the work of many many devoted, apolitical civil servants who will not stand idly by as they are manipulated, but a shameless, dishonest BLS Commissioner is a bad first step down the Argentine path. A crystal clear example of Trump’s nominee for BLS Commissioner’s lack of shame. He draws an insane quadratic trend line suggesting that—despite an aging population—the number of people out of the labor force should’ve been falling starting in ~2019.

EJ Antoni has never worked in statistics collection. He is 5 years out of his PhD. He's only ever written one economics paper. His explicit, only qualifications are that he works in ultra-conservative think tanks & believes Trump's conspiracies about the BLS. Grim stuff.

The easiest way to get ahead in Washington is to be a hack and pledge total loyalty to Trump, which is how you end up with dumb people like Oren Cass or EJ Antoni elevated to positions of extreme power

🧵 of EJ Antoni completely not understanding economic statistics, being partisan hack, or both:

• Joey Politano: (@JosephPolitano) An "economist" so dumb I had to explain to him how the import price index works last month will now lead the BLS, kill me.
  
• Gary Winslett (@GaryWinslett): Since E.J. Antoni is now Trump's nominee to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics, I wanted to flashback to that time when I, a nobody professor in Vermont, had to explain to him some very basic facts about......labor statistics. This guy is a joke.
  
  
• Jeremy Horpedahl (@jmhorp): "@RealEJAntoni: The Biden legacy: there are roughly the same number of native-born Americans working today as before the pandemic, w/ all net job growth going to foreign-born workers whose employment is up by almost 5 million..." This is because the working-age, native-born population hasn't been growing for the past decade. If you use the working-age populations, you will see that native-born Americans have higher employment rates, which are also at record highs
  
  
• Daniel Di Martino (DanielDiMartino):This is one of the many elementary errors that show me Mr Antoni is unqualified for the labor market data collection and analysis role he was nominated to. People will discuss credentials but what matters is whether you know what you're talking about.
  
  
• Jeremy Horpedahl (@jmhorp):For a good roundup of many times that Antoni has been completely wrong about economic data, see the links in this post from Menzie Chinn: econbrowser.com
  
• Brian Albrecht (@BrianCAlbrecht): For more context, this post is just a string of mistakes: Mixing up CPI and GDP deflators, Doing the double counting official statistics avoid, Ad hoc adjustments, Cross validating by saying it’s “consistent” with what people feel: brownstone.org
  

The Solicitor General of the Dept. of Labor is responsible for enforcing labor laws.

Who is Trump’s pick for the position?

The author of Project 2025’s labor chapter — which called for gutting labor laws, limiting OT pay, and weakening unions.

The “pro-worker” president...

The shopping list included luxury items like $6.9 million for lobster tail, $15.1 million in ribeye steak, and $2 million for Alaskan king crab, as well as musical instruments ($21,750 for a custom handmade Japanese flute), ice cream machines ($124,000), and sushi prep tables ($26,000).

The Trump administration is slashing food stamps. Here`s what they`re buying instead.
A handmade Japanese flute. Fruit basket stands. Sushi prep tables. While four million Americans face losing food assistance, the Pentagon recently had its largest single-month spending spree on…

(motherjones.com)

76/ The amount of pain and misery that the US is heaping upon the world is staggering.
Everyone knows that fuel fertilizer food shocks are coming. While millions go hungry & governments are destabilized (phenomenalworld.org)

Here is my thread on Trump`s budget request, which I`ll update throughout the day.

He calls to cut domestic discretionary funding to the lowest level in the modern era.

Trump`s budget reimagines Americans` relationship with our govt, and proposes a country that does less to help people get by.

The Trump administration has signaled a willingness to halt billions of dollars in federal health payments to multiple (blue) states, mirroring moves they made against Minnesota.
(kffhealthnews.org)

CNBC on new bad inflation data:
“It`s almost the worst of all worlds. I guess stagflation would come close to describing the situation.“

Powell: “The thing a good number of people on the committee are concerned about is very very low level of job creation. If you adjust the trend job creation over the past 6 months for what we think is overstatement due to overcounting, effectively there is 0 net job creation in the private sector“

What I wrote about this last month (we`ve known since Aristotle that extreme wealth inequality destroys the rule of law).

“Progressive taxation is the single most important policy lever for reducing the power of the rich—not because it raises revenue that can be redistributed via public programs or directly to the poor, but because it imposes a de facto statutory maximum on income or wealth.”

"Democrats are no longer framing their tax increases on the wealthy solely as measures to fund programs. They are arguing that America’s super-wealthy simply have too much money and taking some of that away is a public good on its own." newrepublic.com
(democracyproject.org)

This costs more than the ten-year savings from cutting SNAP benefits in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill that will make it harder for low-income people to buy groceries

As a point of comparison, the US spent $21 billion in FY 2022 to feed billions of breakfasts and lunches to kids in schools across our whole country for an entire year under the universal school meals program that was later discontinued.

Seung Min Kim(seungminkim1.bsky.social): WASHINGTON (AP) — Pentagon tells Congress the first week of the Iran war cost the US $11.3 billion, an AP source says.

Congrats to everyone who voted for Trump and a Republican Congress “for the economy.“ This is what you get, a sputtering job creation engine that can`t make progress like before and keeps rolling backwards.
(bloomberg.com)

We don’t need a revolution.

We need a functioning IRS, capital gains taxed as income, and the death of the carried-interest loophole.

The Epstein Tax | No Mercy / No Malice
America’s greatest asset is its optimism — an attitude that’s unleashed unparalleled wealth and validated the thesis that anyone can achieve the American dream. But here’s the glitch in the matrix: Ca...

(profgalloway.com)

Hey that’s about the cost of the SSI Restoration Act, which would cut recipient poverty by 60%, eliminate marriage penalties, and modernize draconian asset limits.

More Perfect Union(moreperfectunion.bsky.social):

The Pentagon is about to ask Congress for an estimated $50 billion in extra funds for the war on Iran.

(reuters.com)

Preliminary Pentagon cost estimate of the war in Iran is $1 BILLION a day. So far.

It’s not just Medicaid funding they’re withholding to MN. It’s food assistance, child care assistance, social services, job training, safety testing, public health, disaster relief. SNAP. Free lunch for kids in school.

They hate us for loving our neighbors, and are collectively punishing us for it.

The Associated Press(apnews.com): BREAKING: Vice President JD Vance says the Trump administration is pausing some Medicaid funding to Minnesota because of fraud concerns (6)

Since this will likely come up in the SOTU: Yes, US stock markets are up since Trump took office (14%).
But in the rest of the world, markets are up WAY more. Cumulative market gains are more than triple ours (43%)

Trump`s deployment of the National Guard in DC has already cost taxpayers over $330 MILLION - and has done nothing to make the city safer.

Meanwhile, Trump has requested another HALF A TRILLION for the bloated Pentagon.

Trump is great at one thing: wasting our taxpayer dollars.

Absolutely unreal. Years and years of Defense spending increases and calls to cut every program outside of DoD and now they admit they cant even find ways to spend it all.

Don`t let anyone tell you universal Healthcare, rent relief and food aid is too costly.

Brian Goldstone(brian-goldstone.bsky.social): (washingtonpost.com)

Prices up, jobs down. This is Trump’s economy.

From my reading, it seems impossible to have a miscarriage and not somehow run afoul of the law in abortion ban states

Peter Navarro: “The jobs report comes out tomorrow. We have to revise our expectations down significantly for what a monthly job number should look like ... Wall Street has to adjust for the fact that we`re deporting millions of illegals out of the job market.“

Host: Trump`s long awaited health care plan is finally here, except that it isn`t really a plan at all. It`s just a single page that the White House is touting as a framework for Congress. The proposal does not include new ideas to expand health coverage or simplify America`s health care system.

Trump targets handful of blue states with $10 billion cut to child care funds
(dlvr.it)

December jobs numbers are out: Employment continues to slow, and we added +50k jobs. The unemployment rate fell a tick to 4.4%.

Oooph, revisions are brutal: October revised down -68k to -173k; November revised down -8k to +56k. Remember: The Fed thinks these numbers are overstated by 60k.

Trump denies disaster declarations for Colorado fires, flooding: ‘We won’t stop fighting’ trib.al/wfmTdLL
(trib.al)

“The question Trump and his team ought to face is simple:

`Why has American job growth slowed this year to a 15-year low?`”
(msnbc.com)

This is a damning anecdote from Rep Jim McGovern. He tells me that during debate over Trump`s big budget bill, House Rs privately admitted to him that it would screw over their own constituents, yet they had to vote for it anyway.

Read all of it. He wrecks them:
(newrepublic.com)

Trump is holding a Great Gatsby/Roaring 20s-themed party at his private club in Palm Beach tonight as he tries to withhold SNAP and health care subsidies from millions of Americans. (via Kellie Meyer)

Trump is letting homeowners get tricked.

Debt collectors are buying up old home loans and demanding back interest, even when the debt was cancelled.

If you can’t pay, they take your house.

The CFPB was ready to crack down – but Trump is letting the scams continue.

Under Trump, the draconian future of homelessness policy is coming into focus: mass internment. Utah is building a 16-acre site to detain up to 1,300 homeless people inside locked “accountability centers.“ This is profoundly alarming.

Vital reporting from @ellenbarry.bsky.social and Jason DeParle:
(nytimes.com)

Dallas Fed services comments are LIT this month

“generally antibusiness policies being championed by Republican lawmakers and the Trump administration“
(dallasfed.org)

Oh and by the way, we`ve had roughly 2M federal employees since the 1940s though our population has more than doubled.

Adam Bonica(adambonica.bsky.social): Kind of wild that while food assistance was withheld from millions of families, one Trump-supporting billionaire (Ellison) saw his net worth grow more this year than the entire SNAP budget. And the YTD gains of the other four richest men would’ve fully covered salaries for all 2M federal employees.

ProPublica obtained records from the Department of Agriculture that detail the 94 million pounds of food, down to the number of eggs, that never reached food banks because of the #Trump administration’s cuts to The Emergency Food Assistance Program.

My latest video for @propublica.org.

This is far worse than anyone expected.

Trump`s HUD plan would cut *two-thirds* of permanent housing and push as many as 170,000 formerly homeless people back onto the street—redirecting funds to work mandates, forced treatment, and encampment sweeps.

All as mass internment camps are being built.
(nytimes.com)

More than half of the 2026 funding for a HUD permanent housing program will be shifted to transitional housing with work and service requirements.
(politico.com)

Project activity in the South so far in 2025 totals are on track to mark the worst SB&D 100 in its history by a significant margin.

Worse than the 2001 and 2008 recessions.
Worse than the year after COVID (2021).

And this drop is purely a self-inflicted wound!
(sb-d.com)

Yikes. I had missed this. What a brazen scheme to weaponize administrative burden against those who can least afford it.

Just totally gratuitous. There is reason for any of this except to punish poor for being poor as if being poor wasn't already punishment enough.

Plus, if this is new "policy," it would give Republicans additional incentives to shut down the government in the future (as if they needed any more). (politico.com)

If this were true, then the Fed should be raising interest rates to combat inflation and prevent the economy from overheating (AD>AS). Any genuine economist would know this...

Instead the administration is pushing for lower rates. I leave figuring out the discrepancy as an exercise for the reader.

Aaron Rupar(atrupar.com): Lutnick: “Jay Powell is too afraid to lead the greatest $30t economy in the world. We should be leading with our front foot. Instead we are always leaning back as if something bad is happening. We are doing great. Nothing bad is happening. Greatness is happening. We`re growing 4% GDP! Come on.“

“Under my administration, we will be slashing energy and electricity prices by half within 12 months…”

- Donald Trump, August 14, 2024

Ludwig von Mises warned us 80 years ago: when governments start making individual "deals" with private companies, we're witnessing the transformation from capitalism to something far more dangerous.

The news about Nvidia and AMD giving the U.S. government 15% of chip sales to China? Mises saw this exact pattern coming. In "Omnipotent Government," Mises identified a dangerous transformation he called "etatism." Think of it this way: You still "own" your business on paper, but the government tells you what to make, who to hire, what prices to charge, and who you can sell to. You're a manager, not an owner.

Mises wrote: "The entrepreneur in a capitalist society depends upon the market and upon the consumers. Every entrepreneur must daily justify his social function through subservience to the wants of the consumers." But when business success requires political deals, everything changes. The pattern is accelerating across recent months:
— Apple announced $600B U.S. investment after iPhone tariff threats
— Intel's CEO visiting the White House after public criticism
— Nvidia/AMD now paying 15% revenue cuts for China market access

This isn't capitalism. It's what Mises called "etatism." Mises warned that under etatism, "the government, not the consumers, directs production." When companies must seek political permission rather than consumer approval, we've crossed a dangerous line. Success becomes about relationships with power, not service to people.

So what's the big deal about these corporate negotiations? Mises saw where this leads. When Nvidia pays 15% to access China markets, they're not responding to consumer demand. They're buying political permission. This fundamentally changes how businesses operate. Instead of competing on price, quality, and innovation, companies now compete on political connections. Resources shift from R&D and customer service to lobbying and government relations. The best politically connected firms win, not the most efficient ones.

Here's the terrifying part: even if current leaders have good intentions, they're building the infrastructure of control. Once government has the power to grant or deny market access through individual deals, that power doesn't disappear when leadership changes. Future authoritarians won't need to seize control—they'll inherit a system where economic power already flows through political channels. Small businesses can't negotiate these deals. They face full regulations while big corporations get special arrangements. Perfect tools for political control.Mises understood this doesn't happen in one election cycle. It's a slow infection of ideas that spreads across decades until everyone accepts that companies should negotiate with whoever holds power.

Eventually, people forget that businesses once served consumers, not politicians. Mises understood that ideas have consequences. Bad economic ideas don't just create poverty—they destroy the institutional foundations of free society. The battle for freedom starts in the classroom, not the boardroom.
(mises.org)

New analysis from CBO of the "Big Beautiful Bill" shows the bottom 20% get poorer, not much change for most of America, & the top 10% get meaningfully richer - and that's before tariffs

It was the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in a single law in history

Latest CBO analysis of the full distributional effects of the Trump budget (the "One Big Bill") just landed. They blew out the budget, see how big of a slice you got.
https://cbo.gov/interactive/2025-reconciliation-act…
(cbo.gov)

Perfect example of how Biden tried to make government work for people, in this case, by creating what was effectively a free Turbo Tax-like program and Trump killing that program with little to no media coverage, leaving the public none the wiser.

Bloomberg Tax (@tax): The Biden-era IRS free filing tool, Direct File, is “gone,” IRS Commissioner Billy Long said.

(news.bloombergtax.com)

DOGE's cuts to Federal Student Aid and associated contractors are causing problems to the federal financial aid system. This piece covers some of the key issues that have already hit before the fall rush begins.

“The easiest place to cut is in functions that the broader public doesn’t see, even if they may be impactful,” said the official, who requested anonymity to speak freely. “You can’t cut the FAFSA … and you can’t cut the teams that support the actual technology for dispersing aid and handling repayment, because then borrowers start calling the press and calling Congress,” they added. “But if it just takes longer for schools to go through the process, get questions answered and get support then there’s not a discrete pain.”

(insidehighered.com)

The U.S. economy is headed into a period of noticeably slower growth thanks to the tariff impact on inflation and consumer spending, according to Goldman Sachs.
(nbcnews.com)

As President Trump takes a beating from his own MAGA crowd for his handling of the case of Jeffrey Epstein, his State Department pulled a surprising move: It decimated its office combating human trafficking.
(motherjones.com)

I worked on hundreds of nominations when I was special counsel to President Obama—no prior president would have put forward nominees like Emil Bove & Jeanine Pirro & no prior judiciary committee would vote for them

(thebulwark.com)

More US farms have filed for bankruptcy in the first three months of 2025 than in all of 2024.

JOBS PLUMMET: The U.S. private sector lost 33,000 jobs in June, badly missing expectations for a 100,000 increase, payrolls processing firm ADP says.

The CFPB ordered Navy Federal Credit Union to repay over $80 million to customers hit with allegedly illegal overdraft fees. Yesterday, the CFPB terminated the requirement they repay customers.

If the money isn't already out the door, Navy Fed isn't paying.

Navy Fed, the country's largest credit union with a field of membership consisting of military personnel, wouldn't tell me how much money has gone out yet. But former enforcement attorneys told me it was unlikely that much, if any, has.

And remember folks, the CFPB under Russell Vought said the agency is going to focus on protecting servicemembers. So make of this what you will. (news.bloomberglaw.com)

“The question Trump and his team ought to face is simple:

'Why has American job growth slowed this year to a 15-year low?'” (msnbc.com)

Superintendents are scrambling to figure out what to do with programs funded by the money now under review

Nearly $7 billion in education funding—which Congress had approved and President Trump signed into law in March—wouldn’t be released as expected the following day. The email didn’t elaborate on why, mentioning a review.

With the new school year not far off, the funding freeze has sent superintendents from California to Rhode Island scrambling to figure out how to handle a shortfall. The money had been earmarked for a range of activities, including after-school programs, teacher training, adult education and support for students learning English.

Lawmakers from both parties have raised objections. “This funding was appropriated by Congress and is critical to Maine public school programs,” Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine) said. Sen. Patty Murray (D., Wash.) also criticized the move. (wsj.com)

Remember @kamalaharris.com's initiative to remove medical debt from credit reports? Trump, from the "It's a Worker's Party Now" party, just did away with it.

US judge grants Trump admin request to scrap Biden-era medical debt rule (reuters.com)

*UMICH PRELIM MAY CONSUMER SENTIMENT FALLS TO 50.8; EST 53.4
*MICHIGAN CONSUMER SENTIMENT AT 50.8, SECOND LOWEST ON RECORD
*UMICH YR-AHEAD EXPECTED INFLATION AT 7.3%, HIGHEST SINCE 1981
*UMICH LONG-TERM EXPECTED INFLATION AT 4.6%, HIGHEST SINCE 1991

The analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office also found that the version of the bill passed by the House last month would lead to nearly 11 million people going uninsured.

The CBO analysis represents a snapshot, as the Senate is opening work on the bill this week and is expected to embrace a number of changes that would reshape the final makeup of the legislation. But it comes at a moment when GOP leaders are facing heightened concerns about the cost of the plan — worries that drew renewed attention on Tuesday after Elon Musk slammed the measure as "a disgusting abomination." (npr.org)

We estimate the Senate-passed reconciliation bill increases primary deficits by $3.1 trillion over 10 years. The dynamic cost, including changes to the economy, is larger at $3.5 trillion. GDP falls by 0.3 in 10 years and falls by 4.6 in 30 years.
(budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu)

MURRAY: Will you allocate the $220 million for literacy programs that Congress appropriated?

McMAHON: We are looking at the unallocated dollars to determine which of those programs we can best spend those dollars on

MURRAY: Those funds were appropriated by Congress. It looks to me like the department is illegally impounding funding

NEW: Trump has said he loves veterans & will “take care of them.”

His cuts to the VA have led to widespread chaos and some vets have been thrown off cancer trials.

"Despite a congressional mandate to expand care for veterans, internal Veterans Affairs messages obtained by ProPublica paint a stark portrait of how chaotic cost cutting has already imperiled tests of treatments for cancer, opioid addiction and more." (propublica.org)

The cost of insuring against US Treasury default—once a ludicrous proposition—has soared. So many dimensions to this winning.

So just to be clear, y’all’s transphobia did, in fact, result in a woman being attacked by a man in the women’s bathroom.

Male security guard barges into women's bathroom—bangs on stall door demanding proof of gender. Ansley Baker was born a woman & identifies as a woman—yet was still kicked out of bathroom & ordered to leave hotel.

"He demands my ID, which I gave him. Things still got heated. We kept repeating that I’m a woman," she said.

The Liberty Hotel in Boston put out a statement claiming that Ansley Baker and her girlfriend, Liz Victor, were using the same stall. The couple say they are still waiting for an apology for the false accusation.

This budget does not and would not belong to a country moving in the right direction
(stephensemler.com)

It’s hard to explain how grotesque this is. Tens of millions of people losing healthcare so we can do an economically inefficient giveaway to rich business owners.

Jordan Weissmann (@JHWeissmann): More or less all the money that Republicans would save by cutting Medicaid in reconciliation will be eaten up by their extension of the 199A deduction for business owners, a policy skewed heavily toward the top 1% of earners that even conservative think tanks have criticized.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed almost 1,000 points on Monday and is headed for its worst April performance since 1932, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The S&P 500’s performance since Inauguration Day is now the worst for any president up to this point in data going back to 1928, according to Bespoke Investment Group.

Worries about trade restrictions and the prospect of President Trump firing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell have investors bracing for greater losses ahead. Corporate earnings reports are rolling in, along with executives’ tariff-dented outlooks for the months ahead. Few think the administration’s negotiations with trade partners will yield results soon enough to ease the strain.

DOGE staffers have skirted privacy laws, training and security protocols to gain virtually unfettered access to financial and personal information stored in siloed government databases.

Fewer than 50 people have access to Social Security Administration databases containing hundreds of millions of people's private financial and personal information.

Akash Bobba is one of many Department of Government Efficiency staffers who have embedded in federal agencies the last few months with virtually unfettered access to the sensitive, compartmentalized sources of data collected by the government. The team, which is steered by billionaire Elon Musk, says it's scouring government records for signs of waste, fraud and abuse.

Bobba is also one of many DOGE employees who, according to several federal judges, were inappropriately given that access in violation of privacy laws and without proper training to handle the personally identifiable information the agencies collect.

Brand new details on DOGE’s infiltration at NSF

““The Office of Management and Budget recently instructed some NSF staff that all funding opportunities needed approval from DOGE, OMB, or the Office of the Director, a document viewed by FedScoop indicated.”

(fedscoop.com)

And holy shit: NSF told staff to comply with DOGE orders that may violate agency procedures:

"employees were instructed by NSF Director Dr. Sethuraman Panchanathan to directly comply with requests from DOGE, an agency source said"

Quite relevant and scary as well: DOGE member Luke Farritor has a “Budget, Finance, and Administration” clearance, which a source said allows him to view and modify the agency’s funding opportunity system.

University of Michigan’s closely watched sentiment index was 52.2 for April, among the lowest on record

“Consumers perceived risks to multiple aspects of the economy, in large part due to ongoing uncertainty around trade policy and the potential for a resurgence of inflation looming ahead,” said Joanne Hsu, the survey’s director. “Labor market expectations remained bleak,” she added.

The data follows other surveys suggesting American consumers and businesses are feeling rattled by the Trump administration’s stop-start moves on tariffs.

The Fed’s compilation of business anecdotes from around the country, known as the “beige book”, showed Wednesday that the outlook in several districts around the U.S. “worsened considerably as economic uncertainty, particularly surrounding tariffs, rose.”

The key chart right now:

Usually US economic pain is cushioned by falling bond yields and a strengthening dollar, which mean lower interest rates and more spending power for consumers.

This time we’re seeing the opposite, meaning the pain will be amplified.

Basically what normally happens is investors think “Stocks are too risky now, so let’s shift into US bonds and the dollar, which are a safer bet because America is a stable and well-run country with a good handle on its deficit and inflation.”

This time? Not so much.

Striking stat from @kellycnbc.bsky.social on this:

The rise in treasury yields since Trump’s tariffs were announced leads to an increase in US debt interest payments that is larger than all the DOGE savings.

Trump just denied North Carolina’s request for FEMA relief from Hurricane Helene, calling it “unwarranted.”

(ncnewsline.com)

Consumer expectations for a better financial situation in coming year: All-time low.

(via Liz Ann Sonders) #UMich

Another chart where the Trump admin looks like a second pandemic

Over the past three months, the economic outlook has gotten a lot worse.

It's good news when the arrows point southwest. But these arrows all point northeast, which is the stagflationary direction.

Something has happened in the last three months that has led basically every economic forecaster to predict that inflation will be substantially higher than they previously thought.

Got buried by the tariff catastrophe, but this week the GOP also officially eliminated the laws of arithmetic.
In the Senate, the party has waged an Orwellian war on math— deciding that 2+2=5 if they say so.

(wapo.st)

A leaked memo from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Research Service Sunday, agency banned key language, including words... #groundwater pollution, sediment remediation, #water collection, water treatment, rural water, clean water.
@neorsd.org
(newrepublic.com)

Senate Republicans would rather you didn’t find out they just voted to give the biggest banks billions in profits from overdraft fees that kick working people when they’re down. Disgraceful.

Meanwhile, every Senate Democrat voted against it.

The point of Temporary Aid to Needy Families, the cash-welfare program, is to eliminate deep poverty among children. The point of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is to end hunger. The point of Medicaid–to which Republicans are desperate to add work requirements, which, thank goodness, failed in these talks–is to ensure that everyone has health coverage.

Should infants and kids remain in poverty because their parents can't hold down a job? Should people go hungry if they can't work? Should they lose their health insurance if they won't? The answer is no–of course not, no.

Work requirements impose grievous costs for limited (or possibly nonexistent) benefits.