An Assault on the Press

On Thursday May 1 the Department of Justice amended DOJ regulations to allow federal prosecutors to force journalists to reveal their sources or hand over their notes especially of leaked government information. It overturned a previous policy put in place by Merrick Garland in July 2019 that protected their sources.

Garland’s policy was made to protect journalists from increasingly aggressive prosecution of leaks under both parties during the first two decades of the 21 Century. At the time Garland argued that the protection was necessary “to allow journalists to perform the crucial work of informing the public without fear of legal consequences.”

Last week AG Pam Bondi paved the way for Thursday’s regulation by writing in a memo that the DOJ “will not tolerate unauthorized disclosures that undermine President Trump’s policies, victimize government agencies, and cause harm to the American people.”

TCinLA called Bondi’s new regulation “an assault on the freedom of the press.” He noted that the reason given was not national security but the President’s policies, and wondered “since when did exposing wrongdoing by our government become a crime against “the American people”?

Thom Hartmann called Bondi’s memo “a declaration of war against the very foundation of press freedom in America.” Hartmann asked the same questions of Bondi’s previous memo: “Since when did the President’s policies become sacred and beyond scrutiny? Since when did exposing wrongdoing by our government become a crime against “the American people”?

I would add: and what if it’s the President’s policies that are victimizing government agencies and causing harm to the American people? Brave people who expose government wrongdoing should be treated like heroes not criminals.

He goes on to say:

History shows that when presidents attack whistleblowers and the press, they’re usually trying to hide their own misdeeds. And it sure feels like that’s exactly what Bondi and Trump are now up to. What we’re witnessing is step one in the dictator’s playbook: silence those who tell the truth about your regime.

Hartmann added:

Throughout our history, ethical government officials who leaked information to the press have been essential to maintaining our democracy. They’ve exposed corruption, illegal wars, and unconstitutional surveillance, and in many cases they’ve paid a heavy price for their courage.

Hartmann then gave as an example Daniel Ellsberg who leaked the Pentagon Papers exposing “evidence of a quarter century of aggression, broken treaties, deceptions, stolen elections, lies and murder” about the Vietnam war,

Hartmann argues that a free press is essential for democracy to function:

The Founders understood that a democracy cannot function without an informed citizenry, and citizens cannot be informed without a free press that can hold the powerful accountable. That’s why they enshrined press freedom in the First Amendment …

Attorney General Bondi has hinted that she would like to prosecute leakers, and the journalists who report on their revelations, for treason, a crime which can carry the death penalty. Hartmann finds this extraordinarily alarming, that:

the Attorney General of the United States believes that journalists doing their constitutionally protected job could be subject to execution. … to be very clear: This is not normal. This is not just another partisan policy dispute. This is an existential threat to our constitutional system of government.

Hartmann concludes

We stand at a crossroads in American history... Pam Bondi and Donald Trump have shown their true colors. They’ve revealed their contempt for the Constitution and their fear of the truth. They’re trying to create a country where no one can challenge their power or expose their corruption… where “truth” is whatever the leader says it is, and those who disagree face persecution or worse.

We cannot – we must not – let them succeed.

 Sources

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/us/politics/attorney-general-ban-subpoenae-reporter-notes.html

https://tcinla757.substack.com/p/poking-around-on-day-107

https://hartmannreport.com/p/theyre-coming-for-the-truth-tellers-08f

Two Significant Court Rulings

Two significant court rulings were made last week that should slow Trump’s destruction of democracy.

Unlawful Use of Alien Enemies Act

On Thursday May 1 US district judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr ruled in a Texas court that the Trump regime’s use of the 1789 Alien Enemies Act (AEA) to deport people is unlawful. Rodriguez issued a permanent injunction stopping the use of that law to “… detain Venezuelan aliens, transfer them within the United States, or remove them from the country”.

This ruling is significant for several reasons. It’s the first permanent injunction – all the others have been temporary. And it’s the first to rule on the merits of the AEA itself, declaring it unlawful. Other rulings dealt with the lack of due process given to those deported. It is also significant that Rodriguez was appointed by Trump in 2018.

The Act requires that there be a war between the USA and another country or that “any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States.” When Trump invoked the AEA by proclamation on March 15, he claimed that the presence of members of this gang in the United States comprised an invasion.

Rodriguez disagreed with Trump’s interpretation of the Act and pointed out that the United States is not at war with Venezuela, nor has Venezuela attempted or threatened an organized military attack on this country. “For these reasons, the Court concludes that the President’s invocation of the AEA through the Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and, as a result, is unlawful.”

The ruling only applies to the southern district of Texas but is an important precedent for other courts to follow. It is expected to be appealed, eventually all the way to the Supreme Court.

Rodriguez also pushed back at the idea argued by DOJ lawyers that the court has no jurisdiction on the president’s use of the AEA because that falls under foreign policy. Rodriguez wrote:

"Allowing the President to unilaterally define the conditions when he may invoke the AEA, and then summarily declare that those conditions exist, would remove all limitations to the Executive Branch's authority under the AEA, and would strip the courts of their traditional role of interpreting Congressional statutes to determine whether a government official has exceeded the statute's scope. The law does not support such a position."

Unconstitutional Executive Order

On Friday May 2 Judge Beryl Howell permanently struck down President Trump’s Executive Order 14230 against the law firm Perkins Coie. This was the follow-up to a temporary restraining order she had granted on March 12 regarding the case.

Howell began her 102 page ruling by writing

“No American President has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue … but, in purpose and effect, this action draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare, who penned the phrase: ‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.’ … Eliminating lawyers as the guardians of the rule of law removes a major impediment to the path to more power.”

“In a cringe-worthy twist on the theatrical phrase ‘Let’s kill all the lawyers,’ 14230 takes the approach of ‘Let’s kill the lawyers I don’t like,’ sending the clear message: lawyers must stick to the party line, or else.”

Howell found that the EO violated the First, Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the American Constitution. She rejected completely the DOJ arguments that the EO was necessary for national security (because they were connected with the Steele dossier compiled during the 2016 campaign which revealed Trump’s “discredited” Russian connections). The breadth of the EO which affected every employee of the firm nearly 10 years after the fact, and the separate requirement for private companies with government contracts to disclose ever working with the firm, made it clear that the purpose was not for national security. Instead, Howell wrote, “That is unconstitutional retaliation and viewpoint discrimination, plain and simple.”

Howell praised the law firms which stood up to Trump’s attacks writing:

“Only when lawyers make the choice to challenge rather than back down when confronted with government action raising non-trivial constitutional issues can a case be brought to court for judicial review of the legal merits, as was done in this case.”

Writing about Howell’s ruling Jennifer Rubin commented:

Howell’s handiwork should also underscore that a great many executive edicts are utterly, obviously ineffective. Some are blatantly unconstitutional; others are beyond the powers of any official (e.g., renaming the Gulf of Mexico). Still others are absurd attempts to contradict statutes (e.g., recasting Veterans Day). Reducing Trump’s autocratic fantasies to writing does not necessarily change the law, let alone the Constitution or objective reality.

Couldn’t have said it better: putting Trump’s dictatorial fantasies in writing doesn’t change the law, the Constitution, or reality.

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/01/alien-enemies-act-judge-ruling-texas

https://abcnews.go.com/US/judge-blocks-alien-enemies-act-deport-venezuelans-texas/story?id=121364022

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/02/trump-perkins-coie-unconstitutional

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/putting-trumps-threats-in-writing

Daniel’s Law

Yesterday I wrote about Justice Jackson’s speech about threats to judges.

These are not idle threats. Since 1979 four federal judges have been murdered. In 2005 Judge Joan Lefkow’s husband and mother were killed in retribution for one of her rulings.

In July 2020 Judge Esther Salas’s son was shot to death and her husband seriously wounded. A crazed lawyer went to the judge’s home with the intent to kill her. Her son, Daniel Anderl, had just celebrated his 20^th birthday.

Since then Salas and other judges have had anonymous pizza deliveries come to their door, with the intent to prove that “they” know where you live. To make sure the intent is understood some of the pizza boxes come with the name of “Daniel Anderl” on it.

A federal law, known as Daniel’s Law, was passed in December 2022 to protect judges from threats or worse. The law prohibits the publication and sharing of personal information, including address, phone numbers, schools, and more, of active or retired federal judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement officers and their immediate families. The Act also authorizes the US Marshals Service to hire extra staff to protect federal judges. But not all states have passed the Daniel’s Law.

Despite this law hundreds of pizzas have been delivered to judges’ homes across the country in the first few months of Trump’s second administration. Most if not all of the judges targeted have recently ruled against Trump’s policies. And some of the pizzas still have Daniel’s name on them.

Judges are calling for the Trump administration to tone down the hostile language used against the courts and especially against judges who are ruling on cases involving Trump’s policies.

Judge Salas said in an interview last month that the rhetoric has resulted in an unprecedented number of threats to those who work in the judiciary and to their families. “We are facing what appears to be a targeted strike against judges in the form of intimidation by unknown sources”.

Why are Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice doing nothing to protect these judges and court employees?

Sources

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/08/opinion/esther-salas-murder-federal-judges.html

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/judge-esther-salas-applauds-federal-law-to-help-protect-other-judges-and-their-families/

https://nj.gov/governor/news/news/562020/approved/20201120b.shtml

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZQIyesjHzI

DOGE vs Clinton’s NPR

Heather Lofthouse and Robert Reich touched on something in their Saturday Coffee Klatch today that I had missed at the time.

Back in February Elon Musk compared DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency that he leads, to Clinton’s program to reduce federal government expense and increase efficiency in the 1990s. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at the time that Trump’s administration is doing what “Democrat politicians promised the American people they would do for decades.”

The first part of Clinton’s program, called the National Performance Review (NPR) was headed by vice president Al Gore. The stated goal was “to make the entire federal government less expensive and more efficient, and to change the culture of our national bureaucracy away from complacency and entitlement toward initiative and empowerment.” After 6 months of consultation with government departments NPR released a 2,000 page report in September with 384 recommendations.

The name of the program was then changed to National Partnership for Reinventing Government (still NPR) and their task changed from “review and recommend” to “support agencies in their reinventing goals”. By the end of his term Clinton had reduced the federal workforce by 377,000 which occurred over several years and with the cooperation of Congress.

Reich was involved in that program as the Secretary of Labor under Clinton and explained the difference between what they did then and what DOGE is doing now.

Reich explained their goal was to cut unnecessary expenditures without harming people, including the civil service. In his Department of Labor they went from about 16,000 to 11,000 without laying anyone off. “It was done in a way to minimize damage to human beings. That’s what efficiency is all about – do as much good as you were doing before and don’t do any bad. And that’s the big contrast with what Elon Musk and Trump are doing.”

DOGE by contrast has fired over 121,000 workers in the first 100 days, with little or no consultation with the departments involved. The firings are random with no consideration given to how the agencies were to continue to fulfil their duties. For example the Department of Veterans Affairs had 70,000 (15%) of their workforce fired and many field offices closed. This will make it much harder for veterans to apply for and obtain needed services.

The total federal positions cut by May 5 was calculated at 282,900. This is getting close to what Clinton administration did over 3-4 years.

Reich then explained the philosophy behind the lack of empathy for both the fired workers and the public deprived of services. Social Darwinism teaches that the strong should increase in power and wealth and the weak should decrease. This philosophy is behind most of the Trump regime’s policies and actions.

UPDATE

Derek Beres writing for the Guardian May 4 expanded on the theory of Social  Darwinism calling it "soft eugenics" which lies behind many of Trump's policies. 

At the heart of all these policies is soft eugenics thinking – the idea that if you take away life-saving healthcare and services from the vulnerable, then you can let nature take its course and only the strong will survive.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/may/04/maga-soft-eugenics

Sources:

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/where-will-we-go-from-here-the-coffee [25:10]

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/musk-compares-doge-clintons-government-efficiency-initiative-big/story?id=118980481

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Partnership_for_Reinventing_Government

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/28/us/politics/trump-doge-federal-job-cuts.html

 

Amazon and Tariffs

An incident occurred on April 29 that Robert Reich called on his Saturday morning Coffee Klatch “This is one of the worst examples of how consumers are being screwed by Trump and by big business … ”

Amazon was planning to display the amount of the price of items that was due to the tariffs. The White House got wind of this and promptly responded.

White House press secretary called it “a hostile and political act.” She then asked “Why didn’t Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years?”

President Trump phoned Jeff Bezos that morning after which Amazon quickly announced that this was just an idea floated by marketing and was never a serious plan.

Referring to the phone call Trump said “Jeff Bezos was very nice. He solved the problem very quickly and he did the right thing”.

Let’s unpack a few things here.

First, being transparent about the costs of tariffs isn’t a problem for anyone except Donald Trump. It’s a problem for him because it exposes his lies that tariffs are paid by the exporting country not by American consumers.

Did Bezos do the right thing? It was right for Trump and in the short term for Amazon (we don’t know what Trump threatened to do if they proceeded). But it certainly wasn’t the right thing for Amazon’s customers.

Was displaying the cost of tariffs hostile and political? Hostile? hardly. It only becomes political if one of the political parties is lying about who pays for tariffs. And do you really believe that backing off from the proposed pricing was NOT political?

Actually Leavitt’s idea of posting the contributing causes of inflation during the Biden years would have been a good thing. It would show that the greatest part of inflation was due to Covid related production and supply chain disruptions and very little to the stimulus packages that helped America recover so quickly from the pandemic.

Back to Reich: “This is a microcosm of everything that Trump represents and also the corruption of Trumpism. This is a microcosm of big business kissing his tuchus.”

 Sources:

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/where-will-we-go-from-here-the-coffee [22.20]

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/30/trump-amazon-spat-what-happened-and-how-much-us-consumers-import-online

Justice Jackson Speaks Out

Speaking at a conference for judges in Puerto Rico on May 1, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned her listeners of the current attacks on judges. She began by saying that she wanted to address “the elephant in the room”.

“ Across the nation, judges are facing increased threats of not only physical violence, but also professional retaliation just for doing our jobs. And the attacks are not random. They seem designed to intimidate those of us who serve in this critical capacity.”

Jackson did not mention President Trump or refer to any specific incidents but her speech came after several calls by Trump and members of his cabinet for impeachment of judges ruling against the Trump administration.

And just last week Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested for allegedly attempting to protect a man from being arrested by ICE officials.

Jackson pointed out the larger effect on society of these attacks:

“A society in which judges are routinely made to fear for their own safety or their own livelihood due to their decisions is one that has substantially departed from the norms of behavior that govern a democratic system. Attacks on judicial independence is how countries that are not free, not fair, and not rule of law oriented, operate.”

“Having an independent judiciary — defined as judges who are indifferent to improper pressure and determine and decide each case according to the rule of law — is one of the key ingredients that makes a free and fair society work.”

“It can sometimes take raw courage to remain steadfast in doing what the law requires.”

Such comments in a public speech are rare for Justice Jackson. For this talk she received the tribute of a standing ovation.

Source:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/us/politics/supreme-court-justice-jackson.html

Pritzker’s Call to Fight

Illinois Governor J B Pritzker spoke Sunday, April 27, to a gathering of Democratic activists in New Hampshire. He lambasted both the Trump administration and the moderate Democrats. Here are some excerpts:

“It’s time to fight everywhere and all at once. Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But I am now. These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They must understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soap box … and then punish them at the ballot box.

“Remember, Trump, just last week, arrested and deported three children under eight years old. U.S. citizens, all of them. Preserving habeas corpus is not some fever dream of the left wing echo chamber. It’s a fundamental concept of justice that people have fought and died for dating back to the Middle Ages.”

“Standing for the idea that the government doesn’t have the right to kidnap you without due process is arguably the MOST EFFECTIVE CAMPAIGN SLOGAN IN HISTORY. Today, it’s an immigrant with a tattoo. Tomorrow, it’s a citizen with a Facebook post that annoys Trump.

 “[It's] time to stop wondering if you can trust the nuclear codes to people who don’t know how to organize a group chat. It’s time to stop ignoring the hypocrisy in wearing a big gold cross while announcing the defunding of children’s cancer research. And time to stop thinking we can reason or negotiate with a madman.

“Time to stop apologizing when we were not wrong. Time to stop surrendering, when we need to fight.”

"They [Republicans enabling Trump] must feel in their bones that when we survive this shameful episode of American history ... that we will relegate their portraits to the museum halls reserved for tyrants and traitors”.

Sources

https://tcinla757.substack.com/p/poking-around-on-day-100

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/28/politics/jb-pritzker-illinois-governor-democrats/index.html

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/28/jb-pritzker-speech