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Because only the best people, the latest clusterfuck by "an unbelievable cocktail of incompetence and illegality" abetted a historic security leak wherein "national security" officials discussed classified military plans for airstrikes in Yemen on an unsecured messaging app that oops included a journalist. The response from our steadfast commander-in-chief, who was too busy with Greenland, George Clooney, and pudgy portraits to know about it: "You're saying they had what?" Still, they're sending us angels!
The news of "one of the most stunning breaches of military intelligence in history" by the "but-her-emails" party came from Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, in a piece titled, "The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans" (Gift link here). "The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. Eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen," it begins."I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming (because) Pete Hegseth had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing." Goldberg says the backstory began 10 days ago, with a connection request on the open-source app Signal, known for disappearing messages, from Trump National Insecurity adviser "Michael Walz." Given Trump's earlier attacks on Goldberg as "a guy named Goldberg" who runs "a failing magazine" - his crime: calling the famed "suckers and losers" jab chilling and historically illiterate" - Goldberg figured it was a troll seeking to "somehow entrap me."
But in the next few days the messages kept coming from top officials' accounts: Vance, Gabbard, Rubio, Hegseth, Nazi Stephen Miller, CIA head John Ratcliffe, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who was evidently in Moscow at the time but def didn't connect his phone to the Kremlin's guest WIFI network, where Signal is easily accessed. The messages ranged from specific plans from Walz - “Team - establishing a principles (sic) group for coordination on Houthis, particularly for over the next 72 hours" with deputy Alex Wong "pulling together a tiger team" to follow up from "meeting in the Sit Room" - to random Europe-bashing from Drunk Pete to JD: "I fully share your loathing of European free loading. It's PATHETIC." All told, the Military Timessays the content revealed "operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing" On March 15, Trump bombed Yemen, citing the Iran-backed terrorist group's attacks on international shipping routes over Israel's genocide in Gaza.
"Republicans, as everyone knows, are careful stewards of America’s security," notes Jeff Tiedrich, and would never do anything as "clownfuckingly insane" as texting war plans to each other in such detail they even include the weather forecast over a phone app," never mind inadvertently including a journalist in the discussion or, say, "absconding with dozens of boxes of classified documents, lying about having them, refusing to return them, hiding them, bragging about their contents to golf cronies, waving them in the faces of randos, scrawling to-do lists on them (and) then stashing them in the unspeakably ugly shitter of their vermin-infested Florida golf motel." Still, in a mind-blowing miracle of improbable spin, the White House tried to defend the historic, blundering, "final nail in the but-her-emails coffin" by claiming the leak was "a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials" who, added Fox News, "after years of secrecy and incompetence," make us proud "these are the leaders making these decisions in America." A succinct Hillary Clinton: "You have got to be kidding me."
- YouTubewww.youtube.com
The latest evidence the regime is "a clown car driving against traffic on the interstate of leadership" was met with outrage, including among the GOP's own members and even some at the top: "Everyone in the White House can agree on one thing - Mike Waltz is a fucking idiot." The swift consensus: "Classified information should not be transmitted on unsecured channels – and certainly not to those without security clearances. Period.” Also, "Fubar" - "fucked up beyond all recognition” and, "We knew it was amateur hour, but good grief." Much of the rage was aimed at fascist, smirky, erratic, wildly unqualified Pete Hegseth, who's spent his brief reign erasing black, brown and female military history and braying about "accountability"; before that, he liked to critique Biden for handling classified info “flippantly” and blast Hillary - "Hey, this you?" - for not being in jail. VoteVets on Pete: "Gross incompetence." One critic deemed him "an incompetent, xenophobic, reckless, unprofessional, unserious, ignorant, war- mongering moron. What a prick," thus rendering especially surreal the thread's plaudits: "Good job, Pete!" "Powerful start!"
Along with past, smug hypocrisies recalled online - Marco in 2016: "Nobody is above the law, not even Hillary Clinton. We're gonna hold people accountable" yada yada - were nods to the fact that no victims of Trump/DOGE incompetence, bigotry and greed, among thousands of "DEI" hires, veterans' caregivers, medical researchers et al fired, ever leaked war plans. On the Cabinet's confederacy of dunces: "Thank goodness they're all White men so we know they didn't really do anything wrong." And there are the crimes. By law, government communications must be archived; use of unsecured Signal, which erases content and proof of its existence, was likely an illegal effort to avoid government channels and the prying eyes of Congress - "a conspiracy of the highest magnitude." The use of Signal also likely violated the Espionage Act, which sets rules for handling national security information - on approved government systems - and makes it a crime to remove such information "from its proper place of custody" (ditto). That's without sending classified information to a journalist without clearance and not noticing it.
All told, the "epic fuck-up" was blasted as "a stunning breach of security" and "historic mishandling of classified information" that would end any officer's career with criminal charges. Eric Swalwell urged all on the thread to be fired: "Their idiocy just put a giant target on America. We are not safe." Mike Young saw "a neon sign of (Trump's) utter contempt for competence, security, and the American people," from slashing people's rights to putting troops at risk. Pete Buttigieg called it "the highest level of fuck-up imaginable" by miscreants who "claim to care about competence and merit. These are not serious people." Jared Moskowitz, with an assist from Jamie Raskin, went fortrolling: He held up a sign with three emojis - fist, flag, fire - Mike Waltz sent on Signal to celebrate the Yemen strikes. Rather than a speech, he said, "When we do things where we agree, I just hold this up. When we’re in like a chat with friends, right? About, like, where we’re dropping missiles.....And this will tell you I think it’s good.” Later, he took to social media to use the emoji combo to like a possible My Cousin Vinny sequel and a cat TikTok.
The GOP, meanwhile, deflected and downplayed. Sean Hannity whined a "media mob" is "obsessed with an accidentally leaked text," hence their "phony outrage.” Brit Hume conceded it was "a major leak" but added, "Fortunately, it was leaked to an American citizen," albeit a Jew, which might not count. Mike Walz told Laura Ingraham he's "not a conspiracy theorist," but "of all the people out there, somehow this guy (Goldberg) who has lied about the president, the bottom scum of journalists (is) the one that somehow gets on somebody’s contact." And their leader, either actually dumb or playing dumb when asked about it, insisted, “I don’t know anything about this," followed by the obligatory smear: "I'm not a big fan of The Atlantic. It's, to me, it's a magazine that's going out of business...But I know nothing about it. You're saying that they had what?" Later, he said the fiasco was "the only glitch" in "two perfect months," and "not a serious one," and besides Walz, "a good man," had "learned a lesson." Whew. We feel better already, knowing his "national security" team and the rest of Freedonia is on the job.
- YouTubewww.youtube.com
We're also reassured knowing that, even though he might sometimes forget who he's bombing when, he's busy making America great again. Having randomly disappeared with no evidence or due process over 200 mostly innocent Venezuelans for having tattoos to be tortured in an El Salvador prison - an act yet another judge eviscerated with, “Nazis got better treatment" - his lawyers are invoking the “state secrets” privilege to refuse to provide a D.C. judge with information about their victims. Insisting "no further information will be provided,” they cite Trump's absolute authority to remove “designated terrorists participating in a state-sponsored invasion of the United States," despite multiple intelligence documents, family claims, news reports, and pieces of evidence that contradict their allegations. For good measure, he also abolished all the Department of Homeland Security's civil rights and detention abuse watchdogs - basically, everyone charged with providing oversight of the treatment of people by the department’s various policing agencies - in the worthy name of his growing authoritarianism.
In more unintended consequences of both his and DOGE's tyranny, the IRS estimates that DOGE-driven disruptions are on track to reduce tax receipts by more than $500 billion for non-discretionary funding, which means most government functions except the military and safety net services like Social Security and Medicare. In other words, in about eight weeks, DOGE has managed to "lose the U.S. government - more or less light on fire - more than half of what goes to most of the stuff we think of as the government." Between DOGE and ICE, they're also inadvertently creating a national labor shortage so critical that Florida lawmakers are considering loosening child labor laws to fill the gap; their proposed new law would let children as young as 14 work overnight shifts on school days, a move that Gov. Ron DeFascist supports. "Yes, we had people that left - aka were brutally deported - but you're also able to hire other (imaginary) people," he says. "And what's wrong with expecting our young people to be working part-time now? I mean, that’s how it used to be when I was growing up.”
Along with GOP efforts to return children to "clean" coal mines, they're also looking for new places to exploit. This week, Usha Vance, wife to history's most disliked VP, will visit Greenland for a pricey photo-op, a move blasted by P.M. Mute Egede as a "provocation (to) demonstrate power over us," which is why he won't meet with her. Trump said they invited her; they didn't, which is clear from their new red hats: "Make America Go Away." (Canada reportedly wants them, too.) Now J.D. says he's also going "to reinvigorate the security of the people of Greenland- I didn’t want her to have all that fun by herself" - which will piss them off more: "Trump needs to get the difference between 'yours' and 'mine.'" He also has "Danish Viking blood boiling," with Denmark leading a growing movement in Europe to boycott U.S. goods. Danes are skipping U.S. beer, popcorn, Pringles, Oreos, Pepsi, Colgate, ketchup, power tools, California wine, and Tesla, choosing E.U.-made options and buying more champagne. One said that after he bought dates from Iran, he was shocked to realize, "I now perceive the United States as a greater threat than Iran."
At home, Trump is still diligently grifting, whining, lying and lashing out. For the first time in 150 years, he's turned the White House annual Easter Egg Roll into a branding opportunity, offering corporate sponsorships to buy $200,000 worth of goodwill with the other fat cats and, “Be a part of history." The "petty, insecure baby" and "sensitive snowflake" is also haranguing "radically left" Colorado Gov. Jared Polis to take down a chubby, "purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before” (except all the other times) Trump portrait, where aides once put up a prank Putin one; Trump's was commissioned by a GOP admirer, but he says "many people" have written to complain. Uh huh. Finally, the leader of the free world took time out from his onerous schedule to slam George Clooney as "a ‘Second Rate Movie Star’ who never came close to making a great movie" after Clooney blasted his regime for bullying the media, and them in turn for buckling under the pressure. "What does Clooney know about anything?" Trump sneered. "(He) should go back to television." Clooney's response: "I will if he does."
Back in the grown-up world, his lackeys still struggle to shake off the Signal scandal, toeing the "No classified material was sent to the thread" line with their usual class, insight, mud-slinging and whataboutism. "Jeffrey Goldberg is well-known for his sensationalist spin," said Barbie Press Secretary, insisting we're all good "thanks to the strong and decisive leadership of, you know. In a seething, palpably furious response to reporters, a testy Pete Hegseth - nah, he's not a loose cannon - echoed her: "You’re talking about a deceitful and highly-discredited so-called journalist who’s made a profession of pedaling hoaxes...Nobody was texting war plans." The next day, still testy: "Nobody's texting war plans. I know exactly what I'm doing." Half of America noted the White House already confirmed the text chain was authentic, all Goldberg has to do is release the text (which he's reportedly mulling doing), Pete is "a fucking liar," also a national security risk who should be fired. On Tuesday, his accomplices squirmed, lied and prevaricated before Congress, a sordid show of clowns and bunglers.
But despite fighting the Quakers, the Baptists, the Lutherans, the Catholics and most of the world, they still claim God on their side. Now, televangelist, spiritual adviser, "Special Government Employee" and head of White House Faith Office Paula White is offering a special Passover/Easter deal. For just $1,000, she will get us seven supernatural blessings. The best: "God will assign an angel to you." Ooh, Pete can get one! God will also Be an enemy to your enemies, give you prosperity, and give you a special year of blessing. Okay, so other evangelicals call her a "spiritual wolf" and "false teacher leading people to Hell"; one skeptic says, "There's got to be a special place in hell for this whore"; her 2020 speech to elect Trump was a tad intense - "Strike, strike, strike, I hear a sound of an abundance of rain, victory, victory, victory, angels are coming from Africa"; and she didcherry-pick Exodus 23, leaving out, “Do not spread false reports, Do not deny justice to your poor people, Do not accept a bribe, Do not oppress a foreigner. Still, if you act now, you'll also get a Waterford crystal cross, regularly $100, now $30% off. But for only the best people.
Update: Whoa, The Atlanticwent there. Excellent.
A region in southern Louisiana that has already been deemed a "sacrifice zone" by human rights experts—due to the high levels of pollution caused by the petrochemical and fossil fuel industry facilities that operate throughout the area—is now likely to face even more public health threats following the Trump administration's conditional approval of a new liquefied natural gas export terminal.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on Wednesday granted conditional authorization for Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass 2 (CP2) LNG export terminal in Cameron Parish, allowing the company to export LNG to countries that don't have free trade agreements with the United States.
The project was halted in 2024 when former President Joe Biden paused the issuance of new LNG export permits for non-free trade agreement partners, and climate campaigners have called for CP2 and other LNG projects to be permanently blocked because of the greenhouse gas emissions and local pollution they would cause.
In December, the Biden administration released an analysis showing that more LNG exports would increase household energy costs.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) noted that emissions from CP2 are estimated to reach the equivalent of more than 47 million gas-powered cars or 53 coal-fired power plants—even as Venture Global claims the project would export enough fossil gas to replace 33 coal-fired plants.
"Greenlighting this terminal is simply selling out the American public to further boost the profits of fossil fuel companies," said Gillian Giannetti, senior attorney at NRDC. "LNG extraction and export floods frontline communities with dangerous pollution, raises U.S. energy costs, and further locks in our dependence on dirty fossil fuels."
NRDC sued the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission over its approval of CP2 in September 2024, arguing FERC violated the law by not considering "adverse environmental and socioeconomic impacts" when it approved the terminal despite its determination that "the ambient air quality around the project will exceed the national air quality standards for multiple air pollutants."
FERC rescinded its approval and planned to make additional assessments after the lawsuit, but DOE's announcement on Wednesday came before the commission had made its final determination.
By conditionally authorizing the project, said Giannetti, the DOE violated "the public interest" and announced "the latest in a long line of giveaways to the fossil fuel industry from the Trump administration."
"NRDC sued over FERC's approval of this project, and we will be closely examining the legality of this DOE approval, as well," said Giannetti.
The export terminal approval announced by Energy Secretary Chris Wright is the administration's fifth—and largest—LNG approval since President Donald Trump lifted Biden's freeze on new export permits. The finished facility would have the capacity to export 3.96 billion cubic feet of LNG per day and produce 20 million tons of LNG per year.
CP2 would also be adjacent to Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass LNG facility and less than two miles from the proposed Commonwealth LNG facility, in an area with more low-income residents than 88% of the country. Venture Global's existing LNG project in the area "has already exposed the surrounding community to dangerous air pollution well in excess of permit limits in over 130 incidents since it began operations in 2022," said Sierra Club.
"Fishermen have reported a dramatic impact on their livelihoods since the commencement of Calcasieu Pass operations, highlighting the severe negative impact of gas exports on the local economy and environment," added the group.
The conditional approval was announced a week after the Environmental Protection Agency revealed plans to shutter all 10 of its environmental justice offices, ending the agency's work to address systemic injustices in places like Cameron Parish and Louisiana's "Cancer Alley."
"As a mom living in Sulphur [Louisiana], I feel a profound responsibility to protect my children's future," said Roishetta Ozane, founder and CEO of the Vessel Project of Louisiana, an environmental justice and mutual aid group. "The decision to authorize the CP2 LNG facility is a direct threat to our health and safety. We cannot allow our community to become a sacrifice zone for corporate interests. The proposed facility, with its potential for devastating air pollution and harmful impacts on our local environment, jeopardizes everything we hold dear. Our children deserve clean air, safe water, and a thriving ecosystem. I completely oppose this project and all others like it for the sake of my children and everyone else."
Mahyar Sorour, director of Beyond Fossil Fuels policy for Sierra Club, said CP2 "will be a disaster for local communities devastated by pollution."
"American consumers who will face higher costs, and the global climate crisis that will be supercharged by the project's emissions," said Sorour. "The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission had to reconsider its approval of the project after it failed in 2024 to consider the cumulative impacts of air pollution. By conditionally approving exports from this massive project, Trump's Department of Energy is once again failing to protect the American people from an unnecessary LNG project set to generate billions for corporate executives and leave everyday people with higher energy costs."
"Despite his hollow promises on the campaign trail," Sorour added, "Trump continues to fail to prioritize the livelihoods and future of our country over the profits of the dirty fossil fuel industry."
A former Obama administration economic adviser said Wednesday that the Federal Reserve's forecast of increased unemployment, accelerating inflation, and slower growth driven by President Donald Trump's economic policies could portend a return of the "stagflation" that plagued the nation in the 1970s.
The Federal Open Markets Committee, which sets U.S. monetary policy, downgraded its economic outlook for 2025 from an initial projection of 2.1% growth to 1.7%. FOMC also revised its inflation forecast upward from 2.5% to 2.8%.
While FOMC said that "recent indicators suggest that economic activity has continued to expand at a solid pace," the committee noted that "uncertainty around the economic outlook has increased."
Fears of an economic slowdown or even a recession have increased dramatically since Trump took office and imposed tariffs on some of the nation's biggest trade partners while moving to gut critical social programs in order to fund a $4.5 trillion tax cut that will overwhelmingly benefit wealthy Americans.
"Inflation has started to move up now. We think partly in response to tariffs and there may be a delay in further progress over the course of this year," Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said during a Wednesday news conference, at which he said interest rates will remain unchanged. "The survey data [of] both household and businesses show significant large rising uncertainty and significant concerns about downside risks."
The economic justice group Groundwork Collaborative said the FOMC projections show that "Trump is steering our economy toward disaster," while warning of the possible return of stagflation, a combination of low or negative economic growth and inflation.
Alex Jacquez, the chief of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative and a former adviser at the White House National Economic Council during the Obama administration, said in a statement that "the Federal Reserve's projections confirm what millions of Americans are already thinking: President Trump is steering our economy toward disaster."
"Voters elected President Trump to lower the cost of living, and instead, they continue to be saddled with persistently high inflation and interest rates," Jacquez continued. "Launching chaotic trade wars with our allies and gutting Social Security, Medicaid, and other vital programs in order to fund tax breaks for his billionaire donors isn't making life more affordable for working-class families. It is, however, a perfect recipe for stagflation."
Trump's economic policies—which some observers believe could be designed to deliberately tank the economy so that the ultrawealthy can buy up assets at deep discounts—have sent consumer confidence plummeting. Meanwhile, recent polls have revealed that a majority of voters disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy and inflation.
The latest FOMC forecast came as the world braces for yet another escalation of Trump's trade war, with the president threatening to implement worldwide reciprocal tariffs starting April 2.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said Monday that Trump's trade war is likely to slow economic growth in the United States and around the world.
"The global economy has shown some real resilience, with growth remaining steady and inflation moving downwards," OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said. "However, some signs of weakness have emerged, driven by heightened policy uncertainty."
"Increasing trade restrictions will contribute to higher costs both for production and consumption," Cormann added. "It remains essential to ensure a well-functioning, rules-based international trading system and to keep markets open."
Elon Musk, the de facto head of the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency, was berated anew Friday after insidiously tarring millions of Social Security recipients as "fraudsters"—a tactic critics called part of an orchestrated Republican scheme to destroy the vital earned benefits program.
Musk and seven DOGE staffers—all of them men—appeared on Fox News Thursday, where the world's richest person called the Trump administration's crusade to eviscerate the federal government under pretext of improving efficiency "the biggest revolution in the government since the original revolution" in 1776.
The DOGE staffers repeated unfounded claims that Social Security is riddled with fraud; that in some cases, 40% of calls to the Social Security Administration phone center are fraudulent; and that millions of people aged 120 and older are registered with SSA.
Acknowledging that DOGE's wrecking-ball approach to government reform is getting "a lot of complaints along the way," Musk said: "You know who complains the loudest, and with the most amount of fake righteous indignation? The fraudsters."
Musk's comments echoed those of billionaire U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who suggested on a podcast last week that only a "fraudster" would complain about a missed Social Security check.
Responding to what she called Musk's "absurd claim," Nancy Altman, president of the advocacy group Social Security Works (SSW), said Friday that "the truth is that Social Security has a fraud rate of 0.00625%, far lower than private sector retirement programs."
"It is Musk and DOGE who are inviting in fraudsters," she continued. "Scammers are already rushing in to take advantage of the confusion created by DOGE's service cuts."
Critics have denounced the Trump administration for sowing chaos at SSA and other federal agencies by planning to lay off thousands of workers, slashc spending, and implement other disruptive policies. Cuts in SSA phone services were reportedly carried out in response to a direct request from the White House, which claimed it is simply working to eliminate "waste, fraud, and abuse."
"The truth is that Social Security has a fraud rate of 0.00625%, far lower than private sector retirement programs."
This "DOGE-manufactured chaos," as Altman calls it, has already led to the SSA website crashing several times in recent weeks and hold times of as long as 4-5 hours for those calling the agency.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) on Thursday noted that while it would be clearly illegal for President Donald Trump and DOGE to cut Social Security benefits without congressional authorization, there are other ways for the administration to hamstring the agency.
Referencing a new in-person verification rule that was delayed and partly rolled back this week, Warren said:
Say a 66-year-old man qualifies for Social Security. Say he calls the helpline to apply, but he's told about a new DOGE rule, so he has to go online or in person. He can't drive. He has trouble with the website, so he waits until his niece can get a day off to take him to the local office, but DOGE closed that office, so they have to drive two hours to get to the next closest office. When they get there, there are only two people staffing a 50-person line, so he doesn't even make it to the front of the line before the office closes and he has to come back. Let's assume it takes him three months to straighten this out, and he misses a total of $5,000 in benefits checks, which, by law, he will never get back.
"This scenario is a backdoor way Musk and Trump could cut Social Security," the senator added. "That's what I'm fighting to prevent."
Democratic lawmakers and others argue that the Trump administration's approach is "a prelude to privatizing Social Security and handing it over to private equity," as Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said earlier this week.
"Improving Social Security doesn't start with shuttering the offices that handle modernization, anti-fraud activities, and civil rights violations," the senator asserted. "It doesn't start with indiscriminately firing or buying out thousands of workers, and it doesn't start with restricting customer service over the phone and drawing up plans to close field and regional offices."
These and other moves, including the nomination of financial services executive Frank Bisignano as SSA commissioner, belie Trump's claim that he is "not touching" Social Security, upon which 70 million Americans—including nearly 9 in 10 people aged 65 or older—rely for their earned benefits.
So do Trump and Musk's own words. The president has called Social Security a "scam" and Musk recently referred to it as "the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time."
"No one who thinks Social Security is a criminal Ponzi scheme should be anywhere near our earned Social Security benefits or the sensitive data we provide the Social Security Administration," said SSW's Altman.
In what one gun control group hailed as "a BIG win for public safety," the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a Biden-era rule regulating ghost guns, which can be made using 3D printers, obtained without background checks, and smuggled into high-security locations.
The high court ruled 7-2—with Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissenting—in Bondi v. Vanderstock that ghost guns, which are virtually untraceable, are firearms subject to regulation by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).
NEW: The Supreme Court just upheld ATF’s critical ghost gun rule 👏👏👏 They ruled that ghost gun kits are legally firearms, meaning they must have serial numbers and can only be sold by licensed sellers after a background check. This is a BIG win for public safety.
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— GIFFORDS ( @giffords.org) March 26, 2025 at 7:57 AM
In 2022, the Biden administration enacted rules including a licensing requirement for companies making and selling ghost gun parts, mandating serial numbers for such components, and subjecting buyers to background checks. Ghost gun component manufacturers and Second Amendment advocates sued the government, claiming that ghost guns are not firearms as defined by the landmark Gun Control Act of 1968.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the plaintiffs in a 2023 decision striking down the ATF ghost gun rules.
However, while conceding that some ghost gun kits may not qualify as firearms under the law, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority that others "'contain all components necessary' for 'a complete pistol' and can be completed in perhaps half an hour using commonly available tools."
"But even as sold, the kit comes with all necessary components, and its intended function as instrument of combat is obvious," Gorsuch added. "Really, the kit's name says it all: 'Buy Build Shoot.'"
Today's decision is a pretty major smackdown for the 5th Circuit, which angrily rejected the ghost gun regulations as an egregiously unlawful assault on the rights of at-home gunsmiths. Gorsuch's opinion says the 5th Circuit badly misapplied the law in a number of ways. When you've lost Gorsuch...
— Mark Joseph Stern ( @mjsdc.bsky.social) March 26, 2025 at 7:16 AM
Responding to the ruling, David Pucino, the legal director and deputy chief counsel at the Giffords Law Center, said: "Ghost guns are the gun industry's way of skirting commonsense gun laws and arming dangerous people without background checks. We are thrilled that the Supreme Court has upheld the ATF rule that treats ghost guns as what they are: guns."
"We've seen how the rise in ghost guns has contributed to increases in crime and gun deaths in communities across the United States," Pucino added. "The Supreme Court's ruling is a huge win for public safety."
The legal division of Everytown for Gun Safety also hailed what it called the court's "lifesaving decision."
"We applaud the Supreme Court for doing the right thing by upholding a lawful and critical rule that protects public safety, and by rejecting the gun lobby's extreme legal agenda," Everytown Law executive director Eric Tirschwell said. "The ATF ghost gun rule has broad support from state and federal law enforcement, who have all affirmed it is crucial to keeping our communities safe—and data shows it is reducing the number of ghost guns recovered at crime scenes nationwide. We look forward to seeing this downward trend continue."
As Everytown noted, "early data indicates a drop in ghost gun recoveries at crime scenes since the ATF's rule went into effect," and "New York City, Baltimore, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Oakland, and other cities reported declines in ghost gun recoveries" in 2023.
Great news coming out of the Supreme Court! In a 7-2 decision, Justices have upheld the ban on ghost guns. These untraceable weapons have no legitimate use and are the perfect firearms for use in crime. This is a victory for public safety!
— Team ENOUGH ( @teamenough.org) March 26, 2025 at 7:16 AM
"At 17, my son, Guy, was badly wounded when he was shot with a ghost gun by a minor too young to legally purchase a pistol. No one should have to go through the trauma of learning that your child has been shot and may not survive," Denise Wieck, a volunteer with the gun control advocacy group Moms Demand Action, said following Wednesday's ruling.
"Though Guy suffers the consequences of the gunshot wound to this day—including an epilepsy diagnosis, anxiety, and the loss of an eye—we have both turned our grief into power through education and advocacy," Wieck added. "We are deeply relieved by today's ruling, which will help ensure that a tragedy like ours never happens again."
Democratic lawmakers also welcomed Wednesday's ruling.
"Ghost guns have been a terror on our streets, haunting our communities, and taking lives," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. "For years, I have been warning of the dangers of these untraceable guns, and I strongly supported the Biden administration's rule to crack down on these treacherous kits."
"Today, seven members of the Supreme Court followed the law and did not capitulate to special interests like the NRA, and our streets will be safer for it," Schumer added, referring to the National Rifle Association. "Senate Democrats will continue to push Republicans to take commonsense actions to keep ghost guns off the streets."
Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal, who earlier this month won an Academy Award for No Other Land—a documentary about ethnic cleansing in the illegally occupied West Bank—was released from Israel Defense Forces custody Tuesday after being brutally attacked by Israeli settlers and violently detained by army troops.
Yuval Abraham, one of two Israeli co-directors of No Other Land, said on the social media site X that "after being handcuffed all night and beaten in a military base, Hamdan Ballal is now free and is about to go home to his family."
On Monday, Israeli settlers attacked the village of Susya in the southern Hebron Hills, injuring numerous residents and activists, according to Palestinian human rights activist Ihab Hassan, who posted video of the assault. Members of the activist group Center for Jewish Nonviolence who went to Susya to document the attack said they were assaulted by settlers who smashed their car windows, punched them, and hit them with sticks.
"The sickening reality is this is what many Palestinians face and we don't even hear about it."
Abraham said that settlers beat Ballal, injuring his head and stomach. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers then "invaded the ambulance he called" and seized Ballal, according to Abraham.
Lamia Ballal, the filmmaker's wife, toldThe Associated Press that she saw three men in uniform beating Ballal with their rifles and another person in civilian clothing who appeared to be recording the attack.
"Of course, after the Oscar, they have come to attack us more," she said. "I felt afraid."
The IDF claimed that Ballal and two other Palestinians were detained on suspicion of throwing rocks during the settler attack. One Israeli was also detained.
Lea Tsemel, an attorney for the three detained Palestinians, said the men spent the night on the floor of a military base and received the bare minimum of medical care.
Responding to Monday's events, Basel Adra, No Other Land's second Palestinian co-director, said that "this is how they erase Masafer Yatta," the collection of 19 West Bank hamlets whose ongoing ethnic cleansing is documented in the film.
The international film industry led condemnation of Ballal's detention and demands for his release.
"Such treatment of an internationally acclaimed filmmaker gravely undermines artistic freedom, human rights, and freedom of speech—core values vital to democratic societies," a Change.org petition by "members of the global film community" said.
The Berlin Film Festival, where No Other Land premiered and won best documentary last year, called Ballal's ordeal "very distressing" in a Tuesday Instagram post.
"It is vital in open democracies that we safeguard the role of journalism and documentary filmmaking and protect its makers from reprisal and violence," the organization said.
U.S. actor and activist Mark Ruffalo, a longtime Palestine defender,
wrote on Instagram: "Every filmmaker and Academy [of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences] member should be acting together in protest. No matter where you stand on this issue this is an attack on our beloved art form of filmmaking. Hamdan Ballal is a political prisoner and this is an international incident and violation of human rights."
"Many of us are not surprised by this behavior from the lawless settlers and the IDF at this point," Ruffalo added. "Kill[ing] journalists and abducting filmmakers is not an accident but a design for the eradication of a people and their culture. Free Ballal!"
Israel has illegally occupied the West Bank including East Jerusalem for 58 years. Today, more than 700,000 Israelis live in over 140 settlements built and expanded on Palestinian land. Last year, the International Court of Justice—which is hearing a genocide case against Israel led by South Africa—issued an advisory opinion that Israel's occupation is an illegal form of apartheid that must end immediately.
Assaults on Palestinians by Israeli settlers, who are protected and sometimes joined by IDF troops, have increased dramatically since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel led by Gaza-based Hamas, with more than 900 West Bank residents killed and thousands more wounded over the past 17 months,
according to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
"The voice of science must not be silenced," the scientists wrote. "We all benefit from science, and we all stand to lose if the nation's research enterprise is destroyed."
With an open letter Monday addressed to the American people, nearly 2,000 scientists sounded the alarm on U.S. President Donald Trump's "wholesale assault" on science—warning that his administration's actions threaten the talent pipeline for the country's future scientists, the nation's "scientific edge," and more.
The 1,900 scientists are all elected members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine—a private, nongovernmental institution established by Congress in the 19th century that aims to "provide independent, objective advice to inform policy with evidence"—though speaking out as individuals in the letter and not the organizations for which they work, the signers represent some of the country's foremost scientists, engineers, and medical researchers.
"For over 80 years, wise investments by the U.S. government have built up the nation's research enterprise, making it the envy of the world," the scientists wrote. "Astoundingly, the Trump administration is destabilizing this enterprise by gutting funding for research, firing thousands of scientists, removing public access to scientific data, and pressuring researchers to alter or abandon their work on ideological grounds."
"We see real danger in this moment," they added. "We are sending this SOS to sound a clear warning: the nation's scientific enterprise is being decimated."
Since Trump returned to the White House, funding for the National Institutes of Health—the largest biomedical research funding provider in the country—has plummeted by more than $3 billion compared with grants issued during the same period in 2024, according to The Washington Post.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) also announced last week that it intends to lay off 10,000 full-time employees at the department in order to restructure the agency under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Also last week, HHS canceled more than $12 billion in federal funding for state health departments across the nation, money used to track infectious diseases and provide mental health services, addiction treatment, and other critical care.
Meanwhile, the administration has also cut funding on research into specific areas, like vaccine access and HIV/AIDs prevention in young people.
Robert Steinbrook, the health research group director at the watchdog Public Citizen, said Monday the open letter should be "a wake-up call for our leading scientific and medical organizations to show courage and speak out at this critical moment."
According to the scientists, "a climate of fear" has permeated the research community since Trump returned to the White House.
"Although some in the scientific community have protested vocally, most researchers, universities, research institutions, and professional organizations have kept silent to avoid antagonizing the administration and jeopardizing their funding," they wrote.
The scientists are urging the public speak out against the Trump administration's "assault" on science and called on people to contact their lawmakers in Congress about the matter.
"The voice of science must not be silenced," they wrote. "We all benefit from science, and we all stand to lose if the nation's research enterprise is destroyed."
"It's an assault on people with small children being able to work," said one childcare facility board member.
The recent mass firing of employees at a federal childcare office and the elimination of its work accrediting dozens of facilities on federal property may ultimately further U.S. President Donald Trump and his billionaire ally, Elon Musk's, goal of shrinking the government—with many public servants likely to be pushed out of their jobs due to a lack of childcare.
In a move that was not previously reported to the public, the General Services Administration (GSA)—which handles real estate and leasing for the federal government—fired nearly everyone on the 18-person staff of the agency's childcare office on March 7, soon after their supervisor advised them to take the "deferred resignation" offered by the Office of Personnel Management under the direction of Musk's advisory body, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
As The Washington Postreported Monday, the only remaining employee of the office, Jennifer Fee, told childcare centers run by the GSA on March 18 that the office would no longer be paying for accreditation or renewal for centers or requiring the facilities to be accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), which has "long set the national standard for high-quality early learning programs."
The NAEYC told the Post the change is likely to result in "decreased quality and access."
"We're going to have less accreditation, less standards to follow, potentially lower quality, and higher tuition costs."
Ultimately, one member of the board of directors of a GSA childcare center told the Post, "it's an assault on people with small children being able to work."
"We're going to have less accreditation, less standards to follow, potentially lower quality, and higher tuition costs," said the member.
The GSA has overseen 82 childcare centers in federal buildings across the country for years, with the centers required to ensure that at least half the children they serve are the dependents of federal employees.
The centers have for years been able to provide care while charging families considerably less money than the average private childcare facility because the GSA covers facility costs and accreditation fees, with the childcare center board member telling the Post her center was able to charge $2,000 per month for tuition—less than many accredited centers in the Washington, D.C. area.
At least 12 of the GSA's childcare centers are located in places identified by the Center for American Progress as "childcare deserts," where there are more children in need of childcare than there are spots at licensed centers.
Half of the centers—41—are in government buildings that were included on a list of federal properties that DOGE targeted for ending their leases, and eight have been named as ones that could be eliminated more quickly through "accelerated disposition," according to new list posted by the GSA last week.
"This harms children, families, and childcare providers who care for them," said the Empire State Campaign for Child Care.
Chris Adams, a software developer at the Library of Congress, said it was "characteristically cruel" of the Trump administration to likely force both public and private sector workers "to quit by going after their childcare."
Longtime early childhood educator and advocate Cindy Jurie said the gutting of the childcare office suggests "tax breaks for the wealthy supersede all else."
While demanding cuts to government investments in foreign aid, health research, Social Security, healthcare, and education, Trump and the Republican Party have pushed for a permanent extension to 2017 tax cuts that primarily benefited corporations and the richest Americans.
'Elon Musk is destroying our democracy, and he's using the fortune he built at Tesla to do it'
Outraged by Elon Musk's devastating contributions to the Trump administration, tens of thousands worldwide held "Tesla Takedown" protests at over 200 locations on Saturday.
Protests began the day in front of Tesla showrooms in Australia and New Zealand. They then rippled across Europe, including Finland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and the UK. In the US, protests occurred in nearly every state, including the northeast, south, midwest, and west coast.
"Elon Musk is destroying our democracy, and he's using the fortune he built at Tesla to do it," organizers wrote on Action Network, which has an interactive map of the protest sites. "We are taking action at Tesla to stop Musk's illegal coup."
Organizers also have a message for people with ties to the company: "Sell your Teslas, dump your stock, join the picket lines."
Since Musk began dismantling the federal bureaucracy as chief of President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), critics have protested at Tesla facilities and posted videos about selling their vehicles on social media.
In an aerial view, protesters demonstrate against Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiatives during a nationwide “Tesla Takedown” rally at a dealership on March 29, 2025, in Austin, Texas. (Getty image)
While protesting at the Tesla dealership in west London, Louise Cobbett-Witten told The Guardian: “It’s too overwhelming to do nothing. There is real solace in coming together like this. Everyone has to do something. We haven’t got a big strategy besides just standing on the side of the street, holding signs and screaming.”
Alainn Hanson, of Washington, DC, brought her mother from Minnesota to their first Tesla protest. She told CNN: “I’m sick of billionaires trampling over working class people.”
Here are some of Saturday's actions:
Saint Petersburg, Florida
Cherry Hill, New Jersey
Washington, DC
Tucson, Arizona
Manlius, New York
Salt Lake City, Utah
Vancouver, British Columbia
Chicago, Illinois
And in London, England