March, 12 2025, 08:49am EDT
New Laws Implicitly Sanction Trump and Musk’s Violation of Existing Laws
With Congress moving to vote on a government spending bill despite the Trump administration’s ongoing and explicit refusal to honor existing appropriations levels, Revolving Door Project Executive Director Jeff Hauser issued the following statement:
“Negotiating an unsatisfactory continuing resolution in order to maintain the status quo might make sense in ordinary times, but these are far from ordinary times. For weeks now the Trump administration has been flagrantly ignoring existing appropriations; there is no reason to believe they will treat new appropriations levels with any more respect. The public and the courts alike need to know that the U.S. Congress does not accept Donald Trump and Elon Musk shredding the core precepts of our Constitution's separation of powers. Congress—not the president, and not the president’s top donor—has the power of the purse.”
The Revolving Door Project is continually monitoring the ongoing assault on the capacity of the federal government, including tracking the administration’s failures to comply with court orders, the DOGE agents carrying out Musk’s mission to dismantle public services, and the agencies they’re illegally gutting.
The Revolving Door Project (RDP) scrutinizes executive branch appointees to ensure they use their office to serve the broad public interest, rather than to entrench corporate power or seek personal advancement.
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EPA Will Close All Environmental Justice Offices, Zeldin Says
"So many people will needlessly die because of this," said one critic.
Mar 12, 2025
In the Trump administration's latest move to obliterate three decades of work to address the systemic injustices faced by low-income and minority communities across the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday announced plans to shutter all ten of the agency's environmental justice regional offices as well as its central hub addressing the issue in Washington, D.C.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin sent an internal memo to agency officials saying that "reorganizing" and eliminating the offices would help fulfill President Donald Trump's "mandate" to end "forced discrimination programs.
The EPA's Office of Environmental Justice was opened during the Clinton administration and expanded by former Democratic President Joe Biden, who emphasized the office's mission of ensuring "the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income" with respect to environmental policies.
But Zeldin likened the office's goal of addressing pollution in regions like "Cancer Alley," an 85-mile stretch of land in Louisiana where the high number of petrochemical plants has been linked to higher-than-average cancer rates in predominantly Black and poor communities, to "discrimination"—apparently against wealthy households and white Americans.
"Wait a second, so trying to address environmental pollution and high cancer rates in poor, rural, or minority areas is racist, but the actual fact that polluting is happening is not bad?" asked one critic on social media.
Zeldin's memo came days after the EPA and the Department of Justice dropped a lawsuit filed by the Biden administration against Denka Performance Elastomer plant in Louisiana, where regulators found the company's chloroprene emissions were fueling health problems across nearby communities.
"If anybody needed a clearer sign that this administration gives not a single damn for the people of the United States, this is it," Matthew Tejada, who led EPA environmental justice work for a decade until 2023, toldThe New York Times after Zeldin sent the memo Tuesday.
Zeldin also announced on Monday that he was cancelling 400 grants for environmental justice and diversity initiatives—despite numerous court orders against Trump's attempt to freeze federal funding that has already been appropriated, including one in which the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland prohibited federal agencies from terminating "equity-related" grants.
The administrator claimed Monday that the EPA is "working hand-in-hand with [the Department of Government Efficiency] to rein in wasteful federal spending," but Margie Alt, director of the Climate Action Campaign, said that "cleaning up pollution is only 'wasteful' if you don't believe everyone in America has the equal right to breathe clean air."
"Lee Zeldin's idea of 'accountability' is apparently to create a world of hurt for the most vulnerable while spitting in the face of the law and giving wealthy corporate interests the ability to pollute at will," said Alt. "All the while Elon Musk lines his pockets with billions of taxpayer dollars as his so-called efficiency agents take a hatchet to programs designed to help people at risk survive. Congress must put a stop to Trump's brazen refusal to follow the law and demand these illegally canceled funds already promised to disadvantaged communities are released."
The coming closure of all EPA environmental justice offices suggested that "the GOP way" includes letting "the kids drink sewage water and breathe polluted air to make the 1% richer," said columnist Wajahat Ali.
Former New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Kathy Sullivan said that for the Trump administration, it is "not enough to ban talking about discrimination," a reference to words and phrases like "inclusiveness" and "inequality" that agencies have flagged in government documents.
"Trump's policies bring back discrimination," said Sullivan.
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'Bring Him Home': Mahmoud Khalil's Wife Describes 'Nightmare' Arrest, Demands His Safe Return
"Khalil's abduction, in its cruelty and unlawfulness, has horrified people around the country. Let us be clear: This is what fascism looks like, and it is part of a much broader campaign," said the director of Palestine Legal.
Mar 12, 2025
When legal resident and Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil was arrested by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents on Saturday, his 8-months pregnant wife was with him. In a statement released Tuesday, Khalil's wife recounted the couple's encounter with DHS and begged for her husband's release.
"I demand the U.S. government release him, reinstate his green card, and bring him home," said Khalil's wife, who is not named in the statement.
Khalil, who completed his graduate coursework at Columbia University in December in December and played a prominent role in pro-Palestine protests at the campus last year, was confronted by immigration agents on March 8 who said they were acting on State Department orders to revoke his student visa. Khalil's lawyer told the agents that Khalil has a green card, and the agents said that that had been revoked, too, according to Khalil's attorney.
"This last week has been a nightmare," said Khalil's wife, who said that Mahmoud had emailed Columbia University the day before his arrest and asked the university for legal support because he had been the target of an "intense and targeted doxxing campaign." That email went unanswered, she said.
"Anti-Palestinian organizations were spreading false claims about my husband that were simply not based in reality," she said.
The couple was confronted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents after coming home from an Iftar dinner in the later evening on Saturday. An officer told Khalil's wife to go upstairs, but she refused, according to the statement.
"The officers later barricaded Mahmoud from me," she said. "We were not shown any warrant and the ICE officers hung up the phone on our lawyer. When my husband attempted to give me his phone so I could speak with our lawyer, the officers got increasingly aggressive, despite Mahmoud being fully cooperative."
She said that the officers handcuffed Khalil and forced him into an unmarked vehicle. "Watching this play out in front of me was traumatizing: It felt like a scene from a movie I never signed up to watch," she said. "I am pleading with the world to continue to speak up against his unjust and horrific detention by the Trump administration."
After Khalil was arrested on Saturday he was transferred multiple states away to an ICEprocessing center in Jena, Louisiana.
A federal judge on Monday temporarily halted the Trump administration's effort to deport Khalil, and on Wednesday Khalil's legal defense is set to appear in court for a hearing before that same judge.
"Khalil's abduction, in its cruelty and unlawfulness, has horrified people around the country. Let us be clear: This is what fascism looks like, and it is part of a much broader campaign," said Dima Khalidi, the founder and director of Palestine Legal, in an article for The Nation published Tuesday.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who has pledged to crack down on pro-Palestine protesters on university campuses, said Khalil's arrest is "the first arrest of many to come."
The administration accuses Khalil of supporting Hamas, but neither White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, DHS, nor ICE have provided evidence to support their accusations against Khalil, according to CNN.
Reuters reported that the judge could order Khalil's release, but deportation proceedings could still continue in a separate immigration court, teeing up a test of "where immigration courts draw the line between protected free speech and alleged support for groups the United States calls terrorists."
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Will Senate Democrats Cave to Trump and Musk by Helping GOP Pass Its Anti-Working Class Funding Bill?
Opposing the Republican president's lawless rampage against the federal government, a massive giveaway to billionaires, and vicious attacks on the working class "should be an open-and-shut case," said one commentator.
Mar 12, 2025
House Republicans on Tuesday pushed through a six-month government funding package with the help of just one Democrat—Rep. Jared Golden of Maine.
But Republicans in the Senate are going to need much more assistance from the minority party to pass the legislation, which would give the Trump administration and unelected billionaire Elon Muskfree rein to continue their assault on the nation's working class.
With Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) expected to break ranks and oppose the stopgap funding measure, the GOP will need the support of at least eight Democratic senators to get the bill to President Donald Trump's desk before the government shuts down on Friday at midnight.
Senate Democrats are publicly agonizing over their options, torn between effectively greenlighting the Trump administration's lawless rampage through federal agencies and allowing a painful government shutdown. The House skipped town following Tuesday's vote, meaning a shutdown is virtually guaranteed if the GOP funding bill goes down in the Senate.
The American Prospect's David Dayen argued Wednesday that opposing the bill "should be an open-and-shut case" for Democratic senators given the damage the measure itself would inflict—including $13 billion in cuts to non-military spending, from affordable housing to public health programs to IRS enforcement—as well as the green light it would give Trump and Musk to "continue to ignore Congress and toss out disfavored spending."
"In fact, the House Republican bill gives the president more leeway to move money around," Dayen observed. "It appropriates money for things that Musk has eliminated, meaning that money can operate as a floating slush fund for Trump's priorities, as long as the courts don't roll back the illegal impoundments."
"If you're a member of Congress, you're being told that your work product doesn't matter, that the constitutional power of the purse doesn't matter, and that there's no guarantee that anything you pass will actually reach the people you serve," he added. "Yet Senate Democrats, really the last line of defense against a unilateral government where all spending runs through Donald Trump, haven't committed to the simple proposition that any budgetary requirement they pass must actually be spent. If they can't stand for that, what can they stand for?"
"Who would that hurt the most? Working people. Billionaires win, families lose. Republicans' values are clear."
At least one Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), has pledged to support the Republican package, and other members of the caucus are on the fence.
"It's a very tough choice," said Sen. Angus King (D-Maine).
Politicoreported Wednesday that most of the 20 Democrats it surveyed shortly after the House vote "were noncommital" on the GOP bill, which would fund the government through September.
Some Democratic senators have unequivocally denounced the Republican funding stopgap, which comes in lieu of full-year, bipartisan appropriations bills that typically impose constraints on the executive branch.
"After months of bipartisan talks, they're walking away from the negotiating table and offering a non-starter House bill that forces us to the brink of a full government shutdown," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said of GOP lawmakers in a scathing floor speech on Tuesday. "And who would that hurt the most? Working people. Billionaires win, families lose. Republicans' values are clear."
"In addition to giving co-presidents Trump and Musk the power to spend taxpayer money wherever they want, the House Republicans also propose general cuts," said Warren. "Cuts from programs that help families put food on the table, afford child care, and keep our communities safe. Cuts from local communities for projects like improving hospitals, teaching facilities, and childcare centers—millions of funding that the House and Senate had already agreed to."
Kobie Christian, a spokesperson for the advocacy coalition Unrig Our Economy, echoed Warren, calling the House GOP bill "a fundamental betrayal of veterans, seniors, and working-class Americans nationwide."
"Why are Republicans pushing these drastic cuts and enabling Trump's costly tariffs that will make things worse for millions of Americans, including their own constituents? The answer is simple," said Christian. "This is just another step in congressional Republicans' plot to give billionaires a massive payday, while everyday Americans pay the price. Next week, Congress will head home for House recess and hear from their constituents who want their representatives to stand up against corporate interests, stop their pro-billionaire agenda, and fight for working people instead."
As an alternative to the Republican bill, the top Democratic appropriators in the House and Senate have put forth a short-term continuing resolution that would fund the government through April 11 and give lawmakers time to complete full-year spending negotiations.
There's no indication Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress, would be willing to support the alternative offered by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.).
"Speaker Johnson's slush fund continuing resolution empowers President Trump and Elon Musk to pick winners and losers with taxpayer dollars, and make no mistake: it shortchanges families and includes painful funding cuts for bipartisan domestic priorities like cancer research, Army Corps projects, and much more," Murray and DeLauro warned.
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