News Dump for Friday, April 18

I give up. I don’t have all the news that I wanted to put in tonight’s post, but I can’t keep up with the changes that come in hourly. One example: The White House threatened Harvard’s nonprofit status. And its ability to enroll international students. And its funding. And then tonight, as summarized by Don Moynihan on BlueSky: 

“White House said it was Harvard’s fault that they did not pick up to verify a letter that the admin said was coming, was on govt letterhead, and signed by three agency officials. Also, the administration stands by the letter. Which was a mistake.

“What a clown show.” 

Yep. 

So—onward. The New York Times accounts of the ongoing Harvard mess are included in tonight’s “Awful news” section below. But first take a look at some of the more hopeful signs:

Hopeful news

Heather Cox Richardson lists signs of the shift in opinion, including conservative opinion, against the Trump/Musk regime:

“There seems to be a change in the air.

“Three days ago, on April 14, Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times wrote that the vibe is shifting against the right. Yesterday, former neocon and now fervent Trump critic and editor of The Bulwark Bill Kristol posted a photo of plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Officers kidnapping Tufts University graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk, and commented: ‘Where does the ‘Abolish ICE’ movement go to get its apology.’

“Today, in the New York Times, conservative David Brooks called for all those resisting what he called ‘a multifront assault to make the earth a playground for ruthless men’ to work together. He called for a ‘comprehensive national civic uprising’ that would first stop Trump and then create ‘a long-term vision of a fairer society that is not just hard on Trump, but hard on the causes of Trumpism—one that offers a positive vision.’ …

“That shift has apparently swept in New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, who is generally a good barometer of the way today’s non-MAGA Republicans are thinking. In an interview today, he said: ‘[M]y feelings about not only Trump, but the administration, are falling like a boulder going into the Mariana Trench. So the memory of things that this administration has done, of which I approve, is drowning in the number of things that are, in my view, reckless, stupid, awful, un-American, hateful and bad—not just for the country, but also for the conservative movement.’”

MSNBC opinion editor James Downie describes the continuing erosion of support that was never as strong as Trump claimed. 

[MSNBC] “At the most extreme, the president and his allies tried to claim that his victory — the third-narrowest since World War II — represented a sweeping “mandate.” Even some of his critics argued his second term brought with it a “vibe shift.”

“But the “vibe shift” was always a mirage. And even before Trump’s 100th day in office, the mirage is already disappearing. …

“In fact, the president’s second-term approval ratings look eerily similar to his first: a poor start that only gets worse. Trump’s initial favorability ratings in January were the second-worst of any presidency, just slightly better than his previous administration. By mid-March, his net approval was again negative; by early April, his average disapproval was already more than 50%.”

Awful news

Trump’s attacks on Harvard are just part of his vendetta against all education, from Head Start through graduate schools. The latest in his attacks on Harvard: 

[New York Times] “The Trump administration has threatened to block Harvard University from enrolling international students unless the school hands over detailed records about the student body, in another escalation of the federal government’s fight against higher education. …

“Mr. Trump has targeted universities as his administration moves to eradicate diversity efforts and what it says is rampant antisemitism on campuses. But the administration’s demands of Harvard are much broader than that, including performing audits of the student body’s ideological views.” 

[New York Times] “President Trump threatened Harvard University’s tax-exempt status on Tuesday after the school rebuffed his administration’s demands for a series of policy changes, a dramatic escalation in the feud between the president and the nation’s richest and oldest university. …

“Federal law prohibits the president from “directly or indirectly” telling the I.R.S. to conduct specific tax investigations, and it is unclear whether the agency would actually move forward with an investigation. A spokeswoman for the I.R.S. declined to comment.

“’Selective persecution of your political adversaries through the tax system is the stuff of dictatorship,’ said Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury secretary and former president of Harvard. ‘This is unconscionable and wrong but a continuation of trends we have seen in President Trump’s approach both to universities and to tax enforcement.’”

And then this: 

[New York Times] “Harvard University received an emailed letter from the Trump administration last Friday that included a series of demands about hiring, admissions and curriculum so onerous that school officials decided they had no choice but to take on the White House.”

On Monday, Harvard replied with a resounding, public refusal. Then they got “a frantic call” from a Trump administration official saying that the letter, which was signed by three Trump administration officials, was “unauthorized.” But now the administration “stands by” the letter and blames Harvard. 

“’It was malpractice on the side of Harvard’s lawyers not to pick up the phone and call the members of the antisemitism task force who they had been talking to for weeks,’ said May Mailman, the White House senior policy strategist. ‘Instead, Harvard went on a victimhood campaign.’ …

Harvard’s response read, in part: “It remains unclear to us exactly what, among the government’s recent words and deeds, were mistakes or what the government actually meant to do and say.”

Meanwhile, over at the IRS, which this week capitulated to the DOGE team at DHS and agreed to break the law and release tax return records. Maybe just tax records of undocumented immigrants. Maybe just records of immigrants. More likely, IMHO, any damn records they want.

The law-breaking was too much for the Trump-appointed acting commissioner Melanie Krause, who resigned, as did several other top officials. For the record, Krause was the third acting commissioner of the first 100 days of the Trump administration. 

[New York Times] “[Treasury Secretary Scott] Bessent’s deputy, Michael Faulkender, will be the new acting leader, replacing Gary Shapley, the Treasury Department confirmed on Friday. Mr. Faulkender will be the third acting leader of the agency this week.

“Mr. Bessent had complained to Mr. Trump this week that Mr. Musk had done an end run around him to get Mr. Shapley installed as the interim head of the I.R.S., even though the tax collection agency reports to Mr. Bessent, the people familiar with the situation said. …

“Mr. Trump had picked Mr. Shapley to run the I.R.S. on Tuesday after the previous interim head, Melanie Krause, chose to resign. Ms. Krause quit after the Treasury Department agreed to use I.R.S. data to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement deport undocumented immigrants.”

The Trump/Musk regime effectively abolished the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday, April 17. On April 18, a federal judge barred them from firing the employees until at least April 28, when she will hold an evidentiary hearing.  

[Wired] “More than 1,400 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) workers were terminated from their positions on Thursday amid a broader Trump administration shakeup at the independent government agency, sources tell WIRED. …

“The mass reduction in force, or RIF, comes nearly a month after a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order barring the Trump administration from removing probationary employees at the CFPB and other agencies. On Friday, an appeals court ruled that the CFPB could begin terminations again so long as ‘individual assessments’ were conducted for each terminated employee. Around 200 employees will be left at the CFPB, effectively gutting the agency Elon Musk has previously said should be ‘deleted.’ …

“The CFPB was established by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, an expansive piece of legislation that imposed consequential regulatory reform in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The agency was created to protect consumers from unfair or deceptive financial practices, and it claims to be responsible for $19.7 billion in consumer relief since its inception, as well as $5 billion in civil penalties.” 

More from DOGE: stop paying doctors and nurses. Apparently the “efficiency” part of the “Department of Government Efficiency” means adding new layers of bureaucratic red tape and plenty of delay to spending on health care. This is not money for future expenses—it is money that has already been approved and work that has already been done. 

[Washington Post] “The U.S. DOGE Service is putting new curbs on billions of dollars in federal health-care grants, requiring government officials to manually review and approve previously routine payments — and paralyzing grant awards to tens of thousands of organizations, according to 12 people familiar with the new arrangements.

“The effort, which DOGE has dubbed ‘Defend the Spend,’ has left thousands of payments backed up, including funding for doctors’ and nurses’ salaries at federal health centers for the poor.Some grantees are waiting on payments they expected last week. …

“’Instead of cutting red tape, they are strangling grantees with it,’ said Robert Gordon, who served as the HHS assistant secretary of financial resources during the Biden administration.

“Some officials have been told that only Trump political appointees can sign requests to disburse funds, even if a career official has already approved it, adding an additionallayer of review. The justification for each paymentalso must include an explanation of how the money will be used to advance Trump administration priorities, according to two employees in separate agencies who received high-level briefings on the process.” 

RFK Jr.’s characterization of people with autism is even more appalling than his brain worm. 

[New York Times] “Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s remarks this week that autism ‘destroys’ children have prompted outrage among many autistic people, who said they had done things Mr. Kennedy claimed were impossible, like hold a job, write a poem, play baseball and go on dates. …

“’Autism doesn’t destroy families. It’s the ableism that does,’ said Tyla Grant, who was diagnosed with autism at 17. She called Mr. Kennedy’s comments ‘fear-mongering’ and said his ‘rhetoric flattens our existence into this outdated stereotype.’ …

“Mr. Kennedy made his remarks at a news conference on Wednesday …

“’These are kids who will never pay taxes,’ he said, adding, ‘Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.’ …

“Marianne Eloise, 32, was stunned by Mr. Kennedy’s remarks, especially his comment that autistic people would never write a poem. Ms. Eloise, who is autistic, is herself a published poet.

‘I would love to read R.F.K.’s poetry, if he could share it,’ she said. ‘I’m not familiar with his work.’”

The Trump/Musk regime wants to eliminate information. Specifically, they are targeting government data, and eviscerating the departments and agencies that track and publicly report important information. Among their targets:

[Pro Publica] “The Department of Health and Human Services, now led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., laid off the 17-person team in charge of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which for more than five decades has tracked trends in substance abuse and mental health disorders. … And the department has placed on leave the team that oversees the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, a collection of survey responses from women before and after giving birth that has become a crucial tool in trying to address the country’s disconcertingly high rate of maternal mortality.

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has eviscerated divisions that oversee the WISQARS database on accidental deaths and injuries — everything from fatal shootings to poisonings to car accidents — and the team that maintains AtlasPlus, an interactive tool for tracking HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

“The Environmental Protection Agency is planning to stop requiring oil refineries, power plants and other industrial facilities to measure and report their greenhouse-gas emissions …

“[D]eep cutbacks at the National Weather Service are forcing it to reduce weather balloon launches, which gather a vast repository of second-by-second data on everything from temperature to humidity to atmospheric pressure in order to improve forecasting. …

“As one dataset after another falls by the wayside, the nation’s policymakers are losing their ability to make evidence-based decisions, and the public is losing the ability to hold them accountable for their results. Even if a future administration seeks to resurrect some of the curtailed efforts, the 2025-29 hiatus will make trends harder to identify and understand.” 

When a hepatitis C outbreak began in Florida in December, the Centers for Disease Control quickly analyzed blood samples and identified the culprit: a doctor at a pain clinic, who was improperly reusing injection vials. That made it possible to limit the spread of the virus. Then DOGE imposed efficiency.  

[NPR] “But on April 1, the outbreak investigation was brought to a halt. All 27 of the lab’s scientists received an email from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services informing them that they were losing their jobs. Like thousands of other employees who received similar emails that day, the scientists were told they would be placed on administrative leave until June 2, after which they would no longer work for the CDC. …

“While the lab remains shuttered, ongoing investigations of current hepatitis outbreaks have been stalled, not just in Florida, but also in Oregon, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Georgia, according to CDC employees who work closely with the Division of Viral Hepatitis. “ 

The scientists were given just one day to close down the lab. That’s not enough time to relocate a million samples in more than 50 freezers, maintained with temperatures ranging rom -80 to -20 degrees. 

Of course, the scientists—or some of them—might get called back. RFK Jr. said “We’re going to do 80 percent cuts, but 20 percent of those are going to have to be reinstalled, because we’ll make mistakes.”

Another mistake: Thousands of Urine and Tissue Samples Are in Danger of Rotting After Staff Cuts at a CDC Laboratory

“Workers who recently lost their jobs at the National Institute for Occupational Safety say they’re concerned that there’s no plan for managing biological samples tied to research projects.”

Corruption Watch

A right wing-connected company appears to have an inside track to a government contract far bigger and more complicated than any work it has done before.

[Pro Publica] “Founded six years ago, Ramp is backed by some of the most powerful figures in Silicon Valley. One is Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist who was one of Trump’s earliest supporters in the tech world and who spent millions aiding Vice President JD Vance’s Ohio Senate run. …

“GSA is eying Ramp to get a piece of the government’s $700 billion internal expense card program, known as SmartPay. In recent weeks, Trump appointees at GSA have been moving quickly to tap Ramp for a charge card pilot program worth up to $25 million, sources told ProPublica, even as Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency highlights the multitudes of contracts it has canceled across federal agencies.

“The special attention Gruenbaum paid to Ramp raised flags inside and outside the agency. “This goes against all the normal contracting safeguards that are set up to prevent contracts from being awarded based on who you know,” said Scott Amey, the general counsel with the bipartisan Project on Government Oversight. He said career civil servants should lead the process to pick the best choice for taxpayers.

“A senior GSA official, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution, said the high level attention Ramp received was unusual, especially before a bid had been made public. ‘You don’t want to give this impression that leadership has already decided the winner somehow.’” 

Also: Musk’s SpaceX is frontrunner to build Trump’s Golden Dome missile shield

And: Trump’s newest grift: Building a cryptocurrency empire while destroying its regulators

While in Florida—can you say “conflict of interest?”

[Orlando Sentinel] “Former [Florida] state Rep. Carolina Amesty is in talks with the U.S. Department of Justice to avoid going to trial in a criminal case accusing her of defrauding a government pandemic relief program, according to a court filing. 

“Amesty is represented by Brad Bondi, a high-powered litigator and the brother of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.”