Below, you will find some headlines we may have missed and some interesting video clips on several subjects. Please feel free to share anything you may have run across; just make sure it’s not from a McMAGAt infested shithole.
R.I.P.
Democratic House Rep. Sylvester Turner from Texas died last night at age 70.
His last words to his constituents were “don’t mess with Medicaid.”
Freshman Texas Congressman Dies Just Hours After Trump Speech to Congress
A newly elected Texas congressman with just two months on the job has died — hours after President Donald Trump’s speech to Congress Tuesday night. He was 70.
Rep. Sylvester Turner, a Democrat who served as mayor of Houston from 2016-2024, was elected to Congress in November to fill the seat left vacant following the death of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee.
Turner’s death was confirmed Wednesday morning by his mayoral successor, John Whitmire, who made the grim announcement during a Houston city council meeting.
Updates:
Trump Joint Speech Hits ‘Bottom of the Barrel’ in CNN Flash Poll — Even Compared to Trump’s Other Speeches
In this case, Chalian explained that the audience was 14 percent more Republican than the population — and that Trump’s speech had the lowest “very positive” reaction of any such address since the poll began — lower than all 4 of Trump’s first-term addresses.
What Others Are Saying:
Nearly 6,000 USDA workers fired by Trump ordered back to work for now
An independent federal agency has ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to temporarily reinstate close to 6,000 employees fired since Feb. 13, finding reasonable grounds to believe the agency acted illegally in terminating them.
The Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) issued a stay, ordering USDA to return the fired workers to their jobs for 45 days while an investigation into the firings continues. The MSPB acts as an internal court to consider federal employees’ complaints against the government.
Trump will delay some auto tariffs after Detroit Three push
President Donald Trump agreed to delay tariffs for one month on some vehicles built in North America after a call with the CEOs of General Motors (GM.N), opens new tab and Ford (F.N), opens new tab and the chair of Stellantis, the White House said Wednesday.
The automakers had urged Trump to waive 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada on vehicles that comply with the 2020 U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement’s rules of origin. The move will benefit U.S. automakers and other foreign automakers that are in compliance.
Good Trouble:
SCOTUS:
Supreme Court upholds a lower court order to force USAID to pay contractors
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday reined in some of the Trump administration’s sweeping effort to eliminate foreign aid that has been authorized by Congress.
By a 5-to-4 vote, the justices left in place a lower court order that so far has only required the Trump administration to pay contractors for foreign aid work that has already been completed — roughly $2 billion.
The case began two weeks ago when two major foreign aid contractors — the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition and the Global Health Council — went to court to challenge the Trump administration’s cutoff of funds at USAID and the State Department.
Health:
The Fascist Felon, DOGEbags, and their Brownshirts:
Trump administration plans to cut 80,000 employees from Veterans Affairs, according to internal memo
The Department of Veterans Affairs is planning a reorganization that includes cutting over 80,000 jobs from the sprawling agency that provides health care for retired military members, according to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press.
The VA’s chief of staff, Christopher Syrek, told top-level officials at the agency that it had an objective to cut enough employees to return to 2019 staffing levels of just under 400,000. That would require terminating tens of thousands of employees after the VA expanded during the Biden administration, as well as to cover veterans impacted by burn pits under the 2022 PACT Act.
The memo instructs top-level staff to prepare for an agency-wide reorganization in August to “resize and tailor the workforce to the mission and revised structure.” It also calls for agency officials to work with the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency to “move out aggressively, while taking a pragmatic and disciplined approach” to the Trump administration’s goals. Government Executive first reported on the internal memo.
