All Quotes

"Anytime the EPA wants to issue a new regulation — say, revising how much mercury a power plant is allowed to emit — it looks at both the costs and the benefits before finalizing the rule. The EPA adds up how much companies would likely have to spend on things like installing upgraded scrubbers in smokestacks. Then the agency estimates the economic benefit of imposing the regulation, such as more days with cleaner air or fewer workers calling out sick. The biggest benefits usually come from improving health through things like avoiding hospital visits and reducing early deaths. There is some fuzziness in the numbers on both sides of the ledger though. If a bunch of companies turn to a handful of suppliers for pollution control equipment, that could drive up compliance costs. And how exactly do you price a hypothetical emergency room trip that didn’t happen? “In my experience at EPA, there’s never a perfect estimate of costs or benefits,” McCabe said. Yet even with imperfect calculations, regulators could get a decent sense of whether the juice was worth the squeeze when it comes to a new pollution standard, and the public would get a window into how the decision was made. Under the Biden administration, the EPA found that enforcing the more stringent PM2.5 regulations it issued in 2024 would add up to $46 billion in health benefits by 2032, vastly more than the cost of complying with the rule. The EPA now effectively wants to put receipts from the benefits side of the ledger through the shredder."

"This change in math is part of a broader pattern at the EPA — and across the federal government — of just measuring and counting fewer things under the second Trump Administration. The EPA has already closed its Office of Research and Development, which was meant to provide the scientific basis for environmental regulations, like tracking the effects of toxic chemicals on the human body. With less data on science and economics, agencies like the EPA have less accountability for their actions as they face more pressure from the White House to cut regulations and craft policies benefiting politically favored industries. It also sets the stage for taking the teeth out of other regulations, like the Clean Air Act. The EPA has already dismantled its legal foundation for addressing climate change. Joseph Goffman, who served as assistant administrator of the EPA’s air and radiation office under Biden, said this change in how the EPA calculates health benefits is part of a broader campaign against air pollution regulations. “It really illustrates what the ulterior motive is and that is to mute or mask the true impact of [particulate matter] exposure and the huge benefits that flow from reducing it,” Goffman said. “Suddenly deciding that you can’t ascribe a dollar value to reducing PM really is convenient to the point of being instrumental to Zeldin’s efforts to weaken PM standards.” If the EPA never comes up with a new way to monetize the health benefits of regulations, it’s likely that improvements in air quality will stall, and air pollution could get worse. “One would anticipate that we could see PM 2.5 levels rising across the country,” Hasenkopf said."

"That way they know that being on social media is just a secondary thing to do otherwise you’re going to have a tough time convincing your child to do something else."

"Jacqueline Smith, the outlet's ombudsman, said Stars and Stripes reports on matters important to service members and their families — not just weapons systems or war strategy — and she's detected nothing “woke” about its reporting. “I think it's very important that Stars and Stripes maintains its editorial independence, which is the basis of its credibility,” Smith said. A longtime newspaper editor in Connecticut, Smith's role was created by Congress three decades ago and she reports to the House Armed Services Committee. It's the latest move by the Trump administration to impose restrictions on journalists. Most reporters from legacy news outlets have left the Pentagon rather than to agree to new rules imposed by Hegseth that they feel would give him too much control over what they report and write. The New York Times has sued to overturn the regulations."

"Trump has also sought to shut down government-funded outlets like Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that report independent news about the world in countries overseas. Also this week, the administration raided the home of a Washington Post journalist as part of an investigation into a contractor accused of stealing government secrets, a move many journalists interpreted as a form of intimidation. The Post reported that applicants to Stars and Stripes were being asked how they would advance Trump's executive orders and policy priorities in the role. They were asked to identify one or two orders or initiatives that were significant to them. That raised questions about whether it was appropriate for a journalist to be given what is, in effect, a loyalty test. Smith said it was the government's Office of Personnel Management — not the newspaper — that was responsible for the question on job applications and said it was consistent with what was being asked of applicants for other government jobs. But she said it was not something that should be asked of journalists. “The loyalty is to the truth, not the administration,” she said."

"Traditional conservatives are as anti-fascist as any liberal. Their political vision is derived by libertarian thinkers of past centuries, such as John Locke and Edmund Burke. Their modern philosophy was articulated by erudite commentators like William F. Buckley and George Will. Their political heroes are men like Ronald Reagan and John McCain. Today on the right, there are plenty of folks who call themselves conservatives -- they are all over social media, they fill every time slot of Fox News and they dominate the Republican Party. Yet, these claimants to a long tradition that favors limited government, the rule of law and the advancement of liberty are unquestioning supporters of a president whose actions are those of a lawless, aspiring dictator. These people who claim to be conservatives, yet enthusiastically cheer for a man who violates the core tenets of traditional conservatism every day, should stop pretending they are something they are not and simply accept the better description of what they have become. It is a word that starts with F."

"A 15-strong French military contingent has arrived in the Greenland capital Nuuk, officials say, as several European states send soldiers there as part of a so-called reconnaissance mission. The deployment, which will also include personnel from Germany, Sweden, Norway and the UK, comes as US President Donald Trump continues to press his claim to the Arctic island, which is a semi-autonomous part of Denmark. The deployment of European NATO allies of Denmark to Nuuk was unprecedented, said French special envoy Olivier Poivre d'Arvor, who saw it as sending a strong political signal. "This is a first exercise... we'll show the US that NATO is present." Trump has doubled down on his bid to bring Greenland under US control, telling reporters in the Oval Office "we need Greenland for national security". Although he has not ruled out the use of force, he said late on Wednesday that he thought something could be worked out with Denmark. "The problem is there's not a thing that Denmark can do about it if Russia or China wants to occupy Greenland, but there's everything we can do. You found that out last week with Venezuela.""

"Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Poland was not planning to join the European military deployment to Greenland, but warned that any US military intervention there "would be a political disaster". "A conflict or attempted annexation of the territory of a NATO member by another Nato member would be the end of the world as we know it - and which for many years guaranteed our security," he told a press conference. Russia's embassy in Belgium meanwhile expressed "serious concern" at what was unfolding in the Arctic, accusing NATO of building up a military presence there "under the false pretext of a growing threat from Moscow and Beijing". However, the European NATO deployment consists of only a few dozen personnel as part of Danish-led joint exercises called Operation Arctic Endurance. While heavy in symbolism, it was not immediately clear how long they would stay. Germany was sending an A400M transport plane to Nuuk on Thursday with a contingent of 13 soldiers, although officials said they would stay in Greenland only until Saturday. Danish defence officials said they had decided with the government of Greenland that there would be an increased military presence around Greenland in the coming period to bolster Nato's "footprint in the Arctic for the benefit of both European and transatlantic security"."

"The US already has a military base in Greenland, currently staffed by up to 150 people, and has the option of bringing in far greater numbers under existing agreements with Copenhagen. But the Danish-led initiative is seen as signalling to the Trump administration that its European allies also have a stake in security in the Arctic and North Atlantic. Sweden's prime minister said Swedish army officers had been sent to Nuuk on Wednesday. Two Norwegians and one British military officer were also being sent. Downing Street said the UK shared President Trump's concern about "the security of the High North", and said the deployment involved "stepping up with stronger exercising, to deter the Russian aggression and the Chinese activity." Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Thursday that defence and protection of Greenland was a common concern for the entire NATO alliance."

"ICE veterans I’ve spoken with have concerns about the qualifications and aptitude of their new colleagues, especially those with little or no previous law-enforcement experience. Some academy classes have had dropout rates near 50 percent because so many failed the physical-fitness requirements. The Trump administration slashed the length of the training course from about five months to 47 days last summer—because Trump is the 47th president, three officials told me at the time—then cut it further. Now it’s 42 days."

"Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said the intention was to have a military presence "in rotation", with the aim of having a more permanent military presence on the island with foreign allies taking part in exercise and training activities. Copenhagen has disputed Trump's justification for wanting to control Greenland. Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said on Wednesday there was no "instant threat" from China or Russia that Denmark and Greenland could not accommodate, although he shared American security concerns to some extent. A Democratic-led US delegation is due to visit Denmark on Friday for talks with Danish MPs. Rasmussen spoke alongside Greenland's foreign minister after talks with US Vice-President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The Danish diplomat said the talks were "frank but constructive". He described a "fundamental disagreement" between the two sides and later criticised Trump's bid to buy Greenland. "The president's ambition is on the table," the Danish diplomat told Fox News. "Of course we have our red lines. This is 2026, you trade with people but you don't trade people." Greenland's Prime Minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said this week that the territory was in the midst of a geopolitical crisis, and that if his people were asked to make a choice they would choose Denmark over the US. "Greenland does not want to be owned by the United States. Greenland does not want to be governed by the United States. Greenland does not want to be part of the United States," he stressed."

"Trump and his minions are energetically closing the last exit built into the system that prevents absolute dictatorship. They intend to orchestrate the sham elections familiar in all dictatorships, or abolish them. They are not joking. This will be the death blow to the American experiment. There will be no going back. We will become a police state. Our freedoms, already under heavy assault, will be extinguished. At that point, only mass mobilizations and strikes will thwart the solidification of the dictatorship. And such actions, as we see in Minneapolis, will be greeted with lethal state repression."

"Thousands took to the streets in subzero temperatures Friday afternoon to protest the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. Demonstrators wore snowboots and ski goggles, passed around handwarmers and carried signs taped to hockey sticks. Protesters’s eyelashes and beards froze while they chanted “ICE out” and “Minnesota nice, but F— ICE” during a two-hour march through downtown Minneapolis. The march was part of a day of events that encouraged Minnesotans to boycott school, work and shopping in protest of the surge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Twin Cities. ICE agents have been deployed en masse in Minnesota, in what the Department of Homeland Security has described as the largest operation in its history. The enforcement efforts followed a welfare-fraud scandal that put the state’s Somali community into the national spotlight."

"Vice President JD Vance visited Minneapolis on Thursday to urge local officials in the left-leaning city to cooperate with federal authorities to quell what he called “chaos.” The administration has blamed state and local officials for some of the tension. White House officials have denigrated the state’s existing policies and laws that limit cooperation with civil immigration enforcement, including refusing to house ICE detainees in local jails in many situations. During demonstrations in Minneapolis on Friday, roughly 100 clergy members were arrested at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Mostly Christian clergy and faith leaders rallied at the airport, where they claimed planes were flying detained migrants out of the state as part of ICE’s “Operation Metro Surge,” according to Justin Lind-Ayres, a Lutheran pastor in Minneapolis. The MSP Airport Police Department confirmed officers made arrests, but didn’t immediately confirm how many. Protesters at the airport, some wearing clerical stoles draped over their shoulders, knelt while singing hymns and reciting the Lord’s Prayer in frigid conditions that dipped to a low of minus-20 degrees Fahrenheit on Friday, before being handcuffed and led away, video showed."

"Protesters at the downtown march said the huge crowds in harsh weather showed Minnesotans are serious about their wishes for the current ICE operation, and the use of force tactics the officers are employing, to end. “We’re not afraid of ICE, we’re not going to back down. We’re strong, we’re here for our neighbors, we’re here for our community,” said Brianna Verbout, 26, a Minneapolis resident. “Imagine how many people would be out here if it wasn’t negative 20.” “Who cares if you’re cold? We’re used to being cold,” Cindy Boggs, a retired church worker who has lived in Minnesota for the past 50 years, said. “We just gotta stand up and keep with it. I can’t take the cruelty that’s happening to people.” Homeland Security has defended its tactics and maintained it needs to detain immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. Mass immigration enforcement was a key promise of President Trump’s campaign coming into his second term, and officials have expanded the role of agencies like U.S. Customs and Border Protection into the interior to assist with it."

"The free world exhaled on Wednesday when President Trump retreated from his administration’s threat to invade Greenland. That relief, however, masks the damage that Mr. Trump has done to America this week. Mr. Trump’s apologists once dismissed his bullying of Greenland as an attempt at humor. Instead, it has been something far darker. His immoral threats against a loyal NATO ally have escalated a crisis in U.S.-European relations, weakened one of history’s most successful alliances and hurt American interests in tangible ways."

"In the second Trump administration, immigration policy is made with big round numbers. There’s a formula: First the White House sets an ambitious goal—1 million deportations a year, 3,000 immigration arrests a day. Then it presses the federal workforce to meet the target. Last year, Trump officials pledged to double staffing at ICE by adding 10,000 new deportation officers by January 2026. Stephen Miller treated the recruitment drive as a priority on par with the deportation push, demanding daily updates on the pace of hiring. Immigration and Customs Enforcement held job expos in multiple cities and dangled $50,000 bonuses, student-loan forgiveness, and other perks before potential recruits. Just after New Year’s Day, the Department of Homeland Security declared victory, celebrating an ICE hiring spree that “shattered expectations” and achieved a “120% Manpower Increase.” DHS said it received more than 220,000 applications (many candidates applied for three or four different jobs) and signed up 12,000 new officers, agents, and legal staff in about four months. No federal law-enforcement agency has ever expanded this fast."

"The administration also wants more ICE officers on the streets. Trump officials have brought in Border Patrol agents to act as reinforcements in cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago and now Minneapolis. Trump’s rolling campaign has generally targeted one location at a time, but the new hiring surge will give the administration enough personnel to target multiple cities at once. Trump officials say they are filling the jobs by hiring experienced law-enforcement officers from other federal agencies or state and local police departments. Many of the new hires are anxious about their career prospects at ICE once the burst of onetime funding runs out, officials at ICE and DHS told me, especially if Democrats take control of Congress. One ICE official I spoke with told me that some of the new hires, especially rehired retirees, are having second thoughts. Hundreds of the returning officers have been ordered to Minnesota, two officials said, where the administration is conducting the largest-ever DHS crackdown. Some officers have been so cold and miserable that they’ve already quit, and ICE officials have held calls to figure out how to deal with the sudden resignations. Returning officers who have come back from retirement are finding themselves in unfamiliar roles. They spent much of their careers trying to conduct low-key “targeted enforcement” operations in which they planned arrests in advance and sought to take suspects into custody in the safest and least dramatic way possible. Now they’re out in the streets wearing masks, with protesters yelling at them and video cameras rolling. ICE has changed, and the job isn’t the same."

"Most of the federal government could shut down at the end of the week. But that likely wouldn’t halt aggressive ICE and border patrol operations in Minneapolis and other parts of the country. Democrats are up in arms after Border Patrol agents fatally shot Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse and U.S. citizen, in Minneapolis over the weekend. That came after an ICE officer shot and killed Renee Good, another Minneapolis resident and citizen, in her car earlier this month. Under enormous pressure from the base, Senate Democrats have vowed to block a sweeping government funding bill unless significant restrictions are imposed on the Trump administration's immigration enforcement operations. With Republicans plowing ahead with a vote on the House-passed $1.2 trillion funding package later this week, a partial shutdown beginning Saturday now seems increasingly likely. Money is set to run out for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, and many other critical agencies late Friday night."

"Yet, even if Democrats shut down the government, ICE operations aren't likely to be hindered in any meaningful way. Under DHS's shutdown plan, a GOP leadership source said, ICE employees would be considered "excepted" workers and would be required to continue showing up to work, though they, like other workers, would not get paid. On top of that, even in a shutdown, ICE would continue to have ample funding since the agency received $75 billion of additional money for detention and enforcement from Trump’s “big, beautiful bill" last year, the GOP source noted."

"If the government funding lapses at the end of the week, it would mark the second federal shutdown in four months during Trump's second term in office. Senate Democrats blocked a funding bill last fall, demanding that the GOP include an extension to expiring Obamacare tax credits. That shut the government down for 43 days — the longest shutdown in U.S. history. Eight Democrats ultimately caved, voting with Republicans to reopen the government without a deal on the health care subsidies. Polling showed Republicans shouldering more blame for the shutdown than Democrats."

"Nearly a year ago, the Education Department sent universities and K-12 school districts scrambling with a sweeping but vague directive. The “Dear Colleague” letter said schools may be in violation of federal law if they consider race in virtually any way — hiring, discipline policy, scholarships and programming. After a lawsuit and a defeat in court, however, the Trump administration says it is dropping the matter entirely. That means an August federal court order blocking the “Dear Colleague” letter will stand. The Trump administration had also demanded that schools certify that they are in compliance with the letter, and that demand is now dead, too. Still, it is unclear how significant the impact will be. The Trump administration, which made sweeping changes to education over its first year, can still work to impose its view of the law on schools through enforcement actions and other pressure. For instance, in July, the Justice Department published a memo that included many of the same ideas that were in the Education Department’s letter. Further, many schools have already changed their diversity, equity and inclusion policies, wary of running afoul of the administration’s anti-DEI stance."

"Many schools may continue to comply with the anti-DEI directive in an effort to stave off attention from the administration, said Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. “One of the things we have seen is how reluctant institutional leaders are to get crosswise with the federal government, whether or not it’s clearly aligned with the law,” he said. Either way, Hess said he was pleased that the February letter is no longer in force. That’s because he does not think those types of guidance documents should be used to make policy — something that both Democratic and Republican administrations have done in the past. “Dear Colleague letters have become a blunt instrument to move thousands of postsecondary institutions or 10,000-plus school districts in one direction or another, and I don’t think that’s an appropriate use of them,” he said. “I don’t think that’s good for anybody.”"

"US President Donald Trump has urged Republicans to "nationalise" elections and repeated his false claims of 2020 election fraud in a new podcast interview. American elections are primarily run by state law, and voting has long been administered by local officials across the country. The Republicans should say: "We want to take over. We should take over the voting in at least 15 places". The Republicans ought to nationalise the voting."

"If Donald Trump’s presidency has any theme (beyond self-promotion), it’s that his "America First" agenda will Make America Great Again. Unfortunately for the American people, if Trump’s maneuvers and machinations have made any nation greater, it’s been China, not the United States."

"The right-thinking are irritated by the nonconformist's lack of predictability, even by his occasional failure to show himself as such."

"Have you ever disliked the outcome of something? Don’t you wish you could change it? Of course, you can’t. The lesson has been drilled into us since childhood: You get what you get, and you don’t get upset. Unfortunately, it appears that Donald Trump and the Republican Party never received that helpful memo. Trump constantly complains about the “stolen” 2020 election to this day, even though it was quite fair. Like a child throwing a temper tantrum, he can’t resist bringing it up. But Trump’s whims are far more dangerous than child’s play, because he just might try to destroy the democratic experiment while he’s whining – and string Republicans along with him. This past week, on a podcast with rightwing personality Dan Bongino, Trump called for the federal government to “nationalize” elections in several Democratic strongholds. He later claimed, “Look at some of the places – that horrible corruption on elections – and the federal government should not allow that.” Regardless of Trump’s fantasies about rigged elections, the Constitution is clear: administering elections is a power given to the states, and the federal government cannot take over voting."

"The Republican Party, as ever, seems willing to dance for their ruler. In Congress, Republicans are busy sating Trump’s desire to shift how elections are run. As I’m writing this column, the SAVE America Act is coming up for a vote in the U.S. House. This act would make it significantly harder to vote, making potential voters explicitly prove their citizenship before they cast their ballots. On the surface, this might not seem like a bad idea. Why not ensure our elections are safe and secure? The bill, however, ignores that many Americans don’t carry proof of citizenship on them, such as a passport or birth certificate. It also solves a nonexistent problem; despite false claims of mass illegal voting, it is extremely rare for noncitizens to vote. So then why try to pass this bill? The answer is, Republicans don’t actually want to stop voter fraud. They want to stop people from casting their ballots. They want voter suppression."

"All of this attempted voter suppression is clearly aimed at preventing a Republican loss in the midterms and beyond. Trump has already laid the groundwork by continuing to protest the 2020 election results, priming his supporters to be concerned about so-called “election integrity.” Regardless of whether bills like the SAVE America Act end up getting passed, we must still be vigilant about how our rights can be restricted. Regardless of whether ICE is deployed to polling stations or not, we must remember that the threat was made. And regardless of whether Trump does attempt to nationalize elections, we know the effort to suppress voting is born out of the desire to subvert democracy and cheat the system."

"Donald Trump has never been one to side with science, especially climate science. He has often spread false claims about climate change being some sort of “hoax” or “scam.” You can imagine, then, how he feels about the Environmental Protection Agency, which is supposed to help counteract the effects of climate change and – as the name suggests – keep the environment healthy. A major pillar of the EPA’s efforts pre-Trump was the 2009 “endangerment finding,” which established the government position that greenhouse gases were detrimental to human health. However, the Trump administration announced it was formally revoking the EPA’s endangerment finding last week, beginning the supposed “single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history.” This revocation goes against established fact in order to service the interests of big business and the MAGA movement’s obsession with climate change denial. It leaves the EPA adrift and powerless, unable to address the ongoing tide of global warming."

"The endangerment finding was built on a 2007 Supreme Court case, Massachusetts v. EPA, which determined that the EPA did have the authority under the 1970 Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases because of their threat to public health. This decision allowed the EPA to carry out regulatory policies to restrict emissions of these harmful gases. Regulations are particularly important for transportation, which represents the largest share – 28% – of greenhouse gases released by the U.S. each year. The EPA’s own website says as much, which is deeply ironic given the Trump administration’s new policy eliminates all federal regulations on greenhouse gas emissions for vehicles and engines from 2012 onwards. These regulations help prevent companies from simply having their fossil fuel output run rampant. Eliminating the regulations would mean America is now significantly out of step with other industrialized countries, which are busy expanding their own environmental protections and renewable energy sources. Trump’s mission of deregulation represents a major step backwards, and it’s about to cast aside restrictions in an area where the U.S. is already failing to protect the environment. Essentially, the Trump administration’s main argument for revoking the endangerment finding is that American taxpayers will save $1.3 trillion due to deregulation. Since the idea of cost is apparently so important to Trump, according to a federal report from 2023, climate change is costing the U.S. $150 billion per year. That is a conservative estimate that only factors in direct damages, and the number will only grow larger as temperatures and sea levels rise, setting up more frequent and more destructive extreme weather events."

"Yet the Trump administration ignores that cost is a highly suspect way to measure the impacts of climate change in the first place. The damage of global warming is difficult to quantify, but we know its effects will significantly affect human life for the worse. As the Earth gets hotter and more inhospitable, we are barreling towards the point of no return when our effects on the climate cannot be stopped, and that future cannot be quantified in numbers. It can only be quantified in the suffering that will result. People will have to uproot their entire lives to deal with ever-more frequent disasters and the long-term effects of global heating, especially in coastal areas where seas will rise. The country of Tuvalu, a Pacific island nation, is already trying to upload a digital copy of itself in the face of being swallowed by the rising ocean. The potential loss of an entire nation cannot be quantified, and neither can many of climate change’s adverse effects."

"Taking Cuba? In some form, yeah. I mean, whether I free it, or take it... I think I can do anything I want with it, to tell you the truth."

"I’ve done all sorts of drama (ahh I’ve used my acting chops, trust me) to convince them that for them to be great pianists, they MUST practice every day."

"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s speech to top generals was supposed to serve as a rallying cry for military exceptionalism — but it didn’t land that way with many of the people it was targeting. Numerous defense officials — who watched senior brass scramble to Washington and then sit through a partisan speech from President Donald Trump and a return to old-school military standards by Hegseth — were left wondering why the event had occurred at all. “More like a press conference than briefing the generals,” said one defense official, who, like others, was granted anonymity due to fears of retribution. “Could have been an email.”"

"Defense officials, in the Pentagon and at bases around the world, spent much of Tuesday trying to make sense of the last-minute gathering at the Quantico base in Virginia. Hegseth called out “fat generals,” and, separately, pushed fitness standards that could limit women in combat roles, while Trump offered his justification for sending the military into American cities. The 90-minute event — which featured military officials who swore an oath to the Constitution attending something more akin to a campaign rally — had the feeling of a Hollywood production. Trump even instructed officials to “just have a good time.” The meeting took place hours before a likely government shutdown, and struck some officials as a distraction that threatens to shift the military’s focus away from foreign threats toward an unprecedented domestic role. “Not quite a loyalty test, but … on the spectrum of loyalty to ideology,” said a second defense official. “Total waste of money.”"

"Lt. Col. Amy McGrath called out U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for trying to overshadow women’s contribution to the U.S. military in his effort to meet “the highest male standard’ among U.S. soldiers. “Each service will ensure that every requirement for every combat [Military Occupational Specialty], for every designated combat arms position, returns to the highest male standard,” Hegseth told leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Quantico, Virginia on Tuesday. “Only because this job is life or death, standards must be met and not just met at every level. We should seek to exceed the standard to push the envelope to compete.”"

"“Hegseth still has a lot to learn, unfortunately,” said McGrath, speaking with the “Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.” “When I flew my combat missions, there was not a set male standard and a female standard for flying an aircraft onto the back of an aircraft carrier. You can either do it or you can't. Combat jobs have had one standard for a long time. And part of when we opened combat jobs to women, those of us that were in those jobs wanted one standard to be set. And it was — so I think it's kind of ridiculous.” “But, honestly, that, in comparison to the rest of what we heard in the last hour, is really minor,” McGrath added. “That speech was bonkers by the president, and everybody sitting in that room knows that we don't have a coherent foreign policy or defense policy. And that, I think, is a bigger issue indeed.”"

"McGrath was particularly wrathful at President Donald Trump suggesting the city of Chicago serve as a kind of “training ground” for urban warfare. “There was a lot of rambling. There was a ton of lies. There was a lot of politicization … and craziness that you heard from this speech, but the scariest part was when the president talked about using our cities as a training ground for the United States military,” said McGrath. “Now, the military has done training in cities before, but that's not what I think he's talking about here. He's talking about using the military in ways that we should not see in America. And I'm very worried about this.” “I think the whole part of bringing these generals and admirals back here was to discuss this type of thing, and it should it should scare us all,” McGrath said. “This is something that we just don't do in America. We have police to fight crime, and we should be putting money into those police forces, not sending American troops that are trained for war to American cities.”"

"In an interview at Catholic University last week, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said what he’s clearly been thinking for the past 30 years: Supreme Court precedents don’t matter, and he’s making things up as he goes along to fulfill his own political agenda. He didn’t say it in that way, of course. People would have noticed that. Instead, he couched his self-serving philosophy in legal jargon that will fly under the radar of most people, including journalists. Here’s what he said: “At some point we need to think about what we’re doing with stare decisis.… [I]t’s not some sort of talismanic deal where you can just say ‘stare decisis’ and not think, turn off the brain, right?” To translate: “Stare decisis” is a foundational legal principle in this country and all countries that follow a “common law” system. What it means, in simple terms, is that prior judicial rulings govern future judicial rulings. If a court rules, for instance, that “gay people have the same basic rights as everyone else in this country, including the right to marry other people,” then that ruling is supposed to govern all future cases concerning the rights of gay people. Thomas, apparently, doesn’t agree. Instead of respecting stare decisis and precedent, he is saying that older cases shouldn’t have the power to control newer ones. For Thomas, just because courts ruled that LGBTQ people should have rights in the past, including the right to marry, doesn’t mean he feels compelled to rule that they should keep them."

"We’ve seen this in Thomas’s opinions in recent years. In 2022, he declared, in a separate but supporting opinion in the Dobbs case, that Roe v. Wade was not respectful of our legal traditions, but Loving v. Virginia is. Why? Well because Roe gave women rights, while Loving gave Thomas the right to marry his white wife, and if you have a better legal difference between those cases other than Thomas’s own personal preferences, I’d love to hear you explain it. Thomas has also decided (in this case, writing for the majority) that simple gun registration laws are not respectful of our traditions in this country, but he signed on to an opinion giving the president the powers of the very king we revolted against. You simply cannot chart a course through what passes for logic in Thomas’s head without understanding his preferred policy outcomes. If Thomas were the only justice who thought like this, it would be a containable problem. But the entire Republican cabal on the Supreme Court rules exactly in the way Thomas is talking about, with no respect for precedent or stare decisis. This coming term, the Republicans on the court are likely to overturn a voting rights precedent they set for themselves only a couple of years ago. The Republicans literally cannot be trusted to respect their own rulings."

"The entire Trump administration has been a “mask off” moment for the Supreme Court’s conservatives. It turns out, they don’t actually care about precedent (no matter how many times they lied and claimed to care during their Senate confirmation hearings). They don’t actually care about the text. They don’t actually care about judicial restraint. They want the political outcomes they want and they have the votes to do it. Thomas’s speech is a declaration that there is no judicial precedent that is safe from the current Republicans on the court. Stare decisis will not stand in their way of getting what they want. You could read the entire speech as a shot across the bow of Obergefell v. Hodges, and it is, but it’s also a rare moment where Thomas told the truth about what he and his friends are actually doing. They do not care about traditions, norms, or the very foundation of judicial decision making in a common law system. They only care about winning."

"That’s all going to be very bad for those of us who do not happen to be white cis-hetero men in the near term, but there is a silver lining. Thomas’s speech at Catholic University literally lays down the playbook for how to defeat him and all the evil and cruelty he has wrought during his time on the bench. According to Thomas, future Supreme Court justices do not have to wrestle with the precedents laid down by Thomas and his Roberts-court brethren. They do not have to distinguish future cases from the ones that are being decided today. They do not have to wait for Congress to pass new laws, or for the Constitution to be amended. They don’t have to stay on the train Clarence Thomas is driving. And I am here for that. By Thomas’s own admission, the power of the Roberts court dies the moment there are more liberals on the bench than Republicans. That could happen as soon as the next presidential election, if Democrats get their act together to take control of the Supreme Court. If stare decisis is dead, then it’s dead forever. What can’t happen is for future Democratic justices to try to resurrect it, to preserve the power of the people who killed it. Clarence Thomas will soon be the longest-serving justice in American history. It’s good to know that he thinks his opinions will not matter after he’s dead. On that, he and I agree."

"Six months ago, I wrote a piece urging soldiers to leave the United States military. At the time, the possibility that the president might use the military as a tool to unjustly abuse US citizens was still somewhat theoretical. At the risk of being repetitive, events in the world make me feel compelled to write, once again: Leave the military now. The time when you can say that you did not understand what might happen is coming to an end. Yesterday, the Secretary of Defense and the Commander in Chief gave speeches to all of our nation’s generals, who they had ordered to assemble in Washington. It is bad enough, I imagine, for all of these accomplished career officers to be subjected to the performative tirade of Pete Hegseth, a childish television host, installed as their superior, ranting about the need to be more macho, fairly dripping with overcompensation for his various inadequacies. Yet if Hegseth’s speech was unnecessary, bigoted, and cartoonish, the performance of the Commander in Chief was much more substantively dangerous."

"First, because it must have been clear to all of those assembled generals that Donald Trump, who possesses complete and total control of the military and its awesome powers, is, at best, mentally unwell. His speech, characteristically, was an incoherent stream-of-consciousness rant consisting mostly of narcissism and fiction and personal grievances. The mind of the man who has the ability to tell all of these officers what to do is broken and impervious to facts and reason. This is the man who can tell you when and how and who to kill. “They’re brave in our inner cities, which we’re going to be talking about because it’s a big part of war now, it’s a big part of war,” Trump said, speaking about firemen. “But the firemen go up on ladders and you have people shooting at them while they’re up on ladders. I don’t even know if anybody heard that. And actually don’t talk about it much, but I think you have to. Our firemen are incredible. They’re up on one of these ladders that goes way up to the sky rescuing people, and you have animals shooting at them — shooting bullets at firemen that are way up in death territory.” This is your boss."

"Worse, the president made his intentions for the military clear. “You know, the Democrats run most of the cities that are in bad shape. We have many cities in great shape too, by the way. I want you to know that. But it seems that the ones that are run by the radical left Democrats, what they’ve done to San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, they’re very unsafe places and we’re going to straighten them out one by one,” he said. “And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That’s a war too. It’s a war from within.” “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military National Guard, but military,” he said, repeating bizarre, made-up stories about Chicago, Portland, and Seattle as war zones."

"I am not going to try to convince generals in the United States armed forces to embrace my own personal moral beliefs. Rather, I would urge them all to consider their own moral beliefs. Honor and courage are often touted as the highest military values. What do those values demand of these generals at this moment in history? To salute their deranged superiors, and then, in private, to mutter under their breath about how incompetent and awful those commanders are? Is it honorable for these hundreds of generals to go forward doing their very best to carry out the will of a president who vows openly to use the military to suppress his domestic political enemies, and who has in fact already done that in major cities? Is it courageous of these officer to—for the sake of their own careers—continue to robotically serve a man who is obviously making decisions based upon things that are not true, and who is obsessed with revenge above all, and who is quite straightforward about his intentions to use the military to forcefully oppress Americans? Is that what honor and courage demand of the highest ranking officers in our military? Nothing at all? It is common for people in the military to point out that they took an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” and to imply that their allegiance to that oath would prevent them from carrying out truly unjust orders. I can’t help but notice that the point at which this moral duty to stop obeying orders kicks in appears to recede forever into the future. We, the citizens, are assured that there exists some ill-defined moment at which the personal moral code of military soldiers and officers will kick in and stop an out-of-control Commander in Chief from using the military for purposes of tyranny. Well? The tyrant is here. Talk is cheap. This theoretical guardrail of our democracy would be much more comforting if it were ever possible to see it produce some tangible action."

"It is not too late to change America’s future. We sit, right now, in a moment of possibility. The president has made his intention to use the military against American citizens abundantly clear, but the worst versions of this oppression are still to come. He has told us what is coming, but all of it has not happened yet. That means that there will never be a better moment for people of honor and courage to leave the military. There will never be a better moment for the generals to demonstrate that their moral values are not just empty words. There will never be a better time to actually weaken the power of an aspiring dictator by refusing to be a part of his army. There will never be a better chance to exempt yourself from the stain of participating in a great, historic injustice against America’s ideals. Everyone can see who is in charge. Everyone can see what the plan is. Nobody can say that they didn’t see what was coming. Nobody can say that they went into this blind. For the members of the military—and, above all, for the officers at its highest level—the time to be courageous, or not, has arrived. Like any large organization, the military is full of all types of people who got into it for all types of reasons. Despite my own objections to the things that politicians make the military do, I do believe that the military itself is full of people who sincerely value patriotism, sacrifice, and public service. And there can be no doubt that the military is full of people who have demonstrated great personal bravery, perseverance, and willingness to overcome daunting obstacles in order to do a job that they believe is honorable and necessary. In 2025, all of these admirable qualities demand a very particular action: to leave the military. Before you find yourself doing things that do not comport with the values that you hold. Before you find that you have become the bad guy. If you can run into a gunfight, you can find the bravery to quit. That’s what patriotism means today."

"President Donald Trump has condemned the shutdown and laid the blame squarely at the feet of the “Radical Left Democrats”— in the meantime, he appears to be making the most of it. Trump teased on Truth Social that he would be meeting with Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russ Vought to – as he warned Democrats he would do – reevaluate the necessity of various government agencies. “I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent,” Trump wrote. As a potential shutdown loomed, the administration cautioned Democrats that if they didn’t sign on to Republicans’ short stopgap funding bill and prevent a shutdown, more federal employees would lose their jobs. The OMB sent a letter to federal agencies last week directing them to take a critical look at where they might be able to shed more employees. “With respect to those Federal programs whose funding would lapse and which are otherwise unfunded, such programs are no longer statutorily required to be carried out,” the letter reads. “Agencies are directed to use this opportunity to consider Reduction in Force (RIF) notices for all employees in programs, projects, or activities (PPAs) that satisfy all three of the following conditions: (1) discretionary funding lapses on October 1, 2025; (2) another source of funding, such as H.R. 1 (Public Law 119-21) is not currently available; and (3) the PPA is not consistent with the President’s priorities.”"

"The New York Times reported in August that the federal workforce may have about 300,000 less people by year’s end. Most of the terminations or resignations were reportedly prompted by the Department of Government Efficiency, which was created by an executive order at the start of Trump’s second term. It’s unclear which “Democrat Agencies” are on the chopping block Tuesday – and whether entire agencies will be eradicated or they’ll merely lose more employees. The administration has previously described the Congressional Budget Office and the Bureau of Labor Statistics as unreliable, “Democrat-controlled,” politically motivated and riddled with “longstanding failures,” to name a few."