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May 10, 2025
Book cover of the month
Pope Leo XIV
NBC News - The pontiff cast a ballot in recent Republican primaries in Illinois.
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Trump and the courts
NBC News -Top Trump adviser Stephen Miller said that the administration is “actively looking at” ways to end due process protections for unauthorized immigrants in the country. In his comments, Miller accused the courts of being “at war with the executive branch” in ruling against the administration’s mass deportations.
It’s unclear whether the administration is interested in suspending due process for all people in the country illegally, or a specific group.
The Supreme Court has long recognized that noncitizens have certain basic rights and held in a ruling last month that the people the government wants to deport are entitled to due process. Trump has repeatedly complained that those protections take too much time. “I was elected to get them the hell out of here, and the courts are holding me from doing it,” he said in an interview with “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker.
Miller also cited the constitutional clause that allows habeas corpus to be suspended during times of invasion. Trump claimed the U.S. was being invaded when he invoked the rarely used Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Tren de Aragua gang members to El Salvador. Three federal judges have found that the gang’s criminal activities do not equate to an invasion.
The last time due process was suspended was in Hawaii after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Read the full story here.
How Trump takes on law firms
Roll Call - More than a dozen law firms have made deals with Trump or faced executive orders against them for participating in perceived sleights or harmful actions against him or his supporters, a tactic legal experts say undermines the rule of law by discouraging lawyers from taking cases and clients disfavored by the White House.
Clark Neily, a senior vice president for legal studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, told reporters earlier this month that he has “rarely seen something more palpably unconstitutional” than the orders targeting law firms. Neily called Trump’s orders “a dagger at the heart of due process and of our national tradition of resolving disputes peacefully through a legal process.”
Trump’s executive orders took aim at law firms over suits they brought on behalf of their clients against Trump or his allies, attorneys they hired, or their perceived violations of discrimination law for diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
The orders question their government contracts, remove security clearances, revoke access to government buildings and resources and more. More
Religon making a comeback among the young
Axios - Christianity is starting to make a comeback in the U.S. and other Western countries, led by young people, Axios' Erica Pandey reports. A decades-long decline has stalled, shaping the future of Gen Z, the drivers of the religious revival.
"We've seen the plateau of non-religion in America," says Ryan Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University. "Gen Z is not that much less religious than their parents, and that's a big deal."
Data from Pew shows that, for decades, each age group has been less Christian than the one before it.
- Americans born in the 1970s are 63% Christian. 1980s babies are 53% Christian, and 1990s babies are 46% Christian.
- But there was no decline from the 1990s to the 2000s. Americans born in the 2000s are also 46% Christian.
Gen Z-ers — especially Gen Z men — are actually more likely to attend weekly religious services than millennials and even some younger Gen X-ers, Burge's analysis shows.
Young men are leading the resurgence....
Many young people have turned to religion to find community and connection after the isolating years of the pandemic, which hit Gen Z harder than most.
- In some ways, this trend mirrors men's shift to the political right. "Religion is coded right, and coded more traditionalist" for young people, Derek Rishmawy, who leads a ministry at UC Irvine, told The New York Times.
- For some young men, Christianity is seen as "one institution that isn't initially and formally skeptical of them as a class," Rishmawy told the Times.
The resurgence is global.
- "In France, the Catholic Church has baptized more than 17,000 people, the highest yearly number of entrants in over 20 years," New York Times columnist David Brooks writes.
- The share of British people 18-24 who attend church at least monthly jumped from 4% in 2018 to 16% today, including a 21% gain among young men, according to research from the Bible Society. More
Trump regime
POGO - Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered a major cut to high-ranking military personnel, including a 20% reduction to four-star generals and admirals. POGO has been scrutinizing officer inflation and its cost to taxpayers since our very beginning, and we support the Pentagon finally addressing the top-heavy nature of our military, but only if it’s a good-faith attempt at reform and not an attempt to politicize the force. Hegseth has so far only provided a half-page memo with no details or timeline explaining how these sweeping changes will be enacted, similar to his sparse one-pager about cutting $5.1 billion from the Pentagon budget. The Pentagon has serious waste issues that must be addressed — but it’ll take serious, actionable reform.
May 9, 2025
Meanwhile. . .
Newsweek - In his first U.S. television interview since leaving office, former President Joe Biden on Thursday acknowledged he bears some responsibility for Donald Trump's return to the White House. "I do, because, look, I was in charge and he won. So, you know, I take responsibility," Biden said during a joint appearance with former First Lady Jill Biden on ABC's The View
At a Dutch nursing home, college students provide companionship and get free rent in return (read more)
Trump and the courts
Newsworthy - Crnia leads a coalition of Democrat-run states in a legal battle against Trump’s HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over substantial budget cuts that could reshape America’s health infrastructure.
- A coalition of 19 states and D.C. has sued to block Kennedy’s firing of 10,000 HHS employees and closure of regional offices
- The lawsuit claims the cuts violate constitutional norms and exceed presidential authority by bypassing Congress
- Kennedy defends the restructuring as necessary to eliminate waste and save $1.8 billion annually
- States report immediate impacts including halted FDA vaccine approvals and suspended infectious disease testing
NBC News - Rumeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University student detained by immigration agents in March, was ordered to be released immediately from ICE custody following a hearing. Öztürk is free to return to Massachusetts and is not subject to travel restrictions because she’s not considered a flight risk, the judge ruled.
Health
Axios - U.S. drugmakers are facing a one-two punch from President Trump: As he appears ready to impose pharmaceutical tariffs, the White House is also revisiting a policy from his first term that would force drugmakers to accept lower prices for prescriptions that are pegged to what's paid abroad.
The pharmaceutical industry estimates it could lose as much as $1 trillion over a decade from just the so-called international reference pricing policy, per Bloomberg. Then, there's anticipated higher costs and supply chain kinks from the new duties.
- Add in HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s distrust of the industry and periodic administration statements about Americans being overreliant on medications, and you've got a perfect storm that could eat into pharma's bottom line and, in the most dire predictions, its ability to develop new cures.
NPR - GOP leaders in swing districts insist they will not support any proposal that strips Medicaid benefits. The division has become a hurdle for Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” Restructuring Medicaid, the federal health care program for poor, elderly and disabled Americans, is one of the clearest ways conservatives can achieve their deep spending cut goals.
Nice News - A recent study
found that talk therapy is becoming more popular among American adults,
while the use of psychiatric medication without therapy is declining.
This trend
is the opposite of a previous period, in the 1980s and 1990s, when
medication began being widely used as a sole treatment. “We’re seeing
that during this time, this increase represents a period where psychotherapy is assuming a more important role in outpatient mental health care,” Dr. Mark Olfson, the study’s lead author, told NPR.
Olfson
explained that while about 6.5% of American adults received
psychotherapy in 2018, that figure went up to 8.5% in 2021. The study
also found that during the same time period, the percentage of those using medication exclusively (with no therapy) decreased from
67.6% to 62.1%. And a growing number of patients are in talk therapy
with no medication use for depression, anxiety, or trauma and
stressor-related disorders.
“Overall, it suggests that psychotherapy [is] becoming more accessible to people and people are able to take advantage of it,” said Olfson. If you’re curious about starting a therapy journey, here’s a step-by-step guide to finding a therapist.
Big US cities are sinking
USA Today - The nation's biggest cities are sinking, according to data from a new study.
Known
scientifically as land "subsidence," the most common cause of the
sinking is "massive ongoing groundwater extraction," say the study
authors, though other forces are at work in some places. The cities
include not just those on the coasts, where sea level rise is a concern,
but many in the interior.
In every city studied, at least 20% of the urban area is sinking – and in 25 of 28 cities, at least 65% is sinking.
It's a unique study: "This is the first high-resolution, satellite-based measurement of land subsidence across the 28 most populous U.S. cities, and for several of these cities, it is the first time we have such detailed insights," study lead author Leonard Ohenhen of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory told USA TODAY on May 7.
He added that the study "offers critical information for urban planning, infrastructure adaptation, and hazard preparedness."
The nation's fastest-sinking city is Houston, with more than 40% of its area dropping more than 5 millimeters (about 1/5 inch) per year, and 12% sinking at twice that rate.
Some localized spots are going down as much as 5 centimeters (2 inches) per year, according to the study.
Trump and media
New Repiublic - While Donald Trump attempts to bypass Congress in cutting funding to NPR and PBS, his senior adviser to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, perennial election loser Kari Lake, announced on X earlier this week that she’s struck a deal with One America News to “provide” the right-wing outlet’s “newsfeed services” to the government-funded outlets her agency oversees—Voice of America being the most prominent among them. Lake touted the deal as “an enormous benefit to the American taxpayer,” since OAN, which has a TV channel and website, agreed to provide its newsfeed “free of charge.” “We are grateful for their generosity,” she wrote. Yet the generosity might actually be flowing in the other direction, as Lake’s move will allow OAN to tap into VOA’s weekly audience of 360 million people around the world—and turn a once unbiased global beacon of American journalism into a Pravda for the Trump regime.
Daily Kos -The acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was fired on Thursday amid the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on the division tasked with handling disaster response. Cameron Hamilton’s termination was reportedly carried out by Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Troy Edgar and longtime Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski, who is serving as de facto chief of staff to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. No reason was given for Hamilton’s dismissal, according to a White House spokesperson.
As the country approaches the start of hurricane season in June, David Richardson, the assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security’s Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office, will now serve as acting head of FEMA. Richardson has zero experience in disaster response.
Elder financial abuse
Jen Reed - While people in their 30s constituted the largest group of fraud victims by age in 2022 (the FBI’s latest stats), victims aged 60+ lost nearly three times more money. The nearly 95,000 incidents of fraud that year suffered by thirty-somethings resulted in a total loss of $1.3 billion. But the more than 88,000 incidents of fraud suffered by people aged 60+ collectively lost those victims over $3 billion.
Seniors need to be on their guard against financial abuse. But it’s hard to know whom to trust.
- “Something between 70% and 90% of perpetrators of abuse, neglect, or exploitation are known to the adult who experiences the act of abuse,” according to the American Bar Association.
- AARP found last year that 72% of the billions stolen from seniors was perpetrated by a friend, family member or caregiver.
- AARP also found that seniors are far less likely to report being victimized when they suspect their money was taken by someone they know.
Pope Leo XIV
People -Pope Leo XIV’s brother is sharing an insight into how the newly-elected pontiff prepared for the papal conclave.
In a new interview with NBC News, John Prevost opened up about his last conversation with his brother, Cardinal Robert Prevost, before he was elected as the 267th pope of the Roman Catholic Church on Thursday, May 8.
Speaking about how the new pope, 69, prepped ahead of the voting sessions in the Sistine Chapel, John revealed that his brother watched the Oscar-winning movie, Conclave, and played a popular online game.
“First we do Wordle ‘cause this is a regular thing, then we do Words with Friends,” John said of the games they played. “It’s something to keep his mind off life in the real world."
Meet DC's new prosecutor
National Memo - Fox News host Jeanine Pirro is so unhinged that the network took her show off the air following the 2020 election out of (subsequently confirmed) fear that she’d use it to launder deranged conspiracy theories about the results. But she’s a fanatical supporter of President Donald Trump, and that is apparently enough to get her tapped as the top federal prosecutor for Washington, D.C.
Trump announced Thursday night that he was appointing Pirro as interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, specifically praising her Fox News career. Earlier in the day, Trump indicated that he planned to move on from acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin, another right-wing media figure, who appeared unable to muster sufficient votes for Senate confirmation. Pirro is the 23rd person with Fox on their resume whom Trump has selected to join his second administration.
While Martin’s legal support for January 6 defendants reportedly played a major role in the failure of his nomination, Pirro has no recent legal experience to speak of. She was elected as a Westchester County Court judge in New York in 1990, and then she served as the county’s district attorney before suffering through an aborted run for U.S. Senate in 2005. Pirro joined Fox in 2006 and has been firmly ensconced on its sets for the last two decades.
Trump abruptly fires Librarian of Congress
Roll Call - President Donald Trump has fired Carla Hayden, the longtime head of the Library of Congress, in a move that Democratic lawmakers panned as “callous” and “ignorant.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., described Hayden as “accomplished, principled and distinguished” in a statement Thursday night.
“Donald Trump’s unjust decision to fire Dr. Hayden in an email sent by a random political hack is a disgrace and the latest in his ongoing effort to ban books, whitewash American history and turn back the clock,” Jeffries wrote.
Hayden was formally notified of her termination in an email from the White House’s presidential personnel department just before 7 p.m. Thursday, according to a copy of the email reviewed by CQ Roll Call....
Statements from congressional Democrats poured in condemning the move.
[She was the first woman and black to hold the position]
Alzheimers Disease
Trump wants Americans to sacrifice in ways he never would
Paul Waldman, MSNBC - A president whose entire life is a tribute to instant gratification and
poor impulse control is asking us for patience and sacrifice. To put it
mildly, this is not a deal he has prepared Americans — especially Trump
voters — to accept.
In an interview on Meet the Press, Trump for some reason chose children's dolls as the prototypical consumer item affected by likely shortages and price hikes. "I'm just saying they don't need to have 30 dolls," he said. "They can have three."
When he was asked Thursday in the Oval Office about the plunging number of cargo ships coming into American ports, Trump responded that this is a positive development, despite the fact that it will likely produce empty shelves and potentially lost jobs for dockworkers and truckers.
Even if Trump and his staff were right that these tariffs will make us all rich one day, the amount of sacrifice has to be put in perspective. MORE
Polls
Guardian - According to a poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public
Affairs Research, 56% of Americans said they disapproved of the US
president’s approach to higher education, while about four in 10
expressed approval, which is broadly consistent with his overall job
approval ratings.
Impeachment
Newsworthy - In a significant blow to impeachment efforts against President Donald Trump, three Democratic lawmakers formally requested the removal of their names from a resolution filed this week. Representatives Kweisi Mfume of Maryland, Robin Kelly of Illinois, and Jerry Nadler of New York withdrew their support after initially signing onto the measure introduced by Michigan Representative Shri Thanedar. The House clerk has since granted their requests, leaving the resolution with just a single co-sponsor, Representative Jan Schakowsky of Illinois.
The Pope and the environment
Axios - Don't expect Pope Leo XIV to file comments in EPA dockets, but he could build upon the late Pope Francis' unprecedented Vatican focus on climate change. The pope has a massive bully pulpit as leader of a church with 1.4 billion members worldwide, and reaches people well beyond that.
- The Vatican lacks official power to sway policies, but lots of global climate architecture already operates on persuasion — the Paris agreement doesn't force nations to do anything.
- And there's scaffolding around papal climate efforts now, with Francis giving rise to the Laudato Si' Movement based on his 2015 encyclical on the topic.
Leaders of the next UN climate summit in Brazil quickly invited the new pope to attend.
- "The COP30 Presidency hopes to welcome Pope Leo XIV in Belem in November to help us reach a climate agreement that will mark a turning point in the creation of a more prosperous, safer, fairer and sustainable future," Ana Toni, the summit's CEO, said in a statement.
The career of Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost — now Pope Leo — offers a breadcrumb trail showing his interest in climate.
- Last year, per the Vatican's official news service, he told an environmental seminar that it's time to move "from words to action."
- He called for "reciprocity" with nature, cautioned against harms from technology and praised the Vatican's installation of solar panels and use of EVs.
- In 2017, he re-posted an X (then Twitter) post encouraging President Trump to read Francis' encyclical.
Arun Agrawal, a Notre Dame professor of development policy, offered initial thoughts on the new American pope while cautioning that it's early days.
- "[W]e can expect some continuity but we should also expect both innovation and new ideas to come from the new Pontiff as he leads the Vatican to address sustainability challenges," he said via email.
- He expects Leo's work to be informed by his long service in Peru and his background with church governance.
- Leo has "intimate familiarity with context where marginality, poverty, and vulnerability are widespread" that will inform his thinking on climate, water, sustainability and more.
Don't expect Pope Leo XIV to file comments in EPA dockets, but he could build upon the late Pope Francis' unprecedented Vatican focus on climate change.
The pope has a massive bully pulpit as leader of a church with 1.4 billion members worldwide, and reaches people well beyond that.
- The Vatican lacks official power to sway policies, but lots of global climate architecture already operates on persuasion — the Paris agreement doesn't force nations to do anything.
- And there's scaffolding around papal climate efforts now, with Francis giving rise to the Laudato Si' Movement based on his 2015 encyclical on the topic.
Leaders of the next UN climate summit in Brazil quickly invited the new pope to attend.
- "The COP30 Presidency hopes to welcome Pope Leo XIV in Belem in November to help us reach a climate agreement that will mark a turning point in the creation of a more prosperous, safer, fairer and sustainable future," Ana Toni, the summit's CEO, said in a statement.
The career of Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost — now Pope Leo — offers a breadcrumb trail showing his interest in climate.
- Last year, per the Vatican's official news service, he told an environmental seminar that it's time to move "from words to action."
- He called for "reciprocity" with nature, cautioned against harms from technology and praised the Vatican's installation of solar panels and use of EVs.
- In 2017, he re-posted an X (then Twitter) post encouraging President Trump to read Francis' encyclical...
There's no good way to gauge whether popes can really influence climate policies. But based on comments pouring in late yesterday, a number of activists have faith....
There's no good way to gauge whether popes can really influence climate policies. But based on comments pouring in late yesterday, a number of activists have faith.
When we have lost our democracy. . . .
WHEN WE HAVE LOST OUR DEMOCRACY, HOW WILL WE KNOW?
• When the electorate puts a felon in the Oval Office?
• President incites an attack on the nation’s Capitol?
• President manipulates multiple elections?
• President consorts with thugs?
• President pardons convicted criminals?
• Presidents steals classified materials?
• President relies on toads and flatterers?
• President piles lies upon lies upon lies?
• President attacks the national economy?
• Party in charge of legislature is silent?
• Historic allies are estranged?
• Treaties are abrogated?
• Houses of worship are raided?
• Quacks direct governmental departments?
• High ranking military officers are kicked out?
• Judges and their families are threatened and arrested?
• Areas of the country are militarized?
• A fake state of emergency is declared?
• Innocents are jailed?
• Children are deported?
• Political opponents are threatened?
• Indictments are dropped?
• Cronies are favored?
• Educational institutions are bullied and threatened?
• Life-saving medical research is terminated?
• The law is bent toward retribution?
INDEED, HOW WILL WE KNOW?
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