HIGHLIGHTS
JUMP: EDUCATION | INFRASTRUCTURE | PUBLIC SERVICES | THE REST
First, the Good News
1) National: In the midst of a savage Republican political attack on science from the top of the government, supporters in the nation’s capital and 31 other cities rallied to stand up for science. Watch the video of the rally in DC [About 4 hours]. Writing in ScienceNews, Meghan Rosen and Alex Viveros say, “Scientists across the country have expressed concern that these and other moves may threaten scientific progress in the United States. ‘Stop the regression’ read a sign held by Teresa McGee, a graduate student and computational scientist who works on statistical genetics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Funding uncertainties have led to reductions in the amount of students accepted into graduate programs, she noted. ‘It’s pretty grim,” McGee said. ‘Everyone’s very nervous, everyone is anxious.’ Even so, there was a festive air to the gathering in Washington, D.C., where speakers like Collins, surgeon and public health researcher Atul Gawande and science communicator Bill Nye, as well as a lineup of other scientists, clinical trial participants and patient advocates, rallied the crowd with speeches, music and chants.”
“Trump’s administration—marked by severe budget cuts to research funding and widespread layoffs across science-funding agencies—sparked the rare political action among members of the scientific community, echoing the March for Science protests during the president’s first term,” Alexa Robles-Gil reports in Science. “‘We are looking at the most aggressive antiscience government the U.S. has ever had,’ said astronomer Phil Plait, kicking off the speaker lineup. ‘We have fought antiscience before, and we’ve won.’”
Have a look at the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s five year strategic plan, 2025-2030, which includes their detailed “Theory of Change,” and their TikTok page.
2) National: Check out In the Public Interest’s new Resource Guide. Donald Cohen, ITPI’s executive director, says “For 15 years, In the Public Interest has produced reports, briefs, toolkits, and other research to help people understand what happens when public things are privatized. From public schools to public pools, public parks to public parking meters, we’ve documented what is lost under privatization schemes: public control over public assets. In the current moment, when a wide range of public goods and services are being defunded, shut down, or spun out to private interests at breakneck speed, the background and context we provide is particularly vital to individuals, academics, activists, labor union members, elected officials, public servants, reporters, editors, podcasters, and others. In a new publication, In the Public Interest’s Resource Guide, we’ve collected some of the most relevant and important documents of our work in one place for the easiest access. The Resource Guide contains direct links to the research and materials that might be useful in your organizations or communities. Take a look. If you think there’s something we should be looking into, or collaborating with you on, let us know. It’s why we’re here.”
3) National: The Partnership for Public Service has responded to the massive right wing attack on government and the public interest on a number of levels, including by holding a series of webinars for affected public servants. The next one will be on Wednesday and will focus on What do I need to know about D.C. unemployment insurance? RSVP.
4) National: Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon have been covering the fight back by veterans against Trump’s efforts to gut the VA, fire the many veterans who work there and at other government agencies, in order to prepare it for privatization. Veterans are starting to mobilize against Trump’s cuts, they report in Jacobin. “Outside a Tesla dealership in San Francisco, Army veteran and VA patient Ricardo Ortiz told a crowd of three hundred about the struggle of working-class vets to create a health care system, based on public provision of care instead of for-profit medical treatment. That achievement is now at risk, he warned, because of bipartisan efforts to privatize the VA-run Veterans Health Administration. Now many red-state victims of the Trump-Musk purge are speaking out as well, taking their personal stories to media outlets and public meetings around the country.”
5) National: Government Executive reports that the Merit Systems Protection Board on Wednesday “ordered the [temporary—ed.] reinstatement of between 5,600 and 5,900 Agriculture Department workers who were fired as part of the Trump administration’s governmentwide purge of recently hired, promoted or transferred federal employees. Following his work securing 45-day stays for six federal employees terminated as part of the mass firing of employees still in their probationary periods that began last month, U.S. Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger on Feb. 28 requested reinstatement for all probationary workers at USDA. The department has offered shifting numbers on how many were swept up in the purge, though it is estimated that the decision will affect between 5,600 and 5,900 employees.”
6) National: Some state and local leaders are trying to recruit suddenly jobless U.S. government employees, The American Prospect’s Gabrielle Gurley reports. “In a bid to soothe the sting of unemployment, Hochul has teed up 7,000 vacancies in state government. New York needs educators, engineers, and health care workers. Attorneys, engineers, nurses, and IT specialists are also in high demand. Career services are on offer and dismissed New York residents can apply for unemployment insurance. Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor super commuters and casual travelers can expect to see similar appeals on digital billboards in New York’s Moynihan Station and Washington’s Union Station, two of the busiest stops on the national rail network.”
7) National: A U.S. House committee is focusing on air traffic control modernization and staffing rather than privatization. “In February, a coalition of 34 aviation industry organizations, including AOPA, told members of Congress in a letter that privatization would be “a distraction from these needed investments and reforms.” In their heated bust-up at Trump’s cabinet meeting the other day, the new transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, told Musk to his face that his approach of chaotically firing people was a disaster. The New York Times reports that “Mr. Duffy said the young staff of Mr. Musk’s team was trying to lay off air traffic controllers. What am I supposed to do? Mr. Duffy said. I have multiple plane crashes to deal with now, and your people want me to fire air traffic controllers? Mr. Musk told Mr. Duffy that his assertion was a lie.’ Mr. Duffy insisted it was not; he had heard it from them directly. Mr. Musk, asking who had been fired, said: Give me their names. Tell me their names. Mr. Duffy said there were not any names, because he had stopped them from being fired. At another point, Mr. Musk insisted that people hired under diversity, equity and inclusion programs were working in control towers. Mr. Duffy pushed back and Mr. Musk did not add details, but said during the longer back and forth that Mr. Duffy had his phone number and should call him if he had any issues to raise.”
Writing in Newsweek, Bruce Landsberg, the Retired Vice Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said U.S. air traffic control must not be privatized. “Experience has shown that privatized ATC systems like those in Canada, the U.K., and elsewhere are troubled by concerns over safety, traffic delays, technical issues, financial instability, and shortages of air traffic controllers. In Canada, a troubling recent safety audit by the International Civil Aviation Organization gave Canada’s transport authority a ‘C’ in safety oversight of its separate ATC system, Nav Canada. In other words, Canada’s ability to oversee its separate, ‘customer-funded’ ATC system has deteriorated on multiple levels. In the U.K., persistent revenue shortfalls have resulted in sweeping increases for air traffic service charges. Are these ATC systems what we want to emulate? The good news is the path to technology and efficiency improvements is clear—and it does not require a structural change.”
8) National/Minnesota: AFSCME reports that corrections officers and prison staff are taking a stand against privatization. “Biggins and her fellow correctional officers from AFSCME Council 5 are among the many AFSCME corrections members to take on this fight. They fought for years to pass a bill banning private prisons in Minnesota—and in 2023, that bill was signed into law. For more than a generation and in states across America, AFSCME members in corrections have stood on the front lines fighting against for-profit prison companies and the anti-union extremists who want to make themselves richer at our expense. But these same companies are now preparing to rake in record-breaking profits from the federal government thanks to an executive order that poses a direct threat to AFSCME members in corrections. CEO Damon Hininger, the head of a private prison company called CoreCivic, openly bragged to his shareholders recently that this policy will generate windfall profits.”
9) National/International: As we mark International Women’s Day, it’s a good time to recall what even a conservative institution like the World Bank said a decade ago about privatization and its impact on the right to education of women and girls. “This report is based on a broad understanding of ‘privatization’ which includes public-private partnerships (PPPs) in the education system. It highlights that privatization in many cases exacerbates gender discrimination in the area of education, in part because in many countries parents favor the education of boys over girls. As quality education becomes more costly, studies show that boys are often given priority over girls. This problem is also further compounded by other issues which emerge within the context of privatization, such as poor regulation and oversight of private education providers. The submitting organizations conclude that in order for women and girls to be able to realize their right to education, as well as their rights to non-discrimination and equality more broadly, it is imperative that education be seen as a public good, and not as a commodity.”
So, how will the erosion of the constitutional separation of church and state and the privatization of our schools in the U.S. impact on the right to education of women and girls? The Center for Economic and Social Rights says, “Gender justice is a fundamental pillar of building a Rights-Based Economy. It requires us to question and dismantle the systems and structures that perpetuate gender inequality and discrimination. The consequences of austerity and privatization, shifting money away from public services such as health and education, have exacerbated gender imbalances and the feminization of poverty. The gap in public services is largely subsidized by unpaid care work, which disproportionately falls on women and girls.”
10) National/Texas: “This charter school superintendent makes $870,000. He leads a district with 1,000 students,” The Texas Tribune reports. The charter industry is shocked, shocked they tell you. “The fact that the superintendent of a small district could pull in a big-time salary shocked experts and previewed larger transparency and accountability challenges that could follow as Texas moves to approve a voucher-like program that would allow the use of public funds for private schools. Cavazos’ total pay is alarming, said Duncan Klussmann, an associate professor at the University of Houston Department of Educational Leadership & Policy Studies. ‘I just can’t imagine that there’d be any citizen in the state of Texas that would feel like that’s OK,’ Klussmann said. Details concerning Cavazos’ compensation, and that of two other superintendents identified by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, drew a sharp rebuke from the association that advocates for charter schools across the state. ‘It’s not acceptable for any public school to prioritize someone’s personal enrichment ahead of students’ best interests,’ Brian Whitley, a spokesperson for the Texas Public Charter Schools Association, said in a statement.”
11) National: The Network for Public Education Action is urging everyone to contact their representatives and demand they stop Trump’s war on public education. “The U.S. Department of Education has a critical mission. It serves as the only guardrail protecting schools and students in states that appear hellbent on destroying their public schools and every equity initiative that most Americans stand for and support. And that is what would happen if the Department was dissolved and states were given block grants.” Send your letter here.
Education Week reports that Trump is promulgating an executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to prepare for the Education Department’s dissolution. “‘We’ve seen this administration take a lot of actions—to release executive orders, release guidance documents, say stuff off the cuff, and then they pull back really soon after,’ said Jon Valant, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and the director of the Brown Center on Education Policy. ‘I think we also need to realize that whatever is in the EO, that doesn’t mean that that’s the end of the story.’ Another policy expert, who worked in the U.S. Department of Education under President George W. Bush, called the executive order ‘a nothing burger.’ ‘I think it’s really just theater,’ said Mike Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education policy think tank. ‘This is something that the president promised to do on the campaign trail, and so he’s got to check the box, and this executive order will show that he’s doing what he can. But I don’t think it’s going to have much of an impact.’” [Sub required]
12) National: USA Today reports that “the American Civil Liberties Union and a teachers union hit the U.S. Department of Education with a lawsuit on March 5 after the agency directed leaders of federally funded schools to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programming. The ACLU and its New Hampshire and Massachusetts chapters, as well as the National Education Association and its New Hampshire chapter, filed the complaint in New Hampshire federal court. The lawsuit contends the department is wrong to find various DEI practices unlawful and it ‘has no authority to dictate curriculum or educational programs.’ The groups argue, in part, that the Education Department violated educators’ and students’ First Amendment rights with the anti-DEI directive.”
What does “DEI” (diversity, equity and inclusion) mean on the ground in this atmosphere? Read this interview with the diversity officer of Colorado College. “[Rosalie Rodriguez] and her office have already attended three workshops about protecting undocumented and international students. She says their main goal is ‘increasing agency by making sure people understand their rights.’ As students at a private institution, FERPA protects CC students’ information, and all law enforcement agencies must go through Campus Security first. This means that just like with a private home, students in residence halls are not obligated to open doors for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. If the proper documentation has been attained, Campus Police will escort them. Rodriguez has also offered local immigration and legal resources to those who need them. (…) Rodriguez says that the administration’s job is to protect students and to foster an environment where people can be the best version of themselves. In addition to her Institutional Equity and Belonging newsletter, the office is considering ways to make its pedagogy more inclusive and has hired a new Assistant Vice President for Institutional Belonging to build capacity around these topics. ”
13) National/Upcoming conference: It’s less than one month away. The Network for Public Education’s national conference in Columbus is on April 5-6. “Stay tuned for more info about keynote speakers and session topics. Use the form below to register, and book your discounted hotel using the link below.” [Register and book accommodation here]
14) New York: The school district in Hempstead, Long Island, is calling for state intervention because of the damage charter schools have done to its finances, Newsday reports. “Hempstead school officials called for state intervention Thursday, as the district faces a “financial crisis” that they blamed on rising charter school tuition payments. The Nassau district is grappling with a projected $34 million budget deficit for the 2025-26 school year, officials said. The district expects to pay $106 million in charter school tuition for more than 3,700 students next school year, up $20 million from 2024-25 and nearly double what was owed in 2021-22, officials said. Hempstead officials made the case Thursday for an infusion of state aid to help it make up the budget gap for the 2025-26 school year. To solve its long term funding issues, officials also urged the state to change the formulas for school aid and what is used to calculate a district’s charter school tuition costs. ‘Without financial relief, our students will suffer,’ school board President Victor J. Pratt said at a news conference at Hempstead High School. To make up for the budget shortfall, district officials told Newsday before the news conference that they are planning to close David Paterson Elementary School and lay off staff.” [Sub required]
15) Pennsylvania: A charter school has been temporarily let off the hook from having to pay the Philadelphia school district $30 million for enrolling hundreds of students over its legal limit for more than a decade. Final adjudication is supposed to happen next month. “WPACES, at 67th and Callowhill Streets, is authorized by the terms of its most recent charter, signed in 2006, to educate 400 students; it now enrolls about 650, but over the last 10 years has sometimes had more than 700.”
16) National: The Clean Air Act is under attack. “Donald Trump’s EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, has reportedly begun efforts to strike the Endangerment Finding by submitting recommendations to the Office of Management and Budget,” Toni Aguilar Rosenthal reports in The American Prospect. “Such action is predicated on the administration’s disavowal of years of settled science, and a thorough rejection of the interests of the public in favor of polluter profits. It would fundamentally rewrite more than a decade of regulation, gut the ability of regulators to limit the pollutants cars and corporations put into our neighborhoods, and further destroy the ability of communities to defend themselves from this poisoning.”
17) National: David Dayen reports that Elon Musk’s “Starlink could elbow its way into the $42.5 billion Biden-era program to build out broadband internet service in underserved areas. Starlink’s satellite service did not initially meet reliability standards for the program, nor did it commit to a low-cost option for low-income users. Starlink service starts at $120 a month, which is substantially more than the average broadband bill. But the Trump administration could rewrite the rules to let Starlink participate more fully in the program, and compete with the more prominent wired fiber-optic service. Only three states—Louisiana, Delaware, and Nevada—have finalized their broadband funding.”
18) National/District of Columbia: Government Executive reports that Reductions in Force (RIFs) by Trump/Musk are “nearly wiping out entire offices.” This is going to facilitate a fire sale of government-owned and/or government-occupied commercial real estate, a long-sought goal of the banks and real estate industry. The Washington Post reports that “the impact of a massive sell-off of government buildings isn’t limited to just Washington, or to the urban design of the nation’s capital. Millions of square feet in Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Atlanta and many smaller cities also could be dumped on the market, causing chaos. And many of the GSA buildings include art commissioned by the GSA or the agencies that originally built the structures before the GSA was created in 1949. (…) if this does turn out to be a massive, rapid privatization of federal assets similar to the chaotic purge of federal workers by Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service, the public will lose not just money, but probably faith in government itself as well. In Washington, especially, federal architecture tells a symbolic story of public access to the government, transparency, the growth of institutions and whole sectors of the economy. Buildings represent service, no matter how imperfectly that service is rendered. If this goes forward, they will represent merely assets, sold at a loss, to people whose interest is entirely economic. It will be hard to look at those structures without bitterness and resentment.”
19) National: Public Works Financing this month reports, rather unusually, on the not-so-wholesome (or “efficiency”-based) incentives that “public-private partnerships” offer to public officials. The review article, by Professor Eoin Reeves (ed), of the University of Limerick, Ireland, is a review of a paper by Yanbing Han & Hai (David) Guo. “The literature also suggests that PPPs can incentivize policymakers to behave opportunistically and pursue their self-interest by extracting economic rents in forms such as corruption or material gain. For example, policy makers can direct interest groups to the sectors that may get a slice of the PPP business. In exchange for a reward, policy makers can then count on the interest groups’ support in elections. The paper recognizes that policy makers are not necessarily willing or able to utilize the benefits of PPP initiation under any conditions. The analytic framework is developed further to account for how the use of PPPs for opportunistic purposes is shaped by a complex interplay of political and fiscal contexts. The framework proceeds to identify four political-fiscal conditions that are closely linked to a specific political advantage. Each political-fiscal condition provides a premise for the following hypotheses that are formally tested in the paper. Research Hypotheses: First, the literature suggests that the need to use PPPs increases when policy makers believe themselves unable to change policies through the legislative process. Party polarization which denotes the ideological distance between the main political parties represents a major source of policy gridlocks. As policy gridlock increases the likelihood is that politicians will use PPPs to bypass such gridlocks by securing PPPs which are associated with ‘easy money’ (private finance). Hence, the first hypothesis is as follows: H1: States with higher levels of party polarization are associated with more PPP initiations.” Their fourth hypothesis is, “States with greater industrial lobby efforts in PPP-related sectors are associated with more PPP initiations.” [Public Works Financing, February 2025; sub required]
20) New Jersey: Water privatization is advancing in South Orange, Patch reports. “One of the largest water companies in the nation is on the brink of adding to its growing footprint in New Jersey. On Thursday, New Jersey American Water (NJAW) announced that it signed an agreement to purchase South Orange’s water system—which serves nearly 5,000 local customer connections – for $19.7 million. Voters in South Orange paved the way for privatizing their water system in a referendum as part of the 2024 election, with 62 percent casting ‘yes’ ballots. The public question saw both cheers and jeers prior to Election Day. (…) Critics argue that selling water or sewer systems increases costs for homeowners and businesses over the long term, while selling off a “precious public resource” to a private company that is only interested in its own bottom line. The deal remains subject to approval by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities. (…) Critics of the deal have included nonprofit advocacy group Food & Water Watch, which released a list of “Three Reasons Why Water Privatization Is a Bad Deal for South Orange.”
21) Texas: Houston has announced a $1 billion convention center expansion financed by public bonds, The Bond Buyerreports. “Nearly $2 billion in funding is expected to be raised under a 2023 Texas law, which authorized the use of the state’s portion of incremental hotel occupancy tax growth within a three-mile radius of the convention center for 30 years. Dallas tapped the same revenue stream collected in a project financing zone to help fund a replacement for the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center. (…) The notes would be refunded with fixed-rate, 30-year bonds.” [Sub required]
22) International/Bali: The government is cracking down on beach privatization as a result of grassroots organizing efforts. “Local leaders and communities have raised growing concerns over the increasing influence of commercial interests on the management and accessibility of coastal areas. Many fear that unchecked development could limit public access and disrupt the island’s natural and cultural heritage. During his initial weeks back in office, Bali Governor Wayan Koster introduced 15 new Priority Regional Regulations. Among the most significant for visitors is a policy designed to prevent beach privatization, particularly in Denpasar City and Badung Regency.”
23) International/United Kingdom: The major water privatization crackup is hindering large project development, Public Works Financing reports. Their solution: pass the damage on to consumers by “reforming” the public watchdog. “Overshadowing all of Labour’s efforts is the ongoing meltdown of Thames Water and the broader UK water industry. Things will likely get worse before they get better in the sector, and Labour is currently showing little interest in reforming Ofwat’s regulation of the industry. Prospective investors are right to worry about regulatory risk in the UK.” [Public Works Financing, February 2025; sub required].
24) National: “Elon Musk wants to privatize Amtrak. It would make train travel worse,” says Fast Company. “[Musk] has some power and authority, it seems now, to sell off pieces of federal work and assets, but he also seems to have his hand out to get some of these contracts,” says Donald Cohen, director of In the Public Interest, a nonprofit research and advocacy group, and author of The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back. “Just because of that, he’s not the right voice to be listening to on how to make government better, because he’s clearly got some interest in getting his hands on multibillion-dollar contracts.”
25) National: Trump presents the gravest threat to Social Security in its 90-year history, says Nancy J. Altman, president of Social Security Works and chair of the Strengthen Social Security coalition. “Americans will have a terrible time reaching SSA if they have questions, need to change their bank accounts, or have other issues. Moreover, grieving families may have trouble getting the survivor benefits their loved ones have earned for them. Relying on a website or worse, an AI chatbot, won’t cut it. Nobody voted for this. During the presidential election, Donald Trump blanketed swing states with campaign flyers pledging that he wouldn’t touch Social Security. Make no mistake: Trump has broken that promise.”
Jessica Corbett of Common Dreams reports on Trump’s privatization plans. “A leaked email from acting Social Security Administration Commissioner Leland Dudek on Tuesday sparked a fresh wave of warnings about U.S. President Donald Trump and government-gutting billionaire Elon Musk privatizing the agency. The Bulwark, an anti-Trump conservative news outlet, obtained Dudek’s March 1 email to staff, which reportedly says in part that “we need to revitalize SSA operations by streamlining activities, outsource nonessential functions to industry experts, and reinstating human judgment and common sense into every decision at every level.” While Dudek did not elaborate on what outsourcing ‘nonessential functions’ will look like, according to The Bulwark, Martin O’Malley, who led the agency under former President Joe Biden, warned that it could involve automation and the use of artificial intelligence to replace call centers staffed by people trained to help seniors and other beneficiaries sort out complex problems.”
26) National: Trump donors are still hidden from view, The New York Times reports. “Experts on government accountability noted that without a public accounting of donors, it was exceedingly difficult to know whether individuals or corporations had tried to buy influence with the new administration behind closed doors. ‘Transparency on the question of private interests influencing public power is really fundamental to the health of our system, and we’re seeing that break down in very big ways,’ said Max Stier, the president of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan nonprofit that promotes best practices in the federal government. ‘They made a promise. They owe it to the public to fulfill that.’”
27) National: Musk is calling for the privatization of the Post Office and Amtrak. “I just think we should privatize anything that can be privatized,” he reportedly said. Workers are fighting back. This morning, NTEU 335 is holding a rally with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau union in DC. “Workers & supporters are invited to a peaceful demonstration to defend CFPB while NTEU heads to federal court to stop the unelected Musk, DOGE and Vought’s illegal attempts to destroy us! Enjoy coffee, donuts, and solidarity, and hear from fired & nearly-fired CFPB workers fighting to get back to work protecting Americans from corporate greed.” Listen to the March 5 episode of the Working People podcast.
28) National: Trump officials are reopening a for-profit Texas detention center for migrant families. “CoreCivic, Inc. said it had reached an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to reactivate the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, with room for up to 2,400 parents and children, making it one of the largest detention centers in ICE’s portfolio. Total annual revenue from the facility is expected to be $180 million, including medical services, the company said. CoreCivic spokesman Steve Owen said, “It’s our understanding that this will be housing families again. It’s a family residential center.” Dilley City Administrator Henry Arredondo said in an interview last month that ICE notified them that Dilley would once more detain migrant families.”
Let’s go down memory lane, to the July 30, 2018 edition of the Privatization Report: “During a press briefing Friday, the Texas Civil Rights Project ‘outlined details of the U.S. government’s failure to meet a court-ordered July 26 deadline to reunite nearly 3,000 children taken from their parents under the Trump administration’s ‘zero tolerance’ immigration policy.’ Efrén C. Olivares, TCRP’s Racial and Economic Justice Program Director, said ‘the government would like the public to believe it successfully met the July 26 deadline; nothing could be further from the truth. Here in South Texas, chaos dominates the government’s family reunification efforts. Many parents were reunited in the parking lot of the Port Isabel Detention Center and dropped on the steps of Catholic Charities. One mother was brought the wrong child—thankfully, the issue was resolved later that day. Some clients had to sleep in cars because they were processed for release, but their children were not there yet. These incidents point to major, ongoing problems. They highlight the mismanagement of the process and the further trauma it’s causing. And they underscore the government’s utter failure to plan for timely, humane reunification when it tore families apart.’”
29) National: Writing in The Nation, David Dixson reports on the Trump/Musk administration’s assault on NOAA. “I’m a meteorologist, and breaking NOAA would undermine journalists’ ability to cover the story our audiences care about most.”
30) National: The Revolving Door Project’s Jacob Plaza reports Hedge Fund Investors Bet on Political Power to Privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—And They Might Win. “Wall Street saw the takeover as an opportunity. Hedge fund investors such as Bill Ackman bought up sizable amounts of stock in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as their prices bottomed. Ackman and the other Wall Street investors presented their purchases as a “bet” on the possibility that these agencies would at some point become re-privatized, and their stock would be able to return to its previous highs. But that hypothetical event has more to do with political power than the contingencies of the market: What they really bet on was whether or not they would be able to sway the government, through lobbying and aggressive litigation, to implement policies which would boost the price of the stock. ”
31) National: The Bond Buyer has a useful take by William Glasgall on “What to watch in public finance 2025—and where I was wrong in 2024.” [Sub required]
32) National: Musk’s company described the rather inefficient explosion of its rocket the other day as an “unscheduled disassembly on ascent.”
33) National: Bloomberg puts the current Muskian rage for government reform into historical perspective. It’s not as original as one may think. “Elon Musk may think of himself as a revolutionary wielding his metaphorical chainsaw through the thickets of federal spending, shuttering departments, cutting programs and firing staff. But as de facto head of the Department for Government Efficiency (DOGE), the Tesla boss and first buddy to President Donald Trump is treading a well-worn path. For as long as there have been governments, there have been those whose job is to fight waste and fraud. And while Musk’s methods may be novel, not least in their disregard for the inconveniences of employment law, his approach harks back to an earlier era—and risks ignoring its lessons.” [Sub required]
34) National: The Federal Unionists Network has a rapid response network. Sign up.
35) International/Uruguay: New President Yamandú Orsi says, “There is an ultra-individualistic concept of ‘freedom’ that preaches domination by the strongest. This will never be our notion of freedom. The individual freedom in which we believe is the key to co-existence and the equality of opportunities in the essential aspects of life. How much ‘freedom’ can be exercised or enjoyed by a compatriot who has to spend weeks going on a pilgrimage to a health center to get their medicine? How ‘free’ is someone who suffers from serious problems with housing or work? How ‘free’ are women who feel violated on the street or behind closed doors in their homes? What individual freedom can be exercised amid collective inequality?”
36) Think Tanks: Public Citizen’s Rick Claypool is out with a new comprehensive report on Corporate Clemency: How Trump Is Halting Enforcement Against Corporate Lawbreakers. [Full report is here].
37) Useful Resource: Free.law has created a bot that tracks litigation against Trump.