HIGHLIGHTS

JUMP: EDUCATION | INFRASTRUCTURE | PUBLIC SERVICES | THE REST

First, the Good News

1) National: In the Public Interest Executive Director Donald Cohen was interviewed by Katie Gatti Tassin on the Money with Katie podcast about “The Truth about ‘Government Waste,’ Privatizing Public Goods, & Turning Citizens into Customers.”

“Katie: We’re referring to both Trump and Musk here.

Donald Cohen: Both. And eliminate your political opponents. So why do they want to privatize schools? They don’t like the teacher’s union. I mean, there are other reasons, but they’d love to get rid of the teacher’s union. They’re political opponents. So that there’s a political component to what they’re doing that’s very real. The other piece is Trump is he cut off all the money. He had to back up, backtrack all the money to cities and states. Then he backtracked because it turned out it wasn’t legal and didn’t make sense. But what he wants to do is get everybody coming back on their knees, begging him so that he can extract what he wants from them. It’s a power play so that he can help his friends enrich himself, accomplish whatever he wants to accomplish.” [Audio, about an hour and 17 minutes; transcript]

2) National: Multiple groups have filed lawsuits to get DOGE’s records. “Other watchdog groups have sued for DOGE records, generally arguing that the Trump administration has not complied with their FOIA requests:

3) National: Progressive legal groups have weighed in to challenge a possible U.S. Supreme Court ruling on so-called reverse discrimination. The case is Ames v. Department of Ohio Youth Services [Explainer].  NAACP LDF says“LatinoJustice PRLDEF, National Women’s Law Center, National Employment Law Project, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), and Equal Justice Society joined LDF in submitting today’s brief, which contends that the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals made an error when addressing certain legal principles in the case, but reached the correct result in ruling that Ms. Ames had not presented sufficient evidence of discrimination.” Their brief says, “Majority-group plaintiffs are, of course, protected by Title VII. They simply cannot rely on this country’s persisting legacy of discrimination targeting minority-group plaintiffs as a relevant factor in support of their claims because they do not share that legacy. Properly understood, this is all that the “background circumstances” inquiry (or whatever label a court chooses to give it) should mean.” [Read the brief]

4) National: “The U.S. Postal Service is more efficient than you think. Privatizing it could cause problems for many,” says CNN. “Even those who are critical of the level of service and the cost of postage charged to major business customers say privatizing the service is not the answer. “People are used to what they have. Six days a week, every address served,” said Michael Plunkett, CEO of the Association for Postal Commerce, which represents companies in the mailing and shipping industry, including pharmacies, banks, catalog publishers and online retailers. ‘Anything that severely disrupts that will be extremely unpopular. People are generally happy with the kind of service they get from the postal service. Certainly, the quality in the last year or so has been subpar, but overall, the public likes what they get.’”

5) Florida: The fight against the privatization of beaches is gaining momentum. “Friday morning, Florida State Sen. Jay Trumbull filed legislation that would bring back the customary use of the beach. (…) Trumbull recognized Walton County residents for their ongoing advocacy against the privatization of the beaches. In Friday’s news release, he said, ‘Residents should not be denied access to our beaches and no one individual should have the power to deny the public from enjoying a community asset that means so much to so many.’”

 6) Think Tanks/Useful resource: We Own It, the British anti-privatization campaigning group, has a set of succinct arguments on “Why Public is Better.” Check them out. Covers:

  • Buses
  • Elder and Health Care
  • Council Services
  • Energy
  • Railways
  • The Mail

Education

7) National: Jennifer C. Berkshire, writing in The Baffler, recounts to long history (over 150 years) of right wing attacks on the Department of Education and its predecessors. “But the project and its head, Henry Barnard, the nation’s first commissioner of education, quickly ran into the buzzsaw of Reconstruction politics. Abolitionists were keen on the new department, while the former Confederate states revolted against the idea that the federal government would now be monitoring the literacy rates of the formerly enslaved. Barnard barely survived long enough to deliver his first report on the state of the nation’s schools to Congress before his agency was demoted to a mere office, its funding reduced. Even Barnard’s own salary was cut. ‘The tactics were very similar to what we’re seeing today,’ says education historian Adam Laats. The funding cuts ensured that people would leave, the department’s programs withering in their wake, but the nineteenth-century version of the wrecking crew also understood the power of demonizing civil servants. If the cuts to his budget and staff made the job more difficult, his sense that he’d somehow become the enemy in the eyes of the officials he served made it impossible. ‘Henry Barnard felt personally humiliated. You can smell it in his papers,’ says Laats.”

Regarding more recent such efforts, Berkshire says, “Hanging over all of these claims, of course, is the putrescence of race science, and the belief, shared by Musk and his fellow oligarchs, along with many Trumpian intellectuals, that hierarchy is both good and natural. In this view, a cognitive elite with the highest of the high IQs deserves to rule over the rest of us, all in our natural places. In this fixed economy of spoils, there is little point to an institution whose goal is ‘equalizing.’ It can’t be done.”

8) National: The right wing Washington Free Beacon is complaining that Iowa school still have energetic affirmative action programs despite Trump’s crusade and decades of organized assault by right wing legal groups and think tanks. “Scores of Iowa public school districts now have affirmative action plans that encourage race-based hiring and other diversity initiatives, according to a new report by Parents Defending Education, potentially imperiling their federal funding under new guidance issued by the Trump administration. The plans, which are required by state law, include hiring goals for minority teachers, courses on ‘equity in mathematics,’ and bonuses for teachers who specialize in ‘culturally responsive leadership.’ Some set percentage targets for ‘BIPOC representation’ or explicitly say that race is ‘considered when making employment decisions.’ While the law requiring the plans does not instruct districts to use racial preferences, it does expect them to set ‘goals and timetables for reduction of underrepresentation.’”

9) National: “What is a charter school, really?”  Preston Green III and Suzanne Eckes say the Supreme Court ruling on whether Catholic charter is constitutional (expected in April 2025) will hinge on whether they’re public or private. “The case is often discussed in terms of religion, and a decision in the school’s favor could allow government dollars to directly fund faith-based charter schools nationwide. In part, the justices must decide whether the First Amendment’s prohibition on government establishing religion applies to charter schools. But the answer to that question is part of an even bigger issue: Are charters really public in the first place? As two professors who study education law, we believe the Supreme Court’s decision will impact issues of religion and state, but could also ripple beyond—determining what basic rights students and teachers do or don’t have at charter schools.”

10) Michigan: Chalkbeat Detroit reports that the state superintendent of public instruction says Trump’s executive order will not stop “teaching comprehensive history and literature, including lessons around race, racism, sexism, and xenophobia. (…) On Thursday, Rice also sent out a memo to local superintendents in response to the executive order emphasizing that educators have a moral and professional responsibility to protect and support LGBTQ+ students. The letter cited legal obligations under the state’s Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. ‘Neither a presidential executive order nor federal regulations, whether related to federal funding or not, can supersede or otherwise set aside our obligation to comply with a validly enacted state anti-discrimination law,’ the memo read.”

11) Wyoming: In a landmark ruling, a state court has upheld the Wyoming constitution’s guarantee of high quality universal education. “The court’s ruling serves as a stark reminder of this commitment, a voice from our founders that rings across time, declaring that we do not abandon our principles for political convenience. The ruling exposes what we already knew — our schools have been underfunded, our teachers undervalued and our students shortchanged. The Legislature has turned educators into scapegoats, blaming them for every societal failure while refusing to provide the resources necessary for success. But here’s the truth: Education is not the problem — it is the solution.”

12) International: Pearson and Amazon have announced “the expansion of their long-standing collaboration to accelerate the delivery of AI-powered learning for millions of people around the world and enhance the learner experience for Pearson’s products and services. (…) Through this collaboration, AWS, the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud, and Pearson will advance the adoption of technology-driven education, with the objective of making learning more effective, efficient, and accessible.”

Infrastructure

13) National/New Jersey: Alabama Reflector reports that “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has awarded a private prison company a 15-year contract worth $1 billion to detain up to 1,000 immigrants in New Jersey, the first expansion of an immigrant detention center amid the Trump administration’s plans for mass deportations. (…) The Newark detention center, Delaney Hall, will be the largest ICE processing facility and detention center on the East Coast, said George Zoley, the founder and executive chairman of GEO. GEO has pushed for a contract with ICE to reopen that facility as a detention center and even sued New Jersey over its state law that bars private and public companies from contracting with ICE to detain immigrants. Zoley said that GEO plans to increase its bed space capacity from 15,000 to 32,000. He said those additional 17,000 beds ‘could generate between $500 million and $600 million in incremental, annualized revenues.’”

14) National/Kansas: A shuttered private jail in Kansas is considering prison cells for Trump’s mass deportation plan, the Missouri Independent reports. “CoreCivic, an owner/operator of prisons, is attempting to reopen a shuttered federal prison in Leavenworth as a detention center capable of holding about 1,000 immigrants for an average stay of 51 days. Saturday, March 1, CoreCivic is holding an invitation-only luncheon and information session for stakeholders. The meeting will be at the former Leavenworth Detention Center, a pretrial federal prison which the Biden administration closed in 2021 after problems with staffing, violations of detainees’ rights and safety issues, including attacks on guards. CoreCivic was its operator at that time. ‘We would welcome the chance to speak with you directly and share some information about our company, the facility, and the positive impact we could have in the community,’ the CoreCivic invitation reads.” The story includes a map of CoreCivic prison facilities across the United States.

15) California: The Press Democrat reports that a long-planned Highway 101 bike and pedestrian bridge in Santa Rosa is finally moving forward. The crossing, stretching across the six-lane highway, will link Elliott and Edwards avenues. It will provide a safer route for residents to access commercial, government, employment and health care hubs around Coddingtown Mall and Santa Rosa Junior College as well as the passenger rail line. The 14.5-foot-wide, 1,000-foot-long cable-stayed bridge will feature a dedicated footpath and a two-way cycle track. Santa Rosa leaders and project backers say it will close a significant gap in the local bike network and reduce traffic risks for those who now get around on foot or bike on busy Steele Lane and College Avenue. (…) In 2021, the city was awarded $12 million in federal funding from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which helped move the project forward. The city has received additional regional and state funds since to help close the gap.”

16) Texas: The Texas Tribune reports that “Texans living in a 250-square-mile area of Harris County that includes a hazardous Superfund site had abnormally high rates of certain types of cancer, according to a new assessment from the state’s health department. (…) The Texas Department of State Health Services said the cancer assessment was not intended to determine the cause of the cancers or identify possible associations with any risk factors. But environmental advocates said the assessment’s findings renewed calls for the cleanup of the Superfund site, an effort which has faced several delays due to disputes over who is responsible. Jackie Medcalf, founder and CEO of the environmental nonprofit Texas Health and Environment Alliance, called the state’s new study a wake-up call for state and federal officials.”

17) International: As corporate efforts to privatize water supplies spread across the globe, The Economist has a story on The Poisonous Global Politics of Water. “Conservative Chilean landowners think of  ‘water rights’ as a natural part of property rights. But water is not like land. A house need not encroach upon a neighbor; but a well depletes groundwater for everyone. Granting a fixed volume of water rights in perpetuity is nuts. Meanwhile, politicians and activists on the Chilean left push the notion that water is a human right. A draft constitution, backed by the current government but rejected by voters in 2022, referred to “water” 71 times, affirming everyone’s right to it, especially if they were poor or indigenous. Yet the draft gave little clue as to how that water might be delivered.” [Sub required]

18) International/Mexico: The Latin American Review of Books podcast takes a close look at the Tren Maya. “After four years of work, Mexico’s government has mostly completed construction of the ambitious 1,540km Tren Maya, a railway service traversing five states that circles the Yucatán Peninsula. The goal of the project, ostensibly, is to redistribute tourist flows from concentrated coastal resorts such as Cancún and provide inland access to historic Maya sites, thereby encouraging development. Its proponents—led by former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who saw this as his legacy megaproject—and much of the political establishment have hailed it as both a triumph of development in a neglected region and as the right kind of an ‘environmentally friendly’ transportation project. Its critics, however—sidelined and branded reactionary by the corporate left and their overseas cheerleaders—say otherwise.” [Audio, about 25 minutes]

Public Services

19) National: In the Public Interest’s Donald Cohen says privatizing air traffic control is a bad idea, especially for rural Americans. “Our nation’s airspace is a shared public resource that serves millions of passengers, businesses, and communities every day, an important component of the mobility Americans have come to rely upon for work, accessing medical care, connecting with family and friends, and more. Our air traffic control (ATC) system ensures safe and equitable access to this vital infrastructure. Despite its role as a necessary public good, proposals to privatize ATC have resurfaced several times since the election. Such action would undermine these  values by placing this essential public service under the control of a private entity dominated by corporate interests. Instead, air traffic control should be kept public and under the oversight of Congress to ensure accountability to the public it serves.”

Rural Americans are also facing a hit from the proposed privatization of the U.S. Postal Service. “Critics of postal privatization warn of potential consequences, including lower wages for postal workers, mail delivery delays, and significant increases in shipping prices. Under the current model, the Postal Service’s purpose isn’t generating profit. A USPS clerk and a representative from the letter carrier’s union in Grand Junction [Colorado] expressed concerns about how privatization would affect rural Colorado communities in particular. ‘Now, it’s anywhere between five to seven days to deliver something across the country to a rural area. We’re talking possibly weeks in the future if it goes through with the privatization,’ Shane McDonnell said. McDonnell said his coworkers have become somewhat numb to privatization talks, as mentions of it have been floating around for years. This time though it feels different. ‘There’s definitely some people that are scared for their jobs,’ he said. ‘The post office has lasted 250 years under the current model. There are some reforms and things that we need to do. We need to evolve. However, ditching the whole idea of 250 years’ worth of the postal service and trying to fundamentally change what it is and stop servicing the people that we need to service is, in my eyes, a turn in the wrong direction.’”

20) National/Think Tanks: What will be the effect on government contracting of Trump’s executive order banning DEI? Stacy Hawkins, a Nonresident Fellow at Brookings Metro, says the courts will have the final say. “Among the dozens of executive orders (EOs) President Donald Trump issued in his first few days in office were those targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts and LGBTQIA protections. Specifically, one EO was directed to DEI efforts in the federal sector, another directed to DEI efforts across non-federal public and private sector entities, and a third that targeted protections for LGBTQIA individuals. Given a flurry of legal challenges (including a lawsuit challenging the DEI EOs that has already resulted in an order enjoining several of those provisions), many have raised questions about the president’s authority to issue these three EOs, as well as the likely impact of the orders. This article offers a brief overview of the nature of the president’s authority to issue EOs and the legal effect (or lack thereof) of those orders generally. It then unpacks the practical impact of these EOs across the three targeted contexts: the federal workforce, private employment, and higher education.”

21) National: Public-private brownshirts? Politico reports that “a group of prominent military contractors, including former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, has pitched the Trump White House on a proposal to carry out mass deportations through a network of “processing camps” on military bases, a private fleet of 100 planes, and a ‘small army’ of private citizens empowered to make arrests.

The blueprint—laid out in a 26-page document President Donald Trump’s advisers received before the inauguration — carries an estimated price tag of $25 billion and recommends a range of aggressive tactics to rapidly deport 12 million people before the 2026 midterms, including some that would likely face legal and operational challenges, according to a copy obtained by Politico.”

22) National: Elon Musk’s business empire is built on $38 billion in government funding, the Washington Post reports. “Nearly two-thirds of the $38 billion in funds have been promised to Musk’s businesses in the past five years. In 2024 alone, federal and local governments committed at least $6.3 billion to Musk’s companies, the highest total to date. In 2014, Nev. pledged $1.3B to Tesla to build a factory. SpaceX contracts soared as NASA steps up moon program. The total amount is probably larger: This analysis includes only publicly available contracts, omitting classified defense and intelligence work for the federal government. SpaceX has been developing spy satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office, the Pentagon’s spy satellite division, according to the Reuters news agency. The Wall Street Journal reported that contract was worth $1.8 billion, citing company documents. The Post found nearly a dozen other local grants, reimbursements and tax credits where the specific amount of money is not public.”

23) National: GEO Group, the private, for profit prison and immigrant detention company, has released its 10-K Annual Report. It contains 18 pages of “Risk Factors” (pp. 23-45) that make for interesting reading, including “Failure to comply with anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws could subject us to penalties and other adverse consequences”; and, “Adverse publicity may negatively impact our ability to retain existing contracts and obtain new contracts.”

24) National: Trump/Musk’s slashing of jobs at the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has left forecasters reeling, reports The New York Times. “‘Lives are being put in danger,’ one meteorologist warned, as some experts feared the cuts will harm public safety. Twice a day for years, meteorologists in Kotzebue, Alaska, have launched weather balloons far into the sky to measure data like wind speed, humidity and temperature, and translated the information the balloons sent back into weather forecasts and models. It’s a ritual repeated at dozens of weather stations around the United States. On Thursday morning, the National Weather Service, which for years has struggled with worker shortages around the country, announced that it had “indefinitely suspended” the launches from Kotzebue because of a lack of staffing.”

According to a press release, “In a letter sent Thursday evening, Congressman Joe Neguse (CO-02), alongside Colorado Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, moved swiftly to demand an independent investigation into the dismantling of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Their call comes in response to public reports that thousands of federal employees at these agencies were laid off in the latest wave of mass firings by the Trump Administration. Neguse, Bennet, and Hickenlooper directed their outrage to the Deputy Inspector General at the Department of Commerce. NOAA, which houses the National Weather Service (NWS), is situated within Commerce, and its entities employ scientists and experts from across the state of Colorado who ensure accurate forecasting, issue severe weather alerts, and provide the community with emergency information relating to events such as wildfires. NOAA also has a series of longstanding partnerships and collaborations with other federal agencies that have proved vital in bolstering national security, improving air safety, equipping American farmers with critical information, and much more—as outlined in the letter, which can be found here.”

The Washington Post reports, “At dozens of National Weather Services offices across the country, staffing levels were low well before President Donald Trump took office. As the new administration announced mass terminations this week, current and former staffers said an exodus of new hires and veterans will hinder the agency’s ability to monitor and predict weather hazards. The administration let go of meteorologists, hydrologists and technicians that help inform daily weather forecasts in places including Boston and Boise, Idaho. It fired scientists who build, improve and maintain weather models that form the backbone of weather forecasting around the globe. Staff at offices responsible for warning the public about tsunamis, tornadoes and hurricanes lost their jobs, as did an entire team dedicated to communicating NOAA’s work and science to the public.”

Inside Climate News reports that “because of the cuts, [former NOAA administrator Rick Spinrad] said, ‘it’s not clear whether the airplanes will be able to fly and the ships will be able to go to sea, and certainly not at the same kind of operational tempo as they have before.’ That means data won’t be as abundant, ‘and so the quality of the forecast is likely to go down to some degree.’ ‘Every office in NOAA was hit by these indiscriminate, misguided, ill-informed terminations,’ Spinrad said, warning of additional impacts ahead that will have economic ripple effects across the country.”

25) National/Illinois: The St. Joseph-Ogden Daily reports that the gutting of the National Weather Service poses the “risk of privatization leading to disparities in forecast quality and accessibility, with wealthier areas potentially getting better services.” They note that “Project 2025 recommends fully commercializing the NWS’s forecasting operations. It emphasizes prioritizing the commercialization of weather technologies to ensure cost-efficient use of taxpayer dollars and increase competition.”

For more see Donald Cohen’s column from last August, “And now, the weather. The conservative agenda includes privatizing a vital national resource that currently makes us all safe.” He writes, “This isn’t the first time privatizing or commercializing the vital National Weather Service has been proposed, and we wrote about one of the earlier attempts in the book we coauthored, The Privatization of Everything. In it, we recalled the story of AccuWeather’s founder and former CEO Joel Myers boasting to CNBC about the pinpoint accuracy of its forecasting service on behalf of its client, Union Pacific Railroad, during a tornado alert. ‘Two trains stopped two miles apart, they watched the tornado go between them,” he said. ‘Unfortunately, it went into a town that didn’t have our service and a couple of dozen people were killed. But the railroad did not lose anything.’”

26) National/The Moon: Private, for profit companies are now landing on the Moon. Who’s paying for it? You. “This time, ispace plans to leave small art installations on the moon and use a water electrolyzer machine to separate a drop of water into its elements. The company plans to take a sample of the moon and sell it to NASA for a few thousand dollars as part of a NASA contract to explore the legal framework for a system of commerce on the Moon.”

27) Think Tanks/National: The Brookings Institution’s  Nicol Turner Lee reports on how federal layoffs set the stage for greater privatization and automation of the U.S. government. “Under the Trump administration, federal workforce reductions will happen, along with a greater deployment of artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and outsourcing to private firms. These new services will cost millions of dollars to design, deploy, and train the federal workforce, creating new national and data security threats as well, given the level of protected information at stake. But the influence of Big Tech leaders, who are formally and informally advising President Trump and his administration, may be accelerating a smaller government workforce based on their own values about corporate governance. Big Tech companies were among those that led the RTO mandates for their own employees after the pandemic with similar terms and conditions, as well as promises made that were not kept. Many of these same companies are making AI more technically advanced without realizing that millions of people are still impacted in the U.S. by the lack of digital access. As Biden era policies were working to address the connectivity challenges faced throughout the U.S., these programs are now being challenged, which will almost guarantee that even the best of AI technologies embedded in government functions may be inaccessible to most people.” See also Turner Lee’s 2011 article (with Jon Gant), “Government Transparency: Six Strategies for More Open and Participatory Government.”

Nota bene: Google Public Sector is driving artificial intelligence into government.

All the Rest

28) National: A banger of a piece from the Wall Street Journal: “They Crashed the Economy in 2008. Now They’re Back and Bigger Than Ever. Wall Street expects to sell more than $335 billion in asset-backed debt this year. Remember that conference in ‘The Big Short’? It just drew a record 10,000.” Matt Wirz and Justin Baer report. “The convention halls at the Aria Resort & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip were packed for four days this past week with bankers and their clients, in uniforms of Italian sportscoats and office sneakers. They fist bumped greetings as they strode to their next meetings, giving off the feel of a joyous reunion. The hotel’s sky suites were booked. Citigroup bankers set up more than 900 meetings. A panel on data centers was so popular, attendees sat on the floor. Bank of America arrived with clients it had just taken on a ski trip to Park City, Utah. At 10,000 people, it was the biggest ever SFVegas—the annual gathering for the structured-finance industry. The last time it boomed like this was 2006 and 2007. Mortgage bonds were selling like crazy, and this crowd was flying high. Then these financiers crashed the U.S. economy and sent the global financial system to the brink. Now, structured finance is back.” [Sub required]

On public interest regulation: “Today, big investors want to buy these types of securities because they think they are relatively safe and yield more than government-backed bonds. Banks are mostly middlemen because regulations instituted after 2008 curtailed their lending. That has opened the way for giant fund-management companies like KKR, Apollo Global Management and Ares Management to muscle in and make loans with their own capital. Goldwasser has been to the annual Vegas event at least 10 times. She was working at Bear Stearns in 2008 when it nearly collapsed and was sold to JPMorgan. ‘I lost my firm, my job,’ she said. ‘A lot of people blamed us.’”

29) National: PYOK reports that American Airlines Flight Attendants Say They Are ‘Alarmed’ By The Trump Administration’s Fast Paced Changes to Agencies That Oversee Aviation Safety. “In an open letter to congressional leaders, including Ted Cruz and Steve Womack, the president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA) said the “arbitrary” cuts at agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration and Transportation Security Administration, must be immediately reversed. ‘As Flight Attendants, we recognize our role and responsibilities as safety professionals can be the difference in saving the lives of our passengers,’ wrote the union’s leader, Julie Hedrick. ‘As an industry, it is imperative that we work together to ensure the adequate funding, training, regulations, and protections necessary to maintain the highest level of safety in our airspace,’ Hedrick added. Of particular alarm to Hedrick and tens of thousands of other flight attendants is the Trump administration’s decision to carry out mass terminations at the FAA—a chronically understaffed agency that has struggled to hire mission-critical staffers. ‘Similarly, hundreds of employees at TSA, an agency commissioned to safeguard U.S. aviation after the attacks of 9/11 and ensure our aircraft are never weaponized again, have been terminated,’ Hedrick’s letter continued. ‘APFA cautions that downsizing any agency that oversees aviation safety and security, particularly under our most recent circumstances, is ill-timed and dangerous.’” [Read the whole letter]

30) National: “I am 101 years old,” says Marion J. Veale of New York, “and have lived through the Great Depression, Pearl Harbor and World War II. My husband, at age 18, was in the U.S. Army and sent to Europe. He was in several battles and was deep in German territory when the war ended in 1945. It took sacrifice and work for all of us. I know a darling 6-year-old girl. With all of the chaos in the White House, what will be in her future?”

31) National: Writing in Rolling Stone, Michael Embrich says “DOGE Is a Cruel Joke. The Punchline Is Making Life Hell for Veterans. Veterans are still losing their jobs and benefits as Elon Musk disassembles the federal government.” “Let’s be clear: DOGE is not about saving money. It’s about weakening public services to justify privatization. The VA, the largest integrated health care system in the country, has long been a target of conservatives who want to dismantle it piece by piece, handing its functions over to private industry. They see veterans not as people who deserve care, but as customers to be exploited for profit. These cuts are part of a larger, coordinated effort to make the VA seem dysfunctional — so that handing it over to for-profit entities seems like the only solution. As for taking everything that veterans have worked for from right under their feet. The reason for that is far more simple: There is no reason. It’s simply to throw red meat to the thugs on X and Truth Social who want to see the world burn, because their own lives are terrible.”

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