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February 12, 2025

Emma Marsano

Newsletter

AgricultureConsumer ProtectionDepartment of TransportationExecutive BranchGovernment CapacityHousingTrump 2.0

President Trump Would Like You To Say Goodbye To Our Food Inspectors

This week has seen further escalations in an already dramatic first month of Trump 2.0. In particular, in addition to “cartoonishly corrupt” moves like signing an order to halt enforcement of a bribery ban, the Trump administration has used a number of methods to reduce enforcement capacity across federal agencies, building on the hiring and funding freezes Trump ordered on his first day in office. (While judges have readily agreed to challenges to the funding freeze, it appears the administration is illegally withholding funding, anyway.)

February 11, 2025

Andrea Beaty

Blog Post Corporate CrackdownHousingTrump 2.0

RealPage Defender Jay Parsons Joins HUD Secretary’s Former Real Estate Company

Jay Parsons, the economist and price-setting software cheerleader who left RealPage right before it started getting sued by tenants and state AGs across the country for allegedly colluding with landlords to raise rents, joined JPI last week. If JPI rings a bell, perhaps it is because it is the development company that Scott Turner just left before his improbable nomination and confirmation as Secretary of HUD.

February 10, 2025

Blog Post Executive BranchJudiciaryTrump 2.0

Trump Administration Non-Adherence to Court Orders

On January 27 the Trump administration issued a memo ordering a freeze of federal grants and loans, which crippled critical services across the country. Judge Loren L. AliKhan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and Judge John McConnell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island have since blocked the spending pause from going into effect, but there are still numerous examples of shuttered programs and services. We are tracking notable examples.

February 07, 2025 | The American Prospect

Hannah Story Brown

Op-Ed 2024 Election/TransitionClimate and EnvironmentDoug BurgumEthics in GovernmentInteriorTech

Trump’s Energy Czar Is All In on AI

When Donald Trump nominated North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum to be his interior secretary, centrist to right-of-center “abundance agenda” advocates were jubilant. Politico reported, with typically amoral zeal, that Interior would be led by an “overnight rock star in the tech and energy worlds.” Burgum has a foot in both camps, as a former governor from fracking country with deep ties to fossil fuel executives like fracking magnate Harold Hamm, and a venture capitalist invested in software companies who sold his own software company to Microsoft for $1.1 billion in 2001.

February 07, 2025

Blog Post DOGEElon MuskTrump 2.0

DOGE’s Hit List

While members of Congress try to obtain an official list of personnel working for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the media have been keeping tabs on Musk and his team as they sweep through the federal government. Along with our list of individuals reportedly affiliated with DOGE, we’ve compiled a list of the agencies reportedly visited by DOGE in the first weeks of the Trump administration.

February 05, 2025

KJ Boyle

Blog Post Elon MuskGovernment CapacityTrump 2.0

Trump’s DCA Crash Response Was A Disaster—Dems Need To Make It A Scandal

We won’t know the full scope of what went wrong to cause the horrific in-air collision at DCA until the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) completes its investigation. That could take up to two years. Oh, and that’s assuming the investigation is independent–which didn’t previously need to be specified, but, well… look around. Given all of that, the opposition to Musk and Trump, including but not limited to Democrats, must not wait to assign blame.