Worse and Worse ( Stethoscope on Rome)
Luís Filipe Gomes
All posts and archives will always be free to all subscribers. But if you'd like to support me, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription… If you arrive at wording that says [Message clipped], make sure you click on “View entire message.” Worse and WorseMinor minions, the co-President, foreign policy, King Trump, lawsuits, demonstrations, and COVID-19 miscellany. It’s getting really hard to keep up.
Minor Minions
AG Pam Bondi is going full steam ahead, suing Illinois and Chicago for protecting undocumented immigrants, disbanding the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, weakening the Foreign Agents Registration Act, weaponizing the DOJ against Trump’s perceived enemies, wrecking gun control statutes, escalating attacks on the FBI, suing New Yorkfor letting undocumented people have drivers licenses, deleting a police misconduct database. The Senate confirmed RFK Jr to head HHS and Tulsi Gabbard for DNI, with polio survivor Mitch O’Connell the sole Republican nay. Collins and Murkowski did vote against Kash Patel. Chuck Schumer thinks secret ballots would have gone differently. How Kennedy could undermine childhood vaccination, who preceded him, how NIH cuts damage medical research, his poor sources for saying vaccines cause autism. The Patient Safety Network is gone. Measles was declared eliminated in 2000 in the US, but there were 16 outbreaks in 2024 and 12 states have had cases in 2025 – 400 in Texasas of March 28, with 41 hospitalizations and one death; only 2 cases were fully vaccinated. RFK Jr’s spreading liesabout the outbreak, advising vaccination only weakly, some but not all parents are acting, triggering resignations. A claim that 56% of US measles cases in 1995 were vaccinated is false; only 8% were. Trump’s public health plans match Project 2025’s. A fake antivaccine CDC site has surfaced. A new unnecessary CDC study, headed by a vaccine skeptic, will investigate vaccines and autism. Health datasets are disappearing. The MMWR is back, without bird flu articles previously slated for publication. Kennedy may try packing the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee with his people, has postponed its next meeting, and has terminated both the Advisory Committee on Long COVID and the Office of Long COVID Research and Practiceon Trump’s order, with more long COVID problems ahead. Work on mRNA cancer vaccines may soon be banned. Jeremy Faust asks, “Who’s defending our health?” Other health news: likely terminating support for GAVI, to vaccinate poor countries, cancelling $11.4 billion for COVID-19 testing and vaccination, including state programsfighting infectious diseases and addiction. Veterans Administration cuts, temporarily on hold, risk hobbling hospitals and halting clinical trials. Half the recent articles in the CDC journal have vanished, and half its “disease detectives” fired. All 80,000 HHS employees were offered $25,000 to quit; 20,000 will be cut. Vaccine hesitancy research is now banned. A judge ordered some health websites restored, with a Congressional hearing only breeding confusion. Absurdly, Republicans have threatened judges with impeachment, or worse, for rulings they don’t like. The SSA will now start halting overpaid Social Security benefits. Contacting the agency may be tough; Leland Dudek’s eliminating 7,000 jobs with staffing already at a 50-year low, and raising further obstacles, including closing field offices. Protests: On Presidents Day and before his speech to Congress thousands turned out to call Trump a tyrant. There were 150 Stand Up for Science protests. On International Women’s Day thousands protested around the US; vast crowds of San Diegans and New Yorkers protested ICE, and thousands gathered on the National Mall and elsewhereto protest cuts at the VA. Courts: Tribes are suing Trump over firings at Native schools, climate advocates suing the EPA over frozen grants, researchers over censorship, teachers unions over the Ed. Dept; here’s a partial list. Trump has attacked some top law firms; two (Paul, Weiss and Skadden, Arps) have folded, offering tens of millions in legal services. Others are fighting on in court, and winning. Trump’s pick for the Agency for Global Media is a fierce critic of “mainstream media” and the father of a J6 police assailant. He picked Kari Lake for Voice Of America, then dissolved it; employees are suing. Some J6 evidence may have vanished, and defendants are attacking FBI agents and prosecutors, only verbally thus far. Russell Vought, a chief architect of the Project 2025 that Trump disavowed, now heads the Office of Management and Budget. FBI Director Kash Patel is doing his part, decreasing EPA enforcement and giving Trump back many of the documents seized at Mar-A-Lago in August 2022. EPA chief Lee Zeldin slashed his budget, denied that greenhouse gases harm public health, and, dangerously, scrapped many regulations, which is sure to Make Americans Less Healthy. 168 Office of Environmental Justice employees have been placed on leave. USAID is now under the State Department, and has been dismantled despite Rubio’s previous enthusiastic support. I guess Trump’s not shutting down the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy after all, having nominated a new Chief. He’s banned federal funding for colleges and universities requiring COVID-19 vaccination for students (15 schools) and threatens to absorb the Postal Service in the Commerce Dept. Trump has named a chief for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, after halting its work, twice over. Its website has resurfaced, less functional than before, after a judge’s injunction. The latest block to cancelling birthright citizenship could be permanent, but JD Vance seems to think the ruling illegitimate; the administration counts on SCOTUS. Vance disgraced himself in Munich while 200,000 people protested a party he supports. COVID-19 misinformants Marty Makary and Jay Bhattacharya are now confirmed to head the FDA and NIH. Both Makary and Bhattacharya carry other issues as well. Vicious Tom Tomorrow: “Chuck Schumer says Democrats are planning to eventually start thinking about focus-grouping an opposition strategy. Sources say they have concepts of a plan.” Hakeem Jeffries fought to defeat the Medicaid- and SNAP-busting House budget plan; Schumer fought then folded, drawing backlash. Law firms and universities have folded too. Others, though, fight on. Republicans are somewhat divided, even MAGA ones. Trump has fortunately withdrawn the nomination of vaccine skeptic and Christian Nationalist Lite Dave Weldon for CDC chief, apparently for his vaccine views. His new candidate is Susan Monarez, a non-physician infectious disease expert. The Co-President
Trump/Musk lied that $50 million or even $100 million worth of condoms had been sent to Hamas. Some may actually have gone to a Gaza province in Mozambique, as part of HIV eradication efforts. Musk’s asked all 2.3 million federal workers to justify their existence, saying nonrespondents were presumed resigned; DOD, FBI, HHS,intelligence agency, State, and Homeland Security employees were instructed not to respond. Trump doesn't have Musk's back on this one. Many states hope to hire fired federal workers. Musk keeps spewing nonsense and gaining power over the government, illegally according to judge after judge.USAID was the first casualty, including clinical trials, making Johns Hopkins lay off thousands. Next the Education Department, especially its research arm; it’s already lost half its staff, with a substance abuse agency, SSA, EPA, and IRS, collaborating with ICE and “breaking down,” to follow suit. A judge blocked DOGE’s access to sensitive SSA data. Weather forcasting and aviation safety are endangered, Medicare and Medicaid under threat. See Jamelle Bouie's good piece. Washington Post journalists say Musk wants to “replace human workers with machines,” former Treasury Secretaries say “Our Democracy Is Under Siege,” and a top Republican lawyer called DOGE unconstitutional; its cost savings are largely phony, Musk is very unpopular; no wonder, when he calls Social Security “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,” he’s obtained a top secret security clearance without proper vetting. Here’s DOGE’s website, and its account on X. Huge pushback; 21 members of DOGE itself have resigned in protest. USAID, which does everything from polio vaccination to reef conservation, is essentially dead, with all employees repatriated; people have died. A former chief denounced these plans. Fired inspectors general speak out. Another Musk priority: privatization. American research, largely funded by the National Institutes of Health, is the best in the world. New policies challenge its preeminence. As championed by Musk, research can get defunded for having indirect costs over a low threshold or trying to achieve diverse subject populations; see also Heather Cox Richardson and a Washington Post overview. In the past, the opposite was true. When I had an NIH grant, I was hard-pressed to defend the all-White Italian patient population. These cuts are motivating scientists to push back, even expatriate. His personal interests: the DOJ has dropped a case against SpaceX, another of its rockets has exploded, Starlink stole a Verizon contract, and both are up for billions in new government contracts. Musk is often singled out for attack at congressional Republicans’ town halls. A commentator asks, “Can Elon Musk find any fraud before Trump’s base notices the con?” Tesla sales are falling, X and Tesla stocks tanking. Huge protests against Tesla with guns and Molotov cocktails, which Trump calls domestic terrorism (pot calling kettle black!). Foreign policy and economics
tents at Guantanamo once intended for migrants
Migrants have been held in terrorists’ cells in Guantanamo and refused access to lawyers, while Trump creates a “mirage of mass deportations,” which actually proceed at a snail’s pace, with even green cards no protection. He supposedly supports a path to citizenship for “Dreamers” but there’s no sign of it yet. He’s retaken $80 million that FEMA sent to New York City for migrant shelters and may abolish FEMA, with states unprepared to fill in. Those Haitians Trump slandered in his second debate seem headed for deportation, along with 140,000 Ukrainian war refugees and many Venezuelans; 177 Venezuelans have been deported home from Guantanamo, hundreds of Asian asylum-seekers were sent to Panama, and now the entire Guantanamo plan may have been scrapped. Family detention is back. Judges have blocked many deportations. Trump’s insane and unlawful Gaza proposals, which surprised his senior staff, are dismissed by aides as mere concepts of a plan. Far from backing off, he’s doubling down, drawing criticism from right and left; neither Egypt nor Jordan will cooperate. A Senate committee has discussed his plan to buy Greenland, which Greenlanders and Danesspurn, as Zelensky spurns his ambition to “take over” Ukraine’s nuclear plants. Europe resents how Nazi Elon Musk is interfering in its internal politics, especially his support of the Alternative For Germany party and his call for Germany to “move beyond” Nazi guilt. He’s also butting into British and Frenchpolitics, supporting a violent British right-wing extremist. Canadians have booed the US National Anthem, and Zelensky rejects Trump’s blackmail. Tariffs on Mexico and Canada, called by Warren Buffett “an act of war,” started on Mar 4, on foreign cars Apr 3, and more to come; Trump “couldn’t care less” if car prices rise. Canada plans tariffs on $107 billion worth of U.S. products made mainly in red states: spirits, wine, cosmetics, appliances, orange juice, peanut butter, clothes, shoes, paper. Trump has responded to possible retaliatory EU tariffs by threatening 200% levies on European wine and liquor. Consulates, even embassies, are being closed. What does the world think of Trump? He’s hugely popular in India, Saudia Arabia, China, and Russia and oddly favored in Ukraine before he smeared Zelensky, but not elsewhere in Europe. Autocrat experts Masha Gessen and Nicholas Kristof offer brilliant analyses. King Trump: Actions and Reactions
More obeying in advance: Google and U. of Michigan terminating DEI, West Point abolishing affinity groups. The NIH destroying a mural honoring Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates slashing climate initiatives, Arlington Cemetery and DOD removing webpages honoring women and minorities. The NSA Museum hid plaques honoring women and people of color; the DOD censored curricula at its schools abroad, and the National Endowment for the Arts closed programs favoring underserved communities and diversity, drawing blowback. Own-goals: losing lawsuits over everything from USAID (multiple times) to frozen grants, NIH funding, health websites, and transgender troops, met with defiance, lies, and complaints. Noncompliance with a USAID order earned him a rebuke from the judge and failure in SCOTUS. The website is kaput. Elon Musk’s USAID role is likely unconstitutional. Depressing: a federal judge wouldn't reinstate fired inspectors general. Maybe not even the Supreme Court will back all his power grabs. Birthright citizenship is already there. One legal analyst thinks he’ll lose 80% of cases, and – with E.J. Dionne – urges Democrats to resist all the way. One possible win. Hours after swearing he wouldn’t touch Medicaid, Trump endorsed a House spending bill including deep cuts. Trump voters like what they see, from Cabinet picks to slashing foreign aid. This time the resistance is more in the courts than in the streets, with some exceptions. DOGE access to government systems is gathering lawsuits, losing many but not all, including a win over access to personal data and, from Judge Tanya Chutkan, over firings. Threatened FBI firings, shocking loyalty tests, and suits against the press continue. CIA employees were included in Trump’s buyout plan, whose deadline was extended from Feb 6 to Feb 10, then indefinitely. The scheme is now closed to new entrants, after about 75,000 accepted (3%), far below the 5-10% Trump had hoped to lop off the workforce and half as many as typically quit or retire each year. As many as 200,000 employees recently hired or promoted could get the boot. Two judges have ordered them rehired. On Trump and data. Latest firings: a Federal Election Commissioner, the National Archivist, the NLRB general counsel, the USAID inspector general, the president of the Kennedy Center, where Trump’s takeover has brought blowback, FEMA’s CFO, 18% of employees at the Indian Health Service and other federal agencies including DOD, CDC, NIH, FDA, HUD,DOJ, and the VA; the Washington Post disapproves. Ex-NIH head Harold Varmus is horrified, researchers angry. Hereare some webpages Trump doesn’t want you to see – some have reappeared, with notices condemning “gender ideology.” And here are some forbidden words. Top National Archives staff have quit in protest, as have prosecutors ordered to drop charges against NYC Mayor Eric Adams, the head of the Social Security Administration over Musk’s data access, and a high-ranking federal prosecutor over an order to freeze EPA funds. Read about Trump’s attacks on press freedom and on the Smithsonian - again. Republicans urge states to institute work requirements for Medicaid, though they’ve worked poorly in Arkansas and Georgia and could leave 36 million uninsured. Stupid: firings at the Nuclear Security Administration overseeing nuclear weapons; they tried to backstep, couldn’t at first because email accounts had been cancelled, but now succeeded. Fired bird flu researchers may get rehired. Firing people overseeing the safety of food and medical devices (rescinded). Cuts to the US Forest Service, which fights forest fires. IRS firing 6700 workers in tax season, risking revenue shortfalls. In Fiscal Year 2023 the IRS cost taxpayers $16.1 billion and produced $4.5 trillion, a 28,000% return on investment. Firing Aviation Safety Specialistscrucial to the work of air traffic controllers, funding cuts at America’s top Alzheimer’s research center, the JFK presidential library, and the 9/11 survivors program (now reversed). Cutting 80,000 VA jobs. STUPIDEST: A bill to add Trump’s head to Mount Rushmore. About Trump’s lies. On mass layoffs. Between bypassing Congress and ignoring court order after court order, experts fear the Trump administration will bring a full-blown constitutional crisis, most lately defying a judge’s order to stop deporting Venezuelan migrants based on a 1798 law, earning him a rebuke from John Roberts and spy agencies; it’s now at SCOTUS. Trump’s actions could backfire, since he lacks the “honeymoon” period of all previous modern presidents; few supporthis policies on immigration and the economy, among other issues. In a Washington Post/Ipsos poll, 57% oppose deporting non-criminals, 70% oppose deporting those brought to the U.S. as children, and 66% oppose deporting those with US citizen children. 83% of Americans, even 70% of Republican-leaners, oppose pardoning violent offenders convicted for the Jan 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol – pardons now even broader. Tariffs, closing USAID, and mass firings are particularly unpopular. A March 2025 Marist poll confirms his policies’ unpopularity. Trump legal wins: he can continue NSAID cuts and mass layoffs, kill the US Institute of Peace, fire independent agency leaders, and ban AP reporters for saying Gulf Of Mexico instead of Gulf of America. Losses: Transgender and DEI executive orders, ICE raids in churches, mass firings, and NIH cuts; a judge, an appeals court, and perhaps,SCOTUS prevented his firing a whistle-blower protector.
Racially segregated facilities are no longer explicitly banned in federal contracts. Though nonwhite communities have better health outcomes with physicians of color, diversity has dropped markedly in medical schools. Poor, nonwhite, and disabled children will be the chief victims if Trump kills the Education Department. A Pentagon spokeman has been punished for criticizing anti-DEI policies. COVID-19 miscellany
SARS-CoV-2 wastewater levels in the US rose in early February, with 31 states high or very high and levels soaring nationally, but by March 22 there were just 10. ER visits, hospitalizations, and deaths have passed their winter peak. Global reported deaths, nearly all American, fell during February, whereas reported cases, mostly European, were stable; with home testing, few cases get reported. In Italy, hospitalizations and deaths were stably low as of Feb. 12. The flu season has been severe in both Europe and the US. Nearly 7000 Americans died of COVID-19 in the first two months of 2025. In a major outpatient trial ensitrelvir, claimed to shorten COVID-19 symptoms and to protect household contacts, flunked out, reducing viral load but not symptom duration. The latest failed treatment for long COVID is the dementia medication donepezil (Aricept). A meta-analysis claimed, based on mediocre studies, the herbal remedy Nigella sativa cut COVID-19 mortality by an astonishing 86%. An intranasal vaccine previously tested only in hamsters will soon begin studies in human beings. Montana may become the first US state to ban mRNA vaccines. In immunosuppressed individuals vaccination induces SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, but not the neutralizing antibodies that are key to preventing disease. Vaccination with mRNA COVID-19 vaccines cuts the risk of long COVID in children by more than half. The Trump administration might stop sending free COVID-19 tests to families, destroy its 600 million stockpile. The thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory about Bill Gates advocating “Depopulation through forced vaccination” has resurfaced, including on X and TikTok. COVID-19 can likely lead to dementia. The 2024-25 COVID-19 vaccines seem less effective, protecting adults only 36% against ER visits and the elderly only 48% against hospitalization, versus up to 97% initially and 70% or 80% in the Omicron era. Flu vaccines did better. Yale researchers have detected EBV reactivation and/or persistent spike protein in 42 of the 241 patients they previously claimed had “post-vaccination syndrome.” MedPageToday points out that COVID-19 “contrarians” are now in power, but I disagree that we don’t know whether they were right; MPT cites not a health expert but a political scientist. A Times columnist agrees with me that the COVID alarmists got it right, with the fifth anniversary of the pandemic bringing much reflection. All posts and archives will always be free to all subscribers. But if you'd like to support me, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription..
© 2025 Susan Levenstein
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