Bret Stephens is a columnist for The New York Times. He is a conservative but he is no fan of Donald Trump. Stephens recognizes that Trump is a not-too-bright narcissist who puts himself above country and party. In this column, he describes how JD Vance made a fool of himself at the recent Munich Security Conference, where he lectured European leaders about their failure to honor the free speech of extremist rightwing parties. Vance spoke with total ignorance of the 1930s and World War II.

Stephens wrote:

In April 1928, Joseph Goebbels, later the Third Reich’s chief propagandist, wrote a newspaper essay addressing the question of why the National Socialists, despite being an “anti-parliamentarian party,” would nonetheless compete in that May’s parliamentary elections.

“We enter the Reichstag to arm ourselves with democracy’s weapons,” Goebbels explained. “If democracy is foolish enough to give us free railway passes and salaries, that is its problem. It does not concern us. Any way of bringing about the revolution is fine by us.”

Germany’s postwar federal republic, established over the ruins the Nazis made, has been haunted by Goebbels’s taunt ever since. How does a free society guard against being used, and possibly destroyed, by the rights and privileges it grants the enemies of freedom? How does it avoid the postwar fate of states like Czechoslovakia, which allowed Communist parties to gain a fatal foothold in their fledgling democracies? What about Palestinians, who voted for Mahmoud Abbas for president in 2005 and Hamas for Parliament in 2006 — and haven’t had an election since?

For countries with a totalitarian past, finding the right answers to these questions is hard. Few have done it better than Germany, which remains unmistakably democratic not because it unthinkingly honors a principle of unfettered liberty (no democracy does) but because it vigilantly monitors the enemies of democracy while maintaining a memory of what the nation once was. It’s something for which all Americans should feel especially grateful, given the price we paid in lives to defeat Germany’s previous political incarnations.

But not, apparently, JD Vance. The vice president’s speech last week at the Munich Security Conference — in which the man who refuses to say that Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election lectured his audience about Europe’s retreat from democratic values — combined with his meeting with the leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party, has caused a scandal because it is a scandal, a monument of arrogance based on a foundation of hypocrisy.

Why does the AfD dismay so many Germans, including traditional conservative voters? The party began in 2013 in protest of Germany’s fiscal policies in Europe. It gained a further boost through its opposition to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-arms policy toward the uncontrolled immigration of more than a million Middle Eastern refugees.

But the party soon took a much darker turn. In 2017, Björn Höcke, a party leader in the eastern state of Thuringia, complained that Germans were “the only people in the world who’ve planted a monument of shame at the heart of their capital” — a reference to the memorial to the victims of the Holocaust — and that the country needed “nothing less than a 180-degree turnaround in the politics of remembrance.” In 2018, the party leader at the time, Alexander Gauland, dismissed “Hitler and the Nazis” as “just a speck of bird shit in over 1,000 years of successful German history.”

Last year, the German investigative news site Correctiv reported that in 2023 AfD politicians had met with other far-right extremists in a hotel in Potsdam, near Berlin, to discuss an “overall concept, in the sense of a master plan” for the “remigration” of “migrants” to their countries of ethnic origin — no matter whether those migrants were asylum seekers, permanent residents or German citizens. The star of the show was a 34-year-old Austrian named Martin Sellner, who as a teenager confessed to putting swastika stickers on a synagogue before going on to lead Austria’s so-called identitarian movement.

This record explains, in part, why all of Germany’s mainstream parties refuse to go into any sort of coalition government with the AfD, even as it is polling in second place in this month’s federal elections. Vance may seem to think it’s the responsibility of democracy to embrace any party or point of view; it’s worth wondering what he might have said if, instead of the AfD polling at around 20 percent, an antisemitic and anti-democratic Muslim Brotherhood-style party was drawing a similar percentage of voters.

There’s another reason to fear the AfD. Last year, The Times’s Erika Solomon reported on a secret session in the German Parliament in which lawmakers heard evidence of ties between AfD politicians and Kremlin-connected operatives. The AfD denies the allegations, but it’s no surprise that the AfD wants to end German military aid for Ukraine and restart the Nord Stream pipelines through which Russia used to supply Germany with natural gas.

In its first term, the Trump administration fought tooth-and-nail against Nord Stream, on the justified grounds that it made Germany dependent on an enemy of the West. Someone might ask Ric Grenell, Trump’s former ambassador to Berlin and now his special envoy, why the administration is now so fond of a party that effectively sides with that enemy?

There’s an argument to be made in a future column that some European governments go too far to curtail legitimate free speech. There’s another one to be written about the many ways that Europe’s supposedly mainstream right-of-center parties, particularly Germany’s Christian Democrats under Merkel, adopted left-leaning positions on migration, domestic security, fiscal policy, energy policy and other issues that drove conservative voters into the arms of the far right.

For now, the important point is this: Much like a certain British prime minister long ago, an American vice president went to Munich to carry on about his idealism while breaking bread with those who would obliterate democratic ideals. A disgrace.

Julian Vasquez Heilig is a battler for the rights of the downtrodden. He researches and writes about diversity and equity. He is a member of the board of the Network for Public Education. Recently, he was Provost at Weatern Michigan University. He recently stepped down to enjoy his freedom of speech as a tenured faculty member.

He saw this letter sent to universities across the nation by the acting assistant secretary for civil rights in the U.S. Department of Education.

He responded on his blog, Cloaking Inequity.

Please open the link to read Mr. Trainor’s letter. It is shocking that a person representing the once-respected Office for Civil Rights would write universities warning them that they must overlook the needs and civil rights of their minority students.

I am so proud of Julian!.

He wrote:

Craig Trainor
Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights
United States Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20202

Dear Acting Assistant Secretary Trainor,

I write to you today to critically examine the claims made in your February 14, 2025, letter regarding race-conscious policies in education. Your letter, purportedly presented as a reaffirmation of nondiscrimination obligations, instead fundamentally misrepresents the critical need to improve access and graduation rates for minoritized students. It disregards decades of legal precedent supporting diversity in education, unjustly targets the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and promotes a regressive agenda that undermines student success. It is alarming that the Department of Education, an entity tasked with ensuring educational success, chose a lawyer and member of the Federalist Society as an Acting Assistant Secretary, to dismantle programs that seek to increase the success historically marginalized communities in higher education.

Mischaracterization of Race-Conscious Policies

Your assertion that American educational institutions have engaged in “pervasive and repugnant race-based preferences” is not only misleading but reflects a deep and purposeful misunderstanding of race-conscious admissions and equity initiatives. The Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA) indeed placed restrictions on the explicit use of race in admissions, but it did not, as your letter suggests, render all equity-based initiatives illegal. Programs designed to mitigate the effects of societal barriers—such as targeted outreach, mentorship, and holistic review processes—remain lawful and essential to fostering diverse educational environments.

At every institution in which I have served across four states Texas, California, Kentucky and Michigan, we have implemented successful race-conscious policies that have demonstrably increased success for underrepresented students and maintained our high academic standards. Our targeted outreach programs have helped ensure that students from marginalized communities are aware of and prepared for higher education opportunities. Additionally, mentorship programs connecting students with faculty and professionals have significantly improved retention and graduation rates among students of color. By dismantling such initiatives, the Department will reverse meaningful progress and undermining efforts that have directly contributed to closing achievement gaps.

Your letter further states, “Federal law thus prohibits covered entities from using race in decisions pertaining to admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life.” However, this sweeping declaration ignores the lawful and necessary efforts many institutions undertake to ensure historically underrepresented students have access to the same opportunities as their peers to improve their retention and graduation rates. By conflating race-conscious strategies with discriminatory practices, the Department deliberately distorts the purpose and impact of these initiatives and will cause great harm to student success.

The Fallacy of “Reverse Discrimination”

Your letter implies that white and Asian students are being systematically discriminated against in favor of Black and Latino students. This argument echoes the rhetoric of those who weaponized the concept of “reverse discrimination” to dismantle affirmative action. However, your claim that “an individual’s race may never be used against him” ignores the reality that for centuries, race has been used against Black and Brown individuals to limit their educational and professional opportunities and we live with that legacy today. It still happens extensively and on purpose, take a look at the literature on the disparities in school finance and educational opportunities authored by economist Bruce Baker. Equity policies are not about disadvantaging one group but ensuring that historically marginalized communities have fair access to educational opportunities and achieve success in higher education.

Your claim that “a school may not use students’ personal essays, writing samples, participation in extracurriculars, or other cues as a means of determining or predicting a student’s race and favoring or disfavoring such students” is an attempt to intimidate institutions into eliminating holistic review processes that recognize the complexity of a student’s lived experience. To argue that race must be ignored in all contexts ignores the profound and documented impact that racial identity has on a student’s educational journey and access to resources. This statement clearly attacks the US Supreme Court’s Chief Justice. As John Roberts noted in the SFFA decision, “Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.” His statement directly contradicts the Department’s rigid and overly broad interpretation, making it clear that race can still be a relevant factor in an applicant’s personal story and experiences. 

Diversity as a Compelling Interest

The letter erroneously asserts that “nebulous concepts like racial balancing and diversity are not compelling interests.” This stance contradicts decades of precedent, including Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), in which the Supreme Court recognized the educational benefits of diversity as a compelling government interest. The Court affirmed that diverse educational environments promote cross-racial understanding, reduce racial isolation, and prepare students for a pluralistic society. To dismiss diversity as “nebulous” is to ignore the wealth of research and practice supporting its benefits in both education and the workforce.

The benefits of diversity in higher education extend beyond the classroom. Studies have shown that students educated in diverse environments are better prepared for the modern workforce, exhibit stronger critical thinking skills, and demonstrate greater civic engagement. Research by Sylvia Hurtado, my former mentor at the University of Michigan, has extensively documented how diverse learning environments enhance educational outcomes by fostering deeper cognitive engagement, promoting leadership skills, and reducing racial biases. The assertion that diversity efforts are merely political in nature disregards these well-documented positive outcomes. Moreover, the Department’s attempt to erase diversity efforts ignores the fact that a lack of diversity has serious consequences for educational institutions, workforce readiness, and national social cohesion.

The Misrepresentation of DEI Initiatives

Your letter claims that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs “preference certain racial groups” and “teach students that certain racial groups bear unique moral burdens.” This characterization is not only false but represents a deliberate effort to discredit educators committed to fostering equitable learning environments for ALL students. DEI initiatives are designed to address persistent disparities and create spaces where students of all backgrounds—regardless of race, gender, or socioeconomic status—can thrive.

The claim that DEI programs “stigmatize” students misrepresents their purpose and ignores the fact that minoritized students have long endured systemic stigmatization—well before DEI initiatives existed. The stigma you reference is not a product of these programs but a continuation of racism itself. For example, slavery is not Black history; it is white history—an essential truth that must be acknowledged in education. Teaching about historical oppression and systemic inequities is not about assigning moral burdens but about fostering an accurate and honest understanding of our shared past.

Conclusion

We recognize the strategy being employed here. As one Polish minister aptly described former President Trump’s approach, the tactic being used is what the Russians call razvedka boyem—reconnaissance through battle: pushing forward to see what resistance arises before adjusting the approach accordingly. The Department’s effort to curtail diversity initiatives appears to be a similar attempt to gauge the response of institutions before proceeding with further restrictive measures. We must not only recognize this maneuver but also respond with unwavering commitment to equity and inclusion.

The Department’s arbitrary 14-day compliance ultimatum is an authoritarian overreach intended to intimidate institutions into immediate submission. This threat of federal funding loss is a coercive tactic designed to suppress dissent and discourage thoughtful institutional responses and constitutional freedom of speech. I urge universities and colleges to resist this unlawful directive and stand firm in their commitment to diversity and inclusion.

I fully understand that some universities will immediately comply with your demands. However, these institutions lack the courage to challenge your autocratic tendencies and defend the fundamental principles of academic freedom and equity. The institutions that yield without resistance betray their mission and the students they serve.

I implore the higher education community to recognize this moment as a test of its resolve. This is a time for courage and support policies and practices that improve our students’ success, not capitulation.

Julian Vasquez Heilig

Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize in economics. For nearly 25 years, he wrote a regular column for The New York Times. Now he writes at Substack.

He recently wrote about the absurd lies that Elon Musk has told about the massive fraud and waste that his DOGE team has uncovered. If you follow him on Twitter, you will see his lies repeated, then blown up by his readers (did you know that USAID paid Chelsea Clinton $84 million? False.)

Krugman writes:

Did you hear the one about how USAID spent $50 million — or was it $100 million? — providing condoms to Hamas? This claim played a big role in the public relations campaign to rationalize the sudden, illegal dismantling of an agency that provides humanitarian aid to millions of people, and is also a key element of US foreign policy.

Reporters were puzzled by the claim because there didn’t appear to be any evidence. You will be happy to know that the mystery has been solved. Some DOGE staffers noticed that USAID had disbursed grants to local groups trying to limit the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in Gaza. But they didn’t read far enough in to learn that the Gaza in question isn’t the war-ravaged strip; it’s a province in the African nation of Mozambique. Oh well, southern Africa, the Middle East, what’s the difference to the Muskenjugend?

Elon Musk actually admitted the mistake, albeit with minimal grace, during his extraordinary Oval Office press conference with President Trump on Tuesday. (Trump hasn’t acknowledged error.) That conference consisted mainly of Musk pacing around, declaiming, while Trump sat passively at his desk, occasionally expressing agreement. Musk behaved as if he were the actual president and Trump merely a heavily made-up prop.

Anyway, the incident demonstrated the level of care and understanding that DOGE is bringing to its alleged mission of identifying waste, fraud and abuse.

But both Trump and Musk insisted that DOGE has already found billions, maybe tens of billions, of waste and fraud. Here’s a complete list of the specific examples Musk gave during the press conference:

[This space intentionally left blank.]

That’s right: Musk has yet to offer any specific examples of government waste. The closest Musk came to specifics was his assertion that DOGE had done

“just cursory examination of Social Security, and we got people in there that are 150 years old. Now, do you know anyone that’s 150? I don’t know. They should be on the Guinness Book of World Records. So that’s a case where I think they’re probably dead.”

Is this true? Can we have some names please? It wouldn’t be a violation of privacy if the people are already dead.

Actually, my personal experience suggests that this story is likely to be false. Someone once tried to impersonate me and collect Social Security payments in my name. The Social Security Administration contacted me, saying that they couldn’t verify my address. So I think SSA would quickly question the identity of an 150-year-old recipient.

Now, we know that there’s huge waste in Medicare, in the form of overpayments to Medicare Advantage plans. Through Medicare Advantage insurance companies have been gaming the system; the Medicare Payments Advisory Commission estimates the annual loss to taxpayers at more than $80 billion, that is, roughly twice USAID’s budget. Oddly, however, this clear example of gigantic fraud isn’t on Musk’s radar.

But back to that Oval Office scene. Musk also asserted that

“there are quite a few people in the bureaucracy who have ostensibly a salary of a few hundred thousand dollars, but somehow managed to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth while they are in that position, which is what happened at USAID.”

Is this true? What are these peoples’ stories, if they exist? Sorry, Elon, but why should we believe you when the obvious explanation is that you are taking us for fools?

Of course, given that there are 2 million federal workers, there must be somebody out there who committed fraud. But there’s no reason to think that the waste is significant.

For those of us who have been around for a while, Musk’s evidence-free claims of fraud by federal employees bring back memories of Ronald Reagan’s ranting about welfare queens driving Cadillacs — rants that appear to have had their origin in the story of a single lifelong con artist who was in no way representative of the millions of mothers receiving Aid to Families With Dependent Children.

Yet Reagan’s rant came after AFDC enrollment grew rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s. In contrast, Musk’s vendetta has been launched against a federal work force that has been more or less flat for many decades, and has declined drastically relative to the size of the population it serves:

Source: FRED

So why is Musk obsessed with reducing the federal headcount? Is he just ignorant of the basic facts? Or is all the talk about efficiency cover for a purge intended to replace professional civil servants with political loyalists? Both, if you ask me.

I am, however, sure that Musk knows that DOGE’s efforts to find waste and fraud have come up empty. If he had anything real to talk about, he would.

Whether Trump realizes that Musk is faking it is less clear. But as Tuesday’s event showed, it’s not clear whether Trump matters at this point.

In any case, Musk imagines that he can con the American people, that he can keep his racket going by talking fast and throwing around what sound like big numbers, even as people are dying.
And I wish I were sure that he’s wrong.

Greg Toppo was the chief education journalist for USA Today. He is now a senior correspondent for The 74, where this story appeared.

The DOGE team visited the Institte for Education Sciencesand canceled scores of contracts for education research. It was widely assumed that the studies had some relation to diversity, equity, or inclusion, which Trump has vowed to stamp out. But Toppo says a far broader range of subjects was canceled.

Never before has any administration censored which topics could be studied. Trump’s prejudices now define what is NOT a proper object of study.

The DOGE agents who canceled the contracts did not have the time to read them, nor is any of them knowledgeable about education research. Either they looked for trigger words or they decided to cancel all education research.

Toppo wrote:

When the director of a small regional science nonprofit sat down last week to pay a few bills, she got a shock. 

In the fall, the group won a National Science Foundation grant of nearly $1.5 million to teach elementary and middle-schoolers about climate-related issues in the U.S. Gulf Coast. The eagerly anticipated award came through NSF’s Racial Equity in STEM Education program.

But when she checked her NSF funding dashboard, the balance was $1.

Educators and researchers nationwide have been suffering similar shocks as the Trump administration raises a microscope — and in some cases an ax — to billions of dollars in federal research grants and contracts. On Monday, it said it had canceled dozens of Institute of Education Sciences contracts, worth an estimated $881 million and covering nearly the institute’s entire research portfolio, according to several sources. 

Last week, the NSF began combing through billions of dollars in already-awarded grants in search of keywords that imply the researchers address gender ideology, diversity, equity and inclusion — all themes opposed by the administration….

Interviews with more than a dozen key stakeholders found that researchers with studies already in the field are being forced to suddenly pause their research, not knowing if or when it will resume. Nearly all spoke only on condition of anonymity, fearing that speaking out publicly could jeopardize future funding.

While the administration has said the moves are an attempt to rein in federal spending that doesn’t comport with its priorities and values, it has offered no explanation for cuts to bedrock, non-political research around topics like math, literacy, school attendance, school quality and student mental health.

Heather Cox Richardson is a historian with deep knowledge of the nation’s institutions and its Constitution. It is not surprising that she is appalled by Trump’s calculated and mean-spirited assault on the agencies and departments of the federal government, ignoring laws and norms. Trump is motivated, he says, by a desire to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse, yet one of his first acts as Presidents was to fire the independent, nonpartisan departmental Inspectors General, whose role is to investigate waste, fraud, and abuse in their agencies.

Richardson writes:

Maya Miller of the New York Times reported today that the congressional phone system has been jammed with tens of millions of calls from outraged constituents contacting their representatives to demand that they stand against President Donald Trump and his sidekick Elon Musk as they unilaterally dismantle the United States government and gain access to Americans’ private information. The Senate phone system usually gets about 40 calls a minute; now it is up to 1,600.

On Wednesday, Nicole Lafond of Talking Points Memo reported that Senate Republicans were not especially concerned about Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency team rampaging through the federal government, figuring that Musk won’t last long and that the courts will eventually stop him. Today, Musk posted on X: “CFPB RIP,” with a tombstone emoji. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has recovered more than $17 billion for consumers from fraudulent or predatory practices since it began in 2011.

Trump seems willing to let Musk continue to run amok through the government while he becomes a figurehead. Today he posted on his social media site that he has fired the chair and members of the board of trustees of the Kennedy Center, saying they “do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture.” He promised to announce a new board, “with an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!” “For the Kennedy Center, THE BEST IS YET TO COME!” he wrote.

U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols, who was appointed by Trump in 2019, is less impressed with the direction of the Trump administration. Today, he blocked it from placing more than 2,000 employees of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on paid leave. Trump and his allies have claimed—without evidence—that USAID is corrupt, but Steven Lee Myers and Stuart A. Thompson of the New York Times reported today that the disinformation making those claims on social media posts, for example, comes from Russia.

Senator Angus King (I-ME) took his Republican colleagues to task yesterday for their willingness to overlook the Trump administration’s attack on the U.S. Constitution. King took the floor as the Senate was considering the confirmation of Christian Nationalist Russell Vought as director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought, a key author of Project 2025, believes the powers of the president should be virtually unchecked.

King reminded his colleagues that they had taken an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic” and noted that the Framers recognized there could be domestic enemies to the Constitution. “Our oath was not to the Republican Party, not to the Democratic Party, not to Joe Biden, not to Donald Trump,” King said, “but…to defend the Constitution.”

“And…right now—literally at this moment—that Constitution is under the most direct and consequential assault in our nation’s history,” King said. “An assault not on a particular provision but on the essential structure of the document itself.”

Why do we have a Constitution, King asked. He read the Preamble and said: “There it is. There’s the list—ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, ensure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” But, he pointed out, there is a paradox: the essence of a government is to give it power, but that power can be abused to hurt the very citizens who granted it. “Who will guard the guardians?” King asked.

The Framers were “deep students of history and…human nature. And they had just won a lengthy and brutal war against the abuses inherent in concentrated governmental power,” King said. “The universal principle of human nature they understood was this: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

How did the Framers answer the question of who will guard the guardians? King explained that they built into our system regular elections to return the control of the government to the people on a regular basis. They also deliberately divided power between the different branches and levels of government.

“This is important,” King said. “The cumbersomeness, the slowness, the clumsiness is built into our system. The framers were so fearful of concentrated power that they designed a system that would be hard to operate. And the heart of it was the separation of power between various parts of the government. The whole idea, the whole idea was that no part of the government, no one person, no one institution had or could ever have a monopoly on power.”

“Why? Because it’s dangerous. History and human nature tells us that. This division of power, as annoying and inefficient as it can be,… is an essential feature of the system, not a bug. It’s an essential, basic feature of the system, designed to protect our freedoms.”

The system of government “contrasts with the normal structure of a private business, where authority is purposefully concentrated, allowing swift and sometimes arbitrary action. But a private business does not have the army, and the President of the United States is not the CEO of America.”

In the government, “[p]ower is shared, principally between the president and this body, this Congress, both houses…. [T]his herky-jerkiness…this unwieldy structure is the whole idea,… designed to protect us from the…inevitable abuse of an authoritarian state.”

Vought, King said, is “one of the ringleaders of the assault on our Constitution. He believes in a presidency of virtually unlimited powers.” He “espouses the discredited and illegal theory that the president has the power to selectively impound funds appropriated by Congress, thereby rendering the famous power of the purse a nullity.” King said he was “really worried about…the structural implications for our freedom and government of what’s happening here…. Project 2025 is nothing less than a blueprint for the shredding of the Constitution and the transition of our country to authoritarian rule. He’s the last person who should be put in the job at the heart of the operation of our government.”

“[T]his isn’t about politics. This isn’t about policy. This isn’t about Republican versus Democrat. This is about tampering with the structure of our government, which will ultimately undermine its ability to protect the freedom of our citizens. If our defense of the Constitution is gone, there’s nothing left to us.”

King asked his Republican colleagues to “say no to the undermining and destruction of our constitutional system.” “[A]re there no red lines?” he asked them. “Are there no limits?”

King looked at USAID and said: “The Constitution does not give to the President or his designee the power to extinguish a statutorily established agency. I can think of no greater violation of the strictures of the Constitution or usurpation of the power of this body. None. I can think of none. Shouldn’t this be a red line?”

Trump’s “executive order freezing funding…selectively, for programs the administration doesn’t like or understand” is, King said, “a fundamental violation of the whole idea of the Constitution, the separation of powers.” King said his “office is hearing calls every day, we can hardly handle the volume. This again, to underline, is a frontal assault of our power, your power, the power to decide where public funds should be spent. Isn’t this an obvious red line? Isn’t this an obvious limit?”

King turned to “the power seemingly assumed by DOGE to burrow into the Treasury’s payment system” as well as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, with “zero oversight.” “Do these people have clearance?” King, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee asked. “Are the doors closed? Are they going to leave open doors into these? What are the opportunities for our adversaries to hack into the systems?… Remember, there’s no transparency or oversight. Access to social security numbers seem to be in the mix. All the government’s personnel files, personal financial data, potentially everyone’s tax returns and medical records. That can’t be good…. That’s data that should be protected with the highest level of security and consideration of Americans’ privacy. And we don’t know who these people are. We don’t know what they’re taking out with them. We don’t know whether they’re walking out with laptops or thumb drives. We don’t know whether they’re leaving back doors into the system. There is literally no oversight. The government of the United States is not a private company. It is fundamentally at odds with how this system is supposed to work.”

“Shouldn’t this be an easy red line?” he asked.

“[W]e’re experiencing in real time exactly what the framers most feared. When you clear away the smoke, clear away the DOGE, the executive orders, foreign policy pronouncements, more fundamentally what’s happening is the shredding of the constitutional structure itself. And we have a profound responsibility…to stop it.”

King’s appeal to principle and the U.S. Constitution did not convince his Republican colleagues, who confirmed Vought.

But today, Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker took a different approach, trolling Trump’s claim that the Gulf of Mexico would now be called “the Gulf of America.” Standing behind a lectern and flanked by flags of the United States and Illinois, Pritzker solemnly declared he was about to make an important announcement.

“The world’s finest geographers, experts who study the Earth’s natural environment, have concluded a decades-long council and determined that a Great Lake deserves to be named after a great state. So today, I’m issuing a proclamation declaring that hereinafter Lake Michigan shall be known as Lake Illinois. The proclamation has been forwarded to Google to ensure the world’s maps reflect this momentous change. In addition, the recent announcement that to protect the homeland, the United States will be purchasing Greenland, Illinois will now be annexing Green Bay to protect itself against enemies foreign and domestic. I’ve also instructed my team to work diligently to prepare for an important announcement next week regarding the Mississippi River. God bless America, and Bear Down [a reference to the Chicago Bears football team].”

Governor Bill Lee is determined to enact universal vouchers in Tennessee, and it ought to be a slam-dunk since Republicans control both houses of the legislature. He tried and failed before, because some rural Republican legislators opposed vouchers.

But the billionaire money behind vouchers make them tough to resist, so Governor Lee is making vouchers his top priority this session.

As Marta Aldrich explains in Chalkbeat Tennessee, Governor Lee