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- Losing My Perspicacity April 25, 2025
Losing My Perspicacity April 25, 2025
Trump lays waste to federal civil rights
Julie DiCaro
April 25, 2025
Good morning and Happy Free Friday! Thanks for starting your day with me.
As I’m writing this newsletter, I’m watching Ari Melber’s show on MSNBC, where former Rep. Joe Crowley, who was soundly defeated by Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez in 2019, is arguing that Democrats don’t need new leadership in Washington. Bewilderingly, Crowley is claiming that Chuck Schumer is a vibrant and effective leader. Oh boy.
The Senate’s median age is now 64.7 years, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is 74 years of age. The median age in the House is 57.5.
According to FiveThirtyEight (RIP), these are the oldest members of the Senate:
Without intentionally being ageist, that is freakin’ bonkers. The fact that Gen X has never gotten their moment to lead, in government or private industry, because Boomers have steadfastly refused to retire, infuriates me. I know what you’re thinking, but Barack Obama was born in 1961, putting him firmly in the Boomer category. I’m squarely in the middle of Gen X, and I was born a full 12 years after Obama. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) is also reportedly planning on retiring rather than facing a primary challenge. She is 80.
This is all coming up, of course, because popular Illinois Senator Dick Durbin has finally decided to retire when his term is up (thank God). Had Durbin chosen to run again, he would have been 87 years old at the end of his next term. And look, I’ve been against age limits for Congress for a few years. Firstly, the difference between 50 years old when I was a kid and 50 years old now is night and day. Of course, when you’re 51, 50 doesn’t seem old at all. But there’s also the added benefit of being in a generation that grew up knowing cigarettes and scotch are bad for you and sunscreen and kale are good for you (I still have to choke down kale). I also don’t think 75, for example, looks the same on everyone. A 75-year-old Elizabeth Warren is far more vibrant than, say, 75-year-old Joe Manchin. And 81-year-old Bernie Sanders is out there whipping up crowds with AOC, while an 82-year-old Joe Biden looked lost and dazed at his final debate.
But I do feel that some things have changed so drastically in the 30 years Dick Durbin has been in the Senate that they require a younger candidate. Social media is one. Realizing that the old rules of decorum and camaraderie with those across the aisle don’t apply anymore is another. Sure, there’s something to be said for seniority, but when that seniority leads to intransigence (Chuck), it’s time to move on. We need people with new ideas on how to play the legislative game. More importantly, we need people in Congress whose first instinct isn’t to throw undocumented immigrants or the trans community under the bus.
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Today: Trump is going after the Civil Rights Act; A federal court steps in to defend “sanctuary cities;” Pete Hegseth steps on yet another rake; Pedro Pascal for President; and The High Note.
Here we go.
Say goodbye to federal civil rights enforcement
There are the stupid, petty things Trump does every day that infuriate me and cause me to sigh heavily and roll my eyes. Then there are things that are such a gut punch they leave me with a stomachache and a pounding headache. This is the latter.
In a recent Executive Order, Trump attempted to get rid of “disparate impact,” a long-standing core principle of civil rights law. Simply put, disparate impact is the idea that, even if a party doesn’t intend to be discriminatory with an action, they can still be in violation of civil rights laws if their action affects a protected group (gender, race, ethnicity, age, religion, etc.). For example, let’s say an employer has a requirement that every employee has to be 5’10. That requirement may be imposed for a legitimate reason — for example, the job regularly requires retrieving items from high shelves. But there are far fewer women who are 5’10 than there are men of that height. That requirement might be held illegal for having a disparate impact on women (though other factors come into play).
The Trump administration believes that disparate impact has gone too far, and that the real discrimination these days is being done against white men and Christians. (insert eye roll emoji) What Trump has now done with an Executive Order is essentially have the DOJ Office of Civil Rights pivot from enforcing anti-discrimination laws against marginalized groups to things like keeping “men” out of women’s sports (trans women are women) and rooting out anti-Christian bias. You know, things that are not actual problems for anyone.
It’s bad news for us all.
The Trump administration has quietly transformed the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, forcing out a majority of career managers and implementing new priorities that current and former officials say abandon a decadeslong mission of enforcing laws that prohibit discrimination in hiring, housing and voting rights.
More than a dozen senior lawyers — many with decades of experience working under presidents of both parties — have been reassigned, the current and former officials say. Some have resigned in frustration after they were moved to less desirable roles unrelated to their expertise, according to the sources.
“It’s been a complete bloodbath,” said a senior Justice Department lawyer in the division who is not authorized to speak publicly.
Essentially, the DOJ Office of Civil Rights, as it has existed since 1957, is gone. Why is that important? Well, here are the types of things they prosecuted.
In the Biden administration, the Civil Rights Division convicted 180 police officers of violating people’s civil rights, according to Justice Department records. It also prosecuted a variety of high-profile hate crimes cases, including one against the Texas man who targeted Mexicans when he killed 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso and the Pennsylvania man who killed 11 congregants at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.
Among the many settlements over racial discrimination, the division secured reforms at Hawkins County Schools in Tennessee, where an investigation found that incidents of harassment — including a mock “slave auction” to sell Black students to their white counterparts and a “monkey of the month” campaign to ridicule Black students — created a racially hostile environment. On voting rights, the division successfully challenged an Arizona law requiring people registering to vote to list their birthplaces and provide proof of citizenship.
As with every other EO Trump has floated into the ether, the biggest question is “can he do that?”
The principle of “disparate impact” was established by the Supreme Court in the 1971 case Griggs v. Duke Power, where a company required employees to pass an “intelligence test” to be promoted. SCOTUS, however, held that the intelligence test had nothing to do with what employees were asked to do on the job, and thus discriminated against Black employees. Keep in mind this holding came down less than a decade after the end of the Jim Crow South.
As its foundation comes from jurisprudence, disparate impact can’t simply be “erased” by an EO. However, Trump is certainly hoping SCOTUS members like Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas are reading his smoke signals loud and clear and will do the job for him the next time the opportunity arises.
It’s worth noting, I think, that the DOJ sued Trump and his father, Fred, for housing discrimination back in 1973.
The Justice Department sued Donald Trump, his father, Fred, and Trump Management in order to obtain a settlement in which Trump and his father would promise not to discriminate. The case eventually was settled two years later after Trump tried to countersue the Justice Department for $100 million for making false statements. Those allegations were dismissed by the court
There is always a petty, vindictive reason for everything he does.
Court tells Trump to keep his tiny hands off sanctuary cities
The good news is that the courts, for the most part, have held when it comes to challenging Trump legally. Yesterday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Trump can not defund “sanctuary cities” for refusing to cooperate with ICE.
A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the government from enforcing part of one of President Trump’s executive orders that directs agencies to withhold funds from cities and counties that don’t cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.
In a brief order, the judge, William H. Orrick of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California, found himself retreading old ground, intervening to stop a tactic he described as nearly identical to one Mr. Trump tried early in his first term.
“Here we are again,” he wrote.
As he did eight years ago, Judge Orrick prohibited the government from “taking any action to withhold, freeze, or condition federal funds” based on the president’s order or a related memo Attorney General Pam Bondi sent on Feb. 5 to outline ways agencies could suspend federal payments.
Judge Orrick is an Obama appointee, and I sure hope America is getting some idea of how critical judicial appointments are. The ruling is temporary and applies only to the 17 cities involved in the lawsuit, including Minneapolis, San Francisco, New Haven, and Santa Fe. Still, it’s a preliminary injunction, which is sturdier, metaphorically speaking, than a TRO. And it’s a loss for Trump, albeit a temporary one.
Meanwhile, in another sanctuary city, Chicago, Governor JB Pritzker announced that Illinois is taking steps to boycott El Salvador, where ICE has trafficked undocumented immigrants from the US.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, announced Wednesday that he’ll direct several state agencies to review their ties to El Salvador in the wake of what his office said was “aiding the Trump administration’s unlawful and unconstitutional actions.”
“The United States Constitution guarantees due process. We are witnessing Donald Trump erode our fundamental Constitutional rights in real time, and we must fight to restore the balance of power. The State of Illinois will stand up for the Rule of Law and do everything in our power to stop the Trump administration from ripping apart our most basic rights,” Pritzker, who is considered a potential 2028 presidential candidate, said in a statement.
In a release, Pritzker’s office said that it had directed various Illinois pension funds to review whether they are invested in any companies that are based in El Salvador and that it had ordered the Illinois Department of Central Management Services to evaluate whether any state procurement contracts have been granted to companies based in or controlled by El Salvador.
If you’d like to embark on your own, personal boycott of goods from El Salvador, here’s a list of items that you can start with.
Pete Hegseth is really flippin’ stupid
As a woman, and therefore less qualified than every man in existence, I’ve enjoyed watching Pete Hegseth step on a multitude of rakes in his first three months running the most powerful military in the world. As the daughter and sister of former Navy pilots, I am terrified that this vaccuous moron, who just had a makeup studio installed in the Pentatgon, has been put in charge of our service men and women.
Meanwhile, the rakes just keep on coming.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had an internet connection that bypassed the Pentagon’s security protocols set up in his office to use the Signal messaging app on a personal computer, two people familiar with the line told The Associated Press.
The existence of the unsecured internet connection is the latest revelation about Hegseth’s use of the unclassified app and raises the possibility that sensitive defense information could have been put at risk of potential hacking or surveillance.
Known as a “dirty” internet line by the IT industry, it connects directly to the public internet where the user’s information and the websites accessed do not have the same security filters or protocols that the Pentagon’s secured connections maintain.
Other Pentagon offices have used them, particularly if there’s a need to monitor information or websites that would otherwise be blocked.
Really good, Pete. Great stuff. Just gonna leave this here. Again.
Pedro Pascal for President
Pedro Pascal is ride or die for the trans community, and I love it.
Pedro Pascal blasted author J.K. Rowling for her latest trans tweets, calling the author a “heinous loser” in a comment on Instagram.
The Last of Us star was responding to a post by activist Tariq Ra’ouf, who criticized the author for celebrating the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom’s landmark ruling last week that trans women should not be recognized as women and that “sex” should legally mean biological sex.
Rowling had posted, “I love it when a plan comes together,” along with noting to a critic, “I get the same royalties whether you read [my books] or burn them. Enjoy your marshmallows!”
Wrote Pascal in the comment section of Ra’ouf’s post: “Awful disgusting SHIT is exactly right. Heinous LOSER behavior.”
This is the post the piece is referencing.
However, given the quote, I thought it was pretty clear Rowling was invoking the A-Team, which is arguably worse. The A-Team fought for all of us. How dare she drag them into her BS.
Speaking of the trans community, NYT Magazine has a great piece on San Jose volleyball player Blaire Fleming, who was outed as trans by her teammate and had to endure a year of being used as an avatar by the right in the culture wars. It’s worth reading.
The High Note
Each Day, I do my best to leave you with a smile on your face, a song in your heart, and the will to fight another day.
Today is an especially bad day, as Fyre Fest is up for sale, meaning there will be no Fyre Fest 2, and, thus, no Fyre Fest 2 documentaries.
By way of cheering you up, please enjoy the time Conan and Andy attempted to learn a German dance.
Hey, survive and advance out there, kids. Don’t let the bastards get you down.
Step away from the doomscrolling. Go outside. Hit up a farmer’s market. Or take Jeff’s excellent advice and watch Season 2 of Andor.
See you all on Monday.
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