**Your Weekly Good News**
The Trump administration last week withdrew the nomination of David Weldon for CDC director. Even Republicans realize that trying to confirm another anti-vaccine zealot in the middle of a raging measles outbreak isn’t a good look.
BIG WIN: A Montana court ruled to PERMANENTLY striking down restrictions that unfairly prevented Medicaid patients from accessing abortion care.
The Oklahoma State Supreme Court blocked its Department of Education from purchasing 55,000 bibles, ruling it as unconstitutional.
On Thursday, Judge William Alsup in the Northern District of California slapped down the White House’s effort to fire scores of federal workers, and ordered a number of agencies — including Treasury and Defense — to reinstate terminated employees.
On Wednesday, Judge Beryl Howell stopped the Trump Administration from enforcing key portions of an Executive Order targeting the law firm Perkins Coie, ruling that the Order likely violated the First, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments. As Howell ruled, “The chilling effect of this executive order threatens to significantly undermine the integrity of our entire legal system” and “casts a chilling harm of blizzard proportion across the entire legal profession.” She said that their argument sent “chills down my spine,” and compared Trump to the evil Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland who “yells, ‘Off with their heads!’ at annoying subjects…and announces a sentence before a verdict.” “But,” Howell continued, “this cannot be the reality we are living under.”
Judge Tanya Chutkan allowed the states challenging the constitutionality of DOGE and Elon Musk’s role in the government to obtain expedited discovery in their litigation. The information they receive will be used to support their anticipated motion for a preliminary injunction to stop DOGE in its tracks.
Judges ordered federal agencies on Thursday to reinstate tens of thousands of workers with probationary status who had been fired across 19 agencies as part of President Trump’s government-gutting initiative. One of the judges, James Bredar of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, also temporarily restrained the government from carrying out any planned “reductions in force” across the 18 agencies affected by his order. That includes a cut the Education Department announced this week that would leave it with about half the staff it had when Mr. Trump took office.
Democrats won the Minnesota state House special election, setting up shared control of the chamber.
A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked the U.S. military from enforcing President Donald Trump‘s executive order barring transgender people from military service while a lawsuit by 20 current and would-be service members challenging the measure goes forward. U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington found Trump’s January 27 order, one of several issued by the Republican president targeting legal rights for transgender Americans, likely violated the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on sex discrimination.
A court overturned Ohio’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth. This is a critical victory for trans rights.
The Supreme Court steps up! JUSTICE ROBERTS REBUKES TRUMP OVER HIS COMMENTS ON IMPEACHING JUDGES. In a rare statement, the chief justice pushed back on the president’s rhetoric about judges who rule against him. “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.” Them’s big words coming from the conservative Supreme Court justice.
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) likely exercised unconstitutional authority “in multiple ways” in dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). His order requires DOGE to reinstate email and system access to current USAID employees and blocks DOGE personnel from taking “any actions relating” to the agency, without express permission of a USAID official with legal authority. It marks the first time a judge has ruled that Musk is likely exercising enough independent authority to require him to be confirmed by the Senate under the Constitution’s Appointments Clause.
Sales of Teslas fell 76% in Germany in February. This is after falling 60% in January. Too bad, so sad. 😂
Oh! And the Indivisible In The Middle domain is LIVE. There is now a newsletter for folks who aren’t ready for the progressive side of Indivisible, but want to add their voices to STOP the dangerous changes this administration is attempting to push through. Because it’s going to take all of our voices raised together to make the people we pay to WORK FOR US listen while they are being pressured by lobbyists and corporate donors. Our combined voices have to get louder than money.
http://indivisibleinthemiddle.org