Donald Chump wants to bully us into silence. I'm not going to be bullied. I'm a MAGA target for three reasons: 1) I'm Black, 2) I'm a woman and 3) I'm a lesbian. I will not be bullied. I will not be silenced.
And there are a lot of people in this country who will not be bullied and silenced. I want to celebrate three of those people in this post.
Molly Sprayregen (LGBTQ Nation) reports:
A trans teen spent his 18th birthday at the Iowa State Capitol pleading with lawmakers not to take away his rights.
In a tearful address, Kayde Martin shared, “It deeply troubles me that after 18 years of living here with my family, attending school, working, this is the focus of our state.”
Martin was speaking against a law to repeal civil rights protections for transgender people, which ultimately passed and has made Iowa the first state to repeal anti-discrimination protections for a previously protected class of people.
“Good morning, my name is Kayde Martin, and today I speak not just for myself, but for many other transgender youths in Iowa,” he opened. “I was born on February 27, 2007. Today is my 18th birthday. I stand before you fighting for the same basic civil rights that every Iowan deserves by humanely asking you to vote against this bill.”
“I plan on attending the University of Northern Iowa in the fall, and I hope to live independently and without fear of discrimination simply because of who I am. I have heard some people talk about women’s rights… Why do women’s rights only seem to be defended when it is used to be against the transgender community? Where’s the same outcry when it comes to women’s choices in their own bodily autonomy?”
Martin then spoke about being raised Christian and said faith teaches respect and love for all people no matter their identity.
“A good Christian knows that only the lord is one to judge,” he said. “Nobody knows the heavenly father’s plan.”
Good for him. Kayde you showed bravery and maturity -- something so lacking in the members of the body you were addressing. You matter and those who want to tear your life apart are the people with the real problems. I praise you and thank you and hope you know that many of us stand with you. The struggle for equality can be exhausting and it sometimes feels like just when we think we've achieved something and can rest BOOM bigots are back trying to undue all the progress that has been made. You are someone who gives me hope for our future.
Arin Waller (LGBTQ Nation) reports:
Dr. Mary Brinkmeyer resigned from her job as a psychologist for the Department of Veterans Affairs after a sweeping executive order issued by President Donald Trump eliminated federal recognition of transgender and nonbinary identities.
The mandate that federal agencies purge any practices promoting “gender ideology” made it no longer possible for Dr. Brinkmeyer to care for trans, nonbinary, and other LGBTQ+ veterans, leading her to resign in protest.
Dr. Brinkmeyer received her doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Florida in 2006. She started her career in 2008 at the Naval Medical Center Portsmouth (NMCP) and has worked with veterans and military personnel ever since. Among her achievements was establishing the first military support group for transgender military members. In 2016, she was named Navy Psychology Civilian Psychologist of the Year.
She served as the NMCP’s Associate Training Director from 2015 until her June 2022 appointment to the Hampton VA Medical Center as the LGBTQ+ veteran care coordinator and behavioral health interdisciplinary program psychology program manager.
Because of her clinical work and research into transgender mental health issues, Trump’s executive order deeply upset her.
“The VA put out a statement saying things should stay the same during the review period, but that’s not what’s happening,” Brinkmeyer told Advocate. “Staff were told to start identifying anything in medical records, training materials, or patient resources that could be considered ‘gender ideology.’”
“Transgender patients are terrified of losing their medical care,” she added. “Many rely entirely on the VA and don’t have alternative options.”
Dr. Brinkmeyer could have easily kept her job. Just do what they wanted. Ignore that it was wrong, ignore that it would hurt people. Just go along to get along. That's what so many people do.
Instead, she stood up for what was right. She honored her training, she honored her spirit. She's giving up a lot and I appreciate it and I applaud her. Her actions are heroic. Her actions are inspiring.
We can all demonstrate courage in our lives but few people do. Right now is the time for courage. We've got four years of hard work. Really, really hard work. We're all under attack, people like me, immigrants, the disabled and challenged, it's really all of us. And if we can see that and see that others need us to stand up, we can show the kind of courage that Dr. Brinkmeyer has.
Pete Buttigieg slammed Donald Trump live on network TV immediately following the president’s address to the joint session of Congress.
The former transportation secretary joined host Stephen Colbert live on The Late Show on Tuesday night to break down Trump’s record-setting 100-minute speech, which, while not officially a State of the Union address, broadly followed the same format.
“I mean, look, the state of the union is roiling. We’ve got divisions that we didn’t think could get any worse that have been picked at and punched at by the president, whose job is to unite the American people, who’s supposed to be a walking symbol of what Americans have in common. And instead, of course, we have something else,” he explained. “The state of the union, I think, is really confused about why our leaders are talking about renaming things on the map instead of getting the price of eggs down. The state of the union is wondering whether we can get through another four years of being turned against each other by our own leaders, or whether we can be summoned into something better.”
Buttigieg called the president’s joint address “classic Trump.”
“It was a lot of darkness and it was a lot of dazzle. But there was very, very little about the things that most affect our lives,” he said.
Pete tells his truth, he lives his truth. We can follow his lead. He refuses to let s**ts like Megyn Kelly crap on him. He refuses to let them get to him. He's found his sense of self and as a human being, a husband and a father, he will not be silent. I was not a big fan of Mayo Pete before he became Secretary of Transportation. But that role -- and becoming a father and deepening into his marriage to Chasten -- really let him stretch and grow and I think he could be a great president.
So thank you to Kayde, Mary and Pete. You represent the best of our country.
Here's C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"
President Donald Trump made what seemed to be a joke to Secretary of State Marco Rubio during his address to Congress, but many observers interpreted it differently.
"Good luck, Marco. Now we know who to blame if anything goes wrong. No, Marco has been amazing and he's going to do a great job. Think of it. He got 100 votes (...) And I'm either very, very happy about that or I'm very concerned about it. But he's already proven - I mean he's a great gentleman, he's respected by everybody and we appreciate you voting for Marco. He's going to do a fantastic job," Trump said during a passage of his speech.
Andrew Wilson, deputy secretary-general of the International Chamber of Commerce, is issuing a red alert about the trade wars sparked by President Donald Trump in the last day.
The Trump put is done. The stock market has erased all of its meteoric gains notched since Election Day.
That’s why Wall Street is suddenly worried again, instead of excited about Republicans controlling the White House and Congress. There is no sign of the so-called Trump put—the expectation that he will do what he can to keep the stock market happy.
Instead, Tuesday offered a broad-based, though volatile, selloff after Trump’s tariffs on Canada and Mexico went into effect.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and Nasdaq all ended Tuesday’s trading session in the red. The Nasdaq was up more than 1% at one point Tuesday before giving up all its gains, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 closed 1.6% and 1.2% lower, respectively.
Senator Warren joined Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, Massachusetts Congressional Delegation ahead of President Trump’s joint address to Congress
Warren: “The whole Republican plan fits on a bumper sticker: Billionaires win; families lose.”
Washington, D.C. – At a press conference today, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) joined Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.), and the Massachusetts Congressional Delegation in delivering remarks on Trump’s agenda to benefit billionaires while hurting working people ahead of Trump’s Joint Address to Congress.
Senator Warren called the first six weeks of the new administration a “sandstorm of chaos” meant to distract from President Trump’s goal of jamming through trillions in tax cuts to billionaires at the expense of health care, Social Security, and programs that benefit working people.
Senator Warren was joined by her guest Doug Kowalewski, a former National Science Foundation employee from Wellesley who, after six years of service, was fired unexpectedly in Elon Musk’s and the Department of Government Efficiency’s gutting of the federal workforce. Doug shared his story at Senator Warren’s recent town hall in Framingham, Massachusetts.
Transcript: Press Conference with Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, Massachusetts Congressional Delegation
U.S. Senate
March 4, 2025
Senator Elizabeth Warren: We are all here today as the federal representatives of the seven million people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And we stand proudly with the Mayor of Boston, who has been “invited” – I think that’s still a word – she has been invited by the Republicans to come and defend Boston and to defend the values that we fight for every day in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. So we want to be here, in part, to talk about what this fight is about.
Over the last six weeks, Donald Trump has created a sandstorm of chaos to try to distract us from his real agenda: Tax cuts for billionaires, paid for by cuts to health care and Social Security. These are programs that mommas and daddies and babies and seniors rely on every single day.
Trump and his unelected co-president Elon Musk are dismantling our government, piece by piece, so that it works better for those same billionaires and worse for everyone else. The whole Republican plan fits on a bumper sticker: Billionaires win; families lose.
Trump promised, you may remember, to lower costs “on day one.” Instead, he and co-President Musk have tried to fire the financial cops that keep Americans from getting cheated. They have slashed funding that supports research for cures for cancer and Alzheimer’s. And they have fired thousands of hardworking public servants, including the people who keep us safe when we fly on airplanes, the people who make sure that nuclear materials are safely stored, and people who inspect our food.
One of those hardworking public servants is Doug. Up until two weeks ago, Doug worked at the National Science Foundation — until out of nowhere, he was fired along with over one hundred of his colleagues. And I’ve invited Doug here to share his story. Doug, come on over.
Doug Kowalewski, Senator Warren’s Guest for Trump’s Joint Address to Congress: So, after six years of service at the National Science Foundation, I was fired two weeks ago from today. And me, along with 167 of my colleagues were called into a Zoom meeting to get a mass termination firing with no cause. And this doesn’t just impact me — this impacts all of Massachusetts. A limited workforce at NSF or NST or NIH jeopardizes the billions of federal investments that directly fund our top-notch research and researchers in Massachusetts and powers our local economy.
So, I’m scared for our country. Millions of Americans who have dedicated their lives and dedicated their careers to this country are suffering because of unelected billionaires. I’m here with Senator Warren to fight back against these illegal terminations and to stand up for hardworking civil servants. Thank you.
Senator Warren: Thank you very much, Doug. And I appreciate Doug being here. I just want to say, this is what happens when you go to town halls. I had a town hall in Framingham a week ago and Doug stood up and told his story, as have lots of other people in Massachusetts.
I would say the biggest question at that town hall is: What can we do? And Doug is living proof of what we can do. We can tell our stories because they matter. We build a grassroots movement across this story by not using big words and abstract terms, but by telling the story person by person by person about what kind of work you do and what it means when you just get called in and told, “You’re fired,” because it fits in someone else’s political agendas, so thank you for being here, Doug. I appreciate it.
Alright, I just want to say: Doug is standing up, he’s pushing back and that’s what we’ve all got to do.
###
Here’s the story: last month hackers looted Ethereum coins worth $1.5 billion from Bybit, a Dubai-based crypto exchange — apparently the most money anyone has ever stolen in a single caper. The FBI believes that the North Korean regime was behind the hack. Most of the coins have already been laundered into Bitcoin, and will eventually be turned into real money that will be used to sustain Kim Jong Un’s brutal dictatorship.
It’s quite a story, yet it has only recently begun to get major coverage. The likeliest explanation of this lag is that crypto-related fraud and theft is so rife that reporters and editors have grown blasé.
But small investors continue to lose large sums in crypto scams, like “rug-pulls.” And the biggest rug-pull yet is underway: Donald Trump’s plan for a “strategic crypto reserve.”
What’s a rug-pull? A textbook example just happened in Argentina, where Javier Milei, the president, touted a new cryptocurrency called $Libra. The currency’s price soared as thousands of small players bought in, while insiders sold their holdings for huge profits. Then the price collapsed, leaving small players owning worthless bits of code.
Does this sound familiar? It should: the $Trump coin, introduced with great fanfare by Trump in January, attracted billions in dollars from MAGA fans, then quickly lost more than 80 percent of its value. The great bulk of $Trump coins were initially bought by a handful of “whales,” large investors, although it’s not clear whether their intent was to scam small buyers or simply to bribe the president.
While both Milei and Donald Trump deny that they personally profited from the rug-pulls they enabled, I seriously doubt that anyone believes them. And if Trump manages to establish a federal “strategic crypto reserve,” paid for by US tax dollars, the scams associated with $Libra and $Trump will look like chump change.
Musk has garnered lots of attention for this power move. Some is positive. Most is not. Tesla, his biggest company, has become the subject of widespread boycotting calls by his and Trump’s opponents. There are frequent protests outside of Tesla showrooms. Barely a day passes without the viral egging of a Cybertruck. Tesla owners are getting international press attention for flipping their cars at a loss just to get rid of them. “I’m selling the Nazi mobile,” one dissatisfied driver says. The social internet might create an outsized impression of how common those acts of resistance are, but they still seem at least reflective of a shift. Public approval of Musk’s government obliteration really is low, and disapproval of Tesla itself is higher than ever.
Meanwhile, Tesla’s stock price is declining rapidly. Musk’s largest company lost 24 percent of its value in February. It was the stock’s second worst month ever, and then it fell another 3 percent on Monday, the first trading day of March. What a coincidence it would be if none of that had anything to do with the ever-growing, controversial public persona of its very famous chief executive. Big left-of-center social media accounts are celebrating their work: “Congrats, everyone—the Elon boycott is working!” a Bluesky post from a mysterious account with 800,000 followers reads.
"I have a dilemma. I started to lose customers because I have [a] Cybertruck," Yoni Menaker wrote in what appears to be a now-deleted Facebook post, as cited by Torque News. "I got some bad reviews, and I am not sure what to do."
Menaker added he loves the vehicle and "it's the best truck" he's ever had.
The name Yoni Menaker is attached to a company called Blue Angels Roofing, which operates in Alabama and Georgia. A couple of negative online reviews scornfully mentioned the company's use of a Cybertruck.
Blue Angels Roofing isn't alone. A medical spa owner in Massachusetts told NBC Boston in February he's faced harassment and client cancellations after purchasing a gold-wrapped Cybertruck to promote his business.
It's
not just small business owners facing backlash. Tesla's stock slide
from mid-December to late February wiped out more than $650 billion in
market value, according to a Barron's report.
While EV sales in the U.S. have grown in volume — up 7.3% in 2024 — Tesla's sales fell more than any other manufacturer, according to Cox Automotive. Sales figures in other regions, including Europe and China, have also trended downward.
Kyle Schutt, a software engineer embedded at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, is making $195,200—the maximum salary allowed for a federal employee. Nate Cavanaugh, a 28-year-old tech entrepreneur playing a leading role in DOGE's GSA restructuring efforts, is earning $120,500.
These revelations, uncovered by WIRED, stand in direct contrast to Musk's previous statements. Last November, as he and Vivek Ramaswamy recruited for DOGE, Musk insisted that working for the agency would be "tedious" and compensated at zero dollars.
However, the investigation found that DOGE's budget has ballooned to $40 million, and its recruitment page now openly discusses "full-time, salaried positions" for engineers and other specialists.
"It does seem worth understanding what these employees are being paid," Don Moynihan, a public policy professor at the University of Michigan told WIRED. "Especially if they are being paid significantly more than technologists who have been fired, given that many of the DOGE staff have less relevant experience."
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