Trump Had A Bad Week, Labor Wins In Australia, Pay More And Get Less, Perkins Coie Shows Us The Way

Yes, it has been 100 days of failure, lawlessness, buffoonery and betrayal and We The People are not f--king happy about it

Morning all. Trump had a bad week. The judgement about his first 100 days was universally awful. That he has crashed in the polls and the wrecked the economy is now widely understood. Center-left governments that trailed in Australia and Canada had remarkable comeback wins against Trumpy right-wingers. His losses in court keep mounting, and judges are becoming more aggressive in challenging his regime’s ridiculous abandonment of the Constitutional order and un-American contempt for rule of law. Musk is gone, Waltz has been moved out, Hegseth is soon to follow. His economic plan’s new slogan of “pay more, get less” is giving “let them eat cake” a run for its money. Putin and Xi continue to mock him. His bat-shit crazy, budget-busting, plutocratic reconciliation bill is running into serious turbulence on the Hill. The Senate fell one vote short of passing a bill to roll back all of his terrible tariffs. His efforts to pass a bill locking in just $9 billion of DOGE’s illegal and unconstitutional cuts are failing. In his public appearances defending his terrible regime Trump sounded crazier and more unhinged than usual. The circle of defiance is growing and he is weaker today - much, much weaker.

As we say here little cracks can become big cracks, little wins can become big wins and while he keeps wrecking things he is weaker today and our opposition movement stronger. So while I’m not happy, or content, let’s take this good week and use it as inspiration to make next week even better.

Here’s some recent and still relevant Hopium fare for your weekend watching, listening and reading pleasure:

• My new video and post on the moment, Our Work Is Making A Real Difference.

• Interviews with Jane Kleeb on building strong Democratic Parties, Rep. Joe Neguse on how House Dems are battling Trump, Senator Chris Coons on Trump’s weakening of America abroad, Glenn Kirschner on fighting Trump’s lawlessness in the courts, and MN AG Keith Ellison on how the states are emerging as powerful bulwarks against Trump.

• Two more essays from me - Trump Is Looking More And More Ridiculous (important) and Stopping Trump’s Sabotage.

Here’s the NYT on Labor’s big win (gift link) in Australia today:

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia has won a second term, completing a stunning turnaround for his governing center-left Labor Party that trailed in the polls for months as a festering cost-of-living crisis weighed on voters.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the country’s public broadcaster, called the election for Mr. Albanese just a half-hour after the last polls closed on Saturday.

It was a resounding defeat of the conservative opposition led by Peter Dutton, who had headed into the campaign riding dissatisfaction with the status quo, but was hamstrung by a string of campaign missteps and an association with some of President Trump’s messaging and policies.

Mr. Dutton, the leader of the Liberal Party, also lost his parliamentary seat in the conservative stronghold of Queensland, which he had held since 2001. His loss echoed the ouster of Canada’s conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, whose defeat was seen as a rejection of his embrace of Mr. Trump.

Here’s a remarkable WaPo story about the White House’s struggle to make legal - launder perhaps - just $9b worth of DOGE’s illegal and unconstitutional cuts. It’s another sign of the White House’s declining influence - GOP balks at approving even a fraction of Musk’s DOGE cuts (gift link):

White House officials have in recent weeks brainstormed strategies for enshrining into law the government cuts implemented by billionaire Elon Musk’s team, aiming to turn the U.S. DOGE Service’s moves into lasting policy shifts.

So far, however, administration officials are running into resistance not just from Democrats, but also from congressional Republicans, who have in private conversations made clear that it would be difficult to codify even a small fraction of the measures that Musk’s team unilaterally implemented, according to lawmakers and several other people familiar with the discussions. GOP members of Congress have also raised concerns about tackling cuts as Republicans are trying to corral their rowdy and tiny majorities into extending tax cuts in one “big, beautiful bill” that President Donald Trump has demanded.

……..

The administration initially floated sending $9.3 billion of DOGE cuts to the Hill, which would encompass DOGE’s elimination of the main agency providing foreign aid, the U.S. Agency for International Development, as well as zeroing out some money for public broadcasting. The cuts would take just 51 votes in the Senate to pass, which means lawmakers would not need to worry about a Democratic filibuster to make the cuts permanent, under a provision in the 1974 budget law that allows requests for rescinded funding to be expedited. Musk has claimed $160 billion in savings so far.

This week, however, lawmakers began to raise concerns about even that smaller effort, with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) telling colleagues she would have trouble supporting cuts to PEPFAR, an effort to combat HIV/AIDS abroad that other foreign-policy-minded senators also support.

…….

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma) said passing DOGE cuts could also be difficult in the House, given the GOP’s tiny majority. Cole, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, asked the administration to review the package before it is submitted to ensure the cuts have political support.

“Do you really want to roll out and have a failure?” Cole said. “I think if they put it out there, they need to succeed at it.”

Yesterday, a Federal judge struck down Trump’s executive order punishing Perkins Coie in another “scathing” opinion that even invoked Shakespeare (gift link). Judges are growing more ambitious in their opposition to him:

A federal judge on Friday struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at the law firm Perkins Coie, saying his actions were an unconstitutional effort to punish the firm for taking on clients and cases he dislikes.

The ruling marked the first time a judge has permanently blocked one of Trump’s orders targeting a law firm.

“No American President has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue in this lawsuit targeting a prominent law firm with adverse actions,” U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell wrote in a scathing 102-page opinion. The case, she said, “presents an unprecedented attack” on the importance of independent lawyers.

……..

In her opinion released Friday evening, Howell laced into Trump’s order at much greater length.

“This action draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare,” Howell wrote, “who penned the phrase: ‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.’”

Howell said Trump targeted the firm because it had represented clients he disliked or people who had challenged some of his actions, among other reasons.

“That is unconstitutional retaliation and viewpoint discrimination, plain and simple,” she wrote.

I should note that Perkins Coie is the legal counsel to Hopium Chronicles, and has been my law firm for my 30+ years of political and electoral work in Washington. I am incredibly proud of the firm and my friends there today, and grateful for their courage in a time of enormous challenge for the country. As Judge Howell noted in her opinion:

“Only when lawyers make the choice to challenge rather than back down when confronted with government action raising non-trivial constitutional issues can a case be brought to court for judicial review of the legal merits,” Howell wrote. “If the founding history of his country is any guide, those who stood up in court to vindicate constitutional rights and, by so doing, served to promote the rule of law, will be the models lauded when this period of American history is written.”

Here’s a wonderful report from Hopium community members Betsey and Irene:

I’ll try to keep this short. On your Zoom last night Michele (copied here) noticed that I signed in from Sarasota so she chatted back that she was also in Sarasota.

Fast forward to the Open Mic outside of Steube’s office, which was very well attended for a 3:30-6:00 pm Thursday night. I was there with my long time DC friend, Patti, and we started chatting with another protester. I asked if she was following independent podcasters and then mentioned Hopium and how it kept me going. Michele looked at me (we had just met) and said, “Wait, are you Elizabeth? We connected on Simon’s Zoom last night.”

We hugged and agreed that it’s your Zoom every Wednesday that keeps us going. By Wednesday morning I’m mentally exhausted from calling the FL assholes every day, but your Zoom gets the energy going again.

So, here are two Hopium “plucky” subscribers, sending you our many thanks!

P.S. Coincidentally, that’s my Tufts hat- my oldest daughter got her Masters there 😁

Thank you Betsey and Michele! Yes, we are proud, patriotic and plucky here at Hopium!

Grateful for all the self-reports about protest and rallies folks have attended over the past few days. Good luck to all of you who will be out this weekend!!!!

I am in the process of reworking our recommended actions and campaigns, but leave you with this sketch of where we are headed:

• We link his terrible tariffs with his even more terrible reconciliation bill, and work to undermine both of them, together.

• We keep fighting to get Dems to more aggressively open up that Second Front, pen a Letter to America, introduce and debate state and local “articles of condemnation” and commit to owning July 4th this year. We have to firmly cement our identity as patriots and theirs as betrayers.

• We develop and lean in hard a big comprehensive argument against their multi-pronged and barbaric assault on our health, our public health system, science, research and academic freedom. I am calling this our Third Front.

Keep working hard all. We are making progress, true progress, but have to keep working as hard as we possibly can - Simon