It's Mt. Denali If You're Nasty
![]() January 21, 2025 Fair Monduesday, Meteor readers, I spent most of my day yesterday guiding my child around the Liberty Science Center along with what felt like every other kid in New Jersey. What did I miss? If you, too, pulled a Michelle Obama and sat out the day’s events, we’ll catch you up: In today’s newsletter, we wrap our heads around the sweeping pardons granted to January 6 insurrectionists. Plus: what Cecile Richards would want us to do. ♥️ ✊🏼, Shannon Melero ![]() WHAT'S GOING ONThe longest Day One ever: Yesterday, shortly after he was sworn into office (with his hand not on the Bible), Donald Trump grabbed his favorite sharpie and started signing a flurry of executive orders, including reinstating the death penalty, declaring that there are only “two sexes,” laying the groundwork for more oil drilling in Alaska, and mass pardoning nearly every January 6 rioter. (Even this guy). And we haven’t even gotten to his attempt to rewrite the Constitution to eliminate birthright citizenship. (States are already suing over this.) While you can point to nearly every order signed and find something frightening, let’s focus for a moment on the January 6 move—which wipes out more than 1200 convictions, dismisses over 300 pending cases, and commutes the sentences of 14 violent, racist, and seditious rioters who sought to overturn an election with which they disagreed. That means that every person currently serving a prison sentence will be released, including the leader of a self-described anti-government militia. The pardons and commutations also mean that anyone convicted of a felony will have their full legal rights restored. Do you know what felons can’t do after a conviction? Legally purchase guns. But these people now can do that, and they are thrilled. This isn’t just an incidental ripple effect of the pardons. Rather, with the stroke of a marker, Trump has signaled, as several counterterrorism experts voiced to reporters at NPR, an “endorsement of political violence…as long as that violence is against Trump's opponents.” For followers of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, this is very good news: Their ally in the White House has greenlit whatever they might do and the guns with which to do it. But for the rest of us, it raises real, unsettling questions: What does the future of political protest look like when the opposition has become so emboldened? For me personally—a Puerto Rican Muslim—the prospect of a rejuvenated and protected modern-day KKK fills me with dread and fuels a deep-rooted mistrust I’ve had for years. There’s a pit in my stomach any time I go to the “good” grocery store and see white men walking the aisles. Is he one of them? Am I safe here? I have renewed doubts about the white people in my life. Would they stand up for me? Would they even know they needed to? With Trump rolling out all of the horrible things he’s promised, I am mentally exhausted and emotionally drained—and it’s only been a day and a half. But all of that is the point. Fear is paralytic. It is divisive. It is distracting. It is the master’s tool. And when we think about what it will take to live through a second Trump presidency, the first unavoidable step is learning how to operate beyond fear. I don’t say that lightly; I say this as someone who is in the pit with you. Surviving this administration will demand an enormous amount of work from every single one of us. And that work has to be based in community, or it will not survive the years ahead. Maybe that’s joining a PTA or neighborhood association, or running for school board. It could be working against gun violence. It could be running for city council or county commissioners office. It could be volunteer work or handing out supply kits to the unhoused or donating to local drives. I also suggest engaging in the simplest act of defiance there is: reading. Go to your library and learn from those who fought these rights before we even got here. Read Audre Lorde. Read James Baldwin. Read Iris Morales. Read Angela Davis. Read Grace Lee Bogs. Read bell hooks and keep reading until you read yourself out of fear and into readiness. There is no white hood, no “Roman Salute,” and no executive order stronger than what we can do together. AND:
![]() DIVINE. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)
![]() CECILE RICHARDS FOREVERYesterday morning, hours before we inaugurated a president who campaigned on his disdain for women and for democracy, we lost a woman who crusaded for both those things. Cecile Richards was probably our country’s best-known abortion-rights advocate; she led Planned Parenthood for a decade, testified for 12 hours before a hostile Congress, and helped launch Supermajority, Charley, and Abortion in America. She was also funny, determined, and cheerfully relentless; she gave spot-on advice, sized people up perfectly, and adored her brand-new grandson Teddy (when I typed her name just now, her contact auto populated and a picture of him in a little red onesie popped up on my screen). She was a mentor and a hero, to those of us she knew and to plenty she didn’t; if you had lunch with her, women would approach with tears in their eyes and a story you could tell they wanted to share. And she is gone far too soon: at 67, of a brain cancer that could not stop her from speaking on behalf of Kamala Harris at the convention last summer. The daughter of Texas governor Ann Richards, Cecile understood organizing (and the strength of women) on a cellular level. Those are two things we need more than ever right now. We need Cecile, to be honest, but in her absence, we need each other. And as her family wrote yesterday, “We’ll leave you with a question she posed a lot over the last year: It’s not hard to imagine future generations one day asking: ‘When there was so much at stake for our country, what did you do?’” And she said, of course, that there was only one answer: “Everything we could.” —Cindi Leive ![]() ![]() FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Tuesdays and Thursdays.
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What to Expect on Day One
![]() January 16, 2025 Greetings, Meteor readers, There’s a whole bunch going on ahead of Monday’s inauguration, so let’s get straight to it. In today’s newsletter, Nona Willis Aronowitz examines the more than 100 executive orders Donald Trump reportedly plans to sign during his first days in office. Plus, a little news, and your weekend reading list. Running on coffee and optimism, Shannon Melero ![]() WHAT'S GOING ONHow Trump plans to “flood the zone” on Day One: We’re only a few days from the beginning of Trump 2.0, and if the president-elect is to be believed, Inauguration Day will be one of “shock and awe.” That’s not because of anything you’ll see at the actual event; it’s because, as Trump told GOP senators in a private meeting last week, he’s preparing more than 100 executive orders for Day One. In case you need perspective: That’s a lot. President Biden, for example, issued just 17 orders on his first day (and 156 during his entire presidency thus far). Trump has long been planning to push the limits of his executive powers, and this first-day onslaught is an early sign that he’s serious. (Compare it with 2017, when Trump, shocked he had won, signed a grand total of one order on his first day and then basically took the weekend off.) The EO onslaught is an example of Steve Bannon’s infamous “flood the zone” theory: Disorient the media and political establishment with so much information that they’ll be forced to prioritize only the wildest of the wild, letting the rest sail through. So what will the zone be flooded with Monday and Tuesday? Here’s what to expect. Immigration and border restrictionsMuch of Trump’s Day One will likely be focused on immigration. (Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller, one of the most notorious ghouls of the first Trump term, was present for last week’s meeting with senators.) Some initial orders may include…deep breath…reinstating the Muslim ban; declaring illegal immigration a national emergency; ordering the building of detention facilities; withholding federal funds to sanctuary cities; ending Biden’s humanitarian “parole” programs; finishing the U.S.-Mexico border wall; and even, potentially, closing the U.S.-Mexico border altogether, probably by citing a public health emergency. ![]() ACTIVISTS AND MIGRANTS STAGED A PROTEST AGAINST TRUMP'S PROPOSED MASS DEPORTATIONS AT A U.S.-MEXICO POINT OF ENTRY LAST MONTH ON INTERNATIONAL MIGRANTS DAY. (VIA GETTY IMAGES) Perhaps most consequential of all, Trump has repeatedly signaled that he plans to end birthright citizenship, a constitutional right that grants citizenship to any baby born on U.S. soil. “We have to end it,” he has said, calling it “ridiculous” and claiming falsely that we’re the only country that grants it. (More than 30 nations have unrestricted birthright citizenship.) It’s a blatantly unconstitutional move that would get challenged in court, but all it takes is five Supreme Court justices to find wiggle room in the 14th Amendment. Climate and energy rollbacksAnother big Day One priority? Undoing Biden’s attempts to protect the environment. Trump says he has plans to lift various restrictions on fossil fuel production, reverse bans on offshore drilling and fracking, pull out of the Paris climate agreement (again!), and revoke waivers allowing states to strictly regulate pollution—all setbacks that would make the U.S.’s climate goals even further out of reach. He has also made a Day One promise to end what he calls the “electric vehicle mandate,” which refers to incentives and tax breaks for buying and making electric cars. The Republicans have long wanted to quash EV sales, but experts say the market and Detroit automakers may decide otherwise. (And Elon Musk may prove to be a “wild card.”) Anti-trans movesTrans people will be in the crosshairs on Day One, too: Trump has said he plans to reinstate and expand the policy banning them from military service, block them from competing in women’s sports, and prohibit trans minors from receiving gender-affirming care. These orders may very well be redundant, given the cruel legal and congressional efforts already underway, but perhaps not if your priority is to inflict pain on the trans community as swiftly as possible. …and a smattering of other issuesTrump has talked early and often about pardoning January 6 prisoners, though he’s sent mixed messages about exactly who he’ll spare. He’ll probably reinstate his expanded version of the global gag rule, which prohibits NGOs from using their own, non-U.S. funds to provide abortion services or information overseas. A mainstay of his campaign stump speech was that he’d cut federal funding to public schools that have vaccine mandates (which is…literally all of them, and that’s why you don’t have polio). And he’s said he has plans to revive a 2020 executive order called Schedule F that would allow certain federal employees to be fired at will (which, although scary, might be quite hard to enforce). OK, so: Does signing an executive order mean it’s automatically legal? Not quite. Many of these actions will be challenged in court, and in some cases subject to the (rather arcane) Federal Administrative Procedure Act. But besides determining policy, the sheer number of Trump’s Day One orders would set the tone for a more authoritarian era—and pose a test of the public’s ability to stay engaged in the face of chaos. With that in mind, some of these executive orders, especially the ones on immigration and trans rights, will have immediate impact on people’s lives. Stay tuned for more coverage next week. —Nona Willis Aronowitz AND:
![]() WEEKEND READING 📚On survival: For months, people in Gaza were unable to purchase one thing their lives depended on: HIV medication. (The Intercept) On what children teach us: In this excerpt from an upcoming book she co-edited, Maya Schenwar tells the story of how motherhood changed her approach to prison abolition. (The Marshall Project) On killing the fact-checkers: What difference did the now-defunct Facebook research team actually make? Plenty, writes former fact checker Carrie Monahan in “Bare Facebook Liar.” (Air Mail) ![]() FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Subscribe using their share code or sign up for your own copy, sent Tuesdays and Thursdays.
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Project 2025 is Genuinely Frightening
![]() February 22, 2024 Hola, Meteor readers, I am both excited and terrified for this weekend. On Saturday, I’m doing my first ever Polar Bear Plunge which, if you’re not familiar, is where people jump into the ocean in the middle of winter, sometimes for charity and sometimes for fun. (I am not in the latter group.) It’s going to be 37 degrees on Saturday. And did I mention I can’t swim? ![]() In today’s newsletter, we dig into another thing striking fear in my heart: Project 2025. Plus, a win for menopausal Brits, student loan forgiveness for some, and your weekend reading list. Icicle-y yours, Shannon Melero ![]() WHAT'S GOING ONWhat Project 2025 involves: Ever wonder what the Republicans would do if they secured the presidency this fall? Well, wonder no more because they’ve announced their plan to the world. Project 2025, as you may have heard, is an extensive “four-pillared” transitional plan to create a more conservative government. It’s long, it’s terrifying, and it’s real: Project 2025 wasn’t developed by some grassroots, far-fetched, no-name fringe group but by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank and well-organized Beltway mainstay. So which action items do they want the next conservative president to pursue? Here’s the TL;DR on some of the suggested policies from their mandate book:
The core goal of Project 2025, as outlined in the “four promises” section of the mandate book, is to reform the government by enacting policies that prioritize the American family—which, out of context, sounds lovely. But in abundantly clear terms, the Project specifies that the American family it's referring to consists of two straight cis-gendered people, preferably ones who adhere to Judeo-Christian values. The authors of Project 2025 shape their agenda around conservative evangelical Christian teachings with the kind of precision the leaders of Gilead would envy. So, what have we learned from this glance into a literal conservative playbook? In the words of Whoopi Goldberg, “Molly. You in danger, girl.” We are all Molly right now. AND:
![]() LET'S (VIRTUALLY) GET TOGETHER!Doing anything fun on March 5? We are! The Meteor’s head of impact (and Mother of Swifties) Tara Abrahams will be in conversation with Chelsey Goodan, author of Underestimated: The Wisdom and Power of Teenage Girls, and award-winning filmmaker and Meteor collective member Sarah Jones. Join them for a discussion of the book—and the future young girls are working to create now. The event is totally free and you can register for it right here. See you in cyberspace. ![]() ![]() WEEKEND READINGOn-screen, off the rails: Wesley Morris has written the only review of Jennifer Lopez’s new “film” you need to read. (The New York Times) On the front lines: Lawyers, patients, and advocates in abortion ban states are fighting tooth and nail to weaken those laws. But just how does anyone win that battle? (The Cut) On the court: Thousands of young girls dream of one day making it to the WNBA. And so does this very skilled 84-year-old baller. (The Athletic) ![]() FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Subscribe using their share code or sign up for your own copy, sent Tuesdays and Thursdays.
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