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. |
Gaetz, Hegseth, and RFK. Oh my!
  November 14, 2024 Greetings, Meteor readers, I am roughly two days away from finishing a Christmas sweater I started knitting in 2022, so please know that when it’s done you will be receiving a special newsletter that is only pictures of this sweater. I will not be stopped! In today’s newsletter, we are picking ourselves up and reminding ourselves who’s really in charge in this country. Plus a call to greater action for GBV survivors in Kenya and your weekend reading list. All the way from sleeve island, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONThe bad boys club: Donald Trump’s horrifying picks for key government positions continue apace. There’s Stephen Miller for deputy chief of staff, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for health secretary, Pete Hegseth for defense secretary, and the pick that has produced the most mouth-frothing of all: Matt Gaetz for attorney general. By now you likely know many of the reasons this newly former congressman should not get this job. The alleged sex trafficking for which he was being investigated by the House Ethics Committee. The terribly kept secret of his relationships with underage girls. The legal experience so thin that the Wall Street Journal wrote that his law degree “might as well be a doctorate in outrage theater.” His blindingly white teeth and startling Botox. (Fine, those don't really matter, but they do look freaky.) The one saving grace here, small though it may be, is that even some Republicans say they cannot see a path to Senate confirmation for Gaetz.  THESE TEETH JUST DO NOT OCCUR IN NATURE. (VIA GETTY IMAGES) But! And this is an enormous, Godzilla-sized “but”: Anyone who lived through the Brett Kavanaugh hearings—in which Susan Collins and other Republicans wrung their hands over the accusations of sexual assault, but then voted to confirm him—is right to be cynical about these protestations. Besides, the outrageousness of nominating a potential sex offender to run the justice department means that Trump is doing something intentional here: This is an explicit test of which senators will be loyal to him. But if it’s a test for them, it is also a test for us. Government officials do not work or exist in a vacuum. At least as of today, they are still civil servants, and if we want to stop them from becoming lords of a fiefdom then we must continue the work of demanding better. Organizer Sandra Avalos wrote in Truthout this week, “Our communities are not new to hardship — but we have survived even the harshest conditions, and in those moments, built even more power. We know how to organize, how to protect one another, how to support those facing the brunt of the threats.” In this case, it’s worth remembering that the “what are you going to do? They’re all crooks” reaction to the nomination of Matt Gaetz may be legitimate—but it also lets the Senators whose job it is to do the right thing off the hook, and they don’t deserve that pass. If you live in a state with one of those Republicans expressing even tepid doubts, it’s worth calling them. Quote those doubts back to them. Demand thorough hearings. Pressure your House members to release the ethics report into Gaetz. Remind them in any way you can that they work for us. AND:
 WEEKEND READING 📚On men: Looking for a break from toxic masculinity? You may be surprised to find respite in The Golden Bachelorette. (Slate) On the internet: The phrase “your body, my choice,” recently popularized by a Hitler-admiring self-described incel, didn’t come to life overnight—it has a dark and longstanding history, Jia Tolentino explains. (The New Yorker) On the images we keep: One writer’s practice of collecting images from Gaza preserves both the unspeakably bad and the brief moments of good. (The Baffler)  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. |
Our First Felon President
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And Mexico's first woman leader   June 3, 2024 Hello and wow, Where were you when a New York jury found Donald Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the so-called Stormy Daniels hush-money case? I was relaxing on my couch, thinking about the Disaster Girl meme. Sentencing will occur July 11—four days before the Republican National Convention. Each count carries a penalty of up to four years in prison, though the presiding judge, Justice Juan M. Merchan, may instead choose to sentence Trump to probation, fines, or house arrest. In any case, Trump’s inevitable appeal is unlikely to be wrapped up before the 2024 election, but he’ll always be known as the U.S. president who became a convicted felon over using campaign funds to suppress a National Enquirer story to influence the 2016 election. We got the reality-show president we wanted, I guess! While we let all this sink in, today’s newsletter focuses on another consequential election—the one in Mexico, where citizens are likely to elect its first woman president. Plus, the hypocrisy of a Supreme Court Justice basically going “mah wife,” a really great song to get you through the hard times, and some of our favorite reads by AAPI authors for the final weekend reading list of AAPI Heritage month. Orange is his color, Julianne Escobedo Shepherd  WHAT'S GOING ONAn election referendum on femicide: This Saturday, Mexicans will head to the polls to elect a new president, with two women at the forefront: progressive former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum and her opponent, currently behind her in the polls, conservative candidate Xóchitl Gálvan. Sheinbaum is considered the protegée of current president Andrés Manuel López Obrador and is part of the Morena party, which elevated him to power; she has run, in part, on uplifting citizens from poverty and increasing security through social welfare. And, in addition to the seemingly Sisyphean task of curbing cartel violence and combating widespread corruption, whoever is elected must address the epidemic of femicide in Mexico, where ten women on average are murdered every day by intimate partners or other family members. Despite their historic roles as women candidates in a country entrenched in machista culture, both Sheinbaum and Gálvan’s statements on combating femicide have been vague, and some Mexican feminists are concerned about their ability to make a substantive difference. One skeptical activist recently told Ms. that she sees Sheinbaum as disinterested in “working on a comprehensive solution to femicide or bringing justice to the families of victims. We don’t expect a profound change or any real progress on the cases.” Furthering fears are both women candidates’ fuzzy proposals on other important topics like abortion and LGBQTIA rights. In an excellent new report by The World, feminist lawyer Patricia Olamendi offered one solution: “Mexico has a unique opportunity for change with a female president. The most urgent issue to tackle by the next administration is the creation of a prosecutor’s office specializing in femicides to deliver justice.” Until the next president accomplishes at least that, the valiant feministas of Mexico will continue pushing for change in the streets. As one feminist from the radical Black Bloc told AFP, “If we have to burn everything, we burn everything.”  CLAUDIA SHEINBAUM STUMPING, GESTURING IN CDMX (VIA HECTOR VIVAS/GETTY IMAGES) AND:• Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has finally addressed the upside-down flag hanging outside his house on January 6, first trying to blame it on a neighborly beef which actually happened a month after the flag was up, then just shunting all the blame onto his wife, Martha-Ann Alito. “She makes her own decisions,” he said in a letter to Congress, “and I have always respected her right to do so.” Oh really?, a coven of women around the country whispered in witchy unison. • Rolling Stone’s Cheyenne Roundtree and Nancy Dillon have published a blockbuster investigation into Diddy’s history of physical and sexual abuse allegations, which reportedly dates at least back to his time as a student at Howard University in the late 1980s. With some truly awful details, the report gives us yet another chilling look at how an entire industry can know about one powerful man's allegedly abusive behavior for more than 30 years. As one source said of witnessing Diddy verbally abuse Cassie in public, “Why is nobody saying anything? Are they that scared of him?” • In April, a talented singer from Toronto named Jennarie shared some of “Never Been Small,” a song she wrote in response to fat-shaming and other abuse she’s experienced online. The message (and her gorgeous voice) went viral; today, the full song is available and I can’t stop listening to her tale of survival and self-acceptance. This is the kind of track you blast when you’re at your lowest to give yourself the energy to pull through. Her other music is also amazing! • Fortune reports that Hello Alice, a company that helps small business growth, has prevailed against a lawsuit over a grant it had been offering with Progressive to Black-owned commercial transportation businesses. The suit, brought by racist lizard Stephen Miller’s legal firm on behalf of a white male trucker alleging discrimination, was thrown out by an Ohio judge, who determined the trucker was unable to prove injury—which, like, yeah. • Speaking of posi vibes… The Moana 2 trailer dropped. Auliʻi Cravalho reprises her role as the title character, who this time around embarks on a very cool-looking journey to Oceania in order to “reconnect our people across the entire ocean.” Disney intra-Pacific Islands decolonization narrative? We'll see (it’s out in November), but writer/director David Derrick Jr., whose family is Samoan, apparently got his grandfather's tapa cloth in the scenery! • And on that note of family fashion: If you saw the beautiful Michael and Hushi keffiyeh dress Bella Hadid wore at Cannes, don’t miss the Palestinian-American supermodel’s brief explainer about the history of the pattern, and what the fishnet, olive leaves, and sea waves mean to Palestinian history and resilience.  WEEKEND READING 📚For AAPI Heritage month, three of our editors share their summer reading recommendations. Living For Change: An Autobiography by Grace Lee Boggs An activist for all of her prolific, world-changing 100 years (she wrote her final book, The Next American Revolution, at age 95), of course you’d want to know how the legendary Grace Lee Boggs conducted her beautiful, politically engaged life. In Living For Change, she chronicles it all: her birth in 1915 above her father’s Chinese American restaurant in Providence, her union with her beloved husband (fellow activist Jimmy Boggs), her work in the civil rights and labor movements in 1960s Detroit, publishing the leftist labor journal Correspondence. If you need some inspiration to get out there and Do Something, this is pretty great at lighting a fire. - Julianne Escobedo Shepherd The Loneliest Americans by Jay Caspian Kang There is a certain je ne sais quoi that I feel brings together a lot of Otherized groups living in America, and it goes beyond race and ethnicity. The Loneliest Americans, which explores both Caspian’s personal history and the larger story of Asians in the U.S., spoke to my own struggles with identity—specifically the ways in which people of color are taught the value of mimicking whiteness while also being asked to carry on cultural traditions. It’s an uncomfortable dance between two lives, two versions of yourself, neither of which seem to fit quite right, and Caspian adeptly describes what it’s like to exist in the middle of that. - Shannon Melero They Called Us Exceptional by Prachi Gupta I must disclose my bias—I worked with Prachi for years and consider her a friend—but this moving memoir, written in the format of letters to her mother, is so much more than the recollections of a life. Through her struggles against violent patriarchal culture, she bucks against the model minority myth and makes cogent, heartfelt demands towards liberation—of her mother, of South Asian American women. Along the way, she finds her own self-acceptance. It’s harrowing. It’s beautiful. It will make you cry. - Julianne Escobedo Shepherd Stay True by Hua Hsu This won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Memoir, and it is one of my favorite books. I read it shortly after I lost a dear friend, who was South Asian, to an unexpected death. What I saw in this book was profound grief and how it interweaves with our identities. It read to me as much as an Asian American coming-of-age story as it was a love letter to a childhood friend and the time the author knew him. It forced me to sit with the nostalgia of good times and the joy and agony of that remembering. - Samhita Mukhopadhyay Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan I became a Kevin Kwan stan after the first few pages of Crazy Rich Asians, and with this latest story of wealth, high drama, love, and status, he proves that he simply does not miss. Kwan once again weaves together a tale with such vivid description, I feel like I’m in the room with his characters—although, since I don’t have the correct pedigree, they’d wonder why I was in the room at all. The sensation I get from Kwan’s work is very similar (I imagine) to what people in the 1800s must have felt reading Jane Austen for the first time. It reveals the inner workings of a world we don’t truly know while still giving some sense of familiarity through the universal trials of love and familial expectation. - Shannon Melero BONUS: The End of Imagination by Arundhati Roy Though Roy is not Asian American, her book The End of Imagination illustrates the profound impact of the actions of the U.S. on countries across Eastern and Western Asia, including Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and India. After Roy’s speech last year about the demise of democracy in India, I was moved to pick up this 2016 compendium of her essays and speeches. It’s a guided tour through her generosity and powerhouse mind as she critiques the machinations of democracy, empire, justice, war, peace, even art itself—big, sweeping topics that, in her hands, become tangible human concerns. She moves the reader to action by the strength of her words and the clarity of her thought. - Julianne Escobedo Shepherd  FOLLOW THE METEOR     Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend?
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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. |
