Good morning. I’m Corinne Straight, and this is AlterNet America.
The third woman in two months is out of Trump’s Cabinet, this time under investigation for drinking on the job and sleeping with her security detail. A Texas congressman introduced a bill named after New York’s mayor to deport U.S. citizens for their political opinions. House Republicans are trying to expel each other. And eight children are dead in Shreveport because a legal loophole let their father keep buying guns after a weapons conviction.
Corporate media is running cover. The FCC chair is making sure they know what happens if they don’t. And independent outlets are being bought out one by one. This is the news they don’t want you reading. AlterNet America is the people-powered response to the MAGA billionaire takeover of American media. We are reader-funded, editorially independent, and not for sale. We exist because of you. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, please upgrade today.
Now, let’s go.
Three Women Out of Trump’s Cabinet in Two Months
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is out, making her the third woman to leave Trump’s Cabinet since March. Before her: Kristi Noem, ousted as Homeland Security Secretary in March, and Pam Bondi, fired as Attorney General earlier this month.
The White House announced that Chavez-DeRemer was leaving “to take a position in the private sector” and that she had done “a phenomenal job.” The inspector general’s office had been preparing to interview her as part of an investigation into her conduct.
The investigation included allegations that Chavez-DeRemer was having a sexual relationship with a member of her security team, drinking alcohol on the job, and using business trips as cover for personal travel. Her husband was separately prohibited from entering the Department of Labor’s headquarters after two women accused him of sexually assaulting them.
Her chief of staff and deputy chief of staff were pushed out in early March, and a third senior staffer said she was fired after giving a four-hour interview to the inspector general’s office. Four hours is a long interview. The inspector general apparently had follow-up questions.
Chavez-DeRemer’s attorney clarified that she did not resign because she violated the law. The acting secretary was named within hours. He has presumably learned from his predecessor’s mistakes — starting with don’t let your husband in the building.
Republicans Want to Deport You for Your Politics
A Republican introduced a bill this week to deport people for their beliefs and explicitly cut the courts out of the process. Checks and balances had a good run.
Rep. Chip Roy of Texas introduced the Measures Against Marxism’s Dangerous Adherents and Noxious Islamists Act (the MAMDANI Act) which would deport, denaturalize, deny citizenship, or bar entry to any citizen or immigrant who is a member of a socialist party, a communist party, the Chinese Communist Party, or an Islamic fundamentalist party.
The bill is named after Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Socialist mayor of New York City, who is Muslim and was born in Uganda. Roy has been upset about his existence for some time.
The legislation would also bar judicial review of decisions made under its inadmissibility, deportation, or denaturalization clauses, making such determinations final and legally unchallengeable. So the government could strip someone’s citizenship for their political beliefs, and that person would have no legal recourse.
Roy previously posted on X: “No more Muslims. No more criminals. No more marxists.” He has also introduced a “Preserving a Sharia-Free America Act.” He spent what appears to have been significant staff time engineering an acronym that spells out the name of a mayor who won his election in a landslide.
Civil liberties groups, legal scholars, and members of both parties have raised constitutional objections. The First Amendment raised the same ones in 1791 and has not updated its position since.
A bill that strips judicial review from citizenship decisions is exactly the kind of story that makes powerful people uncomfortable. We're going to keep covering it anyway. No corporate parent, no broadcast license, no advertiser with an opinion about what we should say. If you want journalism that doesn't flinch, please consider upgrading your subscription today.
Republican Representatives Are Trying to Get Each Other Expelled
House Republicans have found a new way to lose their majority, and it involves kicking out their own members.
Rep. Nancy Mace introduced a resolution last week to expel Cory Mills, who is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for allegations of assaulting women, soliciting sex workers, lying about his military service, and profiting from federal contracts while serving in Congress.
Mills responded by drafting a resolution to expel Mace, which would highlight an incident at Charleston International Airport in which she yelled at TSA agents and security officers, calling them “fucking incompetent.” Mace is also under her own Ethics Committee investigation.
This comes after Reps. Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzales resigned from Congress last week, moments before their colleagues were prepared to set expulsion votes in motion. Also facing expulsion is Florida Democrat Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who was found guilty by the Committee of funneling $5 million in COVID relief funds to her congressional campaign.
The House has expelled six members in its entire 250-year history. They are now on pace to match that total before summer.
Eight Children Are Dead. A Legal Loophole Kept Him Armed.
Shamar Elkins shot and killed eight children in Shreveport, Louisiana, early Sunday morning. Seven were his own. The youngest was three years old.
Elkins had pleaded guilty in 2019 to illegal use of weapons after firing five rounds at a car less than 300 feet from the fence line of Caddo Magnet High School, with children playing outside at the time. A second charge of carrying a firearm on school property was dismissed.
Under federal law, gun ownership is typically only barred following a qualifying felony conviction or a specific domestic-violence misdemeanor. Because Elkins’ conviction resulted in probation rather than a prison-eligible felony sentence, his record fell short of the legal thresholds for a permanent firearms ban.
The system saw a man fire rounds near a school full of children and responded with eighteen months of probation and a clear path to legal gun ownership. He used that path to arm himself, and then used those arms to shoot ten people before dawn on Sunday, eight of them children.
Democrats in Louisiana have proposed multiple bills to tighten gun control, or at least put red flag measures in place. Republicans have routinely blocked them. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has represented Shreveport for nearly a decade, called it a “heartbreaking tragedy.”
The Caddo Parish District Attorney asked the public not to politicize the tragedy. Someone already did — they just did it years earlier in committee.
Nobody Owns This Newsletter But You
Let’s be direct about what is happening.
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POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Gen Z’s support for Trump shrinking fast, poll finds. A new NBC poll finds that 76 percent of Gen Z now disapproves of Trump, a 12-point swing since the last survey. This was driven almost entirely by inflation and the cost of living. The generation that helped put him back in the White House has apparently checked its bank account since then.
‘Absurd’: Michigan Flat-Out Rejects Trump Demand for Ballots. The Department of Justice sent a letter to Wayne County last week demanding 2024 election ballots, ballot receipts, and ballot envelopes as part of a nationwide effort to demand voter data from every state in the country. Michigan told them no, which puts them in good company with Rhode Island, California, Massachusetts, and Oregon, all of whom have also told them no.
Supreme Court won’t hear pronouns case on trans rights vs. parents rights. Four parents in Massachusetts spent four years in court arguing that teachers should be required to out their trans kids to them. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case, leaving intact a school policy that allows students to request certain pronouns without teachers being required to inform their parents. The constitutional right to surveil your child’s gender identity will have to wait.
The Onion Says It Has Again Struck a Deal to Take Over Infowars. After more than 18 months of legal wrangling, The Onion has reached a deal to take over Alex Jones’ Infowars, with proceeds going toward the more than $1 billion Jones owes the families of Sandy Hook victims. The lies Jones used to harass grieving parents will now be used to sell supplements and make fun of him, arguably a more fitting punishment than anything a court could have ordered.
