Blacks for Trump…what say you?
Black communities shaken by Trump cuts, feel ‘left behind again’
A Washington Post analysis found 22 projects were affected, stymying progress on pollution, sewage leaks and flooding.
By Anumita Kaur and Emmanuel Felton
September 15, 2025 at 9:00 a.m. EDTToday at 9:00 a.m. EDT
The Trump administration has axed nearly two dozen projects addressing health and environmental issues in Southern Black communities, a Washington Post analysis found, reversing years of work to address pollution, sewage leaks, flooding and more.
Rural Alabama counties lost a $14 million grant to upgrade sanitation systems so decrepit that some residents have contracted hookworm. A historically Black Virginia neighborhood won’t receive a $20 million grant to stop severe flooding.
In Louisiana, multiple federal efforts have been halted: a Justice Department lawsuit against a corporation accused of worsening cancer risks in a predominantly Black neighborhood; the designation of one area as a national historic landmark to limit industrialization; and grants from the Environmental Protection Agency to support monitoring air quality in Cancer Alley, an 80-mile stretch of mostly Black towns and villages hit hard by industrial pollution.
The Trump administration said the changes are needed to curb government spending. Officials have also linked some Biden-era climate programs to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that President Donald Trump and his top aides have said amount to illegal discrimination.
“President Trump was given an overwhelming mandate to stop spending hard-earned taxpayer dollars on the left’s radical climate agenda and restore commonsense to the federal government’s out-of-control spending,” Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement.
Residents and racial justice and environmental advocates say the cuts and cancellations leave Black communities without the resources to solve long-term problems and neglect that have contributed to deep racial inequities across the region.
…………………“Old and crumbling infrastructure in these Southern communities that should keep everyone safe and healthy, it’s not going to be repaired or upgraded,” said Jen Duggan, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, an advocacy group. “It is incredibly cruel, and it is lazy for the Trump administration to destroy and tear down these programs.”
The Post’s analysis of grant databases and interviews with advocates and nonprofits that spearheaded the efforts identified 22 affected projects that lost grant funding or were undertaken by agency-led lawsuits, orders and protections. The efforts spanned several federal agencies, including the EPA and the departments of Justice, Interior and Agriculture
Breaking News
@BreakingNews
NEW: Pentagon leaders are considering a new recruiting campaign that would encourage young people to honor the legacy of Charlie Kirk by joining the military, according to two officials familiar with the planning.
https://x.com/BreakingNews/status/1968724228816990455
maybe: diane 𐚁₊⊹ (@dianelyssa) posted at 9:18 PM on Wed, Sep 17, 2025:
People tried to tell y’all about Sinclair years ago when they started buying up local news stations, but nobody seemed to care. This did not just happen this year. The right has been laying the groundwork for this for a long time, with little to no pushback.
(https://x.com/dianelyssa/status/1968499780184617174?t=fkceti0f1DFw4SMbdlt6Xw&s=03)
ABC 7 Chicago (@ABC7Chicago) posted at 6:30 AM on Thu, Sep 18, 2025:
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new vaccine advisory committee meets Thursday to begin a two-day session focused on shots against COVID-19, hepatitis B and chickenpox. https://t.co/EZS49dt7v7
(https://x.com/ABC7Chicago/status/1968638674830049590?t=1vVmruw-TC8VQjFWwfj30Q&s=03)
John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) posted at 9:26 AM on Thu, Sep 18, 2025:
why does Brendan Carr act like a middle school punk instead of a grown-man high government official?
(https://x.com/JohnJHarwood/status/1968682974439710806?t=XHyrLQ3a82MH7sBPqaLCXw&s=03)
Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) posted at 8:15 AM on Thu, Sep 18, 2025:
Let me just say a simple thing.
Democrats have no obligation to provide the votes to fund the destruction of our democracy.
If you want my vote for a bipartisan budget, there need to be protections to stop Trump’s brazen lawlessness.
(https://x.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1968665067223744519?t=pZC5SjR4VjbuX0gLCT0idQ&s=03)
Uncle Daddy Wee-Yum (@MrGee54) posted at 10:45 PM on Wed, Sep 17, 2025:
Black folks have been living under fascism in this country since 1609. White folks feeling and now yall waking up. Lol
(https://x.com/MrGee54/status/1968521701064429874?t=DIakFuihDQwyQ8PdZNjqiQ&s=03)
midwest moderate Independent (@reesetheone1) posted at 11:21 AM on Thu, Sep 18, 2025:
BINGO.
They are getting a TICKLE of black existence on this soil, and they don’t like it.
They have the POWER to stop this.
(https://x.com/reesetheone1/status/1968712098009014479?t=QZrwoq4MBBai2ROAel_DcQ&s=03)
I loved Walz
Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) posted at 7:47 PM on Wed, Sep 17, 2025:
NEW
In her new book, former Vice-President Kamala Harris says she wanted to pick Pete Buttigieg as her running mate but she knew she couldn’t do it because she was already asking America to accept a Black woman married to a Jewish man as their President.
Full Story: https://t.co/6bDK7XfEa2
(https://x.com/yashar/status/1968476989418856663?t=YtX-bOTwk2IaKVgEZRYKiA&s=03)
Democracy Docket (@DemocracyDocket) posted at 0:17 PM on Thu, Sep 18, 2025:
NEW: Since taking charge of North Carolina elections, Republicans have appointed prominent election deniers to run state elections. As GOP efforts to control elections intensify, who runs our election boards will be crucial in 2026 and 2028.
https://t.co/2IkUlc5cJs
(https://x.com/DemocracyDocket/status/1968725992421064786?t=Kvit2JfukZrYfbX4vXc7iA&s=03)
👑 Mr. Weeks 👑 (@WonderKing82) posted at 0:28 PM on Thu, Sep 18, 2025:
What’s interesting is…. they don’t care if white people make more money, but they put a lock limitation on how much money that Black man Jay z can have.
(https://x.com/WonderKing82/status/1968728942291964336?t=XutSXqqUM9FvMOk0xZHOSA&s=03)
Candidly Tiff
@tify330
Republicans have had 6 months to get their spending bills passed and they have done NOTHING. Saying they need more time is a joke and they do not want to negotiate with Dems on anything.
https://x.com/tify330/status/1968660627070607475
Tim
@trouble_man90
We are in this crisis partly because over the past 10 years, people from across the political spectrum decided that nitpicking democrats to death was more necessary than stopping republicans from destroying everything they touch. Republicans took control of our media, and now they are destroying it.
Last edited
7:40 PM · Sep 17, 2025
https://x.com/trouble_man90/status/1968475165299204349
Wajahat Ali
@wajali.bsky.social
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Trump will go for martial law as he sinks in the polls and it becomes likely GOP will lose the House and Senate.
Miller has already used the word “invasion” and insurrection.
Folks, it’s happening in plan sight. Trust the evidence of your eyes. Don’t suffer from a failure of imagination.
https://bsky.app/profile/wajali.bsky.social/post/3lz3dfrarbc2v
Dana Houle
@danahoule.bsky.social
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How do people imagine he’d do it? With who? To match what Nazis had w the Brownshirts they’d need over 10m street fighters but they’re having a hard time hiring 10K more ICE agents
Federalism is a thing
He’s very unpopular
We need to think about what they have the capacity to do & fight that
https://bsky.app/profile/danahoule.bsky.social/post/3lz3eotrqek2g
lastpositivist.bsky.social
@lastpositivist.bsky.social
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I am now starting to suspect that people doom posting themselves into saying it doesn’t matter that Trump is wildly unpopular because he is going to do a dictatorship are themselves an op. Dictatorships aren’t stable by magic, they need people to buy in and go along with them. This matters.
https://bsky.app/profile/lastpositivist.bsky.social/post/3lyy5pqzlj22r
Elizabeth Warren
@warren.senate.gov
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Under Donald Trump’s economy:
Coffee is up 26%
Beef is up 14%
Oranges are up 17%
Bananas are up 6%
Chicken is up 6%
Chocolate Chip Cookies are up 5%
Potato Chips are up 4%
Milk is up 4%
But average worker pay is only up 2%
Trumpflation is eating up your paycheck.
September 16, 2025 at 9:42 AM
https://bsky.app/profile/warren.senate.gov/post/3lyxkkyjbas2a
driel Bettelheim
@abettel
CDC abruptly stops work-from-home disability accommodations. https://axios.com/2025/09/17/cdc-work-from-home-remote-policy
@mayagoldman_
@EmilyRPeck
https://x.com/abettel/status/1968348048272367665
Trump’s $15 Billion NY Times Suit Also Has a Serious Intent
The president wants to tear down another vital institution while unwinding legal protections for the media.
September 17, 2025 at 4:00 AM CDT
Opinion
Timothy L. O’Brien,
Columnist
President Donald Trump — as is his wont when irritated or aggrieved — has deposited a $15 billion defamation lawsuit on the doorsteps of the New York Times, four of its reporters and the publisher of a book two of them wrote about him.
The suit contends that the defendants are essentially proxies for a “legacy media” that has morphed into a “mouthpiece of the Democratic Party,” dedicated to sabotaging his political prospects and with “zero regard for ‘norms’ or ‘institutions.’”
Its 85 pages contain ample hagiography about Trump. And, like a marketing brochure, the suit features helpful photographs of his TV ratings, the 2024 presidential election results, Trump Tower, and the man himself, fingers cocked, advising “You’re Fired!” Trump’s lawyers, clearly Latin scholars, make note of his “sui generis charisma.” While the suit bemoans the media’s disregard for facts, it contains epic howlers of its own, including the confection that Trump “built much of New York City’s famed skyline.”
……………….
Multibillion-dollar lawsuits tend to have chilling effects on free speech and responsible and necessary reporting, particularly when they’re launched from the White House. Trump’s suit points out that two other media giants, ABC News and CBS News, settled with the president rather than contest lawsuits he filed against them.
Trump’s suit may also be a tool for unwinding legal protections the US media has historically enjoyed. He filed in federal court in Tampa, Florida, where he presumably expects a friendly hearing. Should he ultimately lose there, he would most likely appeal to the Supreme Court. Two of the court’s nine justices have already argued for reconsidering a landmark 1964 ruling, New York Times v. Sullivan, that established burdensome evidentiary standards for public figures filing defamation claims.
For all of its concerns that the media has undermined American norms and institutions, the suit itself is an attempt to defenestrate an institution that the Constitution’s framers singled out for special protection because they saw it as essential to a healthy democracy. This is also a feature of the Trump era. The president has spent the last decade laying siege to an array of bedrock US institutions, including the courts, the military, law enforcement, elections, the Federal Reserve, universities, and the medical, scientific and public health communities — while also taking a cudgel to valuable norms such as equal opportunity, free markets, hard-earned expertise and basic civility.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-09-17/trump-s-15-billion-nyt-lawsuit-also-has-a-serious-intent
Katherine Faulders
@KFaulders
NEW: Top Trump administration officials are pressuring federal prosecutors in Virginia to indict NY AG Letitia James for mortgage fraud, despite investigators so far failing to find sufficient evidence supporting such charges. Story w/
@PCCharalambous
&
@alex_mallin
5:26 AM · Sep 17, 2025
https://x.com/KFaulders/status/1968260364103221509
Jon Passantino
@passantino.bsky.social
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Business Insider told its reporters they can now draft their reporting in ChatGPT—without disclosing it to readers—becoming one of the first major U.S. newsrooms to formally greenlight such far-reaching use of A.I. The scoop in
@status.news
http://www.status.news/p/business-i...
https://bsky.app/profile/passantino.bsky.social/post/3lyzvytrkvs27
fiberwoman15.bsky.social
@fiberwoman15.bsky.social
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Democrat Xp Lee wins race to succeed Melissa Hortman, restoring Minnesota House tie http://www.mprnews.org/story/2025/0... #uspolitics #minnesota
https://bsky.app/profile/fiberwoman15.bsky.social/post/3lyzdnfpl3k2u
Politico
@politico.com
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NEW: Attorney General Pam Bondi has now appeared to walk back comments promising to target broadly defined “hate speech” following the killing of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, after facing significant backlash from both conservative and liberal circles over her threat to curb free speech.
https://bsky.app/profile/politico.com/post/3lyxrn6dars2e
Restoring Your Faith in Humanity
@HumanityChad
She was about to celebrate her birthday by herself, then someone stepped in with kindness
https://x.com/HumanityChad/status/1968314360306266304
Catherine Rampell
@crampell.bsky.social
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according to an immigration attorney representing several arrested workers, ICE agents chose to arrest the Korean workers to fulfill the quota of 3,000 daily immigrant arrests set by Stephen Miller http://www.forbes.com/sites/stuart...
https://bsky.app/profile/crampell.bsky.social/post/3lyyss5c7sc2b
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊