One of the most innovative reactions to the Trump/Musk chainsaw approach to destroying the U.S. government has come from rock ‘n roll superstars, REM. The group’s members, Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Peter Buck and Bill Berry, have commissioned a remix of their 1981 college radio hit, “Radio Free Europe,” and released it with all proceeds going to support Radio Free Europe.
Musk/Trump axed funding for key federally supported broadcasting outlets in March. On March 9, Trump ordered the U.S. Agency for Global Media, USAGM, to “eliminate all activities that are not required by law,” according to NPR.

The network also reported that “The termination notices for grants for the funded networks, two of which were reviewed by NPR, carried the signature of Trump’s senior adviser Kari Lake, whom he placed at USAGM, not the agency’s acting chief executive. Lake does not appear in her current job to have the statutory authority to carry out that termination.”

In a its statement on its official website, REM said, “We are thrilled to announce the release of Radio Free Europe 2025, a five-track benefit EP featuring two never-before-released tracks: a 2025 remix by longtime collaborator Jacknife Lee and original producer Mitch Easter’s 1981 remix ‘Radio Free Dub.’”

“The cancellation of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s grant agreement would be a massive gift to America’s enemies,” Steve Capus, the president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, said in a statement today shared with NPR. “The Iranian Ayatollahs, Chinese communist leaders, and autocrats in Moscow and Minsk would celebrate the demise of RFE/RL after 75 years. Handing our adversaries a win would make them stronger and America weaker. We’ve benefitted from strong bipartisan support throughout RFE/RL’s storied history. Without us, the nearly 50 million people in closed societies who depend on us for accurate news and information each week won’t have access to the truth about America and the world.”

Order

Click here to pre-order/stream Radio Free Europe 2025 now and watch the Dispatch video for the Jacknife Lee remix.

Donate

Click here to make a tax-deductible donation to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Former Vice Pres. Al Gore was the keynote speaker at a special Climate Week event at The Exploratorium in San Francisco on April 21. He kicked off the event with a speech criticizing the Trump administration’s approach to climate change, comparing it to the Third Reich and highlighting the need for action.

AL GORE: It is abundantly clear, after only three months and one day, that the new Trump administration is attempting to do everything it possibly can to try to halt the transition to a clean energy future and a deep reduction in the burning of fossil fuels. The climate crisis is a fossil fuel crisis, basically 80% of it.

Many of you here today have likely felt the chilling effect of the policies and the rhetoric coming from Washington, D.C. and what the effect has been on businesses and investors and far beyond.

The Dow Jones, of course, today fell another thousand points and since Donald Trump’s inauguration it’s gone down six thousand points. But while the most visible impacts of what the new administration is doing may be in the market for stocks and bonds, that’s not the only thing that he has caused to crash.

[…]

During her April 23, 2025, show, Rachel Maddow provided a run-down of the Trump regime’s destructive, mistake-ridden first 100 days. In describing the Trumpists’ authoritarian takeover of the country, she took us on a wild ride through the regime’s long list of blunders:

• Oops! Freezing all federal funding/grants, then rescinding the order within 48 hours due to confusion and legal challenges.
• Oops! Accidentally listing the wrong person as acting head of the FBI on the White House website and letting the error stand.
• Oops! Accidentally sending names of hundreds of CIA officers in an unclassified email to the White House.
• Oops! Announcing a policy that inadvertently halted all mail from China, then reversing it.
• Oops! Accidental firing and attempted rehiring of nuclear security agency staff.
• Oops! Misstating savings on a contract by billions of dollars.
• Oops! Reversing a decision to remove legal aid for migrant children after public outcry.
• Oops! Cutting, then restoring, the program for 9/11 first responders.
• Oops! Elon Musk, Trump’s top campaign donor, sending out mass layoff threats to federal employees, then walking it back.
• Oops! Cutting and then restoring burial services and cancer support for veterans.
• Oops! Accidentally eliminating Ebola prevention measures, then reversing.
• Oops! Cutting and then reinstating hires for the Veterans Crisis Line due to an “administrative error.”
• Oops! Deleting and then restoring thousands of federal contracts in error.
• Oops! Announcing mass firings of federal employees, then denying it happened.
• Oops! Posting hundreds of federal properties for sale, including agency headquarters, then removing the listings without explanation.
• Oops! Publicly releasing unredacted Social Security numbers and private information of hundreds, including Trump’s own lawyer, in JFK assassination files, then scrambling to mitigate.
• Oops! Accidentally texting war plans to a journalist.
• Oops! Admitting to mistakenly deporting a Maryland man to an El Salvador prison.
• Oops! Tariffs inadvertently affecting remote islands, including one inhabited mainly by penguins.

At the end of the segment, Maddow suggested that we should keep this long list of Trump’s failures in mind as the mainstream media sane washes and glosses over of the chaos in its reporting on Trump’s first 100 days.