Sweltering, fossil-fueled heat and humidity is enveloping the nation’s capital, as a deadly stormfront that killed six people over the weekend—including three children crushed by a falling tree, an overturned Amish buggy driver, and a trucker whose semi was flipped over by high winds—reaches the region tonight.

The Week in Protests: Hands Off!

Momentum is gathering for Saturday’s national Hands Off! convergence at the Washington Monument on Saturday, April 5th.

On Tuesday morning at 10 am, fired federal workers continue their weekly job search in the Senate office buildings with increased urgency, after Trump’s illegal executive order last week calling for the dismantling of nearly all federal unions.

At 8 pm on Tuesday evening, the Hands Off! coalition is hosting a mobilizing mass call.

On Wednesday, Repairers of the Breach, led by Bishop William J. Barber II, holds their monthly Moral Witness Wednesday in front of the U.S. Supreme Court at 11 am. Every first Wednesday of the month, they will gather in D.C. to examine the impacts of policy violence on the most vulnerable communities.

At 6:30 pm on Thursday, National City Christian Church in Thomas Circle hosts a Sensitive Locations, Sacred Spaces prayer vigil to prepare for Friday’s 10 am Mennonite Church v. DHS hearing. The lawsuit, brought by dozens of faith groups against the Trump regime, challenges Trump’s recission of protections from immigrations enforcement in churches, synagogues, mosques, and other sacred spaces and sensitive locations. The hearing takes place at Courtroom 24A at the Prettyman Courthouse and will be also open on a toll-free line.

At 4 pm Friday, a coalition of DC university student governments is holding a rally at the Department of Education headquarters to demand Hands Off Our Schools.

On Saturday, a local offshoot of 50-50-1 is gathering at Stanton Park at 9:30 am before marching over to the Heritage Foundation to stage a die-in at 10 am to eulogize the death of American democracy. We are the Flood is hosting another protest at Heritage Foundation at 3 pm.

The main Hands Off! convergence on Saturday is centered around the amphitheater at the Washington Monument; speakers begin at 11 am. The protest is being organized by a broad coalition, including the new 50-50-1 movement, Women’s March, and Indivisible, and is known—depending on who you ask—as Hands Off!, The People’s Veto Day, Remove, Reverse, Reclaim. The Women’s March is coordinating buses to DC.

More D.C.-area protests can be found at the newly launched Organize DC newsletter.

Hearings: Tethering the Courts

With Trump and his sworn allies controlling the White House and Congress, and with the Chuck Schumer-led Senate Democrats committed to appeasement, the only check on the Elon Musk auto-coup is the federal judiciary. District court judges across the country, finding the Trump regime’s actions to be not only illegal but brazenly unconstitutional, have placed restraining orders and temporary injunctions against the mass firings, political deportations, transphobic bigotry, and other Trump moves.

So this week, Congressional GOP are moving quickly to end the power of the courts to limit illegal executive actions.

Today, the House Rules Committee is moving several Trump coup bills to the floor, including H.R. 22, to require proof of citizenship to vote; two resolutions already adopted by the Senate to overturn Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rules; and H.R. 1526, to limit the authority of district courts to provide injunctive relief.¹

In support of the floor bill, the House Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on Tuesday at 10 am on limiting the powers of the federal judiciary with witnesses including Newt Gingrich and Project 2025 co-author Paul Larkin.

And on Wednesday at 10:15 am, Senate Judiciary chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) holds yet another hearing on limiting court injunctions, in support of Josh Hawley’s (R-Mo.) S. 1099, the companion to the House bill.

Hearings: An Abundance of Fracking-Powered Universal Paperclips

AI is having a big week in Congress, mainly in the form of using the phrase “AI” to justify long-held deregulatory goals.

At 10 am on Tuesday, a House Oversight subcommittee holds a hearing on the economics of AI, data centers, and power consumption. The Koch-backed Abundance Institute’s AI head Neil Chilson will call for the repeal of the National Environmental Policy Act, limits on judicial injunctions, and accelerated support for fossil-fuel energy projects. Virginia-based data center lobbyist Josh Levi will call for the hobbling of NEPA, limits on judicial injunctions, and accelerated support for fossil-fuel energy projects. Koch network fossil-fuel enthusiast Mark P. Mills will call for rapid deployment of new fracked-gas power plants to fuel data centers, which he calls “the digital cathedrals of our time.” In measured testimony, Democratic witness Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen will point out that the Trump regime’s shambolic policies have a lot more to do with deregulating pollution than supporting the tech industry.

At 10 am on Wednesday, at a Judiciary subcommittee hearing entitled Artificial Intelligence: Examining Trends in Innovation and Competition, witnesses will argue AI means we need to limit anti-trust. Chilson returns as a witness, alongside fellow conservative operatives Joseph Coniglio and Jessica Melugin. The Democratic witness has not yet been announced.

And then at 9:30 am on Thursday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee holds its confirmation hearing for Scott Kupor to be director of the Office of Personnel Management and Eric Ueland to be deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, both in the White House. Ueland is a long-time Republican operative who served in the first Trump term. Kupor is a managing partner at the techno-fascist venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which recently hired Daniel Penny because he murdered a homeless man on the New York City subway in a vigilante attack.

In a recent blog post, Kupor said, approvingly, that “AI is beginning to eat the world,” thanks in no small part to his investment efforts.

Other Climate Hearings

On Tuesday at 10 am, the House Small Business Committee receives testimony on legislation that would allow any regulation to be challenged or blocked on behalf of “small business.” Witnesses include Montana climate denier and stripper-well owner Patrick Montalban and other industry lobbyists. Pro-regulatory small business advocate John Arensmeyer is the Democratic witness.

On Wednesday morning:

• The House Natural Resources oversight subcommittee receives testimony in a hearing with the fascistic title, “Unleashing the Golden Age of American Energy Dominance” from Democratic witness Megan Gibson from the Southern Environmental Law Center, hard-right operatives Matthew Jensen and Kevin Dayaratna, and Koch industry oil executive and former Obama-Trump oil development official Glen Sweetnam.

• The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds the confirmation hearing for Katharine MacGregor to be Deputy Secretary of the Interior and James Danly to be Deputy Secretary of Energy. Both are Republican operatives, polluter lobbyists, and former high-level officials in the first Trump administration. MacGregor is the Vice President of Environmental Services for NextEra Energy, while Danly represented NextEra Energy and others in cases before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, before joining the agency for Trump.²

• The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee receives testimony from reality TV star and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on the Surface Transportation Reauthorization Bill.

1  The Rules Committee and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La., no relation) are not moving forward this week with S. 1077, the D.C. Local Funds Act. Despite the public backing of Trump, Appropriations chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.), Oversight chair James Comer (R-Ky.), acting U.S. Attorney General for DC Ed Martin, the police and firefighters’ unions, and the local business community, hardline House Republicans are stonewalling the bill and Johnson is bending over to accommodate them.

2  Close readers of Hill Heat will remember seeing NextEra Energy in the list of Schumer’s top donors in Friday’s post.