This is a web version of The Lever’s daily email newsletter.

SPOTTED: David Sirota exposed MAGA’s fake populism and Democratic leaders’ betrayals on MSNBC this Sunday. Hours later, the network canceled the show.

🔥 Today’s Lever story (click here to read it now): Trump just withdrew safety rules for pipelines that created a real-life zombie emergency in America.

🎧 On Lever Time: Americans are mad as hell. Here’s why.

⬇️ Spend four minutes reading this 967-word newsletter to learn about:

  • How Ted Cruz’s new corruption scheme could increase the price of cars.
  • A former DOJ attorney’s last-minute gift for her new clients.
  • The secret society jacking up your electricity rates.
  • Who’s stripping Joann Fabrics for parts.
  • The successful bullying of a Georgia Congressman.
FOR PAYING SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

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In a new episode of Lever Time Premium, David Sirota asks famed Watergate whistleblower John Dean if we’re really in a constitutional crisis. What he says about Trump’s power grabs may surprise you.
TODAY'S NUGGETS

🔌 A secret society is fleecing you. New data show that in the last three years, private corporate utilities have jacked up electricity rates 49 percent more than the rate of inflation, while publicly owned utilities have raised rates 44 percent less than the rate of inflation. Since private companies provide 70 percent of American electricity, this scheme is probably ripping you off right now. Blame state regulators — and this secret society of consultants.

🤐 USAID’s new gag order. According to government documents shared with The Lever, staff at the embattled U.S. Agency for International Development are raising alarms after the Trump administration moved to potentially block the public from accessing agency records. On Feb. 18 USAID administrators began adding cryptic new language at the bottom of agency emails stating “Sensitive But Unclassified” — a designation that could illegally exempt the emails from public records requests.