The Trump Presidency Timeline
Documenting the chaos since day one. 1599 entries and counting.
Category: killing democracy
killing democracy
trump fires the firefighters, shocked there’s a bigger ebola fire
Kyeshero Hospital in Goma, gamely prepping an isolation ward while Washington congratulates itself on having "reformed" the people who used to help with this sort of thing.
The Trump administration spent 2025 joyfully taking a sledgehammer to USAID – canceling most of its programs, firing most of its staff, and bragging about "reform" – and now, in 2026, everyone is shocked to discover that blowing up your global health infrastructure makes it harder to spot Ebola before it kills people. Former USAID, CDC, NIH and White House officials all say the quiet part out loud: if USAID still existed as something more than a branding exercise at State, this outbreak in Congo might have been caught earlier and some of those 139 suspected deaths and 600 cases might not exist.
Instead of trained community health workers and lab networks, you’ve got ex–Ebola responders driving taxis and selling fruit because U.S. funding vanished, clinics in the outbreak zone operating without basic protective gear, and the International Rescue Committee forced to gut surveillance and sanitation work. The State Department, having absorbed USAID like a snake swallowing a much more competent animal, insists that "reform" hasn’t hurt anything and proudly waves around $23 million and a promise of up to 50 clinics like it’s 2014 again. Meanwhile, people who actually know how outbreaks work point out that what we’ve really lost is speed, and in an Ebola outbreak, speed is the whole ballgame.
To really complete the disaster cosplay, Trump yanked the U.S. out of the World Health Organization last year, so the country that used to coordinate global health responses is now standing outside the system, shouting press releases at it. CDC is left trying to do USAID’s job on top of its own, despite not being built to coordinate broad field operations, while the administration pretends that nothing important has changed and that the absence of the very programs designed to hear about outbreaks early had absolutely nothing to do with the late detection. The White House, naturally, had no comment – presumably too busy congratulating itself on saving money as the cost is measured in human lives an ocean away.
Instead of trained community health workers and lab networks, you’ve got ex–Ebola responders driving taxis and selling fruit because U.S. funding vanished, clinics in the outbreak zone operating without basic protective gear, and the International Rescue Committee forced to gut surveillance and sanitation work. The State Department, having absorbed USAID like a snake swallowing a much more competent animal, insists that "reform" hasn’t hurt anything and proudly waves around $23 million and a promise of up to 50 clinics like it’s 2014 again. Meanwhile, people who actually know how outbreaks work point out that what we’ve really lost is speed, and in an Ebola outbreak, speed is the whole ballgame.
To really complete the disaster cosplay, Trump yanked the U.S. out of the World Health Organization last year, so the country that used to coordinate global health responses is now standing outside the system, shouting press releases at it. CDC is left trying to do USAID’s job on top of its own, despite not being built to coordinate broad field operations, while the administration pretends that nothing important has changed and that the absence of the very programs designed to hear about outbreaks early had absolutely nothing to do with the late detection. The White House, naturally, had no comment – presumably too busy congratulating itself on saving money as the cost is measured in human lives an ocean away.
Source: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#anti-science#forever-grifting
killing democracy
20-year-old sues president for the right not to be slow‑roasted
The Yellowstone River, patiently waiting to find out if it’s a protected natural wonder or just future waterfront property for Exxon’s next drilling rig.
While most 20-year-olds are stressing over finals and whether their fake ID will work, Eva Lighthiser is busy suing the president of the United States for violating her constitutional rights by turning the federal government into a wholly owned subsidiary of the fossil fuel industry. Her case, Lighthiser v Trump, argues that Trump’s blizzard of pro–oil and gas executive orders is effectively sacrificing her generation’s lives so a few petro-oligarchs can buy their third yacht instead of just the second. The Ninth Circuit helpfully dismissed the case once, but the kids flew to Portland to ask the court to reconsider, because apparently someone in this country still believes the constitution means something beyond “whatever the president’s donors want.”
This is not Eva’s first rodeo with government-sponsored climate arson. At 14, she joined Held v Montana, a youth-led lawsuit arguing that the state’s fossil-fuel worship violated their state constitutional right to a “clean and healthful environment.” A judge actually agreed – a rare moment where the judiciary remembered that “future generations” are not a poetic flourish but actual people who would prefer not to inhale wildfire smoke as a food group. State lawmakers responded by trying to jam through new laws that directly contradict the ruling, because when young people win a basic right to breathable air, the only responsible reaction is to pass legislation saying, "no, actually, choke."
By Trump’s second term, even the lawyers were like: yeah, this has gone full climate death cult, time for a federal case. Our Children’s Trust tapped Eva early as a plaintiff, because nothing says "functioning democracy" like teenagers begging the courts to stop their own government from cooking them alive. While Trump signs executive orders like they’re autographs at a golf club buffet, a 20-year-old from Montana is out here trying to convince a panel of lifetime appointees that the federal government should maybe not have a constitutional right to set the planet on fire for short-term shareholder value. Bold, radical stuff.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#anti-science
killing democracy
trump replaces republican primaries with loyalty tribunals
Thomas Massie watches his career get deepfaked to death by a party that thinks AI smut is a governing philosophy.
The MAGA brain trust just spent a record amount of money to convince Kentucky Republicans that Thomas Massie is in a bisexual socialist love triangle with AOC and Ilhan Omar, because that’s where the party is now: AI porn fanfic as campaign strategy. The deep crime here wasn’t the cartoonish smear, though – it was Massie’s real offense: working to expose the Epstein files and crossing Dear Leader on war and Israel. Naturally, that made him a "moron," "nut job" and "major sleazebag" in Trump-speak, which is rich coming from a guy with more indictments than policy ideas.
Trump’s revenge tour is humming along nicely. He’s already helped kneecap Indiana state senators who defied him on redistricting, helped take out Bill Cassidy for daring to vote for his conviction after January 6, and now he’s installing loyalists like Ed Gallrein and Andy Barr as if the GOP were his personal HR department. The Supreme Court is pitching in, too, obligingly gutting the Voting Rights Act so Republicans can surgically remove Black and minority voters from competitive districts while solemnly pretending it’s all about “fair maps.” Minority rule isn’t a bug of Trumpism – it’s the operating system.
Outside the MAGA bubble, though, the country is less impressed. Trump’s approval is down to 37%, his Iran war is loathed by nearly two-thirds of voters, and Democrats are leading the generic ballot by double digits. So inside the party, he’s a cult leader with 82% approval; outside, he’s the guy 6 in 10 Americans wish would log off permanently. As Chris Hayes put it, the hardcore 35–37% is effectively holding the rest of the country hostage while the Supreme Court and GOP gerrymander engineers keep refilling the ammo.
The next test is Texas, where Trump just endorsed indicted cartoon villain Ken Paxton over John Cornyn, because why not strap more dynamite to the sinking ship? Republicans now live in the Trump Trap: you need him to survive a primary, and the very fact that you survived the primary makes you easier to beat in a general election. It’s a self-tightening knot of authoritarian loyalty tests, shrinking coalitions, and AI smear ads – the kind of system you’d design if your goal was to slowly immolate a political party while still doing maximum damage to democracy on the way down.
Trump’s revenge tour is humming along nicely. He’s already helped kneecap Indiana state senators who defied him on redistricting, helped take out Bill Cassidy for daring to vote for his conviction after January 6, and now he’s installing loyalists like Ed Gallrein and Andy Barr as if the GOP were his personal HR department. The Supreme Court is pitching in, too, obligingly gutting the Voting Rights Act so Republicans can surgically remove Black and minority voters from competitive districts while solemnly pretending it’s all about “fair maps.” Minority rule isn’t a bug of Trumpism – it’s the operating system.
Outside the MAGA bubble, though, the country is less impressed. Trump’s approval is down to 37%, his Iran war is loathed by nearly two-thirds of voters, and Democrats are leading the generic ballot by double digits. So inside the party, he’s a cult leader with 82% approval; outside, he’s the guy 6 in 10 Americans wish would log off permanently. As Chris Hayes put it, the hardcore 35–37% is effectively holding the rest of the country hostage while the Supreme Court and GOP gerrymander engineers keep refilling the ammo.
The next test is Texas, where Trump just endorsed indicted cartoon villain Ken Paxton over John Cornyn, because why not strap more dynamite to the sinking ship? Republicans now live in the Trump Trap: you need him to survive a primary, and the very fact that you survived the primary makes you easier to beat in a general election. It’s a self-tightening knot of authoritarian loyalty tests, shrinking coalitions, and AI smear ads – the kind of system you’d design if your goal was to slowly immolate a political party while still doing maximum damage to democracy on the way down.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#fascism
killing democracy
trump doj and musk heroically defend ai’s right to discriminate
Elon Musk and the Trump DOJ, bravely standing between vulnerable algorithms and the terrifying prospect of not being racist.
Colorado looked at AI deciding who gets jobs, housing, and healthcare and had the outrageous idea that maybe the algorithms shouldn’t quietly redline people. So they passed SB 205, a law that says: if your high-risk AI is making consequential decisions, you have to check if it’s discriminating and, if it is, maybe stop doing that. Naturally, this triggered Elon Musk’s xAI, which raced to court to complain that not denying Black people healthcare is a "state ideology" about racial justice. One of the bill’s sponsors, Brianna Titone, had to patiently explain that the law doesn’t stop Grok from being a jerk; it just asks that AI not be a racist jerk when deciding who gets medical care.
Enter the Trump administration, which took one look at "don’t build racist decision engines" and decided the real victim here was the algorithm. Trump’s DOJ not only joined xAI’s lawsuit, it rebranded anti-discrimination checks as "state-mandated discrimination" — an impressive bit of doublespeak even by this government’s standards. The same crew that signed an executive order on "preventing woke AI" — translating to "let the bias rip" — is now using federal power to kneecap Colorado and pre-empt other states from passing similar protections, all under the banner of winning the totally unrelated "AGI race" against China.
The business panic storyline doesn’t hold up either. The Wall Street Journal dutifully wept over Colorado "killing the entrepreneurial spirit" without citing a single company actually fleeing because of the law. Palantir muttered about regulatory burdens in an SEC filing, then left for Florida for its own reasons, while Microsoft is over here warning investors that biased AI is a material risk. Meanwhile, the actual research shows that supposedly "neutral" algorithms — like a hospital tool that quietly gave Black patients half the care of equally sick white patients — bake in discrimination unless someone forces them to be fixed. Colorado tried to be that someone; Trump’s DOJ and Musk teamed up to make sure the discrimination stays innovative, efficient, and fully protected by the federal government.
So yes, the federal government is now actively intervening on the side of billionaire AI labs to stop states from asking, "Could your product maybe not be a civil rights violation in a box?" The message from Trump and Musk is clear: your landlord, your boss, and your insurer may not be allowed to discriminate openly, but their algorithms? Those are an endangered species that must be saved.
Enter the Trump administration, which took one look at "don’t build racist decision engines" and decided the real victim here was the algorithm. Trump’s DOJ not only joined xAI’s lawsuit, it rebranded anti-discrimination checks as "state-mandated discrimination" — an impressive bit of doublespeak even by this government’s standards. The same crew that signed an executive order on "preventing woke AI" — translating to "let the bias rip" — is now using federal power to kneecap Colorado and pre-empt other states from passing similar protections, all under the banner of winning the totally unrelated "AGI race" against China.
The business panic storyline doesn’t hold up either. The Wall Street Journal dutifully wept over Colorado "killing the entrepreneurial spirit" without citing a single company actually fleeing because of the law. Palantir muttered about regulatory burdens in an SEC filing, then left for Florida for its own reasons, while Microsoft is over here warning investors that biased AI is a material risk. Meanwhile, the actual research shows that supposedly "neutral" algorithms — like a hospital tool that quietly gave Black patients half the care of equally sick white patients — bake in discrimination unless someone forces them to be fixed. Colorado tried to be that someone; Trump’s DOJ and Musk teamed up to make sure the discrimination stays innovative, efficient, and fully protected by the federal government.
So yes, the federal government is now actively intervening on the side of billionaire AI labs to stop states from asking, "Could your product maybe not be a civil rights violation in a box?" The message from Trump and Musk is clear: your landlord, your boss, and your insurer may not be allowed to discriminate openly, but their algorithms? Those are an endangered species that must be saved.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
killing democracy
god, guns, and deregulation: trump’s atf becomes the nra’s help desk
Behold the Holy Trinity of American collapse: God, Guns, and Trump, now with 34% fewer regulations and 100% more lobbyists on stage.
The Trump administration looked at a gunman opening fire at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and apparently concluded the real victim was paperwork. Just four days later, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and freshly installed ATF chief Robert Cekada rolled out 34 regulatory changes designed to make life easier for the firearms industry, while everyone else gets to play live-action "Thoughts and Prayers: The Sequel."
Blanche declared that the Second Amendment "will never be treated as a second-class right" while standing shoulder-to-shoulder with NRA and Gun Owners of America reps, who were basically functioning as unpaid (lol, who are we kidding, very paid) co-cabinet secretaries. ATF’s stated mission is to protect public safety, but under Trump’s second term it’s been reinterpreted as protect the gun lobby from inconvenience, with DOJ proudly announcing a "new era of reform" that mostly consists of shredding rules courts had already kneecapped and calling it principled constitutionalism.
Gun groups are calling this the "golden age of the Second Amendment," which is an interesting way to describe a government that responds to a high-profile shooting by asking the industry, "So what regulations would you like us to kill next?" Federal law enforcement has effectively been repurposed into a concierge service for manufacturers and absolutists, and if that means a few more bodies on the floor, well, at least the forms will be shorter.
Source: npr.org
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting#national-security
killing democracy
georgia gop decides 2020 coup attempt was just a fun icebreaker
Voters patiently line up in Georgia to choose which Trump loyalist they’d like managing the next election they might not be allowed to win.
Georgia Republicans have spoken, and the message is loud, clear, and deeply stupid: the two finalists for governor are both Trump diehards, including Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who was investigated by federal prosecutors for allegedly serving as a fake elector in the 2020 coup cosplay. Prosecutors passed on charges in 2024, so naturally the base decided the next logical step is "give this man the keys to the entire state."
Not to be outdone in the race to the bottom, healthcare executive and self-proclaimed fellow billionaire Rick Jackson is running as Trump Without the Indictments (yet), hugging the ex-president politically while spending millions on attack ads against Jones. It’s a runoff between two guys whose main disagreement appears to be who loves Trump more, while the Republicans who actually certified Georgia’s real 2020 results — Brad Raffensperger and Chris Carr — got politely escorted off the stage for the crime of acknowledging math.
Meanwhile, Democrats are having a relatively normal primary with Keisha Lance Bottoms (backed by Biden), Geoff Duncan (a former Republican who got tired of the cult and switched teams), Jason Esteves, and Michael Thurmond. Their race is about the balance between moderates and progressives. The GOP race is about whether Georgia wants a governor who tried to help overturn an election or one who just really wishes he had. American democracy: now featuring runoff rounds for aspiring authoritarians.
Source: npr.org
#killing-democracy#fascism
killing democracy
33 million dollars to prove trump’s feelings are hurt
Thomas Massie and Ed Gallrein, pausing briefly from being turned into $33 million worth of attack ads so the oligarchs can enjoy some fresh, artisanal intra-party purging.
American democracy continues its proud evolution into a very expensive reality show, as President Trump mobilizes nearly $33 million in ad spending to take out Thomas Massie, one of the last Republicans willing to say "hey, maybe the Epstein files and an Iran war are bad." The most expensive House primary in years is not about policy, governance, or representing northern Kentucky; it’s about proving that criticizing Trump is a fireable offense, preferably with the help of billionaires and a small armada of consultants who bill by the outrage.
On one side: Trump’s operation and pro-Israel groups furious that Massie isn’t sufficiently on board with the war with Iran, dropping roughly $19 million to carpet-bomb the district with attack ads. Trump’s team even launched a bespoke super PAC, charmingly named MAGA KY, and stocked it with checks from megadonors Paul Singer and Miriam Adelson, because nothing screams "populist movement" like two billionaires paying to erase a congressman who reads the Constitution. Two pro-Israel outfits, including one tied to AIPAC, have tossed in another $9 million, because why let voters decide when your checkbook can decide faster?
On the other side: Massie’s mystery benefactors. A brand-new entity, Kentucky 4th PAC, has spent $6.5 million in the final six weeks while disclosing exactly zero donors, which is a bold way of saying "this is totally not dark money, please ignore the man behind the curtain." The race has now degenerated into both camps using A.I.-generated deepfake ads, including one depicting Trump’s favored Navy SEAL, Ed Gallrein, abandoning Trump on a battlefield. We’ve reached the stage of American politics where campaigns are literally fabricating digital hallucinations of betrayal while arguing over which billionaire-funded super PAC is more "grassroots."
So yes, this Kentucky primary is a perfect microcosm of Trump-era politics: oligarchs underwriting a personal vendetta, shadowy money propping up the supposed rebel, and voters left to sort through a feed of weaponized deepfakes to decide which faction of the same party will more efficiently kiss the ring. Representative democracy, now streaming in 4K, brought to you by undisclosed donors.
Source: nytimes.com
#killing-democracy#oligarchy
killing democracy
women to america: it’s not me, it’s your fascism
POV: you’re leaving the world’s richest country so your kids can go to school without a SWAT team on standby.
American women are increasingly treating the "land of the free" like a toxic ex, and the breakup reasons are extensive: the supreme court torched Roe v Wade, gun fetishists turned kindergarten into active-shooter theater, and the Christian right decided women's bodies are a group project. One woman launches a site to help people escape and, shockingly, traffic spikes the moment the court hands half the country’s population fewer rights than their grandmothers.
Gallup now finds 40% of US women aged 15–44 would move abroad permanently if they could, while men sit comfortably at 19%, presumably confident that their rights and bodily autonomy are not on the chopping block. From Ecuador to Albania to anywhere with health care and walkable streets, women describe the US as a place where it’s "harder and harder and more dangerous to even exist" and where casual misogyny from "the loudest voices of influence" (no need to name names, we all took that quiz already) trickles down into daily harassment.
Layer on the permanent background hum of gun threats at schools, open season on LGBTQ+ rights, and a political culture that has swapped policy for propaganda and grievance, and you get a quiet exodus that looks a lot like a vote of no confidence in American democracy. The self‑proclaimed greatest country on earth is now exporting citizens who just want not to be shot, controlled, or legislated into childbirth. American exceptionalism is alive and well – other countries have rarely looked this appealing by comparison.
Gallup now finds 40% of US women aged 15–44 would move abroad permanently if they could, while men sit comfortably at 19%, presumably confident that their rights and bodily autonomy are not on the chopping block. From Ecuador to Albania to anywhere with health care and walkable streets, women describe the US as a place where it’s "harder and harder and more dangerous to even exist" and where casual misogyny from "the loudest voices of influence" (no need to name names, we all took that quiz already) trickles down into daily harassment.
Layer on the permanent background hum of gun threats at schools, open season on LGBTQ+ rights, and a political culture that has swapped policy for propaganda and grievance, and you get a quiet exodus that looks a lot like a vote of no confidence in American democracy. The self‑proclaimed greatest country on earth is now exporting citizens who just want not to be shot, controlled, or legislated into childbirth. American exceptionalism is alive and well – other countries have rarely looked this appealing by comparison.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#pro-life#trumps-america
killing democracy
37% of republicans accidentally admit they'd prefer a party to a personality cult
A visual representation of the GOP: most arrows still pointing at Trump, one lonely bar labeled “new direction” quietly screaming for help.
Republican voters have spoken, and the message is clear: authoritarianism, yes; maybe a different flavor, also yes. A new New York Times/Siena poll finds that 55% of potential Republican supporters want the next nominee to “follow Donald Trump’s lead,” which presumably includes crushing internal dissent, starting deeply unpopular wars, and governing by Fox News segment. A mere 37% say they’d like a “new direction,” suggesting that over a third of the party has noticed that the flaming clown car is in fact on fire.
The details are a fun little autopsy of a functioning democracy. Among actual Republicans, 65% want more Trump, please. Among Republican-leaning independents, a majority would like to get off this ride before it reaches the Hague. Younger voters (18–44) overwhelmingly want a new direction, while voters 45 and up are apparently content to spend their golden years re-electing the guy whose approval rating with the general public is circling the drain at 37% as the war with Iran sends gas prices and body bags in the same direction: up.
Trump’s stranglehold on the base is doing real institutional work. His popularity inside the party has helped him purge insufficiently obedient Republicans in primaries in Louisiana and Indiana and bully GOP-run states into drawing friendlier House maps — you know, the usual “small government, local control” stuff, except the locality is wherever Donald Trump’s ego currently resides. All of this might still cost Republicans control of Congress, because outside the MAGA terrarium, voters are not thrilled about an unpopular war, a wildly unpopular president, and a party whose central organizing principle is personal loyalty to one man.
So yes, democracy is still technically on the ballot, but inside the GOP, the real question is: do you want Trumpism with Trump, or Trumpism with someone slightly better at pretending to read a briefing book?
Source: nytimes.com
#killing-democracy#fascism#forever-grifting
killing democracy
trump admin to americans: your phone is our phone now
Pictured: the kind of phone Trump’s DHS would very much like to crawl inside, live in, and redecorate with listening devices.
The Department of Homeland Security has decided the real threat to America isn’t violent extremists or corrupt officials; it’s your iPhone. ICE quietly admitted it’s using commercial spyware — the kind that can burrow into your phone, hoover up your data, and turn your pocket into a live mic — supposedly to chase terrorists and fentanyl traffickers. History shows these tools get used on journalists, human rights activists, political rivals, and diplomats, but sure, this time it’ll be different because the agency that ran family separation pinky swears.
Under Biden, the U.S. actually did something useful: blacklisted NSO Group and other spyware outfits, sanctioned specific players, signed an executive order limiting government use, and led a democratic coalition to push back on this industry of digital break-ins. That brief era of sanity is now being lovingly tossed into the shredder. The Trump administration has already lifted sanctions on people tied to the Predator spyware platform and even revived an ICE contract with Israeli-founded spyware company Paragon, because when every authoritarian government on Earth is abusing these tools, the only question Trump-world asks is: why aren’t we cashing in too?
Experts are warning that the U.S. is sliding away from being a (somewhat) restraining force on the global spyware trade and toward being just another enthusiastic customer with a security badge. So while privacy and civil rights advocates are frantically pointing out that these tools have been used to hack American officials and dissidents abroad, the Trump team seems more focused on making sure DHS has everything it needs to treat the Constitution as a quaint, optional add-on. Good news: the government may not fix your roads or process your passport, but it can absolutely read your texts.
Source: npr.org
#killing-democracy#fascism
killing democracy
another primary day at the church of trump
Voters line up to decide which Republican has pledged the most undying loyalty to a man who tried to overturn their last election.
Six states are holding primaries, which NPR politely describes as a "test of President Trump's influence" instead of the more accurate "are Republicans still fully owned by one extremely loud Florida man." The ballots will technically list candidates’ names, but the real question being voted on is: who groveled most convincingly at the golden calf in Mar-a-Lago.
Instead of debating policy, governance, or basic reality, the GOP is once again running the same quiz show: Do you accept Dear Leader's latest conspiracy theory, yes or yes? Every race is framed not as "who will represent you" but "who will carry Trump's water with the least visible spine." American democracy: now with extra personality cult, still no refunds.
Source: npr.org
#killing-democracy#fascism
killing democracy
gop senator discovers constitution, immediately loses job
Bill Cassidy, moments after realizing that in today’s GOP, voting to uphold the Constitution is more disqualifying than helping an insurrectionist president keep his job.
Sen. Bill Cassidy just learned the hard way that in Trump’s GOP, voting to uphold the Constitution is a career-ending offense. Five years after he voted to convict Trump for inciting an insurrection, Cassidy lost his Louisiana primary and is now walking around the Capitol like a man who accidentally did the right thing in a party that treats the rule of law like a woke pronoun. He says he’s fine with it, insisting that having "voted to uphold the Constitution" in his obituary is enough. Bold strategy: choosing legacy over groveling to a guy who tried to overthrow the government.
The context here is bleakly simple: almost every Republican who voted to impeach or convict Trump is gone, because Trump has turned the party into a loyalty cult with a built-in purge function. Cassidy still mostly voted with Trump’s agenda, but that one time he sided with democracy instead of the mob? Disqualifying. Now he’s one of the few Republicans openly criticizing Trump’s latest stunt: a nearly $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund that DOJ says will be used to compensate people who suffered "lawfare" — which, translated from MAGA, means a potential taxpayer-funded payout pipeline for Jan. 6 rioters and other Trump-world martyrs. Cassidy, apparently still dimly aware that laws exist, points out that this looks like the government suing itself, settling with itself, and sending the bill to everyone else.
As a bonus, he’s also not thrilled about the proposed $1 billion to help build Trump’s White House ballroom, because his constituents can’t afford groceries but are somehow expected to underwrite the strongman’s party venue. The man just spent a campaign listening to people worry about gas prices, only to watch his party leaders try to ram through a taxpayer-funded Mar-a-Lago Annex and an insurrectionist restitution fund. So yes, there’s still "room for dissent" in the GOP — it’s just located on the exit ramp.
Source: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#corruption
killing democracy
president crime-fraud unit deploys to… a printing error
Trump, demanding a DOJ probe into a barcoded envelope system he absolutely does not understand, while the actual printer quietly fixes its mistake like it’s not the collapse of western civilization.
Maryland’s election officials discovered a vendor screwed up and sent some voters the wrong party’s primary ballot. So they did the boring, lawful thing: void the bad ones, send new ones, and explain in detail how their safeguards prevent anyone from voting twice. The printing company is even footing the bill. Democracy functioning like a normal adult system? Obviously this cannot stand.
Trump immediately jumped on Truth Social to scream that Maryland sent out 500,000 “Illegal Mail In Ballots” and demand a Justice Department investigation, because if there’s one thing this guy hates, it’s mail voting that actually works. Election officials calmly laid out how each return envelope has a unique identifier and how only one ballot per voter can be counted; Trump responded by calling Democratic Gov. Wes Moore “corrupt,” because why waste a manufactured scandal if you can’t smear a Black Democratic governor with it.
So we’ve got: a routine administrative fix to a vendor error, fully transparent, no evidence of fraud, and clear safeguards in place — met by a president trying to sic federal law enforcement on a state’s election system to prop up his long-running lie that mail ballots are inherently fraudulent. The printing company made an honest mistake; Trump is using it as fresh kindling for his ongoing project of delegitimizing any election he doesn’t pre-rig in his favor.
Source: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
killing democracy
pentagon declares first amendment a 'privilege', demands chaperones
The Pentagon, now offering guided tours of the First Amendment’s funeral.
The Trump Pentagon, now proudly rebranded as the "Department of War" because subtlety is for losers, has decided that reporters may only enter the building with official babysitters. The New York Times just filed its second lawsuit saying this escort-only policy is "utterly unreasonable" and unconstitutional, which is a polite legal way of saying: these people are absolutely trying to suffocate press freedom.
For decades, Pentagon reporters could walk the unsecured corridors, pop into public affairs offices, and talk to more than a dozen officials in a day. Now? To ask a single question, they have to email for an appointment, wait, get an escort, get walked in, ask the question, then get walked back out to a media holding pen like they're on a sixth-grade field trip to the war machine. Then repeat. Over and over. Journalism, but make it DMV.
A federal judge already ruled big chunks of the previous policy unconstitutional and told the Pentagon to knock it off. The Pentagon responded by closing the press workspace, slapping on an "interim" escort rule, and then appealing when the judge said that also violated his order. The appeals court is letting the escort rule stand while this drags on, because apparently the one thing the Trump administration can move quickly on is limiting scrutiny of its Iran war, the capture of Venezuela’s president, and Secretary Pete Hegseth’s spree of firing high-ranking military officials.
The Pentagon’s official line is that press access is merely "a privilege extended by the government"—a bold reinterpretation of the First Amendment that boils down to: we’ll let you cover the world’s largest military when and how we feel like it. The Times calls the policy "patently retaliatory" and "manifestly arbitrary and capricious". The rest of us call it what it is: the executive branch testing how far it can go in turning independent war reporting into a guided tour.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#fascism
killing democracy
trump’s ‘most pro-life’ president forgets to show up to his own abortion fight
Protesters outside the Supreme Court, still laboring under the quaint belief that the president and his Justice Department might actually defend the federal agency in charge of drug safety.
Republicans are staring down midterms with an unpopular war, inflation, and Trump’s approval ratings sinking like one of his casinos, so naturally the base has chosen this moment to try to yank abortion pills out of the mail. Louisiana is suing the F.D.A. to gut telemedicine and mail access to mifepristone — the main reason abortion is still widely available four years after the fall of Roe. The case has rocketed up to the Supreme Court, bounced around the appeals courts, and for now the justices have restored access while the lawsuit grinds on.
And through all of this, the man who calls himself “the most pro-life president in history” has discovered a bold new legal strategy: hiding under his desk. Trump’s Justice Department — the entity that is literally supposed to defend the F.D.A. — has refused to file a brief at the Supreme Court, which experts describe as "shocking," because it is shocking when the executive branch just declines to defend its own agency in a nationwide health-care case. The administration is essentially winking to the anti-abortion crusaders while avoiding a paper trail that Democrats can wave around in suburban districts.
This is the Trump model in a nutshell: let red states and handpicked judges do the dirty work of stripping rights from millions of women, while the White House pretends to be too busy to notice. It’s not governance, it’s plausible deniability cosplay — using federal power by not using it, and hoping voters blame “the courts” instead of the guy who staffed them and then ordered his DOJ to stand down.
And through all of this, the man who calls himself “the most pro-life president in history” has discovered a bold new legal strategy: hiding under his desk. Trump’s Justice Department — the entity that is literally supposed to defend the F.D.A. — has refused to file a brief at the Supreme Court, which experts describe as "shocking," because it is shocking when the executive branch just declines to defend its own agency in a nationwide health-care case. The administration is essentially winking to the anti-abortion crusaders while avoiding a paper trail that Democrats can wave around in suburban districts.
This is the Trump model in a nutshell: let red states and handpicked judges do the dirty work of stripping rights from millions of women, while the White House pretends to be too busy to notice. It’s not governance, it’s plausible deniability cosplay — using federal power by not using it, and hoping voters blame “the courts” instead of the guy who staffed them and then ordered his DOJ to stand down.
Source: nytimes.com
#killing-democracy#pro-life
killing democracy
trump sues himself for $10 billion, then quietly fires the case
Donald Trump, contemplating the legal nuances of suing his own executive branch for $10 billion and then declaring victory when he drops the case.
Donald Trump has decided to voluntarily drop his "unprecedented" $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS and Treasury over leaked tax records, which legal experts politely described as a constitutional dumpster fire. The case starred Trump, Don Jr., Eric, and the Trump Organization all suing an executive agency that Trump literally controls, then acting shocked when a federal judge asked whether this was an actual legal dispute or just the president trying to turn the federal government into his personal ATM.
The judge, Kathleen M. Williams, had the audacity to wonder whether the Justice Department lawyers defending the government were actually insulated from the guy who runs the Justice Department. Outside legal experts gently suggested the court might want to look into whether there was any "collusion" in settlement talks — because apparently we now need to check if the president is negotiating with himself in good faith. Faced with a Wednesday deadline to explain how this wasn't a separation-of-powers joke, Trump's team suddenly discovered the magic of "voluntary dismissal" and insisted the court no longer needed to weigh in.
So the administration never even answered the lawsuit, the president tried to cash out of his own government over a leak that exposed his finances, and when the judiciary started tugging at the constitutional thread, the whole thing vanished like one of his "infrastructure weeks." Nobody at DOJ, Treasury, the IRS, or the White House rushed to explain any of this, presumably because there's no elegant way to say, "Yes, the president tried to sue his own executive branch for personal gain, and no, we hadn't thought through Article III of the Constitution."
The judge, Kathleen M. Williams, had the audacity to wonder whether the Justice Department lawyers defending the government were actually insulated from the guy who runs the Justice Department. Outside legal experts gently suggested the court might want to look into whether there was any "collusion" in settlement talks — because apparently we now need to check if the president is negotiating with himself in good faith. Faced with a Wednesday deadline to explain how this wasn't a separation-of-powers joke, Trump's team suddenly discovered the magic of "voluntary dismissal" and insisted the court no longer needed to weigh in.
So the administration never even answered the lawsuit, the president tried to cash out of his own government over a leak that exposed his finances, and when the judiciary started tugging at the constitutional thread, the whole thing vanished like one of his "infrastructure weeks." Nobody at DOJ, Treasury, the IRS, or the White House rushed to explain any of this, presumably because there's no elegant way to say, "Yes, the president tried to sue his own executive branch for personal gain, and no, we hadn't thought through Article III of the Constitution."
Source: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#corruption
killing democracy
south carolina gop speedruns jim crow 2.0
South Carolina lawmakers carefully adjusting district lines with the precision of a surgeon and the ethics of a raccoon in a bank vault.
The redistricting circus has rolled into South Carolina, where Republican lawmakers are debating whether to give Donald Trump what he really wants for the 250th birthday of American democracy: a congressional map that converts the state’s lone Democratic seat into yet another safe Republican fiefdom. The timing is perfect, because the Supreme Court just helpfully weakened Voting Rights Act protections for minority districts, and the GOP is racing to squeeze every last drop of disenfranchisement out of that ruling in Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, and now the Palmetto State.
Veteran Democrat Jim Clyburn, currently the only non-Republican in the state’s seven-member House delegation, says he’s not going anywhere and notes he has addresses in multiple areas: “I live in three districts. I’ll decide which one to run in.” That’s less a flex than a survival strategy when the state government is trying to legally erase Black representation while insisting this has nothing to do with race, voting, or democracy – just a casual effort to turn the clock back to what Clyburn bluntly calls “Jim Crow 2.0”. Early voting for the June primaries starts May 26, while legislators simultaneously try to move House primaries to August, because when you’re gaming the system this hard, the calendar is just another weapon.
Meanwhile, in the broader "Trump Presidency Is Going Great" cinematic universe: a Senate official quietly stripped security funding that could have helped bankroll Trump’s dream of a taxpayer-funded $400m White House ballroom; Trump personally helped primary out GOP senator Bill Cassidy for insufficient devotion; he’s bragging that the Iran war might delay his precious rate cuts; his administration’s rushed patriotic construction projects may be endangering workers; and FBI director Kash Patel is under scrutiny for treating a visit to the USS Arizona like a snorkeling excursion. But sure, let’s keep pretending the real threat to the republic is…school board meetings.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#racism
killing democracy
maine’s favorite ‘moderate’ keeps helping the arsonist
Susan Collins, seen here contemplating whether this is a day for ‘symbolic opposition’ or reliable pro‑Trump votes.
Susan Collins is back asking Maine for a sixth term, still selling the same beloved brand of performative moderation: sternly worded statements for the cameras, votes for Brett Kavanaugh in the chamber, and photo ops lovingly cradling a MAGA hat in the Oval Office. She voted to convict Trump after January 6 and backed Ketanji Brown Jackson, sure — then turned around and helped him with a national voter‑ID bill and sat on her hands until the last possible second on a war‑powers resolution on Iran, all while Trump’s second term barrels ahead with immigration crackdowns, Medicaid cuts, and a slow-motion demolition of federal agencies.
Enter Graham Platner, a 41‑year‑old marine vet/oysterman whose past racist, sexist, and homophobic posts — plus a now‑covered-up tattoo that looked uncomfortably Nazi‑adjacent — somehow make him the Democratic vehicle for channeling rage at Washington. He calls Collins’s Trump breaks “symbolic opposition” that won’t bring back Roe or reopen hospitals, and accuses her of selling out working‑class Mainers to Trump and the “Epstein class”, which is a hell of a sentence to read about a supposed centrist firewall against authoritarian drift.
Trump, naturally, has spent years telling his followers Collins “should never be elected to office again,” only to pivot to calling her a “good person” once he realizes there’s no harder-right automaton to primary her with. She needs him to shut up; he’s constitutionally incapable of shutting up. So Maine now gets to choose between the veteran architect of conditional resistance — the senator who “shows independence only when her vote is not required” — and an angry outsider with a big boat of baggage, all while the White House uses people’s lives as kindling for its immigration and healthcare agenda. American democracy: still running on vibes and voter suppression bills.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
killing democracy
trump declares war on insufficiently groveling libertarian
Thomas Massie, moments before learning that in Trump’s GOP, voting with the party 90% of the time still gets you fed to the primary woodchipper.
Donald Trump has decided that Rep. Thomas Massie’s real crime isn’t voting against the "big, beautiful" debt-ballooning tax-and-spend bill or trying to stop strikes on Iran. No, the unforgivable sin was helping force the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files and occasionally thinking for himself. So the president spent months shopping for a warm body in Kentucky and finally landed on Ed Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL whose chief qualification is being "100% behind the president" and 0% interested in debating.
The result: the most expensive House primary in U.S. history, with more than $32 million in ad spending, mostly from Trump-aligned and pro-Israel groups trying to carpet-bomb one of the only Republicans who still pretends the national debt and endless war are bad. Massie’s reward for voting with the party 90% of the time is being labeled a "pathetic LOSER," a "sick Wacko," and a traitor to the cult — sorry, "Republican Party" — in a district Trump won by a landslide.
Meanwhile, GOP leadership does its usual profile-in-courage routine. Speaker Mike Johnson shrugs from the sidelines, happy to maybe replace a pain-in-the-ass libertarian with a more reliable rubber stamp for Trump’s agenda. Rand Paul, Lauren Boebert, and a few others murmur support for Massie while carefully reassuring everyone they still "like" Trump, as if the problem here is a minor disagreement between friends and not a sitting president using his office to purge anyone who deviates even 10% from the party line.
Massie calls the race a referendum on the future of the GOP: younger voters who don’t want to die in another war versus older "Fox News demographic" voters who just want to vote for whoever Trump points at. The president, naturally, is betting that fear, cash, and blind loyalty will beat policy, independence, and basic democratic norms.
The result: the most expensive House primary in U.S. history, with more than $32 million in ad spending, mostly from Trump-aligned and pro-Israel groups trying to carpet-bomb one of the only Republicans who still pretends the national debt and endless war are bad. Massie’s reward for voting with the party 90% of the time is being labeled a "pathetic LOSER," a "sick Wacko," and a traitor to the cult — sorry, "Republican Party" — in a district Trump won by a landslide.
Meanwhile, GOP leadership does its usual profile-in-courage routine. Speaker Mike Johnson shrugs from the sidelines, happy to maybe replace a pain-in-the-ass libertarian with a more reliable rubber stamp for Trump’s agenda. Rand Paul, Lauren Boebert, and a few others murmur support for Massie while carefully reassuring everyone they still "like" Trump, as if the problem here is a minor disagreement between friends and not a sitting president using his office to purge anyone who deviates even 10% from the party line.
Massie calls the race a referendum on the future of the GOP: younger voters who don’t want to die in another war versus older "Fox News demographic" voters who just want to vote for whoever Trump points at. The president, naturally, is betting that fear, cash, and blind loyalty will beat policy, independence, and basic democratic norms.
Source: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#fascism
killing democracy
trump orders, polis delivers: election denier early-bird special
Tina Peters, seen here workshopping new ways to "protect" elections by breaking them, warms up the crowd at a 2022 Trump rally.
President Trump picked up the phone last fall and delivered his usual subtle, policy-focused message to Colorado Gov. Jared Polis: free Tina Peters. Peters, the former Mesa County clerk who helped tamper with election equipment to "prove" Trump’s lies about 2020, was sitting on a nine-year sentence. Trump wanted his election-denying martyr out, and, shockingly, the guy who has spent years insisting elections are rigged suddenly cared deeply about the fate of someone convicted for actually undermining them.
Polis publicly told Trump he wouldn’t pardon Peters — bold stand, very brave — and then quietly spent months in a political pressure cooker as the White House turned the screws. Federal cuts rained down on Colorado like budgetary tear gas while Democrats begged Polis not to fold to the orange extortionist-in-chief. On Friday, after all that principled resistance, Polis split the tiniest possible hair: no pardon, just a commutation. Peters’s nine-year sentence got chopped so she can stroll out on parole after serving less than two years.
So now, as Trump stuffs the federal government with fellow election deniers and wages a coast-to-coast war over redistricting, one of the movement’s convicted foot soldiers is getting an early release courtesy of a Democratic governor who found a way to technically keep his promise while practically giving Trump exactly what he wanted. The message to future would-be saboteurs of American democracy is clear: do the crime, help the right autocrat, and eventually some blue-state technocrat will find a "nuanced" way to open the door.
Source: nytimes.com
#killing-democracy#fascism