The Trump Presidency Timeline
Documenting the chaos since day one. 534 entries and counting.
Category: killing democracy
killing democracy
trump administration cosplays kgb, shops for spare province in canada
Trump officials explain that they definitely respect Canada’s sovereignty while quietly asking Alberta separatists what size flag they wear.
The Trump administration has apparently decided that if you can’t buy Greenland, you start window-shopping in Alberta. Leaders of the "Alberta Prosperity Project" – a right‑wing separatist group trying to rip Canada’s oil‑rich Texas-from-the-North out of the country – say they’ve had three meetings at the U.S. State Department and Treasury, with a fourth tentatively on the way. Topics reportedly included switching to U.S. currency, creating a new military, and how Washington might help them glide into sovereignty. The separatists came away bragging that the "entire U.S. administration" is supportive, while the State Department frantically insists this was all very low‑level and unserious, like a coup planning session but for interns.
This diplomatic dumpster fire is happening while Trump spends his second term fantasizing about absorbing Canada as the 51st state, raging on Truth Social about bridges to Ontario, and accusing Ottawa of being soft in the Arctic. His own National Security Strategy literally says the U.S. will "reward and encourage" political movements aligned with its hard-right worldview, which Canadian scholars note is basically an open invitation to weaponize radical conservative groups as foreign policy tools. So yes, the White House is now treating separatist movements in allied democracies the way previous administrations treated anti-communist militias.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent then wandered onto Jack Posobiec’s Davos podcast to coyly flirt with Alberta secession on camera, calling the province a "natural partner" and teasing that "people are talking" about a referendum – the diplomatic equivalent of subtweeting Canada’s territorial integrity. Former U.S. diplomats are describing this as "irresponsible as hell" and "highly unusual" because traditionally, the U.S. did not openly encourage the breakup of NATO neighbors like it was picking teams for dodgeball. But the Trump administration has discovered a new hemispheric strategy: reward your ideological friends, punish liberal governments, and if necessary, help their provinces shop for exit options.
Source: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#fascism#imperialism
killing democracy
trump discovers citizenship is now a subscription service
USCIS field office staff study new guidance on citizenship: "Assume it's fraud unless proven white."
The Trump administration has decided that U.S. citizenship is less a right and more a gym membership they can cancel whenever they get bored. USCIS is being retooled into a nationwide scavenger hunt for "bad" naturalized citizens, with field offices told to cough up 100 to 200 denaturalization candidates per month. Once upon a time, denaturalization was reserved for, say, Nazis and war criminals; now the Justice Department is floating examples that range from national security threats to people who committed Medicaid fraud, plus a handy catch‑all for "any other cases" they just feel like pursuing.
Instead of processing immigrants, USCIS is shipping out "experts" and retraining staff to retroactively second-guess citizenship they already approved, turning every naturalized American into a provisional American whose status depends on which strongman is in office. Trump, who is still fixated on who counts as a "real" American, is simultaneously asking the Supreme Court to help him chip away at birthright citizenship and promising on Truth Social to "denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility" — which apparently now means anyone not deemed a "net asset" or "compatible with Western Civilization." Very normal, totally healthy republic stuff.
Officials insist this is all about "zero tolerance for fraud," while openly hunting for shortcuts to speed up stripping people of the country they swore allegiance to, years after the fact. Policy experts warn this retroactive reinterpretation of rules could make perfectly legal citizens suddenly vulnerable to claims of "misrepresentation" because the administration moved the goalposts. So yes, 800,000 people a year still take the oath, answer civics questions, and prove their "good moral character" — only to discover that under Trump, their passport is more of a revocable coupon than a guarantee.
Source: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#anti-immigration#lawlessness
killing democracy
house discovers article i, mildly inconveniences dear leader
House Republicans briefly cosplay as a coequal branch of government before returning to their regular role as Trump's tariff notification service.
The Republican-led House briefly woke up from its 8-year constitutional coma and remembered that Article I actually exists, voting 219-211 to terminate Trump's Canada tariffs. Six Republicans joined Democrats to swat at the trade war piñata, which is adorable given that the same House literally voted last year to block itself from canceling his tariffs in the first place.
Trump, naturally, responded like a guy who thinks "separation of powers" is a kind of hair product, threatening political retribution for any Republican who dares vote against his tariffs: "Any Republican ... that votes against TARIFFS will seriously suffer the consequences come Election time." So the official policy of the executive branch is now: obey my random tariff whims or face the wrath of the Party Leader. Very normal, totally not authoritarian at all.
A few Republicans — Thomas Massie, Kevin Kiley, Don Bacon, Dan Newhouse, Jeff Hurd and Brian Fitzpatrick — decided that maybe Congress should, you know, do the thing the Constitution says it’s supposed to do. Bacon even said out loud that Congress has "handed that authority to the executive branch" for too long, as if this realization just descended from the heavens and not from eight years of watching Trump run trade policy like a personal revenge Etsy shop.
The resolution now heads to the Senate, where it will have the honor of being quietly strangled by the same party that keeps shouting about Biden tyranny while cheerfully defending Trump's right to slap 100% tariffs on Canada if they talk to China without his permission. America’s checks and balances: now available in symbolic, non-binding, absolutely-not-guaranteed-to-pass form.
Source: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#trade-war
killing democracy
house gop unveils jim crow, now with extra paperwork
Mike Johnson explains that if you can show ID to buy Sudafed, you can definitely clear a federal paperwork obstacle course to exercise a constitutional right.
The House GOP just passed the "SAVE America Act," a 32-page attempt to save America from voting. Under Trump’s latest fever-dream legislation, you don’t just have to be a citizen to vote (which is already the law), you now have to prove it in person with documents many people don’t have easy access to. Birth certificate? Passport? Perhaps a notarized scroll from your great-grandmother? All lovingly wrapped in new photo ID mandates for in-person voting and extra ID hoops for mail ballots. Because if there’s one thing Republicans hate more than imaginary noncitizen voting, it’s actual citizens voting easily.
Speaker Mike Johnson helpfully explained that you need ID for things like driving and buying cold medicine, so naturally voting should be just as difficult as surviving the American healthcare system. Democrats pointed out that noncitizen voting is already illegal and extremely rare, which of course is why Republicans are building an entire national regime around it. Trump, meanwhile, is openly talking about "nationalizing" elections and "taking over the voting" in a bunch of places, which is a fun way of saying "federal election takeover" for a party that spent 2021 screaming that federal election standards were tyranny.
Over in the Senate, the whole thing runs into an awkward problem: Republicans’ own previous statements. Lisa Murkowski suddenly remembered that they all swore up and down they opposed federalizing elections back when Democrats wanted to expand voting rights, not suppress them. Susan Collins liked the original version that was at least pretending to be about citizenship, but thinks the Trump-upgraded edition goes too far, which is impressive given her usual tolerance for constitutional arson. Mitch McConnell is still on Team "States Run Elections"—apparently that principle only dies for judges, not for voter ID cosplay.
Chuck Schumer has already declared the bill "dead on arrival" and compared it to national Jim Crow-lite, while Senate Republicans try to figure out how to both appease Trump and not explicitly admit they’re trying to rig the electorate before the next meltdown. The filibuster isn’t going anywhere, which is the only thing currently standing between Trump’s dream of a federally mandated voter suppression maze and reality. For now, the SAVE America Act is mostly performance art: a dry run for killing democracy with paperwork.
Source: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#fascism
killing democracy
trump invents costco for coups: $1bn membership fee
Artist’s impression of the Board of Peace: the UN, but with fewer checks, more gold trim, and a chairman who can’t be fired unless he fires himself.
The UN thought it was authorizing a "transitional" body to implement Trump’s Gaza peace plan; Trump heard "congratulations, you’ve unlocked your own private world government" and sprinted. The Board of Peace charter doesn’t mention Gaza once, but it does manage to crown Trump as chair-for-life, give him unilateral power to call meetings, veto decisions, fire executive members, and hand-pick his own successor. The executive board, naturally, is stacked with his appointees, a couple of cabinet loyalists, his deputy national security adviser, and his son-in-law, because nothing says international peace architecture like keeping it in the family.
Most major democracies took one look at this and backed slowly away like someone just opened a timeshare presentation. France, Germany, the UK, Canada and other allies are refusing to join, while the countries that did sign up skew heavily authoritarian. Membership costs a cool $1bn per country, buying you the privilege of letting Trump "pretty much [do] whatever we want to do" in your internal affairs. When France declined, Trump responded not with diplomacy but with a threat of 200% tariffs on French wine and champagne, because obviously the path to world peace runs through petty trade blackmail and his personal vendettas.
This "Board of Peace" is explicitly pitched as a more "nimble" alternative to the UN, which here means "run by one guy with a fragile ego and a nuclear arsenal". Trump is openly positioning it as a rival to existing international institutions, while bragging in the same breath about bombing Iran, "annihilating" terrorists in Nigeria, and capturing Nicolás Maduro. So if you’re a leader who’s always dreamed of wiring $1bn of taxpayer money to join an unaccountable Trump-led club where he can unilaterally meddle in your country, threaten your trade, and never be removed from power unless his own appointees declare him incapacitated, congratulations: your moment has arrived.
Most major democracies took one look at this and backed slowly away like someone just opened a timeshare presentation. France, Germany, the UK, Canada and other allies are refusing to join, while the countries that did sign up skew heavily authoritarian. Membership costs a cool $1bn per country, buying you the privilege of letting Trump "pretty much [do] whatever we want to do" in your internal affairs. When France declined, Trump responded not with diplomacy but with a threat of 200% tariffs on French wine and champagne, because obviously the path to world peace runs through petty trade blackmail and his personal vendettas.
This "Board of Peace" is explicitly pitched as a more "nimble" alternative to the UN, which here means "run by one guy with a fragile ego and a nuclear arsenal". Trump is openly positioning it as a rival to existing international institutions, while bragging in the same breath about bombing Iran, "annihilating" terrorists in Nigeria, and capturing Nicolás Maduro. So if you’re a leader who’s always dreamed of wiring $1bn of taxpayer money to join an unaccountable Trump-led club where he can unilaterally meddle in your country, threaten your trade, and never be removed from power unless his own appointees declare him incapacitated, congratulations: your moment has arrived.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#fascism
killing democracy
strongman president discovers polls still exist
Trump, presumably explaining that the only poll that matters is the one in his head, where he’s at 198% approval with Hispanics and 400% with suburban women.
NBC’s latest poll has terrible news for the guy who swears he’s winning so much that America is tired of winning: Trump’s approval is sliding, and support for his immigration agenda is going down with it like one of his casinos.
Turns out that spending years screaming about “invasions,” building a gulag-lite detention system, and treating asylum law as a suggestion instead of, you know, law, doesn’t age well with voters once the cruelty stops feeling like a TV show and starts looking like their country. The White House will, of course, blame the media, the deep state, and possibly windmills — anything except the fact that people are noticing the whole authoritarian-border-theater-meets-rampant-incompetence combo isn’t actually making anyone safer.
The poll doesn’t fix family separations, illegal pushbacks, or the permanent damage done to the asylum system. It just confirms that the more Americans see of Trump’s immigration crackdown, the less they like it. The regime’s response will not be reflection or reform; it’ll be to crank the fearmongering to 11 and accuse the poll of election fraud.
Turns out that spending years screaming about “invasions,” building a gulag-lite detention system, and treating asylum law as a suggestion instead of, you know, law, doesn’t age well with voters once the cruelty stops feeling like a TV show and starts looking like their country. The White House will, of course, blame the media, the deep state, and possibly windmills — anything except the fact that people are noticing the whole authoritarian-border-theater-meets-rampant-incompetence combo isn’t actually making anyone safer.
The poll doesn’t fix family separations, illegal pushbacks, or the permanent damage done to the asylum system. It just confirms that the more Americans see of Trump’s immigration crackdown, the less they like it. The regime’s response will not be reflection or reform; it’ll be to crank the fearmongering to 11 and accuse the poll of election fraud.
Source: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#anti-immigration
killing democracy
trump doj: shoot citizens, charge the journalist
Don Lemon leaving court while the Trump DOJ explains that shooting citizens is a policy dispute, but filming it is a federal crime.
The Trump administration’s Minneapolis experiment in "law and order" is going great: two US citizens, Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, end up dead at the hands of federal immigration and border agents, and the Justice Department’s big priority is… prosecuting Don Lemon for covering a church protest. The indictment accuses Lemon of conspiracy and interfering with parishioners’ religious freedom, because nothing screams devout Christian values like having an ICE official in the pulpit and federal agents in the parking lot.
Meanwhile, Joseph H Thompson, the federal prosecutor Trump himself elevated to acting US attorney, took one look at Main Justice’s plan and noped out. Thompson and other career prosecutors wanted to investigate the ICE agent who killed Renee Good. Trump’s DOJ, in its trademark commitment to accountability, allegedly wanted to investigate Good’s partner instead for supposed ties to anti-ICE groups. So Thompson quits, starts a law firm with another prosecutor who also bailed over the Minneapolis crackdown, and now he’s defending Lemon against the very machinery he used to run. Peak Trump era: the only way to get a federal prosecutor interested in civil rights is to have him resign first.
Lemon says he was there to document, not demonstrate, but this White House has decided that reporting on protests is basically domestic terrorism with a camera. He keeps pointing out that he was exercising his First Amendment rights, which is adorable, because Trump’s DOJ appears to treat the First Amendment like a clearance sale item: optional, nonrefundable, and subject to immediate revocation if it annoys ICE. When the government won’t investigate agents who kill citizens but will indict a reporter for filming the fallout, that’s not law enforcement – that’s an authoritarian cosplay with real bullets.
Source: theguardian.com
Source ArticleAlso: theguardian.comAlso: theguardian.comAlso: theguardian.comAlso: theguardian.comAlso: nbcnews.comAlso: npr.orgAlso: npr.orgAlso: theguardian.comAlso: nbcnews.comAlso: theguardian.comAlso: nbcnews.comAlso: nbcnews.comAlso: bbc.comAlso: npr.orgAlso: npr.orgAlso: npr.orgAlso: theguardian.comAlso: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
killing democracy
fired for prosecuting trump, now applying for a promotion
Former Trump prosecutor J.P. Cooney, seen here auditioning for the role of ‘guy in Congress who actually read the indictment.’
J.P. Cooney, one of Jack Smith’s former top prosecutors who helped build the obstruction and conspiracy cases against Donald Trump, just announced he’s running for Congress in Virginia. In a development that surely delights the current White House, the guy Trump’s DOJ fired days into his second term for the crime of prosecuting the president is now trying to get his own subpoena power. Bold move from someone who has already seen what happens when you take the phrase “no one is above the law” too literally.
Cooney is running as a Democrat in Virginia’s proposed new Seventh District, a blue-leaning slice of the state that runs from Arlington out into rural Virginia—basically a test case for whether “I prosecuted Trump, the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, and Peter Navarro” now counts as a campaign slogan or a witness list. His 18-year DOJ career ended in January 2025 when Trump’s Justice Department cleaned house and tossed out the entire special counsel team like they were classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
All this is unfolding while Jack Smith tells Congress his team had proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump ran a criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 election, only to see one of the cases tossed because a judge decided Smith’s appointment was unlawful. Meanwhile, Trump keeps screaming “witch hunt,” calling Smith a “deranged animal,” and nudging Attorney General Pam Bondi to go after the people who dared investigate him—while the FBI is seizing ballots in Georgia for the latest chapter of Stop the Steal: Extended Universe. Cooney, for his part, is pitching bipartisanship as a “hallmark” of his life, which is adorable in an era where one party is trying to govern and the other is trying to retroactively nullify an election from six years ago.
So yes, the guy who used to indict coup-curious Republicans now wants to sit in the chamber with them. If he wins, the House GOP won’t just be screaming about the “deep state” on Fox; they’ll be stuck sharing the elevator with it.
Source: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#retribution
killing democracy
trump breaks the labor board, pretends unions just got shy
The National Labor Relations Board, seen here in its exciting new role as a very expensive suggestion box for CEOs.
The National Labor Relations Board was created to protect workers’ rights. Trump looked at that mission and said: absolutely not. Within days of term two, he fired Democratic board member Gwynne Wilcox, deliberately blowing up the quorum so the agency legally couldn’t function. After the freeze did its damage, he graciously restored a quorum by stacking the empty seats with two Republicans, turning the NLRB from labor referee into management’s in-house complaint desk.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s unofficial "department of government efficiency" helpfully "streamlined" the place by pushing early retirements and resignation buyouts, shrinking the staff by about 100 people in a decade where the private sector workforce grew by 15 million. The result: union elections fell 30% in 2025, participation cratered by 42%, and the success rate slipped, all while public support for unions hit 68%. So workers still want unions, but Trump, Musk, and their efficiency death cult have engineered a system where wanting rights and actually getting them are two very different things.
Government of the bosses, by the bosses, for the bosses is alive and well, and the NLRB apparently no longer returns calls unless you’re a corporation asking how to make organizing as miserable and slow as possible.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s unofficial "department of government efficiency" helpfully "streamlined" the place by pushing early retirements and resignation buyouts, shrinking the staff by about 100 people in a decade where the private sector workforce grew by 15 million. The result: union elections fell 30% in 2025, participation cratered by 42%, and the success rate slipped, all while public support for unions hit 68%. So workers still want unions, but Trump, Musk, and their efficiency death cult have engineered a system where wanting rights and actually getting them are two very different things.
Government of the bosses, by the bosses, for the bosses is alive and well, and the NLRB apparently no longer returns calls unless you’re a corporation asking how to make organizing as miserable and slow as possible.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
killing democracy
mystery no-fly zone over el paso, democracy not included
El Paso International Airport, now proudly serving absolutely nowhere for reasons you’re not important enough to know.
The federal government has decided that the skies over El Paso are now a classified concept. With just three hours’ notice, the FAA slapped a 10-mile, up-to-18,000-feet no-fly bubble over El Paso International Airport for 10 days, citing only "special security reasons"—which is government-speak for "we’re not telling you and you can’t make us." Commercial, cargo, general aviation? All grounded. Mexican airspace, hilariously, is still open, so if you want freedom of movement you may need to leave the country first.
Air traffic control audio captured the moment everyone realized Washington had turned a functioning airport into an expensive art installation. A Southwest pilot, casually planning tomorrow’s departure, gets told the airport will basically be a static airplane museum for the next week and a half. The controller admits they themselves only learned about it 30 minutes earlier, because nothing says "competent security state" like improvising mass disruption for a metro area of nearly 700,000 people with the planning rigor of a surprise office birthday party.
The airport posted on Facebook that all flights are grounded and passengers should call their airlines, as if the airlines have any clue why the federal government just hit "airplane mode" on an entire city. No explanation, no stated emergency, no public briefing—just a sweeping, opaque restriction over a highly politicized border city. Temporary flight restrictions are usually for wildfires, hurricanes, or major events. Now they’re apparently also for "don’t ask questions, citizen," as the line between normal aviation safety and casual authoritarian flex continues to blur.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#national-security#lawlessness
killing democracy
state department launches ‘axis of based’ foreign policy
State Department undersecretary Sarah B Rogers, hard at work transforming U.S. public diplomacy into an international Proud Boys book club.
The undersecretary of state for public diplomacy – a job once about, you know, promoting democracy – is now busy calling migrants in Germany "barbarian rapist hordes" and treating European hate-speech laws like a personal oppression narrative. Sarah B Rogers has apparently decided that the best use of U.S. soft power is to cosplay as a far-right influencer on X, railing against "official knowledge production" (aka: journalism, academia, NGOs, anything that can read) while claiming it would be "defamatory" to suggest she might be smearing all migrants. Truly a golden age for American diplomacy.
Instead of strengthening ties with democratic allies, Rogers is on tour building a transatlantic MAGA fan club. According to the Financial Times, she’s been meeting with far-right opposition parties across Europe to "fund Maga-aligned think-tanks and charities" using what one Reform UK figure cheerfully described as a State Department "slush fund" to "undermine government policies". So yes, the U.S. government is now openly financing political projects to destabilize allied governments, because nothing says "national security" like subsidizing your friends’ extremists.
Her proudest diplomatic achievement so far? Cozying up to Germany’s AfD – which the German state has literally designated a "confirmed rightwing extremist" threat to democracy – and specifically meeting with AfD MP Markus Frohnmaier, the guy Der Spiegel reported Russia hoped would be "our own absolutely controlled MP in the Bundestag". Rogers waved off those pesky Russian-asset concerns as "unsubstantiated" and "not a bar to a meeting", which is an interesting standard for a U.S. official dealing with someone allegedly groomed by the Kremlin. The Trump administration once pretended this was all about sovereignty and strength; now it’s just open: exporting far-right culture war, undermining pluralistic democracies, and calling it foreign policy.
As experts on European extremism politely point out, this isn’t some random Twitter meltdown; it’s a deliberate strategy. Trump’s people see supporting anti-democratic movements abroad as a way to entrench their own project at home and give foreign extremists a shiny Made-in-America seal of approval. It’s soft power reimagined as a franchise model for illiberalism: Washington as the global headquarters of "democratic backsliding, but make it branded".
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#fascism
killing democracy
the people's house, but only for the president's people
President Trump steps off Air Force One after a Florida trip, presumably rested and ready to explain why "the people's house" now has a strict Republicans-only dress code.
The annual bipartisan gathering of the nation's governors — one of the last places where red and blue could sit in the same room without a security perimeter — is disintegrating because Donald Trump has decided that only Republican governors get to come to the White House. The National Governors Association, whose entire job is "represent all 55 governors, not just the ones who like Truth Social posts," has now pulled the plug on its formal meeting with Trump after the White House tried to turn it into a GOP-only business session.
Democratic governors responded by announcing a boycott of the traditional White House dinner, politely saying they "will not be attending" instead of the more accurate, "we're not showing up to be extras in your campaign ad." Even NGA chair and Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt had to send around a letter explaining that when you exclude half the country’s governors from a supposedly institutional event, it kind of stops being an NGA thing and starts being a party fundraiser with better table linens.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt helpfully explained that Trump "has discretion to invite anyone he wants" because the White House is both "the people's house" and also his house, a fascinating new constitutional doctrine where public institutions become Airbnbs for whichever strongman currently has the nuclear codes. Meanwhile, the NGA’s CEO called it an "important tradition" ruined by the administration’s decision to make it openly partisan, which is a very polite way of saying: this White House looked at one of the last functioning bipartisan forums and thought, "How do we break that?"
This all comes after last year’s performance, when Trump threatened to withhold federal funds from Maine because Democratic Gov. Janet Mills wouldn’t obey his order on transgender athletes, then confidently predicted her political career was over. She’s now running for Senate, the NGA is fracturing, and the "bipartisan" governors' conference has been repurposed into yet another loyalty pageant. American federalism: brought to you by the guy who thinks separation of powers is a bad TV ratings metric.
Source: npr.org
#killing-democracy#fascism
killing democracy
jeanine pirro discovers you can’t indict the first amendment
Jeanine Pirro explains to the camera how the Constitution actually means whatever Donald Trump tweeted five minutes ago.
The Trump administration just tried to indict six Democratic lawmakers for the high crime of reminding the military that they’re supposed to refuse illegal orders, and somehow the grand jury did not leap at the chance to help Jeanine Pirro rewrite the Constitution in crayon. Trump saw a video where Jason Crow, Maggie Goodlander, Chris Deluzio, Chrissy Houlahan, Mark Kelly, and Elissa Slotkin say, “Hey, don’t commit obvious war crimes,” and decided this was “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” — because nothing screams “law and order” like threatening to execute members of Congress for quoting the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
This latest faceplant from Pirro’s D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office is part of the administration’s broader hobby project: turning the Justice Department into Trump’s personal vendetta machine. Career prosecutors? Too independent. So they’re replaced with political appointees while the Public Integrity Section — the division that’s supposed to stop exactly this kind of abuse — is quietly gutted. The result: a DOJ that can’t even sell a grand jury on Letitia James being a criminal mastermind, can’t convict a guy for throwing a Subway sandwich, but is all-in on criminalizing congressional speech protected by both the First Amendment and the Constitution’s speech-or-debate clause.
Instead of checks and balances, we get Jeanine Pirro running federal prosecutions like a Fox News monologue with subpoena power. Democrats decline to cooperate with this clown show, legal experts line up to say “this is blatantly unconstitutional,” and grand juries keep responding to Trump’s revenge fantasies with a polite but firm nope. The administration may be dismantling the rule of law in real time, but at least it’s also humiliating itself in court on a near-weekly basis.
Source: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#fascism
killing democracy
trump’s election truther gets the fbi to raid reality
FBI agents leave a Georgia election warehouse with 700 boxes of ballots, bravely protecting America from the grave threat of numbers Trump didn’t like.
The FBI raid on a Fulton County election warehouse didn’t just fall out of the sky; it was manufactured by Kurt Olsen, Trump’s very own "Director of Election Security and Integrity" — which is a lot of title for a guy sanctioned by federal judges for making "false, misleading and unsupported" claims about elections. Olsen, a veteran of the "Stop the Steal" circus, referred the case that led agents to walk out of a Georgia elections hub with 700 boxes of 2020 ballots, voter rolls, tabulator tapes, and digital records, all in the service of proving the same voter-fraud fan fiction that’s already been debunked by state officials, courts, and Trump’s own former cabinet members.
To get the warrant, federal prosecutors dusted off the greatest hits of Trump’s 2020 lies about Fulton County, repackaged them as Serious Concerns, and convinced Magistrate Judge Catherine Salinas to sign off. The affidavit — forced into daylight by U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee (also a Trump appointee, because symmetry is important) — leans on claims that have been repeatedly disproven, while coyly insisting that some allegations were "substantiated" without actually delivering the blockbuster fraud that’s supposedly worth tearing up ballot storage for years after the election.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the same guy Trump begged to "find 11,780 votes," is now stuck publicly reminding the federal government that maybe it shouldn’t be burning tax dollars to relitigate an election Trump lost six years ago. Meanwhile, Fulton County Commission Chair Rob Pitts had to sue the government just to get the docket unsealed and figure out why the FBI was looting his election warehouse like it was hosting classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. So yes, the administration that still insists the 2020 election was stolen is now using federal power to go after the ballots that proved it wasn’t. Very normal, extremely healthy democracy behavior.
To get the warrant, federal prosecutors dusted off the greatest hits of Trump’s 2020 lies about Fulton County, repackaged them as Serious Concerns, and convinced Magistrate Judge Catherine Salinas to sign off. The affidavit — forced into daylight by U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee (also a Trump appointee, because symmetry is important) — leans on claims that have been repeatedly disproven, while coyly insisting that some allegations were "substantiated" without actually delivering the blockbuster fraud that’s supposedly worth tearing up ballot storage for years after the election.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the same guy Trump begged to "find 11,780 votes," is now stuck publicly reminding the federal government that maybe it shouldn’t be burning tax dollars to relitigate an election Trump lost six years ago. Meanwhile, Fulton County Commission Chair Rob Pitts had to sue the government just to get the docket unsealed and figure out why the FBI was looting his election warehouse like it was hosting classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. So yes, the administration that still insists the 2020 election was stolen is now using federal power to go after the ballots that proved it wasn’t. Very normal, extremely healthy democracy behavior.
Source: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#forever-grifting
killing democracy
gop discovers states’ rights again, but only for like one senator
Lisa Murkowski pauses to explain to her party that ‘states’ rights’ don’t mean ‘whatever Trump wants today.’ Confusion ensues.
Lisa Murkowski has once again wandered off the GOP reservation and accidentally said the quiet part out loud: if Republicans hated federal election standards under Biden, maybe they should also hate them when Donald Trump wants to slap a giant MAGA boot on every ballot box in the country.
The Trump-backed SAVE Act — co-written by Sen. Mike Lee, because of course the guy who helped plot January 6 legal theories is now in charge of ‘election integrity’ — would bar states from registering voters unless they cough up citizenship documents and would impose nationwide voter ID. You know, the kind of sweeping federal election law Republicans swore was tyrannical when Democrats tried to expand access to the ballot instead of shrink it.
Murkowski points out the obvious: the Constitution leaves the "times, places, and manner" of elections to the states, and maybe, just maybe, ramming through new federal rules months before Election Day so understaffed local officials can panic-speed-run compliance is not how you build trust in democracy. Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell’s 2022 quote insisting "there’s no rational basis for federalizing this election" is aging about as well as Rudy Giuliani’s hair dye.
So now we have 48 GOP cosponsors, Trump demanding passage, and one Republican senator meekly reminding the party that they used to pretend to believe in states’ rights. The SAVE Act isn’t about saving elections; it’s about saving Trump from voters. The voter fraud was the legislation we tried to pass along the way.
The Trump-backed SAVE Act — co-written by Sen. Mike Lee, because of course the guy who helped plot January 6 legal theories is now in charge of ‘election integrity’ — would bar states from registering voters unless they cough up citizenship documents and would impose nationwide voter ID. You know, the kind of sweeping federal election law Republicans swore was tyrannical when Democrats tried to expand access to the ballot instead of shrink it.
Murkowski points out the obvious: the Constitution leaves the "times, places, and manner" of elections to the states, and maybe, just maybe, ramming through new federal rules months before Election Day so understaffed local officials can panic-speed-run compliance is not how you build trust in democracy. Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell’s 2022 quote insisting "there’s no rational basis for federalizing this election" is aging about as well as Rudy Giuliani’s hair dye.
So now we have 48 GOP cosponsors, Trump demanding passage, and one Republican senator meekly reminding the party that they used to pretend to believe in states’ rights. The SAVE Act isn’t about saving elections; it’s about saving Trump from voters. The voter fraud was the legislation we tried to pass along the way.
Source: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#fascism
killing democracy
susan collins very concerned about getting six more years
Susan Collins announces another term of being gravely troubled right before voting yes.
Susan Collins has decided that nearly 30 years of deeply worried furrowing of the brow just isn’t enough, so she’s running for a sixth term. In an op-ed, the senior senator from Maine — and America’s longest-serving professional expression of "troubled but ultimately compliant" — pitched herself as a brave independent who brings "both sides together". Translation: she’ll occasionally vote against the most radioactive Trump nominees like Pete Hegseth and Kash Patel, then quietly help keep the rest of his agenda shambling along.
The sales pitch is familiar: Collins points to her “experience, seniority and independence” while touting her vote for Biden’s infrastructure bill and the federal cash she’s funneled back to Maine from her perch atop Appropriations. What gets less airtime is that she still confirmed most of Trump’s cabinet, and had to be dragged into opposing Greatest Hits like the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the slash-and-burn of public media and foreign aid. Trump, who treats mild dissent like treason, has already demanded that Collins and others who backed a war powers resolution on Venezuela "should never be elected to office again" — which she will now use as proof of her courage while still caucusing with his party.
Democrats, sensing that maybe a purple-blue state doesn’t need another six years of performative handwringing, are lining up to replace her, including Governor Janet Mills and oyster farmer/marine veteran Graham Platner. National Dems see Maine as one of the handful of seats that could end the GOP’s 53-seat majority and finally put a leash on Trump’s legislative fever dreams. Collins, meanwhile, is banking that Maine voters will once again buy the classic product: lots of very public "concern," a few high-profile defections, and then a reliable Republican vote when it matters most. As one Dem operative put it, Maine has to decide whether it wants a senator or just another six years of "fake concerns" and carefully choreographed disappointment.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#leopards-ate-my-face
killing democracy
trump national parks now proudly slavery-optional
National Park Service staff stare at the blank wall where history used to be, now fully compliant with the White House’s new ‘no facts, just feelings’ policy.
The Trump administration has discovered a bold new approach to history: just rip it off the walls and shove it in storage. At Philadelphia’s President’s House, National Park Service staff were ordered to pry off 34 panels detailing the lives of the people George Washington enslaved, thanks to Trump’s executive order hilariously titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History”. The “truth” part apparently means erasing enslaved people, Indigenous history at Little Bighorn, any mention of climate change at Muir Woods, and even brochures that accurately call Medgar Evers’s killer a racist. Because nothing says serious governance like federally mandated vibes-based history.
Philadelphia promptly sued, and a federal judge had to step in and tell the government to stop wrecking the site, which is where we are now: courts trying to protect museum panels from the president’s fragile ego. Interior’s spokesperson responded like a Fox News chyron with email access, lecturing Philly about crime and “cashless bail” while accusing the city of trying to “demean our brave Founding Fathers” by mentioning that, yes, some of them owned human beings. NPS staff, meanwhile, are being forced to choose between their jobs and factual history, ordered to “reinterpret” the past into a patriotic Hallmark special.
Historians and Indigenous scholars are pointing out that this isn’t just bad policy, it’s old-school cultural erasure with a fresh coat of MAGA paint. Panels at Little Bighorn designed by Northern Cheyenne historian Leo K Killsback are being targeted because they tell the story from the Native side – which is apparently noncompliant with Trump’s new rule that history must never make white Americans feel mildly uncomfortable. Black and Indigenous histories only started getting real recognition at national monuments in the last few decades; Trump’s response is to slam the door, turn off the lights, and insist the party never happened. It’s not a culture war “debate” – it’s the federal government rewriting public memory by decree.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#fascism#racism
killing democracy
doj argues illegal appointment was just a vibes-based typo
Pam Bondi’s Justice Department, seen here arguing that if you sign the wrong law on the form, it still counts as long as the target is on Trump’s enemies list.
Pam Bondi’s Justice Department is once again in court arguing that, actually, it’s totally fine that she installed former Trump lawyer Lindsey Halligan as an interim U.S. attorney past the 120-day legal limit, blew past the Senate, and used her to indict James Comey and Letitia James. Judge Cameron Currie had the audacity to read the statute, notice that Bondi’s authority expired, and rule that, no, you don’t get to keep swapping in loyalists like toner cartridges when the law says the judges pick the replacement.
Rather than accept that basic separation-of-powers thing we allegedly still have, DOJ lawyer Henry Whitaker fired off 67 pages insisting the judge is "ousting" Bondi’s appointment power and "aggrandizing" the court. Bondi’s reliance on the wrong statute? Just a "paperwork mistake," he says. You know, the kind of clerical oopsie where your illegally installed Trumpworld attorney is the only one to present the case and sign the indictments against the president’s enemies. No big deal, just a minor typo with a side of unconstitutional prosecution.
Whitaker’s pitch boils down to: who cares who was lawfully appointed, the grand jury did it, and anyway Bondi has since "ratified" everything Halligan did, like a mob boss retroactively blessing a botched hit. Meanwhile, this is all happening while Trump publicly pressures Bondi to go after his political opponents and DOJ flails through multiple failed attempts to re-indict Letitia James. The message from this Justice Department is clear: laws are suggestions, confirmation limits are decorative, and as long as you’re targeting the right enemies, the Constitution can be fixed later with a fresh memo and a shrug.
Rather than accept that basic separation-of-powers thing we allegedly still have, DOJ lawyer Henry Whitaker fired off 67 pages insisting the judge is "ousting" Bondi’s appointment power and "aggrandizing" the court. Bondi’s reliance on the wrong statute? Just a "paperwork mistake," he says. You know, the kind of clerical oopsie where your illegally installed Trumpworld attorney is the only one to present the case and sign the indictments against the president’s enemies. No big deal, just a minor typo with a side of unconstitutional prosecution.
Whitaker’s pitch boils down to: who cares who was lawfully appointed, the grand jury did it, and anyway Bondi has since "ratified" everything Halligan did, like a mob boss retroactively blessing a botched hit. Meanwhile, this is all happening while Trump publicly pressures Bondi to go after his political opponents and DOJ flails through multiple failed attempts to re-indict Letitia James. The message from this Justice Department is clear: laws are suggestions, confirmation limits are decorative, and as long as you’re targeting the right enemies, the Constitution can be fixed later with a fresh memo and a shrug.
Source: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#forever-grifting
killing democracy
america so peaceful monks have to walk 2,300 miles asking for it
Monks attempt the radical, dangerous act of promoting kindness in Trump’s America while everyone else copes by buying $20 T‑shirts and doomscrolling.
Under the benevolent glow of Trump Term Two, things are going so well that Americans are now emotionally supported by a traveling caravan of Buddhist monks slowly marching across nine states because the government sure isn’t doing peace, stability, or basic mental health.
These monks are walking 20 miles a day, in orange robes, in snow, eating one meal, practicing loving‑kindness, and trying not to get literally run over — which already happened, costing one monk his leg — while the rest of us stare at our phones and buy monk merch like it’s a Taylor Swift tour instead of a rolling spiritual triage unit for a democracy in a nervous breakdown.
Their whole deal is non‑violent resistance by radiating calm, asking for unity, compassion, healing, and even a federal holiday for Buddha’s birthday, because nothing says ‘functioning republic’ like needing a 2,300‑mile emergency mindfulness intervention just to make it through your president’s second term.
These monks are walking 20 miles a day, in orange robes, in snow, eating one meal, practicing loving‑kindness, and trying not to get literally run over — which already happened, costing one monk his leg — while the rest of us stare at our phones and buy monk merch like it’s a Taylor Swift tour instead of a rolling spiritual triage unit for a democracy in a nervous breakdown.
Their whole deal is non‑violent resistance by radiating calm, asking for unity, compassion, healing, and even a federal holiday for Buddha’s birthday, because nothing says ‘functioning republic’ like needing a 2,300‑mile emergency mindfulness intervention just to make it through your president’s second term.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#trumps-america
killing democracy
gavin newsom, strong and wrong and very, very trump-curious
Gavin Newsom, seen here practicing his ‘strong and wrong’ face, moments before shelving another bold moral stance for later review by the polls.
Gavin Newsom is apparently workshopping his 2028 presidential slogan as “Strong and Wrong,” which is refreshingly honest for a guy whose governing record is mostly bold promises followed by quiet retreats. He ran as Mr. Single-Payer, mocked anyone who called it a pipe dream, then promptly chucked his signature healthcare pledge in the trash once in office. The 3.5 million homes he vowed to build? Retroactively downgraded to a “stretch goal” after California managed to permit about 13% of them. The promised "homeless czar" to tackle the crisis? That also evaporated, until Newsom just declared himself the czar and then blamed local officials when the numbers got worse.
His greatest hits in moral courage are equally inspiring. As a death penalty opponent, he announced a moratorium but carefully avoided commuting sentences, leaving the door wide open for the next governor to flip the switch back on. During COVID, he initially took decisive action—right up until Elon Musk illegally reopened Tesla’s factory and the right started howling. Then Newsom shoved responsibility down to counties, rushed to reopen, and watched infections spike. On racial justice, he loudly embraced reparations after George Floyd, set up a task force, basked in the national headlines, and then vetoed many of the actual reparations bills once they became politically inconvenient for a guy eyeing the White House.
And through it all, this supposed Trump-slayer has a long history of, well, polishing the ring. In early 2020, while Trump was calling the pandemic a hoax, Newsom praised his COVID response, gushing that Trump had done "everything" he’d hoped for—even as California still lacked critical federal equipment he’d been requesting for weeks. Trump openly said governors needed to be "appreciative" if they wanted help, and Newsom responded by donning the metaphorical knee pads, earning himself a presidential pat on the head. Now he’s on TV calling other world leaders “pathetic” for not standing up to Trump, which is an interesting line from a man whose entire brand appears to be loudly promising the moral high ground and then abandoning it the moment it becomes even slightly inconvenient.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#healthcare