The Trump Presidency Timeline
Documenting the chaos since day one. 3829 entries and counting.
anti immigration
trump’s dalilah law: show me your papers, then your license
Trump explains that driving to the grocery store is now a national security threat requiring immigration checks, because of course it is.
Trump is now demanding Congress pass something called the Dalilah Law, which boils down to: if you’re driving, the government wants more ways to treat you like a suspect foreign invader. Tougher immigration checks for drivers sounds very normal and not at all like a nationwide "papers, please" roadshow where every traffic stop can turn into an immigration dragnet.
The White House is packaging this as a heartfelt response to tragedy, which is how you know it’s actually a policy wish list for Stephen Miller’s dream universe. Rather than fix, say, enforcement priorities, data systems, or anything remotely competent, they’re pushing a law that functionally encourages cops and transportation officials to do immigration status cosplay at every checkpoint and traffic stop. What could possibly go wrong when you hand more discretion to agencies already famous for racial profiling?
While Trump brags about "keeping Americans safe," what he’s really pitching is another mechanism to harass immigrants, green card holders, citizens with the wrong accent, and anyone whose face doesn’t match the Fox News casting call. It’s not transportation policy; it’s a field test for turning everyday life—like driving to work—into a continuous immigration checkpoint. Freedom of movement, meet the back of the line.
Source: nbcnews.com
#anti-immigration#killing-democracy
oligarchy
diplomacy, but make it nepotism
Trump explains that the best people for Middle East peace are his son‑in‑law, a condo guy, and Marco Rubio, because why would you ever involve the State Department in foreign policy?
Trump used his platform to applaud the cutting-edge diplomatic team of: his son‑in‑law Jared Kushner, Florida ambition hologram Marco Rubio, and luxury real estate developer Steve Witkoff — because when you're dealing with Iran and Gaza, what you really need is a guy whose main qualification is knowing where to put the infinity pool. Who needs a State Department when you can just assemble a group chat of donors, relatives, and guys who were already in the VIP section?
This isn’t foreign policy so much as an oligarch internship program. Kushner, who still hasn’t answered for the billions in Saudi money that floated into his private fund, is now back in the middle of Middle East "negotiations" with the full blessing of the president whose daughter he married. Rubio, ever eager to be relevant to whatever authoritarian project is currently trending, gets a shout‑out for playing junior partner in the shadow government. And Witkoff’s presence underlines the Trump doctrine: treat geopolitics like a distressed property — flip it fast, don’t ask questions, and hope no one looks too closely at the paperwork.
What Trump is really praising here is the normalization of private foreign policy: unelected, unconfirmed, financially entangled cronies running negotiations on war and peace while actual diplomats and institutions are sidelined. It’s not a government, it’s a family business with a few senators brought in to keep up appearances — and the rest of us get to live with whatever these guys scribble on the cocktail napkin they’re calling a peace plan.
This isn’t foreign policy so much as an oligarch internship program. Kushner, who still hasn’t answered for the billions in Saudi money that floated into his private fund, is now back in the middle of Middle East "negotiations" with the full blessing of the president whose daughter he married. Rubio, ever eager to be relevant to whatever authoritarian project is currently trending, gets a shout‑out for playing junior partner in the shadow government. And Witkoff’s presence underlines the Trump doctrine: treat geopolitics like a distressed property — flip it fast, don’t ask questions, and hope no one looks too closely at the paperwork.
What Trump is really praising here is the normalization of private foreign policy: unelected, unconfirmed, financially entangled cronies running negotiations on war and peace while actual diplomats and institutions are sidelined. It’s not a government, it’s a family business with a few senators brought in to keep up appearances — and the rest of us get to live with whatever these guys scribble on the cocktail napkin they’re calling a peace plan.
Source: nbcnews.com
#oligarchy#forever-grifting
killing democracy
america’s most indicted man launches a ‘war on fraud’
JD Vance listens attentively as Trump explains that from now on, only the *approved* fraud is allowed.
Trump used his latest televised ramble to announce that JD Vance will be put in charge of the administration’s shiny new “war on fraud,” because nothing screams integrity like a guy whose political movement has been marinating in indictments, fake electors, and wire fraud cases. The president who literally tried to overturn an election is now deputizing his Senate hype man to hunt down other people’s dishonesty. Sure, why not let the arsonist run the fire department too.
This isn’t about cleaning up scams; it’s about branding dissent and oversight as “fraud” and then sending Vance after them with government power. The same crowd that called every inconvenient vote count “rigged” now wants a permanent taxpayer-funded witch-hunt office, aimed squarely at whoever gets in the way of Trump’s money, ego, or both. Regulators, journalists, and political opponents should probably start keeping overnight bags packed.
So the “war on fraud” will be led by an administration that treats ethics rules as optional, campaign finance laws as suggestions, and the Justice Department as a personal law firm. Expect lots of press conferences, lots of enemies lists, and very little interest in the actual fraud that’s been orbiting Trumpworld for a decade. The call is still coming from inside the house, they’ve just decided to bill the search party to the American public.
Source: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#fascism#lawlessness
killing democracy
great news: the numbers on tv love trump
Trump explains that the economy is great because a line on a chart went up while everyone in the cheap seats wonders how to pay rent with the S&P 500.
Trump used his latest televised ego recital to brag that the stock market is soaring, gas prices are terrific, and inflation is basically a bedtime story Democrats tell to scare donors. The message: if you own a brokerage account and live inside Fox Business, you’re doing amazing, sweetie. If you’re one of the millions crushed by housing costs, medical bills, or wages that haven’t kept up with anything except your own despair? Well, have you tried buying more stocks.
He then scolded members of Congress over inflation like a man yelling at a mirror he thinks is CNN, declaring, "You caused that problem" while very carefully not mentioning corporate price gouging, his own tariff tantrums, or the fact that his economic policy is basically vibes plus tax cuts for people who summer in the Caymans. But as long as the Dow is up and the Chyron of Triumph says "MARKETS HIT RECORD," Trump will keep insisting the economy is perfect and if you can’t afford groceries, you’re just not believing hard enough.
Source: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#money#full-stupid
fascism
haha just kidding unless? trump riffs about a third term
Trump, mid-"joke" about a third term, seen here beta-testing the focus group response to constitutional demolition.
Donald Trump, currently treating the Constitution like a suggestions brochure, used remarks about prescription drugs to slip in a little crowd-pleaser: this "should be my third term." Hilarious stuff, if you ignore the whole Twenty-Second Amendment, the history of strongmen joking their way into extra terms, and the fact that his base hears this less as a punchline and more as a policy proposal.
Instead of lowering blood pressure with cheaper meds, the president is out here raising it by normalizing the idea that elections are optional if the Dear Leader is having fun. The room laughs, he smirks, and we all pretend it's a bit, while the guy who tried to overturn an election and treat January 6 as a patriotic field trip keeps seeding the idea that democracy is negotiable.
It's a familiar pattern now: float the authoritarian trial balloon as a "joke," watch the reaction, then dial it up later when everyone’s numb. Totally healthy civic culture we’ve got going when the president talks about ignoring term limits like he’s asking for extra ketchup packets.
Source: nbcnews.com
#fascism#killing-democracy
racism
congressman removed from state of the union for controversial stance that black people are human
House security escorts Al Green out for the crime of holding a sign that says Black people are human, while the guy who shared the racist ape video keeps his primetime slot.
The Trump era keeps finding new floors to crash through. At Trump’s State of the Union, Rep. Al Green was physically removed from the House chamber for the radical, deeply disruptive act of…holding a sign that said, “Black People Aren’t Apes.” In case you lost track of the timeline of American decline, that’s a reference to the video Trump himself posted this month depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as cartoon apes.
As Green was escorted out just minutes into the speech, he waved the sign toward the Republican side while Texas GOP Rep. Troy Nehls lunged to grab it away, because nothing screams "party of free speech" like trying to wrestle a sign that says Black people are human out of a Black man’s hands on the House floor. This is Green’s second year in a row getting tossed during a Trump address — last year it was for shaking his cane at the president. Trump, meanwhile, still hasn’t apologized for the racist video, instead offering the very statesmanlike defense that he “condemns its racist parts” after quietly deleting it.
So to recap: the president shares a racist ape video about the first Black president and first lady, faces a mild scolding, deletes it, and keeps the mic. The Black lawmaker who responds by literally stating that Black people are not apes? He’s the one dragged out of the chamber. American democracy remains, technically speaking, a going concern; American dignity, however, has left the building.
Source: nbcnews.com
#racism#killing-democracy
killing democracy
democrats host the 'real' state of the union while trump cosplays president on tv
Democrats hold a pop-up democracy clinic on the National Mall while Trump delivers his fan fiction version of America down the street.
While Donald Trump delivers his carefully focus-grouped fantasy novel to Congress, Democrats and activists are a few blocks away holding the "People’s State of the Union" and describing what’s actually on fire. Lawmakers boycott the official spectacle as protesters wave signs like "No Money for ICE" and "Healthcare Not Warfare", plus a giant poster of more than 30 people killed in encounters with ICE since Trump’s glorious return to power. Senator Chris Murphy sums it up: "these are not normal times, and Democrats have to stop behaving normally"—which, translated, means maybe don’t clap politely for authoritarianism on live television.
Because it’s Trump’s America, a MAGA guy of course tries to rush the stage, gets peeled off by organizers, and Joy Reid has to remind the faithful that "Your bullshit is not welcome here"—a standard that, if applied on Capitol Hill, would leave about twelve people in the chamber. Representative Summer Lee leads chants of "Release the files!" and announces she’s introducing articles of impeachment against Attorney General Pam Bondi, whose big legal innovation is refusing to comply with a subpoena for the full unredacted Epstein files. The crowd points out the obvious: the government seems much more interested in protecting powerful men named in those documents than the women and girls they abused.
Across town at "State of the Swamp"—because subtlety is dead—politicians, activists, and Robert De Niro gather to list all the ways the Constitution is now treated as a suggestion: abortion rights gutted, foreign policy as temper tantrum, environmental protections as corporate party favors. Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey calls it a room full of people "trying to stand up for democracy" and "frustrated by the lack of abiding to the United States constitution"—which is a very polite way of saying the president is busy shredding norms while Pam Bondi sits on subpoenaed files and ICE racks up a body count. Trump gets the cameras; the opposition gets YouTube. One of these feeds is describing the actual state of the union, and it’s not the one with the fancy seal.
Because it’s Trump’s America, a MAGA guy of course tries to rush the stage, gets peeled off by organizers, and Joy Reid has to remind the faithful that "Your bullshit is not welcome here"—a standard that, if applied on Capitol Hill, would leave about twelve people in the chamber. Representative Summer Lee leads chants of "Release the files!" and announces she’s introducing articles of impeachment against Attorney General Pam Bondi, whose big legal innovation is refusing to comply with a subpoena for the full unredacted Epstein files. The crowd points out the obvious: the government seems much more interested in protecting powerful men named in those documents than the women and girls they abused.
Across town at "State of the Swamp"—because subtlety is dead—politicians, activists, and Robert De Niro gather to list all the ways the Constitution is now treated as a suggestion: abortion rights gutted, foreign policy as temper tantrum, environmental protections as corporate party favors. Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey calls it a room full of people "trying to stand up for democracy" and "frustrated by the lack of abiding to the United States constitution"—which is a very polite way of saying the president is busy shredding norms while Pam Bondi sits on subpoenaed files and ICE racks up a body count. Trump gets the cameras; the opposition gets YouTube. One of these feeds is describing the actual state of the union, and it’s not the one with the fancy seal.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
killing democracy
trump demands loyalty oath from the supreme court
Trump, moments before demanding the Supreme Court change its name to the Supreme Loyalty Committee.
Trump is heading into the State of the Union like a guy walking into HR after calling everyone there traitors on Facebook. Days after the Supreme Court ruled that most of his tariffs were unlawful in a 6-3 decision, he’ll be staring down Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and Justice Elena Kagan — three of the justices he just branded a “disgrace to our nation” and “very unpatriotic and disloyal to the Constitution.”
Unlike Barack Obama, who criticized a decision and not the justices themselves, Trump went full strongman fanfic, accusing the Court majority of being swayed by “foreign interests” because they dared suggest that the president can’t just slap tariffs on everything like he’s rage-clicking Amazon Prime. Awkward twist: two of the justices in that majority, Barrett and Neil Gorsuch, are his appointees, which means even the handpicked judges are failing the Dear Leader loyalty test.
Naturally, the justices who did vote to let him keep his legally-flimsy tariffs — Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas — got a presidential gold star and public praise. So the message from the podium this year is clear: judicial independence is for losers, and the Supreme Court’s job is to be a fan section that never claps but always rules his way.
Source: nbcnews.com
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#killing-democracy#fascism
killing democracy
trump doj forgets there’s a first amendment, gets bench-slapped
Trump’s Justice Department, seen here trying to remember what the Privacy Protection Act is while clutching a hard drive full of a reporter’s sources.
A federal magistrate judge just yanked the Trump administration’s permission slip to rummage through a Washington Post reporter’s seized data, and you can practically hear the DOJ’s sad trombone from here. Judge William B. Porter said he’ll do an independent judicial review of the material taken from reporter Hannah Natanson, because when the government raids a journalist’s home and walks off with all her devices, someone should probably make sure we’re still pretending to have a free press.
The judge very politely wrote that it’s his “genuine hope” the Trump DOJ was really just trying to investigate a single national defense information case and not fishing for confidential sources from a reporter who wrote critical stories about the administration. He then added that he “further hopes” the evidence will support those claims, which is federal judge-speak for: I don’t believe you, but I’m giving you one last chance not to perjure yourselves.
Porter also discovered that the Justice Department somehow “forgot” to mention the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 — a law that explicitly limits the government’s ability to search or seize journalists’ work product. Multiple DOJ lawyers, including people “from the highest levels” (hi, Attorney General Pam Bondi), had chances to bring it up. None did. The judge said this “seriously undermined” his confidence in the government’s honesty and “disturbed” his usual deference to prosecutors, which is about as close as a magistrate gets to screaming, Are you kidding me? in open court.
While he stopped short of ordering everything immediately returned, Porter noted that Natanson’s rights were “restrained” when the Trump DOJ seized all her work product and devices, cutting her off from her confidential sources and the basic tools of her job. The government’s suggestion that she just “start from scratch” as a journalist earned a judicial eye-roll in writing, with Porter pointing out that this is not how either journalism or the First Amendment works. The bottom line: the court will sift out anything legitimately responsive to the warrant and the rest of the data hoard goes back, leaving Trump’s DOJ with a lot less surveillance loot and a lot more explaining to do.
Source: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#fascism#lawlessness
killing democracy
trump shuts down dhs, but relax, ice still gets to shoot people
Artist’s impression of DHS during a World Cup security briefing: the lights are off, FEMA’s missing, and ICE is the only one still getting paid.
The Trump administration’s latest DHS-only shutdown is doing what it was clearly designed to do: starve everything that vaguely resembles public safety or competent governance, while carefully bubble-wrapping ICE so it can keep doing whatever it wants. Congress already appropriated $625m for World Cup security through Trump’s "big beautiful" slush-bucket of a bill, but because DHS funding has been shut off in a standoff over immigration abuses — specifically, ICE agents killing Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis — the money is stuck in FEMA limbo. TSA, Coast Guard, Secret Service, local cops trying to secure five million visiting fans? On hold. ICE? Fully funded, essential, and untouched. Of course.
Host cities like Miami, Kansas City, and New Jersey are 100 days from kickoff and still waiting for the checks Trump already bragged about. Miami says losing the funding would be "catastrophic" for planning, Kansas City cops are warning that decisions will be made based on budget instead of threat, and New Jersey already had to kill a major Liberty State Park fan festival. Foxborough, population 18,000, is staring at a $7.8m security hole big enough to drive a FIFA motorcade through, and is now threatening to withhold the entertainment license for matches featuring England and France unless someone finds the money. The town is literally shaking down the Kraft family to cover the gap while DHS sits in the dark.
So the United States is hosting a global mega-event with millions of visitors, multiple high-value targets, and four national teams training in Kansas City alone — and the federal government’s message is: we can’t fund your security, but we made absolutely sure the agency that just shot two people in Minneapolis has cash for days. It’s a perfect Trump-era tableau: international spectacle, local governments begging for basic safety resources, Congress using the homeland security budget as a hostage, and the only part of DHS that never, ever misses a meal is the one that keeps leaving bodies on the ground.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
killing democracy
trump’s fcc discovers late-night comedy is a national security threat
Stephen Colbert, apparently now a national security risk, prepares to say something the Trump FCC thinks should only be available on YouTube and in FBI files.
Senate Democrats are poking around CBS and the Trump-stacked FCC after Stephen Colbert revealed that his network’s lawyers blocked an interview with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico. Richard Blumenthal wants to know whether FCC chair Brendan Carr – a man who treats the First Amendment like a speed bump – and Paramount Skydance leaned on Colbert to keep anything critical of Donald Trump off the air. He’s asking for all the receipts, including any cozy backchannel chatter with Trump’s White House.
Paramount, now run by David Ellison – son of Trump pal and Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison – is trying to swallow Warner Bros Discovery in a $108bn merger that needs federal approval, so the timing of this sudden concern about "equal-time" rules is extremely convenient. CBS swears it’s just following new Trump FCC “guidance” that magically extends equal-time rules to late-night comedy, something nobody thought applied before. Meanwhile, Ellison has installed Bari Weiss to run CBS News, where she’s already killed a 60 Minutes piece on the brutal Salvadoran prison Trump’s been deporting people to. Colbert’s show is being shut down in May after more than three decades, but sure, tell us again how the real censorship is people saying "Happy Holidays."
So to recap: the Trump administration rewrites media rules to muzzle critics, a Trump-friendly media CEO allegedly censors satire while chasing a mega-merger, the FCC chair runs what Blumenthal calls a "partisan censorship scheme," and one of the last big broadcast platforms for mocking the president is being quietly taken off the board. Authoritarianism usually starts with jokes that suddenly aren’t allowed to air; the punchline this time is a corporate merger application.
Paramount, now run by David Ellison – son of Trump pal and Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison – is trying to swallow Warner Bros Discovery in a $108bn merger that needs federal approval, so the timing of this sudden concern about "equal-time" rules is extremely convenient. CBS swears it’s just following new Trump FCC “guidance” that magically extends equal-time rules to late-night comedy, something nobody thought applied before. Meanwhile, Ellison has installed Bari Weiss to run CBS News, where she’s already killed a 60 Minutes piece on the brutal Salvadoran prison Trump’s been deporting people to. Colbert’s show is being shut down in May after more than three decades, but sure, tell us again how the real censorship is people saying "Happy Holidays."
So to recap: the Trump administration rewrites media rules to muzzle critics, a Trump-friendly media CEO allegedly censors satire while chasing a mega-merger, the FCC chair runs what Blumenthal calls a "partisan censorship scheme," and one of the last big broadcast platforms for mocking the president is being quietly taken off the board. Authoritarianism usually starts with jokes that suddenly aren’t allowed to air; the punchline this time is a corporate merger application.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#corruption#fascism
killing democracy
trump heroically defends stonewall from the terrifying threat of a rainbow
Stonewall National Monument, now proudly commemorating the 1969 uprising by pretending the people who led it never existed.
The Trump administration looked at Stonewall – the site of a historic queer uprising led by Black and brown trans women – and decided the real emergency was… a Pride flag. So the National Park Service quietly yanked the rainbow flag, shoved an American flag up the pole, and waved a decades-old “policy clarification” memo like it wasn’t just state-sanctioned homophobia with letterhead. This follows their earlier downgrade from the inclusive Progress Pride flag back to the old-school rainbow, plus scrubbing references to trans people from the monument’s website, because why preserve history when you can whitewash it and call it "interpretation"?
While Trump signs executive orders declaring the government will only recognize sex assigned at birth, thousands of people are freezing outside Stonewall to re-raise a flag that their own government keeps trying to erase. Democratic lawmakers show up for the photo op, restore the less inclusive flag, and call it a win, while trans activists point out that maybe the people who were actually shot at and beaten in 1969 should be visible in the monument that allegedly honors them. Nonprofits are now suing the administration over the flag removal, because apparently we need federal litigation to let a national monument to a queer riot fly a queer flag.
Trans organizers are very clear this isn’t some petty “flag war” – it’s about survival and visibility while Black and brown trans women are being murdered and the federal government pretends they don’t exist. Meanwhile, Interior insists everything is fine, the policy is neutral, and Stonewall’s history is still being "preserved" – just without the people who started it, the flag that represents them, or any acknowledgment that the current administration’s agenda is to erase them from public life entirely. American greatness, now with fewer colors.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#anti-immigration#full-stupid
forever grifting
trump repeals climate science, may accidentally repeal big oil’s legal shield too
Trump and EPA chief Lee Zeldin stroll past a sign bragging about “largest deregulation in US history,” helpfully documenting Exhibit A for future climate lawsuits.
The Trump EPA just torched the 2009 climate "endangerment finding" – the basic legal conclusion that greenhouse gases threaten public health – so that oil companies who dumped record cash into Trump’s campaign can enjoy a beautiful, regulation-free apocalypse. By revoking the finding, the administration wiped out federal limits on climate pollution from vehicles and is gearing up to do the same for power plants and other sources, because what is asthma compared to a quarterly earnings call.
The fun twist: that same act of climate vandalism also blows a hole in Big Oil’s favorite legal shield. For years, fossil fuel companies have argued that state climate lawsuits and "climate superfund" laws in places like Vermont and New York are preempted by the Clean Air Act, because the EPA supposedly has this covered. Now Trump’s EPA is standing in court saying, essentially, "Greenhouse gases? Never heard of her." Legal experts are pointing out that if the federal government refuses to regulate, it’s a lot harder for Exxon and friends to claim that federal law blocks states and cities from making them pay for the damage.
The supreme court is about to weigh a key case out of Boulder, Colorado, where oil companies are begging the justices to rescue them from state climate liability while the Trump administration simultaneously argues that the main federal climate hook no longer applies. Corporate trade groups are suddenly very nervous that their bought-and-paid-for deregulation might backfire into a litigation bonanza. When even the American Petroleum Institute is like, "Uh, maybe don’t repeal all of it," you know the grift has entered the "oops, we broke our own legal defense" phase of governance.
Source: theguardian.com
#forever-grifting#anti-science
killing democracy
dems pick ex-cia governor to subtweet trump on live tv
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger prepares to explain that no, actually, the country is not supposed to be run like a reality show with nuclear codes.
Democrats have tapped newly sworn-in Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer and six-term House member, to deliver the official response to President Trump’s State of the Union — because when the president keeps flirting with authoritarianism, you send someone whose old job was literally monitoring unstable regimes.
Spanberger, the first woman elected governor of Virginia after flipping the office from red to blue, is expected to talk about “rising costs, chaos in their communities, and a real fear of what each day might bring,” which is a polite, NPR-ready way of saying: this second Trump administration is going great, thanks for asking. Chuck Schumer framed her as someone who “puts service over politics,” a sharp contrast to a president who puts self-pity over everything, including the Constitution.
The party clearly hopes her purple-state, moderate-turned-"maybe-too-liberal" profile will sell a message of normal governance to a country currently being governed by Truth Social posts and revenge fantasies. Of course, history suggests her speech will be remembered less for its content and more for whether she sips water like Marco Rubio or accidentally recreates Katie Britt’s hostage-video-in-a-kitchen aesthetic. Still, if you’re going to answer Trump’s made-for-TV strongman monologue, a calm ex-spy talking into an empty room is probably the healthiest thing American democracy can hope for right now.
Source: npr.org
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#killing-democracy#trumps-america#losses
anti immigration
rio grande valley learns you can't deport half your workforce and still pour concrete
Behold: one of the last remaining guys actually building anything while Trump’s deportation machine tries to shut down the entire housing market by handcuffing the workforce.
The Rio Grande Valley helped flip Texas for Donald Trump, and now the region is discovering that when you vote for mass deportations, you sometimes get mass deportations. Construction companies are watching their framing crews, foundation teams and stucco workers disappear into ICE vans, then acting shocked that houses do not, in fact, build themselves. One builder says this could "put us out of business" if it continues, as if the basic math of "no workers, no houses" was some kind of deep-state plot.
Local businesses are suddenly very interested in nuance: yes to "strong borders," but also yes to the undocumented workers who have quietly built the region for years. Realtors are stalling big land deals, tile warehouses are sitting on unpaid orders because there’s nobody left to install them, and families like Maria Vasquez’s are cutting food so they can keep the lights on while hours dry up. The same crowd that cheered Trump’s deportation agenda is now flying to Washington to beg the administration to please stop arresting their "non-serious-crime" workers — because apparently it was all supposed to be theoretical cruelty, not the kind that interrupts mortgage payments.
The White House, naturally, responds by waving an executive order about future "workforce preparedness" and apprenticeships, as though you can replace a decade of skilled immigrant labor with a press release and a hardhat photo op. Meanwhile, on the ground, builders keep discovering that every experienced stucco worker they try to hire has already been "taken". Trump promised to crack down on undocumented workers; the Rio Grande Valley is now finding out what happens when a president actually follows through on his worst ideas.
Source: nbcnews.com
#anti-immigration#trumps-america
forever grifting
president pardons money launderer, is shocked when laundering continues
Changpeng Zhao smiles at Mar-a-Lago, presumably delighted to be back in a country where laundering billions only becomes a problem if you forget to donate to the right politician.
Donald Trump pardoned Binance founder and convicted money launderer Changpeng Zhao because, as he helpfully explained, "what he did was not even a crime" — unless you count the part where he pled guilty in federal court and agreed to pay $50m. Now internal Binance investigators say the exchange may have helped move billions to Iranian-linked entities, including Houthi militants, via more than 1,500 Iran-accessed accounts in 2024–2025. Two accounts alone allegedly shuffled $1.7bn to groups tied to a country the Trump administration is reportedly planning to strike. Truly a seamless integration of foreign policy and organized crime.
The Binance staffers who found this pesky "possible sanctions violation" problem say they dutifully reported it up the chain — and then found themselves disciplined, fired, or suspended for supposed "violations of company protocol" over how they handled client data. Binance, naturally, denies both violating sanctions and punishing whistleblowers, which should reassure everyone who also believes in honest crypto billionaires and the Tooth Fairy’s NFT collection.
Crucially, all this was allegedly discovered before Trump decided Zhao was an innocent victim of the Biden deep state and gifted him a pardon at the request of "a lot of very good people" — a category that apparently includes business partners. Trump’s family crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, has been working with Binance, and Zhao just recently swanned through a Mar-a-Lago conference like a VIP rewards member in the Money Launderers Club. The White House, shockingly, had no comment on why the president pardoned a guy whose platform may have been shoveling cash to militants his own administration might soon bomb.
Source: theguardian.com
#forever-grifting#national-security#corruption
killing democracy
trump discovers statistics, immediately lies about them
Trump poses with law enforcement in the Oval Office, bravely taking credit for global crime trends and public health data he’s never read.
Donald Trump is standing in the Oval Office declaring that US crime is at its lowest level in 125 years, personally brought to heel by his "unwavering commitment to restoring law and order" — a bold claim, especially given the minor complication that reliable federal crime stats don’t actually exist going back that far. Homicides probably are heading toward a 125-year low, according to serious researchers who use actual data, but violent crime overall is merely at its lowest level in decades, not since the McKinley administration. Small distinction, unless you’re using it as a campaign slogan and substitute for governance.
The White House, never one to let facts interrupt a good culture-war press release, insists the drop is the "direct result" of Trump’s genius policies: flooding "Democrat-run war zones" with federal resources, deporting "savage criminal illegals," and cheering on cops and prosecutors. Crime experts, meanwhile, gently point out that the decline started before Trump’s second term, follows a post-pandemic normalization after the 2020 spike, and is also happening in other Western countries that somehow manage it without Trump, ICE cosplay, or daily fascist rallies.
Researchers talk about things like renewed violence-prevention programs, focused policing, social skills training, CBT, schools and institutions stabilizing after Covid, and even less drinking leading to fewer assaults. The administration hears all that and translates it to: "Trump fixed crime with vibes and deportations." So yes, homicides might soon hit a historic low. Sadly, the same cannot be said for the level of shameless propaganda coming out of the Oval Office lectern, where every positive trend is retroactively turned into proof that the dear leader’s iron-fisted "law and order" crusade is working — and therefore must be expanded.
Source: bbc.com
#killing-democracy#fascism#full-stupid
forever grifting
trump’s france ambassador gets ghosted by the french government
Charles Kushner leaving the Élysée Palace, smiling like a man who just learned that diplomatic immunity doesn’t cover being an international embarrassment.
Charles Kushner – yes, Jared’s dad, fresh off the ‘federal felon to diplomat’ career track – has managed to do what generations of American diplomats failed to accomplish: convince France to try to block a US ambassador from talking to its government. The French foreign ministry says Kushner should be denied direct access to ministers after he refused to show up when summoned and instead sent a deputy, apparently under the impression that being Trump’s in‑law emeritus outranks basic diplomatic protocol.
This all started when the US embassy in France used its official account to turn the murder of far-right nationalist Quentin Deranque into a campaign ad for the global reactionary movement, warning that "violent left-wing extremism is on the rise" in France. Paris, which notably did not ask the Trump family crime syndicate for public-safety advice, responded that it would not be using a grieving family’s tragedy for political ends and that it needed no lectures on violence from the "international reactionary movement" that Kushner represents.
So now America’s ambassador to France is being treated like a particularly obnoxious YouTube pundit: technically still there, but nobody in government is required to take his calls. The Trump administration has successfully converted a key diplomatic post into a Fox News remote studio, and the host just got put on mute by an entire allied state. American soft power has never looked so soft.
Source: bbc.com
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
killing democracy
majority of americans notice raging dumpster fire, remain unconvinced it’s fine actually
Trump preparing for the State of the Union by practicing his favorite line: “Checks and balances are for losers.”
Turns out when you re‑elect the guy who tried to overturn an election, people don’t feel super bullish about the direction of the country. A new NPR/PBS/Marist poll finds 55% of US adults think Trump is changing the country for the worse — a 13‑point jump from his first go-round in the Oval Office Reality Show. So yes, he’s technically delivering on his promise of “more” Trump; it’s just that most people have decided that’s bad.
The vibes are so off that Americans are starting to notice the Constitution bleeding out in the corner. Only 32% now say the system of checks and balances is “working well,” down from 43% at the start of Trump 2: The Indictening. When you spend a year screaming at judges, treating Congress like a suggestion box, and governing via revenge cosplay, people begin to suspect the whole “coequal branches” thing is more marketing slogan than reality.
Even inside the cult, the gold paint is chipping. Support for Trump’s policies sits at 27%, and among Republicans, belief that he’s mentally fit dropped from 75% to 66%, while the share who say he acts ethically slid from 55% to 42%. So we’ve reached the stage where a meaningful chunk of his own party thinks he’s unethical and maybe not all there but still perfectly acceptable as the guy with the nuclear codes. American democracy isn’t just under strain; it’s the passenger in the car quietly realizing the driver thinks the guardrails are a suggestion.
Source: theguardian.com
#killing-democracy#full-stupid
killing democracy
stephen miller, assistant deputy undersecretary of fountains and fascism
Anti-ICE protesters in Minneapolis, shortly before the administration decided the First Amendment is optional if Stephen Miller disapproves of your existence.
America’s least favorite immigration ghoul has expanded his portfolio. Stephen Miller is no longer just the face of deportation cruelty; he’s now Trump’s Homeland Security Adviser and policy czar, a combo role that basically lets him stick his clammy fingers into anything from "fixing" D.C. fountains to orchestrating federal crackdowns. At 10 a.m. he’s running meetings about sinking suspicious boats in the Caribbean and breaking up cartels; by lunch he’s plotting how to purge ‘embedded liberal culture’ from universities, because nothing says limited government like the White House micromanaging campus ideology.
The part where federal agents killed two Americans protesting Miller’s immigration agenda in Minnesota? Just a speed bump on his career path. After Renee Good was shot, Miller went on Fox to reassure ICE agents they had “federal immunity.” When Alex Pretti was killed days later, Miller jumped on X to label him a “domestic terrorist” and “would-be assassin,” despite a DHS preliminary report to Congress that somehow forgot to include any evidence he attacked officers or even had a gun. Those posts are still up, reality be damned, because propaganda ages better than facts in MAGA-land.
Even some Republicans have noticed the vibe is less ‘public servant’ and more ‘authoritarian fanfic.’ Retiring Sen. Thom Tillis compared Miller to Wormtongue from Tolkien, which is generous to Wormtongue. The White House response was to roll out a parade of GOP praise, with Ted Cruz calling Miller “a great American” and blaming “haters” for a “deadly invasion” of the country, because when federal agents kill protesters, the real problem is still… the protesters. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt bragged that Miller “brings together all corners of the government” to implement Trump’s agenda at “record speed,” which is a poetic way of saying the guy who helped design the immigration crackdown is now effectively running a good chunk of the security state and culture war machine, answerable mainly to Trump and his own worst instincts.
So yes, Stephen Miller is fixing fountains and cameras in D.C. — presumably so the surveillance works better the next time federal agents need to shoot someone and then call them a terrorist online.
Source: nbcnews.com
#killing-democracy#fascism#lawlessness