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The Trump Presidency Timeline

Documenting the chaos since day one. 2119 entries and counting.

forever grifting

octagon on the south lawn, brain cells not included

Live look at the South Lawn, where the People’s House has been rebranded as the Octagon so Trump can celebrate his 80th birthday with a taxpayer-subsidized hype reel.

Live look at the South Lawn, where the People’s House has been rebranded as the Octagon so Trump can celebrate his 80th birthday with a taxpayer-subsidized hype reel.

Trump promised the White House UFC gala would be the most historic fight card in human history – eight or nine title fights, all "legendary". What America is actually getting for its 250th birthday (and Trump’s 80th) is two real title bouts, a bunch of mid-tier matchups, and a lineup mysteriously stacked with vocal Trump superfans. So it’s less "UFC Freedom 250" and more "Make Pay-Per-View Great Again" fan-cam, live from the South Lawn. Instead of a once-in-history sports spectacle, the UFC and Dana White delivered something that looks exactly like their regular content mill, just with better bunting and more fascist cosplay. The company that spent a decade laundering Trump as the ultimate tough-guy outsider is now helping him turn the literal White House into a branded cage-fighting set piece, timed to his birthday and wrapped in patriotic marketing copy. The fighters? Cheaper Trump loyalists. The politics? Soft-focus authoritarian pageantry with sponsorship logos. The kicker: this "one-of-one" extravaganza reportedly costs around $60m, which the UFC hopes to claw back from sponsors while the president gets priceless propaganda footage of himself bathed in fireworks and adulation. The United States’ 250th anniversary could have been a sober reflection on democracy; instead, it’s being celebrated by turning the people’s house into a PPV backdrop for an aging strongman LARPing as the main event.

Source: theguardian.com

#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
retribution

trump flies to kentucky to primary the concept of a separate branch of government

Trump, moments before explaining that forcing the release of Epstein files is "very disloyal" to the guy still hoping everyone stops reading them.

Trump, moments before explaining that forcing the release of Epstein files is "very disloyal" to the guy still hoping everyone stops reading them.

Trump is jetting into Hebron, Kentucky, to teach Rep. Thomas Massie an important civics lesson: in the modern GOP, you don't represent your district, you represent one very aggrieved Florida resident and his legal exposure. Massie’s crime? Helping force the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files and trying to make Congress vote before Trump keeps playing Commander-in-Chief Mad Libs with Iran. For this, Trump has called him a "moron," a "lightweight," and a "loser" — which, in this universe, is practically a Medal of Honor. The White House, with a straight face and a podium, insists this is not political, just Trump visiting a packaging plant to talk about the economy. Totally normal for the president to show up in a single House district where he personally recruited a Navy SEAL farmer to run, while a Trump-aligned super PAC called MAGA KY sets $2.6 million on fire to make sure voters understand that Massie is basically the Ayatollah with a Kentucky drawl. Hard-line pro-Israel donors and GOP operatives even built a bespoke state branch of MAGA Inc. whose sole mission is "ruin this one congressman’s life." Massie is running the heretical campaign of saying he’s actually the one doing what Trump pretended to stand for: no new wars, less debt, some vague "healthy America" thing, and occasionally reading the Constitution before voting. Gallrein, meanwhile, offers the simpler pitch: Trump likes me, Trump hates him, and do you really want to risk being on the wrong side of the guy who can vaporize your career with a Truth Social post? The message from Trump and his donors is clear: oppose the One Big Beautiful Bill that balloons the debt and question the Dear Leader’s foreign policy, and the entire weight of the MAGA money machine will descend on your district like a swarm of angry Super PAC locusts. Massie says if he wins, it proves we still have a republic and that Congress doesn’t work for the president. The fact that this is even up for debate — and that Trump is personally flying in to settle it — tells you exactly how well that’s going. The 4th District isn’t just voting on a congressman; it’s voting on whether Republican lawmakers are allowed to occasionally act like a separate branch of government, or if their job description has been permanently updated to "loyalty tester on call."
#retribution#killing-democracy#oligarchy
killing democracy

half the country is cool with troops at the ballot box, what could go wrong

Voters in Queens bravely exercise their rights in one of the few remaining elections not yet supervised by guys in camo and rifles.

Voters in Queens bravely exercise their rights in one of the few remaining elections not yet supervised by guys in camo and rifles.

America has reached the "sure, let's put soldiers at the polls" stage of democratic decline. A new NPR/PBS/Marist poll finds 46% of Americans support the National Guard monitoring polling places this November — a thing that would be illegal if ordered by the federal government, which is, of course, exactly the kind of thing President Trump keeps fantasizing about while talking about "nationalizing" elections and wishing he'd sent troops to seize voting machines in 2020.

This isn't some abstract civics seminar: about three-quarters of Republicans say they want the Guard at polling places, while three-quarters of Democrats say absolutely not, please stop speedrunning Weimar. Experts gently note that the Guard can be used by governors for limited support roles, like cybersecurity, but that whole "federal troops policing voting" thing is a giant legal and constitutional no-no — which naturally makes it a top item on Trump's wish list as he urges the GOP to "take over" voting in certain places.

War with Iran and a recent bombing attempt in New York are now the convenient backdrop for normalizing military presence at the ballot box, as some voters say they're more afraid of terrorists than of soldiers guarding their right to vote. State and local election officials, meanwhile, are quietly freaking out after last year's Guard deployments to U.S. cities and Trump's open regret that he didn't use them to snatch voting equipment. So yes, nearly half the country is now pre-gaming for an election system where you cast your ballot under the watchful eye of people with guns — but don't worry, it's all in the name of "security." What could possibly go wrong.

Source: npr.org

#killing-democracy#fascism
killing democracy

trump doj to america: felons and fake electors need guns too

Nothing says "We the People" like a government that hands guns back to felons and fake electors, then calls it constitutional patriotism.

Nothing says "We the People" like a government that hands guns back to felons and fake electors, then calls it constitutional patriotism.

The Trump Justice Department quietly dug up a 30‑year‑dormant program, dusted it off, and started handing federal gun rights back to felons like it's a loyalty rewards card. Buried in a Federal Register notice: 22 people whose firearms "disability" has now been cured by the healing power of Trump’s DOJ. Most have old nonviolent felonies; one of them, however, is Arizona GOP state senator Jake Hoffman — better known as one of the indicted fake electors from 2020 and a proud recipient of a Trump pardon. This renaissance in Second Amendment charity work is being sold as a noble effort to help reformed offenders, blessed by the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision and wrapped in talk of "no longer a threat to public safety." Yet somehow, amid all the carefully vetted 20‑ and 40‑year‑old cases, the department just happened to slip in a freshly indicted Trump ally who still faces state felony charges. So while DOJ insists it's just following the law and precedent, the practical message is clear: if you help overturn an election, this administration will help you get your guns back. Law and order, Trump-style — where the law is optional and the order is: protect the loyalists first. Meanwhile, states can still block some of these people from owning guns, which means the only thing standing between a fake elector and a federally blessed firearm might be a state law that hasn’t yet been kneecapped. The federal government is out here treating democratic sabotage like a paperwork hiccup, and the gun lobby gets a bonus prize: a Justice Department that sees no conflict between "defending democracy" and rearming the people who tried to help steal it.

Source: npr.org

#killing-democracy#lawlessness#forever-grifting
awful nominations

trump’s white identity whisperer doesn’t clear the senate metal detector

Jeremy Carl, moments before discovering that saying the quiet white-identity part out loud is still frowned upon in Senate hearings… sometimes.

Jeremy Carl, moments before discovering that saying the quiet white-identity part out loud is still frowned upon in Senate hearings… sometimes.

Trump’s latest gift to American diplomacy, Jeremy Carl of Claremont Institute fame, has withdrawn his nomination for assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs after Republican senators discovered—through the grueling, high-tech process of watching a clip on X—that he’d been workshopping white identity takes and making "insensitive" remarks about Jews and Israel. When even Sen. John Curtis decides you’re not the guy to represent America at the U.N., that’s less a red flag and more a ten-story klaxon.

During his confirmation hearing, Carl helpfully explained that he’s worried about the loss of “majority common American culture” due to mass immigration, but insisted he’s not a white nationalist, just a guy talking about white culture being erased and posting through it. Sen. Chris Murphy responded by calling him a “legit white nationalist,” which, fun twist, turned out to be a career-limiting diagnosis for a State Department job that involves not sounding like a Telegram channel in front of other countries.

Carl blamed his exit on a lack of unanimous Republican support on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, bravely withdrawing so that Trump and Secretary Rubio wouldn’t have to “waste valuable time and energy” trying to sell his nomination. He then praised the administration for not picking from the usual ‘business as usual’ nominees—which is true, if by “business as usual” you mean “people who don’t show up to their hearing with a public record of white identity discourse and anti-Israel hot takes.”

The position he was supposed to fill: implementing U.S. policy at the United Nations and other multilateral bodies. Instead, the administration will have to go back to the drawing board and find another ideologue who can talk about "culture" loudly enough for the base, but not so loudly that GOP senators have to pretend they’ve never heard of him.

#awful-nominations#racism#killing-democracy
killing democracy

trump puts texas senate race on layaway until voter suppression clears

John Cornyn bravely campaigns for the Senate seat he already holds, while waiting to find out whether his political future will be decided by Texas voters or one man’s tantrum on Truth Social.

John Cornyn bravely campaigns for the Senate seat he already holds, while waiting to find out whether his political future will be decided by Texas voters or one man’s tantrum on Truth Social.

Donald Trump has discovered a fun new use for his endorsement: hostage-taking. What was supposed to be a routine nod to Sen. John Cornyn in the Texas GOP Senate runoff is now stuck in a "holding pattern" because Trump wants something first — passage of the SAVE America Act, a bill that "saves" America by making it harder to vote and easier to discriminate. He’s explicitly telling Republicans that nothing moves in Texas until his voter-suppression wishlist moves in the Senate.

Both Cornyn and his runoff opponent, walking ethics violation Ken Paxton, are dutifully backing the bill, which would require photo ID to vote in federal elections and documentary proof of citizenship to register. Trump, never one to leave cruelty on the table, also wants to bolt on unrelated culture-war goodies: a ban on transgender athletes in women’s sports and new restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors. Voting rights, trans kids, and a Texas Senate seat are now all chips in the same Trump casino.

Republican leaders like John Thune are nervously admitting this "linkage" is probably bad, which is GOP for "this is wildly corrupt but we’re too scared to stop it." Paxton, fresh off an impeachment on bribery and corruption charges and a divorce on "biblical grounds," is openly offering to drop out of the race if leadership kills the filibuster to ram through Trump’s bill. Cornyn’s allies warn that if Trump endorses Paxton, they could lose the seat to Democrat James Talarico — but Trump’s base loves Paxton, and Trump loves leverage. So U.S. election rules and civil rights are being rewritten in real time to solve one man’s Texas primary drama.

Democrats need four seats to flip the Senate. Trump is apparently willing to trade away the GOP’s best chance to hold Texas unless he gets a national voter-suppression law and some bonus anti-trans persecution. Call it the SAVE America Act: Saving America from democracy, one extorted endorsement at a time.
#killing-democracy#fascism#anti-immigration
killing democracy

sen. marshall assures us trump’s totally following the war powers act, pinky promise

Sen. Roger Marshall explains that when Trump ignores constraints on presidential war powers, he’s actually respecting them really hard.

Sen. Roger Marshall explains that when Trump ignores constraints on presidential war powers, he’s actually respecting them really hard.

Sen. Roger Marshall popped up on Meet the Press to reassure America that Donald Trump, a man who treats the Constitution like a user agreement he definitely didn’t read, has followed the War Powers Act "to the letter" in his war with Iran. Yes, war – not a "limited kinetic action," not a "police action," but an actual shooting conflict – and the Kansas senator’s main concern is making sure Grandpa Coup looks like a meticulous law student. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the same broadcast universe, we learn that Trump is "shopping messages" on the Iran war to see what polls best, and the White House is busy retrofitting his demand for Iran’s "unconditional surrender" into something that sounds slightly less like a World War II fanfic. Congress, whose job is to declare war, appears to have outsourced that whole constitutional duty to a man testing slogans like he’s A/B testing email subject lines. So we have Trump escalating with Iran, floating unconditional surrender, and improvising his war branding in real time, while Senate Republicans run around solemnly insisting that this is all perfectly compliant with the War Powers Act. It’s a neat trick: turn a law designed to restrain presidents into a prop that justifies whatever the president already decided to do. Killing democracy and calling it "by the book" is the closest this administration gets to performance art.
#killing-democracy#imperialism#lawlessness
killing democracy

trump explains democracy: heads i win, tails you cheated

A Pennsylvania voter tries to remember when "we're going to stop it" stopped being about potholes and started being about elections.

A Pennsylvania voter tries to remember when "we're going to stop it" stopped being about potholes and started being about elections.

President Trump has helpfully clarified the rules of American democracy: if Republicans win, it's the sacred will of the people; if Democrats win, it's cheating and must be "stopped." NPR then takes a road trip through Pennsylvania swing districts to ask voters how they feel about the president announcing, out loud, that elections are only legitimate when they produce him. Some Pennsylvanians roll their eyes at the idea that every Democratic victory is a heist, while others nod along like they're reviewing terms and conditions for a coup. The man who spent years screaming about a "rigged" system he somehow won is now pre-loading the excuses for any future loss, normalizing the idea that the solution to electoral disappointment is to just declare the other side criminals and let "we're going to stop it" do the authoritarian heavy lifting. Ballots in, democracy out.
#killing-democracy#fascism
killing democracy

turning point usa takes the air force academy on a date

US Air Force Academy board of visitors, now with 30% more culture war and 0% additional qualifications.

US Air Force Academy board of visitors, now with 30% more culture war and 0% additional qualifications.

The Trump White House has decided the US Air Force Academy doesn’t have nearly enough Turning Point USA in its diet, so the president quietly swapped in Erika Kirk — widow of slain rightwing activist Charlie Kirk — to a key advisory board overseeing the school’s morale, curriculum, and, you know, how future officers are trained. No press release, no hearing, just poof, her name appears on the official site like a new app icon you didn’t ask for.

Erika, a former Miss Arizona who now runs Charlie’s TPUSA empire, joins a board already stacked with MAGA loyalists: Senator Tommy Tuberville (famous for blocking military promotions and not knowing what the three branches of government are), Dina Powell from Trump’s first-term foreign policy clown car, and assorted GOP senators handpicked by John Thune. The Air Force Academy’s board of visitors is supposed to oversee discipline, academics, and fiscal affairs; Trump is treating it like a donor rewards program for the culture war.

The White House insists she’s a “perfect choice” to “continue his legacy,” which is a poetic way of saying the Air Force Academy is now being used as another stage for TPUSA’s brand of Christian nationalist grievance politics. Meanwhile, Erika is out promoting a Turning Point project to plant a chapter in every public high school in Arkansas, because nothing says civil-military neutrality like fusing the officer pipeline with a partisan youth organization. America’s future pilots are apparently one step closer to getting their ethics lessons from the same people who do viral campus meltdown compilations.

Source: theguardian.com

#killing-democracy#fascism#forever-grifting
trade war

trump loses tariff case, responds by speedrunning a new one

Trump studies a map of the global economy, circles the entire planet, and writes: "10%".

Trump studies a map of the global economy, circles the entire planet, and writes: "10%".

Senate Democrats have introduced the "Small Business Liberation 2.0 Act," which is basically a congressional attempt to bubble-wrap mom-and-pop shops from Donald Trump’s latest round of tariffs. After the Supreme Court nuked his "liberation day" tariffs as illegal, Trump immediately hit "new game" and slapped on a fresh 10% global baseline tariff using section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974—because when the courts say no, this White House hears "try a different loophole." The bill from Ed Markey and friends would exempt goods imported by or for small businesses and ban price gouging tied to the new tariffs, which have already pushed some entrepreneurs into extreme stress and financial hardship. One small business owner says tariffs on Brazil alone jacked his costs by about $1 million in a year, but sure, tell us again how this is all about helping the forgotten working man. Meanwhile, more than 1,000 companies have sued over Trump’s tariff policies, and a trade court judge just ordered the government to cough up billions in refunds for tariffs that were collected illegally—a fun little detail the "tariffs are good, and easy to win" crowd tends to skip. Of course, with Republicans running the Senate, this small business relief bill will likely die quietly while Trump’s trade war LARP continues. So the scorecard so far: courts say the last tariffs were unlawful, importers get refunds, small businesses get wrecked, and Trump responds by launching Tariffs 2.0 on a 150-day timer. Winning, if by "winning" you mean "litigating the same bad idea until the economy taps out."
#trade-war#killing-democracy
killing democracy

commander in cleats hands out loyalty loafers

The leader of the free world, moments before asking a U.S. senator to take off his shoe so he can check the label.

The leader of the free world, moments before asking a U.S. senator to take off his shoe so he can check the label.

The president of the United States is reportedly spending his golden years as the nation's oldest Florsheim brand ambassador, sitting behind the Resolute desk like a discount Al Bundy and critiquing his cabinet's footwear. Donald Trump has turned Oval Office meetings with JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, Howard Lutnick and the rest of the right-wing fan club into a traveling shoe party, complete with size-guessing parlor tricks and follow-up shipments of $145 dress shoes. Policy? Democracy? No time. He's busy running a mid-range men's shoe store out of the West Wing.

Staff say "all the boys" have the presidential loafers now, and they're "afraid not to wear them" – because nothing says healthy workplace culture like your boss forcing you into matching shoes as a visible symbol of loyalty. One cabinet member even had to mothball his Louis Vuitton collection so Dear Leader wouldn't pout. Meanwhile, the Brookings numbers quietly remind us this is the least diverse administration of the century, but sure, let’s focus on the important part: the 79-year-old president presiding over a taxpayer-funded boys' club where Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Lindsey Graham all get their matching autographed kicks.

The White House insists Trump pays for the shoes personally, which is adorable, as though the ethical bar for the presidency is now "doesn't directly bill the government for his weird dominance-fetish swag." Still, it's fitting: a man who built his brand on cheap symbolism and ill-fitting power fantasies has literally reduced the job to handing out identical footwear while measuring his allies by their shoe size. American democracy isn't exactly dead, but it is being slowly replaced by a loyalty program with punch cards and wingtips.

Source: theguardian.com

#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
killing democracy

trump’s ‘weaponization’ guy gets dinged for actually weaponizing the government

Ed Martin, seen here trying to remember which amendment lets you threaten universities and pressure judges because they hurt your feelings about DEI.

Ed Martin, seen here trying to remember which amendment lets you threaten universities and pressure judges because they hurt your feelings about DEI.

Ed Martin, Trump’s pardon attorney and former head of the administration’s so-called "weaponization working group," is now being formally disciplined for doing exactly what the job title promised: allegedly using his government perch to punish speech he doesn’t like. While serving as interim U.S. attorney for D.C., Martin wrote Georgetown Law’s dean to rage about the school’s DEI policies and announced he’d discriminate against applicants from Georgetown — while explicitly speaking in his official capacity. According to D.C. Disciplinary Counsel Hamilton P. Fox III, that’s not just tacky; it’s a First and Fifth Amendment violation, because you’re not allowed to condition government benefits on a school abandoning its own views.

Georgetown’s then-dean William Treanor had to explain to the chief federal prosecutor for D.C. that the First Amendment means the government doesn’t get to dictate a university’s curriculum — a civics lesson that really should have been covered before they handed him prosecutorial power. Rather than quietly Googling "basic constitutional law," Martin allegedly doubled down, firing off letters to the chief judge and senior judges of the D.C. Court of Appeals demanding they sideline Fox, and copying the White House counsel like a kid CC’ing mom on a playground dispute. The chief judge politely told him to stop trying to have an ex parte tantrum and follow actual procedures, which, to be fair, is not this administration’s core competency.

The Justice Department’s response was to accuse the D.C. Bar of being a partisan hit squad targeting Trump loyalists, while Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche logged on to X to declare the bar a "Democrat-run political organization" and brag that he’s not a member. Bold move for a regime screaming about "weaponization" while its own weaponization czar is under fire for, per the complaint, coercively punishing disfavored viewpoints and trying to pressure judges into firing the ethics watchdog. Trump’s DOJ: still insisting they’re the victims as they swing the hammer at the Constitution.

Source: nbcnews.com

#killing-democracy#lawlessness
forever grifting

trump suddenly worried his grifter might be grifting

Corey Lewandowski and Donald Trump, seen here plotting how to turn Homeland Security into Homeland Sales & Marketing, LLC.

Corey Lewandowski and Donald Trump, seen here plotting how to turn Homeland Security into Homeland Sales & Marketing, LLC.

Donald Trump has reportedly started asking aides the most shocking question of his political career: did one of his guys personally profit off a government contract? The guy in question is Corey Lewandowski, officially a "special government employee" at DHS and unofficially Kristi Noem’s shadow chief of staff, who seems to have had remarkable sway over a $220 million ad campaign starring Noem on horseback doing MAGA cosplay about the "American dream" and cracking down on undocumented immigrants.

Trump, who now insists he "didn’t know anything" about the ad blitz Noem testified he approved, has been telling advisers that "Corey made out on that one"—while Corey tells NBC News he made "zero, not one penny" from any DHS contracts he helped steer. The White House, naturally, declined to comment on Corey’s bold new entry in the "trust me, bro" genre of government ethics.

Noem, already drowning in scandals over a luxury deportation jet, Coast Guard resource abuse, and handpicked contractors for a $100 million ICE recruitment push, got kicked out of DHS and reassigned as "special envoy" to Trump’s newly invented "Shield of the Americas"—which sounds less like a serious diplomatic portfolio and more like a Marvel knockoff written by Stephen Miller. Meanwhile, Democrats are now probing the trio of firms that scored the ad money, because nothing says "law and order" like turning Homeland Security into a $220 million campaign reel for your friends and their vendors.

So Trump’s DHS currently features: a fired secretary turned cosplay envoy, a "special" adviser allegedly playing contract fairy godfather, and a president who only discovers ethics when he suspects someone else may have skimmed off his grift. Government by resentful middleman is going extremely well.

Source: nbcnews.com

#forever-grifting#corruption#killing-democracy
lawlessness

pam bondi discovers you can’t just vibes-based-appoint prosecutors

Pam Bondi, hard at work reinventing the Justice Department as an improv troupe where the Constitution is just a suggestion.

Pam Bondi, hard at work reinventing the Justice Department as an improv troupe where the Constitution is just a suggestion.

Pam Bondi looked at Alina Habba getting bounced for being illegally installed as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor and thought: what if we did the same thing, but dumber? After Judge Matthew Brann ruled Habba was unlawfully serving because she never got Senate confirmation, Bondi responded by taking the U.S. attorney job, running it through a political woodchipper, and handing the pieces to three Trump-friendly lawyers – Jordan Fox, Ari Fontecchio, and Philip Lamparello – all without Senate approval.

The Justice Department’s galaxy-brain theory: if you slice the job into three, somehow the Constitution forgets the whole “advice and consent” thing. Brann, a Republican-appointed judge who still remembers how separation of powers works, issued a 130-page eyeroll, ruling that Bondi had zero authority to carve up the office or appoint her own mini-bosses to dodge confirmation. He politely noted that under DOJ’s logic, presidents would literally never need the Senate for U.S. attorney appointments again, which is a fun way of saying “this is how you get authoritarianism.”

The immediate fallout: thousands of federal prosecutions in New Jersey are now wobbling on the edge of a constitutional cliff because the administration insisted on running the justice system like a Mar-a-Lago staffing chart. Defendants are already asking to have their cases tossed, and Brann warned that the government’s obsession with unconfirmed loyalists could lead to exactly that. Meanwhile, Habba—now a senior adviser to Bondi, because of course she is—went on X to declare the ruling “ridiculous” and insist that judges don’t get to fire DOJ officials, only Pam and Trump do. The judge’s opinion says otherwise; the Constitution says otherwise; but the vibes in Trumpworld remain undefeated.

This is the second time in a week courts have had to explain to the White House that no, you cannot just appoint your friends and pretend the Senate doesn’t exist—see also Kari Lake’s illegal stint running the U.S. Agency for Global Media while taking a wrecking ball to Voice of America. The pattern is clear: if there’s a law, norm, or constitutional limit, this administration will test it, break it, and then scream “overreach” when a judge points to the actual text of the Constitution. Strong “we don’t need no stinking rule of law” energy.

#lawlessness#killing-democracy
killing democracy

rip to the guy who proved presidents really will record their own crimes

Alexander Butterfield, the man who proved that if you give a corrupt president a tape recorder, he’ll impeach himself.

Alexander Butterfield, the man who proved that if you give a corrupt president a tape recorder, he’ll impeach himself.

Alexander Butterfield, the Nixon aide who casually mentioned to Congress that the president had wired the Oval Office like a Mafia social club, has died at 99. His small contribution to history was accidentally confirming a secret taping system that captured Richard Nixon committing crimes, raging, swearing, and being loudly racist — so, basically the 1970s version of a presidential Twitter feed, but on analog.

Butterfield oversaw the voice-activated taping setup that only a handful of people knew existed. When Senate investigators in 1973 tossed out a routine question about whether conversations might have been recorded, he said yes, and Washington promptly realized the president had been running a full-service evidence factory. The resulting legal fight ended with a unanimous supreme court order forcing Nixon to cough up the tapes, which in turn forced him out of office rather than face impeachment.

For his trouble, Butterfield says he was quietly purged from his later job running the FAA under Gerald Ford — because in American politics, telling the truth about presidential crimes is patriotic in theory and a firing offense in practice. He spent the rest of his life calling Nixon what Nixon was — “not an honest man” and “a crook” — and admitted he’d been “cheering” when the resignation finally landed. Imagine: a Republican aide who exposes presidential criminality, helps end a corrupt administration, and then lives long enough to see a future GOP decide that the real lesson of Watergate is that the tapes should have been deleted faster.

Source: theguardian.com

#killing-democracy#lawlessness#corruption
killing democracy

georgia voters pick which maga avatar gets to cosplay 'representative'

Crowd cheers as Trump’s motorcade passes, celebrating the sacred American tradition of letting one guy in a limo pick their member of Congress.

Crowd cheers as Trump’s motorcade passes, celebrating the sacred American tradition of letting one guy in a limo pick their member of Congress.

Northwest Georgia is holding a special election to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene, who resigned after a totally normal public breakup with Donald Trump over things like releasing Jeffrey Epstein documents and Trump’s sudden fascination with starting wars instead of just tweeting about them. The 14th District has been without representation in Congress, but don’t worry — the real emergency, according to everyone involved, is whether Trump’s endorsement still functions as a golden ticket in the MAGA Hunger Games.

Trump is backing Clay Fuller, a local DA who proudly branded himself a "MAGA warrior" at a Rome, Georgia rally, because nothing says serious governance like pledging fealty to a man who rage-posts foreign policy between golf rounds. Other Republicans are trying the daring line of "I’ll support Trump’s priorities but maybe not turn myself into a full-time Fox News prop," which in this party counts as radical independence. Greene, now out of office and out of the inner Trump circle, is discovering that when you build your entire career on a personality cult, the personality gets to decide when you stop existing.

So voters aren’t really choosing a representative; they’re choosing which flavor of Trumpism they want stamped on their ballot: the officially licensed "endorsed by Trump" brand or the off-label MAGA that dares to suggest the Dear Leader is not the sole owner of the "America First" trademark. Meanwhile, the district’s lack of actual representation in Congress is treated as a minor subplot to the only story that matters in the GOP: will the emperor’s thumbs-up still rule the kingdom, or is the base finally noticing he’s been winging it on tariffs, immigration, and now a war with Iran?

#killing-democracy#fascism
trumps america

trump discovers bold new way to fight hunger: paperwork and poverty

Single mom does the radical socialist act of feeding her kids, and the Trump administration would like a word.

Single mom does the radical socialist act of feeding her kids, and the Trump administration would like a word.

Trump’s "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" — yes, that’s the real name, not a rejected SNL sketch — just quietly changed SNAP rules so that parents with kids 14 and up have to meet work requirements or risk losing food stamps. Mara, a single mom in Minnesota with two teenagers, is already spending her days job hunting, juggling overdue bills, and figuring out which possessions to pawn. Now she gets a bonus level of the American Dream: wondering how to buy groceries if the government cuts off the only program keeping food in her house. Previously, parents with kids under 18 were exempt from the 80-hour-a-month work/volunteer/training requirement. Trump’s crew simply shaved that down to 14, because when a kid becomes a teenager, clearly they unlock their secret power to eat less. Policy designers in DC call this "personal responsibility"; normal people call it "we’re going to starve your family unless you can navigate a maze of low-wage jobs and red tape while also raising children." Up to 2.4 million people a month could lose benefits under these rules, but don’t worry, somewhere a Heritage Foundation fellow just got a raise. Mara won’t even give NPR her last name because she’s worried that admitting she needs help feeding her kids will make employers toss her resume. That’s the beauty of Trump-era social policy: you’re shamed if you ask for help, punished if you qualify for it, and blamed when the system pushes you off a cliff. But hey, at least the bill has a big, beautiful name.

Source: npr.org

#trumps-america#healthcare#killing-democracy
killing democracy

trump frees credit bureaus from the tyranny of being wrong

Experian and TransUnion heroically defend their right to be wrong while the Trump CFPB stands guard to make sure no consumer accidentally gets help.

Experian and TransUnion heroically defend their right to be wrong while the Trump CFPB stands guard to make sure no consumer accidentally gets help.

The Trump administration looked at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — the agency that forced credit bureaus to fix life-ruining errors — and decided the real problem in America was too much consumer protection. Enter Russell Vought, professional wrecking ball, who took over as acting CFPB director in 2025 and promptly slammed the brakes on nearly all agency work, tried to fire most of the staff, froze investigations, and helpfully dropped enforcement actions against, among others, TransUnion. One of the new lawyers leading this regulatory bonfire? A former Experian attorney. Regulatory capture isn’t a bug, it’s the onboarding process.

With the cop taken off the beat, Experian and TransUnion did what any responsible corporate citizen would do under Trump: they stopped fixing problems. Experian went from resolving nearly 20% of complaints in consumers’ favor in 2024 to under 1% the next year, while TransUnion’s relief rate fell by about half. Meanwhile, over 2.7 million credit reporting complaints have gone unanswered since Trump’s 2025 inauguration, leaving people unable to get housing, jobs, or loans because some algorithm decided they owe someone else’s $240,000 student loan. The administration’s solution was to help the bureaus lobby for shunting people away from the transparent CFPB complaint system into the companies’ own black box processes, where outcomes aren’t public at all. Truly a golden age for anyone who thinks the Constitution guarantees life, liberty, and the right of Experian to never admit a mistake.

Source: propublica.org

#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
imperialism

trump exports freedom to iran via high‑explosive democracy

Trump, Netanyahu, and Pahlavi audition their latest regime-change reboot: now with 100% more dead civilians and the same old shah-branded merchandise.

Trump, Netanyahu, and Pahlavi audition their latest regime-change reboot: now with 100% more dead civilians and the same old shah-branded merchandise.

Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have finally found a human rights strategy they can both get behind: bomb first, eulogize freedom later. As US-Israeli strikes hammer Iran under the very subtle brand name "Lion’s Roar", thousands of civilians are dead, including more than 150 schoolgirls likely killed by a US strike. Naturally, the man billed as the savior of the Iranian people is Reza Pahlavi, the shah’s son, who responded to all this carnage by tweeting heartfelt condolences — to the families of three dead Americans — while Iran buries its children.

Inside Iran, people who have survived the Islamic Republic’s prisons and firing squads are being told by Trump, Netanyahu, and Pahlavi to "rise up" and "take over your government" — from beneath falling bombs. The regime, which already executes activists as supposed US or Israeli agents, now gets to point at the airstrikes and say, "See? Foreign collaborators." Tens of thousands of protesters have already been killed, more than 50,000 arrested, including hundreds of children, but Washington’s reality show president keeps hitting the "uprising" button like it’s a broken elevator.

Meanwhile, parts of the monarchist diaspora are cheering the air war like it’s the Super Bowl, waving the shah’s old flag and chanting about killing mullahs, leftists, and Mojahedin — the same people the current regime has been executing for decades. The US and Israel don’t seem terrified of the dictatorship; they seem terrified of Iranians overthrowing it on their own, without a pre-installed king or a Pentagon logo. So the world’s most freedom-loving war machine is carefully managing regime change from above, while the people under the bombs are told they’re either with the foreign-backed saviors or with the torturers who run their prisons. Truly, American liberation has never looked so much like mass murder from 30,000 feet.
#imperialism#killing-democracy#national-security
national security

trump discovers new iranian weapons system: vibes-based tomahawks

Trump explains the Iran war using the same research methodology he used for COVID: none.

Trump explains the Iran war using the same research methodology he used for COVID: none.

Nothing reassures a country ‘amid Iran war’ like a Trump press conference built entirely out of vibes, guesswork, and whatever he half-heard on cable news. Standing at the podium, Trump confidently claims Iran has Tomahawk missiles — a U.S. weapon system — and, minor detail, offers zero evidence. Who needs intel briefings when you have pure, uncut improvisation? Meanwhile, he insists Vladimir Putin wants to be ‘helpful’ in the Middle East, which is exactly what you say when you’ve outsourced U.S. foreign policy to the guy who keeps your kompromat folder in a climate‑controlled vault. As he free-associates about war, oil, and markets sliding into a ditch, the global economy reacts like it’s watching a drunk guy juggle lit matches in a fireworks factory. While Israel hits Iranian oil facilities and analysts try to explain missile ranges and escalation risks like adults, the American president is on live TV rewriting weapons inventories and reality itself. Actual national security experts talk about drones and deterrence; Trump talks about imaginary Tomahawks and how everything is ‘very under control.’ The only thing truly under control is the steady erosion of competent governance, as U.S. war policy gets made in real time by a man who treats facts like optional DLC.
#national-security#killing-democracy#full-stupid