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The Trump Presidency Timeline

Documenting the chaos since day one. 2113 entries and counting.

killing democracy

trump’s ice discovers the first amendment has a palestine exception

Police face down students at Columbia while the free-speech warriors in Washington cheer on the riot gear and call it ‘protecting the marketplace of ideas.’

Police face down students at Columbia while the free-speech warriors in Washington cheer on the riot gear and call it ‘protecting the marketplace of ideas.’

The Trump administration has apparently discovered a new constitutional doctrine: the Palestine Exception, where the First Amendment, due process, and basic human decency all mysteriously time out the second a Palestinian opens their mouth in public. Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist and Columbia grad, was arrested by ICE for the high crime of political advocacy, held for months, released, and is still being targeted for deportation. His friend Leqaa Kordia, another Palestinian activist, has spent nearly a year in ICE detention in Texas, including her second Ramadan behind bars, where the government that won’t shut up about “religious freedom” can’t even manage to provide halal food.

This isn’t immigration enforcement; it’s a speech-policing side hustle for an administration that treats Palestinians as a legal glitch to be patched out of the system. Khalil lays it out: when the subject is Palestine, due process is suspended, academic freedom is smashed, and constitutional protections evaporate like they were written in disappearing ink. The message from Trump’s DHS is simple: protest genocide, name U.S.-backed Israeli atrocities out loud, and you too can experience America’s proud tradition of indefinite detention in a fluorescent-lit warehouse.

The article sketches the full architecture of punishment: refugees whose families have already survived dispossession, occupation, and mass killing are now caged in Louisiana and Texas for daring to remember out loud. Their existence – educated, visible, ungrateful for “aid corridors” and “fragile ceasefires” – is treated as a national security threat. While the administration preaches about “campus antisemitism” and “law and order,” it’s quietly building a parallel system where the Constitution is optional and the only speech that’s truly free is the kind that flatters U.S. foreign policy.

Source: theguardian.com

#killing-democracy#lawlessness#anti-immigration
killing democracy

shut up or ship out

America’s new free-speech council: Pam Bondi, Marco Rubio, and Kristi Noem, seen here contemplating which researchers to deport for the crime of reading the First Amendment too literally.

America’s new free-speech council: Pam Bondi, Marco Rubio, and Kristi Noem, seen here contemplating which researchers to deport for the crime of reading the First Amendment too literally.

The Trump administration has apparently discovered a bold new interpretation of the First Amendment: it only applies to people we like. A new lawsuit from Columbia’s Knight First Amendment Institute and Protect Democracy alleges that Trump, Marco Rubio’s State Department, Pam Bondi’s Justice Department, and Kristi Noem’s DHS are running an official policy to deny visas to – or deport – noncitizen researchers who study social media, fact-checking, or so-called “censorship” online. Translation: if your work exposes disinformation or platform abuse, congratulations, you’re now a national security threat.

Researchers on H-1Bs, green cards, and other visas are reportedly canceling travel, scrubbing op-eds, and shelving books because they’re afraid that one peer-reviewed article on disinformation might get them tossed into detention and then onto a one-way flight out of the country. Meanwhile a State Department spokesperson, bravely anonymous, explains that “a visa is a privilege, not a right,” and that the U.S. doesn’t have to “suffer the presence” of people who allegedly “deny our citizens their Constitutional rights” – by studying how lies spread online. So the government screams about Big Tech “censorship,” then uses immigration law to censor the people studying it. Freedom, but make it deportable.

Source: npr.org

#killing-democracy#fascism
imperialism

fox & friends goes full dr. strangelove at the pentagon

America’s ‘secretary of war’ explains that more dead troops and bombed schools just mean our resolve is strong and our gravity bombs are working as designed.

America’s ‘secretary of war’ explains that more dead troops and bombed schools just mean our resolve is strong and our gravity bombs are working as designed.

Pete Hegseth, the self-branded "secretary of war" and former Fox News couch ornament, went on 60 Minutes to calmly explain that yes, more Americans will die in Trump’s Iran adventure, but that’s just the price of "advancing American interests" and "protecting American lives"—which currently includes getting seven reservists killed in Kuwait by an Iranian drone strike. The message to military families: steel your spines, your kids are now inspirational props for Operation Epic Fury, a name that sounds like it was A/B tested on Xbox Live.

Having already promised "death and destruction from the sky all day long," Hegseth now brags that the bombing of Iran—3,000 targets and counting—is "only just the beginning" and that the US and Israel’s combined air forces haven’t even started the really fun part with 500lb, 1,000lb, and 2,000lb bombs. This is all totally not a regime-change war, he swears, even though the former Ayatollah is dead and Trump is demanding Iran’s "unconditional surrender" like he’s role‑playing Patton on Truth Social.

On the home front, Hegseth casually contradicts House speaker Mike Johnson’s fantasy that the US is "not at war" with Iran, because apparently even this administration can’t keep its propaganda straight. Meanwhile, Trump is blaming Iran for a deadly airstrike on an Iranian girls’ school that US investigators strongly suspect was done by US forces, while new footage shows what looks awfully like a Tomahawk missile in the neighborhood. Hegseth’s brave stance when pressed on the likely US strike on a school full of children: it’s "being investigated"—the Beltway version of hitting mute on a war crime.

Source: theguardian.com

#imperialism#killing-democracy
killing democracy

operation buckeye: now with extra racism and free deportation to a war zone

ICE and rightwing influencers bravely defending America from the existential threat of Somali-owned daycares in Ohio.

ICE and rightwing influencers bravely defending America from the existential threat of Somali-owned daycares in Ohio.

Donald Trump spent December ranting that Somali immigrants are "ripping off the country," and, like clockwork, ICE rolled out "Operation Buckeye" to show the boss they can turn a racist soundbite into a full-blown terror campaign. Somali-owned daycares and businesses in Columbus now get daily drive-bys from federal agents and rightwing clout-chasers who sit in their cars telling U.S. residents they’re "all going back" while filming content for the world’s bleakest YouTube channel. One Somali-owned daycare passed state inspections, then got rewarded with harassment, a break-in, and customers too scared to show up.

Because nothing says "limited government" like turning child care into a surveillance state pilot project, Ohio Republicans are pushing a bill to put cameras in every publicly funded daycare, while also trying to force local cops into ICE’s dragnet. Columbus’s city council, run by people who’ve apparently met the Constitution, responded by banning local involvement in federal immigration enforcement without approval. Meanwhile, rightwing influencers loiter outside Somali community offices taking photos like low-budget secret police, and community leaders are getting death threats for the crime of helping refugees navigate American bureaucracy.

The Trump administration is also thoughtfully ending Temporary Protected Status for about 2,500 Somalis who’ve lived here for decades, so they can be shipped back to a country the U.S. State Department literally labels "do not travel" due to terrorism, civil unrest, and famine. Somalia is one of the poorest countries on Earth, 6.5 million people there face acute hunger, and the U.S. is still conducting airstrikes against al-Shabaab — but sure, let’s pretend deporting daycare owners and health workers into that is just "enforcing the law" and not state-sanctioned cruelty with a paperwork trail.
#killing-democracy#anti-immigration#racism
forever grifting

trump’s illegal tariffs were the friends we overbilled along the way

Small business owners stare at spreadsheets of illegal Trump tariffs, trying to decide whether to hire a lawyer or just frame the numbers as modern art titled ‘American Trade Policy’.

Small business owners stare at spreadsheets of illegal Trump tariffs, trying to decide whether to hire a lawyer or just frame the numbers as modern art titled ‘American Trade Policy’.

The supreme court has now confirmed what every small business owner’s bank account figured out years ago: Trump’s big, beautiful tariffs were illegal, and the government may owe up to $175bn in refunds. In theory, that’s justice. In practice, it’s a Kafkaesque scavenger hunt where the prize is maybe getting back a fraction of the money the administration shook out of you—after a few years of litigation and an invoice from your lawyer that looks like a ransom note. Across the country, small businesses are describing the Trump tariff era like a slow-motion robbery. A lighting shop in LA watched all its brands hike prices 12% while their showroom renovation money was quietly repurposed to pay surprise five‑figure “America First” tariffs. A Texas furniture maker got hammered by higher prices on imported lumber and hardware that literally don’t exist in the US, while a Minnesota outdoor gear company saw duty fees rocket from 18% to 46% and had to raise prices up to 20% just to stay alive. One livestock health company ate a million dollars in extra costs in a year before finally giving up and raising prices. Now that courts have ruled the tariffs were collected illegally and ordered refunds, you might think the government would just…pay them. Adorable. Instead, small business owners are tracking years of illegal tariffs in spreadsheets and openly admitting they’ll probably never see a dime, because the legal process is too complex, too expensive, and this administration has been "duplicitous" enough that they assume any refund effort will be a time‑wasting trap. Trump casually predicting this will be tied up in court for "the next five years" is less a warning than a confession: the grift never ends, it just compounds interest.
#forever-grifting#lawlessness
imperialism

trump discovers cuba, decides it also needs to starve for freedom

Woman in Havana bravely attempts the radical act of existing while the Trump administration tests how many blackouts it takes to achieve regime change.

Woman in Havana bravely attempts the radical act of existing while the Trump administration tests how many blackouts it takes to achieve regime change.

While the world was still processing the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro and the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei, Trump apparently looked at a map, noticed Cuba still existed, and declared it an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the United States. He slapped a national emergency on Havana and threatened tariffs to stop ships from delivering fuel, because nothing screams national security like making sure a Caribbean island can’t keep the lights on. Venezuela and Mexico, helpfully motivated by the whole “US attack on Venezuela” thing, promptly halted oil exports to Cuba, and now ordinary Cubans are enjoying 18-hour daily blackouts courtesy of American foreign policy.

On the ground, it’s textbook humanitarian cruelty dressed up as democracy promotion. Gasoline and diesel sales to the public: gone. Airline routes: cancelled. Inflation: spiking. The peso: tanking. People wake up in the middle of the night to cook, charge phones, and do chores in the few hours when power exists. Bakeries in Guantánamo are running on firewood, chicken prices are detonating, and community kitchens struggle to feed the poorest because Trump already kneecapped remittances and money transfers. Even Cubans who despise their own government don’t buy Washington’s line: everyone the reporter spoke to – teachers, farmers, small business owners, local officials – rejected the US measures outright. The blockade isn’t winning hearts and minds; it’s just unifying people against the country cutting off their power.

Meanwhile, Havana scrambles to privatize some state enterprises and lean into solar just to keep the country from collapsing, while Washington congratulates itself for being ‘tough on communism’ by making grandmothers cook by candlelight. Decades of sanctions already failed to topple the Cuban government, so naturally Trump’s answer is to double down and create a new “special period” that many Cubans say feels even worse. Regime change is once again less about changing regimes and more about proving the United States can still flip the switch on other people’s basic survival – all under the noble banner of freedom and tariffs.

Source: theguardian.com

#imperialism#killing-democracy
killing democracy

trump dumps 'unsafe' anthropic for refusing to build skynet for ice

Artist’s rendering of the Trump Pentagon’s dream product: an AI that can violate the Fourth Amendment 10,000 times a second, but efficiently.

Artist’s rendering of the Trump Pentagon’s dream product: an AI that can violate the Fourth Amendment 10,000 times a second, but efficiently.

The Pentagon, under Trump’s guiding hand, has decided that the real "security threat" to America isn’t mass domestic surveillance — it’s Anthropic saying no to mass domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons. So the administration slapped a "supply chain risk" label on the company for the unforgivable crime of not wanting to help the government build an AI-powered panopticon that hoovers up your location, browsing history, and political associations.

Instead of updating the law to match technology, the Trump crew is doing what it does best: declaring anything it wants to do "lawful" by sheer executive vibes and then throwing AI at bulk-purchased commercial data to create the largest set of domestic dossiers this side of a dystopian sci‑fi novel. ICE and DHS are already buying cellphone location data, license plate records, and faceprints, and now the plan is to supercharge all that with AI so they can track immigrants, protesters, and anyone inconvenient at scale — but don’t worry, it’s "just" unclassified commercial data.

OpenAI, briefly auditioning for the role of "slightly less evil contractor," rushed in to take Anthropic’s place, then hastily patched its Pentagon deal with some civil-liberties language full of holes big enough to drive a fusion center through. The article’s quaint suggestion is that maybe, just maybe, our privacy and Fourth Amendment rights shouldn’t depend on which tech CEO got yelled at on Fox News last night, and that Congress should pass things like the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act. Bold concept: rights set by law instead of by Trump, the Pentagon, and a rotating cast of AI billionaires.
#killing-democracy#fascism
imperialism

pentagon plays battleship with 'narcoterrorists', hits due process instead

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth carefully explains that blowing up small boats without presenting evidence is totally fine because Trump said the magic words "armed conflict."

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth carefully explains that blowing up small boats without presenting evidence is totally fine because Trump said the magic words "armed conflict."

The Trump administration's "war on narcoterrorists" has now racked up at least 157 dead people in small boats, and the Pentagon's latest contribution is blowing up six men on an alleged drug-smuggling vessel in the Eastern Pacific. Evidence there were actually drugs? Classified, naturally. What we do get is a cool video on X of a tiny boat getting vaporized, because nothing says "rules-based international order" like turning maritime stop-and-search into live-action Call of Duty content.

President Donald Trump has unilaterally decided the U.S. is in an "armed conflict" with Latin American cartels, which is convenient, because armed conflict comes with way fewer pesky things like warrants, trials, or proof. U.S. Southern Command has carried out more than 40 known strikes on small boats in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean, while offering about as much transparency as a Mar-a-Lago classified documents storage room. Critics keep asking awkward questions about legality and effectiveness, especially since the fentanyl killing Americans mostly comes over land from Mexico, not from random boats the Navy is turning into confetti.

The administration is now trying to franchise the concept, urging Latin American leaders to join in on the extrajudicial fun and even teaming up with Ecuador for joint military operations against "organized crime groups." This is all happening while Trump is also busy waging a war on Iran, because if you're going to ignore Congress and international law, why limit yourself to one theater? The blowback got louder after it emerged that the U.S. killed survivors of the first boat strike with a follow-up attack; Republicans called it legal and necessary, while legal experts suggested the more technical term might be "murder" or possibly "war crime." So yes, the Trump presidency is going great: we've reinvented the drug war as offshore drone roulette, and the only thing being smuggled reliably is accountability.

Source: npr.org

#imperialism#lawlessness#killing-democracy
killing democracy

fox news deepfakes basic reality to protect trump’s golf merch

Fox News bravely shields viewers from the unspeakable horror of seeing the commander-in-chief salute war dead in his own golf hat by replacing reality with a rerun.

Fox News bravely shields viewers from the unspeakable horror of seeing the commander-in-chief salute war dead in his own golf hat by replacing reality with a rerun.

Fox News briefly committed journalism on Saturday by airing footage of Donald Trump saluting six flag-draped coffins at Dover while wearing a Trump-brand golf hat – then apparently realized it had violated network policy against making Dear Leader look bad. Less than an hour later, the honest video vanished and was replaced with old December footage of bare-headed Trump at a different dignified transfer, slapped with a fresh "recorded Saturday" label like expired meat getting a new sell-by date. The weekend then turned into a B-roll laundering operation. Fox & Friends hosts somberly intoned about the six soldiers killed in Kuwait while playing the Syria ceremony tape, complete with an on-screen chyron falsely dating it to Saturday and magically erasing Melania and the Vances, who hadn’t even been at the original event. After critics and "Bad Fox Graphics" accounts pointed out that the network was literally lying about what viewers were seeing, Fox issued a dainty "we deeply regret the error" and… kept the mislabeled video on its website. By Sunday afternoon, the solution was pure state-TV genius: use actual Saturday footage, but crop it so you only see the flag-draped coffins and not the president treating a dignified transfer like a product-placement opportunity for his 45/47 golf merch, which he then wore to golf the next day. This is the same network that looped Joe Biden glancing at his watch in 2021 like it was the Zapruder film. Respect for the troops, it turns out, is sacred – unless it conflicts with the needs of the Trump retail brand and the propaganda department assigned to protect it.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
killing democracy

trump threatens national tantrum until congress makes voting harder

President Trump, shown here mid-air and mid-tantrum, explains that democracy will continue just as soon as it stops letting the wrong people vote.

President Trump, shown here mid-air and mid-tantrum, explains that democracy will continue just as soon as it stops letting the wrong people vote.

Donald Trump, currently cosplaying as a constitutional scholar from the back of Air Force One, has announced he will simply stop signing bills until Congress passes his latest voter suppression fever dream, the so-called Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act. The bill would radically overhaul voter registration by forcing eligible voters to cough up passports, birth certificates, and photo IDs — to solve the very real and urgent problem of a crime that is already illegal and statistically negligible, but tragically insufficient at keeping Democrats from winning elections.

On Truth Social, Trump declared, "I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed," essentially threatening a one-man legislative strike unless Congress agrees to help him kneecap the electorate before the 2026 midterms. He also cheered on Fox News calls to nuke the Senate filibuster — something he loves when it helps him entrench minority rule, and hates when Democrats suggest using it for, say, health care or voting rights. Senate Majority Leader John Thune is still pretending the filibuster is sacred, while Chuck Schumer has responded with a polite version of "enjoy your shutdown, buddy," promising Democrats won't touch the SAVE Act.

The fun twist: if Congress stays in session, bills become law after 10 days without Trump’s signature anyway, which means the big strong authoritarian move here might amount to the legislative equivalent of holding his breath until he turns orange-er. Meanwhile, no one at the White House will say whether this little extortion gambit applies to funding DHS or the Iran war supplemental — because nothing says responsible governance like threatening to jam the entire federal government until you can make it harder for people to vote you out.

#killing-democracy#fascism#lawlessness
anti immigration

republican discovers stephen miller is bad, years after the bodies

Stephen Miller, seen here wondering why everyone is suddenly mad about the policies he bragged about on television for a decade.

Stephen Miller, seen here wondering why everyone is suddenly mad about the policies he bragged about on television for a decade.

Thom Tillis, who has apparently just now regained consciousness in year eight of the Trump era, went on CNN to announce that Stephen Miller is a "big problem" in the administration and should go. The architect of family separation, Muslim bans, and whatever that Greenland fever dream was is, according to Tillis, obsessed with form over substance and wields "outsized influence" over cabinet operations. So yes, the guy who helped design the cruelty is still running the cruelty, and the revelation is being treated like a bold new insight rather than the political version of noticing the house has been on fire since 2017.

The senator is backing Markwayne Mullin to replace Kristi "American Citizens Are Terrorists" Noem at DHS, insisting Mullin will heroically resist Miller’s mind control, despite the minor detail that Mullin is already parroting the same lies about federal agents killing Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Meanwhile, Hakeem Jeffries is out here stating the obvious: swapping out one hardline loyalist for another doesn’t fix a Department that uses taxpayer money to "brutalize or in some cases kill American citizens." But sure, let’s call it progress when a retiring Republican finally says out loud that Stephen Miller, the man who wanted to buy Greenland and militarize ICE into a domestic terror machine, might not be the best guy to let run immigration policy.

The government is still partially shut down, DHS still isn’t funded, ICE is still behaving like a rogue paramilitary outfit, and the big Republican reform on the table is… firing Stephen Miller, maybe, eventually, now that it’s politically safe. The bar is not on the floor; the bar has tunneled several stories down and applied for ICE funding.

#anti-immigration#killing-democracy
lawlessness

epstein fallout reaches mar-a-lago memories department

NBC rolls footage of Congress pretending they might actually make a billionaire answer questions about his pedophile friend.

NBC rolls footage of Congress pretending they might actually make a billionaire answer questions about his pedophile friend.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee are now politely asking Donald Trump to sit down and chat under oath about what he knew, saw, or did in the Jeffrey Epstein orbit, following the release of new testimonies and documents. The request covers his interactions with Epstein, any visits to the financier’s homes or properties, and what exactly was going on during those "we were just neighbors" years Trump suddenly can't remember.

Republicans, having spent years pretending Epstein was exclusively a Democratic scandal, are now discovering that the guest list for America’s Worst Social Circle was extremely bipartisan and extremely rich. Trump, of course, has a long public record of bragging about knowing Epstein and his "preference" for younger women, which the GOP would now like everyone to consider an unfortunate figure of speech and not a blazing red flag.

So we’re back in familiar territory: Congress asking questions about powerful men and sexual abuse, the right screaming "witch hunt," and Trump world insisting that any subpoenas are just part of a vast conspiracy to criminalize the sacred American tradition of hanging out with sex traffickers on private jets. Accountability for the rich and connected remains theoretical; the hearings, however, will be televised.

Source: today.com

#lawlessness#forever-grifting
killing democracy

kari lake, acting director of absolutely nothing

Kari Lake explains that she is, in fact, the acting law now — moments before a Reagan-appointed judge disagrees in 30 pages of constitutional footnotes.

Kari Lake explains that she is, in fact, the acting law now — moments before a Reagan-appointed judge disagrees in 30 pages of constitutional footnotes.

Kari Lake just found out the hard way that you can’t cosplay as a Senate-confirmed official. A federal judge ruled that Lake unlawfully ran the US Agency for Global Media — the outfit that oversees Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, and other pesky "journalism" operations that occasionally tell the truth about authoritarian governments, including ours.

Trump’s team tried to defund the agency, then handed Lake the keys anyway, Senate be damned. From July 31 to November 19 she rampaged through USAGM, cutting contracts and axing over 1,000 staff while operating in a role the court says violated both the Appointments Clause and the Vacancies Act. The judge — Reagan-appointed Royce Lamberth, so spare us the “woke Biden judge” routine — ruled that everything she did in that period has no force or effect. Translation: your mass layoff speedrun doesn’t count if you were never the boss.

Lake responded like any serious public servant confronted with a detailed constitutional ruling: by calling the decision “outrageous,” promising an appeal, and amplifying a post mocking the judge’s weight and blood sugar. Bold strategy to argue legal nuance by fat-shaming a Reagan appointee who just cited a Third Circuit precedent invalidating another Trump crony appointment (Alina Habba in New Jersey). Who needs law when you have insults and X reposts?

Meanwhile, the VOA journalists who sued — including White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara — say they feel vindicated and are now trying to rebuild the agency so it can go back to producing journalism instead of audition tapes for state TV. Congress, for its part, responded to Trump and Lake’s attempted demolition by appropriating half a billion dollars more than Lake asked for. The authoritarian takeover of US international broadcasting is not going well, but the commitment to bumbling, unconstitutional sabotage remains truly world-class.

Source: theguardian.com

#killing-democracy#unconstitutional
imperialism

trump auditions for 'supreme leader of everywhere'

Iran’s foreign minister politely pretending it’s normal that the U.S. president is trying to cast Iran’s next leader like a failed ‘Apprentice’ reboot.

Iran’s foreign minister politely pretending it’s normal that the U.S. president is trying to cast Iran’s next leader like a failed ‘Apprentice’ reboot.

Trump, apparently bored with merely trying to overturn elections at home, has now helpfully informed the world that he’ll be personally selecting the next leader of Iran. Because when you’ve already tried to pick America’s president by ignoring votes, why not expand the franchise to foreign regimes too? Iran’s foreign minister, in the Meet the Press interview, is left doing diplomatic gymnastics around the fact that the President of the United States is talking about regime change like he’s announcing a new Mar-a-Lago golf pro. The interview doubles as a highlight reel of Trump-era foreign policy: open talk of picking other countries’ leaders, a shooting war with Iran driving skyrocketing oil prices, and the U.S. government treating international law like the terms of service on a free app. While Iran’s top diplomat tries to sound measured about partnerships with Russia and the chaos unleashed by the conflict, the subtext is clear: Washington is being run by a guy who thinks the world map is a reality show casting board. So yes, the administration has managed to turn ‘respecting national sovereignty’ into an optional side quest while nudging us closer to permanent war and economic pain at home. But don’t worry, Trump says he’ll pick the right guy for Iran. The last time he picked a leader, it was Mike Pence, and even that ended with a mob hunting the guy through the Capitol.
#imperialism#killing-democracy
forever grifting

trump epa repeals climate reality, accidentally helps states sue big oil

Trump’s EPA carefully explaining that greenhouse gases aren’t dangerous while the background slowly catches fire.

Trump’s EPA carefully explaining that greenhouse gases aren’t dangerous while the background slowly catches fire.

The Trump EPA has officially decided that greenhouse gases are no longer legally "endangering" anyone, which is a bold position for an administration whose main climate policy is "good luck out there." By repealing the endangerment finding that gave the federal government authority to regulate planet-heating pollution, they tried to kneecap climate rules and hand big oil a regulatory hall pass. Unfortunately for them, Trump’s DOJ is also in court insisting that only the federal government can regulate these emissions, not states like Vermont and New York that passed "climate superfund" laws to make fossil fuel companies pay for the damage they caused.

Legal advocates are now politely pointing out that the administration can’t simultaneously claim "we alone control greenhouse gas regulation" and "actually we have no authority to regulate greenhouse gases at all" without sounding like a drunk constitutional law exam. Vermont, New York, and a growing list of states are using Trump’s own rollback as a crowbar to pry open the courthouse doors and keep their climate superfund laws alive, while cities and states suing oil companies for decades of climate deception are eyeing the hypocrisy like it’s Exhibit A.

EPA insists the Clean Air Act still magically preempts state laws even after it torched its own authority, which is a fascinating theory of federal supremacy: the power to do nothing, forever, and stop anyone else from doing something. Meanwhile, farmers and communities are eating the costs of extreme weather while the administration scrambles to protect Exxon’s feelings. If this is what "energy dominance" looks like, it’s mostly the federal government dominating itself in court.

Source: theguardian.com

#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
corruption

from russian money man to florida democrat, sure why not

Lev Parnas and Donald Trump giving thumbs‑up, presumably to acknowledge a successful Russian‑funded influence op or just the general collapse of campaign finance law.

Lev Parnas and Donald Trump giving thumbs‑up, presumably to acknowledge a successful Russian‑funded influence op or just the general collapse of campaign finance law.

Lev Parnas, the guy who helped funnel Russian oligarch cash into Trumpworld and then personally lobbied Donald Trump at a donor dinner to fire the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, is now running for Congress as a Democrat in Florida. Because the Trump era never ends, it just gets a new party label and a campaign website. Parnas, fresh off a 20‑month sentence for campaign finance crimes involving a cool $325,000 to Trump’s pet super PAC, is now pitching himself as the reformed cult escapee who’s seen the swamp from the inside and wants a badge and a keycard this time.

He’s leaning hard into the redemption arc: he calls Trumpworld a "cult," says he "woke up" while being pulled into one of the biggest political scandals in modern history, and now vows to "take the fight" to Congress. Translation: the guy who helped Rudy Giuliani try to manufacture dirt on Joe Biden from Ukrainian officials now wants to sit on the committees that investigate people who do that. Meanwhile, the state of Florida, in its ongoing performance-art phase, will not let Parnas vote because he’s a felon, but is totally fine with him writing the laws.

Parnas’s campaign site cheerfully acknowledges his "highly public challenges"—which is an elegant way of saying "federal convictions and an attempted impeachment side quest"—and promises that Washington insiders are terrified of him having subpoena power. Given that his last major contribution to democracy was helping set up Trump’s "do us a favor though" shakedown call to Zelenskyy, they might actually be, just not for the reasons he thinks. As a bonus subplot, fellow Ukraine‑impeachment character Alex Vindman is also running for office in Florida, setting up the most on‑the‑nose spin‑off of the Trump presidency yet: "Impeachment: The Extended Universe."

Source: theguardian.com

#corruption#killing-democracy
killing democracy

good news: the democratic collapse already happened

Artist’s rendering of American democracy: a crumbling building labeled "institutions" with a giant TRUMP sign bolted on top and donors selling VIP tours out front.

Artist’s rendering of American democracy: a crumbling building labeled "institutions" with a giant TRUMP sign bolted on top and donors selling VIP tours out front.

American liberals are still frantically refreshing their phones waiting for "the moment" democracy collapses, while Eric Reinhart dryly points out that the moment was…several decades ago, and now we’re just living in the rubble. For tens of millions of people stuck with predatory debt, militarized policing, and vanishing public goods, the whole "self-governing citizens" thing has been missing for ages. For the donor class and their favorite orange executive, however, this same system delivers insulation, impunity and a very cozy oligarchy to cry about on cable news whenever anyone says "taxes".

The article skewers the comforting fantasy that Trump is some wild historical aberration menacing a once-functional democracy, rather than the logical product of a system built on settler colonialism, slavery, mass incarceration, voter suppression, and corporate capture blessed by the Supreme Court. The bipartisan demolition crew—Reagan through Obama, Biden, and Trump—deregulated, privatized, and union-busted the public sphere into dust, then acted shocked when fascist politics sprouted in the ruins they made. Now the same elite class tells us the only solution is to "restore norms" and donate to their PACs, because nothing says "vibrant democracy" like begging unelected billionaires and federal judges for basic human rights.

Reinhart’s core point: as long as we pretend collapse is a future event to heroically prevent, we’ll keep clinging to the very institutions and procedures that already failed, leaving Trumpism and its friends free to keep strip-mining what’s left. Genuine democracy would require actual public infrastructure—housing, healthcare, childcare, schools, libraries, unions, public media—that lets people experience a shared fate instead of life as a Hunger Games spinoff sponsored by Goldman Sachs. But that would mean confronting the fact that our current order isn’t a fragile democracy on the brink; it’s an oligarchy with elections, and Trump is just the guy who stopped pretending otherwise.

Source: theguardian.com

#killing-democracy#oligarchy
trumps america

trump’s america now requires a copay

American therapist prepares for another client whose chief symptom is "lives under Trump".

American therapist prepares for another client whose chief symptom is "lives under Trump".

Turns out the real growth industry of the Trump era isn’t coal, it’s therapy. As immigration agents shoot residents in Minneapolis and detain 5-year-olds like Liam Ramos, people like Utah professor Rebecca McFaul wake up every day with what queer scholar Ann Cvetkovich politely calls “political depression” and what normal humans might call “my government is a horror movie and I can’t find the exit.” Therapists report that politics is no longer background noise; it’s the whole diagnosis. The election cycle, the raids, the shootings, the MAGA influencers ranting about the dangers of compassion – that’s the presenting problem, not some vague "work stress."

Platforms like Zocdoc and Spring Health spike in demand right after Trump’s 2024 win, universities scramble to set up "coping spaces" with Lego sets and coloring books, and mental health researchers calmly explain that politics has become a chronic stressor linked to sleep loss, rage, compulsive doomscrolling, and suicidal thinking. Young, left-leaning, politically engaged people get hit hardest, because of course the folks actually paying attention are the ones melting down. Therapists like Shahem Mclaurin are forced to become part counselor, part community organizer, part emergency responder to state violence, reminding clients that they’re not individually broken – they’re living inside a system that is.

Instead of telling people to just breathe through the fascism, some clinicians are finally saying the quiet part out loud: no, you shouldn’t calmly accept that the world is this fucked up. They’re helping clients see how racism, economic injustice and weaponized cruelty are not personal failures but structural ones, and trying to channel despair into action and community. Because in Trump’s America, the choice is not really between politics and mental health; it’s between paying for therapy now, or waiting until the next ICE raid, Supreme Court ruling, or executive tantrum finishes the job. The state breaks you, and then the wellness industry bills your insurance for putting you back together.

Source: theguardian.com

#trumps-america#killing-democracy
imperialism

trump to uk: we don't need your help, just your bases

Trump explains that the US doesn’t need British help, just their runways, airspace, and geopolitical obedience.

Trump explains that the US doesn’t need British help, just their runways, airspace, and geopolitical obedience.

Donald Trump is very bravely telling Britain he doesn’t need their help in the war he’s already declaring "won" — while simultaneously flying US bombers out of UK bases to hit Iran. The man has discovered a new form of alliance: we get your territory, you get public humiliation. On Truth Social, he sneers that the "once Great Ally" is only now thinking about sending carriers, before huffing that the US doesn’t need latecomers to the party he insists is already over. Meanwhile, reality — that boring obstacle to Trumpist foreign policy — reports that four US bombers have already landed at RAF Fairford and started using British bases for "specific and limited defensive" operations. So Starmer’s government is effectively letting Washington run strikes out of UK soil while trying to pretend this is all very narrow and responsible, like a landlord insisting they only rent out the spare room, not the basement torture dungeon. Marco Rubio then pops up at a security conference in Miami to deliver the passive-aggressive Hallmark version of gunboat diplomacy, warning that allies who hesitate when Washington wants to sling missiles around might not get the full loyalty punch card stamped next time. It’s classic Trump-era foreign policy: imperial expectations, zero gratitude, and a constant threat that the friendship bracelet comes with a targeting package.
#imperialism#national-security
imperialism

shield of the americas, brought to you by trump national doral

Trump unveils his new hemispheric security architecture between the 9th and 10th holes, proving that all roads to regional stability run through the pro shop.

Trump unveils his new hemispheric security architecture between the 9th and 10th holes, proving that all roads to regional stability run through the pro shop.

Trump has discovered a bold new venue for hemispheric security strategy: his own Miami-area golf club. Twelve Latin American leaders were summoned to Trump National Doral so the president could announce his "Shield of the Americas" summit, a sort of NATO-for-cartels concept where the entrance fee appears to include greens fees and a photo op. Nothing says "rules-based international order" like convening regional allies in a property you personally profit from while talking about other people’s corruption. The sales pitch: a "counter-cartel coalition" modeled on the war against Isis, because if there’s one thing the region desperately needs, it’s more militarized US adventurism wrapped in counter-narcotics branding. Trump helpfully declared Mexico the "epicenter" of cartel violence and said cartels are "running Mexico"—while praising President Claudia Sheinbaum, who was not invited to this little golf diplomacy cosplay. Apparently the new hemispheric doctrine is: insult your key neighbor, work around their government, then demand regional loyalty anyway. As a warm-up act, the US recently ran a military operation to snatch Venezuela’s former president Nicolás Maduro, now awaiting trial in the US, while Trump gushes over interim president Delcy Rodríguez for "doing a great job working with us"—a phrase that traditionally precedes decades of blowback. He then casually predicts Cuba’s imminent collapse and promises a "great new life" once Havana gets with the program, because nothing has ever gone wrong when Washington starts redesigning Caribbean regimes like a suburban HOA board. To tie the whole thing together, Trump rolled out the "Donroe doctrine"—a Monroe Doctrine knockoff with more branding and fewer scruples—vowing not to allow "hostile foreign influence" near strategic assets like the Panama Canal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio used the occasion to dunk on the UK for not being sufficiently enthusiastic about US strikes in Iran, while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth complained that America has been too focused on "far-flung" borders instead of its own hemisphere. So yes, the administration’s big innovation is to move from forever wars in the Middle East to a golf-club-based security sphere in Latin America, with a side of regime change and a generous helping of self-enrichment.
#imperialism#forever-grifting