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The Trump Presidency Timeline

Documenting the chaos since day one. 2743 entries and counting.

killing democracy

trump’s olympic gender police go for the gold

The IOC prepares for LA 2028 by replacing starting blocks with DNA swab stations, all in the noble spirit of “fairness.”

The IOC prepares for LA 2028 by replacing starting blocks with DNA swab stations, all in the noble spirit of “fairness.”

The International Olympic Committee has proudly rolled out its new Women’s Category, Now With Extra Surveillance™, banning all trans women and many cis women with DSDs from competition, while leaving the men’s category blissfully untouched. To compete as a woman in LA 2028, athletes will need to submit to genetic testing so the IOC can hunt for a magic “real woman” gene, because nothing says fair play like turning women’s sports into a biotech border checkpoint. This isn’t happening in a vacuum: Moira Donegan traces how the Trump administration’s pressure campaign and the right’s trans panic have rocketed from school boards to the Olympics, despite the fact that the number of trans women athletes is microscopic. One openly trans woman has ever competed in the Olympics, came in last, and yet we’re supposed to believe she’s an existential threat to women’s sports. Somehow that “science-based” concern only ever justifies new ways to kick women out of competition and rummage through their chromosomes. Under this regime, the biggest group punished isn’t trans women, it’s cis women whose bodies don’t fit the IOC’s dainty, 1950s fantasy of womanhood. They’ll be disqualified for natural hormone variations, or hounded as secret men if they’re too strong, too fast, or just insufficiently fragile. The Trump-era culture war has successfully exported its core idea to the global stage: womanhood is a gated community policed by labs, bureaucrats, and bigots, and your rights are conditional on how neatly your body flatters their ideology.

Source: theguardian.com

#killing-democracy#racism
killing democracy

trump enters speed-run mode on theocracy

Trump, seen holding a Bible the way one holds a prop they were just handed and told is polling well with evangelicals.

Trump, seen holding a Bible the way one holds a prop they were just handed and told is polling well with evangelicals.

The Founders: separation of church and state. Trump: live studio audience Bible marathon from the Oval Office. The president is joining a week-long "America Reads the Bible" event, taped right in the Oval, to read from 2 Chronicles — the go-to verse for Christian nationalists who think God is basically a constitutional framer with better hair. The reading is timed to the 250th anniversary of US independence, because why celebrate the Enlightenment when you can cosplay as a covenant nation with nuclear weapons? The Trump administration, which theoretically serves a country with a First Amendment, has decided the real founding document is somewhere between the King James Bible and a Turning Point USA merch catalog. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is citing scripture in press briefings and leading prayers at the Pentagon, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio is also getting a slot in the Bible relay. State, Defense, and the presidency are now apparently a joint venture with Hobby Lobby. This holy photo-op arrives as Trump feuds with Pope Leo XIV, who committed the unforgivable sin of pointing out that using religion to justify a war on Iran might be bad. The Pope warned against those who "manipulate religion" for military, economic, and political gain, which is awkward timing for a president who just posted AI fan art of himself as a Jesus-like healer, then claimed he thought it showed him as a doctor. He followed that up with another AI image of Jesus hugging him, because nothing says humility like commissioning your own messiah-themed thirst traps. So yes, the Constitution still technically bars establishing a national religion. But the administration’s working interpretation seems to be: as long as you do it with enough flags, AI Jesus, and Oval Office scripture readings, it’s just "heritage" and not a soft-launch of Christian nationalism from the Resolute Desk.
#killing-democracy#fascism
anti immigration

senate gop moves to put ice on permanent direct debit

Lindsey Graham explains how shutting down DHS is a small price to pay for putting ICE on a years-long subscription plan.

Lindsey Graham explains how shutting down DHS is a small price to pay for putting ICE on a years-long subscription plan.

Senate Republicans, led by Lindsey Graham doing his best impression of a functioning legislator, have unveiled a budget blueprint to shovel an extra $70 billion into Trump’s deportation machine through the end of his second term. Nine weeks into a Department of Homeland Security shutdown of their own making, the GOP has finally found something they’re willing to rush: locking in years of funding for ICE and Border Patrol, the only parts of DHS they actually seem to care about. Instead of negotiating limits on Trump’s immigration crackdown like Democrats keep asking, Republicans are dusting off budget reconciliation — the Senate’s favorite loophole — so they can jam this through without risking a filibuster. The plan is elegantly dystopian: first pass a bill to reopen everything at DHS except ICE and Border Patrol, then ram through a separate, filibuster-proof cash pipeline for those agencies that Democrats can’t touch. Minority rights in the Senate? Cute theory, shame if someone used the rules to bulldoze them for a generational deportation budget. Over in the House, Speaker Mike Johnson has endorsed this two-track strategy, but the Freedom Caucus brain trust is refusing to even reopen DHS until Congress shows “meaningful progress” on guaranteeing long-term enforcement money. So the department stays partially shuttered while Republicans hold basic homeland security hostage to secure a multi-year blank check for raids, detentions, and border militarization. America may not have universal health care, but it will apparently have a fully funded, pre-paid paramilitary immigration force through 2029. Priorities.

Source: nytimes.com

#anti-immigration#killing-democracy
killing democracy

trump doj eyes the southern poverty law center, protects the real victims: white supremacists

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche explains that Americans should be thrilled the president is steering prosecutions like it’s his personal Yelp revenge campaign.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche explains that Americans should be thrilled the president is steering prosecutions like it’s his personal Yelp revenge campaign.

The Southern Poverty Law Center says it’s facing a “serious” threat: a federal criminal investigation under the Trump administration, potentially targeting the group or its employees for the crime of…using confidential informants to infiltrate “extremely violent groups.” You know, the kind of thing law enforcement used to at least pretend to like when the targets were actually dangerous instead of just politically inconvenient. Bryan Fair, the SPLC’s interim CEO, notes that those sources risked their lives and helped the FBI stop extremist violence and save lives over decades of work against white supremacist groups. The Trump DOJ’s response? Instead of cracking down on the extremists, it’s apparently exploring whether to criminally charge the people who exposed them. The legal “hook” is so unclear that even NBC has to politely say, "¯\\(ツ)/¯" in news-speak. Meanwhile, FBI Director Kash Patel proudly announced that the Bureau has “jettisoned all relationships” with SPLC, while Trump’s handpicked Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is under pressure to rack up scalps among organizations the president dislikes. Blanche even told NBC that Americans should be happy Trump is deeply involved in DOJ operations — because nothing says independent justice like a president personally directing prosecutions of his enemies and then shopping for new ones among civil rights groups in Alabama.
#killing-democracy#fascism#lawlessness
killing democracy

america hits rock bottom, keeps digging for trump

Trump studies a devastating new poll and confidently concludes the numbers are wrong, the voters are wrong, and only he is right—so obviously it’s time to start another war and post through it.

Trump studies a devastating new poll and confidently concludes the numbers are wrong, the voters are wrong, and only he is right—so obviously it’s time to start another war and post through it.

Donald Trump’s approval rating has sunk to a second-term low, the Iran war is a moral and economic tire fire, the cost of living is exploding, and yet a solid 37% of Americans look at this adjudicated sexual predator who picked fights with both Iran and the pope and say: "Yes, this seems fine." HL Mencken warned that one day the presidency would perfectly reflect the inner soul of the people; congratulations to everyone who speedran that prophecy. Instead of grappling with the NBC poll showing voters hate his economy and his war, Trump is on Truth Social frantically posting stale, cherry-picked Wall Street Journal numbers like a guy insisting his 2019 Tinder pics are still "basically accurate." As Democrats overperform in special elections and MAGA media knives come out over the Iran disaster, Anthony Scaramucci helpfully explains that Trump has entered the "nihilistic stage" of his political career: polls don’t matter, consequences don’t matter, nothing matters except pure, undiluted vengeance. Which is precisely the problem. Nixon saw 24% approval and eventually slunk off into exile; Trump sees 37% and hears a mandate for more retribution, more war, and more institutional arson. The real horror show is that booting him from office doesn’t fix the 37% who will ride with him through sexual assault verdicts, international fiascos, and constitutional kindling. You can swap out the wannabe strongman; the broken system and the voters who keep demanding one are still very much on the ballot.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
killing democracy

the one-man whatsapp group inches us toward another war

Donald Trump, pictured here conducting high-stakes diplomacy the same way most people argue about Marvel movies in a group chat.

Donald Trump, pictured here conducting high-stakes diplomacy the same way most people argue about Marvel movies in a group chat.

US–Iran peace talks are stuck because Donald Trump has decided to conduct foreign policy like a bored uncle live-tweeting a family reunion. Pakistan is trying to mediate in Islamabad, Iran is at the table, and Trump is running a personal naval blockade while rage-posting up to seven times a day about how Iran has already surrendered, is about to surrender, or will soon be bombed for not surrendering correctly.

Iran’s negotiators keep getting two parallel realities: private messages saying one thing and Trump’s public brain-dump saying the opposite. When Iran signals it will ease some restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz, the normal response would be reciprocal de-escalation. Trump instead goes on TV to declare total Iranian capitulation, refuses to lift the blockade, and then confidently announces they’ve agreed “never” to close Hormuz again. Iran’s response? Close it again the next day, because even they have limits to how much gaslighting they’re willing to swallow.

Diplomats are now reduced to screenshotting Trump’s last 24 hours of statements like a deranged group chat: thanking Iran for closures, threatening Iran, blaming China, praising China, bragging the blockade is airtight, admitting Iran got supplies through it, promising peace, promising bombs. An Iranian embassy dryly brands him a “one-man WhatsApp chat group,” which is polite diplomatic code for “this guy should not be near nuclear launch codes.” Meanwhile Trump tells reporters he “expects to be bombing” Iran while also insisting Iran will attend talks on Wednesday, wrapping threats of mass death in Hallmark-card nonsense about Iran’s “wonderful people” who are, minor detail, allegedly “bloodthirsty” and “based on death and horror.”

The net result: Iran is now insisting on irreversible enforcement mechanisms in any deal, because they’ve figured out that Trump’s signature is about as reliable as his daily narrative about who’s winning. The world is once again held hostage to the attention span of a man treating war and peace like a glitchy social media app, and the US military like a notification he’s itching to tap.

#killing-democracy#national-security
killing democracy

tucker carlson discovers consequences, demands thoughts and prayers

Donald Trump greets Tucker Carlson at the 2024 RNC, moments before Tucker helps sell America on four more years of this and then later claims to be shocked by the product he advertised.

Donald Trump greets Tucker Carlson at the 2024 RNC, moments before Tucker helps sell America on four more years of this and then later claims to be shocked by the product he advertised.

Tucker Carlson, a man who spent years mainlining Trumpism into America’s frontal lobe, has announced he is now "tormented" by his role in getting Trump back into the White House and into a war with Iran. After campaigning with Trump in 2024 and cheerleading the movement that treats the Constitution like a suggestion box, Tucker has arrived at the shocking realization that, actually, helping an aspiring autocrat regain power might have been bad. He’s now deeply sorry for having "misled people" — unintentionally, of course, just like all those totally accidental lies about Dominion and the 2020 election.

The epiphany comes as Trump is busy posting AI images of himself as Jesus, attacking the pope for criticizing the Iran war, and calling Carlson "Low IQ" on social media while promising a public enemies list of MAGA supporters ranked as good, bad, and "somewhere in the middle". Tucker, who just months ago compared Trump to a "slave" tragically constrained by shadowy forces, has upgraded his concern to asking if the president might be the antichrist. Apparently, launching an unplanned war in Iran that betrays a decade of promises and mocking the central figure of Christianity finally crossed a line that "kidnapped children in cages" and "coup attempt" somehow didn’t.

This is all coming from a guy who helped launder Trumpism into respectability, cashed out of Fox after the $787.5m Dominion settlement, then went on to platform white supremacist Nick Fuentes and promote testicle tanning. Now, with the Iran war raging and the president cosplaying Messiah while compiling loyalty lists, Carlson wants a national "moment to wrestle with our own consciences". The rest of us have been wrestling with the consequences of his propaganda for years; Tucker just discovered that when you help build an authoritarian cult, you don’t get to opt out when the idol starts demanding blood and better lighting.

#killing-democracy#fascism
forever grifting

trump’s big dumb wall goes to big bend to ruin everything

Nothing says “border security” like bulldozing a national park so a scandal-plagued contractor can pour steel into a wildlife corridor with almost no migrant traffic.

Nothing says “border security” like bulldozing a national park so a scandal-plagued contractor can pour steel into a wildlife corridor with almost no migrant traffic.

The Trump administration has decided that the real security threat in America is... Big Bend national park. Contractors just rolled tractors up to Chispa Road in rural west Texas to start turning a rough dirt ranch road into a "highway" so 30‑foot steel wall pieces can be hauled in. Local rancher Yolanda Alvarado, whose family has been on the land for five generations and whose grandparents are buried along the proposed route, was informed that the wall will literally slice her property – and her family cemetery – in half. So much for "family values"; there’s a wall to build. This isn’t just about one ranch. CBP’s handy "Smart Wall Map" now shows a "primary border wall system" knifing through Big Bend national park and Big Bend Ranch state park – some of Texas’s most treasured public lands with low migrant crossings but very high environmental and tourism value. Local business owners warn it will destroy the only real economy they have, while conservationists point out that it will sever wildlife migration routes and wall off the Rio Grande. Fortunately, Trump has handed a $1.2bn contract to Fisher Sand and Gravel, a company famously blessed with environmental violations and political scandals from the first Trump term’s border boondoggles. Truly, only the finest swamp creatures. The backlash is so intense that conservative judges, Republican sheriffs, environmental groups, and grassroots organizers have all linked arms in rare bipartisan horror to call this what it is: federal overreach on steroids. CBP, for its part, quietly edited the map to swap a chunk of the park from a physical barrier to vague "detection technology" while simultaneously widening roads, pounding survey stakes into the ground, and waving away environmental laws across the region. Landowners across Big Bend are getting cryptic letters, no real answers, and a front‑row seat to how quickly your life can be rearranged when a president needs a new photo op backdrop and a donor‑friendly contract to sign. Residents describe their lives as being "upended" by a wall they don’t want and don’t need, in a place that was long considered too rugged and too remote to bother with. But Trump needs a monument to fear and cruelty, Fisher needs to get paid, and west Texas landowners, wildlife, and national parks are apparently just set dressing in the latest season of America’s Next Top Authoritarian Infrastructure Project.

Source: theguardian.com

#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
killing democracy

virginia attempts to child-lock trump’s gerrymander machine

A Virginia polling place heroically attempting to keep up with one man’s lifelong dream of never facing a fair election again.

A Virginia polling place heroically attempting to keep up with one man’s lifelong dream of never facing a fair election again.

Virginia voters are trudging to the polls to answer a very simple question: should Donald Trump be allowed to keep drawing congressional districts like a bored toddler with a crayon and a vendetta? This special ballot measure on redistricting could decide which party controls the U.S. House, because nothing says “healthy democracy” like a single state having to emergency‑patch the Electoral College’s favorite chaos gremlin.

Instead of quietly accepting Trump’s latest “what if we just rig the map” brainstorm, Virginians are being asked whether maybe, just maybe, voters should pick their politicians rather than the other way around. Bold concept. If the measure passes, it throws a wrench into Trump’s gerrymandering push; if it fails, the House map becomes one more custom‑built MAGA safe space where competitive elections go to die. Either way, the fact that democracy now depends on a random Tuesday special election is doing a lot of work for the term “world’s oldest constitutional republic”.

#killing-democracy#lawlessness
killing democracy

maga’s favorite autocrat faceplants, trump takes notes

Viktor Orbán, patron saint of MAGA envy, discovering that even a rigged game occasionally lets the peasants win a round.

Viktor Orbán, patron saint of MAGA envy, discovering that even a rigged game occasionally lets the peasants win a round.

Viktor Orbán just got booted by Hungarian voters, which is awkward for Donald Trump and JD Vance, who were busy treating him like the Patron Saint of Illiberalism. Kenneth Roth walks through how a broad opposition coalition, led by Péter Magyar, managed to topple Europe’s most visible autocrat despite a system that Orbán had lovingly gerrymandered into something between a democracy and a loyalty program. While Trump world was busy praising Hungary as a model, Hungarian voters were demonstrating that actually, you can fire the guy who’s been screaming about George Soros and immigrants instead of fixing the economy. Orbán’s greatest hits should sound familiar in Mar-a-Lago: flood the zone with culture-war garbage, demonize LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, the EU, Ukraine, and Soros, and quietly run the country like a personal ATM. He stacked the system so rural voters counted triple, rewrote the constitution with his supermajority, and turned the state into a Fidesz employment agency. Then, when everything started to crumble, he discovered the downside of being in charge forever: you eventually run out of people to blame. Even Hungarian voters got tired of the "it’s Brussels’ fault" rerun. Magyar beat him not by promising a socialist utopia, but by camping out in the political center, talking about boring things like corruption, crumbling infrastructure, and the economy flatlining under one-man rule. He didn’t abandon rural areas, he went there – you know, the places American Democrats keep writing off while Republicans redraw the maps with a chainsaw. Orbán’s rigged system, designed to lock in his power, delivered a different supermajority once people turned on him. That’s the punchline: build an authoritarian machine and, if you finally lose, it can be used to dismantle your entire project. So the lesson for the US: Trump and Vance are openly cheerleading Orbán’s playbook of gerrymandering, scapegoating, and hollowing out democracy, but Hungary just demonstrated that even a meticulously rigged system can be flipped when the opposition unites and talks about people’s actual lives. MAGA keeps betting that dividing the country and gaming the rules will save them forever. Hungary just sent back a memo: authoritarianism comes with a no-refunds policy when the voters turn on you.

Source: theguardian.com

#killing-democracy#fascism
killing democracy

trump shops for a fed chair who'll cut rates and fetch his slippers

Kevin Warsh, seen here preparing to balance the sacred principle of Fed independence against the even more sacred principle of doing whatever Donald Trump wants.

Kevin Warsh, seen here preparing to balance the sacred principle of Fed independence against the even more sacred principle of doing whatever Donald Trump wants.

Donald Trump has finally found his dream Federal Reserve chair: Kevin Warsh, a Milton Friedman–trained, Wall Street–married, $100m net-worth inflation hawk who has now discovered a deep spiritual belief in lower interest rates the moment Trump needs them. Once famous for warning that the Fed shouldn’t be the "ultimate rescuer" or wander into political territory, Warsh is now auditioning to be the president’s personal rate-cut butler, promising to fix the "broken leadership" that had the audacity to not juice Trump’s second-term economy on command.

The real plot twist is not even subtle. Trump has spent years publicly berating Jerome Powell — the Fed chair he himself picked — calling him a "jerk" and "MORON" while repeatedly threatening to fire him. Now, as Powell’s term ends and a conveniently timed criminal investigation into Fed HQ renovations hangs over his head, Trump’s allies are turning the central bank into a hostage situation. Republican senator Thom Tillis says he’ll block Warsh’s nomination until Trump’s Justice Department drops the investigation into Powell, effectively telling the Fed: nice independence you’ve got there, shame if something happened to it.

Democrats, for their part, are focused on Warsh’s murky financial disclosures and the small matter of his nine-figure fortune, which would make him one of the richest Fed chairs in recent history — because nothing signals concern for ordinary workers like putting another mega-wealthy Wall Street alum in charge of monetary policy. Meanwhile, Trump is on Fox Business promising that "when Kevin gets in" rates will go lower, bragging that Warsh is "central casting" and "will never let you down" — which is exactly what you say when the job description is less "independent central banker" and more "loyal concierge to a wannabe strongman’s stock portfolio."

#killing-democracy#corruption#money
national security

scientists keep turning up dead, fbi finally looks up from hunter’s laptop

The FBI, seen here realizing that maybe a wave of dead scientists in an administration that hates science is not just a quirky coincidence.

The FBI, seen here realizing that maybe a wave of dead scientists in an administration that hates science is not just a quirky coincidence.

The FBI says it is now looking into whether a series of missing and dead scientists might actually be connected, which is the sort of thing you’d hope they’d notice before the body count turns into a spreadsheet. In a country where the federal government has spent years demonizing experts, defunding research, and turning public health into a culture-war prop, it’s apparently a shock that scientists keep ending up missing or dead. Instead of a functioning national science policy, we have Trump rally crowds booing epidemiologists while his allies in Congress accuse climate researchers of being part of a globalist plot. Then everyone acts confused when people working in high‑stakes, high‑security fields start disappearing and the FBI has to reassure the public that, no really, they’re on it. Somewhere between Kash Patel suing over being called a drunk and Trump threatening to end a ceasefire, the idea that the state should actually protect the people who keep us alive and not poisoned got misplaced. So now law enforcement is playing catch‑up, trying to determine if there’s a pattern behind the scientists vanishing in a political climate where "enemy of the people" rhetoric is standard issue and expertise is treated like treason. Terrific environment for national security and public health: demonize the experts, underfund the agencies, then act baffled when the people who know where all the dangerous stuff is keep turning up in police reports.

Source: nbcnews.com

#national-security#anti-science#killing-democracy
forever grifting

trump declares war so exxon can win

Trump solemnly explaining that the only thing standing between America and total collapse is a few more government-subsidized oil wells.

Trump solemnly explaining that the only thing standing between America and total collapse is a few more government-subsidized oil wells.

Donald Trump has discovered a bold new military innovation: declare a permanent "national energy emergency" so you can treat oil companies like a branch of the armed forces. In a fresh batch of memos, he invokes the Defense Production Act — a law meant for actual wars and real emergencies — to demand expanded domestic oil, coal, and gas production for "defense readiness". Apparently the tanks will run on shareholder dividends and the Pentagon is now a subsidiary of ExxonMobil.

Under this logic, every refinery is a battleship and every drilling rig is a patriot. The memos order the energy secretary to start "making necessary purchases, commitments, and financial instruments" to prop up fossil fuel projects, which is a very polite way of saying: open the federal checkbook and hand it to the same industry that pumped more than $75m into Trump's campaign. All this while gas prices soar thanks to a war with Iran and a U.S. ship seizure that rattled oil markets — a crisis Trump is now using as a marketing brochure for Big Oil.

Meanwhile, Americans are getting hammered by higher gas and food prices while the White House insists the only way to achieve "prosperity and national security" is to subsidize the stuff cooking the planet. The administration already scrapped emissions standards, "unleashed" drilling in Alaska, and killed Biden's pause on LNG exports even after a federal analysis warned it would raise domestic prices. But sure, call it "defense readiness" — nothing says national security like making your groceries more expensive so Chevron can feel very safe.
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
killing democracy

trump burns the economy, loses the labor secretary

Lori Chavez-DeRemer, moments before exiting the world’s worst LinkedIn experiment: the Trump Cabinet.

Lori Chavez-DeRemer, moments before exiting the world’s worst LinkedIn experiment: the Trump Cabinet.

The Trump administration’s war on workers has claimed another friendly-fire casualty: Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is bailing out. When the person whose entire job is supposed to be balancing workers’ rights and business interests decides this circus is too much, you know the tent is on fire. Instead of a functioning Labor Department during strikes, wage stagnation, and mass layoffs, we now get yet another vacancy in Trump’s revolving-door cosplay of a government. While Trump rants about “disloyal” staff and “radical unions,” the agency that’s supposed to enforce labor laws is being treated like a side quest he keeps rage-quitting. So workers get weaker enforcement, corporations get fewer guardrails, and Trump gets another chance to install a more obedient flunky who thinks OSHA is a Deep State psy-op. Regulatory capture is easier when you keep breaking the regulators and tossing the pieces in the trash.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
killing democracy

allies treated like enemies, dictators treated like tinder matches

Trump, mid-rant about allies, explaining that real friends pay cash, buy his condos, and never ask about the Constitution.

Trump, mid-rant about allies, explaining that real friends pay cash, buy his condos, and never ask about the Constitution.

NPR brings on Richard Haass to perform the increasingly common Washington ritual: calmly explaining that the president of the United States treats long-standing democratic allies like Canada the way a bored landlord treats tenants right before a condo conversion. Allies who bled with us in wars and underwrote decades of global stability now get public humiliation, tariff threats, and policy made via all-caps posts that read like they were drafted between golf swings and cable hits.

The fun twist is that this isn’t some impulsive quirk; it’s the strategy. Cozy up to authoritarians, kick democratic partners in the shins, then act shocked when alliances fray and everyone starts hedging against the U.S. like we’re the world’s least stable cryptocurrency. Haass politely describes the damage and how countries like Canada are adapting; translation: they’re quietly building workarounds so the free world doesn’t collapse every time Trump wakes up angry at Trudeau’s eyebrows. Global leadership, brought to you by a guy who thinks NATO is a gym brand.

Source: npr.org

#killing-democracy#imperialism
killing democracy

thank you for your service, we deported your wife

ICE agents heroically protect the homeland from the grave national security threat of soldiers’ wives with work permits.

ICE agents heroically protect the homeland from the grave national security threat of soldiers’ wives with work permits.

Trump’s deportation machine has decided that the real threat to America isn’t, say, violent crime or foreign adversaries, but the wives of U.S. soldiers. Sgt First Class Jose Serrano, who’s given 27 years to the Army and deployed to Afghanistan, watched ICE snatch his Salvadoran wife, Deisy Rivera Ortega, during an immigration office appointment in El Paso – despite a 2019 legal protection that was supposed to bar her deportation. She had an active work permit, has been here since 2016, and followed every rule laid out for her. Naturally, the Department of Homeland Security responded by labeling her a “criminal illegal alien” because she once committed the federal menace of illegal entry, a misdemeanor.

This isn’t a one-off bureaucratic oopsie; it’s a pattern. Another soldier’s wife, Annie Ramos, was detained on base in Louisiana just days after her wedding, right as her husband prepared to deploy. Her great crime? A deportation order from a hearing her family missed in 2005, when she was a baby. She got released only after the media shined a light on the case, which is how you know "rule of law" in Trump’s America really means "rule of PR." Add in the deportation of Jermaine Thomas, born on a U.S. Army base in Germany and now essentially stateless, and you’ve got an immigration policy that treats military families like expendable props until they become inconvenient.

Serrano, who’s dealing with TBI and PTSD, now gets about two hours of sleep a night while ICE debates whether to ship his wife to a country she has no ties to, like Mexico, because geography is apparently just a suggestion. His verdict on all this: "ICE is out of control right now, sir, taking away rights, as soldiers, that we have." The Army’s response was to punt questions to DHS, because nothing says "support the troops" like handing their families over to an unaccountable enforcement agency that’s busy speedrunning how-fast-can-we-shred-due-process. This is what "law and order" looks like when cruelty is the actual policy goal.

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

trump marks deepwater horizon anniversary by speedrunning the sequel

BP and the Trump Interior Department gaze lovingly at the Gulf of Mexico, trying to decide which part of it to set on fire next.

BP and the Trump Interior Department gaze lovingly at the Gulf of Mexico, trying to decide which part of it to set on fire next.

Sixteen years after Deepwater Horizon turned the Gulf of Mexico into a BP-branded oil soup, the Trump administration has decided the best way to honor the dead and the destroyed ecosystems is to approve an even deeper BP drilling project in the same region. The new $5bn Kaskida project will shove drills six miles into the earth to pull out 80,000 barrels of oil a day from a 10 billion barrel deposit, because if there’s one thing this administration loves more than fossil fuels, it’s ignoring every single lesson from the last catastrophe.

Environmental groups have sued, pointing out that BP hasn’t actually shown it can safely drill at these extreme depths or contain the potential 4.5 million-barrel spill their own worst-case numbers imply. Also hanging in the balance: the Rice’s whale, an endangered species that already lost a fifth of its population in the last BP disaster, but which Doug Burgum’s Interior Department has helpfully thrown under the rig by granting the oil industry an Iran-war–era exemption from endangered species protections. Nothing says "national strength" like using a foreign conflict as cover to quietly sign a death warrant for a species.

BP insists everything is fine now because they’ve done 100 deepwater projects since 2010 and Deepwater Horizon "forever changed BP"—mostly in that it taught them that, with the right PR and enough captured regulators, you can blow up an ocean and still get invited back for a bigger sequel. Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management chimed in with boilerplate about "the highest levels of analysis and scrutiny" while proudly bragging that Kaskida will "unlock" hundreds of millions of barrels of oil from the newly rebranded "Gulf of America." Apparently if you rename it like a suburban outlet mall, nobody will notice you’re turning it into a sacrifice zone for corporate profit.

Source: theguardian.com

#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
imperialism

eu discovers it actually has leverage, considers using it sometime before the heat death of the universe

European leaders stare at the smoking ruins of their own foreign policy, bravely drafting yet another strongly worded PDF.

European leaders stare at the smoking ruins of their own foreign policy, bravely drafting yet another strongly worded PDF.

The EU has finally noticed that Benjamin Netanyahu treats their sternly worded letters like spam emails from a fake prince, and that maybe, just maybe, a government waging a "spectacularly reckless and illegal" war with U.S. help isn’t going to be shamed into decency over coffee and photo ops. Ursula von der Leyen has already called Gaza’s situation a "man-made famine," Brussels has denounced illegal settlements and settler violence, and Kaja Kallas has said Israel’s right to self-defense doesn’t cover leveling Lebanon. Netanyahu’s response? The diplomatic equivalent of muting the group chat.

The twist is that Europe actually holds the money hose: the EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner, and Horizon research ties are worth more than all the hasbara talking points in the world. But internal EU disunity and a touching faith in the power of polite disappointment have meant zero consequences while Trump and Netanyahu run a maximalist regional project that treats the two-state solution like a bad joke from the 1990s.

Now the ground is shifting, mostly because reality finally kicked down the door. Orbán’s election humiliation removes Netanyahu’s favorite far-right human veto from the EU table, reopening the prospect of sanctions on violent West Bank settlers. Spain is openly pushing to suspend the EU-Israel association agreement over human rights violations, and even Giorgia Meloni — former fan-club president for illiberal strongmen — has paused a defense pact with Israel after Lebanon’s civilian death toll. When Meloni’s backing away from you, you’re not just off the rails, you’ve left the train, track, and continent.

As the US-Israel Iran adventure blows back into Europe’s economy, Brussels is being forced to consider something radical: using its enormous economic and academic leverage for more than symbolic wrist-slaps. After years of being treated as a doormat by Netanyahu, with Trump cheering from the White House, the EU may finally be inching toward consequences instead of condolences. If so, it’s about a decade late — but still marginally better than letting Washington and Jerusalem drive the region (and international law) straight off a cliff without even honking.

Source: theguardian.com

#imperialism#killing-democracy
killing democracy

supreme court considers taxpayer-funded bigotry for toddlers

Supreme court justices thoughtfully pondering whether "religious liberty" now includes the inalienable right to discriminate against four-year-olds on the public dime.

Supreme court justices thoughtfully pondering whether "religious liberty" now includes the inalienable right to discriminate against four-year-olds on the public dime.

The Trump-backed religious freedom roadshow is back on tour, and this time they’ve brought the preschoolers. St Mary Catholic Parish and the Archdiocese of Denver are asking the supreme court to rule that Colorado violated their religious rights by refusing to subsidize a preschool program that wants to turn away LGBTQ+ families and kids — with public money — while still calling it "universal" preschool. Colorado’s position is quaintly 20th century: sure, religious schools can join, but they have to follow the same nondiscrimination laws as everyone else.

The conservative-majority court, which has been lovingly carving out exceptions to equality whenever religion demands it, has agreed to hear the case with full Trump administration backing. As a fun bonus, they’ll also take a crack at narrowing a 1990 Antonin Scalia decision that said religious beliefs don’t magically exempt you from neutral laws — because why have a functioning civil rights framework when you can have a hierarchy where "religious" discrimination gets a gold star? The justices declined, for now, to completely torch that precedent, but they’re clearly open to letting taxpayer dollars bankroll anti-LGBTQ+ policies under the banner of "freedom". Universal preschool, meet selective humanity.

Source: theguardian.com

#killing-democracy
killing democracy

trump doj discovers ‘strategic ambiguity’ is great for burying epstein files

Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche, seen here perfecting the ancient DOJ art of promising transparency while accidentally misplacing all the files.

Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche, seen here perfecting the ancient DOJ art of promising transparency while accidentally misplacing all the files.

Pam Bondi, late of the Trump Justice Department and long-time professional excuse generator, just blew off a lawful congressional subpoena about the Epstein investigative files. The Trump DOJ, now run by Trump’s former criminal defense attorney Todd Blanche – because why even cosplay independence at this point – told the House oversight committee she wouldn’t appear since she’s "no longer attorney general." Apparently, in this administration, subpoenas expire faster than milk and accountability is a temp job. Republicans on the committee are busy calling Democrat Robert Garcia a hypocrite while simultaneously insisting Bondi will eventually show up, just as soon as the stars, the polls, and Mar-a-Lago’s legal team all align. Meanwhile, Epstein survivors and their lawyers point out that contempt of Congress isn’t optional décor – it’s what you do when a former AG who oversaw the mishandling of sensitive victim information decides the law is for other people. As attorney Ann Olivarius put it, the AG’s role has devolved into medieval courtier: all power flows from pleasing the king, not from, say, the Constitution. Blanche is out on the conference circuit promising support for more hearings and victim testimony, speaking the sweet language of "closure" and "transparency" while the DOJ keeps blowing past the Epstein Files Transparency Act deadline and hiding documents behind dubious exemptions. Two weeks before his latest "we’ll totally help" tour, he was busy downplaying the controversy over those very files. Legal experts are starting to describe this as "intentional strategic ambiguity" – a polite way of saying the department is cosplaying openness while engineering its limits. Trump, who campaigned on releasing the Epstein files to feed his far-right base’s fantasies about a global elite cabal, now presides over a DOJ that keeps backtracking, stonewalling, and slow-rolling the law. The result: survivors get more delays, Congress gets blown off, and the public gets yet another demonstration that under Trump, the justice department is less a law enforcement agency and more a personal damage-control operation with subpoena allergies. Justice delayed is looking a lot like justice intentionally smothered.
#lawlessness#killing-democracy#corruption