Category: Democracy under threat

“Not My President’s Day” national day of protest announced for Feb. 17, 2025, @ noon at City Hall

 

A super PAC is urging Americans to rally en masse nationwide February 17th at noon at city halls across the country to show opposition to “co-presidents” Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s lawless dragging of the nation into fascism and oligarchy. It is the same group that organized the #50501 protests at state capitals across the country February 5th.

As public school districts across Colorado take steps to protect students from ICE raids, Mesa Valley School District 51 says it is “obligated to comply”

First page of the letter sent to “District 51 families and colleagues” saying the District “will remain politically neutral,” and telling parents to update their student’s emergency contacts

On January 20, convicted felon, sexual abuser and now President Trump rescinded the decades-old federal policy (pdf) of not pursuing immigrants in “sensitive places” (pdf), including schools, hospitals, churches, synagogues, mosques, funerals, weddings, parades and public demonstrations like marches and rallies.

U.S. Department of Education policy says that in the U.S., all children are entitled to a public education (pdf) regardless of their immigration status.

News from today indicates Trump is going after immigrant kids. White House “border czar” Tom Homan, who is carrying out Trump’s mass deportation, says the data they seek on children won’t be used for enforcement, but rather to “ensure that children were placed in the best possible homes,” according to the Washington Post.

But Trump recently enacted a change in federal policy that will now allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents enter and arrest immigrants in these places.

As he started his term, Trump promised to prioritize removing “violent criminal” immigrants, but has since changed his stance and now considers every undocumented person in the U.S. to be a “criminal,” even though being in the U.S. without legal status is a civil and not a criminal violation.

Trump says he seeks to pursue criminals, but as the first U.S. president who is a convicted felon, Trump himself is a criminal.

Trump violates law in after-hours firing of 17 independent inspectors general

Trump sleeping during a religious service (Photo: YouTube)

Late on Friday, January 24, convicted felon and President Donald Trump fired 17 Inspectors General of federal agencies.

Inspectors General are independent government watchdogs who investigate allegations of waste, fraud and abuse inside government agencies.

Trump’s action was done in a way that violated 5 U.S. Code Chapter 4, §415 (e)(2) of the Inspector Generals Act of 1978, which says he must give both houses of Congress 30 days notice of the removal:

(2) Inspector general removed or transferred.If an Inspector General is removed from office or is transferred to another position or location within a designated Federal entity, the head of the designated Federal entity shall communicate in writing the reasons for any such removal or transfer to both Houses of Congress, not later than 30 days before the removal or transfer. 

In legal terms, the word “shall” indicates an absolute obligation. It clearly imposes a specific duty upon a person. Trump also violated another part of the same law that requires the President first supply “substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons for the change” to both houses of Congress:

(B) If the President places an Inspector General on non-duty status, the President shall communicate in writing the substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons, for the change in status to both Houses of Congress (including to the appropriate congressional committees) not later than 15 days before the date on which the change in status takes effect…” 

Trump defended his move by lying to the public. He said that a mass removal of inspectors general was “a very standard thing to do.”

It is not.

A reminder of the dangers of putting wealthy business leaders in charge of government

Photo: FBI

For those of you who think big business leaders are automatically qualified to run government or head it’s important agencies, here is a picture of the Enron Code of Ethics, signed by the Company’s former Chairman and CEO Kenneth Lay. The foreword in the Code states that Enron “enjoys a reputation for fairness and honesty… but no matter [what]… Enron’s reputation… depends on its people, on you and me.”

Remember Enron?

Billionaire Elon Musk, Trump’s “First Buddy,” gives Nazi salute twice during speech at Trump’s inaugural celebration

Billionaire Elon Musk, who spent $277 million to get Trump elected and who publicly declared himself Trump’s “First Buddy” in a November 11, 2024 tweet, gave a Nazi salute not once but twice during his talk at Trump’s inaugural celebration at the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. on January 20, 2025 [Video clip: PBS]

Musk, who is facing global criticism over the gesture, has not explicitly denied it was a Nazi salute. Instead he dismissed the criticism as a “tired” attack, writing on his social media platform that “The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired.”

Right wing extremists celebrated Musk’s use of gesture.

It is illegal to perform this gesture in Germany.

In an article by investigative reporter Bernard Condon posted January 21 on Associated Press, Kurt Braddock, a professor of communication at American University who studies extremism, radicalization and terrorism, said the gesture was a fascist salute and that “people shouldn’t doubt what they saw.”

Meta’s Abandonment of Fact-Checking Empowers a President Who Traffics in Lies

Republished from The Contrarian with permission from the author, Barbara McQuade, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan and author of the New York Times bestseller Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America.   As a legal analyst, her work has appeared in The Washington PostForeign PolicyLawfareJust SecuritySlate, and National Public Radio, and she has been quoted in The New York TimesTimeNewsweekPolitico, and other publications.

As false information about wildfires in Los Angeles rages online, Mark Zuckerberg is fanning the flames of disinformation.

Last week, the Meta CEO announced that the company would stop fact-checking posts on its social media sites. Meta will move to a community notes model, similar to that used by the X platform, relying on users to flag false claims rather than using professional fact-checkers, such as PolitiFact. While conceding that more “bad stuff” will appear on Meta’s platforms — Facebook, Instagram and Threads — Zuckerberg said the change was necessary to prevent “too much censorship.”

Disinformation now identified as the greatest global threat

At a time when the World Economic Forum identifies disinformation as the greatest global threat, Zuckerberg is burning down the defense system of a social media company with 3.5 billion users worldwide. What could possibly motivate a move that will certainly lead to more chaos and upheaval in society?

People’s March to be held Saturday, Jan. 18 @ 1 p.m., to bring together people who fear second Trump administration

The Womens’ March held around the time of Trump’s first inauguration in 2017 is coming back in 2025, but this time it has been rebranded as “The People’s March,” to be even more inclusive.

The 2025 Grand Junction People’s March will start at the Old Courthouse on 6th and Rood Ave. on Saturday, January 18 at 1:00 p.m. in Grand Junction, just prior to Trump’s inauguration on January 20. The event will coincide with a national People’s March will in Washington, D.C. scheduled to start 10:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.

Trump threatens to seize Greenland and the Panama canal, and use economic pressure to make Canada the 51st state

Trump said he wouldn’t rule out the use of military force to seize Greenland from Denmark and seize the Panama Canal from Panama. He also says he wants to erase Canada’s borders and make Canada America’s 51st state

In an hour long news conference on Tuesday, January 7, 2025, convicted felon, sexual abuser and president-elect Trump insisted Denmark should “give up” Greenland to the United States and refused to rule out use of military force to seize the island. Trump also repeated his desire that the U.S. should seize the Panama Canal from Panama. The canal, which was built by the U.S. over a century ago and returned to Panama by the Panama Canal treaty, signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. Trump also suggested using “economic force” instead of military force to make Canada into America’s 51st state. Trump has threatened Canada with a 25% tariff on all Canadian goods coming into the U.S., and told reporters that if Canada voluntarily merges with the U.S., there “would be no tariffs.” Trump mused, “Canada and the United States. That would really be something.”

Trump also said he wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”

Arrest affidavit: Trump’s racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric motivated strangulation attack on local TV reporter

Patrick Thomas Egan, 39, who attacked and attempted to strangle KKCO TV reporter Ja’Ronn Alex

KKCO TV News reporter Ja’Ronn Alex was followed and physically attacked December 18 by a Trump supporter who yelled “Are you even a U.S. citizen! This is Trump’s America now! I took an oath to protect this country from people like you!”

Trump publicly states he intends to erode the Constitution rather than preserve, protect & defend it as his oath requires, thus should not be sworn in

Swearing in Trump after he promised on national television to degrade the U.S. Constitution would be assisting him in undermining the Constitution

In a recent interview with Kristin Welker broadcast on national television on December 8, convicted felon and president-elect Trump promised to “absolutely” end birthright citizenship “on day one” of his presidency:

KRISTEN WELKER: You promised to end birthright citizenship on day one.

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: Correct.

KRISTEN WELKER: Is that still your plan?

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah. Absolutely.

KRISTEN WELKER: The 14th Amendment, though, says that, quote, “All persons born in the United States are citizens.” 

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah.

KRISTEN WELKER: Can you get around the 14th Amendment with an executive action?

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: Well, we’re going to have to get it changed. We’ll maybe have to go back to the people. But we have to end it.

 

The threat posed by the Christian nationalist bent of Trump’s nominees

Republished with permission from the Freedom From Religion Foundation. AnneLandmanblog included some additional information, references and videos:

Trump

President-elect Trump’s nominees for cabinet and other powerful positions read like a “Who’s Who” of Christian nationalists (pdf) and Project 2025 creators. His choices for key federal positions in federal government constitute a direct threat to the secular foundations of the U.S. government and signal the implementation of Project 2025, the extremist blueprint aimed at reshaping the federal government to align with a narrow sectarian ideology. Project 2025’s agenda includes dismantling the wall between state and church, curbing religious freedoms for non-Christians, and pushing policies that marginalize religious minorities and LGBTQ-plus individuals. By nominating individuals deeply entrenched in Christian nationalist movements to key positions, Trump can fast-track the implementation of this radical agenda.

Here’s a rundown of cabinet and high-level picks that are prominently connected to Christian nationalism, Project 2025 or the America First Policy Institute, founded to advance Trump’s Christian nationalist-influenced agenda:

Get ready for a big increase in the cost of living after Trump takes office

Torch-bearing white supremacists in Charlottesville, Aug. 11, 2017, cited President Trump as the inspiration for their “Unite the Right” rally (Photo: Edu Bayer/The New York Times)

On November 25, Trump said that as soon as he’s inaugurated on January 20, 2025 he will institute a new 25% tariff on all goods coming into the U.S. from Mexico and Canada, plus an additional 10% tariff on goods from China.

So look out. Your cost of living is about to get a huge increase.

Trump is either willfully ignorant about how tariffs work, or is lying to Americans about it by repeatedly asserting that other countries will pay the tariffs, and not Americans.

Economists and tax experts all say that’s completely wrong.

A “weird” watch party for Jeff Hurd and the media

Charles Ashby

The following opinion column by longtime political reporter for the Daily Sentinel, Charles Ashby, is reprinted here in full with permission from the Sentinel’s publisher. The original article is here, on the Sentinel’s website. It is a rare opinion column by Ashby, who has been a news reporter for 45 years, and who has covered politics for about half that time. It describes the unprecedented way District 3 Republican U.S. House Representative-elect Jeff Hurd treated journalists attending his watch party on election night, Nov. 5, 2024. 

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In all my nearly 50 years in journalism, about half of which was in covering politics in Colorado, I’ve never heard of what happened during U.S. Rep.-elect Jeff Hurd’s election night watch party occurring anywhere else.

While it’s not uncommon to corral the media at political events, or even bar them from entry, what Hurd’s campaign did to the print, radio and television press at The Warehouse 25Sixty-five Kitchen & Bar on Tuesday night was unprecedented.

Elect a criminal, expect crimes

There will be no one to blame but American voters for what is going to happen next.

After a decade in politics, we all knew Donald Trump was a criminal.

He was found guilty last May of 34 felony counts of fraud and was slapped with a $355 million fine after he and his company were found guilty of engaging in a decade-long scheme to defraud banks and lenders by falsifying the values of his properties. In writing the verdict in the case, Judge Arthur Engoron wrote “The frauds found here leap off the page and shock the conscience.” In 2023, a jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation.

Trump mimes giving a blow job to his microphone at rally in Milwaukee, WI

[Warning: This post about the Republican nominee for U.S. President is unsuitable for children.]

Upset about a problematic microphone at his Friday, Nov. 1 rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Trump went on an extended rant about microphones that included his miming of giving oral sex to another male while standing behind a podium that bore a sign saying “Trump will fix it.” [The BJ part starts at 3:00 into the 4:05 video]

Trump admits he lost the 2020 election, causing supporters to turn on him

Mesa County’s die-hard, Trump-loving Republicans probably won’t want to hear this, but Donald Trump admitted in a September 3, 2024 interview with Lex Fridman that he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden “by a whisker.” The full interview of Trump is 1 hour and 4 minutes long. The admission that he lost the 2020 election starts at 10:41 in the interview.

And this is not the only time Trump has admitted this, either.

During a visit to the southern border in Arizona last August, he acknowledged that he lost the election, saying he “came up a little short.”

Trump’s admissions come after years in which he relentlessly lied to his supporters by claiming he was robbed of victory in the 2020 election due to widespread voter fraud, a claim that he’s never proven. Despite this, millions of Americans believed him.

Peters says she’ll appeal her conviction, says the prosecution “excluded exculpatory evidence”

Tina on Bannon’s War Room the morning after a Mesa County jury convicted her of 4 felonies and 3 misdemeanor counts related to her election tampering case.

In a 15-minute video posted on Bannon’s War Room on Rumble.com at 10:00 a.m. Tuesday, August 13, 2024 — the day after a jury found her guilty on four felony and three misdemeanor counts in her criminal election machine tampering case in Mesa County Court — Tina Peters is claiming the prosecution in her case “excluded exculpatory evidence” and says her lawyers are filing an appeal of her conviction. She says “Withholding exculpatory evidence is a crime.”

Tina says that “Dominion, the Secretary of State, AG Merrick Garland, 71 countries have been influenced by faulty election machines” and “that’s why they they have to come after an almost 70 year-old clerk in a small town called Mesa County.” She says “I was prevented from a defense” and “there is info that will exonerate me,” although she says at 14:19 in the video that the information she cites that she says will exonerate her is in Patrick Byrne’s federal case in Washington, D.C., and she adds that “I haven’t seen any of it, but I’m assured that it’s there.”

The verdict is in in Tina Peters’ criminal trial

Tina Peters at her trial in Mesa County

Following are the findings of the jury returned at 5:20 p.m. this afternoon in the criminal case of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters:

Count 1 – Attempt to influence a public servant – Jesse Romero (employee of the Colorado Secretary of State’s office) – GUILTY
Count 2 – Attempt to influence a public servant – David Underwood (employee of the Colorado Secretary of State’s office) – GUILTY
Count 3 – Conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, April 23-May 18, 2021 – NOT GUILTY
Count 4 – Attempt to influence a public servant – Danny Casias (employee of the Colorado Secretary of State’s office) – GUILTY
Count 5 – Criminal impersonation May 23-27, 2021 – NOT GUILTY
Count 6 – Conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation – May 23-27, 2021 – GUILTY
Count 7 – Identity theft – NOT GUILTY
Count 8 – First degree official misconduct – guilty on all options on interrogatories
Count 9 – Violation of Duty – GUILTY
Count 10 – Failure to comply with requirements of the Secretary of State’s office – GUILTY with all interrogatories proven beyond a reasonable doubt

Peters’ sentencing is scheduled for October 3, 2024, at 9:00 a.m.