Category: Freedom under threat

Authoritarianism, Dangerous Republicans, Democracy, Democracy under threat, Destruction of the federal government, Extremism, Freedom under threat, Republicans violating laws, Trump Insanity

French Senator discusses global ramifications of the Trump regime

by Anne Landman • March 11, 2025 • 19 Comments

This is a video of French Senator Claude Malhuret posted on March 7 in which he discusses what is going on in the United States, and how Europe needs to react to it. Sen. Malhuret is a French physician and lawyer who has been in the French Senate since 2014. He is a center-right legislator. This video has been going viral and reflects what European countries think about the current state of affairs we are enduring here in the U.S. under Trump. The full video is about 8 minutes long.

It tells us much about what the rest of the world thinks of what the Trump regime is doing to the United States.

Here is an excerpt of the talk from the beginning of the video:

CMU fostering a climate of hate

by Anne Landman • March 7, 2025 • 14 Comments

This piece was written by Jacob Richards and is reprinted here with permission from The Revolutionist. The Revolutionist accepts no advertising and is 100% volunteer-run and subscriber-funded community media. You can subscribe to it at this link.

Colorado Mesa University’s Western Culture Club is hosting an out-and-out white Supremacist as a speaker on campus later in March. (Time and date erased because we don’t platform nazis).

A new campus club, the “Western Culture Club,” appeared on campus in early March promoting a talk by Jared Taylor to be held at Colorado Mesa University (CMU) later in March. Taylor is an avowed white supremacist and author, and this is just the latest escalation by bigots on campus, seemingly with the blessing of the CMU administration.

When students started a new semester at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction on January 20th, the same day Trump took office, the campus seemed different.

Emboldened by the inauguration of an openly racist and openly fascistic president, racist students on the campus have begun a now months-long sticker campaign. The stickers call on students to fulfill “civic duty” to “report any and all illegal aliens” to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

DOGE cancels leases on four federal agencies in Grand Junction

by Anne Landman • March 5, 2025 • 27 Comments

Local TV news stations KJCT and KKCO are reporting that Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) is terminating the leases of four federal Agencies in Grand Junction:

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy publicly bullied and berated over his war time clothing at White House visit

by Anne Landman • March 3, 2025 • 17 Comments

At a shameful White House meeting last week between convicted felon/adjudicated sexual abuser President Trump and his #2, JD Vance, Trump and Vance bullied and yelled at Ukrainian President Zelensky in a televised display of anger and resentment toward the leader of a democratic country that’s been invaded by Russia. Beyond this, as bad as the made-for-Russia meeting already was, Brian Glenn, White House correspondent for the right-wing cable channel Real America’s Voice, chimed in and berated Zelenskyy over his war time clothing, to the delight of Trump’s cabinet. You can see the harassment of Zelenskyy over his war time attire playing out in the clip above.

Trump’s illegal, unappointed “co-president,” billionaire Elon Musk, dominates a cabinet meeting at the White House on 2/26/25 wearing a baseball cap and T-shirt. No one publicly criticized his attire.

Brian Glenn, who attacked Zelesnkyy over his clothes, is the boyfriend of right-wing firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, and one of the hand-picked reporters the White House has chosen under its new policy of choosing the press pool reporters who will cover them favorably and excluding reporters they think won’t cover them favorably — a classic authoritarian move to assure a positive spin on all news coverage of the regime.

Rep. Jeff Hurd uses anti-semitic trope to dismiss constituents at the town hall meetings he refuses to attend

by Anne Landman • February 28, 2025 • 14 Comments

CD-3 House Rep. Jeff Hurd, who represents western Colorado (Photo: X/Twitter)

When CD-3 Rep. Jeff Hurd (R) was running for office, he was open to talking to all sorts of western Colorado residents when he wanted their votes. Now that he’s in office, though, Hurd can’t be bothered with meeting hundreds of voters clamoring to talk to him about the lawless destruction of the federal government now happening under convicted felon and sexual abuser President Trump and his co-president Elon Musk. Instead, Hurd dismissed multiple town halls and hundreds of constituents and their concerns by suggesting they are mere Soros-funded theater.

In a February 27, 2025 interview with Colorado Public Radio’s Ryan Warner, Warner asked Hurd about the 2/22 town hall meeting in Grand Junction attended by more than 400 worried constituents, that Hurd blew off. Here’s the part of the interview about it, and what Rep. Hurd said:

Convicted felon Steve Bannon, who gave a Nazi salute at CPAC on 2/21, is set to headline the Colorado Republican Party’s 2025 annual fundraising dinner in Denver

by Anne Landman • February 25, 2025 • 1 Comment

Convicted felon and former Trump aide Steve Bannon will headline Colorado’s Republican fundraising Centennial Dinner on March 28, 2025 in Denver.

Bannon plead guilty February 11, 2025 to defrauding donors to his “We Build the Wall” nonprofit organization, which told donors it was carrying out a private effort to build a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. Charges against Bannon included money laundering, conspiracy and fraud. Bannon was also convicted in another similar federal case in 2020, but escaped prosecution in that case after Trump pardoned Bannon at the end of his first term. Bannon has also been banned from serving as an officer or director of any charitable organizations or nonprofits that has assets in New York, and is banned from accessing the names of people who donated to “We Build the Wall.”

Under multi-billionaire owner Jeff Bezos, Washington Post pulls full page ads critical of Musk

by Anne Landman • February 23, 2025 • 9 Comments

One of two full page ads the Washington Post cancelled at the last minute with no explanation. The ads were funded jointly by Common Cause and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

At the last minute, the Washington Post (WaPo) pulled two full page ads funded by the nonprofits Common Cause and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) that called for Elon Musk’s ouster from government. The ads were “wrap around ads” set to cover the entire front and back pages of the paper. The groups also bought a large ad inside the paper, but pulled that ad after being informed their wrap-around ads were being cancelled. The ads met all of the criteria the paper had established for publication. WaPo offered the groups no explanation for the last minute cancellation. The ads were supposed to appear in the Washington, D.C. edition that gets delivered to the White House.

The Washington Post is owned by multi-billionaire Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and the third richest human being on Earth, who has been increasingly kowtowing to Donald Trump.

CD-3 Rep. Jeff Hurd skips G.J. town hall meeting where over 400 constituents waited anxiously to hear from him

by Anne Landman • February 22, 2025 • 17 Comments

A standing room-only crowd packed into the First Congregational Church for a town hall meeting with CD-3 House Rep. Jeff Hurd (R), who failed to show up to the meeting.

Over 400 people packed a town hall meeting held at the First Congregational Church at 5th and Kennedy in Grand Junction for 3rd CDHouse Rep. Jeff Hurd (R) at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 22, 2025, but Rep. Hurd failed to show. Some attendees came from as far as Montrose and some drove as much as 3 hours to attend the meeting.

Four western slope chapters Indivisible (Indivisible Grand Junction, Indivisible Montrose, Mountain Action Indivisible (Carbondale) and Indivisible North Fork) organized the meeting out of a sense of urgency because of the rapid-fire destructive actions Trump and Musk have been taking that are throwing thousands of Americans out of work, damaging the economy and eroding global trust in America and its longstanding international alliances.

Organizers notified Hurd about the meeting and sent him multiple invitations through phone calls, emails, and through other means within the last four days, but Hurd did not respond or show up.

By the time the meeting was held, 477 people had registered to attend.

Indivisible groups to host Town Hall meeting, with or without Republican CD-3 Rep. Jeff Hurd, on Sat., 2/22 in Grand Junction

by Anne Landman • February 21, 2025 • 12 Comments

Click the graphic above to sign up and find out location

UPDATE: As of 12:27.p.m. on Saturday, Feb., 22, 453 people have registered to attend.

UPDATE: As of 3:45 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 21, 315 people have registered to attend.

Indivisible Grand Junction, Indivisible Montrose, Mountain Action Indivisible (Carbondale) and Indivisible North Fork will host a town hall meeting for CD-3 Congressman Jeff Hurd, with or without him, this Saturday, February 22, from 2:30 – 3:30 p.m. in Grand Junction at a venue near to central downtown. Indivisible will reveal the location of the town hall to people who sign up to attend the event.

Indivisible mobilizes individuals and groups to defend democracy. It focuses on combining pressure by local constituents with national campaigns. Indivisible works both inside and outside established systems.

Trump, governing as an authoritarian, publicly portrays himself as king, dictator

by Anne Landman • February 21, 2025 • 20 Comments

Actual Trump TwitterX post from Feb. 19, 2025

Instead of signing legislation passed by Congress — the normal way policies are made in U.S. — Trump has been continuously circumventing Congress’s power by writing a slew of executive orders, signing at least 70 of them as of February 20. Trump has essentially been governing not as the president of a representative democracy, but as an authoritarian.

What Trump wants goes, and no one else’s opinion matters or gets any consideration.

Even more worrisome, in the last week Trump openly likened himself to a dictator and a king.

The post above is from an official White House social media account, not from a parody or Trump’s personal account. It’s on an official government account for the White House, an official document. It refers to Trump’s interference with a new congestion toll policy instituted by New York City to reduce extreme traffic congestion in the busiest part of Manhattan, and it’s one of Trump’s unprecedented efforts to inject his interference into local issues.

A convicted felon now in charge of the country, Trump is moving quickly to end law enforcement as we know it

by Anne Landman • February 2, 2025 • 4 Comments

Letter sent to federal law enforcement officials who worked on the criminal cases against convicted felon and now U.S. President Donald Trump. The two federal cases against him were for his attempts to subvert the outcome of the 2020 election and for hoarding classified and top secret government documents and refusing to return them to the federal government. The letter notifies federal law enforcement employees they are being fired because their investigations did not please Trump.

The following analysis of Trump’s ongoing mass purge of federal law enforcement officials was taken from Rachel Maddow’s show 1/31/25 show, starting at 17:12 into the show (video). I transcribed her presentation and then lightly edited the text to make it clearer as a written, rather than a spoken piece. I also included links to further information. I chose to highlight Maddow’s presentation because it is perhaps the fullest, clearest and most concise explanation of the current state of affairs ongoing on under Trump that has been broadcast so far. (Note: Italicized, bolded and capitalized emphasis are mine.):

—————————-

Trump is punishing law enforcement officials at the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who pursued violent January 6 criminals to gain revenge on law enforcement personnel who participated in a previous investigation that is now over. The point of Trump’s actions is to permanently, irrevocably change law enforcement in the United States so FBI and prosecutors will no longer pursue criminal investigations and cases against suspects if the suspected criminals are associated with Trump and his supporters.

Trump is trying to get rid of American law enforcement as we know it.

They are trying to get rid of the very idea of an independent “justice-is-blind” system that makes America who we are. It is hard to see how this can be corrected or undone.

The practical effects of Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship

by Anne Landman • January 27, 2025 • 6 Comments

Presidents have no authority to change the rules of citizenship on their own, as adjudicated sexual abuser, convicted felon and President Donald Trump is trying to do, but if Trump’s recent dictatorial attempt to end birthright citizenship at the stroke of a pen were to ultimately be realized, it would create negative repercussions for parents and babies born in the U.S. after February 19, 2025. Estimates are that about 150,000 children born in the U.S. each year and their parents could face obstacles under this system.

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

by Anne Landman • January 22, 2025 • 22 Comments

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.”

People’s March unites locals who oppose oligarchy, loss of rights & right wing extremism

by Anne Landman • January 19, 2025 • 13 Comments

The People’s March on Saturday, January 18, provided a chance for a large group of Mesa County’s growing number of liberal residents to get together, enjoy camaraderie, speeches, free hot coffee, chai and cookies provided by Octopus Coffee. People were bundled up as the temperature was just below freezing.

The crowd numbered around 300 people.

On Wednesday, January 15, President Biden gave a farewell address to the public in which he warned Americans of a coming “dangerous concentration of power in the hands of very few ultra-wealthy people, and the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked.” Biden said,

“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.”

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

by Anne Landman • January 17, 2025 • 9 Comments

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 Post, Foreign Policy, Lawfare, Just Security, Slate, and National Public Radio, and she has been quoted in The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, Politico, 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

by Anne Landman • January 9, 2025 • 11 Comments

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.

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

by Anne Landman • December 28, 2024 • 22 Comments

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

by Anne Landman • December 10, 2024 • 14 Comments

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.

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