Tag: Law and Order under threat

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


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.”

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


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 JunctionIndivisible MontroseMountain 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.

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

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.

“Not My President Day” brings out hundreds of area residents to protest Trump’s authoritarian regime

A crowd of about 350 people turned out at noon today to loudly protest the ongoing coup of the federal government by convicted felon, adjudicated sexual abuser and President Donald Trump and his unelected provocateur Elon Musk, the richest billionaire on Earth who purchased the ability to use Trump’s presidency for himself with a $250 million donation to Trump’s presidential campaign. Trump and Musk have been in almost continuous violation of the U.S. Constitution and U.S. laws since Trump was inaugurated January 20. The two have been working together quickly to destroy entire federal agencies that Americans rely on for essential services, that help starving and sick people and that distribute foreign aid, and they’ve been working to hobble the federal government’s ability to keep U.S. citizens safe in the air, safe from financial fraud and grift, and safe from attacks on U.S. soil.

“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.

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

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.):

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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

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

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.”

Trump embraces lawlessness by pardoning all Jan. 6 rioters, including the most violent offenders

Violent insurrectionist David Dempsey in front on the gallows set up at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 (Photo: U.S. District Court)

On his first day back in office, President Donald Trump showed the extent to which he is willing to disrespect the laws of the United States when it comes to protecting those who commit violence and sedition in his name.

As one of his first acts, Trump pardoned approximately 1,500 January 6 rioters, including the most violent offenders and those convicted of seditious conspiracy (the crime of conspiring against the U.S. government). Among them are David Dempsey, who was serving a 20 year prison sentence for viciously assaulting Capitol Police using crutches, flag poles, pieces of broken furniture, pepper spray and anything else he could get his hands on. Dempsey struck Washington D.C. Police Seargent Jason Mastony so hard with a metal crutch that Mastony collapsed and was left stunned with a gash in his head. Trump also commuted the 18-year sentence of Stewart Rhodes, leader of the far-right anti-government paramilitary militia the Oath Keepers, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy and evidence tampering, and Enrique Tarrio, former national chairman of the neo-fascist group Proud Boys, who was serving a 22 year sentence in prison.