John Stoehr
January 24, 2025
Donald Trump (Reuters)
I just want to remind everyone that America elected a demented criminal president and as a consequence, we can no longer assume what we used to assume when it came to matters of law and politics.
I know that sounds like a sweeping generalization, but sometimes you gotta swing hard if you’re going to get people’s attention, and right now, given that liberals and Democrats got their heads in the sand, I think it’s prudent to swing hard, even if I’m proven wrong in the end.
And I know that saying something as sweeping as this can sound pessimistic, as if I’m suggesting that nothing can be done about a demented criminal president, but I don’t see it that way. I think liberals and Democrats still believe Donald Trump is going to overreach, and they still believe public opinion is going to turn, and when it does, thank God! Liberals and Democrats won’t have to fight so hard!
Again, we elected a demented criminal president.
We can no longer assume what we used to assume.
Case in point is the reaction to Donald Trump’s executive order claiming to “end birthright citizenship,” in the words of USA Today.
Liberals and Democrats were correct to point out that the president can’t do any such thing on his own, as ending the legal right to be called a US citizen due to being born on US soil would require a constitutional amendment. It was said that the order would be stopped almost immediately by the courts. Yesterday, 22 attorneys general from states run by Democrats filed suit to do just that.
While this reaction is correct as a matter of fact, it is wrong as a matter of politics. This is a demented criminal president we are talking about, and while the courts may end up stopping his order, the courts can’t stop a demented criminal president from ignoring the courts and acting, you know, like a criminal. We assume that a demented criminal president will obey the law and I don’t see why we should assume that.
Even if the president himself said OK, OK, I can’t end birthright citizenship by myself, there are plenty of people in his administration, not just political appointees, who would be happy to break the law and just pretend that the children of immigrants who are born on US soil are not citizens. They would also be happy to stop doing for them what they would do for any other (white) baby born on US soil, such as issuing Social Security cards or other important federal documents.
Even if it came to light that this rogue federal agency was responsible for infringing the rights and privilege of tens of thousands of natural-born citizens, who would prosecute the offense? The same Justice Department that is, right now, planning payback against the members of the Congress who investigated the J6 insurrection?
Even if that Justice Department actually did manage to prosecute and convict these rogue federal agents (who were only doing what Trump wanted them to do), should we assume that the same demented criminal president who pardoned virtually all the paramilitaries who sacked and looted the US Capitol would not pardon them as well?
And even if public opinion turned against Trump’s lawlessness, what reaction could we reasonably expect? The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Will Bunch said the inauguration was “a dangerous display of rapid mental decline” and that the biggest takeaway was “seeing how rapidly the oldest new president in America is declining right in front of us.”
“We’ve just flipped the car keys of this 248-year-old republic to a grandpa who starts his four-year road trip already in a serious state of mental decline, with all the guardrails of yesteryear stripped away by a corrupt Supreme Court, a feckless and increasingly useless Democratic Party, and a bended-knee elite media,” he said (my italics).
Again, it bears repeating: this is a demented criminal president we are talking about. The things that would normally constrain a president – the institutions, the courts and public opinion – are probably not going to constrain this one. I would suggest that they almost certainly won’t.
And while liberals and Democrats console themselves into believing the only way to end birthright citizenship is by amending the Constitution, they’re missing the real goal, which is getting around all those quaint little rules that everyone else plays by and going straight to the US Supreme Court. Trump’s executive order really could end birthright citizenship if he can force five justices to agree with it.
Like a lot of liberals and Democrats, I don’t yet know how to resist a president who is criminal enough to ignore the courts (or turn a blind eye to crimes committed in his name) and demented enough to ignore public opinion. I don’t yet know how to think about politics as applied to a president who won’t act like any president who came before him.
What I do know is we have to try – if not for ourselves, then for our children, and for those who came before us and did figure it out.
NOW READ: Trump's MAGA America revives a Confederate nightmare
Democracy under siege as Trump's reign of terror begins
D. Earl Stephens
January 22, 2025
RAW STORY
REUTERS/Jim Urquhart
It is worse than many of us imagined.
Not because we didn't know it would be bad, but because I reckon we practiced self-care by not fixating on it every hour of every terrible day since the horrid election in November.
So we licked our wounds, bucked each other up, and prepared for whatever hell was coming.
On Monday, it arrived.
On the first day of his reign of terror, the sick, vengeful king released 1,500 dangerous thugs, who beat the life out of cops and tried to set fire to our country, by violently stopping the certification of our election.
The people he said that he “loved” now have safe harbor, but only as long as they vow to work for him, because, you see, he has proven he is both capable of getting them in and out of their terrible messes.
Such power.
I have long ago lost confidence that our pathetic, horse-race media would report this at all properly when the gruesome day arrived, so let this old print guy break it to you cold this way:
WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A NATIONAL EMERGENCY
We simply cannot survive this obscene level of anti-Democratic lawlessness from the fascist White House, and that makes it incredibly important how this moment in history is framed for the public.
Every day of the next 100 will be key, because hell is rolling downhill fast right now.
-Does our mainstream media finally do its job and sound the alarms?
-Do they relentlessly call (demand) power to account for their actions?
-Do they tell us just what in the hell is really going on here, by giving the incineration of our democracy and our law and order the bandwidth and context they deserve?
-Do they break into their horses--- regular broadcasting to let America know it is under attack?
-Do they report on what Americans should be doing to mitigate and stay safe from this onslaught?
I know what you are thinking ...
We are but weeks away from all this being normalized. In a matter of days Trump, with the backing of fawning oligarchs and a corrupt political enterprise, will have amassed an enormous amount of centralized power. Before you know it he will have made it all but impossible to drill into the core, to get at its terrible source.
He is in a breathtaking race right now to shield himself from anything that might be coming so that he can rain hell down on the rest of us from the safety of the Capitol he attacked but four short years ago and finally captured on Monday.
Once he’s insulated, it’s over.
No surprise. He has flooded the zone on social media today saying the military will be his No. 1 priority as he gets at America’s true enemies. He means us, of course.
This is predictable as hell, and back in November I warned you of this:
NOTHING Trump does with our military will be to protect the citizens of the United States of America.
EVERYTHING Trump does with our military will be to protect himself from the citizens of the United States of America.
We will be here shortly unless something jars us from our deep sleep.
America has not seen anything like this since our Civil War. That one didn’t end us, but its echoes are pounding in our ears like never before. The white heat is turned up to 10.
History shows us 1935 Germany can also be terrifyingly instructive. The accumulation of unchecked power can happen insanely fast. Hitler himself was actually surprised how easy things were, and expected a helluva lot more pushback than he got on his way to complete power.
Now 90 years later, all the dogs are once again lying down. While we nap, evil has crept up to our doors.
Human beings will be rounded up and shipped out.
Comply, or else.
This is a five-alarm fire, good people. It is far beyond what any reasonable person who has been around for a while feared in their lifetimes. Our Democracy is burning out of control, and the response from our Democratic representatives on the frontlines in Washington has been appalling.
They literally have no answers for us right now, as they scramble to find their asses with both hands. It is as if they have been living someplace else, while the rest of us have yelled for them to do something — ANYTHING.
This is why people like us were screaming bloody murder when Merrick Garland did nothing. Not ONE lawmaker was tried or jailed for the January 6th attack -- including of course the dangerous, orange ringleader who means to finish us off.
I genuinely need to know what the f--- just happened the past four years, that left us so completely unarmed for this.
I have no answers for you, my friends, but those need to be demanded. I will put on my activist hat before finishing up here, and suggest if you haven’t already that you call your representatives and demand an accounting of what they are planning to do to defend us from the end.
Winning some election that may or may not happen two years from now is NOT an acceptable answer.
Here’s the number, if it isn’t already burned into your fried brain: 202-224-3121. I’d also suggest you contact what passes for your local news sources and ask them what they have planned in their coverage of this attack on our freedom. Write a letter to the editor today. Some of you other rough-and-readies will have suggestions, and the comments are open.
UNDERSTAND THIS: We must stay together right now. We must check on each other, and report out what we are seeing and hearing. Information is power.
America is under attack.
This is not a drill.
D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.
D. Earl Stephens
January 22, 2025
RAW STORY
REUTERS/Jim Urquhart
It is worse than many of us imagined.
Not because we didn't know it would be bad, but because I reckon we practiced self-care by not fixating on it every hour of every terrible day since the horrid election in November.
So we licked our wounds, bucked each other up, and prepared for whatever hell was coming.
On Monday, it arrived.
On the first day of his reign of terror, the sick, vengeful king released 1,500 dangerous thugs, who beat the life out of cops and tried to set fire to our country, by violently stopping the certification of our election.
The people he said that he “loved” now have safe harbor, but only as long as they vow to work for him, because, you see, he has proven he is both capable of getting them in and out of their terrible messes.
Such power.
I have long ago lost confidence that our pathetic, horse-race media would report this at all properly when the gruesome day arrived, so let this old print guy break it to you cold this way:
WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A NATIONAL EMERGENCY
We simply cannot survive this obscene level of anti-Democratic lawlessness from the fascist White House, and that makes it incredibly important how this moment in history is framed for the public.
Every day of the next 100 will be key, because hell is rolling downhill fast right now.
-Does our mainstream media finally do its job and sound the alarms?
-Do they relentlessly call (demand) power to account for their actions?
-Do they tell us just what in the hell is really going on here, by giving the incineration of our democracy and our law and order the bandwidth and context they deserve?
-Do they break into their horses--- regular broadcasting to let America know it is under attack?
-Do they report on what Americans should be doing to mitigate and stay safe from this onslaught?
I know what you are thinking ...
We are but weeks away from all this being normalized. In a matter of days Trump, with the backing of fawning oligarchs and a corrupt political enterprise, will have amassed an enormous amount of centralized power. Before you know it he will have made it all but impossible to drill into the core, to get at its terrible source.
He is in a breathtaking race right now to shield himself from anything that might be coming so that he can rain hell down on the rest of us from the safety of the Capitol he attacked but four short years ago and finally captured on Monday.
Once he’s insulated, it’s over.
No surprise. He has flooded the zone on social media today saying the military will be his No. 1 priority as he gets at America’s true enemies. He means us, of course.
This is predictable as hell, and back in November I warned you of this:
NOTHING Trump does with our military will be to protect the citizens of the United States of America.
EVERYTHING Trump does with our military will be to protect himself from the citizens of the United States of America.
We will be here shortly unless something jars us from our deep sleep.
America has not seen anything like this since our Civil War. That one didn’t end us, but its echoes are pounding in our ears like never before. The white heat is turned up to 10.
History shows us 1935 Germany can also be terrifyingly instructive. The accumulation of unchecked power can happen insanely fast. Hitler himself was actually surprised how easy things were, and expected a helluva lot more pushback than he got on his way to complete power.
Now 90 years later, all the dogs are once again lying down. While we nap, evil has crept up to our doors.
Human beings will be rounded up and shipped out.
Comply, or else.
This is a five-alarm fire, good people. It is far beyond what any reasonable person who has been around for a while feared in their lifetimes. Our Democracy is burning out of control, and the response from our Democratic representatives on the frontlines in Washington has been appalling.
They literally have no answers for us right now, as they scramble to find their asses with both hands. It is as if they have been living someplace else, while the rest of us have yelled for them to do something — ANYTHING.
This is why people like us were screaming bloody murder when Merrick Garland did nothing. Not ONE lawmaker was tried or jailed for the January 6th attack -- including of course the dangerous, orange ringleader who means to finish us off.
I genuinely need to know what the f--- just happened the past four years, that left us so completely unarmed for this.
I have no answers for you, my friends, but those need to be demanded. I will put on my activist hat before finishing up here, and suggest if you haven’t already that you call your representatives and demand an accounting of what they are planning to do to defend us from the end.
Winning some election that may or may not happen two years from now is NOT an acceptable answer.
Here’s the number, if it isn’t already burned into your fried brain: 202-224-3121. I’d also suggest you contact what passes for your local news sources and ask them what they have planned in their coverage of this attack on our freedom. Write a letter to the editor today. Some of you other rough-and-readies will have suggestions, and the comments are open.
UNDERSTAND THIS: We must stay together right now. We must check on each other, and report out what we are seeing and hearing. Information is power.
America is under attack.
This is not a drill.
D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.
Trump 'wants a paramilitary arm' for his 'war with half of America': analysis
Jennifer Bowers Bahney
January 21, 2025
RAW STORY
Seth Wenig/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
President Donald Trump views himself as a "wartime president," according to a new article in The Bulwark, but his enemy isn't a rogue state — it's the American people themselves.
In an article published Tuesday, Bulwark Editor Jonathan V. Last wrote, "I don’t think there’s any way to read yesterday except as President Trump deciding that with the Republican party fully subservient to him, he can subjugate the other remaining power centers in American life. He can finally be a wartime president. It’s just that he’s going to war against America."
Last wrote that Trump's war with America is unprecedented, "Or at least: We haven’t had a president view Americans this way since Reconstruction.
Trump made it clear during the inauguration that he's "governing not for all Americans—and not even just for the benefit of 'his' voters—but as an attack on the half of America that opposed him," Last wrote.
According to the article, Trump "believes that Democratic voters should not be bargained with or bribed, but intimidated, punished, subdued—and rendered unable to oppose him in his quest for total power."
And Trump is going to use all the power at his presidential fingertips to ensure everyone falls in line. This includes using the courts, government bureaucracy, and mob rule to get what he wants. Last wrote that Trump released the J6 rioters, even the violent ones, for a purpose: "The message is unambiguous: Trump wants supporters who engage in street violence on the loose. He wants a paramilitary arm for which he has plausible deniability."
Last continued, "Freeing those convicted of violence is a go-ahead signal for future violent acts and an implicit promise that Trump will take care of those who fight on his behalf."
The target of Trump's power campaign is anyone who lives in a blue state, Last wrote. "Trump understands that blue states are the last bastions of meaningful popular opposition to his rule, so he will use the federal government to subdue them. That’s what deportations—and tariffs—are for. These are executive powers which can be used in highly-targeted ways to hurt on local economies."
So, "If you live in a blue state, President Trump is going to use the power of the federal government to make your life harder."
Read The Bulwark article here.
Jennifer Bowers Bahney
January 21, 2025
RAW STORY
Seth Wenig/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
President Donald Trump views himself as a "wartime president," according to a new article in The Bulwark, but his enemy isn't a rogue state — it's the American people themselves.
In an article published Tuesday, Bulwark Editor Jonathan V. Last wrote, "I don’t think there’s any way to read yesterday except as President Trump deciding that with the Republican party fully subservient to him, he can subjugate the other remaining power centers in American life. He can finally be a wartime president. It’s just that he’s going to war against America."
Last wrote that Trump's war with America is unprecedented, "Or at least: We haven’t had a president view Americans this way since Reconstruction.
Trump made it clear during the inauguration that he's "governing not for all Americans—and not even just for the benefit of 'his' voters—but as an attack on the half of America that opposed him," Last wrote.
According to the article, Trump "believes that Democratic voters should not be bargained with or bribed, but intimidated, punished, subdued—and rendered unable to oppose him in his quest for total power."
And Trump is going to use all the power at his presidential fingertips to ensure everyone falls in line. This includes using the courts, government bureaucracy, and mob rule to get what he wants. Last wrote that Trump released the J6 rioters, even the violent ones, for a purpose: "The message is unambiguous: Trump wants supporters who engage in street violence on the loose. He wants a paramilitary arm for which he has plausible deniability."
Last continued, "Freeing those convicted of violence is a go-ahead signal for future violent acts and an implicit promise that Trump will take care of those who fight on his behalf."
The target of Trump's power campaign is anyone who lives in a blue state, Last wrote. "Trump understands that blue states are the last bastions of meaningful popular opposition to his rule, so he will use the federal government to subdue them. That’s what deportations—and tariffs—are for. These are executive powers which can be used in highly-targeted ways to hurt on local economies."
So, "If you live in a blue state, President Trump is going to use the power of the federal government to make your life harder."
Read The Bulwark article here.
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