The United States' descent into fascism
The United States' descent into fascism
Quote:U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he is terminating all documents, including pardons, that he said his predecessor Joe Biden had signed using an autopen, a move that legal experts doubted would hold up in court...
Trump and his supporters have made a variety of unfounded claims that Biden's use of the device while president invalidated his actions or suggested that he was not fully aware of these actions. It is not known whether Biden used autopen on pardons...
“There is absolutely no constitutional or legal basis” for Trump to reverse pardons due to the use of an autopen, said Bernadette Meyler, a professor at Stanford Law School.
Brian Kalt, a professor at Michigan State University College of Law, said in an email that the administration would only be able to challenge the validity of a pardon in court.
The court would need to agree that it is invalid, which would “require proving to the court’s satisfaction that Biden didn’t authorize them.”
Quote:President Trump granted a pardon last month to Changpeng Zhao, a billionaire crypto founder who pleaded guilty to money-laundering violations in 2023. Zhao’s company, Binance, had even struck a business deal in May involving World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s own crypto venture. But when the president sat down with CBS’s “60 Minutes” recently, he gave us this unforgettable moment:It could also be that Trump is lying about not knowing who he is, but regardless, he claimed to not know who he pardoned while trying to terminate Biden's pardons on claims that Biden didn't know who he was pardoning.
“NORAH O’DONNELL: The government at the time said that CZ had caused significant harm to U.S. national security essentially by allowing terrorist groups like Hamas to move millions of dollars around. Why did you pardon him?
DONALD TRUMP: OK, are you ready? I don’t know who he is. I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that and I heard it was a Biden witch hunt.”
You heard that right — he doesn’t know the billionaire he just pardoned.
December 2, 2025
Trump says he's terminating any Biden pardons signed with autopen
https://archive.ph/aIbq5
Quote:U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he is terminating all documents, including pardons, that he said his predecessor Joe Biden had signed using an autopen, a move that legal experts doubted would hold up in court...
Trump and his supporters have made a variety of unfounded claims that Biden's use of the device while president invalidated his actions or suggested that he was not fully aware of these actions. It is not known whether Biden used autopen on pardons...
“There is absolutely no constitutional or legal basis” for Trump to reverse pardons due to the use of an autopen, said Bernadette Meyler, a professor at Stanford Law School.
Brian Kalt, a professor at Michigan State University College of Law, said in an email that the administration would only be able to challenge the validity of a pardon in court.
The court would need to agree that it is invalid, which would “require proving to the court’s satisfaction that Biden didn’t authorize them.”
Quote:President Trump granted a pardon last month to Changpeng Zhao, a billionaire crypto founder who pleaded guilty to money-laundering violations in 2023. Zhao’s company, Binance, had even struck a business deal in May involving World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s own crypto venture. But when the president sat down with CBS’s “60 Minutes” recently, he gave us this unforgettable moment:It could also be that Trump is lying about not knowing who he is, but regardless, he claimed to not know who he pardoned while trying to terminate Biden's pardons on claims that Biden didn't know who he was pardoning.
“NORAH O’DONNELL: The government at the time said that CZ had caused significant harm to U.S. national security essentially by allowing terrorist groups like Hamas to move millions of dollars around. Why did you pardon him?
DONALD TRUMP: OK, are you ready? I don’t know who he is. I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that and I heard it was a Biden witch hunt.”
You heard that right — he doesn’t know the billionaire he just pardoned.
hcregna The Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society beg to differ, and they’re the ones the conservative SCOTUS majority listen to.
We can hit them back. It takes 30 minutes of research to move money away from MAGA, and it makes a difference. Dollars spent at Republican companies are dollars funneled to the Heritage Foundation. Money given to states like Ohio or Louisiana is money spent sending troops to kidnap naked children.
If you consistently support a brand or do business with a company, you have power. Know where your money is really going. You can use sites like opensecrets.org to see what a company funds and make good decisions.
Have an account at Schwab? It's not hard to move accounts elsewhere like Fidelity. Get booze from wannabe Confederate states and all else is equal? Be adventurous, and try something new. There are alternatives for Goya, New Balance, Roark (Subway, Jimmy John's, Arby's), and Koch (Brawny, Angel Soft, Dixie). If you're in a place to invest, consider DEMZ or an ESG fund.
Nexstar and Sinclair got pummeled, and they reinstated Jimmy Kimmel. Real, individual people did that. There's no reason WWE or Uline can't be next.
It's hard to completely avoid companies that at least partially support Republicans. I have to buy gas. But there’s a big difference between massive Republican donors (Chevron/Conoco) vs neutral or even Democrat-leaning ones (Circle K/Costco). Good is not the enemy of perfect. One less kidnapped child is one less kidnapped child
A small way to possibly not feel like all hope is lost/fight back: https://reddit.com/comments/1pf3r0o/comment/nshddwj
hcregna The Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society beg to differ, and they’re the ones the conservative SCOTUS majority listen to.
We can hit them back. It takes 30 minutes of research to move money away from MAGA, and it makes a difference. Dollars spent at Republican companies are dollars funneled to the Heritage Foundation. Money given to states like Ohio or Louisiana is money spent sending troops to kidnap naked children.
If you consistently support a brand or do business with a company, you have power. Know where your money is really going. You can use sites like opensecrets.org to see what a company funds and make good decisions.
Have an account at Schwab? It's not hard to move accounts elsewhere like Fidelity. Get booze from wannabe Confederate states and all else is equal? Be adventurous, and try something new. There are alternatives for Goya, New Balance, Roark (Subway, Jimmy John's, Arby's), and Koch (Brawny, Angel Soft, Dixie). If you're in a place to invest, consider DEMZ or an ESG fund.
Nexstar and Sinclair got pummeled, and they reinstated Jimmy Kimmel. Real, individual people did that. There's no reason WWE or Uline can't be next.
It's hard to completely avoid companies that at least partially support Republicans. I have to buy gas. But there’s a big difference between massive Republican donors (Chevron/Conoco) vs neutral or even Democrat-leaning ones (Circle K/Costco). Good is not the enemy of perfect. One less kidnapped child is one less kidnapped child
Quote:Attorney General Pam Bondi is ordering the FBI to “compile a list of groups or entities engaging in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism,” according to a Justice Department memo published here exclusively.
The target is those expressing “opposition to law and immigration enforcement; extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology,” as well as “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism,” and “anti-Christianity.”
December 6 2025: FBI Making List of American “Extremists,” Leaked Memo Reveals
https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/leak-fbi-list-of-extremists-is-coming
Quote:Attorney General Pam Bondi is ordering the FBI to “compile a list of groups or entities engaging in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism,” according to a Justice Department memo published here exclusively.
The target is those expressing “opposition to law and immigration enforcement; extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology,” as well as “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism,” and “anti-Christianity.”
Quote:Foreigners who are allowed to come to the United States without a visa could soon be required to submit information about their social media, email accounts and extensive family history to the Department of Homeland Security before being approved for travel.
The notice published Wednesday in the Federal Register said Customs and Border Protection is proposing collecting five years’ worth of social media information from travelers from select countries who do not have to get visas to come to the U.S. The Trump administration has been stepping up monitoring of international travelers and immigrants.
December 10 2025: Foreigners allowed to travel to the US without a visa could soon face new social media screening
https://apnews.com/article/esta-visa-waiver-social-media-travel-foreigners-9a1daaba39ffbb7bf24f0f411c2a0275
Quote:Foreigners who are allowed to come to the United States without a visa could soon be required to submit information about their social media, email accounts and extensive family history to the Department of Homeland Security before being approved for travel.
The notice published Wednesday in the Federal Register said Customs and Border Protection is proposing collecting five years’ worth of social media information from travelers from select countries who do not have to get visas to come to the U.S. The Trump administration has been stepping up monitoring of international travelers and immigrants.
Quote:After reviewing coverage from the network and hours of social media videos that preceded Trump’s decision, ProPublica found that Fox’s portrayal of “Portland rioters” routinely instigating violence was misleading.
When President Donald Trump told reporters on Sept. 5 he’d started looking at sending the National Guard to Portland, Oregon, he said it was because of something he saw on television.
He said the city was being destroyed by paid agitators. “What they’ve done to that place, it’s like living in hell,” he said, a comment that became an internet meme as some Portland residents juxtaposed it with tranquil images of the city.
Trump didn’t say which channel he watched; he said at one point he saw something “today” and at another “last night.”
The evening before, on Sept. 4, Fox News aired a two-and-a-half-minute segment spotlighting protests outside a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Portland. Similar footage aired the morning of Trump’s remarks. The president went on to announce Sept. 27 on Truth Social that he would send troops, saying that he was “authorizing Full Force, if necessary.”
He later said he’d told Oregon’s governor, Tina Kotek, that “unless they’re playing false tapes, this looked like World War II. Your place is burning down.”
ProPublica examined months of Fox News’ coverage and reviewed more than 700 video clips posted to social media by protesters, counterprotesters and others in the three months preceding the Sept. 4 broadcast.
The review found that the news network repeatedly provided a misleading picture of what was happening in Portland.
As The Guardian and The Oregonian/OregonLive have reported, Fox News on Sept. 4 used footage from the 2020 protests after the police killing of George Floyd and said it was from 2025. We found two clear cases from that night as well as one that seemed to match a scene filmed at a key site of the 2020 protests. Fox also mislabeled two other dates of actions shown on screen, and one broadcast implied that a protest from elsewhere was happening in Portland...
Fox News Said It Was 2025. It Wasn’t.
Protests in 2020 in the wake of Floyd’s murder by a police officer attracted large, sometimes violent crowds to Portland — along with a federal law enforcement response authorized by Trump.
The protests outside the ICE facility have typically been far smaller. Still, Fox spliced footage from 2020 into its coverage this year and claimed it was from 2025...
We don’t know for certain which broadcast got Trump thinking about Portland. The White House did not respond to questions about what Trump watched. But the president said on Sept. 5 that what he’d seen about Portland on TV was “unbelievable.”
“I didn’t know that was still going on,” he said. “This has been going on for years.”
The reality: Portland’s 2020 social justice protests, which resulted in hundreds of arrests and continued for months, turned sporadic by early 2021. Protests in years since have led to occasional property damage, but nothing in Portland has matched the scale of events that followed Floyd’s death.
Portland police Chief Bob Day said at a Sept. 29 press conference that the city had been inaccurately portrayed through the lens of the protests in 2020 and 2021.
“What’s actually happening, and the response we’re seeing both from Portlanders and from the Portland Police Bureau,” Day said, “is not in line with that national narrative. And it is frustrating.”
Quote:The Trump administration removed free national park access on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth, while adding it for President Trump’s birthday.
Quote:Right-wing media figures Laura Loomer and former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) were among members of the press who sat for a rare briefing with Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson on Tuesday...
Earlier this fall, the Pentagon announced a major revamp of operating procedures for press covering the department, asking reporters to sign a restrictive press policy and sparking a mass exodus of mainstream media outlets from the building.
The Trump administration responded by credentialing a number of right-wing and MAGA-friendly figures, some of which have not covered press conferences in person previously.
Quote:Summary
- Pentagon policy seen as threat to press freedoms, at least 30 outlets reject it
- Times says policy violates free speech and due process rights
- New press corps at Pentagon includes pro-Trump outlets, activists
Quote:Cuellar and his wife were charged in 2024 with accepting $600,000 in bribes from foreign entities...
On Truth Social on Wednesday, Trump accused the Biden administration of targeting Cuellar, even though he is a Democrat, due to the lawmaker’s position on immigration.
Quote:Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar filed for reelection Wednesday as a Democrat and told reporters he had no intention to retire or switch parties hours after President Donald Trump announced pardons for him and his wife."Such a lack of LOYALTY"
“It came as a surprise,” Cuellar told a small group of reporters about the pardon. “I want to thank President Trump for this. … Now we clear the air. Nothing has changed, and we’re going to be ready to win re-election again.”
Quote:President Donald Trump’s administration has rebranded the U.S. Institute of Peace to include his own name — after seizing control of the agency and slashing its funding.And he already illegally used federal funding to put his dictator face banners on the Department of Agriculture, which I think got removed, and the Department of Labor, which is still there.
On Wednesday, the State Department announced that the institute, a non-profit independent think tank, had been renamed the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace in order “to reflect the greatest dealmaker in our nation's history.”...
While financed by Congress, the institute operates independently and owns its headquarters, according to CNN.
Quote:President Donald Trump was awarded the new FIFA peace prize on Friday at the 2026 World Cup draw — giving the spectacle to set matchups for the quadrennial soccer tournament even more of a Trumpian flair...Like a scene out of North Korea.
Trump, who has openly campaigned for the Nobel Peace Prize, had been heavily expected to receive the newly created FIFA prize...
Infantino also presented Trump with a gold trophy with his name on it that depicts hands holding up the world. “You definitely deserve the first FIFA Peace Prize for your action, for what you have obtained in your way,” Infantino said...
Infantino has often spoken about soccer as a unifier for the world, but the prize is a departure from the federation’s traditional focus on sport.
FIFA has given no details about the process for choosing a winner. When Infantino first announced last month that the organization would give out a peace prize, some of its senior officials were caught off guard, learning about it through reports in the media.
Quote:The Trump administration is insisting that the U.S. is open and welcomes foreign visitors ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, even as a White House official refused to say whether or not ICE agents will target foreign fans attending the matches.
Quote:The State Department is instructing its staff to reject visa applications from people who worked on fact-checking, content moderation or other activities the Trump administration considers "censorship" of Americans' speech...
First Amendment experts criticized the memo's guidance as itself a potential violation of free speech rights.
"People who study misinformation and work on content-moderation teams aren't engaged in 'censorship'— they're engaged in activities that the First Amendment was designed to protect. This policy is incoherent and unconstitutional," said Carrie DeCell, senior staff attorney and legislative advisor at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, in a statement.
Quote:Denmark has for the first time identified the United States as one of the security threats facing the country in an annual risk assessment published on Wednesday.
The report, from the Danish Defence Intelligence Service (DDIS), revealed that the U.S. is "now using its economic and technological strength as an instrument of power, including toward allies and partners."
The report also concluded that uncertainty over U.S.'s security role in Europe was likely to spur Russia to intensify its hybrid attacks against NATO members, which have already accused Moscow of repeated drone and aircraft breaches of its airspace.
Quote:President Trump has cemented his legacy as The President of Peace.Insane. It claims that European allies are anti-democratic, doesn't mention North Korea, and uses very soft language regarding Russia.
Quote:The document, known as the National Security Strategy, describes a world in which American interests are far narrower than how prior administrations — even in Mr. Trump’s first term — had portrayed them. Gone is the long-familiar picture of the United States as a global force for freedom, replaced by a country that is focused on reducing migration while avoiding passing judgment on authoritarians, instead seeing them as sources of cash.
Quote:“After all of the work I have done with Medical Exams, Cognitive Exams, and everything else, I actually believe it’s seditious, perhaps even treasonous, for The New York Times, and others, to consistently do FAKE reports in order to libel and demean ‘THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,’” Trump said in a nearly 500-word post on Truth Social late Tuesday.
Trump’s swipe at the Times comes after it reported last month that the President has apparently cut back on domestic travel and public appearances. The report also mentioned Trump’s apparent dozing off during an event at the White House (and the Times reported earlier this month that he appeared to fall asleep again during a Cabinet meeting).
November 12, 2025
In true clownworld fashion, President Con Job watches Fox News propaganda to stay informed and make decisions about the country he's running, leading to things like this.
“Riots Raging”: The Misleading Story Fox News Told About Portland Before Trump Sent Troops
https://archive.ph/TSYGt
(Summary: Fox News played footage from 2020 protests and claimed they were from 2025, which is likely why Trump thought Portland was “burning down” and sent in troops.)
Quote:After reviewing coverage from the network and hours of social media videos that preceded Trump’s decision, ProPublica found that Fox’s portrayal of “Portland rioters” routinely instigating violence was misleading.
When President Donald Trump told reporters on Sept. 5 he’d started looking at sending the National Guard to Portland, Oregon, he said it was because of something he saw on television.
He said the city was being destroyed by paid agitators. “What they’ve done to that place, it’s like living in hell,” he said, a comment that became an internet meme as some Portland residents juxtaposed it with tranquil images of the city.
Trump didn’t say which channel he watched; he said at one point he saw something “today” and at another “last night.”
The evening before, on Sept. 4, Fox News aired a two-and-a-half-minute segment spotlighting protests outside a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Portland. Similar footage aired the morning of Trump’s remarks. The president went on to announce Sept. 27 on Truth Social that he would send troops, saying that he was “authorizing Full Force, if necessary.”
He later said he’d told Oregon’s governor, Tina Kotek, that “unless they’re playing false tapes, this looked like World War II. Your place is burning down.”
ProPublica examined months of Fox News’ coverage and reviewed more than 700 video clips posted to social media by protesters, counterprotesters and others in the three months preceding the Sept. 4 broadcast.
The review found that the news network repeatedly provided a misleading picture of what was happening in Portland.
As The Guardian and The Oregonian/OregonLive have reported, Fox News on Sept. 4 used footage from the 2020 protests after the police killing of George Floyd and said it was from 2025. We found two clear cases from that night as well as one that seemed to match a scene filmed at a key site of the 2020 protests. Fox also mislabeled two other dates of actions shown on screen, and one broadcast implied that a protest from elsewhere was happening in Portland...
Fox News Said It Was 2025. It Wasn’t.
Protests in 2020 in the wake of Floyd’s murder by a police officer attracted large, sometimes violent crowds to Portland — along with a federal law enforcement response authorized by Trump.
The protests outside the ICE facility have typically been far smaller. Still, Fox spliced footage from 2020 into its coverage this year and claimed it was from 2025...
We don’t know for certain which broadcast got Trump thinking about Portland. The White House did not respond to questions about what Trump watched. But the president said on Sept. 5 that what he’d seen about Portland on TV was “unbelievable.”
“I didn’t know that was still going on,” he said. “This has been going on for years.”
The reality: Portland’s 2020 social justice protests, which resulted in hundreds of arrests and continued for months, turned sporadic by early 2021. Protests in years since have led to occasional property damage, but nothing in Portland has matched the scale of events that followed Floyd’s death.
Portland police Chief Bob Day said at a Sept. 29 press conference that the city had been inaccurately portrayed through the lens of the protests in 2020 and 2021.
“What’s actually happening, and the response we’re seeing both from Portlanders and from the Portland Police Bureau,” Day said, “is not in line with that national narrative. And it is frustrating.”
Quote:The Trump administration removed free national park access on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth, while adding it for President Trump’s birthday.
Quote:Right-wing media figures Laura Loomer and former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) were among members of the press who sat for a rare briefing with Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson on Tuesday...
Earlier this fall, the Pentagon announced a major revamp of operating procedures for press covering the department, asking reporters to sign a restrictive press policy and sparking a mass exodus of mainstream media outlets from the building.
The Trump administration responded by credentialing a number of right-wing and MAGA-friendly figures, some of which have not covered press conferences in person previously.
Quote:Summary
- Pentagon policy seen as threat to press freedoms, at least 30 outlets reject it
- Times says policy violates free speech and due process rights
- New press corps at Pentagon includes pro-Trump outlets, activists
Quote:Cuellar and his wife were charged in 2024 with accepting $600,000 in bribes from foreign entities...
On Truth Social on Wednesday, Trump accused the Biden administration of targeting Cuellar, even though he is a Democrat, due to the lawmaker’s position on immigration.
Quote:Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar filed for reelection Wednesday as a Democrat and told reporters he had no intention to retire or switch parties hours after President Donald Trump announced pardons for him and his wife."Such a lack of LOYALTY"
“It came as a surprise,” Cuellar told a small group of reporters about the pardon. “I want to thank President Trump for this. … Now we clear the air. Nothing has changed, and we’re going to be ready to win re-election again.”
Quote:President Donald Trump’s administration has rebranded the U.S. Institute of Peace to include his own name — after seizing control of the agency and slashing its funding.And he already illegally used federal funding to put his dictator face banners on the Department of Agriculture, which I think got removed, and the Department of Labor, which is still there.
On Wednesday, the State Department announced that the institute, a non-profit independent think tank, had been renamed the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace in order “to reflect the greatest dealmaker in our nation's history.”...
While financed by Congress, the institute operates independently and owns its headquarters, according to CNN.
Quote:President Donald Trump was awarded the new FIFA peace prize on Friday at the 2026 World Cup draw — giving the spectacle to set matchups for the quadrennial soccer tournament even more of a Trumpian flair...Like a scene out of North Korea.
Trump, who has openly campaigned for the Nobel Peace Prize, had been heavily expected to receive the newly created FIFA prize...
Infantino also presented Trump with a gold trophy with his name on it that depicts hands holding up the world. “You definitely deserve the first FIFA Peace Prize for your action, for what you have obtained in your way,” Infantino said...
Infantino has often spoken about soccer as a unifier for the world, but the prize is a departure from the federation’s traditional focus on sport.
FIFA has given no details about the process for choosing a winner. When Infantino first announced last month that the organization would give out a peace prize, some of its senior officials were caught off guard, learning about it through reports in the media.
Quote:The Trump administration is insisting that the U.S. is open and welcomes foreign visitors ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, even as a White House official refused to say whether or not ICE agents will target foreign fans attending the matches.
Quote:The State Department is instructing its staff to reject visa applications from people who worked on fact-checking, content moderation or other activities the Trump administration considers "censorship" of Americans' speech...
First Amendment experts criticized the memo's guidance as itself a potential violation of free speech rights.
"People who study misinformation and work on content-moderation teams aren't engaged in 'censorship'— they're engaged in activities that the First Amendment was designed to protect. This policy is incoherent and unconstitutional," said Carrie DeCell, senior staff attorney and legislative advisor at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, in a statement.
Quote:Denmark has for the first time identified the United States as one of the security threats facing the country in an annual risk assessment published on Wednesday.
The report, from the Danish Defence Intelligence Service (DDIS), revealed that the U.S. is "now using its economic and technological strength as an instrument of power, including toward allies and partners."
The report also concluded that uncertainty over U.S.'s security role in Europe was likely to spur Russia to intensify its hybrid attacks against NATO members, which have already accused Moscow of repeated drone and aircraft breaches of its airspace.
Quote:President Trump has cemented his legacy as The President of Peace.Insane. It claims that European allies are anti-democratic, doesn't mention North Korea, and uses very soft language regarding Russia.
Quote:The document, known as the National Security Strategy, describes a world in which American interests are far narrower than how prior administrations — even in Mr. Trump’s first term — had portrayed them. Gone is the long-familiar picture of the United States as a global force for freedom, replaced by a country that is focused on reducing migration while avoiding passing judgment on authoritarians, instead seeing them as sources of cash.
Quote:“After all of the work I have done with Medical Exams, Cognitive Exams, and everything else, I actually believe it’s seditious, perhaps even treasonous, for The New York Times, and others, to consistently do FAKE reports in order to libel and demean ‘THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,’” Trump said in a nearly 500-word post on Truth Social late Tuesday.
Trump’s swipe at the Times comes after it reported last month that the President has apparently cut back on domestic travel and public appearances. The report also mentioned Trump’s apparent dozing off during an event at the White House (and the Times reported earlier this month that he appeared to fall asleep again during a Cabinet meeting).