The Reign of Trump

[LadyTevar]

Please use this thread for discussion on Trump's Administration (or lack of it)

[vakundok]

Frightening, so far (Edit: including Biden's actions).
Even if he is just a symptom, not the cause.

[Raw Shark]

Speaking as a retail worker on the front lines of the economy, the redhats are still pissed off about food prices. I'm wondering how long it will take them to connect the fucking dots on this.

[Batman]

They won't. That'd involve admitting that they were duped by Shitler, and there fragile little egos can't handle that.

[LadyTevar]

OK WTF WHY IS THIS LINK NOW 404?!?!?
WTF IS THE WHITE HOUSE LINK TO THE US CONSTITUTION NOW 404

https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-wh ... stitution/

[Batman]

So you can't look it up when Trump violates it every 90 minutes?

[Zaune]

The good news is that we can still rely on the GOP's massive incompetence at anything other than marketing, the inevitable conflicts arising from having that many fragile egos in one room together and the fact that Trump has failed to get the Army on his side to limit the damage. A bit.

[bilateralrope]

I posted about how the TikTok ban has caused disagreement between Trump and Congress over in the Project 2025 thread.

Now we have it driving a wedge between Trump and Apple/Google.

Why Google And Apple (And Others) Have No Choice: They Can’t Restart TikTok, They Can Only Fight

from the crossroads dept
Tue, Jan 21st 2025 01:46pm - Cathy Gellis

Even though the Supreme Court somehow didn’t agree, the ban on TikTok remains unconstitutional garbage for all the reasons we’ve discussed: its impact on the platform itself, the impact on its users, and its impact on other service providers that help it work. The corrupt scramble we’ve seen to try to keep it going, ever since it went into effect, only provides more evidence for why it was exactly the sort of law the Constitution should have prohibited.

But in the wake of TikTok v. Garland, here we are, with TikTok still basically shut down — or at least without the partners it needs to work properly. Or protect its users, because as long as it’s not in the app stores users cannot get software updates, thus leaving every phone with it installed extremely vulnerable to unpatched zero day exploits. Which, of course, is yet another reason the “Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” was unconstitutionally bad policy that never should have been allowed by anyone (as well as very poorly named).

But the Executive Order Trump just issued to forestall the law’s enforcement doesn’t solve the problem. There is still a law on the books that sanctions TikTok, as well as anyone who helps TikTok provide its services. Trump has no authority to set aside the law. Nor does he have the authority to delay its enforcement – the law articulates a small avenue by which he could, but the criteria that would give him this power has not been met (it would have required TikTok to be much further along with divesting itself).

Instead the Executive Order creates new problems. Because here is Trump trying to claim an unprecedented amount of raw power to decide whether or not to enforce the law. But that lawlessness he’s demonstrating can offer no protection from law. It can offer no protection from anything. And Google and Apple and any of the other providers TikTok needs would be fools to pretend otherwise.

Just run the math: Trump wants these companies to be in his debt. From at least some, like Google, he’s already extracted at least a million dollars in tithes “for his inauguration.” But there’s nothing to limit him from continuing to extract millions more. Meanwhile, if any of these companies serve TikTok they will be staring down a sanction of potentially more than 500 billion dollars (the penalty, especially for the app stores, is $5000 per TikTok user, and even for the other providers it’s still $500 per user). So if the way to avoid that penalty is to depend on Trump’s arbitrary benevolence, Trump could extract up to $499,999,999,999 from each of them, and that’s just to maybe avoid them getting in trouble for violating this law. Stay tuned for what other laws get put on the books next, especially now that the constitutional limits on them have been so relaxed.

At that point it would have long been more cost effective to just help elect Democrats and pay taxes like a normal company hoping to profit from Americans’ business.

Trump’s promise not to enforce is also as void as it is arbitrary and autocratic. As it is, the text of the executive order, at Section 3(c), instructs that no one should rely on it:

This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

It may be boilerplate that shows up in a lot of executive orders, but it’s still sitting there, in this one, having effect.

As a result the only choice these companies have is not whether to serve TikTok again or not; that choice got made for them by the stupid law, which decided for them that they cannot. Their only choice is whether to silently obey the law, or to fight it.

This law is jawboning and affects its own interests in a way that even Trump himself has recognized is unconstitutional. As has the Supreme Court. Furthermore, the extraordinary, distorting penalties also present their own constitutional concerns, which is an issue the courts have yet to address in this context.

In the face of this unconstitutionality the companies should have fought already, but with this actual injury to the companies now so proximate and likely, they probably still can, or at least plausibly try. And they should. Not only would doing so be in their own immediate legal interests, but their business ones as well. Because as long as the public sees these big tech companies as being in Trump’s pocket, no one will trust them again. But government contracts aside, their businesses still depend on that public trust, whether by customers, investors, or other regulators still able to sink their own teeth into them. It’s time to earn that trust by saying no to any of these abuses of power, for their sake and everyone’s.

Now we just need Trump to notice and have a tantrum that they are obeying the law instead of his orders.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

OK WTF WHY IS THIS LINK NOW 404?!?!?
WTF IS THE WHITE HOUSE LINK TO THE US CONSTITUTION NOW 404

https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-wh ... stitution/

If that's not the perfect metaphor for Trump's administration, I don't know what is!

[wautd]

Oh Fox News... ignoring Elon Musk double Nazi salute, but being up in arms because a Bishop was advocating for showing mercy and compassion during a sermon. Can't have unchristian behavior like that in today's America now can we?

[Zaune]

Trust Dilbert Stark to do such a shoddy attempt at the straight-armed salute that all the pictures I've seen make it look more like he's dabbing one-handed.

[Ralin]

Trust Dilbert Stark to do such a shoddy attempt at the straight-armed salute that all the pictures I've seen make it look more like he's dabbing one-handed.

Have you watched the video? He taps his chest then throws it out. It's clearly a salute changed just enough to make it plausibly deniable.

[Zaune]

I have, and it still looked ridiculous.

I'm not disputing what Musk was going for, I'm mocking him for being massively incompetent as well as vile.

[Ralin]

I have, and it still looked ridiculous.

I'm not disputing what Musk was going for, I'm mocking him for being massively incompetent as well as vile.

I mean, is it massively incompetent? Word is actual neo-Nazis are thrilled and openly saying it was done for him. Non neo-Nazi right-wingers are defending it as not a fascist salute. Musk presumably finds the reaction funny and is congratulating himself on his master trolling as he does his drugs for the night. Sounds like it accomplished pretty much every goal Musk intended it to at the cost of looking kinda silly to people who care about whether he did it right.

[bilateralrope]

Did Trump's executive order just make everyone in the U.S. female?

All Americans are now AFBT (assigned female by Trump).
By Amanda Yeo on January 22, 2025

U.S. President Donald Trump wasted no time in signing a slew of executive orders after his inauguration on Monday, delaying the TikTok ban, initiating a withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, and establishing the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency ("DOGE").

Trump may have also technically made everyone in the U.S. a woman.

Entitled "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government," Trump's executive order concerning gender identity states that the U.S. government only recognises two sexes, male and female. It also provides explicit definitions of each which are to be applied to all interpretations of law.

"'Sex' shall refer to an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female," Trump's executive order declares. "'Female' means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell. 'Male' means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell."

Though Trump's goal to impose a "binary nature of sex" may seem clear, the specific wording, technicalities, and application of his executive order are far from it.

Conception is the point when sperm and egg join, otherwise known as fertilisation. Regardless of whether they have an XX, XY, or an alternate chromosome pattern, all human foetuses' sex organs are identical at conception in that they have none. Foetuses subsequently develop in the same manner as each other regardless of their chromosomes until approximately six to seven weeks after conception, at which point the Y chromosome typically expresses itself by inducing the development of testes. If a Y chromosome does not do this, the foetus will continue to develop female genitalia.

Basically, the early, default configuration of a human foetus is female. If we were to assign a sex at conception as per Trump's executive order, all of them would be female.

Trump's executive order on sex ignores intersex people

It is possible that Trump's executive order intended to impose reliance on chromosomes rather than physical sexual organs. Most males have XY chromosomes while most females have XX, and these are present at conception. However, Trump's executive order makes no mention of chromosomes, and further does not address how intersex people might be classified if this were the case.

Intersex people are those whose chromosomes do not fall within the XX or XY binary, or whose sexual characteristics vary from what is typical. It's estimated that approximately 1.7 percent of people are intersex, many of whom may not discover this until later in life.

"The Trump administration purports to talk about 'biological realities' but demonstrates that they lack any understanding of the relevant science," intersex advocacy group interACT said in response to the executive order.

"A person with ovotestes (both ovarian and testicular tissue) may produce both sperm and ova. Would the Executive Order grant them both 'male' and 'female' category membership? On the other hand, a person born without gonads (gonadal agenesis), or with gonadal tissue that does not differentiate into functioning testes or ovaries (gonadal dysgenesis), may be considered neither male nor female if these nonsensical definitions are applied."

Even when a person does have XX or XY chromosomes, they aren't always expressed in the typical way. For example, people with Swyer syndrome have female reproductive structures while also having XY chromosomes. Similarly, people with Complete Androgen Insensitivity have external female sex characteristics, XY chromosomes, and internal male sex organs. Strict adherence to chromosomes would categorise these people as male, while looking to external appearances would have them assigned female.

It remains unclear how circumstances concerning intersex people will play out under Trump's binary directive. interACT has stated that legal challenges to Trump's executive order are already being prepared.

...

Then the article goes into the harm this order will cause. Which should not be news to anyone here.


Turns out the bigots writing the executive orders for Trump don't know anything about biology. Which is not a surprise, but it's good to have proof of their incompetence.

[bilateralrope]

Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht pardoned by Trump 10 years into life sentence

Trump confirmed the pardon was partly to “honor” Libertarian movement.

Ashley Belanger – Jan 23, 2025 3:55 AM

The self-declared "pro-crypto president" Donald Trump pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht on Tuesday.

Ulbricht, 40, was about 10 years into his life sentence for helming an online black market where drug dealers, money launderers, and traffickers used bitcoins to mask more than $214 million in illicit trades. (Ars thoroughly documented the Silk Road saga here.)

Trump had pledged at the Libertarian National Convention to set Ulbricht free while on the campaign trail, agreeing with supporters who believe that Ulbricht's long sentence was a harsh example of government overreach.

While Ulbricht had admitted to creating Silk Road and operating it under the alias "Dread Pirate Roberts," he maintained at trial that he relinquished control to others and was being set up as a "fall guy," Reuters reported.

When he was sentenced in 2015, he insisted that his goal in creating the underground market "was to empower people to make choices in their lives and have privacy and anonymity." Now-former US District Judge Katherine Forrest challenged that, noting at sentencing that Ulbricht had to "pay the consequences" because Silk Road's novel use of cryptocurrency to cover up widespread illicit trade was "unprecedented."

On Truth Social, Trump confirmed that he called Ulbricht's mother to let her know that her son's "full and unconditional" pardon was "in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly."

"It was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross," Trump wrote. "The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me. He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!"

Brandon Sample, Ulbricht's clemency attorney, told Reuters that Ulbricht was expected to be released soon.

"After enduring over a decade of incarceration, this decision offers Ross the opportunity to begin anew, to rebuild his life, and to contribute positively to society," Sample said.

On X (formerly Twitter), a "Free_Ross" account with more than 55,000 followers celebrated the pardon in a post viewed 4.5 million times.

"Words cannot express how grateful we are," the "Free_Ross" account wrote. "President Trump is a man of his word and he just saved Ross's life. ROSS IS A FREE MAN!!!!!"

The Ulbricht family posted a statement on a linked "Free Ross" website, expressing "immense gratitude to President Trump for giving Ross a second chance and to all those who have supported us throughout the years. From the bottom of our hearts, THANK YOU!!!"

When it comes drug dealers, money launderers, and human traffickers, Trump has clearly told us all which side he's on.

[Batman]

Can we please Shep Solution the US and have Canada annex what's left?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

And this is what, day 3 of Trump's second term?

[Batman]

After his first term, did anybody seriously expect anything else?

[Solauren]

After his first term, did anybody seriously expect anything else?

I was expecting the Tariffs and resulting cost of living expenses, combined with mass deportations resulting in violence, to spiral for a while and cause alot of damage.

Might still happen.

[bilateralrope]

Last I heard, ICE didn't have the budget for the mass deportations. So they might take a bit to start, or Trump might order something that's cheaper and much worse.

[Rogue 9]

The Justice Department's civil rights division has been ordered to halt all pending cases and not seek any new ones. Washington Post gift article.

Justice Department issues freeze for civil rights division

The directives halt ongoing civil rights cases and could jeopardize police reform agreements finalized in recent months in Minneapolis and Louisville.

The Justice Department has ordered the civil rights division to halt much of its investigative activity dating from the Biden administration and not pursue new indictments, cases or settlements, according to a memo sent to the temporary head of the division that was obtained by The Washington Post.

The letter instructs Kathleen Wolfe — designated by the Trump administration as supervisor of the division — to ensure that civil rights attorneys do not file “any new complaints, motions to intervene, agreed-upon remands, amicus briefs, or statements of interest.”

Cases that have already been filed would be subject to the discretion of the judge overseeing them.

A separate memo sent to Wolfe on Wednesday says the civil rights division must notify the Justice Department’s chief of staff of any consent decrees the division has finalized within the last 90 days. That directive suggests that police-reform agreements the Justice Department has negotiated with cities including Minneapolis, Louisville and Memphis could be in jeopardy.

The first memo doesn’t state how long the freeze will last, but it largely shuts down the civil rights division for at least the early weeks of the Trump administration. Harmeet K. Dhillon, a Republican lawyer and activist who is President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the department, is awaiting Senate confirmation.

The Justice Department could not immediately be reached for comment about the memo, which was sent by Chad Mizelle, the department’s new chief of staff.

It states that officials are implementing the freeze to be “consistent with the Department’s goal of ensuring that the Federal Government speaks with one voice in its view of the law and to ensure that the President’s appointees or designees have the opportunity to decide whether to initiate any new cases.”

Within the Justice Department, the civil rights division typically experiences the sharpest shift in priorities between Republican and Democratic administrations. Department officials interviewed after the November election said they expected that change to be even more drastic between the Biden and Trump administrations.

But the division typically decides on a case-by-case basis what litigation to pursue from the previous administration.

“It’s beyond unusual — it’s unprecedented. We’ve never seen this before at this scale with any transfer of power, regardless of the ideology of any incoming president or administration,” said Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “This should make Americans both angry and deeply worried. This is more than just a changing course of philosophy — this is exactly what most people [in the civil rights community] feared: a Justice Department that was created to protect civil rights literally abdicating its duty and responsibility to protect Americans from all forms of discrimination.”

In all, the Justice Department launched a dozen investigations into state and local law enforcement agencies during President Joe Biden’s tenure. They issued findings in nine of them. But Biden’s administration was slow to lock in reform agreements, putting a major civil rights initiative in jeopardy.

After the November election, the Justice Department rushed to finalize at least some police reform agreements, knowing that such agreements could be opposed by Trump appointees.

In December, the department announced a federal oversight agreement with the city of Louisville, where the 2020 police killing of Breonna Taylor helped spark nationwide justice protests. In early January, the civil rights division forged a police accountability plan with city leaders in Minneapolis, where the police killing of George Floyd galvanized the nationwide protests even further. Neither has been approved by a judge.

Trump did not pursue similar police accountability investigations during his first term in the White House. As a candidate in this year’s election, he clearly signaled his intent to abandon Biden’s use of federal power to try to curb excessive police force and racial discrimination.

He said on the campaign trail that police at times must be “extraordinarily rough” to stamp out urban mayhem and endorsed more aggressive tactics from police, including the use of stop-and-frisk to search suspects.

Caroline O’Donovan contributed to this report.

[RogueIce]

If you're curious about how the DEIA ban in the federal government is going, here you go.

Dear agency employees,

We are taking steps to close all agency DEIA offices and end all DEIA-related contracts in accordance with President Trump's executive orders titled Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing and Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions.

These programs divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination.

We are aware of efforts by some in government to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language. If you are aware of a change in any contract description or personnel position description since November 5, 2024 to obscure the connection between the contract and DEIA or similar ideologies, please report all facts and circumstances to DEIAtruth@opm.gov within 10 days.

There will be no adverse consequences for timely reporting this information. However, failure to report this information within 10 days may result in adverse consequences.

Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

As a government employee, I can confirm this was sent out verbatim by our current Acting Secretary.

Poisoning the well on what DEIA was? Check.

Setting up a witch-hunt to find and root out those dastardly DEIA crusaders trying to hide from the righteousness of King Trump's Edicts? Check.

Threatening consequences for anyone who doesn't toe the party line? Check.

And this, I am sure, is only the beginning.

Also what the fuck even is that email address Jesus Christ. They're not even pretending this isn't some Orwell shit.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I've said it before and I'll say it again- the only thing missing from this picture is the three armed helicarriers.

[bilateralrope]

Also what the fuck even is that email address Jesus Christ. They're not even pretending this isn't some Orwell shit.

If it's anything like the previous tiplines the GOP has set up to report people not going along with their bigotry, posting it somewhere people will actually see it will get lots of anonymous reports intended to make them unable to see the reports they want to take action on.