Impeach. Convict. Remove.
Recap of this week in the revolution: Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship and Democratic Socialists defeat establishment Democrats. Trump profits off of his presidency. Supreme Court allows president to fire those who are supposed to check his power and delivers rulings without accountability or explanation.
The good...
Supreme Court building at dusk. Image by Joe Ravi from Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
This week the Supreme Court rejected Donny 2-Dolls' executive order declaring that children born in the United States to temporary or illegal immigrants were not citizens. The court upheld the Constitution's clear message that anyone born on U.S. soil is a citizen.
The ruling itself is a victory in that it upholds the Constitution's 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship to "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof." However, the fact that the decision was not unanimous, but only a 6-3 victory, does leave room for concern. And only 5 of the 6 justices who supported overturning the executive order did so on the grounds that it was unconstitutional. Justice Brett Kavanaugh believed the order violated the law, but not the 14th Amendment.
In these dangerous times, we can't afford to let radical political rhetoric, such as that used by the dissenting justices, retain even a foothold in our political system. We can't continue to celebrate every time we barely manage to hold on to the founding principles of this country. We need to wash away this stain of Christian Nationalism, Nazism, white supremacy, and other hateful ideals that threaten to destroy the very ideals that made this nation possible.
Melat Kiros, Democratic Socialist, Democratic nominee for CO House District #1. Image by Andra Turner from Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
The Democratic primaries saw a major shift in Colorado's historically blue House District #1, which includes the city of Denver. Thirty-year House veteran Dianna DeGette was defeated by first-time candidate Melat Kiros, a 29 year old Democratic Socialist who grew up in Colorado.
Kiros' win highlights the changing nature of the Democratic Party in the United States. She is one of several Democratic Socialists who have won a place on the Democratic Party ticket for the 2026 midterm elections. As disgust with the Trump regime grows nationwide, there is still a lot of mistrust of establishment Democrats, and around the country, we are seeing a new breed of Democrats pushing out the status quo, and bringing new hope to American politics. Kiros is projected to win the House seat in November's election.
Kiros, who immigrated to the United States just weeks after she was born, campaigned on abolishing ICE and hiring more immigration judges, establishing Medicare for all, supporting federal rent control and social housing, and reducing military spending.
The bad...
Donny 2-Dolls, U.S. Grifter in Chief.
Donny 2-Dolls raked in about $1.2 billion from his crypto scams businesses last year, despite the fact that his own investors in those same businesses and in his crypto meme-coins were plagued with losses. The profits stemmed from Trump's efforts to block federal actions to crackdown on this industry, which is plagued with fraud and criminal activity.
The idiotic meme-coins he created in his own image that once sold for $70+ each are now worth $1.68, and their value will only decline further as time goes on. People who bought the coins at their peak value are now facing significant losses, though Trump's business that handled the coins took in $600 million in profit from them. Like all of the president's other grifts (Bibles, sneakers, steaks, and watches, to name a few), they exist only to enrich the president at the expense of his own supporters.
The profits aren't only coming from Trump's manipulation of domestic policy, either. His international businesses are also raking in profits from his foreign policies. Why do you think he is sending Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, both business owners/investors, instead of peacemakers or politicians to "negotiate" a peace deal with Iran? This isn't a war to protect American interests, it's a land grab by the Trump family businesses to try to expand their influence and control over global markets.
The ugly...
Image by Rosy / Bad Homburg / Germany from Pixabay.
Federal law states that the president cannot fire heads of independent federal agencies without cause. But the Supreme Court has just ruled that Donny 2-Dolls' unjustified firing of Rebecca Slaughter (in violation of existing federal law requiring a reason be given) was somehow legal, and this decision will likely apply to any other independent federal agency heads Trump decides to remove.
The reason the law stipulates that a reason must be provided before firing the heads of these agencies is to ensure that the decisions made by the people holding these positions are free from political influence. But Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, "Such protection from removal is contrary to the separation of powers." How he came up with such a bizarre notion is not entirely clear, since it's quite obvious that this protection is in place specifically to enforce the separation of powers and prevent the executive branch from exerting excessive power over the other branches of government.
The president, to be sure, emerges with more power than ever before. That power was given to him by six justices on this court, not the people or the Constitution.
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor
Shadow Board from animated series Inside Job.
Last year, the Supreme Court set a new record by deciding more cases by secret ballot than by cases argued in the open with signed opinions. This means that the justices of the court are not willing to put their names behind their decisions or offer the people of this country any written opinions to justify the reasons behind their rulings.
Many of these cases have to do with green-lighting the Trump regime's priorities, and often contradicts longstanding legal precedent. Most are also heard on what's known as the "shadow docket," which is a sped up process by which the Supreme Court files motions and orders before reaching a judgment or sometimes even hearing arguments. The shadow docket was originally used when decisions had to be made quickly to prevent "irreparable harm" an applicant might face if a decision were to be prolonged while the court heard arguments and debated the case. Under the Trump regime, more cases are now decided on the shadow docket than through the regular, or merits, docket.
The patterns show a court going out of its way to enable Trump...That's the real blow to the court's credibility.
Stephen Vladeck, law professor at Georgetown University
Keeping you informed...
George III and Donald XLVII.
Two hundred fifty years ago, the American Colonies unanimously declared their independence from King George III of Great Britain. The Declaration of Independence claimed that it was the "right and duty" of the colonists to "throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." The document laid out a list of grievances against the King of Great Britain that, when taken together, not only justified but necessitated the establishment of a new nation in the Americas, separate from British rule.
Aside from differences in grammar and language, the list of grievances against King George III of Great Britain could have been written today about Donald Trump. And so, after 250 years, the United States finds itself in the same situation it was in at the beginning of the Revolutionary War.
How we respond to this over the next few years will be crucial for the United States. Will we submit to tyranny? Will we fight another war to defend our rights? Will we be able to restore the founding principles outlined in the Charters of Freedom through political means (voting)?
Sounds of the revolution...
The Resistance [Link]
Jesse Welles [Link]
On the lighter side...
