Trump is at war with anyone who criticizes him. He is seeking revenge. These attacks are damaging our country. Trump’s base will suffer too.
TRUMP IMPOSES HIS ALTERNATE UNIVERSE ON EVERYONE
Trump is trying to impose his version of truth on everyone in the country, including the judges who hear cases in their courtrooms and rely on real world facts to make their decisions.
Trump says Portland is on fire, burning to the ground. It is not. Trump says there’s a dire emergency in Chicago and the troops must be called in. That is false. Trump is calling up the military to deal with nonexistent emergencies in blue cities. In federal courts, judges are having to deal with the fact that this version of reality Trump is urgently pushing in their courtrooms is a ploy. It is part of the authoritarian playbook Trump is using to consolidate power. The goal? Get courts to allow him to put troops into blue cities to install a police state across the country especially in American cities where most of the Democrats live and vote.
A Trump appointed judge in Portland, Judge Karin Immergut, addressed the issue that has been bedeviling many federal judges hearing Trump cases in which Trump loyal attorneys try to portray a false reality as the truth.
In the past, the government’s lawyers were always extremely careful to tell the courts only what was factually verifiable. Federal courts would therefore generally give the government the benefit of the doubt about what the facts of the case are. They would defer to the government’s version of the truth as a general rule. But Trump and his loyal army of attorneys have shown that they do not deserve the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the truth. Because they lie.
As Harry Litman points out in his recent Talking Feds Substack post:
Trump has been invoking “emergencies”—at the border, in cities, even in cyberspace—but nearly all have rested on transparent falsehoods. There has never been an “invasion” of marauding migrants, or a fentanyl “siege,” or a crime wave in Washington sufficient to justify federal deployment. Each supposed emergency has been a pretext for asserting powers Congress never gave him. The pattern is as consistent as it is brazen: declare a crisis, invent the facts to match, and dare the courts to stop him.
He has lied about imaginary “invasions” at the southern border, about “crime waves” in the District of Columbia, about fentanyl “floods,” and immigrant “armies.” Now he has invented a supposed “rebellion” in Portland to justify sending in troops under 10 U.S.C. § 12406—a statute that allows federalization of the National Guard when there’s an invasion, a rebellion, or when the President is unable, with the regular forces, to execute the laws.
Trump appointed Portland judge defies Trump:
Judge Immergut was the district court judge in Portland assigned to determine how to handle the Trump administration insistence on sending the National Guard to Portland.
The case forced Immergut to confront the central pathology of the Trump era. (Namely, that Trump is a pathological liar and demands that justice department lawyers support his lies.)
Immergut, who lives in Portland, coolly explained that there was no insurrection. Portland was not “war-ravaged.” Protesters were not “domestic terrorists.” Local law enforcement was fully capable of handling the scattered incidents that did occur.
She began with the facts on the ground and their stark contrast with Trump’s hysterical assertions. Oregon and Portland had shown, she wrote, “substantial evidence that the protests at the Portland ICE facility were not significantly violent or disruptive.” The federal defendants, by contrast, produced nothing resembling proof of rebellion or organized resistance to federal law. “Sporadic violence,” she noted, “is not the same as a rebellion.”
Turning to the administration’s claim that Portland faced a “rebellion” or “danger of a rebellion,” her conclusion was unsparing: the President’s determination “was simply untethered to the facts.”
That phrase—“simply untethered to the facts”—is a gem. Her refusal to indulge the fiction is, in itself, a quiet act of civic courage.
Judge Immergut narrows the standard of deference to the government’s version of facts on the ground in her decision.
The heart of the opinion comes when she addresses the administration’s inevitable fallback—that courts owe the President broad deference. She agrees, up to a point. But deference does not mean ignoring the facts on the ground. Courts, she continues, must ensure that a presidential determination “reflects a colorable assessment of the facts and law within a range of honest judgment.”
That is the key sentence—the one that should echo in every courtroom and chamber of the appellate bench. It reclaims deference from the edge of abdication. It draws a clean, bright line between a reasonable mistake and a deliberate falsehood. “The President’s determination,” she concludes, “was simply untethered to the facts”—that is, conceived in bad faith. Immergut doesn’t say “liar.” She doesn’t have to. The entire structure of her reasoning spells it out. She treats truth as the baseline condition for judicial respect. Without it, “deference” collapses into blind obedience.
TRUMP IS USING A PRETEXT TO INVADE CHICAGO BUT PRITZKER IS NOT HAVING IT
JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, said on CNN that federal agents were trying to create a “war zone” in Chicago “so they can send in even more troops.” Pritzker has urged Chicago residents to bring their cell phones with them wherever they go and document what ICE is doing. That way there is evidence that is fact based from which to help fact finders (including judges) know what Trump’s government is really doing. Pritzker has urged Chicago residents to be totally peaceful. Trump is the one who is looking for trouble. He WANTS trouble. If there is trouble Trump will claim he has grounds to bring in the National Guard to impose order. He is threatening to use the Insurrection Act of 1807- an emergency power he thinks he can use to deploy the National Guard on US soil. This is a ploy, a pretext, to allow Trump to install a police state.
The Illinois AG, Kwame Raoul, has filed a lawsuit to stop the National Guard from invading Chicago. The federal judge appointed on this case just ruled that at least for now the National Guard should not be allowed into Chicago. Trump is threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act to evade the decision of the court.
Newsweek reported:
The backlash you are seeing to these ICE raids is not coming primarily from Antifa or whatever other left-wing boogeyman they’re pushing on Fox News. When you put an army of masked, anonymous, poorly trained and heavily armed men on the streets to snatch people from their homes, cars and jobs you are going to provoke a response from regular Americans — because this is un-American behavior. There is a way to carry out Trump’s promise of deportations that abides by our laws and norms and this is not it.
The Economist, a conservative magazine wrote up the “show” raid that was carried out in Chicago on September 6th:
Back on September 6th President Donald Trump posted a picture on his Truth Social page referencing “Apocalypse Now”, a war film, with the caption “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.” On September 30th a raid on 7500 South Shore Drive showed he meant it. At around 1am, at least 300 masked federal agents, mostly from border patrol, some rappelling from helicopters, others using breaching ladders, stormed into the building. They threw flashbang grenades into the corridors, smashed in doors and then marched everyone, including children, into the street in their pyjamas. Some 37 Venezuelan immigrants were taken away.
So far, the government has presented no evidence to verify that this raid did in fact sweep up any drug dealers at all. As the article points out, the goal was to have a flashy film that Trump could put on a government website that would confirm what Trump falsely claims is the reality in Chicago.
WHAT IS BEHIND TRUMP’S ACTIONS?
Trump claims that he is cleaning up crime but what he is doing instead is creating a pretext for normalizing military troops on the streets of blue cities before the midterm elections. The goal is to suppress the votes of Democrats.
Trump is desperate to hold onto his power in Congress. If Trump can hold onto the House and Senate, he will not face consequences for the massive amounts of corruption he and his rich friends and family members have been engaging in in his second term.
TRUMP’S CORRUPTION IS PART OF HIS WAR ON AMERICA
“The evidence is clear that the second Trump administration is a powder keg of corruption scandals, influence-peddling, and profiteering from public service. The American people are the ones bearing the costs of Trump’s self-enrichment and selling of access and influence to the highest bidder.”
As the index below details, Trump — whose net worth, according to Forbes, has increased from $2.5 billion in 2020 to more than $5 billion today — has monetized the presidency in ways that defy both the intent and the letter of Article I of the Constitution, transforming public office into a vehicle for private gain through business enterprises, including multiple cryptocurrency ventures.
The scale and severity of Trump’s conflicts of interest has already far outstripped those of his first term. From selling access to his administration to using presidential visits and trade talks to help garner support for international contracts for his own businesses, Trump has taken numerous actions that have eroded the line between the presidency and his personal financial interests.
Trump has exploited the presidency for personal gain and taken the selling of access to staggering new heights.
https://issueone.org/articles/the-corruption-chronicles/
TRUMP’S ATTACK ON AMERICA WILL HURT ALL AMERICANS
Many autocrats and dictators are corrupt. Once they get into power they use the country as their piggybank, getting richer themselves and enriching their friends while the country is exploited and citizens lose their freedoms. Autocrats also use the corruption of their allies as a way to keep them in line, inviting corruption without consequences unless they cross Dear Leader. The so-called justice department then acts as the dictator’s whip.
Trump has co-opted our federal agencies. The DOJ deserves to be renamed the Dept of Lies. Attorneys who stand up to Trump and Pam Bondi are being fired and replaced with slavish loyalists who will do whatever Trump says. Indict Trump’s enemies Comey and Letitia James without evidence? Sure, boss. As long as autocrats are in power they feel relatively safe because they purge the ranks and anyone who is not fully complicit gets fired. Once dictators lose power they risk being held accountable.
Trump’s war on America affects all Americans including Trump’s loyal base. Republicans are on a mission to dismantle health care and the social safety net which includes: Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, Social Security and much more if they can get away with it. That dismantling has been the covert dream of right wing Republicans for decades. A cabal of wealthy billionaires (think Koch brothers and others) and tech bros want a new gilded age in which the rich (the makers) get whatever they want and the little guy (the takers) should just die off.
Trump is rapidly helping Republicans realize their mission: Musk’s DOGE and Russell Vought’s Project 2025 took a wrecking ball to our government. We lost safety and oversight functions, watch dogs who root out corruption were eliminated, FEMA, NOAA, FAA and other government agencies have been decimated, our leadership in the world of scientific innovation was dismantled, we have Bondi’s Department of Injustice, RKF Jr Wreck-your-health CDC, HHS and FDA, and Mike Johnson, the ass kissing, gutless, House Speaker who only does Trump’s bidding and will cheat to win and pretend otherwise.
Oh, and our Supreme Court which has 6 radical rightwing extremists on it led by John Roberts are letting Trump destroy our government while they pretend to be “originalists” who interpret the Constitution dispassionately. No. These guys are part of the cabal has attacked our constitutional democracy and is dismantling our country. Take a look at Lisa Graves’ book “Without Precedent” to learn the back story about how the rightwing and John Roberts specifically took over our Supreme Court with the goal of installing a tyrant (“unitary executive”)
Trump and his lackeys will go down in history as the con men who got working Americans to vote them into power to do the bidding of the billionaire class, ending FDR’s New Deal, turning the country into a piggy bank for the wealthy, ending our constitutional democracy, and reducing America to a third world country: sicker, poorer and with far fewer rights.
UNLESS…
There is still a chance to alter this outcome if Americans understand the danger. Some people are still giving Trump the benefit of the doubt, waiting to see if he will really assert himself as the first dictator of America.
Stop wondering.
The Republican party has become the amoral Trump/ MAGA/ Christian Nationalist/ Billionaires party now. If America hopes to survive this coup, Americans need to elect Democrats or Independents no matter how much they might feel let down by the Dems. The Dems are the only party committed to preserving our democracy, our freedoms, our health care and our social safety net. If you don’t want our country to become our version of Putin’s autocracy or Hitler’s Germany, Americans need to help Democrats sweep elections across the board in 2026: governors, secretaries of state, AGs, state supreme courts, state houses, and above all the House of Representatives and hopefully the Senate.
Could this happen? Americans do not like Trump.
Most recent polls have painted a bleak picture for Trump. Surveys from major institutions—including The New York Times/Siena College (-11), Pew Research Center (-18), Marist College (-12), Marquette Law School (-14), YouGov/The Economist (-14), Morning Consult (-6), Quinnipiac University (-16) and YouGov/Yahoo News (-14)— all show the president with negative net approval ratings.
The share of Americans who strongly disapprove of him climbed to 44 percent in the Silver Bulletin average—the highest level of his second term.
Trump is losing the support of podcasters who helped him get elected: Joe Rogan, Theo Von, Andrew Schulz and Shawn Ryan.
Marjorie Taylor Green is the first House Republican willing to break with her party on Epstein and the ACA subsidies. Maybe her courage will inspire other congressional Republicans to reclaim their power to check Trump when he goes off the rails.
More good news: the Dems have been overperforming in special elections. Besides their 16-point over-performance in Virginia on Tuesday, they also over-performed by 16 and 23 points in a pair of Florida special congressional elections in April. This might be the canary in the coalmine for Trump and his lackeys. But it is also the reason Trump is trying to install troops in big cities and pull the wool over the eyes of federal judges. If they can’t win fair and square, they will cheat to stay in power.
Don’t let them do it.
