Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
“In tossing out the lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Thomas Cullen — an appointee of Donald Trump — lamented what he described as the White House’s months-long “smear” of the federal judiciary.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/26/trump-judge-rebukes-white-house-smear-00525450
Trump ran on mass deportation. Mass deportation inherently requires removing a lot of hard working good people against their will because they crossed a geographic line they weren’t supposed to. If you voted for him thinking he would only remove criminals, then you didn’t pay enough objective attention.
But, Trump is doing more than that. He is violating due process–a basic right to all people. He is forcing a mass of people into detention centers where it is difficult for their family and lawyers to reach them, and where conditions are sometimes abysmal. Trump is using troops and law enforcement to do demonstrations to strike fear.
The militarization of criminal justice can lead to the end of democracy and basic rights.
The administration is actively making it more difficult for those accused of immigration violations to get a lawyer. They are sending police to lawyers’ houses apparently to intimidate them. They are making student loan repayment more difficult for lawyers who defend immigrants.
Masked men who don’t identify themselves and force you into custody is not how democracies do law enforcement.
Trump has purged parts of the military and replaced them with unqualified sycophants. Instead of lawyers telling Trump that what he wants to do is illegal so he can’t do it, this term he has people finding excuses for him to do undemocratic things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcTZ_en5FTM
“The second Trump administration has been consumed by two central themes. The first theme is the unprecedented pace at which this administration has attacked the rule of law and the constitutional system on which it is built. The second theme is the unprecedented weakness of the response from major institutions to the Trump administration’s actions. Wall Street’s passivity amid Trump’s unprecedented attack on the Fed is only the latest example.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/08/26/trump-lisa-cook-federal-reserve-markets-opinion-00525449
Trump has used the pardon power to unjustly save his political allies. The founders said the control on the pardon power was impeachment, but that clearly isn’t going to happen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1kRAdQbQGA
South Park: Why Tech Bros WORSHIP Trump
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIdmTmuNI58
While both parties gerrymander, Republicans are the worst offenders. More Democratic states turned over their district drawing to neutral drawers. Republicans did not join them. Trump is leading the charge to gerrymander more often. Democrats like California’s governor are temporarily overturning their states’ neutrally drawn districts in order to combat Trump’s aggression.
Fair maps are needed to improve U.S. democracy, but even fair maps won’t be proportional because of where people live. You’d have to get rid of the district system altogether if you wanted representatives to be proportional to population.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moG7ZOUXHv0
“Senate Republicans have already said they plan to move quickly to confirm Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers Chair Stephen Miran to fill one current vacancy. If Cook loses a pending legal challenge and is dismissed — and her replacement is confirmed by the GOP-controlled Senate —Trump-appointed Fed governors would hold four of the seven seats on the central bank’s board.
That majority, in turn, would be enough to control the reappointment of the 12 regional bank presidents throughout the country who also have a say on rates and whose five-year terms are scheduled to expire in February.
And that, in effect, could give Trump control of the Fed’s policy-making Federal Open Market Committee, whose refusal to lower interest rates throughout his second term has put the president on the warpath with Fed Chair Jerome Powell. Any exertion of White House control over the reappointment process for regional bank presidents would represent an extraordinary break in precedent.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/27/how-cooks-dismissal-would-upend-the-fed-00527582
“As with any bureaucracy, the agency is fair game for criticism. BLS has plenty of flaws. But we know how Trump and MAGA play the game: Any results that are good for them are the truth—and anything not to their liking is evidence of rigging or conspiracy. Their take on any news is the one that advances their interests.
…
the feds need an independent body to analyze statistics. The New York Times quoted Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell: “Good data helps not just the Fed, it helps the government, but it also helps the private sector.” Trump has indicated he’d like to replace Powell—presumably with someone who will juice interest rates to help his political goals. Any intelligent person, though, can see why good policy flows from an accurate understanding of reality.
These are banana republic moves, backed by MAGA and the Banana Republican Party. Had any Democratic president tried to so directly politicize these independent agencies, Republicans would be screaming about the coming tyranny. Democrats aren’t immune to politicizing independent bodies—consider the troublesome plan to expand the U.S. Supreme Court—but they didn’t dare meddle in statistical counting.
Consider how budget matters are handled in Democratic-dominated California. The governor issues his budget and revenue/deficit predictions, which, of course, make the most optimistic projections. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) does its analysis, which typically is less sanguine. The governor might take issue with those results—but he doesn’t try to remove the head of the LAO and replace him with a political hack who issues only good news.
…
We’re all used to this administration “defining deviancy down,” as we all lower our standards for acceptable presidential behavior (free jet from Qatar, anyone?). So I guess this will be just another deviant action that the Republican Party will eagerly defend.”
https://reason.com/2025/08/15/firing-bls-director-over-weak-jobs-report-is-banana-republic-behavior/
‘There’s never been anything like’ Trump’s military purge: Petraeus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3gXwr7DpkY
Trump and Republicans for years lied and exaggerated about Democrats using the justice system against them. Now, in full honesty, Trump repeatedly uses the justice system against people who criticize him. U.S. democracy is on shaky grounds.
“President Donald Trump threatened to open an investigation targeting Chris Christie over the former New Jersey governor’s decade-old “Bridgegate” scandal after Christie criticized Trump on television earlier in the day.
The threat came just days after the FBI searched the home and office of another Trump critic, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, as part of an open criminal investigation. Trump lashed out at the former friend-turned-foe Christie in an evening Aug. 24 post on Truth Social, remarking that he just watched “Sloppy Chris Christie” on ABC’s This Week.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/president-trump-threatens-chris-christie-024621347.html