It looks like Trump now has his Stormtroopers (Stoßtruppen)

Whitewavemark2

I read somewhere that a pardon is not within Trumps gift snd in any case would be very strongly contested 🤞🤞. Not sure if that is correct though.

He seems to think he can pardon Maxwell. Whether he is legally right is another matter.
www.politico.com/news/2025/07/28/trump-ghislaine-maxwell-pardon-jeffrey-epstein-00479862

I believe she had federal charges. If that is the case, he can pardon her. If they were state charges, he could t do anything. Last I saw, she was asking for immunity to testify before Congress.

I am going to go look up her charges.

They were federal charges because they transported minors across state lines for the purpose of sex trafficking.

www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/ghislaine-maxwell-sentenced-20-years-prison-conspiring-jeffrey-epstein-sexually-abuse

Won’t there be a massive push back if he pardons her?

I’m not sure there will be lush back Whitewave. So many of his supporters don’t care about sexual abuse or exploitation of the vulnerable

Droitwich du Seigneur lives on, sadly.

Wretched predictive text! Droit of course!

Predictive text turned my push into lush 🙈

I have to admit that turning "droit" into "Droitwich" made me smile.

Im still here. Kind of ignoring him since nothing we can do ton change things. Looks like the SC is going to allow Texas to Gerrymander things, which will flip 5 house seats from D to R. Republicans are going to hold the house forever now. which means no one will impeach him.

PoliticsNerd

Droitwich du Seigneur lives on, sadly.

Gave me a laugh too PN 😂

imaround

Im still here. Kind of ignoring him since nothing we can do ton change things. Looks like the SC is going to allow Texas to Gerrymander things, which will flip 5 house seats from D to R. Republicans are going to hold the house forever now. which means no one will impeach him.

The D will have to try harder! What on earth are they doing?

They will only do very mediocre in the mid-terms unless they get their act together.

The Texas Dems left the state to avoid a quarum for the Gerrymandered vote and now there are (going to be?) warrants for their arrests. The Illinois Governor is providing refuge for some of them. He has stayed that he won't turn them over to Texas.

In case anyone is wondering what it is like to have a fascist regime in charge. At this point, anyone who still supports this man on any level, anywhere in the world, openly and knowingly supports fascism. They will be judged.

Whitewavemark2

imaround

Im still here. Kind of ignoring him since nothing we can do ton change things. Looks like the SC is going to allow Texas to Gerrymander things, which will flip 5 house seats from D to R. Republicans are going to hold the house forever now. which means no one will impeach him.

The D will have to try harder! What on earth are they doing?

They will only do very mediocre in the mid-terms unless they get their act together.

What can they do? He has just fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), because they didn't give him the statistics he wanted. Basically she was fired for reporting the Truth. This will not steady the markets.

imaround

The Texas Dems left the state to avoid a quarum for the Gerrymandered vote and now there are (going to be?) warrants for their arrests. The Illinois Governor is providing refuge for some of them. He has stayed that he won't turn them over to Texas.

In case anyone is wondering what it is like to have a fascist regime in charge. At this point, anyone who still supports this man on any level, anywhere in the world, openly and knowingly supports fascism. They will be judged.

Have you a link that would help us to understand what is going on in Texas?

Gerrymandering isn’t quite so blatant in the UK as it seems to be in the US (though one or two recent practices have seemed to come near it)

This is how things started in Texas. Every 10 years we have a census. Our population controls number of seats each state has in the House of Representatives. There are only 435 seats, it is the make up that changes.

Due to population moving during the 10 year period will cause House seats to be shifted around. The last Census in 2020 added 5 seats to Texas and California lost seats.

What Texas is trying to do is set the boundaries for each Reps district in such a way that they dilute the Democrat vote on the larger cities = Gerrymandering.

Because Republicans have the majority in Texas, if this goes to vote, it will pass. The only way Democrats had available to stop the vote is to deny the Rs a quorum by leaving the state.

Now the Governor of Texas is mad and threatening to issue warrants for arrest.

ca.news.yahoo.com/showdown-texas-abbott-threatens-democrats-152854942.html

This has a perfect example of Gerrymandering

www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/01/this-is-the-best-explanation-of-gerrymandering-you-will-ever-see/

Wisconsin is allegedly the most Gerrymandered state.

"Gerrymandering remains a contentious issue in American politics, but which states twist and turn their voting maps the most?

Newsweek has mapped the most gerrymandered states, based on data from the World Population Review.

Much of the worst gerrymandering was concentrated in parts of the Southern and Northeastern United States. The 11 worst offenders were North Carolina, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Louisiana, Arkansas, Utah, Texas, Ohio, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

According to the report, Wisconsin is considered the most gerrymandered state in America, although the practice is present in all states.

In 2022, voters in Wisconsin elected a Democratic governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. These appointments were unaffected by gerrymandering as they used the statewide vote. However, Republicans maintained a 64-35 and 21-11 majority in the state Assembly and Senate respectively, enabled by Republican-drawn maps that favored its party's candidates in districts across the state."

www.newsweek.com/map-shows-most-gerrymandered-states-wisconsin-1915098

We did have a case years ago in Westminster borough I think it was. A lady called Shirley Porter was found guilty of “disgraceful gerrymandering” and fined a massive amount. I think she fled to Israel.

I’m not aware of out and out gerrymandering recently in the U.K.

Thank you, I'maround Your link was very helpful, and there was a news item about it on the BBC this morning.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93dkwnx94ro

Trump is certainly full steam ahead to authoritarianism.

So , gerrymandering is one clue, as is the sacking of the statistician which reflects so many similar actions in other authoritarian states.

Now Trumps is ordering NASA to shut down satellites collecting climate change data.

Not only does he want to destroy the US, he wants to destroy the world

ca.news.yahoo.com/white-house-orders-nasa-destroy-171440771.html

I saw that. I would like to think NASA won't destroy a satellite, I don't think that is true any longer. He fires anyone who doesn't give him exactly what he wants (I'm looking at you bad job numbers person), so I think he would find someone to do it. At the very least, the soulless (in my opinion) Steven Miller will go and push the destroy button. That man is an bottomless pit of evil and would probably love the chance to kill as many as he could.

The US is like some kind of over exaggerated cartoon villain right now. Seriously, I feel like I am reading a fictional dystopian novel. And not only are the Republicans not doing anything to stop it, they are doing everything in their power to make it worse.

At least the Republicans who are doing town balls are getting humiliated by their constituents. Even the ones that voted for them.

The Constitution of the United States, which was removed from websites back in January, has been returned to its place missing entire sections. Either they think we are too stupid to see the change or they assume we won't do anything about it. Probably a little of both.

www.404media.co/constitution-sections-on-due-process-and-foreign-gifts-just-vanished-from-congress-website/

A bit of interesting information regarding the jobs numbers report (the one he fired because he didn't like the numbers in her report. He said she giving out fake, politically motivated numbers).

Looks like the previous months numbers were corrected from initial reporting.

I am sure there is more to this story and I will look forward to it coming out eventually. Why was there such a huge discrepancy in the previous numbers? Trump used these numbers to inflate the economy outlook. His followers lapped it up like kittens at milk too. Despite warnings from economists, experts and every day people trying to get by, MAGA believes he was helping the economy because the numbers (and he) said so.

I was amused at a video of Nebraska voters at a Republican town hall recently. They have lost their only nearby medical center due to Medicaid cuts and one of them asked the Rep why we didn't have Medicare for All (an NHS type system). He said that the US can't afford it and got booed and heckled. Hopefully this momentum of wanting liberal policies because they are getting hurt by Trump policies continue into 2026.