Trump... The law and order president, you all heard his boast Trump made during the elections. However, the first thing that he did when he took office is to pardon all the mob that tried to take over the government.
By Linnaea Honl-Stuenkel, Sophia Barriga Hernandez and Alyssa Meiman
December 18, 2025
At least 33 January 6th insurrectionists pardoned by President Trump have been rearrested, charged or sentenced for other crimes since January 6, 2021, according to new analysis by CREW. Four pardoned insurrectionists have allegedly reoffended since receiving their pardons. Several have argued that the pardon should cover unrelated criminal convictions, and in one case last month, Trump explicitly re-pardoned one insurrectionist for his unrelated weapons charges.
Six of the pardoned January 6th insurrectionists are charged with committing child sex crimes, ranging from sexual assault to possession of child pornography. At least five were charged with illegal possession of weapons, including at least two who had a previous domestic violence conviction. Five were arrested or charged with driving while impaired or under the influence. In two of these cases, the defendant’s reckless driving resulted in a fatality. Two were charged with rape.
In four cases, the insurrectionists allegedly reoffended after receiving their pardons from Trump. Most recently, Christopher Moynihan was charged with a felony for threatening to murder House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in October. John Andries was convicted in June for violating a peace order by following the mother of his child in violation of a court order. Brent Holdridge and Zachary Alam were charged in May with burglary and breaking and entering, respectively.
What I can't figure out is how the voters could ignore Trump first term and think this time it would be different.
Trump went to China groveling at their feet; his bottom line was getting China to end the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz. That put Trump in a weakened position.
President Donald Trump’s ambitions for his summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping have shrunk from ‘grand bargain’ to a plea for help in reopening the Strait of Hormuz and a push for small trade deals.
Politico
By Phelim Kine, Megan Messerly and Ari Hawkins
05/13/2026
President Donald Trump is arriving in Beijing in a role that he isn’t used to — a supplicant asking for favors.
The White House has said the meeting between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday and Friday will focus on trade, fentanyl and the war in Iran — all areas where the Trump administration has had little luck getting deals or concessions from China.
That means Trump will be hard-pressed to deliver the big outcomes he has promised for weeks. Trump pitched the meeting as “a Monumental Event” in March and announced on Truth Social last month that he expects nothing less than a “big fat hug” from Xi.
President Donald Trump is arrived in Beijing in a role that he isn’t used to: a supplicant asking for favors.
The White House has said the meeting between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday and Friday will focus on trade, fentanyl and the war in Iran — all areas where the Trump administration has had little luck getting deals or concessions from China.
That means Trump will be hard-pressed to deliver the big outcomes he has promised for weeks. Trump pitched the meeting as “a Monumental Event” in March and announced on Truth Social last month that he expects nothing less than a “big fat hug” from Xi.
The meeting got off on the wrong foot with a snub. Chronology writes:
President Donald Trump arrived in Beijing for one of the most important diplomatic meetings of his presidency — but within minutes, critics were already calling the visit a humiliation.
The reason?
Chinese President Xi Jinping did not personally greet Trump at the airport.
Instead of being welcomed by Xi himself, Trump stepped off Air Force One to meet lower-ranking Chinese officials, including Vice President Han Zheng and diplomats from both governments.
And online, the reaction exploded instantly.
There are also rumors that the Xi chair was higher than Trump's and that the long stairway was designed to get Trump huffing and puffing so that Xi had to step in to steady him
Political commentators immediately framed the airport moment as a symbolic power play by Beijing. Trump, in round one, was a supplicant to Xi.
The British media outlet Reuters also saw it as a win for China.
U.S. President Donald Trump's two-day state visit to Beijing featured wide-ranging talks on Taiwan, Iran and trade with Chinese President Xi Jinping but yielded few concrete outcomes on the issues dividing the world's two largest economies.
Here are some takeaways from Trump's trip to China, the first by a U.S. president since 2017.
NO BREAKTHROUGH ON IRAN
Trump downplayed the need for China's help with Iran ahead of the trip, even as his aides said Beijing - a major buyer of Iranian oil - could play an influential role in brokering a path to ending a conflict that has created the biggest crisis of Trump's presidency.
[…]
MORE PAGEANTRY THAN POLICY
Trump touted deals with Xi on Chinese purchases of farm goods, opens new tab, beef and Boeing aircraft, but the details were thin.
He departed Beijing without extending a trade truce due to expire later this year. Markets were disappointed that a deal reported by Trump for China to buy 200 Boeing jets wasn't bigger, and traders said U.S. soybean futures fell to their lowest level in more than two weeks on Friday after the summit failed to produce specific deals for American farm goods.
[…]
STRATEGIC SILENCE ON TAIWAN
When Trump emerged from his first round of talks with Xi on Thursday, reporters wanted to know one thing. What did they discuss on Taiwan?
Standing at the ancient Chinese Temple of Heaven, opens new tab alongside Xi, a president known for his loquaciousness opted for an almost spiritual silence. Trump said nothing.
By that point, China had already released an extended summary of Xi’s own comments on Taiwan in the private meeting with Trump. The Chinese leader warned that mishandling the countries' disagreements over Taiwan, the democratically governed island claimed by Beijing, could push China-U.S. relations to a "dangerous place."
As Xi and Trump walked through the Zhongnanhai gardens, Trump asked for some rose seeds, and Xi promised to send them for the White House Rose Garden. However, because the Rose Garden had been paved over by Trump, the offer was widely seen as a subtle dig against Donald “The Art of the Deal” Trump.
Trump left with nothing! All that his prostrating himself got him was nothing. China gave Trump the equivalent of some beads and trinkets. And what about the Strait of Hormuz? Well, China escorted tankers through the gulf... Chinese warships with the red star, escorting tankers through the gulf. That said it all!
Even the King of England got in a few digs at Trump when the King visited the White House; Trump has become the laughingstock of the world.
Loyalty to Trump means everything to Trump, but it is not a two-way street. If there is a way to make a buck off a friend, Trump will make the buck and toss the friendship away.
Recent comments by U.S. President Donald Trump that arms sales to Taiwan are a “very good negotiating chip” in the United States’ dealings with China are heightening anxieties on the island democracy that Beijing claims as its own.
Trump made the comment in a Fox News interview with Bret Baier that aired right after the U.S. president wrapped up a high-stakes visit to China on Friday.
China sees Taiwan as a breakaway province, to be retaken by force if necessary. The U.S., like all countries that have formal ties with Beijing, doesn’t recognize Taiwan as a country but has been the island’s strongest backer and arms supplier.
Trump is now suggesting that is open to negotiation.
Asked if he would approve a $14 billion arms package to Taiwan that has been held up for months, Trump said that’s up to China.
“I’m holding that in abeyance and it depends on China,” he said. “It’s a very good negotiating chip for us, frankly. It’s a lot of weapons.”
For Trump, friendship is nothing more than a bargaining chip.
There are times when your life takes a turn, and you can look back and see how a single word changed everything.
The first turn: I had been seeing the handwriting on the wall. When you work for a company that is going down the tubes, you can see it coming. My boss, the head engineer, was leaving, so I gave him my resume. For nearly the next 30 years, I worked at that next company—until it was sold, and the new buyers didn't want us.
The second turn: In 2006, we were heading back from a hearing on the gender-inclusive non-discrimination bill, and we all went out to eat at the Wood & Tap in Hartford. There was Jerimarie, Amy, and one other person. I mentioned that they were closing the company where I worked and that I was looking for a career change. Amy suggested social work. I said, "I’m not a people person. I couldn't just sit there and listen to other people's problems, I’d be right there crying with them!"
Amy replied that she was a social worker... a community organizer.
In 2007, I was laid off and I transitioned!
A couple of days later, I was picking up the mail for a support group that I ran, and there was a flyer from the University of Connecticut’s School of Social Work. It described a program where you could take non-matriculated classes; if you did well and liked it, you could transfer your credits over to a degree program.
In 2011—the very same year the gender-inclusive non-discrimination law was passed—I got my MSW.
1) This song is about a girl who borrows her father's Ford Thunderbird. When is the last time you drove someone else's car?
I can’t remember. Last July someone drove my car. There is a summer party up in Vermont and I drove up but a friend drove my car home.
2) The teen in question is well known for ability to drive "like an ace." If we were to ask your high school classmates what they remember most about you, what do you think they'd say?
Science Club… we weren’t just a bunch of nerds, we did so many pranks.
3) She told her father she needed the car to go to the library but used it instead to meet friends. Can you recall a time your parents caught you in a fib?
When I didn’t want to mow the lawn and I oiled the belt.
4) For this girl and her friends, fun centered on cars and fast food. What did you and your friends do for fun during your teen years?
All the gearheads hung out at McDonald’s, we would disappear foe a race on a back road and then head back to McDonald’s.
A bouncer, Joe would come around and say… “Order or leave!”
Many year latter I was the head of an electronic test department, the guy who worked in the equipment cage look familiar but I couldn’t place him.
He saw me looking so one time as he walked by my desk and said “Order or leave!” JOE!!!!!
Sadly, shortly after he retired he has a massive a brain aneurysm and died in mid sentence.
5) Legend has it songwriters Brian Wilson and Mike Love got the idea for this song from a Salt Lake City disc jockey. He told them he'd lent his T-bird to his daughter so she could go to class at the community college but discovered her deception when the car was ticketed in front of a fast food restaurant. Can you think of another song inspired by true events?
Four dead in Ohio!
I heard that song a lot after the two protesters were murdered in Minneapolis.
6) As in the song, the disc jockey punished his daughter by taking her driving privileges away. Were your parents strict when you were growing up?
Not really… there was a lot of rebellion there on my part in my teenage years. One thing that I still rebel at being on time. If the invite said at 7PM… we would be there at 7PM. Not 6:59. Not 7:01PM but at 7PM. Maybe it had something to do with being a Lt. Col.
7) This song was recorded on January 1, 1964. The Beach Boys had to work on the holiday because they were under pressure to meet a February release date. How did you spend New Year's Day 2026?
Sleeping and reading… I think I stayed up late on New Year’s Eve. I think that I made it up to 9PM.
8) 1964 was a great year for Capitol Records. They had chart-topping hits by the Beach Boys, Barbra Streisand and, most spectacularly, The Beatles. The Capitol Records Building in Los Angeles is considered iconic and it's a stop on tourist bus tours. Have you ever been to Southern California? If yes, what did you do?
Nope, only as far south as San Francisco. I learned a valuable lesson though. Drive up the coast on Rt. 1 not down the coast. Why? Because going down the coast you are on the outside on the way down the coast and some of those places had no guardrails, We joked that they only put up guardrails where they found a car at the bottom of the cliff… “Yup, I guess we need some here!”
9) Random question: What's the last compliment you received?
For a summer “Embroidered Top Flowy Floral Shirts Loose Dressy Casual Blouses “ I just bought a couple of weeks ago. But then it got cold again.
The administration is increasingly attempting to scare activists into silence, but progressives are preparing instead.
Truthout
By Marianne Dhenin
May 14, 2026
he White House’s 2026 Counterterrorism Strategy, published May 6, reveals startling new details about the Trump administration’s plans to target progressives. The new memo builds on one issued last September, called the National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7) on “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.” Organizers warn the administration’s so-called “America First” counterterrorism strategy represents a threat to human rights, civil liberties, and the ongoing struggle for democracy and are shoring up their work to protect against its directives.
“NSPM-7 is a deliberate attempt to sow fear and intimidate and silence opposition to the president’s abuses,” wrote Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) National Security Project, in a blog post following NSPM-7’s release. But, she continued, “[as] chilling as NSPM-7 is, and painful and difficult though its implementation may well prove to be, it contains nothing that we have not seen before.”
It is worth noting that Truthout is a progressive media outlet. However, the NSPM-7 directive is overwhelmingly focused on what it describes as “violent left-wing extremism”, specifically anti-fascist (Antifa), anarchist, anti-capitalist, and pro-migration protest movements. Notably, it contains almost nothing regarding right-wing extremists.
The Trump administration has given some indications of who it plans to target with these memos, though their vague language casts a wide net. Days before NSPM-7 was issued, Donald Trump signed an executive order designating antifa a domestic terrorist organization, and in a leaked December memo, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi described “Antifa-aligned extremists” as anyone willing to use violence in the service of “extreme viewpoints on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment.”
As examples of supposed anti-American sentiment, Bondi offers opposition to law enforcement, anti-capitalist thinking, “anti-Christianity,” and “hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality.” Meanwhile, the latest memo promises to “prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist.” Seemingly, anyone involved in struggles for the rights and safety of immigrants, religious minority groups, or LGBTQ+ people could be labeled anti-American using those descriptions and the Trump administration’s positions.
I have to wonder if I am on a list myself as a former head of a trans-rights organization. One also has to wonder: who exactly gets to decide these designations?
Back in December, before the release of NSPM-7, The Guardian reported:
Internal report shared with Guardian shows FBI has launched cases in 23 regions, some linked to Trump memo on thwarting ‘terroristic activities’
Sam Levin in Los Angeles
Fri 19 Dec 2025
The FBI has launched “criminal and domestic terrorism investigations” into “threats against immigration enforcement activity” in at least 23 regions across the US, according to an internal report shared with the Guardian.
The two-page FBI document, dated 14 November, says some of the investigations are related to the “countering domestic terrorism” memo issued by Donald Trump in September.
Released after the killing of Charlie Kirk, Trump’s memo, known as NSPM-7, called for a “national strategy” to thwart “violent and terroristic activities” associated with “anti-fascism”. It described “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism and anti-Christianity” as threats and cited “riots” in Los Angeles and Portland, referring to protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as examples of “political violence”.
The Trump administration labeled peaceful protests in Minneapolis as "violent" and categorized the murdered protesters as terrorists.
“[The FBI document] is infused with vague and overbroad language, which was exactly our concern about NSPM-7 in the first place. It invites law enforcement suspicion and investigation based on purely first amendment-protected beliefs and activities,” said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU National Security Project. “People who are entirely innocent of any wrongdoing can be subjected to surveillance or investigation. That imposes stigma. It can wrongly immesh people in the criminal legal system.”
We have already seen this administration go after television shows and news programs that do not cast the President in a favorable light. As Time magazine wrote:
The order, which directs the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) to investigate “networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence,” identifies ideological markers such as anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism and anti-Christianity as potential red flags. Rights groups say that language is so broad it risks sweeping in protest movements, advocacy organizations, and critics of the administration.
The First Amendment be damned!
Groups such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) have found that the majority of lethal extremist attacks and plots in recent years were linked to far-right ideologies. Examples include the Charleston church shooting, the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, the El Paso Walmart shooting, the Buffalo supermarket shooting, and, of course, the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. Yet, we are the ones being targeted.
The Trump administration claims there has been a "massive surge" in left-wing violence, a point often echoed by conservatives. While this may be technically true in terms of percentage growth, there is a major "but" involved.
Over the last five years (2020–2025), there was an average of fewer than 10 violent acts per year attributed to the left. In contrast, there were between 30 and 70 incidents per year attributed to the right. More importantly, 90–100% of extremist-related murders typically originate from the far-right or white supremacist spectrum.
The most recent memo builds upon the Administration's efforts to crack down on left-wing ideology. Last week, the President designated “Antifa,” short for anti-fascist, as a domestic terror organization. Antifa, however, is an ideology, rather than a unified group.
Patel, of the Brennan Center, says the memo derives from the idea that there’s a rise of political violence on the left, “which includes everything from anti-immigration protests to racial justice protests to actual assassinations like that of Charlie Kirk.” The concerns with the order, she says, have to do with its conflation of actual criminal activity with Americans’ right to free speech and protest.
It is worth noting that the alleged killer of Charlie Kirk was not a "left-wing assassin," but rather an individual with a personal and ideological grudge who stated he had "had enough of [Kirk's] hatred." The media described him as a "lone actor."
Ultimately, NSPM-7 ignores the reality of right-wing violence entirely to better fit the Republican political narrative.
Us old-timers remember the "Dixiecrats." They were the Southern Democratic base—a solid, conservative, Christian, and pro-Jim Crow voting bloc. Led by figures like Strom Thurmond, they held a vice grip on the South. But when the national Democratic Party started moving toward the Civil Rights Act and school desegregation, the Dixiecrats had finally had enough. They weren't just fighting to keep schools segregated; they were fighting to keep the "old ways" alive against anyone who didn't fit their mold.
Even back then, people were fighting back. While the media focused on the big laws, there were protests at places like the Black Cat Tavern and Cooper Do-nuts where queer and trans people stood up against police harassment. Eventually, the Dixiecrats jumped ship to the Republican Party to protect their "traditional" values.
The South was notorious for using the "Poll Tax" to make it harder for Black citizens to vote, but the courts eventually struck that down. Now, the Republicans are trying to do something similar with Voter ID. In some states, you have to pay a fee just to get a copy of your birth certificate. For a low-income family, that’s a big burden—and if they have to take a day off work to get it, that’s an additional cost they can't afford!
Now the ol’ South is rising up again!
Back then it was Sen. Joseph McCarthy and the "Lavender Scare"; now it is the “Transgender Scare.” Instead of Senate hearings, it is Trump’s “Executive Orders!” And here is a twist: helping McCarthy was Roy Cohn. Does that name sound familiar? It should, he was Trump’s long-time mentor and advisor!
And now we have the threat of trans activists being put on the terrorist watch list!
