The Donald Trump Score Card

Is Trump's troop buildup in U.S. cities a declaration of war — or something else?

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“D.C. was a hellhole and now it’s safe,” the president declared less than two weeks after deploying troops to the nation’s capital. “Within one week, we will have no crime in Chicago.”

 

Is Trump's troop buildup in U.S. cities a declaration of war — or something else?

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"Sending in the National Guard without a governor’s consent was a highly unusual step. The last time it happened was in 1965, when Lyndon B. Johnson federalized the Alabama National Guard to protect civil rights marchers marching from Selma to Montgomery."

 

The opposite today. Trump would send in the military to protect conservative politicians who are violating people's civil rights.

Or send in the military to protect his rioters if he had them descend on the Capitol again.

 

Is Trump's troop buildup in U.S. cities a declaration of war — or something else?

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Trump’s critics warn that he is exaggerating crime in American cities to score political points. In deploying troops to Los Angeles and D.C., they argue, Trump is setting up a military police state that targets political opponents, tramples on due process, installs loyalists over institutionalists, and erodes longstanding distinctions between the military and domestic law enforcement.

“This is how authoritarians behave, this is not how the leader of a free democracy behaves.” said Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “He is taking a page from authoritarian rulers around the world who have used crime as an excuse to consolidate power and suppress rights.”

 

Refunds to U.S. businesses if Trump tariffs ruled illegal by Supreme Court.


Potential Trump tariff refund bill could top $1 trillion as Supreme Court fight looms

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"Unwinding them could cause significant disruption," Bessent told the Supreme Court.

 

The winding aleady caused significant disruption. The unwinding will cause more but is necessary if the courts ultimately decide what Trump did was illegal.

It's similar to Trump's firing of federal workers. Officials in his own administration say that at least some need to be rehired.

It's a selfish emotional masturbation with which Trump and people like Musk and Big Balls are afflicited. It causes an utter waste of time and taxpayer and business money.

 

Appeals court upholds Carroll's $83 million judgment against Trump.


https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/nyregion/trump-e-jean-carroll-defamation.html

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"The unsigned ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan was unanimous."

 

Trump targets Cook, James, and Schiff with mortgage fraud.


https://www.usnews.com/news/politic...e-misstatements-would-be-rare-step-data-shows

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"The Justice Department opened investigations into Cook and the others for allegedly misstating their primary residences on mortgage applications, which the U.S. has criminally charged only 20 times in the past eight years, according to the Reuters review of more than 600 cases involving false statements to lending institutions since 2017.

Of those 20 cases, only one was a standalone criminal charge for misstatements on a mortgage application. All others were part of broader indictments involving large criminal schemes, such as drug cultivation or bank fraud, the review showed.

Cook and the two other targets of the DOJ probes, New York Attorney General Letitia James and U.S. Senator Adam Schiff, have denied wrongdoing."

 

FTC commissioner forced out by Trump says, 'this is 1 procedural step'

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"Every other President since 1935 has followed the law and respected Congress's judgment that FTC Commissioners should not be fired without cause," Agarwal said last week.

 

Fired corporate regulator sounds ‘blinking red alarm’ over apparent rise of billionaire power under Trump

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"Alvaro Bedoya, abruptly terminated as a commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last week, sounded a “blinking red alarm” over backroom “quid pro quo” dealmaking he said appears to be taking place inside the Trump administration.

Bedoya and his colleague, commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, another Democrat, were fired from the FTC, Washington’s top antitrust watchdog. Both Bedoya and Slaughter have sued the administration over their respective dismissals, which they argue were illegal.

In an interview with the Guardian, Bedoya expressed fear that his firing is a sign of billionaires’ growing power over the federal government. “This isn’t about progressive versus conservative,” he said. “This is about the rule of law versus the rule of billionaires.”

 

Trump fired both Democrats on the five-person panel of commissioners.


Supreme Court allows Trump to fire FTC commissioner

 

Chief justice lets Trump remove member of Federal Trade Commission for now

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"Monday’s order is the latest sign that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has effectively abandoned a 90-year-old high court precedent that protected some federal agencies from arbitrary presidential action."

 

DOGE spent months slashing jobs. Now its leader says the government needs to hire again
The agency once run by Elon Musk is pivoting from mass layoffs to a call for tech talent, despite a hiring freeze and shuttered programs.
BY Chris Morris
09-08-2025

https://www.fastcompany.com/91399929/doge-amy-gleason-government-hiring

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"That plan faces immediate obstacles. The government remains under a hiring freeze, extended twice already, through at least October 15. (And it has already been extended twice, once in April and once again in July.)

It’s also something of an open question as to which of those public-facing systems will continue. The Trump administration canceled the IRS Direct File program—ending free online tax filing for eligible taxpayers after just one season—and ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to halt nearly all operations, effectively shuttering the agency. (The CFPB relies on user-submitted complaints to detect wrongdoing.)

Gleason was named acting administrator of DOGE in February, and has kept a low profile during her tenure, never appearing alongside Trump on any public comments about DOGE’s work since being named to the role. (The White House did not respond to Fast Company‘s request for comment.)"

 

All that waste of American taxpayer money so that Musk and a 19-year-old named 'Big Balls' could get emotional kicks from firing federal workers (with Musk even prancing around on stage at a CPAC event wielding a big chain saw given to him as a gift by the leader of Argentina)..

This is what Trump's supporters are getitng for their votes.

Judging by Trump's steady decline in his RCP favorable rating since the euphoric 50% high in mid-January 2026 which is now near his usual 43%, some of the public apparently is realizing the waste of his behavior.

 

Trump scored a partial win in June 2025, although not the type of win he has been claiming.


https://www.npr.org/2025/06/27/nx-s1-5448843/a-look-at-todays-supreme-court-decisions

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"Notwithstanding Trump's celebratory remarks, Friday's decision took no position on birthright citizenship at all.

Rather, the court's conservative supermajority granted the administration's request to curb the ability of lower courts to apply their rulings nationwide, the result being that in most cases, challenges to a presidential executive order will benefit only the individual plaintiffs and groups that bring a case.

Writing for the conservative court, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said that universal injunctions, which apply a ruling nationwide, were not anticipated by the nation's founders and have not been authorized by congress."

 

Satire by Borowitz.


Trump Freaks Out After Nobel Peace Prize Form Asks If Applicant Ever Used Troops Against Own Citizens

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WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Donald J. Trump “totally freaked out” on Tuesday when he discovered that the Nobel Peace Prize form includes a question as to whether the applicant has ever used his nation’s military against his own citizens.

Blasting the Nobel committee for including the question, Trump reportedly hurled a bottle of ketchup against a wall of the Oval Office, narrowly missing Stephen Miller’s head.

Trump ultimately checked the “YES” box in answer to the question, but argued that the Nobel application was treating him “very unfairly.”

“I’ve grabbed hundreds of people off the street and they’ve never been seen or heard from again,” he said. “If that’s not creating peace, then I don’t know what peace is.”

 

Farmer says ‘we’re in a very dire situation’ ahead of harvest—with zero soybean orders from China, historically the largest buyer
By Dave Smith, Editor, U.S. News
September 9, 2025

Farmer says 'we're in a very dire situation' ahead of harvest—with zero soybean orders from China, historically the largest buyer | Fortune

 

Trump will fix it with more welfare checks to the American farmers. He praised doing it during his 2020 and 2024 campaigns.

Unlike the farmers of decades ago who were proud to be independent and used slogans like 'parity, not charity', some of today's farmers will praise Trump for the injury he inflicted upon them and thank him for the welfare checks.

 

How the Hyundai raid could upend Trump’s dream of more U.S. factories

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“Episodes like this are going to make many companies way more cautious before investing here,” said Giovanni Peri, a professor of economics at the University of California at Davis. “The goal of this administration’s tariffs was luring exactly these kind of factories. And now we are closing the door to some of these companies, who fear they won’t be able to bring in the right workers to set up their plants.”