Mr. Trump, Those Suits You Didn't Order Are Here

The first lawsuits have been filed, to block Trump orders before they can begin

Jan. 23: Democratic prosecutors, civic groups file suit to protect birthright citizenship … Prosecutors told to arrest local officials who don’t aid immigrant raids … GOP secret menu lists ways to prepare the poor for consumption by the rich … Secularism beats Christian exceptionalism — in fucking Tulsa …

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Well, that was fast. The lawsuits are here!

Multiple lawsuits have already been filed challenging Pres. Donald Trump’s executive order in which he pretended he can erase the 14th Amendment and deny citizenship to people born here if Trump doesn’t like their parents.

The plaintiffs in one Massachusetts suit are 18 state attorneys general — all Democrats — and the American Civil Liberties Union — also probably all Democrats (here’s to you ACLU Republicans for existing, if you do!)

There’s also lawsuits from four more attorneys general in Washington, and from San Francisco, Washington DC, and the organization Lawyers for Civil Rights. Did TFN not promise lawsuits, Newsfuckers? Well, here we go!

As with so many Trump things, he’s taking aim at a measure first implemented to fight the actual, literal Confederate traitors. You may recall TFN’s epic screed on the almost-always-overlooked Civil War origins of the Battle of the Department of Education, which was founded in large measure to force fucked-up states of evil to educate Black kids.

The 14th Amendment codified birthright citizenship specifically because after the Civil War the vile shitfucks of the Confederacy would try to deny citizenship — and citizen rights like voting — to the freed children of slaves kidnapped and pressed into forced labor here.

Discussing his order, Trump at one point opened his mouth, so lies came out. He lied and said that only America has birthright citizenship, when, in fact and not in his mouth, the overwhelming majority of the entire Western Fucking Hemisphere has birthright citizenship.

Anyway, it’s worth recalling that some of Trump’s voters were naturalized-citizen immigrants who thought their kids could be citizens. Just because you’re American now doesn’t mean you have to be dumb!

More lawsuits on other issues are also being filed. And even more are coming.

More Standing Up to Trump by Upstanding Officials

Where there’s a constitutional amendment to violate, President Donald Trump appears committed to violating it.

The Washington Post reports that the Trump Justice Department¹ has ordered federal prosecutors to investigate and potentially arrest local officials who don’t obey federal orders to help terrorize immigrants.

The promised raids are already damaging local economies, like in some areas of Chicago, where folks reportedly are fearful of going out and spending money, even though this is America, where spending money is the First Commandment of Jesus.

In the memo the Post obtained, you can really see all the little Project 2025 dweebs-who-pretended-they-did-their-homework-in-school trying desperately to look official, jamming the § symbol and all kinds of legal citations in there so people won’t immediately smell the bullshit wafting from it. To wit:

The U.S. Attorney’s Offices and litigating components of the Department of Justice shall investigate incidents involving any such misconduct for potential prosecution, including for obstructing federal functions in violation of 18 U.S.C. §371, and violations of other statutes, such as 8 U.S.C. §§ 1324, 1374.

They also cite the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which says that when federal and local laws conflict, Trump federal law rules.

But here’s the one of many things. Federal law may prohibit mayors and district attorneys from stopping federal immigration raids, but they don’t/can’t require cooperation, either. Obstructing means getting in the way; it doesn’t mean refusing to help. There’s no law that lets federal officials boss other officials around outside the parameters of existing law.

And it’s not just political officials not cooperating. Teachers and civic leaders are already mobilizing to shield vulnerable populations.

And the federal government doesn’t have the power to impress non-federal officials into service. Because TFN can play “I Read the Constitution,” too!

And the 10th Amendment says that if the Constitution doesn’t give the federal government a power, it doesn’t have it. The states have the power, or, if not, — hey, how about this! — The People Have The Power.

You may be wondering just how shitty and incompetent are the Trump Justice Department lawyers behind this. The memo came from acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove. He’s one of the elite squad of legal minds that served on the criminal-defense team of convicted criminal Donald John Trump.

Trump Silent as Blizzard Attacks Gulf of America

Less than 24 hours after Pres. Donald Trump made up a new name for the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. states on the gulf were barraged with snowfall sent directly by Jesus or Odin or whoever handles snow-based divine retribution for stupid renamings.

To date, Trump has said nothing about winter storm Enzo, as it was named by, um, The Weather Channel™. Eleven people are dead from the record cold and snow. Major American cities were forced to a standstill. Local officials declared states of emergency.

The country’s largest power grid declared a Level 1 emergency due to the massive use of power to heat stricken homes.

“Conservative operations” to conserve power (not to operate conservatively), were implemented throughout the massive power grid that services states spanning all the way from the Gulf of America to North North America.

Trump has been silent. Here’s the news page for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), not yet renamed the Federal American Management America:

The last news item there is from the Biden administration.

Oh, wait, scratch that, I did find a Trump FEMA press release about the storm — they just don’t have it on their, uh, news website. Here’s all the federal aid that’s coming to Texas, Florida, and whatever those states are in between:

“FEMA Region 5 encourages everyone to stay off the roads, remain indoors and follow the instructions of local and state officials to stay safe.”

Translation: Good luck, fuckers!

Republican officials including Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) have said the Trump administration can retroactively decide to withhold federal disaster aid if they don’t like the local Democratic officials disaster policies.

As the storm bore down on Louisiana Monday night, Gov. Jeff Landry (R-LA) said he also supports making federal aid conditional. He cited the fact that FEMA has done so in the past, without mentioning that they didn’t do it retroactively, but initiated policies giving local officials a chance to comply first rather than making up shit about fish after the fact.

Either way, I’m guessing Landry probably hasn’t spent a single minute prepping for a foot of snow, so I guess you’re on your own, Louisiana. (Whoda thunk a Republican president would fail Louisiana?)

And if failing to prep for a disaster costs you aid, it would seem there should be actual punishments for actively exacerbating a climate disaster like this winter storm the way oil states Louisiana and Texas did do.

America, Meet the GOP’s 50-Page Menu of Ways to Screw America

The New York Times got a 50-page memo — put together by the House Ways and Means Committee — of ways they might pay for extending Pres. Donald Trump’s tax cuts for rich people.

Spoiler: Raising taxes on non-rich people. Also, inflationing.

Just a reminder, here’s how Trump distributed his tax cuts:

Now, how are we going to pay to ensure the rich get even smore of their Trump smorgasbord?

That’s what Republicans are secretly — until now, thanks to the Times — considering amongst themselves so you won’t know about it in time to call their office and say, “What the jump-roping Jesus fuck, you dipstick?”

Some highlights:

• Making everything imported into the U.S. 10% more expensive for you to buy, so that Trump has $1.9 trillion to export into rich people’s offshore accounts where it’ll be safe from socialism.

• Pushing 600,000 people off Medicaid to raise $100 billion for rich people — by creating “work requirements” which are actually just bureaucratic hurdles that make qualifying for benefits harder because paperwork is hard. Just ask the dude convicted of falsifying business records 34 times.

• Slapping a new tax on people who use a free gym at work — raising $20 billion to give to people rich enough to have their own free gyms at homes #1-6.

• Slapping new taxes on you if your office gives you food.

• Reducing Medicaid payments.

• Stopping $800 billion in clean-energy savings and incentives that Democrats enacted to make it easier for you and companies and Earth to go green.

• Raising $54 billion for rich people by taxing scholarships and fellowships to claw back some of the piles of revenue currently being hoarded by Ramen-eating scholars so poor they do their computer research by candlelight.

• Ending federal tax deductability for home-mortgage interest. (Meaning, right now the amount of your mortgage payment that goes to pay off your interest, you don’t have to pay taxes on that money. Yet!)

Heres’s the Times’s droll assessment of the GOP’s Modest Proposal:

Complicating their task is a political challenge: Many of the cuts Republicans are contemplating target programs aimed at helping low-income Americans, all in the service of paying for the extension of tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the wealthy.

Oh, and remember Trump’s promise not to tax tips? The House GOP is already playing fast-and-loose with it. They’re considering ending income taxes for tips but keeping Social Security and Medicare taxes — which would :::shocker::: mean that low-wage workers save less.

But my favorite tidbit from the Times spoiling the GOP’s secret fun is the menu option of no longer letting corporations deduct their state and local taxes. This one’s my favorite because, while we Newsfuckers are just learning about this now, according to the Times, “Business groups are already organizing against those prospects.”

Which means Republicans told them it was on the menu. In case anyone was unclear who they’re working for.

WHAT MAGA VOUGHTED FOR It’s not just House Republicans looking to prune the Medicaid rolls by imposing bogus “work requirements” — which do nothing to end the fictional scourge of lazy dope-smoking couch-surfing hippies that stalk the fever dreams of former Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) but primarily just make it harder for people, especially those who need it most, to fill out the bullshit paperwork.

Trump’s Office of Management and Budget nominee Russell Vought testified yesterday that he’s a big fan of work requirements, too, because he knows how much lazy Americans hate work because he’s employed by a guy who golfs and eats and watches TV all day and whose idea of a long day is calling in live to Hannity at 9pm.

The vast majority of Medicaid recipients already work. Real jobs. Those who don’t work typically don’t because of things like having to stay home to care for someone, or suffering from health conditions that prevent them from achieving the dignity of greeting people at Walmart.

Well, Lookie Who’s Having His OWN Chaotic Withdrawal from Afghanistan

The planes were ready to go. Afghans granted asylum to escape danger at home for helping U.S. troops were packed and looking forward to their new life here in the U.S. under a new Taliban.

On Monday, Pres. Donald Trump’s executive orders included ending the refugee resettlement program as of Jan. 27. Afghans and other refugees already granted asylum in the U.S. because their lives were in danger at home had little more than a week to get on their planes.

But then new Secretary of State Marco Rubio canceled the flights — on Tuesday, Jan. 21. More than 10,000 refugees — who thought they were escaping dangerous countries around the world — won’t.

At the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast, Rubio said, “Everything we do can be worship. The most important goal is approval from God.”

On Tuesday, he said his actions will be driven by three questions: “Does it make us stronger? Does it make us safer? And does it make us more prosperous?"

A Secular Victory in Tulsa

The city of Tulsa, OK, has stopped thanking and/or asking for shit from invisible wizards at the start of its City Council meetings. Instead, the council voted, they’ll replace invocations with a moment of silence, because it turns out Jesus can hear you in your brain.

As the Friendly Atheist Substack recounts, City Council Member Crista Patrick invited fellow Pagan Amy Hardy-McAdams to deliver one of the invocations. Here it is:

As a Priestess of the Goddess, I invoke the Gorgonaea, champions of equality and sacred rage. I call to Medusa, monstrous hero of the oppressed and abused. I open the Eye of Medusa, the stare that petrifies injustice.
I call upon the serpent that rises from this land to face the Stars, the movement of wisdom unbound.
May these leaders find within themselves the Embodied Divine, the sacred essence of the spark of the Universe and the breath of the Awen.
Place in the hands of these leaders the sacred work of protecting the sovereignty and autonomy of all our people.
Gorgon Goddess, make them ready and willing to be champions for all in this city, not just those in power.
Shine a light for them, that they may walk the path of justice, protected and prepared, illuminating the darkness.
Endow them with the fire of courage, the waters of compassion,
The air of truth, and the strength of the earth itself.
As Above, so below.
As within, so without,
As the universe, so the soul.
May there be peace among you all.
And so it is.

The official responses from Christian elected officials violating their vows to uphold the Constitution — which doesn’t allow government to preference one religion over another — included lines like “Satanic prayers are welcome in Hell but not in Oklahoma.”

Still, Tulsa atheists and other secularists kept at it, using their shots at the invocation to do more non-Jesus stuff. Now the Council has relented. Rather than risking a Satanic shoutout, they’re going with silence to start their meetings.

Your ever-optimistic TFN wanted to share this not because it’s national news. The primary point isn’t ha-ha they’re dumb. The point is that it’s easy to assume that Trump’s slim-ass victory says SOMETHING IMPORTANT™ about America. And about Who We Are™. But that’s a lot harder to assume when we know about the folks fighting and winning battles like the Tulsa Pagans. Also, the secondary point is ha-ha they’re dumb.

Memory Games!

Hey, kids! How well do you know America’s new executive-branch leaders? There’s the president, vice president, and their spouses, right? Well, test your memory with this fun game and try to spot which one’s not there on the new White House website! BONUS POINTS if you can remember what color they’re not!

TCB

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Thank you.

CONNECTING We’re still on even the shitty social media, but let’s try to connect on the least shitty social media: Bluesky, Mastodon and Spoutible.

Go get ‘em, kids! Day four and we’re still here and the battles have begun.

1. We’re obviously gonna need a catchphrase for new, Trump2.0-era terms that make us throw up in our mouths a little.