The Cycle We Have to Break: From TACO Tariffs to Trans Erasure

There’s so much news today I barely know where to start.

I know! Let’s begin with the newest acronym everyone needs to learn: TACO.

This is not about debates or court. This is about tariffs. He announces extreme tariffs to shake the markets, scares everyone into reacting, and then pulls them back at the last second. Every time. He chickens out because he never intended to follow through. It is a deliberate pattern and it is manipulating the economy in plain sight, all to enrich himself and his billionaire donors.

And now an appeals court has just temporarily put those tariffs back in effect by striking down the recent international trade court’s ruling that said they were illegal. Even though it is temporary, the damage is real. The markets jump. Stocks move. And somehow the people at the top always seem to benefit. The manipulation is beyond obvious. And the same Republicans who would have demanded hearings if a Democrat did this are now completely silent, if not complicit.

When Democrats take back power, there must be a full investigation into every Republican who helped make this possible. This should never be allowed to happen again. This was not an accident. It was designed. Every part of it.

Let’s look at Representative Mike Flood of Nebraska, for example.

He voted for a provision in the “Big ‘Beautiful’ Bill”, which just passed the house by the way, that makes it harder for judges to enforce contempt orders.

In plain English: That means it would be more difficult to hold people accountable when they defy a court order. That is a direct blow to the rule of law.

When his own constituents asked why he supported something so dangerous, he shrugged. He said he didn’t know that provision was in the bill. Then he threw his hands up like, what do you want me to do? Take a look, because it’s pretty wild:

He didn’t even read the bill, but he voted for it anyway. And he has absolutely no shame.

This is what passes for leadership now.

People like Mike Flood signed off on attacks against the justice system and then acted surprised when asked to explain themselves. They do not care what the laws say. They do not care how it affects real people. They are just there to rubber stamp whatever trump puts in front of them - but we are the sheep.

Yeah, MKAY.

I can’t decide what is worse though, Mike Flood not knowing about anything in the bill because he didn’t even read it, or GOP. Senator Joni Ernst telling her constituents, “Well, we are all going to die.” when asked about massive cuts to Medicaid:

I’m just gonna go out on a limb and assume she is also “pro-life”, because that seems to be the running theme here. Perpetually shout about being pro-life while cutting life saving essential services for the most vulnerable populations. Then they go pray about it in church for an hour on Sunday like that somehow washes away their sins of inhumanity, immorality and hypocrisy. It does not.

The bill has yet to pass the senate, so I urge you to contact your senators and tell them to vote no on this bill. Find your senators here or by calling the US Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121. I also highly recommend the 5 Calls App, which is available on the Apple Store and the Google Play Store.

Surprisingly, there are at least 4 senate republicans who are publicly opposed to the more than $880 Billion in cuts to Medicaid and SNAP also included in the bill. Those are Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susanne Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Josh Hawley of Missouri.

I have created an action toolkit specifically for contacting each of these four, which you can access here. No, you don’t have to be from their state to contact them.

In Breaking News - A federal judge has ruled that a lawsuit filed by 14 U.S. states against elon musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) can proceed.

The lawsuit alleges that musk and DOGE unlawfully interfered with government operations, including unauthorized access to government data systems, cancellation of federal contracts, and the dismissal of federal employees.

The plaintiffs argue that musk, who allegedly directed DOGE activities, lacks legal appointment and that DOGE is improperly established via executive order.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan denied an earlier request to temporarily block DOGE's access and activities but acknowledged valid concerns about musk’s authority. She dismissed trump from the lawsuit but refused to dismiss musk or DOGE, reinforcing that the executive branch cannot bypass constitutional appointment powers, writing:

“The Constitution does not permit the Executive to commandeer the entire appointments power by unilaterally creating a federal agency pursuant to Executive Order and insulating its principal officer from the Constitution as an ‘advisor’ in name only. This is precisely what Plaintiffs claim the Executive has done.”

As the lawsuit progresses, it may open the door for additional legal actions, including potential class-action lawsuits, especially if further evidence emerges regarding unauthorized access to government data systems and the dismissal of federal employees.

And because everything about them is fake, including their work, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” report has come under intense scrutiny after experts found it included AI-generated citations and references to studies that do not even exist.

The Washington Post and NOTUS confirmed that at least 21 links in the report were dead or fabricated. Several included the tag “oaicite,” showing they were produced using OpenAI tools. Experts called the report “sloppy” and “shoddy,” with the American Public Health Association saying it should be junked entirely.

Despite this, the trump regime, living in a completely separate twisted reality, defended the report, calling the issues “minor formatting errors” and insisting it is still backed by “good science.” Get a load of Karoline Leavitt actively performing mental gymnastics while continuously polishing the turd that is the trump regime, another unbelievable yet believable sight to behold.

Sweety, you can polish a turd all you want, it’s still a turd.

The MAHA report is already being used to justify major health policy changes, including SNAP restrictions and attempts to replace peer-reviewed medical journals with partisan alternatives.

Also, “MAHA” literally sounds like the laugh of an evil dictator.

Fitting.

trump’s upcoming dictator style military birthday parade will include a “re-enlistment ceremony for 250 soldiers”. Let’s be honest. These won’t be just any soldiers. I guarantee you most of them will likely be undercover Proud Boys and other January 6 rioters he has pardoned. This is not about honoring service. This is about rewarding personal loyalty. It is about creating the illusion that the military stands with him, even after he incited an attack on the very government they swore to protect.

And to make it worse, this entire parade is being funded by your tax dollars. That’s right! Public money is being used to stage a loyalty ritual for a man who literally tried to overthrow the government.

That is not patriotism.

That is propaganda.

If this were truly about honoring service, trump would not have fired thousands of veterans from their federal jobs. He would not have gutted the benefits and support systems they rely on. He would not be using them as stage props while treating actual veterans as disposable.

Remember how MAGA used to scream about putting veterans first? That was never real. Nothing about them is real.

Oh, pardon me. I lied.

The racism is real.
The xenophobia is real.
The homophobia is real.
The transphobia is real.
The misogyny is real, even when it comes from women.

That is the one thing they never fake.

This ‘parade’ is not about pride. It is about power. It is about rewriting history, replacing truth with spectacle, and preparing people to accept military loyalty to one man instead of the Constitution. This is what creeping authoritarianism looks like when it stops creeping and starts marching down Main Street in full uniform, all with your money paying for it. Now, how does that make you feel?

Meanwhile, while nearly every institution has either folded, fumbled, or flat-out surrendered, the president of Harvard actually stood up. One person. At one university. Out of hundreds. While the rest sat frozen in fear, issued watered down statements, or stayed silent to protect their donors, the president of Harvard said what needed to be said. He welcomed students from down the street and around the world, and the room gave him a standing ovation.

The backdrop to this speech was the trump regime’s attempts to limit Harvard's enrollment of international students, including efforts to revoke the university's ability to host foreign students and threats to withdraw federal funding. A federal judge had recently issued a preliminary injunction blocking these measures, a decision that was celebrated during the commencement.

While I am beyond grateful to the president of Harvard for standing up, this shows how low the bar has fallen. A basic statement of inclusion now passes for courage because the rest of our so-called institutions are too busy calculating risk to remember what a backbone is.

You can watch the full speech here:

And now one of the most disturbing stories.

Because while all the noise around tariffs and market chaos plays out, LGBTQ+ people, specifically transgender people, have once again been left to fight alone.

A transgender man was physically assaulted then arrested for using the women’s restroom. The same restroom he is legally required to use under a transphobic law in his state. He followed the law, used the women’s restroom, and was arrested anyway.

In South Carolina, 25-year-old trans man, Luca Strobel, says he was harassed, misgendered, and arrested after using the women’s restroom at a bar. That is the same restroom many lawmakers insist he must use under current anti-trans policies.

Strobel had gone to the Sand Dollar Social Club to pick up a friend as her sober ride. When he found the men’s room had no stalls, he used the women’s room instead. An employee warned him, but Strobel says he believed he had permission.

While inside, a man identifying as the bar’s owner reportedly looked over the stall while Strobel was undressed and began yelling. Staff forced him and his friend out, allegedly using anti-trans slurs. Police were waiting outside.

Strobel says he was cuffed so tightly he lost feeling in his hands and was repeatedly misgendered by officers. He was later released with a trespass notice and a citation for public intoxication, despite saying he did not drink and was never breathalyzed.

There is no state law in South Carolina preventing a trans man from using the women’s restroom in public. Strobel followed the law and was arrested anyway.

He now says he may need to leave the state to stay safe.

These transphobic bathroom laws were never about bathrooms. They were never about protecting women or their spaces. That was a lie.

The real goal is removing LGBTQ+ people, especially trans people and anyone who is gender non-conforming, from public life. That is the purpose of Project 2025. It is not about safety. It is about control. It is about erasure.

And this is not new. This has happened before. One of Hitler’s very first acts after seizing power was to target transgender people.

Before 1933, Germany was a center of LGBT+ community and culture, with several renowned organizations serving and supporting trans and gender non-conforming people. Hitler’s Nazi government, however, brutally targeted the trans community, deporting many trans people to concentration camps and wiping out vibrant community structures.

On May 6, 1933, the Nazis raided and destroyed the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin. It was founded by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a pioneer in gender and sexuality research who had been advocating for LGBTQ+ rights since the early 1900s. They burned his books. They destroyed his work. They erased his patients’ records. They silenced what they could not control.

Jewish, gay and outspokenly liberal, Hirschfeld was an obvious target for the Nazis, and the seizure and destruction of the institute on 6 May took place only three months after Hitler was made Chancellor of Germany. During the attack and subsequent book burning, Hirschfeld was working in Paris. He saw the burning of his own library in a news report at the cinema.

Among the texts thrown onto the bonfire at the Bebelplatz was Heinrich Heine’s Almansor, in which the author noted:

‘Where they burn books, in the end they will burn humans too’.

The first victims of Nazi fascism were not the ones most people learn about in school. They were trans people. They were queer people. They were the ones the public was already willing to look away from. That is how it always starts.

What we are seeing now is not a coincidence. It is not a misunderstanding. It is a playbook being followed step by step.

We must do everything we can to stand in true, visible, and unapologetic allyship with the trans community.

Not later.

Not when it is safe.

And, do women need safe spaces? Yes, of course! Safe from the people trying to take away their healthcare and force them to give birth even when it kills them. I have never once in my life seen a trans person try to push harmful bills like that. But I have seen plenty of cisgender men introducing those bills and even some women fully supporting them.

Maybe once people realize that trans people are not their enemy, we can begin to live in a better world. But that cannot happen while Fox News, “Truth” Social, and X continue to broadcast hate twenty-four hours a day, targeting less than one percent of the population to distract from the real problems they refuse to solve.

Because if they stopped manufacturing outrage, they might actually be expected to fix something. And they are far too lazy for that.

That is the tell. MAGA always targets the smallest and most vulnerable groups because they have no actual answers. They rely on fear and blame to stay in power.

And that is the cycle we have to break.

05/30/2025