I don’t care if Biden is in a wheelchair and shakes like an out of balance washing machine on spin cycle or a tea cup Chihuahua, I will vote for him. The people he puts in positions, in departments, the judges he appoints are far too important to not vote for him. No do not switch him out now, too late, plus the people saying to do it admit they don’t all want the same person to replace him. Regardless of how old Biden is, tRump is a hateful tyrant con man crook. Hugs. Scottie
Photo illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios. Photo: Samuel Corum/Getty Images
Former President Trump, if re-elected, plans to immediately test the boundaries of presidential and governing power, knowing the restraints of Congress and the courts are dramatically looser than during his first term, his advisers tell us.
Why it matters: It’s not just the Supreme Court ruling on Monday that presidents enjoy substantial legal immunity for actions in office. Trump would come to office with a Cabinet and staff pre-vetted for loyalty, and a fully compliant Republican coalition in Congress — devoid of critics in positions of real power.
That’s a big reason many Democrats worry President Biden is making one of the biggest gambles in U.S. history by staying in the race amid acute concerns about his age.
The big picture: Trump promises an unabashedly imperial presidency — one that would turn the Justice Department against critics, deport millions of people in the U.S. illegally, slap 10% tariffs on thousands of products, and fire perhaps tens of thousands of government staff deemed insufficiently loyal.
He’d stretch the powers of the presidency in ways not seen in our lifetime. He says this consistently and clearly — so it’s not conjecture.
You might like this or loathe this. But it’s coming, fast and furious, if he’s elected.
Thanks to Monday’s Supreme Court ruling, Trump could pursue his plans without fear of punishment or restraint.
What to watch: To hear Trump and his allies tell it, this is how early 2025 would unfold if he wins:
1. A re-elected Trump would quickly set up vast camps and deport millions of people in the U.S. illegally. He could invoke the Insurrection Act and use troops to lock down the southern border.
3. He’d centralize power over the Justice Department, historically an independent check on presidential power. He plans to nominate a trusted loyalist for attorney general, and has threatened to target and even imprison critics. He could demand the federal cases against him cease immediately.
4. Many of the Jan. 6 convictscould be pardoned — a promise Trump has made at campaign rallies, where he hails them as patriots, not criminals. Investigations of the Bidens would begin.
5. Trump says he’d slap 10% tariffs on most imported goods, igniting a possible trade war and risking short-term inflation. He argues this would give him leverage to create better trade terms to benefit consumers.
6. Conversation would intensify about when Justices Clarence Thomas, 76, and Sam Alito, 74, would retire.
Lists of potential successors are already drawn up.
President Biden said last month that “the next president is likely to have two new Supreme Court nominees.”
If Trump were to win and the two oldest justices retired, five of the nine justices would have been handpicked by Trump.
Top Democrats privately predict Republican majorities in the House and Senate if Biden loses.
Most of Trump’s most prominent critics — Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, et al. — will be gone. Even the few who remain, including Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), will be substantially less powerful.
Trump would be backed by an overwhelmingly Trump-friendly Senate and House — loaded with loyalists, top to bottom. Many were elected since his 2016 win, and many thanks to his endorsement.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) in the spin room after the CNN debate in Atlanta. Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
What they’re saying: Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), a top prospect as Trump’s VP, told us Trump would have more allies — and more loyal allies — in Congress this time.
“You have to ask yourself: How many true allies of the agenda existed in the United States Capitol in January 2017, and how many will exist in January of 2025?” Vance told us.
“You have a Republican Party that, in some ways, was divided against itself in January of 2017,” Vance added. “I think now it recognizes that Trump is effectively leader of the party. And you’ll see that in governing style and certainly in agenda,” with “much less infighting between Republicans, which will make us much more effective as a governing coalition.”
The freshman senator said that while Trump was “very much a newcomer to politics” when he ran the first time, he now “understands how to pull the levers of power much better, because he’s coming at this as a subject matter expert.”
The media would investigate, report, and illuminate all of it — but probably with less impact. A second Trump term would start with TV ratings in the tank, mainstream media shrinking, and public attention shattering into dozens of information ecosystems, many built around popular and often partisan celebrities.
So the ability to do more with fewer real restraints is real — and hard to change.
The bottom line: Think of Trump 2025 as a better prepared, much better organized, much more powerful version of Trump 2017 — minus Republican brakes and any mystery about immunity.
John Oliver discusses Donald Trump’s plans for a second term, why it could be much worse than his first term, and what Trump has in common with a hamster.
Talk of self entitled importance. By my dogs that love gravy you have to watch the videos. This woman is so over the top that if she was doing this to any other group it would have been thought an SNL skit. If she had been acting like this to black people, Hindus, or Muslims, no one would have accepted it. Sh was screaming in peoples faces and demanding their names. She is a total stranger acting as if she has some type of authority over other paying guests. If she had done that to me she sure wouldn’t have liked my reaction. Scottie wouldn’t have been so nice as the drag queens. The drag queens were guests of the hotel filming there and they got treated horribly by this woman. Yet she claims to be the victim. She went after them, she got in their faces not once but several times filming them, insulting them, accusing them of wanting to chop her son’s penis off. The hotel staff did try to stop her but acted like they were afraid of her or to get too forceful with her and she just went around them or ignored them. Then she continued her lecture and screed to the police when they were escorting her off the hotel grounds. She continued her triad and even accused one of the police officers of being a trans woman, she called the woman a man. She was an attention seeker and did not care who she hurt to get her fix of attention. And her X posts are full of lies and myths about trans people, including something she claimed at the hotel. She said that after sexual reassignment and I think she meant transitioning also, that suicides go way up. In fact studies have proven they decrease greatly after transitioning or having gender affirming medical care. But again facts mean nothing to these haters. Hugs. Scottie
UC Davis published a statement Tuesday about “offensive comments” made by employee Beth Bourne while she was on a family vacation in Hawaii.
Bourne, the local chapter president for parents rights group Moms for Liberty, posted a video of herself confronting a group of drag queens who were filming a video at the hotel Bourne was staying in, the Alohilani Resort in Waikiki, on Sunday.
“We reject all manifestations of discrimination, including those based on gender and gender expression,” the university’s statement said. The video shows Bourne verbally accosting the people dressed in drag, including drag queen Marina Del Rey.
In the video, Bourne took aim at the drag queens as she accused the hotel of failing to provide a safe environment for her son.
“I’m sorry, but this is—I paid to be a customer at a hotel where I thought you believed that women were real. That because you put on makeup, because you’re wearing high heels, because you have a Barbie outfit on, that you don’t think this is degrading? This is misogyny,” Bourne said addressing the drag queens.
She added, addressing a hotel representative: “If you give me back my money right now, I will leave the hotel, but I’m not going to have my children come down from the 30th floor and see what’s happening here.” According to Bourne’s X bio, she claims without evidence that “1/22 kids is trans” at UC Davis, adding that her views are “mine, not my employer.”
“This type of behavior is unacceptable,” Hawaii Democratic Governor Josh Green said in a statement Monday. “It is not aloha and we will not tolerate it from anyone.”
As the videos continued to garner views, social media users began tagging UC Davis, Bourne’s employer, demanding she be fired. Bourne works at the university’s Institute for Transportation Studies.
“I’m used to my colleagues thinking I’m a terrible person,” Bourne told The Bee in an April story about Bourne and her estranged trans child. The university said that Bourne’s comments “are protected by the First Amendment,” but that the school condemns them nonetheless.
Videos of the incident together have nearly ten million views at this writing. I encourage you to watch both of activist Tizzy Ent’s clips in full.
Moms for Liberty chair & UCDavis employee Beth Bourne decides to harass drag queens at a Honolulu resort. I'm sure she will play the victims after the backlash begins. pic.twitter.com/kne5Put4Pf
Wanna see a whole lot of words that say nothing? She has a first amendment right to say things and not face government oppression for that; that DOES NOT grant her the right to employment if her beliefs are in direct opposition to her employer & their customers, in this case the… https://t.co/hSsPR6x43y
Me: How would a child know if they were transgender?
Cop: They just know. They just know.
While being detained by the @honolulupolice, I had a chance to talk to the officers about my concerns around drag, children, and the tran$ medical industry.
Hey @ucdavis this hateful harpy Beth Bourne says "views are my own" yet lists you in her profile & tweets. So is this something you condone, especially as Moms for Liberty is identified as an antigovernment extremist group?https://t.co/gaYwjPq8RH
I am not okay with children being exposed to drag queens. Several other Alohilani hotel guests told me they also found it offensive so I spoke up to the manager yesterday.
I think I’ll call it the JK syndrome: If people call you out on awful behaviour towards others, don’t reflect, double-down and make it your entire personality.
She was engaged in full-on, me me me, selfish Karening.
The world is full of people who are different from each other. It really says something about this women that she basically threw a tantrum because some drag queens were busy just existing in the same space.
Watch as GreaterSapien, usually the voice of reason, loses his grip while discussing Donald Trump and the MAGA movement! This video can’t mask the underlying meltdown as he rants against Trump’s policies and MAGA’s influence with shaking fury. From calling Trump the “titanic of presidents” to labeling MAGA hats as “brain cell repellents,” GreaterSapien pulls no punches in this comically exaggerated takedown. It’s all absurdly civil on the surface, but the subtext screams satire! Come for the supposed meltdown, stay for the clever critiques. #UnhingedLogic#TrumpTirade#MAGAchaos
These kids were taught this intolerance and shown by adults that acting like a jerk, like a thug disregarding others feelings is acceptable. I wonder why they have that idea? Could it be they watch their parents watch right wing media where maga people shout fuck your feelings to others, and praise gangs of thugs attack libraries and drag queen events? The uncivil discourse being taught these young people are going to get worse unless the adults rise up to stop it, to put it back in the unacceptable place in society it was. See being LGBTQ+ was once unacceptable, but society progressed, now the right wing fundamentalist fanatics are trying hard to make it unacceptable again. And to me it looks like they are winning. Hugs. Scottie
The city-funded rainbow flag has been a frequent vandalism target, but allies have raised $15K to repaint it.
A bird’s-eye view of the new mural, taken atop the Wheatland Bank building. (Ben Tobin for RANGE Media)
This story was republished with permission from RANGE Media.
For 24 hours the intersection in front of Riverfront Park transformed into something akin to a block party as the Pride flag mural was restored to its original glory. The mural, which has been a frequent target of vandalism — as recently as last week — and even arson, was designed by queer Spokane artist Tiffany Patterson as part of the Asphalt Arts program run by Spokane Arts and funded by the city of Spokane.
As Patterson led four painters in restoring the mural last week, gay-associated pop hits like Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” and “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor blasted from speakers placed around the intersection. Just off the mural, Matthew Danielson and Skyler Oberst, the executive directors of Spokane Pride and Spokane Arts, respectively, set up tents with refreshments and information about their organizations and fielded the frequent questions from the public and the media as folks walked by the art-in-progress.
Tiffany Patterson (right) and one of their painting assistants (left) repaint the Pride mural downtown. (Ben Tobin for RANGE Media)
For 24 hours the intersection in front of Riverfront Park transformed into something akin to a block party as the Pride flag mural was restored to its original glory. The mural, which has been a frequent target of vandalism — as recently as last week — and even arson, was designed by queer Spokane artist Tiffany Patterson as part of the Asphalt Arts program run by Spokane Arts and funded by the city of Spokane.
As Patterson led four painters in restoring the mural last week, gay-associated pop hits like Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” and “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor blasted from speakers placed around the intersection. Just off the mural, Matthew Danielson and Skyler Oberst, the executive directors of Spokane Pride and Spokane Arts, respectively, set up tents with refreshments and information about their organizations and fielded the frequent questions from the public and the media as folks walked by the art-in-progress.
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Volunteers flitted in and out of the roped off intersection, rolling paint, bringing snacks or standing by with angel costumes to block from sight any anti-queer protesters, though few showed up.
The volunteers were mostly friends and family, Danielson said, and the artists who had agreed to donate their time on the first evening to lay down the coat of primer necessary for the paint to stick. Some government officials joined the paint party as well: Mayor Lisa Brown; Rep. Marcus Riccelli, D-Spokane; State Sen. Andy Billig, D-Spokane; County Commissioner Chris Jordan and City Council Member Paul Dillon all stopped by to show their support, Oberst said.
“It feels really good to have the community come,” Patterson said. “The massive amount of outpouring of support that happened immediately following [the vandalism] was very rewarding and it showed how important it was.”
Patterson, a transgender artist, paints the stripes symbolizing the trans community in the Progress Pride flag design. (Ben Tobin for RANGE Media)
This is Patterson’s third time leading the repaint efforts, and according to them, “It gets easier every time because we’re learning so much.” Patterson is an experienced public artist with prior mural experience — including the Peaceful Valley basketball court paint job — under their belt, but the project has also created learning opportunities for artists to work under them as paid assistants.
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City funds covered the original cost of the project, but the repaint efforts were completely funded by a wave of donations that came after the vandalism. “We raised it in three days. I could not believe that,” Danielson said. “I kept texting [Oberst] to be like ‘Oh my God we have this much!’ It was great.”
Oberst celebrated too, but was more pragmatic. “Given where the city is at financially, it’s nice to provide this to the community without being a burden to the taxpayers,” he said. “Because we live in a city that is deserving of great art, we want to make sure that all vandalism is cleaned up quickly so we can all enjoy it.”
Additional surveillance was also installed around the intersection, including a high-resolution mobile camera system owned by the Downtown Spokane Partnership, which was moved to the intersection for Pride Month to deter further vandalism.
‘Not going anywhere’
Just a few hours after Patterson and their team finished painting and less than three hours before a new state law was passed making “bias-motivated” vandalism of public property a felony hate crime, four teenagers riding Lime scooters were observed by witnesses and cameras doing burnouts over the fresh paint. The suspects were observed yelling obscenities at witnesses as they vandalized the mural. According to a press release from the Spokane Police Department (SPD), the area is clearly marked to keep traffic away as it was just repainted to repair previous damage.
SPD arrested 19-year-old Ruslan Turko and two minors on the charge of first-degree Malicious Mischief. They were caught 34 minutes after the initial 911 call was placed just before 9 p.m. on June 5.
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Scuffs visible on the mural after the June 5 vandalism. (Courtesy of Spokane Police Department)
The scooter wheels left black scuff marks across the entire mural. Speaking to RANGE as he observed the new damage to the mural for the first time, Oberst said tire marks from Lime scooters are especially hard to clean.
“The wheels are actually made of a particular compound that is really, really terrible when they burn out on public art,” he said. “If you scrub it, it would take forever.”
Because of the nature of the damage and the cost of closing streets safely for repainting, Oberst and Danielson jointly decided to leave the damage intact, at least through Pride weekend, which was last weekend. “I wish I had a better answer for you, because I would love to have it right like yesterday,” Oberst said. “But it’s not going to be the case.”
Oberst said he and Danielson plan to propose a community service program for the young vandals to scrub graffiti on public art and public buildings as a “learning opportunity.”
“It sends a powerful message of who we are as a community. This is not punitive,” Oberst said. “Restorative justice is who we are. We would welcome an extra set of hands for graffiti abatement downtown.”
On Thursday, as he watched the final steps of the mural repainting, Danielson told RANGE that despite the repeated vandalism, he was proud of the community’s support for the project as a whole. “It’s clearly like a very small percentage of people that are not OK with Pride stuff,” he said. “The entire community spoke in raising all this money in three days.”
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As the painters worked, a few drivers and pedestrians had shouted obscenities at them from car windows or the sidewalk throughout the day, according to the painters.
But, Patterson said, “for all of the terrible people saying horrible things, there’s ten times more positive people. And the people that stop and thank us is so surprising. It’s people you wouldn’t expect. And people will drive by and roll down their window and scream ‘Thank you!’ … The community shows up and it’s very apparent that the people that are for it are greater [than those against it].”
Patterson smiles as they get back to painting. (Ben Tobin for RANGE Media)
Patterson had no way of knowing what would happen later that evening, but as they put some of the last touches on their work, they shrugged with a smile on their face. “If it happens again, we’ll paint it again,” they said. “We’re here. We’re not going anywhere.”
The Asphalt Arts program as a whole accounts for just 6% of those funds, and was chosen as a traffic calming project. Studies show sites with art slows drivers and lowers crash rates.
Spokane Arts facilitates the Asphalt Arts projects and then invoices the city for labor and materials costs.
According to Shelby Allison, the manager of the Asphalt Arts program, it costs about $5,000 just to shut the road down for a few hours to clean and prep for the repaint. After hiring the primary artist and four painting assistants, and buying paint, the total costs to repair the downtown mural is about $14,000.
Community donations and a donation match from the Episcopal Diocese of Spokane completely covered the costs of the most recent repair.
Erin moved to town from Idaho to attend Gonzaga University, fell in love with Spokane and hasn’t left yet. They are a queer storyteller, and when they’re not pounding Red Bulls (not sponsored) and typing frantically, you can find her on and off stage at a few of the theatres in town. She is passionate about increasing accessibility to public meetings, telling stories from underrepresented communities and pitching funny merch ideas.
Scottie's Playtime 