Eric Trump is threatening to sue Jen Psaki for a segment on her MS NOW show.
Psaki questioned on her show, The Briefing with Jen Psaki, if there’s a conflict of interest by Eric joining his father on his trip to China. She cited an article by the Financial Times that reported that Alt5 Sigma, a company with ties to Eric Trump, was pursuing a deal to build data centers in the US with a Chinese chipmaker that American lawmakers have warned is connected to the ruling Communist Party.
Presidents usually put a blind trust in charge of their finances while they are in office, but not Donald Trump. Instead of a blind trust, he has put Eric in charge of the family business. That does not prevent Donald from controlling his money, and in fact, he has been making a lot of trades and investments lately himself. Psaki pointed out that this arrangement with Eric was supposed to prevent conflicts of interest, “but there he is.” (snip-MORE)
Usually, when someone tells you about a news item you may not have heard about yet, they’ll leave out some pertinent facts. When I first heard that California had banned the Kars4Kids jingle, the most annoying song in the world, they did not tell me why. I thought to myself that California couldn’t do that because of the First Amendment. Right? No one has banned Nickelback yet.
As it turns out, the supposed nonprofit group, Kars4Kids, has to stop airing its jingle in California because the judge found that it violated the state’s false advertising and unfair competition laws. (snip-MORE)
The $1.8 billion slush fund that the Justice Department is awarding to Donald Trump’s criminal allies is so blatantly corrupt that even Republicans can’t defend it. Some Republicans are so upset that they’re actually speaking out publicly against it.
Referring to acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche, and the fact that J6 terrorists are eligible for the so-called “anti-weaponization fund,” Mitch McConnell said, “So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong – take your pick.”
Senate Republicans derailed a massive immigration enforcement bill and left town until early today, despite Donald Trump ordering them to pass the $7o billion bill before June 1. How disgusting do you have to be to sicken sycophantic MAGAt Republicans? (snip-MORE)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Barney Frank, the longtime Democratic congressman and leading liberal who brought new visibility to gay rights and crafted the most significant reforms to the financial system in a generation, has died. He was 86.
Frank died late Tuesday, according to Jim Segel, Frank’s former campaign manager and close friend.
After representing broad swaths of Boston’s suburbs in Congress for 32 years, Frank and his husband moved to Ogunquit, Maine. He entered hospice there in April with congestive heart failure and is survived by his husband, Jim Ready, and sisters, the longtime Democratic strategist Ann Lewis and Doris Breay, along with brother David Frank.
A self-described “left-handed gay Jew,” Frank was known for his acerbic wit, combative style and focus on marginalized communities. He represented the party’s left wing while keeping close with Democratic leaders who sometimes frustrated progressives.
He is best known as a pioneer for LGBT rights. After decades of grappling with his sexuality, he publicly came out as gay in 1987, the first member of Congress to do so voluntarily. With his 2012 marriage to Ready, he became the first incumbent lawmaker on Capitol Hill to marry someone of the same sex.
And why judges should never be elected, but should be nominated by those who practice law, then confirmed by elected legislators and governors. All should be public so we the people know what and when it’s happening. When judges have to run for the bench, politics overtakes and minimizes law, tainting decisions.
This weekend, a Kansas judge issued a scathing 117-page rebuke of the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth—and in doing so, methodically dismantled the case against that care. In his ruling, Judge Carl Folsom III worked through the testimony of the state’s witnesses one by one, finding that its anti-transgender “experts”—routinely paraded by groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom, SEGM, and Genspect—offered opinions built on “cherry-picked information, conjecture, and research taken out of context,” and granting their testimony little to no weight. He then laid out 349 individual findings of fact, drawn from scientific evidence and the testimony of credible medical experts, documenting the safety and efficacy of gender-affirming care. He ultimately found that the ban likely violates the Kansas Constitution—which guarantees broader protections than its federal counterpart. That distinction matters enormously: because the ruling rests on state constitutional grounds, it is largely insulated from the U.S. Supreme Court and its decision in Skrmetti, which closed the federal courthouse door to these challenges but left the state one wide open.
“Allowing a transgender adolescent with gender dysphoria to experience their endogenous puberty when puberty blockers are medically indicated according to the Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline is highly likely to result in irreversible physical changes that create enormous short- and long-term distress and gender dysphoria,” Folsom wrote. “Thus, there was substantial evidence that S.B. 63 not only fails to protect minors, but also endangers them, by prohibiting the use of GnRH agonists when medically indicated.”
Before weighing the evidence, the judge first had to determine who could credibly be considered an expert. Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach brought forward a litany of anti-trans witnesses familiar from litigation defending these bans. Among them was James Cantor, a Toronto psychologist who has built a career testifying for states defending care bans despite no clinical experience treating transgender minors—and who was once quietly dropped from a Florida Board of Medicine hearing after it emerged he had served on the advisory council of the Prostasia Foundation, a group that has worked to destigmatize pedophilia. Folsom wrote that Cantor “has not conducted any original scientific research on the efficacy or safety of gender dysphoria treatments,” and noted he is not licensed to treat anyone under 16 and has never diagnosed a minor with gender dysphoria. The judge then catalogued a record of self-contradiction: Cantor “stated that ‘peer-review is the line between acceptable and not’ but himself relied on non-peer reviewed sources,” cited systematic reviews while ignoring that “the authors of those reviews stated that their work should not be used to prevent the provision of gender-affirming medical care,” and “makes several statements which have no scientific support,” including that gender dysphoria might be a misdiagnosis of borderline personality disorder. “The Court gives Dr. Cantor’s testimony little weight,” Folsom concluded.
The judge turned next to Farr Curlin, a Duke University doctor and theologian who was an author of the Trump administration’s HHS report on pediatric gender dysphoria—a document authored anonymously by a roster of hate-group affiliates and career anti-trans activists, and which deadnames Christine Jorgensen, one of the first Americans to get gender affirming surgery. Curlin, Folsom noted, “is not a pediatrician, nor is he a psychiatrist or endocrinologist,” and “has never treated anyone for gender dysphoria.” Curlin testified that gender-affirming care is “ethically problematic”—but under questioning, the breadth of what Curlin considers unethical became clear. He believes that prescribing birth control for contraception is also “ethically problematic,” because “blocking the capacity for reproduction seems contrary to the purposes of health.” He believes in vitro fertilization is “ethically problematic” as well. He testified that when gender-affirming care reduces fertility, it “prevents the realization of the basic good of marriage, since sexual capacities make possible the one flesh union of marriage.” By his own admission, Folsom noted, Curlin’s views are “radically counter to current medical orthodoxy.” The judge found his opinions “appear motivated by his personal views as opposed to a methodology applicable in the field of medical ethics,” and gave his testimony “little-to-no weight.”
The judge also had pointed words for the state’s roster of prominent anti-trans activists. Chloe Cole, the country’s most prominent anti-trans detransitioner, testified about receiving care as a minor in California—but Folsom noted that Cole “admittedly did not receive care in Kansas,” and that the plaintiffs’ expert Dr. Angela Turpin testified the care Cole described “would not have occurred in Kansas” and would have been inconsistent with the clinical guidelines Kansas providers actually follow. Her testimony was given “less weight.” Corinna Cohn, another anti-trans detransitioner who has testified for care bans across the country and who has publicly denied that transgender people existed before 1939 or were victims of the Holocaust, did not appear at the hearing at all. The judge noted that Cohn’s affidavit described “care accessed as an adult” and treatment “in Wisconsin”—nothing to do with minors, or with Kansas—and gave it “little weight.” And then there was Jamie Reed, the self-styled “whistleblower” who built a national profile on lurid, largely unsubstantiated accusations against a St. Louis gender clinic and who has gone on Fox News to describe being transgender as a delusion. Reed also did not testify and could not be cross-examined. Folsom gave her affidavit “little weight,” and had scathing remarks towards her lack of expertise:
“The Court gives thus Jamie Reed’s affidavit little weight, given that she is not a medical provider or mental-health professional. In addition, her affidavit primarily addresses her experiences with a clinic operating outside of Kansas—thus, it does not rebut or refute the credible, uncontroverted testimony about clinical practice within the state of Kansas,” read the order.
Folsom then turned to set the record straight on the care banned by Kansas. Working through the testimony of the credible medical experts, he set out 349 separate numbered findings of fact, each documenting some component of what the science actually shows about gender-affirming care. Among them: that “the currently available body of medical research, as a whole, shows that gender-affirming medical care is effective at improving mental-health outcomes for adolescents with gender dysphoria,” supported by “over 20 scientific studies” finding the treatments “effective at alleviating gender dysphoria and improving a variety of mental-health outcomes, including anxiety, depression, and suicidality.” Folsom found that “for many adolescents, gender-affirming medical care provides significant relief from gender dysphoria and decreases depression, anxiety, suicidality, and thoughts of self-harm.” On the question of regret, the talking point most relied upon by the law’s defenders, the court found, based on the Kansas clinic’s own long-term follow-up data, that 99.2% of patients who received gender-affirming care “continue to identify as transgender into adulthood,” and that of the remaining 0.8%, “most did not regret the medical treatment they received.”
Folsom reserved some of his sharpest fact-finding for the Cass Review and claims over European care. The state’s experts pointed to systematic reviews from the United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, Germany, and Norway as “proof” the science had turned. Folsom found otherwise. “None of these systematic reviews recommend categorically banning gender-affirming medical care for adolescents,” he wrote, and “the United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, Germany, and Norway have not categorically prohibited gender-affirming medical care for minors”—as Kansas had. On the Cass Review specifically, Folsom found that its authors “changed their methodology from the methodology they said they would use in their preregistration, which is a deviation from standard academic publishing practices designed to minimize bias,” and “used idiosyncratic standards in scoring and thus excluded studies that had made important contributions to the field.” Far from recommending a ban, the court found, the Cass Report “reaches conclusions that are similar to those in the Endocrine Society Guideline and WPATH Standards of Care” and “concludes that there are young people who absolutely benefit from gender-affirming care.” On Germany, the state had the facts backwards: Folsom found that “Germany’s recent guideline endorses the provision of gender-affirming medical care”—a reference to the 2025 guidelines from 26 medical organizations across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, the largest European medical consensus on transgender youth care ever produced.
The judge’s ruling rested on the Kansas constitution. Folsom found the plaintiffs likely to succeed on the claim that SB 63 violates the fundamental right of parents, guaranteed by Section 1 of the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights, to make medical decisions for their children. Section 1, he wrote, quoting the Kansas Supreme Court, “protects the core right of personal autonomy—which includes the ability to control one’s own body, to assert bodily integrity, and to exercise self-determination” and “allows Kansans to make their own decisions regarding their bodies, their health, their family formation, and their family life.” Because SB 63 strips parents of that right, Folsom applied strict scrutiny, the most demanding standard in constitutional law, and found the state had failed to meet it. That reasoning was used recently before in Kansas politics for another issue. The same Section is what protects abortion rights in the state. In previous abortion-related decisions, the Kansas Supreme Court held that Section 1 secures “an inalienable natural right of personal autonomy”—language the court used to strike down abortion restrictions, and that Kansas voters chose to keep in 2022 when they rejected a constitutional amendment that would have stripped it away.
For now, gender-affirming care is legal again in Kansas. The injunction is temporary, blocking SB 63 while the case is litigated, and Attorney General Kris Kobach has said he will appeal, calling the ruling “a stark example of judicial activism.” But the appeal faces a structural problem. Because the decision rests entirely on the Kansas Constitution, the U.S. Supreme Court and its ruling in Skrmetti have no power to disturb it—a state’s highest court is the final word on its own constitution. And the Kansas Supreme Court, where the case is ultimately likely to land, has five of seven justices appointed by Democratic governors and has repeatedly upheld the same Section 1 personal-autonomy right that Folsom relied on here.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate advanced legislation Tuesday that seeks to force President Donald Trump to withdraw from the Iran war, as a growing number of Republicans defied the president’s wishes.
Since Trump ordered the attack on Iran at the end of February, Democrats have forced repeated votes on war powers resolutions that would require him to either gain congressional approval for the war or withdraw troops. Republicans had been able to muster the votes to reject those proposals, but Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy — fresh off a primary election loss in which Trump endorsed his opponent — switched sides to deliver a crucial vote to pass the legislation.
The 50-47 vote tally demonstrated the small but crucial number of Republicans voting to halt the war with Iran. The legislation will get a vote on final passage, but the timing was not immediately clear.
Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska had all previously voted for similar war powers resolutions and did so again Tuesday. Cassidy voted for the legislation for the first time.
After his primary election loss last week, Cassidy returned to Washington saying that he was proud of his work to uphold the Constitution and would carefully consider how he would vote on several priorities of the Trump administration.
Picking on Minority Leader Jeffries who truly ought to be able to say a little more is fine, but it’s actually Republicans who need to step up, as they have the power and ability to put things on the floor for action.
Donald Trump went to China, and all he got were some seeds.
Donald Trump did not receive any help from China on ending the war in Iran or reopening the Strait of Hormuz, but Chinese President Xi Jinping did give him some rose seeds. The Chinese leader gave Trump a tour of the Zhongnanhai Garden, where he admired the roses. I guess he admired them so much that Xi decided to give him seeds so that he could grow his own roses. He didn’t even give him roses, just the seeds. You know that Donald Trump does not care about growing some damn flowers.
Trump’s trip to China was a total and abject failure and failed to secure any agreements or promises. Trump came home empty-handed. (snip-MORE)
In 2023, a government contractor pleaded guilty to stealing the tax information of Donald Trump and other wealthy Americans and leaking it to media outlets in 2019 and 2020. After he was restored to the presidency in 2025, Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service for “allowing” this leak, along with a $230 million lawsuit against the Department of Justice for the Russia collusion investigation he faced during his first term in office and the 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago.
Since he is the president of the United States and head of the executive branch, and the DOJ and the IRS are agencies under the executive branch, Donald Trump was the plaintiff and defendant. Basically, he was trying to hand himself $10 billion of our money. Even Richard Nixon didn’t try to get away with this kind of corruption. The only kink to Donald Trump’s plan of grifting us out of $10 billion is that it had to be approved by a judge. (snip-MORE)
Last week I flagged that oral argument was set in the D.C. Circuit for this past Thursday in the combined challenges filed by four law firms against Trump’s executive orders seeking to keep them from conducting much of their business. All four firms won in the lower courts. Based on the panel’s reception, they seem on track to do it again.
These cases are highly significant because they go to the heart of a major abuse of executive power: Trump’s insistence that he has the ability to put entities that oppose him out of business. Former Solicitor General for George W. Bush, Paul Clement, representing the firms, argued that Trump’s executive orders “run afoul of the better part of the Bill of Rights.” Not just one or two provisions, mind you, but “the better part.” He argued that they threaten the right to counsel, the separation of powers, and the rule of law.
Clement explained, “The executive orders here strike at the heart of the First Amendment and the ability of lawyers to zealously represent their clients. Lawyers cannot zealously represent their clients while walking on eggshells for fear of reprisals; thus, the executive orders strike at the heart of the rule of law and the zealous representation on which the judiciary and the adversary process depend.” That seems entirely clear. It could even be possible that firms might avoid representing certain clients—one of Trump’s early attacks was on Covington and Burling, a D.C. firm that gave advice to Jack Smith, the special counsel during the Biden administration who oversaw the two prosecutions of Donald Trump.
Clement also explained the headlock Trump had put firms in: “I either keep my security clearance, or I can sue the Trump administration, not both.” For many defense firms, the ability to obtain a security clearance is essential to doing certain types of work. Trump’s orders purported to remove those clearances for lawyers at firms that ran afoul of him. He also tried to suspend active government contracts and prevent attorneys who worked at the interdicted firms from entering government buildings, including federal courthouses. As we discussed here, it was always going to be a nonstarter because the orders, if permitted to go into effect, would allow a president to pick and choose which attorneys could continue to make a living and put ones he didn’t like out of business.
During argument, the panel seemed unpersuaded that the executive orders were discretionary national security decisions made by a president that aren’t subject to review by the courts. If the case makes its way to the Supreme Court, Trump will undoubtedly argue that the district judges who first considered the case were biased. Assuming Trump loses at the Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court could take the case on appeal, but is not obligated to. For instance, Judge Richard Leon, one of first district judges to consider a law firm executive order case, is also the judge who issued a preliminary injunction halting construction of Trump’s ballroom, finding that the president is the “steward” of the White House and not the “owner,” and that Trump had no statutory authority to proceed, absent authorization from Congress. So prepare yourself for meritless arguments about judicial bias if Trump suffers a loss here. There is no way of predicting how long it will take the court to rule, and the administration is enjoined from putting the orders into effect while the cases are being litigated.
Closing the loop on mifepristone
With only two justices, predictably, Thomas and Alito, writing in dissent, the Supreme Court has prevented Louisiana’s law, which would make mifepristone unavailable via telehealth, from going into effect while the litigation moves forward.
It’s not skeptical to question whether this happened because the Court is well aware of the risk of agitating voters in advance of the midterm elections.
Trump is hyperfocused on trying to salvage the November election despite his sinking performance in the polls.
We always knew that, backed into a corner, Trump would become ever more willing to damage democracy to save himself. It’s on.
NOTUS is reporting that meetings are being held, out of the public eye, between the White House, DOJ, DHS, and the Postal Service to try and interfere with the election. The goal seems to be building a national voter database that can then be used to determine who can and can’t vote—which is up to the individual states—and implement Trump’s order that the Post Office should interfere with mailing ballots.
The report in NOTUS included comments from an unidentified White House staffer speaking on background, who declined to acknowledge that the conversations were taking place, but did say that “it is standard process for administration officials to coordinate on implementing President Trump’s executive orders. We do not comment on private meetings that may or may not have happened.” That’s as good as a yes.
Trump’s executive order directing USPS to interfere in state-run elections is under challenge in court. At a hearing last week, DOJ argued that the court can’t act because the issue being raised is an “abstract legal question unless and until the Postal Service actually issues a rule that injures the plaintiffs and it does so only because it was directed to by the president — rather than, for example, as an exercise of the agency’s own independent judgment.” Judge Carl Nichols seemed inclined to buy that argument at one point in the hearing, asking how there could be irreparable injury, which he must find before he can enjoin the executive order, when no action has been taken as of yet. But at other points in the hearing, he pushed the government on the constitutionality of the president’s executive order.
We’ll watch carefully for a forthcoming ruling in this case, which will tell us a lot about whether the courts will entertain presidential interference in each state’s administration of its own election. But the White House is making its position clear.
Stephen Miller, who it’s always worth noting is not a lawyer and doesn’t seem to appreciate what the Constitution says, seems to be continuing to look for a new way to militarize the country for reasons that don’t hold water in advance of the election. We’ll take up the issue of the illegality of sending federal troops or federal agents to the polls first breather we get.
Also …
On Wednesday, the state of Tennessee has a court date to defend itself against the NAACP’s allegations that it cannot, without violating state law, redraw its voting maps this late in the decade.
On Thursday, SCOTUS will be issuing more opinions.
By Friday, the Government has to produce discovery to the defendants in the Minnesota church protest case against Don Lemon and individual protestors who were indicted for violating the FACE Act. A judge ruled that heavily redacted discovery that prevents the defendants from identifying witnesses, including members of law enforcement, so they can prepare their cases violates the law. He has given the government until Friday to rectify its errors and “produce discovery consistent with its Rule 16(a) obligations, unredacted as to all victim and witness names, addresses, and telephone numbers; as well as fully unredacted as to law enforcement PII [personally identifiable information]” to every defendant who has agreed to abide by a protective order preventing its public dissemination. The government’s case has been widely viewed as likely violating the First Amendment from the outset.
Next up on the list of bad cabinet secretaries
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins is being sued for violating employees’ right to be free from establishment of religion by the government. She’s been proselytizing in emails to the captive audience that is her workforce.
I recall once handling a case where a public employee was being subject to far less overt religious commentary, and the government agency immediately conceded error and fired the offender. This case is even more clear. Government employees are not disciples of Christ.
In new federal lawsuit, employees accuse Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins of "sending increasingly proselytizing communications to the entire USDA workforce, promoting her own preferred brand of Christian beliefs and theology to the captive audience of employees"
But don’t hold your breath for the president to fire her. This was a weekend characterized by a full-scale display of support for Christianity being promoted by the White House. The administration held a “Rededicate 250,” which many observers, both approvingly and disapprovingly, referred to as a Christian religious service featuring high-ranking government officials on the National Mall.
Rededicate 250 was “a White House-backed prayer festival dedicated to America’s Christian roots.” Trump gave a video speech. Speaker Mike Johnson, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were present, standing with evangelical leaders on the stage. Johnson told the crowd, “Our founders boldly proclaim that our rights do not derive from the government. They come from you, our Creator and Heavenly Father.”
Podcaster Brian Allen posted this snippet from MAGA radio host Eric Metaxas’ speech at the federally funded prayer event on the National Mall today: “It’s hard to believe that it would take two centuries for the Lord to raise up a great man to bring that ballroom finally to stand where it needs to stand. It’s extraordinary. We only had to wait two hundred years.”
As Allen put it, Metazas “told a crowd of thousands of Christians that God spent two centuries waiting to raise up Donald Trump — to build a ballroom.” The crowd responded by cheering.
The only way to overcome this sort of thing, a clear violation of the Constitution, is with a relentless commitment to telling the truth and sharing it widely. We know from Trump’s poll numbers that some of it is breaking through. The utter lunacy of the Christian God wanting a ballroom is something to ask people to stop, and instead of just following like sheep, spend a moment thinking about.
More Kleptocracy
Bloomberg is reporting that Trump’s disclosure forms for the first quarter of 2026 show that he made 3,600 Stock trades, and that they are worth as much as $750 Million (the reporting is done in bands, so it’s impossible to determine the exact amount from the forms). Former Undersecretary of State Rick Stengel pointed out that Bush and Clinton kept their assets in a blind trust and neither Obama nor Biden traded stocks or bonds while in office.
“3,700 trades,” Stengel tweeted, “is probably more than all the trades of all the presidents until now. And he is trading stocks that are affected by his decisions. A walking conflict of interest, at the least, and perhaps insider trading. Just as members of Congress should not be able to trade stocks, so too the president.” Stock trades aren’t official acts; they’re clearly personal ones. Stengel has certainly identified reasons that merit a closer look at these trades.
So, lots happening this week. We’ll be here through everything as we head into the Memorial Day weekend, trying to make it make sense. I’m grateful to all of you who spend part of your week here with me, thinking carefully about the law, democracy, and where we go from here. Thank you for being a part of Civil Discourse.
Yet the tRump administration trashed the government’s stance of fighting right wing violence or right wing extremist violent groups. It started with the republicans forcing Obama to remove a government study on right wing extremists. Now the current DOJ and FBI have removed all mention of right wing violence or violent actions instead claiming the violence is all being done and caused by Antifa. The government wants to make the public believe that the people who are against fascism are the real extremist threat to the public. Antifa is antifascism / antifascist. It has no headquarts or central organization it is just people who since the 1930s have pushed back against fascism and fascists. The tRump white supremacists want the public to believe violent groups like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, Nazi groups, the 3 percenters, and other militia groups that joined in the insurrection riot on Jan 6th and are extreme white supremacists. The current people in charge love the way they can steal the money from the treasury and take away people’s rights, so they want to keep the hate groups that support them to be the good guys and anyone who tries to stop the destruction of democracy they hope to make the bad people. Hugs
Disclaimer: WWFU typically redacts the imagery seen in this zine with an iron front or an X, and encourages others to do the same. This zine also contains slurs that we typically redact. For the sake of eduction and proper recognition, the following content is un-redacted.
A Reference Guide For Recognizing Far Right Groups, Symbols and Dog Whistles
Introduction
As of spring 2026, this zine serves as a reference guide to far-right symbols, dogwhistles, and groups, helping you recognize and understand them. The list focuses on the most active groups and the most commonly used phrases and symbols at this time.
Not all neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups openly brand themselves with swastikas or SS bolts. Recognizing their dogwhistles is essential to accurately identifying them as the community threats they are. Some groups and individuals deliberately project a public facing image of “patriotism” or opposition to “foreign wars” to appear more mainstream, while privately holding the same beliefs as more openly neo-Nazi organizations. Because some symbols are not exclusive to neo-Nazis, fascists, or white supremacists, it’s important to look for additional context clues and patterns of use.
Dogwhistles are coded messages communicated through words or phrases understood by a specific in-group, but not by outside observers. Neo-Nazis and white supremacists use dogwhistles to signal to one another while maintaining plausible deniability.
Phrases / Numbers
131: Anti Communist Action (ACA), the numbers referring to the letters of the alphabet.
Blue Lives Matter/All Lives Matter: These phrases are nothing more than a response to people saying “Black Live Matter” and as way to silence Black voices. Cops can always choose to take off their uniform, while Black people cannot take off their skin or escape the discrimination that comes with it. No one would go to an event to save the rainforests and say that all forests matter. If all lives matter, as racists love to say, then Black lives have to matter. All lives can’t matter until Black lives matter because they are the ones being targeted by police, racist attacks, and everyday discrimination.
TDOTR: The Day of the Rope, a fictional day from the book The Turner Diaries in which race traitors (women who marry non-white men, the press, politicians, LGBTQ people and more) are hanged from lampposts.
6MWE: “Six Million Wasn’t Enough” referring to the number of Jewish people murdered during the holocaust.
The Great Replacement Theory: White supremacist conspiracy theory that argues democratic and government officials are intentionally facilitating non-white immigration to replace the white population for political purposes. Similar phrases include “white genocide.”
It’s okay to be white: While no one is saying it’s not okay to be white, this phrase creates perceived victimhood and is a stepping stone to great replacement.
WPWW: White Pride World Wide
GTKRWN: Gas the Kikes, Race War Now
RAHOWA: Racial Holy War
RWDS: Right Wing Death Squad
Blood and Soil: A reference to race and nationality from Nazi Germany
14: A reference to the 14 words “we must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children” coined by David Lane.
88: 8 Represents the 8th letter of the alphabet, HH or “Heil Hitler.” Variations include H8 and 83 “Heil Christ.” You will often see the numbers 14 and 88 together (1488 or 14/88).
WP: White Power. Also sometimes signified by an “okay” hand gesture.
Reclaim America: White supremacist slogan advocating for the “reclaiming” of America from immigrants (referencing the racist Great Replacement conspiracy theory).
We’ll Have Our Home Again: Popular phrase used by neo-nazis and white supremacists based on a song of the same title and similar to “reclaim America.”
Groups / Orgs
Patriot Front: A white nationalist group mostly focused on using patriotic imagery and rhetoric to spread propaganda and recruit. Founded by Thomas Rousseau, the group broke off from Vanguard America in 2017 after the deadly Charlottesville rally in Virginia. They care primarily about public image. Their style involves patriotic designs including red white and blue, fasces, khaki pants, and white masks with matching shirts, shields, the Confederate flag, the Betsy Ross flag, and the US flag. Despite their efforts to be palatable to a wider audience, outside of public view they espouse anti-semetic, pro-white and pro-nazi views. Patriot Front is currently one of the largest white nationalist groups in the US.
Active Clubs: Active Clubs are white supremacist fight clubs widespread across the US and throughout parts of Europe. They use the guise of fitness and training to try recruiting mostly younger white men into their clubs. Often members will march with other larger neo-nazi / white supremacist groups, and all chapters share the same logo of a Celtic Cross with text representative of their region. Many Active Clubs in the US are directly tied to Thomas Rousseau and Patriot Front.
Blood Tribe: Blood Tribe is a neo-nazi group started by former marine Christopher Pohlhaus. They are known for being one of the most outward facing Nazi groups, holding semi-regular marches in cities across the US. They wear matching red and black outfits with black face coverings, and march with matching black and white swastika flags, and will loudly chant white supremacist and nazi slogans. Their goal is to instill a Fourth Reich in the US.
AFN: “Aryan Freedom Network” is a neo-nazi group present widespread across the US. The group has begun functioning as an umbrella organization, bringing in members from other groups like the Ku Klux Klan and outlaw bikers to function under their name. Outside of flyering neighborhoods with nazi propaganda, they operate mostly out of public view. They train often with firearms and make efforts to organize nationally across as many regions as possible.
WLM: “White Lives Matter” is a white supremacist movement with chapters all around America and the globe, who focus their activism on low-risk tactics like stickers, flyers, and banners.
Three Percenters: This movement was created in 2008 with the false claim that only 3% of American forces fought the British in the revolutionary war, and therefore it would take only 3% of the population to overthrow the current US government. They are a far-right militia movement of anti-government extremists focused on gun ownership.
Proud Boys: A group of western chauvinists founded by Gavin McInnes in 2016. Although the Proud Boys aren’t explicitly white supremacist, their emphasis on the “western” values and culture is a thinly veiled substitute for “White” values and culture and is used to deflect accusations of racism. Their ideology can be considered a form of proto-fascism as it contains elements of ultra-nationalism, traditionalism, misogyny, and social Darwinism. Their membership has different levels and members are encouraged to participate in street brawls. Level 1 is to exclaim “I am a proud western chauvinist and I refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.” Level two is to recite 5 cereal brands while other members perform a “beat in.” Level 3 is to get a tattoo of “PROUD BOY,” and level 4 is to engage in violence for their cause, usually against LGBTQ or antifascists. They use the acronyms POYB (Proud of Your Boy) and FAFO (Fuck Around and Find Out) and can be spotted in black and yellow Fred Perry polo shirts, or other clothes with the black/yellow color combination. They also use the “okay” hand sign on a regular basis.
NOVA: “National Organization for Vital Action” is a white-supremacist organization with the goal of building a “nation within a nation” for whites only. They aim to connect as many neo-nazi and white-supremacist groups and individuals as possible in order to create a broad network of racists in America. Their public actions mostly consist of banner drops and stickers. In private, the group has expressed their willingness to use violence to achieve their end goals of a whites only nation.
GDL: “Goyim Defense League”, founded by Jon Minadeo II, is a network of anti-semetic content creators who focus almost exclusively on anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and hatred. They primarily focus their efforts on online videos and live -streams, but are also active in-person, often flyering neighborhoods doing banner drops, harassing synagogues, and holding marches with swastika flags.
Groypers: “Groypers” are a term for followers of far-right, nazi influencer Nick Fuentes. Less of an organized group, it is a term given to adherents of the anti-immigrant, anti-semetic, and pro-white positions held by Nick Fuentes and pushed into the public. The primary function of Groypers is to push more “traditional conservatives” into a more radical, white supremacist sphere.
The Base: An accelerationist paramilitary nazi group formed by Rinaldo Nazzaro in 2018. They have similar aesthetics to Atomwaffen, but a different logo.
Atomwaffen Division: Also known as the National Socialist Order, Atomwaffen is an accelerationist (accelerating towards a race war in which they hope to overthrow the current government and society and replace it with a fascist order) nazi group responsible for several murders. After numerous arrests and infighting. the group dissolved, only recently attempting to reform in 2025, though failing to gain support. Responsible for popularizing the skull mask within neo-nazi groups, other symbols include the radioactive symbol and flecktarn (a German camo pattern similar to the “peas” pattern from WW2). Although now defunct, their influence remains significant.
Ku Klux Klan: One of the longst running white supremacist organizations. They use the number 311 to represent 3 Ks, which is the 11th letter of the alphabet. Their iconic robes have become so recognizable they may no longer count as a dog whistle. They also use the blood drop cross and variations on the blood drop cross including just the blood drop, and the confederate flag.
Gypsy Jokers: A one percenter motorcycle club with white supremacist sympathies who are known to traffic drugs and engage in low level organized crime and violence. They wear motorcycle gear adorned with nazi symbols and a back patch that says “Gypsy Jokers.” In recent years they have been known to associate with the Proud Boys.
Oathkeepers: Far-right anti-government militia founded in 2009 by Stewart Rhodes. Oathkeepers played a key role in the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. Oathkeepers appeal directly to military and law enforcement personnel, encouraging them to keep their “oath” to defend the public from what they perceive as the new world order, by means of discipline and violence. They’re also associated with three percenters.
Hammerskins: A racist skinhead group, aka boneheads. The feeder group is known as Crew 38 (38 for “Crossed Hammers”). Hammerskins focus mostly on spreading racist music, but they also engage in street fighting and targeted attacks. Hammerskin Nation is considered one of the most violent racist skinhead groups in the US. They use a hand sign of crossed arms with fists to represent the crossed hammers.
WoV: “Wolves of Vinland” is a group with heavy folkish influences that promotes white supremacy and misogyny, stressing Asatru or Paganism, including animal sacrifices and blood rituals in the woods. They have recently been partnering with Patriot Front and Active Clubs to hold fascist combat events. Their headquarters is in VA, but membership is not limited to that area. “Operation Werewolf” has been used as a recruiting tool and feeder group for WoV. They can be spotted with Celtic and Nordic imagery, runes, and wolf pack patches..
Asatru Folk Assembly: A norse pagan organization which advocates for pre-Christian European rituals and beliefs. The organization discourages “race-mixing” and promotes a whites-only vision of America, falsely claiming that white people were in North America first and were wiped out. Members of other neo-nazi groups such as Blood Tribe associate often with them.
764 / No Lives Matter: 764 is an international, predatory network that espouses neo-nazi, satanic, nihilistic, and accelerationist beliefs. It targets and exploits children / young people and encourages them to commit mass acts of violence. Adherents have been responsible for acts such as murder, firebombings, and school shootings.
Tempel ov Blood / 09A: The Order of Nine Angles (09A), and it’s most violent chapter, The Tempel ov Blood (ToB), are satanic neo-Nazi cults that have had a significant influence on far-right accelerationist projects, like the now-defunct Atomwaffen. Suffice to say, 09A and ToB glorify nazism and violence, and are adept at radicalizing (and abusing) teenagers. Symbols include the seven-pt star inside a circle, a downward sort of pitchfork with 333 above it, and “Drill Sgt Grey” – a sinister space alien in a military outfit.
Injekt Division: An accelerationist nazi group that was formed by Coleman Blevins (aka Korb) in 2021. They are organized in decentralized cells, embracing a terror guerrilla ideology that looks to collapse the “System”. Their symbols include a syringe, 1494 and “Pray For Rain”.
NWTI: “The Northwest Territorial Imperative” is a vision of a whites-only homeland in the Pacific NW. Proposed in the ’80s by Richard Butler of the Aryan Nations, it is an idea embraced by a wide variety of white supremacists, including secretive militant nazi groups dedicated to implementing the vision, such as Northwest Front (NF) or the Northwest Pioneer Association (NPA). NWTI is represented by an inverted Cascadian tri-color flag – having vertical stripes, rather than horizontal. Their flag sometimes includes a rune or swastika. Common associated phrases: “Come Home, White Man” and “Ex Gladio Libertas”.
Vinlanders Social Club: Vinlanders Social Club (VSC / Firm 22) is a violent neo-Nazi bonehead gang formed in 2003. It uses Firm 22 as a support crew of men and women; the men being prospects for full VSC membership. VSC / Firm 22 went into decline in the 2010s, but has been attempting to build itself back up through proximity to the active club movement, much like the Hammerskins. Its symbols include a black cross on a green flag, 22, 1422, an eagle holding brass knuckles, a red, white & blue shield patch with a laurel, or just a laurel.
TPUSA: “Turning Point USA” is an organization which targets high schoolers and college students with far-right propaganda, talking points, and literature. Founded by Charlie Kirk, and now led by his widowed wife Erika Kirk, the organization has chapters in schools across the US, and regularly sets up tents on college campuses in order to recruit and create content by means of filming bad-faith political “debates.” With a roster of speakers and frequent events, TPUSA regularly promotes popular anti-trans white nationalist talking points, white Christianity, and racial divisions. Using the public image of more traditional conservatism, they function as a pipeline to more fascist far-right ideologies.
References and Further Reading
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The mid-decade fight to redraw congressional lines ahead of the November midterm elections has surged beyond statehouses and into ballot boxes and courtrooms – with millions of dollars pouring in to shape those outcomes, much of it from nonprofits that never have to say who is funding their activities.
Voters in California and, most recently, Virginia have weighed in on new House maps. A Colorado group wants to put its own proposal before voters. Missouri petitioners are trying to stop a new map from taking effect. And lawsuits are stacking up from Florida to Utah.
One through-line: dark money from 501(c)(4) nonprofits. Free from donor-disclosure rules, these groups move large sums with little transparency and have helped turn state-by-state redistricting battles into nationalized, big-dollar fights bankrolled by tight networks of high spenders.
“It’s a perfect example of where money is trying to influence policy outcomes, and redistricting is so high-stakes that now it’s just part of the process,” said Alex Keena, an associate professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University who has co-authored two books about redistricting.
What began last year with President Donald Trump urging Texas to redraw its map has now gone national, fueled by a surge in dark money that “perfectly encapsulates what’s happening here,” said Doug Spencer, a law professor at the University of Colorado.
“Every single story really feels like a domino in a long chain of events that goes back to President Trump’s cajoling of Texas to start this,” Spencer told OpenSecrets.
‘A tsunami of money’
The latest epicenter of the redistricting fight was Virginia, where voters in April approved a mid-decade redistricting plan that could have helped Democrats win four additional House seats in November. The measure would have bypassed a bipartisan redistricting commission and allowed the state to use new districts drawn by the Democratic-led General Assembly. The state Supreme Courtblocked it on May 8, declaring it unconstitutional because of a procedural timing dispute. Democrats filed an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on May 11.
Virginia, which has no limit on campaign donations, is “basically the wild, wild west in terms of campaign finance,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a political newsletter run out of the University of Virginia. The three key players in this ballot measure fight combined to raise nearly $100 million since February in large cash contributions alone. The Virginia Public Access Project found it to be the most expensive referendum in state history.
“This was the confluence of all of these variables that resulted in just a tsunami of money in a state with lax regulation, high stakes, a single vote involving redistricting that could lead to four or even five new members of Congress,” Keena told OpenSecrets. “And we just had a ton of money flow into the state in a relatively short amount of time, and the result of all that money was just a blitz coming from every medium.”
And on both sides of the debate, the vast majority of that money came from a handful of dark money groups. window.addEventListener(“message”,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][t]+”px”;r.style.height=d}}});
Virginians for Fair Elections, the main organization backing the redistricting effort, reported $63.2 million in large cash contributions, defined as any single contribution or loan of at least $10,000, between Feb. 6 and April 24. Nearly 97% of that total came from five 501(c)(4)s:
House Majority Forward, which is aligned with Democratic leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives, contributed $39.3 million across 10 installments from Feb. 6 to April 10, the largest of which was $9.3 million on March 30.
The Fairness Project, founded by a California-based healthcare workers union, contributed $11.7 million across five payments from Feb. 18 to April 9, including a $5 million contribution Feb. 18, in addition to $22,950 in in-kind contributions.
The Global Impact Social Welfare Fund, the 501(c)(4) arm of philanthropic organization Global Impact Ventures, donated $1.5 million across two contributions.
The same structure appeared on the opposition side. window.addEventListener(“message”,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][t]+”px”;r.style.height=d}}});
The Virginians for Fair Maps Referendum Committee, which formed Feb. 9, reported $24.1 million in large contributions between March 2 and May 1. One organization – Virginians for Fair Maps, which shares a post office box in Alexandria with the committee – accounted for 98% of it. State records identify the group as a tax-exempt organization, but there is no corresponding listing for it or its classification in the IRS online database. Co-chaired by former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), it donated $23.5 million across nine contributions from March 6 to May 1, a sum that includes $5 million contributions on both March 31 and April 7 along with $4 million on April 6.
“There’s a real question. … Who’s actually trying to influence our election, and to what end?” Keena said. “What are they hoping to get out of it and whose interests are hanging in the balance?”
Donor networks in multiple states
Some of those groups also spent big on similar efforts in other states.
Coloradans For a Level Playing Field wants a new House map for the 2028 and 2030 elections before allowing the state’s independent congressional redistricting commission to draw another one for 2032 based on the 2030 census. Under the plan, Democrats would be favored to win seven of the state’s eight House seats.
According to its May 4 report, the organization raised $246,747 between Feb. 18 and April 29. Two of the key donors in Virginia also supplied more than 97% of the Colorado group’s total: House Majority Forward contributed $150,000 on Feb. 25, and the Fairness Project provided $90,000 on April 29. Of the 149 other cash donations made during that time, 148 averaged just $32.
That breakdown reflects the uneven appetite for redistricting in the state, Spencer said. Sometimes, it draws attention; other times, he said, “it really feels like it’s gone by the wayside – or, at least when you dig underneath, you don’t see a big push or a lot of local money.”
And in Missouri, the Democratic-supported group People Not Politicians, which opposes the state’s new GOP-drawn map, in December submitted more than 300,000 signatures for a petition seeking to block the map from being used. In its April 14 campaign finance report, it reported raising $6.1 million during the cycle. Of that total, $1.7 million came from American Opportunity Action, a Democratic-aligned dark money group supporting ballot measures. Additionally, the Fairness Project donated $250,000 on Nov. 17, 2025, along with four $1,000 payments in late 2025 and early 2026 for “strategic guidance.”
“I think, to the layperson, this all just looks like gerrymandering,” Spencer said. “But up close, every state’s doing this slightly differently.”
Massive spending around California’s Prop 50 fight
The biggest spending took place in California – where more than a quarter of a billion dollars was poured into its redistricting measure.
Voters in a November 2025 special election passed Proposition 50, which responded to the Texas redistricting push by redrawing the map used in the 2026 midterms and in 2028 and 2030. It generated more than $256 million in fundraising from both sides combined. Roughly two-thirds came from groups supporting the measure, and 87% of that $171 million came from two organizations, both of which have received noteworthy contributions from dark money groups:
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Ballot Measure Committee raised more than $102 million through Nov. 3, 2025. The Fund For Policy Reform provided its largest single contribution, $10 million on Sept. 18, 2025..
HMP for Prop 50, the House Majority PAC, raised $46 million. That group’s largest single contribution in 2024 ($34 million) came from House Majority Forward, which also contributed $11.2 million in late 2025, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
On the opposition side, two organizations combined for an even higher share of the spending – 92% of the $84 million that flowed into the race.
The No on Prop 50 Congressional Leadership Fund raised $44.3 million. That group received four separate $10 million donations in 2024, from hedge fund founder Ken Griffin, Aon founder Patrick Ryan, Mellon banking heir Timothy Mellon and Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwartzman. Billionaire megadonor Miriam Adelson donated $10 million on March 11, according to the FEC.
Protect Voters First reported $32.8 million, with Charles Munger Jr. – a physicist and the son of a late billionaire – loaning the organization nearly the full amount.
“It does not seem like the states themselves have been going out of their way to clamor for this,” Spencer said. “California responded to Texas. Texas was responding to Trump.”
How dark money fuels the legal fights
While some states decided redistricting questions in the voting booth, others are fighting the same battles in courthouses – and some groups funding those fights are just as nationalized, donor-driven and opaque.
The National Redistricting Foundation has partnered with the left-leaning Elias Law Group in suing to challenge Florida’s new map. It filed a legal brief urging the Supreme Court to reject Alabama’s request to fast-track its redistricting case and filed a motion to intervene in Utah’s.
The foundation is the 501(c)(3) nonprofit arm of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. As a 527 organization, it is tax‑exempt and may spend unlimited amounts on issue advocacy. It is chaired by former Attorney General Eric Holder, and in 2018 it received $2.6 million from Soros. Its largest contribution in the 2024 election cycle, the most recent available to OpenSecrets, was $500,000 from PAC to the Future, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s leadership PAC. The committee also provided nearly $20,000 in in-kind contributions to the pro-redistricting group in Virginia.
The foundation makes up one part of an apparatus that also includes the National Democratic Redistricting PAC and a 501(c)(4), the National Redistricting Action Fund. The PAC raised $423,000 in the first quarter of 2026, has raised $2 million during the current election cycle and had $250,000 in cash on hand, according to FEC documents. The 501(c)(3) foundation reported $9.7 million in contributions and grants in 2023, according to its most recent IRS filings, but does not identify those donors. Neither does the action fund, whose latest IRS filing shows $5.2 million in total revenue in 2023 – and the same Washington address as the foundation.
A similar structure is in place at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that on May 4 joined the UCLA Voting Rights Project in suing Florida over its redistricting plan. It has also moved to intervene in the Utah case. It shares a Washington address with Campaign Legal Center Action, a 501(c)(4) dark money nonprofit.
Campaign Legal Center’s most recent IRS documents show $13.9 million in total revenue in 2024, with most coming from contributions and grants, and $36.7 million in net assets. But its donors are not identified. Campaign Legal Center Action also does not disclose donor names on its IRS filings.
On the Republican side, the American Redistricting Project – a 501(c)(3) also known as Fair Lines America Foundation Inc. – has been active in redistricting debates in recent years. Its most recent IRS filing shows roughly $1.9 million in both revenue and expenses in 2024. It maintains an online repository tracking redistricting legislation, but it is unclear whether the organization is providing financial support or filing motions in the current legal fights. OpenSecrets reached out to the group but did not immediately receive a response.
This article was originally published by OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that tracks money in politics. View the original article.
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