In the past few days, we’ve been hit with a deluge of news stories any one of which would have been explosive just a few months ago; but now they’re just part of the daily flood of insanity. Except, when you look at the flood as a whole, it’s not insane, it’s a strategy to end the democratic republic.  

Hyperbole? Alas, no.

Sarah Jeong is a journalist with The Verge.

First came Signalgate, which makes the original ‘Gate” perpetrators look merely naive (that’s Watergate if you’re too young to get the reference). People in the government have variously denied the chat happened, denied the info on the attack plans was classified, denied the plans were capital-p Plans, and attacked the journalist who proved they were lying. Over the past few days this story has seen not just a staggering security breach, including use of a non-secure program on non-secure devices from non-secure locations (National Security Advisor Waltz was in Moscow?!), but also a clear criminal violation of the Federal Records Act (Signal messages are designed to self-destruct). It seems the most security-conscious adult on the chat was the one person who wasn’t supposed to be there. 

All of this culminated in members of the administration lying under oath to Congress in public hearings. Senator Tammy Duckworth, a veteran pilot who lost both legs in combat, was so infuriated at the grave risk to the military personnel conducting the operation that she publicly called Secretary of Defense Hegseth “a fucking liar.” 

Meanwhile, German newspaper Der Spiegel has reported that the emails, mobile numbers, and even some passwords for Hegseth, Waltz, and Gabbard—the administration’s supposedly most important security advisors—were all available online in commercial databases and publicly-available leaks.

The Signalgate story began to unfold on Monday. On Tuesday, March 25 a PhD candidate at Tufts, a well-known university in Massachusetts, was literally snatched off the street by masked plain clothes ICE agents. Why? Because she wrote an opinion piece supportive of Palestinian rights in the student newspaper last year. So, not a terrorist threat, not even an undocumented illegal (she’s here on a fully valid student visa), but just someone who once expressed a Wrong Opinion. You’ve probably seen the video, courtesy of @mattreednews. Rumeysa Ozturk was just walking down the street, on her way to meet friends to break her Ramadan fast. I cannot imagine how terrified she must have been in this moment, or in the hours since, hungry, and alone. 

Still, it should all work out, right? That very night her lawyers secured a court order that she must remain in Massachusetts. But all day Wednesday ICE wouldn’t tell her lawyers where she was; and on Thursday they finally admitted she’s been sent 1,700 miles away to an ICE detention center in Louisiana and claimed she was already out of the state before the order came down—do we believe them? The ICE center in Louisiana just happens to fall under the jurisdiction of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, one of 13 US Court of Appeals, which Vox in December 2022 called “the Trumpiest Court in America.” (Twelve of the 17 active judgeship on the Court are held by Republic appointees, half of them Trump’s.)

Last night, Secretary of State Rubio said Rumesya’s visa had been revoked because America cannot accept people intent on creating “a ruckus.”

And Rumeysa is far from the only one. A State Department report gathered by Axios says that “more than 300 foreign students have had their student visas revoked in the three weeks ‘Catch and Revoke’ has been in operation.” Catch and revoke? These are not frickin’ Pokémon Go characters. By the way, there are about 1.5 million student visa holders nationwide. 40 years ago, before becoming a green card holder and then a citizen, I was one of them.

Meanwhile, a Washington, DC Court of Appeals panel continues to block so-called deportations under the Alien Enemies Act. This is just one of the cases involving the 200+ Venezuelan men shipped off to one of the worst mega-prisons on the planet for the crime of being brown, in America, with a tattoo. Mother Jones has reported on the case of a baker from Houston whose tattoo is an Autism Awareness logo in honor of his kid brother. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is covered in ink but I guess he’s safe, being Very White. (For the record, Hegseth was was pulled by his District of Columbia National Guard unit from guarding Joe Biden’s January 2021 inauguration because of concerns that his White Christian Nationalist tattoos didn’t show clear support for, or allegiance to, the Constitution.) On Wednesday Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem flew to El Salvador to record a chilling video of herself, sporting a $50,000 watch, gleefully standing in front of caged, shaven-headed Venezuelan detainees. Maybe some of them are gang members, but I doubt even they would think an Autism Awareness tattoo is a danger to national security.

What about the rest of the government? Well, over at the Department of Health and Human services, RFK Jr is doing things that are neither healthy nor supportive of humans. HHS has just abruptly canceled more than $12 billion in federal grants to states that were used amongst other things for tracking infectious diseases, mental health services, and addiction. He has also announced 10,000 job cuts (that’s 25% of the entire HHS workforce), the ‘consolidation’ of the Department’s 28 divisions to 15, and the closure of five of the 10 regional offices. Among other things, the HHS processes the only national healthcare schemes in this country, Medicare (for people aged 65+ and the disabled) and Medicaid (for those on very low incomes). Fewer staff will mean the services won’t work properly, which is bound to lead to “See, these programs don’t work well so let’s privatize them. Maybe Elon can run them.”

Speaking of Elon, here’s one that may not get much attention outside the US: Musk has now poured $20 million and counting into a State Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, where one of the seven seats is up for election. He’s even launched a ‘Petition In Opposition To Activist Judges’ (their caps)—sign it and you get entered into a lottery to win $1 million. The first winner was gleefully announced on X on the evening of March 26. If the Republican wins in the April 1 election, it gives a 4-3 majority on the court. 

Why does Musk care? Well, Tesla has filed a petition for a judicial review of a Wisconsin law that says car manufactures cannot sell direct to consumers in the state (Wisconsin isn’t the only state with a law like this). Musk apparently thinks opening Tesla showrooms will give him a much-needed sales boost. Apparently, Trump’s White House Tesla showroom didn’t sell enough? Oh, and Wisconsin these days also just happens to be one of the closest swing states in the country. Guess who gets to decide the outcome of contested elections? Yep, the State Supreme Court.

Here’s a selection of other “I’m sorry, what now?” news stories I came across this week. 

Paula White is a White House Special Employee and a Senior Advisor in the newly created White House Faith Office. According to an utterly insane TV commercial, she is offering Passover/last supper relics and blessings. What you get depends on how much you pay. (And no, contemporary Passover seders are NOT What Jesus Did but let’s not expect nuanced scholarship from these dipshits).

That’s laughable, but what this administration is doing is definitely not funny. It has halted funding for a national database that tracks domestic terrorism, hate crimes, and school shootings, part of broader cuts to violence prevention programs. It is targeting large law firms that represent anyone Trump sees as an adversary—prompting a slew of state Attorneys General, law schools (but none of the top ten), and bar organizations, to speak out against attacks on firms, on judges, and on the whole Rule of Law thing. 

The National Weather Service announced a few days ago that they’re expecting a “dynamic” hurricane season this year. Atlantic hurricane season starts June 1. And yes, the NWS, along with FEMA (which helps with disaster recovery) has already endured massive cuts (more on this some other time).

Four American soldiers were reported MIA after a training exercise in Lithuania. Rumors of soldiers being MIA would normally be a major concern for any administration, but the news came first from NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte while for hours there was silence from the Pentagon and the White House. When the news finally came that they had in fact been killed, Trump said he knew nothing about it. Either he wasn’t briefed, or he paid no attention to what he was told—hard to say which is worse.

Florida is busy loosening its child labor laws—because they suddenly don’t have enough immigrants to pick all the oranges and think letting 14-year-olds work overnight is the answer.

Then there are the endless Executive Orders that Trump loves to sign (note, these are not laws, they’re policy directives that then have to be put into practice or codified into laws by the machinery of government). One of the latest says no more using mail-in ballots to vote and reportedly specifies what kind of voting machines can be used. The tiny problem here is that each of the 50 states, not the federal government, decides the details of how elections are run (as long as they meet overall constitutional protections). But of course, this is don Trump so we’ll soon get something like “change your state election laws or we’ll stop all federal funding for your roads.” Is it paranoid to think this sounds like laying the groundwork to invalidate the 2026 election results? “Oh, no Pennsylvania’s results are illegal because they didn’t follow the president’s orders…” 

Oh, and there’s a growing list of European governments issuing travel advisories about going to America. Mostly it’s a case of “make sure all your paperwork is 100% correct or you risk detention,” but for LGBTQ+ travelers it’s pretty much a case of “just don’t.”

And we’re…two months in?