Duct Tape and Dynamite
A mother’s dossier of the truth they tried to erase—held together with memory, rage, and duct tape.
On April 20th, I realized it had only been three months.
Three months.
And it already felt like three years.
We have been living through five news cycles in a single week—every week.
For three fucking months
This goes far beyond just “flooding the zone.”
We are being conditioned to forget. To normalize. To move on.
I couldn’t even remember all the things I swore I’d never forget.
The raids.
The memos.
The court defiance.
The kids in cuffs.
The AI propaganda.
The rigged markets.
The silenced press.
The truth turned inside out so many times it started to look like fiction.
I tried to find it documented all in one place so that I would never forget.
A single place that held the whole picture.
To show the evolution of a presidency that became an empire.
To connect the dots between all the “breaking news” headlines, Executive Orders, and weapons of mass distraction.
And when I couldn’t find it—
I built it.
Because we deserve to see it clearly.
Because our kids deserve more than chaos.
Because this isn’t just policy.
It’s an ambush—and we cannot slip into acceptance.
I didn’t build this out of frustration.
I built it out of love that refused to go numb.
It’s the sound of a mother when the world won’t protect her children.
The caretaker’s roar when every system built to serve has turned into a machine for cruelty.
The voice of someone that remembers who we were meant to be—and refuses to let that memory die.
I wrote this because I care that deeply.
Because I know we must keep seeing when others look away.
Because even though it breaks my heart, I will never stop writing it down.
This is what real patriotism looks like.
Not flags and slogans wrapped in fascist lies and Christian nationalism.
But truth.
Courage.
Memory.
And fire forged in a love so deep for our children, it refuses to be extinguished.
The only thing scarier than what happens if I keep speaking out—
Is what happens if I don’t.
🟧Authoritarian Power & Rule of Law
This wasn’t overreach. It was a takeover.
More than 120 separate entries document a systematic assault on the structures meant to protect our democracy.
This isn’t about Trump “going too far.”
It’s about redesigning the government so no one can stop him next time.
This is the authoritarian playbook in full motion:
PURGE → REPLACE → CONTROL
January 25, 2025 – The Trump administration fires approximately 17 independent inspectors general without notifying Congress, in violation of federal law.
January 27, 2025 – DOJ fires multiple career attorneys involved in Trump-related criminal investigations.
January 31, 2025 – Musk's DOGE aides seize control of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) computer systems, locking out career federal employees.
February 14, 2025 – Trump fires federal employees overseeing nuclear weapons and USDA’s response team for avian flu.
February 20, 2025 – Senate confirms Kash Patel as FBI Director, despite serious ethics and loyalty concerns.
March 18, 2025 – Trump fires FTC Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter.
April 9, 2025 – Trump revokes security clearances from Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor; directs additional suspensions for their “associated entities.”
This is not “cleaning house.”
This is strategic consolidation of power. It’s how autocrats erase the brakes.
INSTITUTIONAL BLINDING
February 5, 2025 – DOJ disbands internal oversight on foreign shell companies and ceases data sharing with international anti-money laundering watchdogs.
February 10, 2025 – Trump signs Executive Order suspending enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
April 7, 2025 – DOJ disbands the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team.
January 20 – April 20, 2025 – The Merit Systems Protection Board, the Office of Government Ethics, and other oversight institutions were systematically gutted or defunded through executive orders and budget freezes
This isn’t deregulation.
It’s decriminalization of elite corruption.
They didn’t just cut red tape.
They shredded the receipts.
LAW AS A WEAPON
January 29 –April 18, 2025 – Trump moves to invoke Schedule F, purging thousands of federal employees and replacing them with loyalists.
March 5, 2025 – Trump signs Executive Orders targeting Perkins Coie, Paul Weiss, and WilmerHale—law firms involved in prior litigation against him.
March 21, 2025 – Executive memorandum directs rescission of security clearances for “specified individuals” tied to prior investigations.
March 28, 2025 – Department of Defense sues to cancel existing collective bargaining agreements for federal workers.
This is not the rule of law.
This is the illusion of law to serve a king.
MILITARIZATION AS POLITICAL ARMOR
February 28, 2025 – Trump purges career military leadership and installs allies aligned with his second-term agenda.
March 13, 2025 – U.S. forces kill ISIS official al-Rifai under Trump's direct order.
March 30, 2025 – Defense Secretary Hegseth announces a new U.S. war-fighting headquarters in Japan.
April 4, 2025 – Trump shares military airstrike footage in Yemen to rally political support.
January 20 – April 15, 2025 – Multiple executive orders use “invasion” rhetoric to militarize the southern border and justify new powers.
This isn’t about national security.
It’s about political insulation.
It’s about treating the military like a shield for authoritarianism.
THE THREAD: POWER WITHOUT ACCOUNTABILITY
When you fire the people who enforce the rules...
When you ignore the courts and call it “efficiency”...
When you rewrite the laws so that loyalty becomes legality…
They’re not protecting the country.
They’re installing an emperor—who has no clothes.
🟥 Human Rights Violations & Immigrant Oppression
This wasn’t about borders. It was about breaking people.
What they’ve done in just three months isn’t immigration policy—it’s systematic cruelty, designed to dehumanize anyone they deem “other.”
This is what it looks like when the state stops trying to protect human dignity and starts weaponizing fear.
CHILDREN IN CUFFS
January 22 : ICE authorized to conduct raids in schools, churches, and hospitals. Districts across the country issue emergency memos. Parents are arrested. Children are terrified.
February 8: Jocelynn Rojo Carranza, age 11 dies by suicide after classmates repeatedly threaten her with ICE deportation.
March 8: ICE agents drag 19-year-old student Mahmoud Khalil from his NYC apartment.
March 16: Trump administration deports 261 migrants—including teens—after a judge ordered them not to.
April 14: Trump hosts El Salvador’s president at the White House to justify deportations—while 3,000+ children are jailed in adult prisons under that regime.
April 14: They lie. They claim the Supreme Court approved Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s deportation. But he was already gone—abducted, imprisoned, disappeared.
March 31: Federal agents raid a home in Sackett’s Harbor, NY. Three children are handcuffed and removed. The case is sealed.
This is not enforcement.
This is psychological warfare—on children, on parents, on our country.
LAW AS A TOOL FOR EXILE
January 20, 2025 – Trump signs multiple executive orders attempting to end birthright citizenship, igniting a wave of lawsuits across the country and openly defying the 14th Amendment.
January 22 – April 22, 2025 – ICE agents conduct coordinated raids in schools, churches, and hospitals, triggering panic and civil liberties challenges nationwide. Children in Sackett’s Harbor, NY were taken from school in handcuffs on April 18.
January 29, 2025 – A presidential memorandum orders the expansion of the Migrant Operations Center at Guantanamo Bay to full capacity, turning the offshore detention facility into a tool of intimidation. Asylum-seeking families are flown there under extreme secrecy.
February–April 2025 – The administration launches and escalates legal warfare targeting:
Humanitarian parole programs (e.g., CHNV)
Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians and Venezuelans
Legal aid programs for detained immigrants
Sanctuary cities and churches providing refuge
Lawsuits were filed to eliminate protections, defund legal advocates, and criminalize compassion—all while the DOJ enforced funding cuts to jurisdictions that refused to comply.
This isn’t about security.
It’s about creating fear so visceral it silences resistance.
WHO GOT TARGETED?
Transgender service members – banned from military service.
Women seeking care – Planned Parenthood clinics defunded.
Visa-holding students – detained and deported.
Pregnant asylum-seekers – expelled.
Families under humanitarian parole – protections revoked.
They didn’t fix a broken system.
They used the system to break people.
CRUELTY AS COMMUNICATION STRATEGY
Deportation footage released as propaganda.
Valentine's Day message from the White House:
"Roses are red… come here illegally and we’ll deport you."Immigration updates posted not in press briefings—but on Truth Social.
Cabinet Signal threads show officials joking about optics.
This isn’t governance.
It’s state-sponsored bullying.
THE THREAD: DEHUMANIZE TO DESTABILIZE
This isn’t “tough on immigration.”
It’s intentional dehumanization—designed to make cruelty feel normal.
So that fear becomes obedience.
So that families stop fighting back.
So that we stop seeing people—and only see punishment.
They told us who they were.
Then they built the system to make it stick.
🟫 Technology & Surveillance
This wasn’t innovation. It was infiltration.
They didn’t just disrupt government.
They reprogrammed it—into a private tech empire built to surveil, suppress, and subvert from within.
What looked like modernization was really militarization.
What sounded like efficiency was really erasure.
And what they built wasn’t a system.
It was a kill switch.
ENTER MUSK
January 20–31
Elon Musk is appointed to head the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
USAID confirms to Congress it’s investigating Musk’s company Starlink over questionable conduct in Ukraine.
Days later, Musk leads the effort to dismantle USAID entirely.
Musk’s DOGE operatives seize control of federal systems at OPM, locking out career staff.
Class action lawsuits begin.
This wasn’t a partnership.
It was a coup.
DOGE = UNREGULATED SURVEILLANCE STATE
Feb–April 2025
DOGE gains access to:
• Treasury payment systems
• IRS data
• OPM employee files
• SSA benefits systems
• DOE procurement platforms
• Education recordsUniversity of California, AFGE, APHA, and Gribbon v. Musk file lawsuits citing unlawful data use and FACA violations.
Legal challenges flood in—but DOGE is already in.
They didn’t need warrants.
They got clearance—from our Commander in Chief.
THE FINANCIAL SIDE HUSTLE
March 6–13
Trump family assumes control of World Liberty Financial (WLF), a crypto venture positioned for foreign investment.
UAE-backed MGX fund invests $2B in Binance, the same week Binance executives meet with Treasury.
World Liberty Financial begins acting as a digital money tunnel—blurring the line between federal crypto policy and Trump family enrichment.
This isn’t fiscal policy.
It’s money laundering in plain sight.
PROCUREMENT = BLACK BOX
April 3–9
Executive Orders revise AI acquisition and deployment policy.
New memoranda (M-25-21 and M-25-22) strip transparency and auditing requirements.
Contractors can refuse to share source code, logic, or data. "Agencies may acquire AI capabilities without requiring vendors to disclose proprietary code or logic.” (From M-25-22..)
DOGE installs a closed-loop procurement system that favors private vendors aligned with the administration.
The government isn’t using AI.
AI is now using the government.
THE THREAD: THE BACKDOOR BECAME THE FRONT DOOR
This isn’t “tech leadership.”
This is what happens when an autocrat teams up with an oligarch and puts the entire federal infrastructure on the blockchain.
They didn’t just erase the firewall between private industry and public office.
They coded a new operating system—and locked us out of it.
🟪 Media Suppression & Propaganda
This wasn’t spin. It was a takeover.
They didn’t just sideline the press.
They reprogrammed the pipeline.
From day one, the Trump administration launched a coordinated assault on press freedom—replacing journalists with influencers, transparency with performance, and news with narrative control.
This wasn’t a war on fake news. It was a campaign to erase truth itself.
ERASE THE PRESS
Jan 28: Karoline Leavitt announced White House created new “podium priority” for pro-Trump influencers and podcasters.
Feb 12: AP is barred indefinitely from White House events after refusing to properly refer to a body of water as the “Gulf of America.”
Feb 25: White House seizes control of the press pool—replacing career reporters with far-right loyalists.
March 24: Signal group chat leaks reveals real-time media strategy coordination and classified messaging.
April 13: “Signalgate 2” erupts— second cabinet group-chat breached after family members are added to the chat.
April 15: The White House eliminated a permanent spot for wire services seats in the press room—silencing AP, Reuters, and NPR.
This isn’t transparency.
It’s a curated circus.
REPLACE WITH PROPAGANDA
April 9: Executive Orders target Chris Krebs and “egregious leakers” for clearance revocation.
Press briefings now open with questions from Axios, Breitbart, OANN—while mainstream outlets may be completely ignored.
TikTok sponsors Trump’s LIV golf tournament—even as Trump holds power over its future. A textbook emoluments violation—broadcast in real time.
AI-generated videos flood social media:
Simulated military strikes
Fabricated migrant “threats”
Deepfake protestors and crime waves
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declares:
“I certainly believe in spiritual warfare. And I think I saw it firsthand…”
She failed to mention that she’s among its generals.
This isn’t evolution.
It’s infiltration.
DESTABILIZE PUBLIC TRUST
FCC opens investigations into CBS, NPR, ABC, and NBC—while praising FOX and installing L. Brent Bozell III to head USAGM.
CNN demotes Jim Acosta to midnight after years of holding power accountable. He resigns.
The Washington Post and LA Times pull endorsements—under pressure from billionaire owners with federal contracts.
CBS, ABC, Disney, and Meta all settle lawsuits with Trump behind closed doors.
NPR and PBS face congressional threats to public funding for “ideological bias.”
AI-generated “bias meters” introduced at major outlets, triggering journalist resignations.
They’re not losing control.
They’re selling it.
THE THREAD: TRUTH ISN’T JUST ATTACKED—IT’S REPLACED
We’re not just watching journalism die.
We’re watching it be replaced with state-aligned propaganda, coded in AI, delivered by podcasters, and funded by foreign interests.
Karoline Leavitt wasn’t chosen to brief the public.
She was chosen to perform the message—to be the blonde filter on authoritarian spin.
And when you ask why it’s so quiet out there?
It’s because they didn’t just shut the press out.
They bought the silence.
🟨 Economic Instability & Corruption
This wasn’t economic policy. It was sabotage for profit.
They didn’t just mismanage the economy.
They weaponized it—turning global instability into a mechanism for personal and political gain.
While families lost savings and prices soared, Trump and his allies were cashing in.
TARIFF CHAOS BY DESIGN
February 1–April 9, 2025
Feb 1: Trump announces sweeping tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China.
March 6: Declares new global tariffs from Canada and Mexico.
April 2: Announces 10% global tariffs and “Liberation Day.”
April 9: Pauses tariffs—except for China, which spikes to 145%.
April 9: Markets rebound. MTG pockets $315,000 in stock trades.
They broke the markets, rode the wave, and walked away richer.
This wasn’t economic nationalism. It was volatility with intent.
DEREGULATE, DEFUND, DISMANTLE
This wasn’t small government.
It was government-for-sale.
January–April 2025
Executive Order suspends the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, legalizing overseas bribery.
DOJ quietly ends enforcement of crypto fraud and corporate corruption.
Federal grants frozen or revoked from DOE, HUD, EPA, NIH, Education, and blue cities deemed ideologically hostile.
Millions in relief funding redirected or delayed by DOGE under “efficiency” mandates.
World Liberty Financial, a Trump-linked crypto venture, quietly receives foreign backing during this window.
They cut oversight.
Defunded truth.
And gave private contractors the keys to the vault.
DESTROYED PUBLIC TRUST BY DESIGN
Feb–April 2025
S&P 500 dropped 4.6% in Q1.
“This is a GREAT time to get rich.”
Meanwhile:
Saudi-backed LIV Golf poured millions into Trump’s resort properties.
TikTok sponsored Trump events—while awaiting regulatory decisions.
Donors paid $1M-a-head for access at Mar-a-Lago fundraisers.
The chaos wasn’t collateral damage.
It was the business model.
THE THREAD: BURN IT DOWN—SELL THE ASHES
They didn’t just tank the economy.
They burned down the guardrails and invited their donors to party in the wreckage.
Every crash was someone else’s payday.
Every policy was a payout.
Every disaster was a deal.
And when the dust settles, they’ll call it freedom.
But we’ll know it was a fire sale.
🟦 Attacks on Democratic Institutions
This wasn’t dysfunction.
It was demolition.
They didn’t just erode trust in democracy—
they tore out the wiring and rerouted the current.
Every safeguard that protects your vote, your rights, your voice—
rewired or removed.
Watchdogs muzzled. Ethics boards gutted. Civil service purged.
And when the system was vulnerable?
They didn’t fix it.
They replaced it.
With something loyal. Corrupt. Obedient.
DESTROY THE WATCHDOGS
Jan 25: Trump fires at least 17 Inspectors General across major agencies—without notifying Congress, violating federal law.
Jan 27: DOJ fires multiple attorneys overseeing Trump-linked investigations.
Jan 31: DOGE operatives seize control of OPM data systems, locking out career officials.
Feb 5: DOJ halts international anti-money laundering agreements and treaty data-sharing.
Feb–Mar: Merit Systems Protection Board and Office of Government Ethics are defunded and sidelined.
April 7: DOJ disbands the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, halting crypto fraud oversight.
These weren’t budget cuts.
They were blindfolds—applied before the next wave of abuses could be seen.
RIG THE SYSTEM
Jan 29–Apr 18: Schedule F is revived. Thousands of federal employees are reclassified and purged—replaced by loyalists.
Feb 2: DOJ issues directive to eliminate all Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.programs—both internally and externally.
Feb 26: Procurement rules are rewritten—AI contracts no longer require audit trails, explainability, or public transparency.
Mar 28: Trump’s DOJ sues to void collective bargaining agreements for federal workers.
April 14: DOJ issues memo eliminating DEI from hiring, training, and enforcement priorities.
This wasn’t about “draining the swamp.”
It was about draining accountability—and replacing it with allegiance.
KILL TRANSPARENCY BY POLICY
Jan 20 – Apr 15: Major transparency arms are crippled:
USAID Oversight Division frozen.
Merit Systems Protection Board defunded.
Civil Rights Division's DEI enforcement dismantled.
AI adoption memos (M-25-21 & M-25-22) eliminate data-sharing requirements.
What’s left isn’t oversight. It’s optics management.
REWRITE THE RULES
Feb–April:
Executive orders override checks and balances.
Procurement law rewritten to bypass congressional review.
Civil enforcement quietly suspended for crypto fraud, insider trading, and foreign bribery.
Loyalty becomes legality.
Oversight becomes optional.
They didn’t just change the rules.
They made it impossible to stop them from breaking them.
THE THREAD: POWER WITHOUT WITNESS
When you erase every agency that could say “no…”
When you cancel the audits, fire the analysts, and install your cheerleaders…
You’re not reforming democracy.
You’re replacing it.
This isn’t a broken system trying to right itself.
It’s a hijacked one—driven by loyalty, protected by silence, with designs to control.
🟩 Rollback of Climate & Environmental Protections
This wasn’t about “energy independence.”
It was about environmental sabotage—and profit extraction at any cost.
They didn’t just roll back regulations.
They lit the match. Then sold the ashes.
From fossil fuel fast-tracks to public land sell-offs, they reversed decades of protections—
gutting enforcement, slashing budgets, and silencing science.
All while climate disasters raged and frontline communities pleaded for relief.
DEREGULATE AND DRILL
Jan 22: Trump signs Executive Order eliminating environmental review for major energy projects.
Jan 22: Trump approves pipeline expansion across federal lands with no tribal consultation.
Feb 3: Interior Department opens public lands to expanded oil and gas drilling under reduced oversight.
Mar 12: EPA announces rollback of Clean Water Act protections for streams and wetlands.
Mar 12: EPA air quality standards revised to allow increased industrial pollution.
Apr 8: Executive Order suspends enforcement of climate regulations during “national energy transition.”
This wasn’t a return to coal.
It was a return to corruption.
DEFUND THE FUTURE
Jan 30: Trump administration guts Department of Energy’s renewable energy budget.
Feb 7: Eliminates EV tax credits and solar subsidies.
Feb 21: Cancels multiple climate research grants.
Mar 5: Closes NOAA climate data programs.
The message was clear:
There is no future worth funding.
SILENCE THE SCIENCE
Feb. 6: Trump orders climate censorship on government website pages, restricting publication of climate data.
Feb 20: EPA scientists reassigned or forced out for objecting to deregulation.
This isn’t neutrality.
It’s censorship.
ENDANGER THE PUBLIC
Feb. 11: Water safety monitoring slashed in vulnerable communities.
Feb 25: Toxic discharge violations will go unpunished after EPA cuts inspections.
Mar 6: Scientists warn human health is being sacrificed for the benefit of private industry.
Mar 17: FEMA delays aid to disaster-hit areas in blue states.
Climate denial isn’t passive.
It’s policy.
THE THREAD: PROFIT OVER PLANET
When polluters write the policy,
when science is a threat,
when the future becomes a line item to delete—
You’re not governing.
You’re extracting.
This wasn’t just a rollback.
It was a reckoning—for the Earth, for our children, and for every voice they tried to silence.
The Final Thread: Duct Tape & Dynamite
We’ve been told this is too much.
Too angry. Too dramatic. Too emotional.
But what other response is there
when your democracy is being stolen
by men who smile for cameras
while they shred our Constitution?
What else are we supposed to do
but hold the wreckage in one hand
and the truth in the other?
This isn’t policy. It’s a hostile takeover.
This isn’t a presidency. It’s a “get out of jail free” card.
They aren’t failing at governing.
They’re succeeding at dismantling.
And while the media begged us to “wait and see,”
while the politicians tried to “find common ground,”
we saw it for what it was.
We felt it.
And now—we will remember.
All of it.
The kids in cuffs.
The people erased.
The scientists silenced.
The veterans forgotten.
The press frozen out.
The mothers begging at school board meetings
for truth, for safety, for sanity.
We saw it all.
And seeing it clearly is its own kind of power.
Because once you see it,
you can’t unsee it.
You don’t calm down.
You get up.
You don’t wait for someone else to fix it.
You become the someone.
This is the duct tape.
Finding all the pieces. Holding it all together.
The naming. The remembering. The promise to never forget.
The choice to keep going—
even when it breaks your heart.
And this is the dynamite.
The fire. The fury. The line in the sand.
The absolute refusal to let fascism win.
So let’s tape it back together.
This memory register.
Out of love.
Out of obligation.
Out of rage.
And let them hear our battle cry:
We see you.
The match is lit.
The fuse is burning.
On your fucking left.
Postscript
This is only part of the story.
What you’ve just read is the narrative thread—
the emotional truth of what’s happening to our country.
But memory alone isn’t enough.
We also need the record.
That’s why I’m building something more.
It’s called:
The Memory Register
A Mother’s Archive of Sabotage, Silence, and Resistance in 2025
A comprehensive timeline.
Every action. Every executive order. Every abuse—
documented, categorized, and sourced.
Because gaslighting thrives when people forget.
And silence survives when no one writes it down.
This is how we fight back:
With our hearts on the page and the receipts in our hands.
With emotion and evidence.
With duct tape and dynamite.
The Memory Register is coming.
And when it drops,
they won’t be able to say they didn’t know.
Because we’re wide awake.
And we are not going quietly.
This should receive a Pulitzer prize, if that even means anything anymore. Perhaps with enough of us, we can award you the Alt-Pulitzer Prize, akin to the Alt-National Park Service and other "Alts", a small spiritual, satirical grenade robbed at Steve Bannon and his ilk.
I know you didn't do this for the prize, or any prize at all, but to build the resistance until the regime itself is dismantled. Then comes the harder task of rebuilding what's been destroyed. Still, you should have some recognition, from us your readers, for all your hard, necessary work.
This is extraordinary. As a former journalist and daughter of a retired newspaper editor — well-done. It’s scary to see it laid out this way.