Amid the military occupation of the nation's second largest city (and threats to take over others), the jubilation of the largest US protests since the civil rights era, a flop of a parade in DC, ICE goons wreaking havoc throughout the country, bogus arrests of Democratic lawmakers, the political assassination of a respected lawmaker in Minnesota, and the threat of causing World War III...

...it's easy to forget that this is the time of year when the "conservatives" on the Supreme Court decide to make American lives even worse. And that's exactly what they did yesterday with their ruling in United States vs. Skrmetti, upholding Tennessee's law that denies gender-affirming care for minors (hey, this is NOT just gonna harm trans kids, although that seems to be the point.) MOMocrats Karoli, Aliza Worthington, and Donna Schwartz Mills have a few things to say about that and much of the other turmoil this week.

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In violation of Federal law and without justification, Trump has ordered Federal troops into Los Angeles... to quell a conflict that was started by HIS OWN Department of Homeland Security.

And it gets worse by the minute. At Kristi Noem's press conference today, her goons forcibly removed and handcuffed a sitting US Senator who merely wanted to ask her a couple of questions. And the Republicans are blaming Senator Padilla for the incident. 

.MOMocrats Karoli, Aliza Worthington, and Donna Schwartz Mills talk about the attempted fascist takeover of the nation's second largest city. And why it must fail.

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Every week since the start of Trump 2.0 has been dreadful - but MOMocrats Aliza Worthington and Donna Schwartz Mills found this one to be truly bonkers. In fact, there were SO many issues that begged discussion that this week's podcast could easily go three times its usual hour period.

So Donna and Aliza decided to try and have a little fun with it: They assigned numbers to the top 10 and brought out the old spinner wheel to pick the ones they would talk about this week. So they covered Gun Prevention Month AND Pride Month (and the way the regime chooses to "honor" those), our new surveillance state, and how we just learned from Senator Joni Ernst that we're all gonna die.

Along the way, they also discussed the terrorist attack in Boulder, Colorado, the regime's dangerous choice of people to pardon, and Pete Hegseth's crusade to make the military white and male. 

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"Trump has a new nickname," laughed Karoli during this week's podcast. "And it’s disgraceful to tacos, but it’s TACO, which is “Trump Always Chickens Out.” So it’s TACO - all caps - do not do lower case. Because that’s good stuff. Good tacos."

The ruling from the U.S. Court of International Trade on the illegality of the tariffs came down while the MOMocrats were recording this episode, so Karoli, Aliza Worthington, and Donna Schwartz Mills did NOT address Trump's latest very "yuge" legal defeat. 

They still had much to talk about, simply focusing on the way this president in his second term is brazenly enriching himself while supposedly serving the American people. ("It's the corruption, stupid.")

As Aliza points out, "We just skipped right over the fact that he’s president and still operating a business. We skipped right over that! Like, is that a norm now? Like, we just accept that - with Trump - the thing that no other president has ever done, and the thing that we’ve demanded of every single other president, which is to divest yourself of your personal business holdings  - we just skipped right over that, and we don’t make Trump do that."

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Spike Dolomite is an artist, an advocate, and a fierce and funny writer. We’ve known her since the Obama years, when she was a contributor to the MOMocrats 1.0 group blog. And when she told us she had written a book, we knew we wanted to interview her.

We intended to drop this interview into the second half-hour of last week's podcast. But the pace at which the new regime is authoritarianizing America is so fast and furious, we spent the entire hour yakking about it. So decided to send this one out as a standalone bonus episode.

Donna Schwartz Mills described Spike's book - which summarizes this president's first administration - as a "depressing read." This lively interview is anything but that. 

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Karoli nailed it this week when she proclaimed the coming season as the Summer of Stupid. The antics coming out of the White House on Wednesday proved it, with the president holding one of his embarrassing head of state ambushes on South African President Cyril Ramaphosa... and the US government officially accepting that ridiculous Qatari plane.

There was a lot more stupid to discuss, and Aliza Worthington and Donna Schwartz Mills joined in with Karoli to talk about it.

Alas, the stupidest thing of all occurred in the middle of the night, after the MOMocrats recorded this week's podcast: the House approved its Big Ugly Bill by one vote, which will cut over one billion dollars from Medicaid, SNAP, and Medicare (yes, $500 million from Medicare! Explained in the podcast). Action now moves to the Senate. 

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This week, MOMocrats Karoli, Aliza Worthington, and Donna Schwartz Mills wanted to vent over that $400-million flying palace which the Qatari royal family is offering as a personal "gift" to Dear Leader. 

And vent they did. The blatant corruption of Trump 2.0 would be comical if this was fiction. And this deal with Qatar smells so bad that it has crossed a line some MAGA supporters - and even Chuck Schumer, who is finally putting a hold on DOJ nominees (like - what took him so long?). 

But the issue that is most important right now is the "big, beautiful bill" that Speaker Mike Johnson is attempting to pass before Memorial Day. This bill would:

* Cut $715 billion from Medicaid and

*Take away health coverage from at least 8 million Americans,

* All to pay for billionaire tax cuts that will cost $5 trillion.

The MOMocrats had some choice words on Johnson's claim that "able-bodied young men with jobs" don't need Medicaid. Other topics this week include the arrest of NJ Mayor Ras Baraka at ICE facility protest and more Gestapo tactics from DHS, and what Ed Martin is going to be doing for the government now that Judge BoxOWine is the new interim DC US Attorney.

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The good news is that the Ed Martin nomination for DC US Attorney appears to be dead. The bad news is that Donny Two Dolls is only a tad over 100 days into his four-year term and has already done irreparable damage to the nation's economy and world standing... and continues to attack our very democracy. 

MOMocrats Karoli, Aliza Worthington, and Donna Schwartz Mills talk about how wearisome it is to follow a regime that is destroying everything, everywhere, all at once... and how we need to fight it the same way. 

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Everyone and his brother has been opining on Trump’s first 100 days and the general consensus is… they have not been good. (DUH!)

And yes, MOMocrats Karoli, Aliza Worthington, and Donna Schwartz Mills also weighed in on this week’s podcast. A little bit. Because they felt it was more important to remind folks (including themselves!) of how OUR calls, and letters, and town halls, and protests have led the people who we think of as our leaders to grow a spine and actually start to lead.

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"We should never stop talking about Signalgate," says Karoli of the MOMocrats. And we likely never will, because the insecure chat between Trump administration national security (!) officials that inadvertently included a journalist was not a one-off. And the Fox News Defense Secretary is so incompetent and his "management" is so chaotic that the Pentagon is leaking like the Titanic. 

Karoli, Aliza Worthington, and Donna Schwartz Mills note that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is STILL languishing in a Salvadoran prison (albeit a different one after his meeting with Senator Chris Van Hollen). The good news is that Americans are fighting back against the regime's assault on our fundamental rights - and we are winning some battles. 

MOMocrats MOMochat is part of the Demcast family of podcasts.

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