the swamp is fine, but we nuked the reflecting pool
Lincoln gazes out over the drained, peeling, $16 million pothole and silently wonders if the nation can get a refund.
Trump promised the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool would get a "beautiful" new “American flag blue” liner that would last a century. A month later, it’s already faded toward institutional gray, the coating is peeling, algae had a brief but glorious career, and the whole thing had to be drained like a Trump casino’s last bank account. The $1.5m “simple fix” has somehow metastasized into a more than $16m faceplant on one of the country’s most iconic public spaces.
Two private contractors cashed in: Ohio-based Green Water Solutions scored $1.7m for a purification system, and Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings walked away with a $14.7m repaint-and-waterproof job whose durability apparently rivals a Wish.com patio set. As the coating disintegrated in real time, Trump and Interior secretary Doug Burgum did what this crew always does: loudly blame vandals, insist there was a mysterious "350-foot gash" no one can see, and surround the mess with a dark fence so the public can’t inspect the president’s very special version of infrastructure week.
On paper, there is an actual vandalism case: former Olympic canoeist David Hearn was charged after allegedly cutting the liner while, he says, examining the already peeling surface. Conveniently, this allows the administration to point at one guy with a knife instead of the entire procurement process, the quality of the work, or the wisdom of turning a historic reflecting pool into a garish campaign backdrop for the semiquincentennial. The result: taxpayers are out eight-figures, the reflecting pool looks like a neglected strip-mall fountain, and the only thing truly "American flag blue" is the language coming from Park Service staff who have to fix this fiasco again.
#forever-grifting#money
trump discovers new form of infrastructure: giant screaming server barns
Trump, furious that New York won’t immediately convert itself into one giant air‑conditioned server box, explains that real patriots prefer their water supply privatized and piped straight into AI cooling towers.
Donald Trump jumped on Truth Social to rage at New York governor Kathy Hochul for committing the unspeakable crime of… pausing construction of massive power‑sucking datacenters for a year while the state figures out how not to torch the grid or drain the water table. Hochul’s order tells regulators to set basic environmental rules; Trump’s response is that these hyperscale server barns are "Money Machines" and "LIQUID GOLD" that must be protected at all costs, like Mar‑a‑Lago classified documents but louder and thirstier.
While almost three-quarters of Americans say they don’t want a datacenter humming next to their homes, Trump is busy promising that red states will happily become sacrifice zones where AI bunkers guzzle cheap power and water in exchange for "tremendous WINS" and some highly theoretical jobs. He even manages the full set: accuse Democrats of playing politics, insist any attempt at guardrails will hand "Data Centers and AI" to China, and pretend his deregulatory agenda is about freedom, not about letting corporations rewrite zoning laws and utility policy. New York is trying to keep the lights on and the taps running; Trump’s priority is making sure the servers that generate his fan edits never have to throttle back.
#forever-grifting#anti-science
rapper discovers trump pardons are not covered by buyer protection
Jack Burkman, pictured here cosplaying as a serious operative at CPAC, later moved into his true calling: running a high-priced presidential pardon fan-fiction service.
American justice has truly entered its late-capitalism DLC phase: Louisiana rapper Boosie Badazz reportedly wired $600,000 to Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman’s lobbying outfit in 2025 for what amounts to the Deluxe MAGA Pardon Package, only to discover that the "product" never shipped. According to Notus, the firm told his lawyers that Trump had already signed the pardon and they were just waiting on the big White House reveal – a reveal that, minor detail, the White House says it never heard about.
The fight now is over whether Boosie gets $300,000 back, because apparently even in the pardon black market, there’s fine print. Burkman & Wohl insist there was no agreement to refund half the cash if the magical Trump blessing failed to materialize, while also reportedly claiming they’re basically broke. So the "clemency economy" Trump built – where millions sloshed around DC as lobbyists and fixers sold whispers of access to presidential mercy – has now spawned its own sub-genre: arbitration over non-delivered absolution.
This is all happening against the backdrop of Trump’s second-term habit of spraying out pardons to loyalists and white-collar criminals like party favors, turning a constitutional power into a VIP rewards program for the politically aligned and sufficiently liquid. You’ve got a nursing home fraudster, Joseph Schwartz, in the mix; a New York lawyer, Joshua Nass, charged in an extortion scheme tied to pardon money; and now Boosie trying to claw back six figures from two guys whose names are already shorthand for bottom-shelf political grift. The message of Trump’s America: crime might not pay, but selling proximity to presidential forgiveness sure does – at least until the arbitration filings hit.
#forever-grifting#corruption#killing-democracy
trump’s illegal tariffs just blew an $81bn hole in his ‘greatest economy’ cosplay
Donald Trump triumphantly announcing tariffs while an unseen Treasury intern quietly updates the line item labeled “refunds for illegal nonsense.”
The Trump administration’s galaxy-brain economic strategy has hit a small snag: the illegal part. After the Supreme Court shut down a big chunk of Trump’s extra tariffs in February, the US government has already had to refund a casual $81bn in tariff money this fiscal year, up from $5bn over the same period last year. Turns out when you run trade policy like a late-night infomercial – "just slap tariffs on everything, what could go wrong?" – the courts occasionally notice.
Trump had advertised his tariffs as the magic wrench that would fix everything: revive factories, strong-arm better trade deals, and, of course, shrink the deficit. Instead, the deficit is growing again, hitting $1.367tn in just the first nine months of the fiscal year, while over $1tn went to interest on the debt and the Pentagon got its usual raise. The tariffs that briefly papered over the fiscal mess are now boomeranging back as refunds, leaving taxpayers holding the bag for Trump’s illegal trade cosplay.
And because learning is for losers, the White House is already cooking up new duties to replace the temporary 10% global tariff that expires July 24, this time draped in the language of "anti-forced labor" and "excess industrial capacity." So yes, after being told by the highest court in the land that their last tariff stunt broke the law, the response is to go back to the tariff roulette wheel and spin again. Forever-grifting meets full-stupid, with the federal budget as collateral.
#forever-grifting#full-stupid
trump to small farmers: learn to code, but like, for corn
Future of American farming, moments before USDA decides her dreams are "wasteful spending" and cancels them by spreadsheet.
Donald Trump’s USDA has discovered a bold new way to help the struggling American farmer: yank away their funding mid-season and call it patriotism. In eastern Iowa, Lawrencia Rogers finally got a shot at her lifelong dream through a USDA-funded fellowship that paid a living wage, provided land, equipment, and training – so naturally the administration labeled it "wasteful" and killed the $2.5m grant because it allegedly violated their war on DEI. Nothing says "defending rural America" like canceling farmer training programs two and a half weeks after people start them.
A federal judge eventually ordered USDA to reinstate $127m in grants nationwide, but the damage was already baked into the soil: fellowships paused, curricula stalled, and small producers shoved back to square one while the agency bleeds staff and dismantles Biden-era initiatives. Meanwhile, Trump’s tariffs and his little Iran war adventure have already hammered agriculture, and small livestock and food producers say the pattern is obvious: big corporate farms get the real love, while independents get a lecture about "wasteful spending" and a boot to the face. Iowa Republicans may soon discover that when you run on being "the farmer’s best friend" and then burn down their support system, some of those farmers remember how to vote.
So yes, the self-styled champion of the heartland is presiding over a USDA that treats small farmers like a rounding error and DEI like a mortal sin. The administration’s message to young, diverse, and small-scale farmers is clear: if you wanted stability, you should’ve been a multinational agribusiness with a lobbyist instead of a person growing broccolini on an eighth of an acre.
#forever-grifting#money#trumps-america
president brands america by golfing england’s captain
Pictured: the leader of the free world conducting vital foreign relations between the 9th and 10th holes.
Harry Kane confirmed he played golf with U.S. President Donald Trump in Palm Beach about 18 months ago, describing the whole thing as "surreal" and, in what must have been the most politely diplomatic sentence of his career, praising Trump’s golf game. When the president of the United States invites you to his Florida money-laundering cosplay resort, you apparently say yes and hope the Secret Service doesn't tackle you in the bunker.
Trump, naturally, took to Truth Social to announce to the world that Kane is a "GREAT player!!!" and then immediately upgraded the relationship to "I played golf with him and I like him a lot"—the standard Trumpian path from total stranger to lifelong best friend in under 24 hours. Kane calls it a "unique experience"; for Trump it’s just another day turning the presidency into a cross between a fanboy meet-and-greet and a loyalty test conducted on a golf cart.
#forever-grifting#trumps-america
trump tries to var the world cup
Donald Trump, freshly self-appointed as assistant referee to the free world, prepares to review the World Cup on the only monitor that matters: Fox News.
With one week left in the World Cup, the planet wanted to argue about offsides, not authoritarian cosplay. Instead, Donald Trump apparently decided that the world’s biggest sporting event needed his signature blend of grievance, ego, and geopolitical chaos, parachuting into the tournament like a malfunctioning VAR system that only reviews calls affecting his brand.
Details are still emerging, but the reaction from the football world was described as "shocked" – which is impressive, because this is a sport where Sepp Blatter once ran the place and Qatar bought itself a winter World Cup. Yet Trump managed to lower the bar, reportedly turning what should have been a global celebration into another episode of What If Foreign Policy, But Petty? Whether it was leaning on hosts, inserting himself into ceremonies, or using the tournament as a campaign prop, the throughline is familiar: take a shared public institution, jam it through the Trump content mill, and leave everyone arguing about politics instead of penalties.
So while players chase the trophy, Trump chases airtime, proving once again that no stage is too international, too apolitical, or too beloved to be dragged into his never-ending need for attention. FIFA may be corrupt, but at least it usually pretends the game comes first; Trump’s contribution is to remind everyone that in his universe, everything is just another rally.
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
texas rewrites the rules so elon musk can have your lunch money
Greg Abbott carefully studying broadband options before circling the one labeled “Give $110m to Elon Musk.”
Texas Republicans allegedly looked at $110m in broadband grants, saw eight fiber providers, and decided: actually, what if we just handed 99% of this to Elon Musk? State senator and Democratic AG nominee Nathan Johnson says the whole thing "sure looks" like corruption, which is a very polite way of describing a process where Greg Abbott’s office reportedly rewrote the rules to favor low-Earth-orbit satellites and, surprise, the world’s richest Trump fanboy just happened to be standing there with a collection plate.
The Texas Broadband Development Office admitted under questioning that the changes came at Abbott’s request, while eight fiber companies complained they were effectively cut out of the new scheme. Even the Republican committee chair, Charles Schwertner, had to concede that "favoritism and transparency" were, as the kids say, a thing. Meanwhile, Musk has previously donated to Abbott—purely coincidental, we are assured, in the same tone you use to insist you only read Playboy for the articles.
Johnson is running on an anti-corruption platform and promising that, if elected AG, he’ll team up with the state comptroller to audit how these contracts magically migrate from public need to billionaire wallet. His Republican opponent, Mayes Middleton, proudly advertises himself as a Trump loyalist, because nothing screams "independent watchdog" like pledging fealty to the guy who turned public office into a family side hustle. Abbott’s office defends the whole arrangement as the most "cost-effective" way to wire up rural Texans—provided you don’t count the long-term price of turning state policy into a concierge service for oligarchs.
#forever-grifting#corruption
nyc rudely interferes with corporations’ god-given right to scam you forever
Happy New Yorkers discover the radical new concept of ‘the price is the price,’ while landlords hold a candlelight vigil for their dearly departed boiler management fees.
New York City has decided that maybe, just maybe, capitalism doesn’t need to include a mandatory subscription trap mini-game every time you sign up for a gym, a streaming service, or a “wellness” app that just sends you push notifications and shame. Starting 1 October, companies that make it hard to cancel will face fines of $525 per user, plus back fees and more penalties, which is tragic news for every CEO whose business model is “what if nobody could find the cancel button ever again?”.
The city is also coming for “junk fees” – those delightful surprise charges for “boiler management”, “lifestyle amenities”, and whatever else landlords invent after realizing the rent is already at nosebleed altitude. Under the proposed rule, all mandatory fees have to be baked into the advertised price, which directly threatens America’s proud tradition of listing one price and then charging another. Industry groups, who have spent decades perfecting the art of hiding the real cost of things, are predictably furious that anyone would interfere with this sacred deception.
Samuel AA Levine, a former FTC consumer protection official, politely points out that 40 years of Reagan-brain deregulation and “the market will police itself” ideology has given us exactly what you’d expect: corporations competing not on price or quality, but on how cleverly they can lie about both. Nationally, business lobbyists already hacked Biden’s junk fee rule down to something real estate could live with, and a federal judge kneecapped the Biden “click-to-cancel” rule on procedural grounds. Now NYC’s Mamdani administration is trying to do locally what Washington keeps watering down, while Trump’s FTC allegedly plans a similar rule sometime soon, which surely won’t be riddled with enough loopholes to drive a private equity firm through.
The city is even eyeing a ban on “surveillance pricing” – algorithmic price discrimination based on your data – which is a shame for every tech bro who woke up one day and thought, “What if surge pricing, but for groceries and rent?” With Maryland already banning it and Colorado’s governor vetoing a ban, we’ve reached the stage of American governance where your right not to be algorithmically shaken down depends entirely on which state line you happen to be standing on when you open your wallet.
#forever-grifting#money
president airbnbs his way through air force one
President Trump descends from whichever plane had the best loyalty points that day, as security officials quietly scream into their headsets.
President Trump wrapped up his Turkish adventure by ditching the Qatar-donated Boeing 787 party plane and hopping onto an older Air Force One, because nothing says "stable leadership" like playing Which Plane Am I In? with the nuclear football. The move blindsided observers and immediately triggered questions about whether the older aircraft has the same communications, defense systems, and retrofits that, you know, keep the alleged leader of the free world from getting turned into in-flight confetti.
The Qatar jet, of course, is the diplomatic equivalent of a sponsored Instagram post: a "gift" from a foreign government that just happens to come with prestige, access, and a giant neon sign flashing CONFLICT OF INTEREST. Now we’re apparently alternating between the old U.S. government plane and the foreign-sugar-daddy jet like it’s a timeshare. Security protocols? Transparency? Any coherent explanation? Don’t be ridiculous — this is Trump’s America, where the president treats the presidential fleet like his personal Uber Black and the rest of us just hope the Secret Service is allowed to read the fine print.
#forever-grifting#national-security
jared kushner discovers a new nature reserve to bulldoze
Jared Kushner gazes upon a pristine Albanian wetland and sees what nature always intended: VIP cabanas and a golf course where the flamingos used to be.
In Albania, thousands of people have spent more than a month in the streets because Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump apparently looked at one of the last wild stretches of the Adriatic and thought, "You know what this flamingo habitat needs? A five-star monument to tax arbitrage." A 2024 law helpfully amended to allow luxury construction inside nature reserves paved the way for multibillion-dollar Kushner-backed resorts at Zvërnec and Sazan Island, because of course the answer to poverty is letting Trump’s son-in-law monetize your wetlands.
Prime minister Edi Rama, who won reelection on a 45% turnout and governs via what critics call "bulldozer democracy," swears the investment will not stop "as long as I am here"—which Albanians are now taking as a challenge rather than reassurance. He blames "anti-Trump sentiment" for the backlash, as if people are in the streets because they’re jealous of Jared’s inability to pass a basic security clearance, not because bulldozers are already chewing up beaches while the contracts remain conveniently opaque.
While young Albanians are literally flying back home to defend flamingos and the concept of a future, EU lawmakers are warning that this little Kushner eco-safari might torpedo Albania’s EU accession plans. So the country is being told: pick between a shot at European democracy or becoming Mar-a-Lago-on-the-Adriatic for the Trump family’s traveling grift circus. The protesters seem to have chosen door number one; Rama and Kushner are betting the flamingos can’t vote.
#forever-grifting#corruption#killing-democracy
appeals court to trump: your name can’t sit with us
Artist’s rendering of the Kennedy Center bravely surviving without a 20-foot gold TRUMP logo bolted to its face.
The DC circuit just told the Trump administration that, no, it cannot duct-tape TRUMP back onto the side of the Kennedy Center while it appeals a lower court ruling. The White House was trying to undo Judge Christopher Cooper’s order that not only stripped Trump’s name off the facade and signage, but also blocked his brilliant plan to shutter the country’s flagship performing arts center for two years of “renovations” starting on 4 July. Because nothing says patriotism like boarding up the Kennedy Center on Independence Day.
Team Trump claimed that removing his name would devastate fundraising and trigger some kind of donor apocalypse, via a freshly minted “Trump Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Foundation” that apparently exists mostly as a legal prop. The appeals court responded with the judicial equivalent of an eye-roll, noting the administration hadn’t provided any actual evidence that donors were weeping into their checkbooks over the missing gold letters. The panel — two Obama judges and one Trump appointee from his first term — also barred the administration from pretending the new foundation will have to send money back if the building isn’t re-Trumpified.
So for now, the Kennedy Center remains merely the Kennedy Center, not a branded pop-up in the Trump property portfolio, and the administration has to keep its renovation-and-rebranding fantasy on pause. The appeal can still go forward, of course, because this White House never met a public institution it didn’t want to rename, defund, or quietly turn into a family business opportunity.
#forever-grifting#corruption
president interference loses 4–1
Trump at the Ryder Cup, carefully overseeing Europe’s first win on US soil in 13 years, bravely proving his commitment to losing across all major sports and continents.
Donald Trump has discovered a new arena to corrupt: international soccer. The president personally called FIFA president Gianni Infantino to get US star Folarin Balogun’s red card overturned, because why wouldn’t the leader of a nuclear power be spending his time lobbying a Swiss sports bureaucracy about a striker’s suspension. The call worked, the red was controversially reversed, global football lost its mind, and Balogun was cleared to play against Belgium.
Then the US promptly got smoked 4–1 and crashed out of their best World Cup run in decades. Incredible work from the self-proclaimed King of Winning, who has now weaponized his loser aura across every sport he touches: the Knicks’ hot streak dies the night he shows up (and naps) at the Finals, the Commanders get obliterated in the first regular-season NFL game a president has bothered to attend in half a century, the Daytona 500 turns into a rain-delay hostage situation whenever he’s grand marshal, Europe steals the Ryder Cup on US soil with Trump front and center, and college football and MLB both have receipts from the Curse of Don.
Trump keeps telling the country, "We’re winning so much we don’t know what to do about it." The data suggest what to do is simple: keep him at least 500 miles away from any competitive event. Or, if you’re playing against a Trump-endorsed team, relax. Statistically speaking, you’ve already won.
#forever-grifting#full-stupid
trump closes usaids, opens pawn shop for african health systems
Marco Rubio smiles in front of a giant US flag, explaining that American generosity now comes with a small service fee, some light resource extraction, and your nation’s pathogen library in perpetuity.
First, Trump torched USAID and kneecapped health programmes across Africa. Now, like a particularly malevolent payday lender, the administration is back offering "hundreds of millions" in health money—provided countries hand over their data, their pathogens, their mineral wealth, and their dignity. Marco Rubio, now cosplaying as Secretary of State, proudly unveiled a $2.5bn health deal with Kenya, only for Kenyan courts and activists to point out that maybe, just maybe, turning your citizens' medical data and biological samples into a US corporate asset isn't the height of sovereignty.
The old model of working through the WHO and global partnerships? Scrapped. Trump yanked the US out of the WHO, then switched to one‑on‑one deals that openly prioritize US pharma and "strategic and commercial" interests. Zambia was told health funding and access to its critical minerals should be treated as a single package—because nothing says "we care about your sick children" like bundling HIV treatment with a mining concession. Ghana and Zimbabwe balked at demands to funnel patient data and pathogens to Washington with no real privacy guarantees, no reciprocal protections, and no promise their people would even get access to whatever vaccines or drugs get developed.
Then there’s South Africa, where the US decided to fully withdraw HIV/Aids funding after Pretoria failed to comply with Washington’s "policy requests"—including indulging the administration’s fantasy about a "white genocide" against Afrikaners, a claim that has been widely debunked. Health aid is now a blunt political weapon: toe the line on Trumpworld’s race‑baiting narratives or watch your HIV programmes collapse. A State Department spokesperson helpfully clarified that this isn’t charity, it’s "strategic capital"—a polite way of saying the US will trade your pathogens, your minerals, and your citizens’ medical records for the privilege of maybe not dying.
Global health experts note that data‑sharing used to be an unequal but tolerable arrangement because it was wrapped in the language of altruism. Under Trump, the mask is off: it’s a transactional protection racket. Sign the MOU, feed US pharma, sweeten the pot with cobalt and copper, and surrender your health data—or walk away and hope your people can survive without the world’s most powerful country turning their blood samples into a futures market.
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
welcome to the trump™ children’s mutual fund republic
Trump rings the NYSE bell from the Oval Office, helpfully reminding everyone that in this administration even children’s savings accounts come with a logo and a sales pitch.
Donald Trump celebrated the first trading day of federally funded Trump accounts by ringing the New York Stock Exchange bell from the Oval Office, because why merely run the government when you can co‑brand it. A bipartisan child-savings program, created by Congress in the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," somehow emerged from the legislative birth canal wearing Trump’s name like a casino sign. Trump insists he "did not ask" for the branding, which is a fascinating claim from a man who would put his name on the nuclear codes if the font kerning looked right.
The accounts are simple enough: every kid born between 2025 and 2028 gets $1,000 from the federal government, defaulted into a diversified index fund, with parents able to kick in up to $5,000 a year through the IRS. On paper, it’s a decent policy; in practice, the president just turned a public wealth-building tool into a lifetime product-placement campaign. He even tried to keep the NYSE bell as décor for his new White House ballroom, because naturally the country’s premier stock exchange is now a theme-park prop for his personal Versailles cosplay.
America’s billionaires are lining up to tack their philanthropy onto the Great Leader’s Kid Fund. Michael and Susan Dell are dropping $6.25bn so 25 million low-income kids get an extra $250, and Ray and Barbara Dalio are tossing some spare change at Connecticut. Trump’s response? A mob-boss promise that "we’re going to get him that money back one way or another" while urging Americans to buy Dell computers. The president of the United States is on live mic using a federal program to shill for a donor’s company like a late-night infomercial host in nuclear launch codes’ clothing.
SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell joined in with $350m for kids near SpaceX’s Texas playground, framed as inspiring humanity to "live and fly amongst the stars"—which is a poetic way of saying your kid’s college fund now doubles as a marketing opportunity for defense contractors and launch providers. The underlying idea—help kids build assets—is solid. The execution—slap Trump’s name on it, funnel it through Wall Street, and publicly vow to repay donors via consumer spending—is a masterclass in how to turn public policy into a branded loyalty program for oligarchs and their favorite president.
#forever-grifting#money
jd vance celebrates 10 years clean from having a spine
JD Vance and Donald Trump salute at Arlington, honoring those who died defending democracy while actively workshopping ways to make sure it doesn't survive their careers.
The Atlantic decided to celebrate America's 250th birthday by republishing JD Vance's 10-year-old essay where he correctly diagnosed Donald Trump as "cultural heroin" and "the needle in America's collective vein"—before he decided to open a franchise and start dealing the product himself. Back then, Vance warned that Trump offered "an easy escape from the pain" with fake solutions and no details, and predicted supporters would one day realize he couldn't fix what ails them. Fast-forward a decade and he's standing next to Trump at Arlington, saluting like a man hoping no one remembers he used to call the boss "America's Hitler."
The essay is going viral now, just as Trump's approval ratings crater under the weight of his mass deportation campaign, his failure to lower prices, and that pesky little war in Iran he helped launch after promising no more foreign adventures. While Trump rants about a "golden age" and a "communist menace" because democratic socialists keep winning elections, his vice-president is busy pretending his entire public record before 2022 was performance art. The guy who once said Trump was "leading the white working class to a very dark place" now wants to inherit the keys to the bunker.
Vance's journey from "never Trump guy" to Trump-backed Senate candidate to vice-president and aspiring 2028 heir apparent is less a political evolution and more a live demonstration of what happens when ambition hits the off switch on moral limits. As David Frum politely put it, Vance told everyone where his line was, then "walked across it." He didn't just cross the Rubicon; he set up a merch table on the far bank and started selling MAGA-branded life jackets to the people he once warned were drowning.
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
presidency now available as a premium subscription service
Behold the Trump Corporate Governance Committee, otherwise known as "the boys who make sure dad gets paid while he's busy dismantling what’s left of democracy."
Donald Trump looked at the American presidency, a 230-year-old public institution, and said: "What if this was a QVC channel with nukes?" His latest financial disclosure shows that in the first year of his second term alone, he vacuumed up more than $2bn from Trump hotels, Trump golf courses, Trump crypto, Trump watches, Trump cologne, Trump Bibles and whatever else his kids could slap a logo on while pretending to be a "blind trust".
Ethics rules used to be a thing; now they're more of a vintage aesthetic. Human rights lawyer Tutu Alicante calls it what it is: the old assumption that openly looting public office carried reputational risk has collapsed. The new model politician is a political grifter whose job description is 10% governance, 90% merch drop. From Nigel Farage cashing in as Westminster's best-paid man while pushing dubious crypto and taking billionaire-funded jet rides, to Pauline Hanson repeatedly "forgetting" to declare her own oligarch air miles, Trumpism has gone global: it's aspirational kleptocracy with a Union Jack or Southern Cross slapped on top.
Trump even pulled a full 180 on crypto: after calling it a scam, he launched his own meme coin when he got back into the White House. Supporters bought the digital Trump trading cards, watched the price crater, and learned an important lesson about markets: the only guaranteed winner is the guy whose face is on the token. He cleared $635m while his fans ate the losses. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Warren is out here using phrases like "brazen crypto corruption" to describe the obvious — that these Trump-branded coins and ventures look a lot like a convenient way to buy political favor without the inconvenience of campaign-finance law.
So yes, living standards are falling, public services are crumbling, and young people are told to hustle harder — but the president is minting billions off perfume, NFTs-with-extra-steps, and foreign deals managed by Don Jr and Eric on a "global moneymaking blitz". Western democracy always feared turning into a banana republic. Trump just asked why stop at bananas when you can add cologne, golf memberships, and a meme coin.
#forever-grifting#corruption
happy 250th, america, trump got you an llc
President Trump kicks off the Great American State Fair, a patriotic tribute to the Founders’ vision of limited government, independent institutions, and one guy’s logo on absolutely everything.
House Democrats just dropped a 55-page birthday card titled “From Vanity to Insanity”, which is honestly the most accurate description of the Trump era anyone’s managed to get past congressional letterhead. Their report accuses the White House-backed Freedom 250 group of turning the nation’s 250th birthday into a “hotbed of corruption and self-enrichment” and flirting with criminal fraud, because of course the semiquincentennial had to be monetized like a Trump steak infomercial.
Instead of letting the existing, bipartisan America250 commission do its job, Trump allegedly tried to pack it with loyalists, failed, and then birthed his own outfit via executive order: Freedom 250, a "non-partisan" LLC tucked under the National Park Foundation, whose board is now filled with Trump-world regulars like Chris LaCivita. Freedom 250 then proceeded to roll out the most on-brand patriotic dystopia imaginable: a UFC fight outside the White House, a MAGA-fied "Great American State Fair" on the National Mall, a July 4th fireworks show that opens with a Trump rally, and the "Patriot Games" for high schoolers, because why not start the cult programming early.
Democrats say whistleblowers, sworn testimony, and internal documents all point to a simple story: Trump “hijacked” what should have been a unifying national celebration and used a government-blessed shell company to funnel public prestige and private money into his personal political brand. The White House, naturally, punted press questions to Freedom 250, which then insisted it doesn’t actually speak for the White House, neatly capturing the entire Trump governance model: total control, zero accountability, and an LLC where your Constitution used to be.
#forever-grifting#corruption#killing-democracy
trump slaps campaign merch on your newborn’s social security card
Behold: the rare holographic Social Security card, now available in the limited-edition ‘please confuse this with patriotism’ Freedom 250 variant.
The Trump administration has announced that babies born in the U.S. from July 2 through December 31 will receive “limited-edition” Social Security cards branded with the Freedom 250 logo, because nothing says “strong social insurance program” like turning it into a collectible trading card. Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano dutifully declared that this somehow proves Trump is “strengthening Social Security,” which is an interesting way to describe putting a marketing logo on the thing you keep in a drawer and never look at again.
This patriotic logo is courtesy of Freedom 250, the Trump-created outfit that just happens to exist alongside America250, the actual, congressionally created bipartisan commission that was supposed to handle the country’s 250th birthday. Freedom 250 insists it’s nonpartisan, while critics — and, awkwardly, House Democrats — note that donors were allegedly misled and the whole operation appears to be one long campaign-adjacent branding exercise wrapped in flags and fireworks.
It doesn’t stop at Social Security. Earlier this year, the State Department announced that Americans could order passports featuring an image of President Donald Trump on the inside cover, because every time you enter another country you should be reminded who turned U.S. documents into a personality-cult scrapbook. Between the Trump-branded passports and the Freedom 250 Social Security cards, the federal government is now a cross between the DMV and a merch table at a rally — except this time, the audience is literally newborns who can’t consent but can definitely be drafted into the aesthetic of the regime.
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
even the potato chips are trying to kill us now
An aisle of potato chips, carefully arranged by flavor and approximate probability of gastrointestinal ruin.
The FDA has quietly slapped a Class 1 recall — its most serious "this could actually kill you" label — on about 650,000 bags of Utz-made Zapp’s and Dirty brand potato chips over a salmonella risk tied to contaminated dry milk powder from a third-party supplier. So yes, even your salt-and-vinegar comfort food has now been privatized, outsourced, and risk-managed into a potential biohazard.
Utz insists they haven’t actually found salmonella in the chips and there are no reported illnesses, which is corporate for "please don’t notice we built our supply chain on a Jenga tower of lowest-bidder contracts." The FDA, meanwhile, upgrades the recall to "serious adverse health consequences or death" and then offers no public explanation for why it hit the panic button. Regulatory transparency in late-stage American capitalism now works on the same principle as airline pricing: just trust the algorithm and hope you don’t die.
While the enforcement report gets updated, Utz’s own website is frozen in May, still stuck on the original "abundance of caution" recall language, like a company hoping that if they don’t refresh the page, the liability can’t see them. Consumers are told to throw the chips away and ask for a refund — a very on-brand metaphor for a system where corporations quietly contaminate the food supply, regulators mumble into PDFs, and the public gets diarrhea and store credit.
#forever-grifting#killing-democracy
