trump furious that states are allowed to count votes
Trump, moments after learning that in a democracy you have to count all the votes, not just the ones for you.
The Supreme Court says states can keep counting mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day, which is normally called "doing elections" but in Trump World is treated like a criminal conspiracy. So naturally, Trump runs to a camera to complain that allowing legally cast ballots to be counted is very unfair to the guy whose entire political project depends on fewer people voting.
Not content with losing in court, he’s also reviving his push for a sweeping federal elections bill — a sort of "Make Voter Suppression Great Again" package — to claw back what the Supreme Court just affirmed. The conservative supermajority he built is now occasionally telling him he can't fire Fed officials on a whim and can’t stop states from counting ballots, so he’s trying the next best thing: rewrite the rules so that the government’s primary function is protecting Donald Trump from voters.
So we’ve got the former president, still obsessed with mail-in ballots years after 2020, railing against basic vote-counting norms while floating a national election takeover. If you were wondering whether the authoritarian impulse was a phase, the answer is: no, it’s a platform.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump learns the fed isn’t one of his golf caddies
Lisa Cook, briefly reminded that in Trump’s America you need both a PhD in economics and a good constitutional lawyer just to keep your job.
Turns out the Federal Reserve is not just another wing of the Trump Organization. The Supreme Court ruled that Donald Trump’s social‑media firing of Fed governor Lisa Cook was unconstitutional, because the president actually can’t just yeet a 14‑year term appointment because she won’t tank interest rates for his re‑election portfolio. Cook, the first Black woman on the Fed board, was accused by Trump of mortgage fraud on the kind of "evidence" that usually comes stapled to a Truth Social rant. She sued, and now the Court has belatedly remembered that separation of powers exists for more than just blocking student debt relief.
The ruling is especially cute given this same Court has otherwise been busy handing Trump a gold-plated sledgehammer: blessing his purge of a Democratic NLRB member to kneecap unions, killing nationwide injunctions that used to slow his worst ideas, and greenlighting ICE to treat race and ethnicity as reasonable suspicion again. But apparently even this Court has a line, and it’s right at “turn the central bank into a campaign prop.” The Fed’s independence—long treated as sacrosanct by people who can do basic macroeconomics—has been under sustained assault as Trump rages that rates are too high and dares anyone on the Board to put price stability above his polling.
Meanwhile, Jerome Powell got the full mob‑boss treatment: DOJ opened a criminal probe into building renovations at the Fed, then quietly dropped it after public outrage, while the White House hints the inspector general is still sniffing the drywall. Powell responded by hanging around as a mere governor until the witch hunt is “well and truly over,” which is Fed-speak for “I know what you’re doing, you clowns.” He’s now been replaced as chair by Kevin Warsh, a man widely expected to be much more compliant about slashing rates even as inflation heats up thanks to that little war with Iran. So yes, Trump finally hit a constitutional wall—but only after spending a year treating the central bank like a hostile takeover target and the Justice Department like his personal collections agency.
The big picture: economists think an independent Fed is essential to a stable economy; Trump thinks it’s essential that everyone in the building answer the phone with, “Yes sir, how high should we jump this meeting?” The Court just told him he can’t fire Fed governors for refusing to play along. Give it a week and he’ll either call this his greatest legal victory ever or demand we abolish the Fed altogether and replace it with a vibes-based crypto coin.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
trump declares war on california’s coastline for the crime of not loving oil enough
Howard Lutnick stares at the Pacific Ocean and wonders how fast he can turn it into a launchpad, an oil slick, and a campaign donation all at once.
The Trump administration has decided that California’s coastal regulators are guilty of the gravest federal offense: not letting billionaires and oil companies use the ocean as their personal launchpad-and-spillway combo. Commerce Secretary and Wall Street mascot Howard Lutnick has ordered a federal "performance evaluation" of the California Coastal Commission, accusing the state of "environmental terrorism" for slowing down spaceport projects. When a guy who helped turn finance into a demolition derby calls you a terrorist for protecting beaches, you know this is about power, not policy.
Meanwhile, as gas prices spike from the US-Israel war with Iran, Trump’s crew is using "emergency powers" to crank a long-dead oil pipeline back to life – the same one that dumped 140,000 gallons of crude into the Pacific in 2015. California AG Rob Bonta is pointing out that this is illegal federal interference so a company called Sable can cash in while everyone else enjoys the smell of carcinogens and dead wildlife. The administration is also busy kneecapping offshore wind: they yanked a $427m Biden-era grant for a project that could power 25 million homes, then started cutting quiet deals to kill more clean energy while shoveling more perks to fossil fuel buddies. Climate policy, Trump-style: punish blue states, drown renewables, and call anyone who objects an "environmental terrorist" while you literally resurrect a spill-prone pipeline from the grave.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
trump fast-tracks pollution, slow-walks democracy
Artist’s impression of public input under Trump’s NEPA reforms: a locked comment box labeled ‘streamlining’ next to a red carpet for oil executives.
The Trump Interior Department looked at 90 days of public input on drilling federal lands and thought: what if we just... didn’t. The new plan erases two of three public comment windows for oil and gas leasing and shrinks the last one from 30 days to 10, while also lowering cleanup bonds and letting companies leak more methane. So taxpayers get the bill, communities get the fumes, and oil companies get the discount express lane through what used to be environmental law.
The Bureau of Land Management would no longer have to seriously check whether drilling conflicts with wildlife, other land uses, or basic reality. Agencies are told to “streamline” by not listening to anyone, then brag that this will reduce litigation, as if silencing the public is the same as resolving conflict. Experts point out that public input actually prevents lawsuits; the administration hears that and responds by swinging a wrecking ball at the comment periods instead.
This isn’t a one-off; it’s a demolition project. The Forest Service is chopping down its own comment and objection periods, the Council on Environmental Quality literally rescinded all its longstanding NEPA regulations, and a parade of agencies – Agriculture, Interior, Energy, EPA, DOT, even the Surface Transportation Board – are busy turning public comment into an optional suggestion box they can ignore. EPA’s line is that “left-wing environmental radicals” weaponized NEPA, so naturally the solution is to disarm the public and hand the gun to Exxon.
The White House insists it’s just preserving what Congress explicitly requires and generously allowing extra input “where officials see fit,” which is a poetic way of saying: you can speak when the polluters are done talking. All of this is sold as keeping “environmental protections fully intact” while they rip out the only mechanisms that enforce them. Democracy is still here, apparently – it’s just on a 10-day deadline and non-binding.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting#anti-science
trump simplifies student loans by making you poor forever
Trump proudly announces his "big, beautiful" student loan overhaul, surrounded by people who will never have to take out a student loan in their lives.
Trump’s "big, beautiful bill" is finally kicking in for student borrowers, and by "beautiful" he apparently meant beautiful for debt collectors. The administration is scrapping the Biden-era SAVE plan — the most borrower-friendly option — and replacing it with a "Repayment Assistance Plan" that will have millions paying more each month, for up to 30 years, before they can even dream of cancellation. Interest rates are going up too, because if you’re already drowning, why not add a few cinder blocks.
Instead of fixing runaway tuition or predatory for-profit schools, the Trump team is doing the next best oligarch move: shrinking repayment options, tightening borrowing limits, and handing the entire federal student aid program to the Treasury Department — the same people who specialize in squeezing blood from stones through default collections. Education Secretary Linda McMahon (yes, the wrestling executive) assures everyone this will finally give Americans "functioning programs" after decades of mismanagement, which is a bold way of describing a system where a single mom could see her payment jump from $150 to $713 a month for daring to get an education.
Advocates warn this will slam lower-income and first-generation students, pushing them into the arms of private lenders or out of higher education entirely. The White House calls this fiscal responsibility; the real effect is telling millions of ordinary people that their choice is lifelong debt servitude or no degree at all. Streamlining, in Trump-world, means fewer options, higher bills, and Treasury waiting at the end of the tunnel with a collections bat.
#killing-democracy#oligarchy
trump discovers checks and balances are for losers
Bill Cassidy, moments after realizing the Constitution is not, in fact, supposed to be a loyalty program for one guy in a gold-plated house.
Bill Cassidy, a Republican senator currently being tossed out of office by a Trump-backed challenger, has decided to try out this new, experimental concept called "the Constitution" on his way out the door. On Face the Nation, Cassidy accused Trump of treating Congress as "merely an appendage" in his prosecution of the Iran war, because apparently the president thinks Article I is optional fine print. Cassidy’s sin? Supporting a war powers resolution that mildly suggested maybe, possibly, Congress should be told something about the war the country is fighting.
After Trump reportedly berated Cassidy and three other GOP senators for their disobedience, Cassidy says his "Irish temper" kicked in and he raised his voice to match Dear Leader’s. The big constitutional showdown ended, of course, in peak Republican fashion: Trump grudgingly let Cassidy get a briefing from JD Vance and special envoy/Trump guy Steve Witkoff, and Cassidy then dropped his support for the resolution. Separation of powers, brought to you by a hastily arranged PowerPoint from the vice president and a real estate developer.
The soon-to-be-ex-senator didn’t stop there. He questioned Trump’s top domestic priority, the so-called Save America Act, which helpfully focuses on making it harder to vote instead of making life less unaffordable. Even more alarming to the MAGA court, Cassidy is threatening trouble for acting attorney general Todd Blanche over the Justice Department’s proposed $1.8bn "weaponization fund" — a handy pot of cash to pay Trump’s allies — and a plan to permanently shield Trump and his family from IRS audits. Cassidy’s response: leaders should be held to a higher standard, not made above the law. Bold talk from a man whose party is currently workshopping the slogan: "Rule of Law, But Make It Optional for Our Guy."
#killing-democracy#corruption#forever-grifting
america at 250: the origin myth meets the trump reality show
Artist’s rendering of the American story under Trump: red, white and blue columns collapsing like yet another "perfect" phone call transcript.
The Guardian helpfully reminds everyone that the American experiment was never exactly a Disney movie, more a joint venture between "town capitalists" and "plantation patriarchs" with a catchy freedom soundtrack. Fast forward 250 years and we’ve arrived at the logical sequel: Donald Trump, presiding over what the piece calls one of the most "indecently corrupt, violently inept" administrations in US history, as the country celebrates its birthday with Christian nationalism, flyovers, and a democratic narrative held together with duct tape and Pentagon contracts.
The old story about America as a steady march toward a "more perfect union"—the one Obama used to narrate from Seneca Falls to Selma to Stonewall—has been thoroughly mugged by reality: spiraling inequality, civil-rights rollbacks, militarized policing, and forever wars that nobody wants but contractors love. While conservatives scream about the 1619 Project "rewriting history" and liberals cling to the comfort blanket of incremental progress, the underlying point is brutal: the myth of virtuous American expansion and emancipation has collapsed under the weight of actual American policy. The fireworks are still scheduled, the speeches will be very patriotic, and the narrative that once claimed "the cause of America is the cause of all mankind" now mostly sells defense stocks and deportation flights.
So as Trump and his fellow myth-makers wrap themselves in flags and Jesus merch to celebrate 250 years of "freedom," the country is left with Frederick Douglass’s old question echoing louder than ever: what, exactly, is there to celebrate when the system keeps working exactly as designed—for the same kinds of people it always has? The pageantry is intact; it’s the legitimacy that’s rubble.
#killing-democracy#fascism
neighbors form neighborhood watch against fascism
St. Paul students walk out against ICE, apparently under the mistaken impression that federal law enforcement shouldn’t function like an occupying army.
Trump sent thousands of immigration agents into Minnesota, killed two residents, deported hundreds, and apparently expected everyone to just bake a casserole and move on. Instead, neighbors built a block-by-block surveillance network on ICE, got kids to school past federal shock troops, and documented the administration’s little domestic war game, "Operation Metro Surge" – because nothing says "limited government" like flooding a state with armed agents.
Now those same people are doing what America’s institutions were allegedly built to do but no longer can: they’re running "democracy defense" trainings in church basements, teaching folks how to help every neighbor vote and how to respond when Trump inevitably screams fraud the moment he doesn’t like the numbers. They’re gaming out election sabotage scenarios because the president has already tried to delegitimize California’s elections and has packed the federal government with loyalists who think the Constitution is a vibes-based suggestion.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice – remember when that meant something? – has charged nearly 40 people over a church protest and slapped 15 more Minnesotans with sweeping conspiracy charges for daring to resist ICE, a pattern Protect Democracy politely describes as part of a "disrupt" strategy to weaponize federal power against critics. So while state officials scramble to harden election procedures and fend off federal meddling, regular people are left to run the last functioning branch of government: the neighborhood. The plan is simple: precinct by precinct, block by block, out-organize the guy who’s trying to turn law enforcement and elections into his personal reality show elimination round.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
trump slaps his face on your passport, calls it patriotism
State Department mock-up of the new ‘patriot passport,’ thoughtfully redesigned so your travel documents now double as limited-edition Trump fan merch.
The White House has unveiled the new “patriot passport,” a limited-edition US passport thoughtfully redesigned so that when you travel abroad, foreign officials can immediately identify you as a citizen of a country run by a guy who watermarks his own face on federal documents. The original stern headshot of Donald Trump has been upgraded to an even sterner three-quarter-length portrait of him leaning over the Resolute Desk with balled fists, because nothing says 250 years of democracy like a leader posed like he’s about to negotiate a plea deal.
Trump’s portrait is now surrounded by text from the Declaration of Independence, with his signature and “United States of America” underneath, as if Jefferson’s ghost were quietly sobbing in the corner. On the facing page, the Founding Fathers sign the Declaration while, on the opposite side, modern America’s founding father of tacky authoritarian branding glowers over them. The back cover now boasts a "Freedom 250" gold flag, because if there’s one thing this administration understands, it’s that freedom must be heavily logo’d.
This rollout pairs nicely with Trump’s planned 250th anniversary solid-gold coin, featuring the same image and the words “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT” – his post-assassination-attempt rally chant, now repurposed as official state merch. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden have pointed out that some of the coin’s gold may be linked to illegal mining and exploitation, and that the whole project is “more befitting a monarchy than a democracy.” The administration’s response appears to be: exactly. Why settle for a republic when you can have a commemorative personality cult starter pack – complete with passport, coin, and the creeping sense that you’re living through the world’s tackiest soft launch of American monarchy?
#killing-democracy#fascism#forever-grifting
trump epa heroically fights for americans’ right to breathe soot
EPA leadership gazes proudly at a smokestack, wondering how many hospital visits per quarter really count as overregulation.
A federal appeals court just told Lee Zeldin’s Trump-run EPA that its attempt to abandon Biden’s tougher soot pollution rule “lacks merit,” which is lawyer-speak for please stop embarrassing yourselves. The court left in place the 2024 standard cutting allowable fine particle pollution from 12 to 9 micrograms per cubic meter — the kind of boring little number that translates into 4,500 fewer premature deaths, thousands fewer asthma attacks, and fewer hospital visits, which the administration apparently found offensively pro-human.
Instead of implementing the rule, Trump’s EPA eagerly teamed up with 25 Republican-led states and assorted industry groups to argue that maybe the government should consider the real victims here: coal plants and manufacturers whose profits might be mildly inconvenienced by people not dying as fast. An EPA spokesperson even complained the rule would cost “hundreds of millions, if not billions” to Americans, generously redefining “Americans” to mean “corporate balance sheets.” Meanwhile, environmental groups are stuck celebrating a court decision that forces the environmental agency to do its own job and stop literally catering to polluters while millions keep breathing unhealthy air.
So the current state of environmental policy: the Clean Air Act, medical science, and basic survival on one side; Trump, Zeldin, and the coal lobby on the other. The courts, for now, are still siding with lungs over lobbyists — but the EPA is “reviewing the decision,” which is bureaucratic for how else can we stall this while people choke on soot?
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
maga cage match accidentally books real death cult
Live from the White House Octagon: one president, several Nazis, a drone or two, and American democracy tapping out in the first round.
The Trump White House decided the presidency wasn’t enough of a circus and hosted a UFC event on the lawn, because why merely erode democratic norms when you can ground-and-pound them on pay-per-view. According to the DOJ, a group of far-right, Christian-extremist, Nazi-curious twenty‑somethings allegedly chose this presidential fight night as the perfect venue for a drone-bomb-and-sniper assassination plot targeting Trump and other officials. Phase one: a protest to distract cops. Phase two: drone-borne explosives over the crowd. Phase three: marksmen picking off "high‑value targets" as panicked VIPs flee toward the kill zone. A second wave would storm the White House. One of them called it "a fucking bloodbath" – so, you know, just wholesome Christian nationalism vibes.
The alleged ringleaders marinated in TikTok, encrypted chats and Q‑adjacent fantasies about an "Epstein class" of elites, mixing antisemitism, infant‑sacrifice delusions, and Hitler fanboying into one big accelerationist stew. They used a left‑wing AIPAC-tracking site to pick targets, then wrapped it all in Bible cosplay about "shepherds" and "lions’ dens" while fantasizing about kicking off a second American Revolution. The same movement that Trump weaponized is now so radicalized it’s trying to kill him for not being extreme enough – which is one hell of a customer service problem for authoritarian politics.
The Trump administration’s response has been to both claim credit and shrug it off. JD Vance praised the FBI, then immediately minimized the plot as "not that advanced" – always reassuring to hear about a foiled drone and sniper massacre at the White House described like a half-finished book report. Right-wing media, meanwhile, frantically tried to rebrand the far-right conspirators as secret leftists because one of them repeated Trump’s own Epstein conspiracies back at him. While scholars point out there’s now an "ideological civil war" inside the Christian nationalist right – Israel hawks vs. America First antisemites – the throughline is clear: Trump’s movement mainstreamed the paranoia, the Christian nationalist rhetoric, and the conspiracy infrastructure. Now the monster is pointing its rifles at the ringmaster while everyone pretends this is just another news cycle instead of a flashing neon sign that the democracy death spiral is accelerating.
#killing-democracy#fascism
jd vance explains that crimes are fine now, actually
JD Vance at the Nixon Library, explaining that the real Watergate scandal was consequences.
Vice President JD Vance went to the Nixon Library and, instead of quietly reflecting on the whole "criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice" thing, decided to hold a TED Talk on why Watergate would barely trend on X today. According to Vance, if Watergate happened now it would be a 12-hour story, and the real lesson is that the same sinister "deep state" that took down Nixon also tried to take down Trump. The minor historical detail that Nixon was brought down by his own appointees, a special prosecutor, a functioning Justice Department, and Republicans who still remembered what shame felt like did not make the cut in his remarks.
The article points out that Vance is less wrong about history than he is accidentally honest about the present: scandals now burn out faster than a Truth Social IPO. Presidential insider trading, donor pardons, government-as-telethon branding schemes, sweetheart contracts for friends, and even elective surgery on national landmarks all blur into one continuous outrage montage that voters are told to treat as "just vibes." Vance's message is clear: the problem wasn’t that Nixon committed crimes; the problem was that anyone cared enough to stop him. Watergate as a blip isn’t a prediction — it’s the governing model.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
louisiana gop fights over who loves trump enough to kill the filibuster
Trump Republicans in Louisiana carefully weighing which candidate will more eagerly blow up the filibuster to "save" elections from voters.
Louisiana Republicans are holding a Senate primary runoff to determine which candidate will more enthusiastically help Donald Trump light what’s left of American democracy on fire. On one side, you’ve got Rep. Julia Letlow, proudly endorsed by Trump and promising to back his so-called SAVE America Act — a sweeping election-law overhaul that she says is so vital the Senate should nuke the filibuster to pass it. On the other side is John Fleming, a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus and former Trump administration official, arguing that he’s actually the real MAGA conservative because he’s been voting hard-right since before it was cool.
The big ideological split? Not policy — both basically agree they’d torch Senate rules to push Trump’s election agenda — but who has the more authentic brand of devotion to the Dear Leader. Letlow pitches herself as Trump’s chosen “fearless champion,” while Fleming insists he can still win over Trump’s base even though Trump already picked someone else, because apparently being called “fantastic” in a phone call now counts as a governing credential.
Just to keep things classy, Fleming boosted an AI-generated deepfake video mocking Letlow’s dead husband and her succession to his House seat, then shrugged that “parody ads are OK” before quietly deleting it. In a normal political party, that might be disqualifying; in today’s GOP, it just earned him a mild scolding and helped consolidate the Trumpist establishment — Steve Scalise, Clay Higgins, and a tele-rallying Trump himself — behind Letlow. The result is a runoff where the central question isn’t whether to undermine democratic safeguards, but which candidate gets to do it under official MAGA branding.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump turns italy policy into a breakup text
Giorgia Meloni and Donald Trump pretend to be strategic partners, moments before he tells TV audiences she begged him for a selfie and she reminds him that, unlike his legal cases, Italy still has a constitution.
Giorgia Meloni spent years sanding down her post-fascist edges so she could be the respectable face of the European right and Trump’s favorite continental cosplay partner. She got the photo ops, the White House invite, the whole "I’m a serious stateswoman" starter pack. Then Trump did what Trump always does: turned foreign policy into a petty loyalty test and a personal humiliation game, this time over war with Iran and a Pope who had the audacity to not be sufficiently bloodthirsty.
The Italian government, bound by a constitution and a public that doesn’t love endless Middle East wars, said US planes couldn’t use the Sigonella base for combat ops without parliament signing off. Trump responded by raging at Pope Leo XIV on Truth Social for being "weak on crime"—because nothing says strategic vision like subtweeting the Bishop of Rome during a shooting war. When Meloni didn’t fall in line behind his papal tantrum, he escalated: bragging on Italian TV that she had "begged" him for a photo and that he only agreed out of pity. She, having a shred of self-respect and a looming election, fired back on video: the story was "completely fabricated" and, minor detail, Italy does not beg.
Then NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte wandered into the minefield, boasting on Fox News that some 500 US aircraft had taken off from American bases in Italy in support of "Operation Epic Fury"—the US-Israeli Iran campaign—promptly detonating Rome’s domestic politics. Italy’s defense ministry called his description "fallacious" and "totally misleading", insisting they’d only allowed technical and logistical flights, not combat missions, while Meloni’s government keeps insisting it never authorized direct military action from Italian soil. NATO then helpfully "clarified" that Rutte just meant allies had honored existing basing agreements, which is the diplomatic way of saying: everyone’s trying to pretend this isn’t exactly what it looks like.
So now Meloni is stuck between a furious electorate, a war she can’t be seen as endorsing, and a US president who treats alliances like condo board feuds: you’re either worshiping him or you’re dead to him. Ministers floated boycotting the US Embassy’s July 4th party in solidarity, then quietly backed down to the very brave position of "everyone do what you want". The next NATO summit in Ankara will put Trump and Meloni in the same room again, where the leader of the free world will presumably decide the fate of transatlantic relations based on who flatters him more: the Italian prime minister, the French frenemie Macron, or whatever cable host he watched in the motorcade on the way over. This is what happens when global security is run like a Real Housewives reunion.
#killing-democracy#imperialism
president war-crimes discovers the red scare rerun channel
Devout patriots patiently wait for the part of the sermon where the president explains why voting against him is a communist assassination plot.
Donald Trump went to the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s "Road to Majority" conference and delivered what was basically a live-action John Birch Society fanfic. Fresh off defending his war in Iran and recycling lies about election rigging, he unveiled the GOP’s new midterm message: Democrats are "godless communists" plotting to close your churches, "kill your people" and usher in the violent persecution of Christians, all because some leftwing candidates won New York primaries. Policy platform? No. Just a sermon about how the other party is an existential threat and possibly a death cult.
Never one to skip self-promotion, Trump briefly auditioned as Best Communist Ever, bragging he’d be "the greatest communist in history" because he could hand out free rent, houses and food before the country collapses and "everyone will suffer or die." Then he calmly asserted that assassinations are a "very important element" of his opponents’ ideology and called them "animals"—a totally normal thing for a sitting president to say about domestic political rivals in a country that keeps having assassination attempts.
Republican strategists, watching Trump trail in the polls after breaking his promises on prices and foreign wars, have decided the solution isn’t "govern better" but "scream Marxist" at anyone to the left of Joe Manchin. House Speaker Mike Johnson chimed in, warning that "mini-Mamdanis" are popping up everywhere and that the "insurgent left" is "openly running as Marxists, communists"—because nothing says serious governance like turning a Muslim socialist mayor into the new Goldstein for the Christian right. Reagan at least pretended the communist menace was overseas; Trump and Johnson have cut out the middleman and labeled half the country an internal enemy.
So the official midterms message from the party in power is: ignore the war, ignore the prices, ignore the broken promises. Focus instead on the apocalyptic fantasy that your atheist, trans-loving, mosque-adjacent neighbors are about to burn your church and assassinate you in the name of Marx. American democracy isn’t just being undermined by bad policy; it’s being slowly dissolved in a vat of weaponized paranoia and Cold War cosplay.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump doj bravely defends america from… a rainbow logo
Pride Night at Oracle Park, moments before the Department of Justice deployed to liberate oppressed millionaires from colorful stitching.
Donald Trump’s Department of Justice, having apparently solved all crime, has moved on to its true constitutional mission: protecting three San Francisco Giants pitchers from the unspeakable tyranny of… optional Pride Night caps. The players weren’t fined, weren’t disciplined, and weren’t even required to wear the rainbow logo, but Trump’s DOJ still opened an investigation into whether their religious rights were violated, because nothing says “limited government” like deploying federal power to litigate embroidery.
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is busy turning the Pentagon into a live-action Fox News segment, blocking promotions of decorated minority and non-male officers while selling his “war on diversity” as a crusade to restore unchallenged white Christian leadership. This is the same crew that tried to quietly erase Jackie Robinson’s military service, then called it a “mistake” when caught. They’re not even subtle; they’re just hoping you’re too exhausted to notice.
Caught in the crossfire is the Giants franchise, once a civic leader on HIV/Aids and LGBTQ+ issues, now reduced to a 93-year-old right-wing mega-donor owner and Buster Posey hiding behind “baseball questions” while his own city demands answers. The team that once mirrored San Francisco’s values now mirrors Trump’s grievance politics: players cosplaying persecution, executives terrified of offending the base, and a federal government using the full weight of the state to make sure white Christian guys are never, ever inconvenienced by a rainbow cap. Authoritarianism, but make it merch.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump’s magic economy: five years of ‘temporary’ inflation
Trump’s ‘best economy ever’ seen here, as the Fed watches prices climb and pretends this is all part of the plan.
The Trump White House spent years bragging that the economy was "the greatest in history" while prices quietly did their best impression of SpaceX. Now the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge is up 4.1% year-over-year – a three-year high – powered by gas that shot up to nearly $4.50 a gallon after Trump’s little brush-with-war and then peace deal with Iran. Sure, prices have drifted back down to a still-awful $3.92, but nothing says "strong leadership" like turning every fill-up into a trust exercise with your credit card limit.
New Fed chair Kevin Warsh is doing his best "stern dad" routine, talking tough about getting inflation back to 2% while not actually saying what he’s going to do, as markets scream and tech stocks get body-slammed by rate-hike speculation. The central bank has already shelved the rate cuts it promised back in January, because when inflation has been above target for more than five years, even Wall Street starts to notice the house is on fire.
Meanwhile, the data says incomes and consumer spending are both up 0.3% after inflation, which the administration will absolutely spin as proof that everyone is thriving in Trump’s golden age. Out in the real world, households that went a decade without seeing inflation above 2.5% are now stuck in a never-ending price surge being sold as a "temporary" blip. The official line is that Americans are doing great; the PCE index, gas pumps, and grocery receipts would like to file a strongly worded rebuttal.
#killing-democracy#money#full-stupid
trump tries to nationalize mail voting, meets this thing called the constitution
Trump staring at a copy of the Constitution like it’s a defective product that keeps getting between him and other people’s ballots.
Trump’s latest brainstorm for safeguarding democracy — by strangling it — just got smacked down in federal court. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani blocked key parts of his executive order that tried to create federal voter lists and told the Postal Service to only deliver mail ballots to people on those lists. Turns out the Constitution still says states run elections, not whichever president is currently screaming the loudest about imaginary fraud.
This is Trump’s second election overreach in as many days to get tossed in the legal shredder. Another Boston judge just permanently barred his earlier order requiring proof of citizenship to register — a policy that solves no real problem but does a great job of blocking actual citizens from voting. Despite having an administration stacked with veterans of the failed 2020 coup attempt, like Kurt Olsen and Heather Honey, they still can’t produce evidence of the “widespread fraud” they swear is everywhere except in a courtroom.
Rather than, say, help people afford housing, Trump is holding bipartisan legislation hostage until Congress passes his SAVE America Act — a voter suppression wish list dressed up as “election integrity.” He’s floated nationalizing elections, demanded access to states’ voter rolls, and launched investigations into past elections, all while his own DOJ keeps failing to prove anything beyond his obsession with staying in power. The judiciary, for now, is doing the bare minimum: reminding the would-be election czar that the presidency does not come with a free "rewrite the Constitution" button.
So yes, the Trump administration is still hellbent on redesigning American elections around his grievances. The only thing saving the system at the moment is that courts keep reading the law, while Trump and his friends keep reading Truth Social.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump discovers line-item veto by just… not doing the items
Russell Vought and Jeremy Lewin, seen here beta-testing the new "ignore Congress until the Constitution gives up" feature.
The Trump administration asked Congress for permission to kill off USAID, slash food and medical aid, and walk away from things like HIV treatment and famine relief. Congress, in a rare display of basic human decency, said "no" and spelled out in law exactly how many billions had to go to global health, nutrition, and emergency humanitarian aid. Trump signed it, then proceeded to treat the statute like a Terms of Service agreement — scroll to the bottom, click accept, ignore everything inside.
Eight months into the fiscal year, Trump officials have simply refused to follow large chunks of that law. Russell Vought’s Office of Management and Budget is rebranding required aid money as "unallocated" so the White House can micromanage who gets to live, while State slow-walks or outright withholds funds for HIV, family planning, nutrition, and other trivialities like "not dying of preventable diseases." Legal experts point out this is likely illegal under laws meant to stop presidents from doing exactly this, but the administration appears to have adopted a bold new legal theory: if you ignore Congress’ power of the purse hard enough, separation of powers stops being a problem and starts being a vibe.
In the middle of this slow-motion constitutional faceplant, Trump has put 29-year-old Elon-Musk-import Jeremy Lewin — a lawyer with no humanitarian experience — in charge of foreign aid, "performing the duties" of a Senate-confirmed undersecretary without ever being nominated. He hoards information, personally signs off on routine payments, and pushes an "America First Global Health Strategy" that trades lifesaving meds for access to poor countries’ health data. Congressional letters asking what the hell is going on go unanswered, clinics abroad lose funding, and people die — but hey, the presidency’s informal powers are getting a fantastic stress test.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#forever-grifting
trump discovers elections are illegal if the left wins them
Los Angeles Councilmember Nithya Raman, seen here moments before Trump decides local elections are a national security threat.
Donald Trump, current president and aspiring landlord of every city he hates, is now floating the idea of a federal takeover of Washington, D.C. if voters insist on electing democratic socialist Janeese Lewis George as mayor. She responded with the radical, fringe notion that the people of D.C. elect the mayor of D.C. — a statement so offensive to Trump’s understanding of power that he’s basically threatening to put the capital under political receivership if it stops voting the way he prefers.
While Trump plays wannabe viceroy of the federal district, democratic socialists keep winning or competing in major cities: Zohran Mamdani running New York City, Nithya Raman making the L.A. mayoral runoff, Katie Wilson taking over in Seattle, and Bernie-aligned Brandon Johnson governing Chicago. Trump’s answer to this wave of people asking for things like rent caps, universal childcare, and affordable transit is to weaponize federal power against disfavored jurisdictions — cutting funding, flooding cities with ICE and National Guard troops, and now musing about effectively voiding D.C.’s home rule if it elects the wrong person.
The article politely calls this a reaction to economic pain and Trump’s policies; translated from Beltway to English, it’s: people are broke, billionaires are thriving, and the president is responding to demands for economic justice by threatening the basic principle that local voters get to choose their government. He already barked about Mamdani’s New York win before later praising him from the Oval Office, so who knows if he’ll follow through — but the normalization of “maybe I’ll just take over that city if they elect a socialist” is exactly how you slide from performative strongman to the real thing.
#killing-democracy#fascism
