dems try 2024 strategy again, expect different result somehow
Michigan Democrats workshop new strategy: lose Arab American voters by larger margins, but with more consultants.
The Michigan Democratic party looked at its 2024 faceplant with Arab American voters and said: "What if we just do that again, but louder?" In a tight three-way Senate primary, state senator Mallory McMorrow and her friends in the professional centrist-industrial complex are trying to bludgeon Abdul El-Sayed by screaming "antisemitism" at Hasan Piker, a Muslim streamer with 3 million followers whose main crime appears to be criticizing Israel’s ongoing habit of turning Gaza and southern Lebanon into craters. Helping out: the Anti-Defamation League, Third Way, Senator Elissa Slotkin, and, for that extra dystopian flavor, the Trump administration, all happily aligned on the noble project of policing who Democrats are allowed to stand next to on a stage.
Arab American leaders, watching their ancestral villages in southern Lebanon literally wiped off the map while being told their grief is politically inconvenient, are not exactly impressed. They point out that Harris already lost Michigan by 80,000 votes after her Israel policy bled at least 100,000 votes, but party elites seem determined to prove that you really can lose the same state the same way twice. While McMorrow solemnly insists that hosting rallies with Piker "fans the flames" after a synagogue attack that Arab Americans also condemned, the actual asymmetry is crystal clear: Israel gets compassion, Arabs get lectures, and corporate-backed Democrats get to pretend this is moral clarity instead of electoral negligence.
Meanwhile, Piker is the same guy the Harris campaign once invited to stream from the 2024 DNC and who’s been praised by Bernie Sanders, but now he’s apparently too radioactive to be in a room with Democrats who take AIPAC checks. Michigan has the largest Arab American population per capita in the country, over a million Lebanese civilians have been displaced, and virtually every Lebanese American family in the state knows someone killed or driven from their home. The party establishment’s response is to treat their pain like a messaging problem to be suppressed, then act shocked when those voters decide they don’t feel like saving the same people who keep telling them to shut up and fall in line.
#killing-democracy#oligarchy
tim kaine considers maybe, possibly, kind of helping trump pick his next fixer
Tim Kaine thoughtfully explains how he might, under very specific and serious conditions, help confirm the next guy to hold Trump’s legal getaway car door open.
Sen. Tim Kaine went on TV to announce he is not an "automatic no" on Donald Trump’s next attorney general pick, which is a bit like saying you’re not an automatic no on handing the car keys to the guy actively trying to drive democracy off a cliff. Kaine stresses he’ll carefully review the nominee, as though Trump is out there searching for a neutral guardian of the rule of law and not auditioning for whoever promises most enthusiastically to "forget" the concept of independent prosecutions.
Instead of drawing a bright line after years of Trump openly demanding a loyalist DOJ that protects him and punishes his enemies, we get the Senate’s version of "let’s hear them out" about the person who will control federal prosecutions, January 6 cases, and whatever fresh crime wave comes out of Mar-a-Lago this week. The bar is not just on the floor, it’s tunneling toward the Earth’s core, and Democrats are still out here advertising their flexibility.
So while Trump hunts for an attorney general who thinks the Take Care Clause is a suggestion and the pardon power is a friends-and-family discount code, Kaine is signaling that, under the right circumstances, he might be persuadable. The ongoing project of killing any remaining pretense of DOJ independence is going great — and apparently, some in the opposition party are at least willing to schedule a meeting about it.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
america’s brand is now just drone strikes and taylor swift
Taylor Swift, a US flag, a radio, and the White House trapped in a shattered snow globe, which is the most honest State Department briefing America has produced in 20 years.
Richard Stengel, Obama’s former "soft power czar" (yes, that’s a real thing and not a Netflix satire), politely explains that America’s global popularity rises with boring presidents and falls with wars and screaming narcissists. After Clinton-era highs, Iraq knocked US favorability into the 30s, Obama’s election briefly resurrected "Brand USA," and then the country remembered it really likes invasions, sanctions, and presidents who treat the world like a Fox News call‑in segment.
The core idea: soft power is supposed to be Beyoncé and Louis Armstrong, not Predator drones and CIA-funded jazz tours meant to distract from segregation and voter suppression back home. Culture normally beats policy, but once you start bombing people, no amount of Taylor Swift can make "we might invade you" sound like freedom and opportunity. The US spent decades selling itself as broad‑minded and democracy-loving while quietly running coups in places like Guatemala and Iran, then acted shocked when foreign publics noticed the whole "do as we say, not as we overthrow" thing.
Now, with yet another Middle East war and an openly authoritarian, grievance‑driven political movement at home, the US is discovering that you can’t endlessly lie, invade, and destabilize and still expect 80% approval ratings abroad because you have Marvel movies and iPhones. American soft power isn’t just dented; it’s rebranded – from "shining city on a hill" to "loud neighbor who blasts freedom at 3am and occasionally burns down your house."
#killing-democracy#imperialism
dc adds live ammo to the trump ambience package
Lafayette Park, now featuring renovations, fencing, and the occasional gunfire cameo in the ongoing reality show ‘American Democracy: Series Finale.’
Washington, DC apparently decided the constant existential dread soundtrack around the Trump White House needed a little Foley work, so the Secret Service is investigating reports of overnight gunfire near Lafayette Park. No injuries, no suspect, just the usual: shots fired near the seat of government and a shrug.
Trump was in the building all weekend, and the White House response was to offer no response, which is at least consistent with its approach to every other kind of threat. Operations remained "normal" – so, still democracy on life support – while security was beefed up around a park that’s already fenced off like a crime scene that hasn’t happened yet.
The Secret Service says it’s working with DC police and US Park Police, which is reassuring, assuming you weren’t hoping for something like transparency, or maybe a president who doesn’t treat a capital simmering with political tension and sporadic gunfire as just another backdrop for his TV presidency.
#killing-democracy#national-security
robert reich hands america a 'how to overthrow your aspiring king' starter kit
Robert Reich, patiently explaining that in a republic, "No Kings" is supposed to be a rule, not a weekend theme for Trump to ignore.
Robert Reich surveys the smoking crater formerly known as American democracy and, instead of just screaming into the void, offers a three-step guide to dealing with President No Kings Day Parade himself. First up: go after the wobblier Republicans in Congress, the ones trapped between their purple districts and their lingering, inconvenient consciences about backing "authoritarian fascism." The idea is either convince them to stop caucusing with the guy who thinks checks and balances are a personal insult, or replace them with people who don’t list "destroying the republic" under core competencies.
Second, Reich points out that Trump’s poll numbers are sinking faster than his legal defenses, and Democrats are overperforming everywhere from random special elections to Trump’s own Mar-a-Lago backyard. The message: don’t just bask in the schadenfreude; build phone trees, write postcards, drag your neighbors to the polls, and exploit this midterm window before President War-With-Iran-and-Also-the-Constitution figures out a new way to light something else on fire.
Finally, he gets to the fun part: confronting all the ways Trump and his "state lapdogs" might try to mess with the vote — federal agents hanging around polling places, creative ballot counting, and the usual voter suppression party tricks. Reich basically tells readers to become amateur democracy auditors: lean on local officials, drag things into federal court if needed, and loop in the ACLU when Team Trump starts testing how far they can push the line between "law" and "whatever Donald yelled on Truth Social." The hopeful twist? From the wreckage of the Trump regime, he sees the possibility of a fairer economy and more equal democracy — assuming, of course, we can get through one more election without the wannabe king padlocking the ballot boxes.
#killing-democracy#fascism
judge to trump: stop speedrunning your race-surveillance database
The Trump administration carefully studying how to protect civil rights by building a massive race-tagged applicant database and threatening to cut off student aid to anyone who hesitates.
The Trump administration decided the Supreme Court’s gutting of affirmative action just wasn’t quite dystopian enough, so it ordered a nationwide race-and-sex data grab on college applicants, complete with a 120-day speedrun deadline and the subtle charm of Title IV funding threats. The National Center for Education Statistics, which normally counts things like graduation rates and not "woke," was told to hoover up seven years of retroactive data, disaggregated by race and sex, from every public university it could shake down.
US district judge F Dennis Saylor IV, confronted with this administrative clown car, politely noted that while the feds probably can collect some data, doing it in a "rushed and chaotic" way that steamrolls the notice-and-comment process is not, technically, how law works. So he slapped a preliminary injunction on the scheme for public universities in the 17 Democratic-led states that sued, who pointed out that the whole thing is a privacy nightmare tailor-made for fishing expeditions and political show trials of universities.
The Education Department, fronted by Linda McMahon because of course the pro-wrestling executive now runs higher ed policy, insists this is just about "transparency" for taxpayers, while simultaneously threatening colleges with action under Title IV if they don’t cough up perfect data on time. And in case the message wasn’t clear, the administration is separately suing Harvard to pry loose similar admissions records, with the Office for Civil Rights giving the university 20 days to comply or get bounced to the Justice Department. It’s less "civil rights enforcement" and more "federal loyalty inspection" for any campus that hasn’t enthusiastically converted to colorblind Trumpism.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
trump’s america and putin’s russia walk into a bar, elect orbán
Viktor Orbán and Vladimir Putin reenact the world’s worst friendship bracelet exchange while the Trump administration offers to hold their coats.
Hungary is heading into a tight election, so naturally the White House is air‑dropping JD Vance into Budapest like a MAGA emotional support animal for Viktor Orbán. Orbán’s political director announced the visit with four exclamation points and three emojis, which is exactly the level of seriousness you want from a regime that’s turned the country into a “petri dish for illiberalism”. Meanwhile, Russian intelligence and Kremlin-linked disinfo networks are allegedly working the same race from the other side, so congratulations to Orbán on achieving the rare honor of being the authoritarian both Washington and Moscow can agree on.
Analysts politely note that what’s really changed here isn’t Hungary or Russia, but the United States, which has decided that aligning with a "white nationalist Christian civilisational ethic" is now a valid foreign policy doctrine. Trump has repeatedly gushed over Orbán as a “fantastic guy” and “strong and powerful leader,” which tracks: Hungary has cratered in press freedom rankings, been declared no longer a full democracy by the European parliament, and, per Transparency International, is now the most corrupt country in the EU. In Trump-world, that’s not a warning label, that’s the brochure.
Relations with the EU are in the toilet over migration, LGBTQ+ rights, and Orbán vetoing €90bn in aid to Ukraine, but with Trump back in charge, who needs Brussels when you’ve got Moscow and Mar-a-Lago? Marco Rubio, now moonlighting as Secretary of State and Orbán hype man, assured him that “President Trump is deeply committed to your success, because your success is our success,” and helpfully clarified that it’s in “our national interest” for Hungary to do well “especially as long as you’re the prime minister”. Subtle. The message from the Trump administration is crystal clear: free press, minority rights, and EU unity are negotiable; keeping their favorite illiberal mascot in power is not.
#killing-democracy#fascism#corruption
trump turns the federal government into trump tower gift shop
Nothing says “nonstop dignity” like bolting “The Donald J Trump and” onto the Kennedy Center in a mismatched font that looks like it was ordered off Etsy at 2am.
America used to name things after presidents after they left office, usually once we’d confirmed they hadn’t tried to overthrow the government or sell it on QVC. Trump looked at that tradition and said: what if we skip the “earn it” part and just go straight to the branding? Less than 18 months into term two, his name, face, and Sharpie signature are smeared across government buildings, institutions, and even a "TrumpRx" prescription drug site that offers a grand total of 43 meds, many of which are cheaper literally anywhere else. It’s healthcare, brought to you by late-night infomercial.
The federal government is now basically a Mar-a-Lago annex. The US Institute of Peace was rebadged the “Donald J Trump United States Institute of Peace,” which the White House called a reminder of Trump’s contribution to “global stability” — a claim they helpfully underlined by launching a war on Iran weeks later. Trump stacked the Kennedy Center board, made himself chair, and then had the board rename it the Donald J Trump and John F Kennedy Center, slapped onto the facade in a font that screams “we printed this at Staples.” There’s already a lawsuit, because apparently you’re not supposed to treat national cultural institutions like you’re rebranding a casino.
Republicans, naturally, are cheering this on like it’s the Super Bowl of sycophancy. One member of Congress wants Trump carved into Mount Rushmore; another wants an airport named after him, because nothing says “honoring American history” like naming critical infrastructure after the guy who tried to overturn an election. Political scientists like Steven Levitsky and Kim Scheppele are politely screaming into the void that this is how autocracies advertise themselves: giant Trump banners draped over the Justice Department and Labor Department, the president ordering his own image onto public buildings, and a party structure where the only career ladder is “flatter the guy until he puts his name on something you funded.”
Democratic leaders usually get honored after they’re gone; dictators build their own shrines while they’re still in office so everyone remembers who’s boss. Trump chose door number two. The United States now has a sitting president treating the country like one long licensing deal, and the Republican party’s big contribution is to ask if he’d like his face on a mountain with the same urgency a waiter offers dessert.
#killing-democracy#fascism
trump declares victory, rule of law requests a recount
Trump announces "total victory" over Iran while the Constitution and the Justice Department quietly file for witness protection.
Donald Trump took to prime-time television to declare victory in Iran, which is always what you do when you definitely haven’t started a mess you can’t finish. The White House version: flawless statesmanship and peace through strength. The reality version: a president using a foreign crisis as a campaign infomercial, waving around "mission accomplished" vibes like George W. Bush’s ghostwriter, and hoping nobody notices the body count, the regional chaos, or whatever classified thing they definitely don’t want Congress to see.
While Trump was busy victory-lapping, the Supreme Court heard arguments on whether the 14th Amendment still means what it says about birthright citizenship. The administration’s long-running dream of turning citizenship into a vibes-based loyalty program is now one conservative ruling away from reality. If they can get SCOTUS to help them carve holes in the Constitution big enough to drive Stephen Miller’s white ethnostate fantasies through, that’d be swell for them, less so for, you know, American democracy.
And then there’s Attorney General Pam Bondi — now out, which is interesting for someone whose main qualification for the job was "once took money from Trump’s foundation while deciding whether to investigate Trump University." The woman who helped weaponize the Justice Department as a presidential law firm is suddenly gone, leaving behind a DOJ so battered and politicized it should probably qualify for disaster relief. The revolving door of loyalists continues, each one leaving the rule of law slightly more broken than they found it. Tremendous operation, really.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#forever-grifting
trump discovers you can commit war crimes in all caps
Trump and Pete Hegseth, proudly rebranding the Pentagon from 'defense' to 'war' like they’re launching a new energy drink line for war crimes.
Donald Trump has apparently decided that if you’re going to violate international law, you might as well do it with the rhetorical subtlety of a Monster Energy can. He’s talking about Iran like it’s a Call of Duty DLC: promising to “keep bombing our little hearts out”, describing the US presence as a “lovely ‘stay’ in Iran”, and bragging on Truth Social that as the 47th president it’s a “great honor” to kill “deranged scumbags” — by which he means, an entire nationality. War, but make it influencer content.
Meanwhile, Pete Hegseth, now proudly titled “secretary of war” because “defense” didn’t sound murdery enough, is out here live-blogging war crimes. He gushes over “death and destruction from the sky all day long”, openly endorses targeting civilian infrastructure like desalination plants, and announces a policy of giving “no quarter” — i.e., proudly advertising a Geneva Convention violation as if it’s a gym PR. He lovingly calls the US military’s role “lethality”, likens America to a rabid attack dog that shouldn’t be “shackled”, and savors the “quiet death” of an Iranian warship’s crew like he’s reviewing a wine.
All this bloodthirsty honesty, of course, is wrapped around the usual lies. Trump still refuses to call it a war so he doesn’t have to talk about Congress, preferring “excursion” and “stay”, while the White House homepage claims a “doctrine of peace through strength” that has allegedly “ended eight wars” and brought “global stability”. At the same time, the Financial Times reports a broker for Hegseth tried to pile into US military stocks before the shooting started, and Trump helpfully clarifies his favorite part of the whole adventure: “take the oil in Iran.” Bold new doctrine: peace through plunder.
So on the surface, it’s all macho plain-speaking and taboo-busting — the MAGA base gets its fix of unfiltered ultraviolence and linguistic cruelty. Underneath, it’s the same old imperial grift: geopolitical miscalculation and war profiteering, now dressed up as an edgy podcast. Orwell said insincerity is the enemy of clear language; Trump and Hegseth have solved that problem by being both maximally insincere and maximally deranged at the same time. Truly, an epic fury of killing-democracy cosplay.
#killing-democracy#imperialism#forever-grifting
trump asks for $152m to reboot alcatraz cinematic universe
Artist’s rendering of Trump’s America: a crumbling democracy in the background, and in the foreground, a lovingly restored island prison for everyone he doesn’t like.
Donald Trump has decided that the real problem with America’s criminal justice system is insufficient use of 1930s island fortresses, so he’s asking Congress for $152 million to start turning Alcatraz back into a working prison. In a budget request for 2027, the administration wants taxpayers to fund year one of a wildly underpriced restoration project for a rock in the middle of San Francisco Bay that currently has no water, power, gas, or sewage. So, basically, it’s a Trump property already.
Trump previously gushed on Truth Social that reopening Alcatraz would be a glorious symbol of “law, order and justice,” which is an interesting branding choice from a guy currently trying to stay out of prison himself. California officials, who apparently still believe in math, estimate the real cost is north of $2 billion, and Gavin Newsom has politely labeled the plan a "colossally bad fiscal idea." Nancy Pelosi was less subtle, calling it a "stupid notion" and an insult to Americans’ intelligence, which is generous, because it assumes this was meant to be smart rather than pure authoritarian stagecraft.
The $152 million Alcatraz cosplay is tucked inside a larger $1.7 billion request to fix the Bureau of Prisons’ actually crumbling facilities, which might need money slightly more than the tourist island everyone already visits for history tours. But why fix existing overcrowded, abusive prisons when you can build a dystopian monument to Trump’s fantasy of a "more serious nation"—one where the government’s big infrastructure dream is resurrecting a Cold War-era rock to lock people away out of sight and far from help? Nothing says "law and order" like an expensive, symbolic prison island proposed by a man who spends half his time railing against prosecutors.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#forever-grifting
arsonist pauses to pay firefighters
Trump, proudly announcing that after 50 days of not paying them, he has decided DHS employees have earned the radical luxury of a paycheck.
After nearly 50 days of stiffing more than 35,000 Department of Homeland Security employees, Donald Trump has magnanimously decided they can have their own paychecks back. A new presidential memo orders DHS to start paying people at FEMA, the Coast Guard, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — you know, the folks who deal with disasters, defend the coasts, and keep critical infrastructure from being hacked, all of whom Trump previously treated as interest‑free lenders to his shutdown vanity project.
Trump already carved out TSA last week once passengers started noticing that having unpaid security workers is somewhat bad for air travel. Now, with a record-long DHS shutdown still grinding on, he’s issuing one-off memos like coupons at a clearance sale, while ICE and CBP conveniently stayed funded the whole time thanks to his so‑called One Big Beautiful Bill. So the border cops get steady cash, the rest of DHS gets sporadic presidential mercy, and Congress’s actual power of the purse gets replaced by whatever Trump feels like signing between TV hits. Governing by hostage release note is the new normal.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
federalist society dinner doubles as supreme court succession planning meeting
Samuel Alito leaving a Federalist Society dinner, having successfully turned dehydration into a national constitutional crisis cosplay.
Samuel Alito gets dehydrated at a Federalist Society dinner, and Washington immediately starts treating it like white smoke over the Vatican: will Donald Trump get to install an even younger, even more obedient robe on the bench? The court’s PR shop insists it was just fluids and a checkup, but the political class heard what really matters: at 76, one of the court’s most reliable theocrats is now the subject of open retirement fan fiction.
Meanwhile, conservative strategists are apparently gaming out a world where both Alito, 76, and Clarence Thomas, 77, shuffle off the bench while Trump is still in power, allowing him to add a fourth and maybe fifth justice to the already 6-3 hard-right majority. The goal is not subtle: a Trump-aligned court that can protect his hide, shower gifts on billionaire buddies, and give ICE a constitutional participation trophy for terrorizing immigrants and citizens alike — for decades.
Progressive groups like Demand Justice and the National Women’s Law Center are scrambling to build a war chest to stop the next wave of Federalist Society cosplay judges before the vacancies even exist, because they’ve noticed a pattern: Trump doesn’t nominate “jurists,” he nominates loyalists with lifetime appointments. With Trump sitting at 35% approval and an election looming, the right’s plan is clear — jam as many extremists onto the court as possible before voters remember they’re allowed to fire these people, then let “independent judiciary” cosplay handle the rest.
#killing-democracy#fascism
commander in tweet
Trump at a podium, declaring war on whoever annoyed him most on cable news that morning.
Presidential historian Barbara Perry stops by NPR to do the increasingly popular academic subfield of our era: explaining that no, this is not normal. Trump’s so-called wartime rhetoric doesn’t sound like FDR rallying a nation under fire or Lincoln agonizing over the cost of war; it sounds like a guy live‑tweeting a grudge match and trying to get a cut of the concessions. Where past presidents talked about shared sacrifice, Trump talks about ratings. Where they tried to calm the country, he tries to crank the volume to eleven and sell merch.
Instead of careful, constrained language that acknowledges Congress, allies, and, you know, reality, Trump’s version of “wartime” is a rolling campaign rally with missiles. Enemies are always cartoon villains, critics are traitors, and the press is the real threat to national security. That shift isn’t just a style note; it’s how you prep a population to accept endless emergency powers, ignore legal limits, and cheer when democratic institutions get run over in the name of “strength.”
The conversation makes clear that earlier presidents at least pretended to respect constitutional guardrails while they tiptoed around them; Trump barely recognizes the concept of guardrails unless they have his name in gold on them. By redefining war as a branding exercise and dissent as disloyalty, he turns the bully pulpit into a foghorn for permanent crisis. The historian is too polite to call it what it is, so allow a translation: this isn’t just rhetoric, it’s the soundtrack to killing democracy.
#killing-democracy#fascism
good news: the courts keep slapping trump. bad news: he's still president
Trump attends Supreme Court arguments, apparently under the impression that glowering from the front row is a recognized legal doctrine.
Trump, a man who thinks "separation of powers" is what happens when you get divorced more than twice, decided to physically show up at the Supreme Court during arguments over ending birthright citizenship — a constitutional principle that has been around a bit longer than his spray tan. He parked himself in the chamber for an hour, presumably hoping that looming over the justices like a disgruntled Times Square Elmo would somehow convince them to strip citizenship from the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants. Even with a bench tilted to the right and salted with his own appointees, the Court looks likely to rule against him.
Meanwhile, down in the lower courts — the ones Trump hasn’t fully turned into a loyalty program yet — judges keep swatting away his more cartoonishly authoritarian ideas. A federal judge blocked his plan to siphon $400 million in public money into a gaudy White House ballroom, because apparently presidents don’t get to unilaterally redecorate the seat of government like it’s a Mar-a-Lago annex. Another court ruled his executive order cutting off federal funding to NPR and PBS was blatantly unconstitutional, while yet another told the administration it can’t decide which reporters get access to the Pentagon based on who flatters Dear Leader enough. Courts: 3. Trump’s tinpot ambitions: still losing in regulation time.
The catch is that these legal victories feel a lot like winning a fire extinguisher after your house has already burned down. Congress already helped Trump gut public media by clawing back $500 million from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which then shut down. So yes, a judge declared the defunding order unconstitutional — after the funding was already gone and the institution dismantled. It’s a perfect summary of the Trump era: the courts show up, point to the smoking crater, and say "this is illegal," while Trump and his allies have already walked off with the copper wiring.
So no, the judiciary can’t singlehandedly rescue a democracy being slowly tenderized by a president who treats constitutional norms like nondisclosure agreements. The lower courts are drawing some real lines — stopping illegal deportations, protecting elections, blocking obvious power grabs — but they don’t have an army, a budget, or a functioning Congress. What they do have is paperwork. The rest is on a citizenry that has to decide whether it wants a republic or a reality show autocracy with worse writing and more executive orders. The judges can delay the collapse; only voters can stop the series from getting renewed.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
misogyny is the only thing getting promoted
Trump cabinet meeting, where the dress code for women is "disposable" and for men is "scandal-proof".
Trump has discovered a bold new standard for accountability: only fire the women. Pam Bondi becomes the second woman ejected from an already male-stacked cabinet, following Kristi Noem out the door, while human scandal generators Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel, RFK Jr, and Epstein pen pal Howard Lutnick float serenely along on a cushy sea of impunity. Commit "egregious, impeachable offenses" as a woman and you’re gone; endanger troops, botch major investigations, or lie about your ties to a convicted sex offender as a man and you get a warm pat on the back and maybe a promotion.
This is all happening in what is already the least diverse cabinet of the century, in an administration where Trump has killed DEI initiatives, boasts a decades-long record of misogyny, and was found liable by a jury for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll. So when Tara Setmayer calls it a "misogynistic administration," that’s less a hot take and more a mission statement. The White House HR policy appears to be: women are disposable, men are indispensable, and loyalty to Trump beats competence, legality, and basic decency every single time.
And just to keep the pattern tidy, Tulsi Gabbard reportedly has a target on her back too, with Trump privately shopping around for her replacement after she dared not grovel hard enough over the Iran war. Outside critics describe it as misogyny; inside the administration it’s just called succession planning. For MAGA women still lining up to serve Dear Leader, activists have a simple reminder: you are not partners in power, you’re interchangeable props. The second you stop being useful, the boys club will show you the door and then lecture the country about how cancel culture is the real oppression.
#killing-democracy#racism
trump discovers you’re supposed to explain wars *before* you start them
Trump, reading a teleprompter about a war he already started, discovering in real time that the Constitution is not just a decorative menu.
Over a month into the U.S. engagement in Iran, Donald Trump finally wandered onto primetime TV to remember that in a nominal democracy, you’re supposed to at least pretend to explain why you started a war. After 30+ days of bombs first, questions never, he delivered a belated sales pitch, assuring the country that the U.S. would complete all its objectives "very shortly" — a phrase that has never once gone wrong in the history of American wars in the Middle East.
This is the Trump doctrine in its purest form: launch military action, keep Congress and the public largely in the dark, then slap together a post-hoc justification once the cameras are booked and the polling looks dicey. No detailed objectives, no clear legal rationale, just vibes and a promise that it’ll all be wrapped up any minute now. Mission Accomplished, but make it early-access beta.
While previous administrations at least went through the tedious constitutional motions of debating war powers and seeking authorization, Trump appears to be running foreign policy like a late-night infomercial: act now, justify later, hope no one checks the receipt. The fact that the "case for war" arrived after the war was already well underway says everything about how seriously this White House takes Congress, the Constitution, and the small matter of sending Americans into combat.
#killing-democracy#imperialism#lawlessness
colorado's election‑tampering martyr gets a do‑over
Tina Peters, seen here auditioning for the role of "Whistleblower" while playing the part of "Defendant".
Mesa County’s favorite election‑tampering clerk, Tina Peters, is still very much a convicted felon – she’s just getting a resentencing because the trial judge committed the unpardonable judicial sin of telling the truth to her face. The Colorado appeals court upheld every bit of her conviction for letting an unauthorized rando rummage through Dominion voting machines so MAGA world could post the data online like it was a QAnon Dropbox, but decided the judge went too hard on the “you’re a charlatan peddling snake oil” part.
The appeals panel stressed that Peters is being punished for her actions, not her absolutely galaxy‑brained belief that she was uncovering mass fraud by… violating election security and chain of custody. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has already handed out a federal pardon like it’s a Bedminster drink ticket, which the court politely noted has zero effect on a state conviction. Colorado’s Democratic governor Jared Polis has flirted with the idea of shaving down her sentence, while Secretary of State Jena Griswold and AG Phil Weiser are over here reminding everyone that Peters helped fuel conspiracy theories, endangered people, and "threatened our democracy" – and will always be a felon no matter how gently the resentencing judge phrases it this time.
So the ruling stands: she wrecked election security to prove elections weren’t secure, fed the Big Lie machine, and got herself branded for life. The only thing up for debate now is how many years of prison time America’s latest MAGA martyr will get to spend workshopping her next "election integrity" podcast.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness
olc discovers monarchial presidency, declares archives optional
Trump smiles in front of a stack of boxes, helpfully labeled “Not Evidence” and “Totally Not Classified,” as the DOJ OLC stands nearby holding a memo titled “Because We Said So.”
The Trump Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has graciously announced that the Presidential Records Act — the law passed after Watergate so presidents can’t walk off with the government’s stuff — is actually unconstitutional, and Trump therefore “need not further comply” with it. Post-Nixon reforms? Cute, but have you tried just declaring the law doesn’t apply to Dear Leader?
Instead of presidential records automatically going to the National Archives when Trump leaves office, OLC lawyer and Alito-clerk-turned-campaign-operative T. Elliot Gaiser says the presidency’s "autonomy" requires that Trump be allowed to keep it all. You know, unlike Congress or the Supreme Court, which apparently don’t need public accountability because they’re not Trump. This is the same Gaiser who shows up in Jan. 6 testimony as one of the guys pushing the fantasy that Mike Pence had a "substantive" role in overturning the 2020 election. Naturally, he’s now in charge of deciding which post-Watergate laws still count.
This sudden discovery that the Presidential Records Act is illegal comes after Trump was previously accused of violating it by hoarding documents, including highly sensitive national defense materials, at Mar-a-Lago. That criminal case conveniently evaporated in 2024 thanks to Judge Aileen Cannon, and now OLC is backfilling the story: if the law is fake, then the crime was, too. Trump already fired the head of the National Archives for daring to be involved in that case; now his DOJ is trying to make sure the Archives never gets near his papers again.
So the institution meant to provide neutral legal advice — the same one that once justified "enhanced interrogation" — is now busy explaining why the president is basically a private records hoarder whose files the public has no right to ever see. The Presidential Records Act was supposed to stop a repeat of Nixon. Trump’s solution is elegantly simple: just declare Nixon’s guardrails unconstitutional and call it a day.
#killing-democracy#lawlessness#forever-grifting
we can afford endless war, just not grandma's meds or your kid's daycare
Trump explains that the richest country on earth can afford $11.3 billion for six days of war, but not a nap mat and some apple slices for your toddler.
At a private White House Easter luncheon – because nothing says resurrection like killing the social safety net – Donald Trump announced that it's "not possible" for the U.S. government to fund Medicaid, Medicare, or child care. According to the Commander-in-Excuses, Washington has only one job now: shoveling money into the war machine. Healthcare for seniors and poor families? That’s for the states to "take care" of, presumably using magic beans and bake sales.
The administration has already been practicing this vision of compassionate conservatism by freezing child care and family assistance funds to five Democratic-led states over mostly evidence-free "fraud" allegations. Viral right-wing attacks on Minnesota daycare centers turned out to be nonsense, but the punishment stayed. Trump now claims places like Minnesota and Los Angeles have "more daycare centers than they have children" and that of 700 inspected centers, "not one" was real – a statistic so detached from reality it should come with a Surgeon General warning.
To really drive home that this is about power, not fraud, Trump admits Republican states are probably doing "thievery" too, but only because they have to "compete" with Democrats, turning basic social services into a race to the bottom. Meanwhile, JD Vance is put in charge of an anti-fraud task force and a new Assistant Attorney General for National Fraud Enforcement gets sworn in, because what this country truly needed was a federal bureaucracy dedicated to justifying taking food and care away from kids while Trump insists we can always afford another war. We’re fighting wars, so obviously we can’t fight poverty or disease – the Pentagon might get jealous.
The White House briefly posted video of this policy confession on YouTube and then deleted it, like a teenager trying to walk back a terrible post. But the message is clear: the federal government exists to fund endless conflict and corporate contractors, and if you want healthcare or childcare, go beg your state – preferably one that didn’t vote against Dear Leader.
#killing-democracy#forever-grifting
